Punch, kick, sidestep, punch, punch.
He didn't even remember his opponents name. It didn't matter. The names, the faces. They were never the same. No one faced him twice. They knew better. He didn't pay any attention to his opponent. He didn't need to. He was weak. Unworthy. Couldn't make him pay attention. Couldn't make it real.
Block, block, sidestep, breathe out, breathe in, punch.
Everything was a blur. Nothing seemed real. Hadn't seemed real since the war ended and he was left here. A soldier without a fight. Without a purpose. Without a life. He didn't live. Merely existed. Filling up the empty void with fight after fight. All of them meaningless. All of them merely blurry patches of memories were he buried himself in the movements. Just being without conscious thought.
Kick, sidestep, kick, kick, punch.
It was freedom. No worries. There wasn't a society here that he needed to blend into. A society with all these rules and manners that he didn't remember. Expecting him to go back to the person he could no longer recall being. The person that died when he became the killer his family shaped him into. A family that no longer existed. A family he failed to save. He was alone here. Adrift. Lost. And no one here to show him the way.
Breathe out, punch, breathe in, block, punch.
It was over. He looked at the unconscious man on the floor. He would live. He walked over to ring master and collected his pay. Walking over to the bar he ordered a bottle of vodka and took a long tug. Seemed to be the only other thing that could wipe the tension out of him. The only other thing that still grounded him to the earth that he no longer understood.
He had once been someone hadn't he? A boy with hopes and dreams and ambitions. Who had that boy been? A scholar? An artist? What had that boys name been? He frowned as the half forgotten memories washed in front of his minds eye. Chang? No that had been his families name. His clan. Wufei. Yes. Chang Wufei. They had hoped that with a hard name he would become a warrior that would make his family proud.
That hadn't been who he was though. He had proven to be skilful in the martial arts, true, but back then his passion had lain with books. Instead of joining the others on the training fields he had squirreled himself away in the library. Using words, once written by men that were now long dead to hone his own. What had that been like. He remembered that he had felt a rush whenever he wrote something. He tried to recapture the feeling but it evaded him.
He had not felt anything in a long while. Nothing but the rhythm of battle, or the burn of the vodka down his throat. This was hell. No. Not hell. It was even worse. This was Limbo. Not being able to move forward. Not being able to turn around and head back. He remembered the thrill of battle. Knowing that he was out manned and outgunned and still he had gone at it with everything he had and had come out the victor. Cut down enemy after enemy. Watching corpse after corpse fall to the ground and he had moved on without care. He had been invincible then. Untouchable. He wanted it back.
It wasn't fair damn it. He had sacrificed everything he was when his family had sent him off to fight alone. Set aside everything he was to become who he needed to be. And with each life he had spilled that thing had settled in a little bit deeper until he could no longer tell where it stopped and he began. And now it would no longer leave him be.
The memories would not leave him. They haunted him. Made it impossible to sleep. He never wanted to go through something like that again and he wanted it back. To go back to that place where everything was clear and blurry and he knew what he had to do and not where to begin. Where he had fought his enemies and wondered who those enemies were and if the corpses that were lying scattered around him, feeding the earth with their life's blood were amongst them. When those few others had been there to watch his back and stand by him and he had stood by them as well. Where they would have sacrificed each other if it was necessary and fallen in bed together afterwards cause they needed to know someone else was there and they were still alive.
He shot back another shot of vodka. He never should have lived. He didn't belong amongst these people in their era of peace. He didn't know what peace was anymore. Some days he looked at the blade in his hands and wondered if he should finish himself after all, but he couldn't. He wasn't a human being anymore. He was a living weapon. And weapons don't switch themselves off. No... they stayed where they were laid down until someone came by to pick them up again.
And so here he was. Passing the time with these meaningless fights and bottles of vodka hoping that if he lost himself enough in either one then maybe this new world would stop spinning around him and start making sense again and he would no longer feel so stuck, outdated, lost, obsolete, redundant. He felt as if there was nothing left of him these days. Stripped, used up. He felt so old and weary. Was he really only seventeen years old? He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. He wanted... He still wanted things. It seemed that there was still something left after all. He smiled a tired smile and downed another glass.