They are as diverse as the four corners of the earth that they protect, yet the Shitennou are united in their singular goal to ward off evil wherever it may arise. Their friendship and camaraderie is their greatest strength, greater even than the ancient magics they wield in their tireless crusade against darkness. Even when the veil of evil threatens to block out all light of hope they stand as a beacon of righteousness to lead us through to the peaceful dawn …
Adins Presents
"My Four Kings"
Today's Episode: Invisible Touch
The emergency vehicles were long gone but their incendiary flashing lights and screaming sirens were still throbbing across Nephrite's senses. He was not a man deeply in touch with his emotions and whenever a situation arose that forced him into an emotional pocket he sought refuge with his friends.
One of his friends was a Captain; several of them had Russian names like Stolichnaya; the other three were "wise men" named Jim, Jack, and Johnnie. Nephrite was a man who enjoyed a good drink or eight. He took a swig from his two-liter bottle of Coke and went for another hit of Jim Beam.
"Sonnuvabitch …" he drawled drunkenly and threw the empty bottle at the opposite wall where it exploded in a spray of glass.
"Hey!" one of the hospital orderlies shouted pointing furiously at the broken bottle.
Kunzite gave the orderly a good long stare and he swiftly returned to whatever menial duties he was attending to. The elder Shitennou then promptly swatted Nephrite across the forehead with the back of his hand, an action that was mostly for show at this point as Nephrite could barely feel his own teeth.
"It feels like we've been here forever," Jadeite commented and stretched out in the uncomfortable wood-framed blue fabric chair; the type found in every hospital across the continental United States.
"I think that's the doctor is coming now!" Kunzite announced and he and his colleagues took to their feet. Nephrite stumbled.
The bespectacled physician approached, still dressed in his O.R. scrubs. He was nodding his head in a positive manner but his face betrayed no emotion. Kunzite was the only one with enough wherewithals to ask about Mamoru's condition.
"I'll tell you this straight out," the doctor said seriously, "He's a very lucky man to be alive right now. I don't know how anyone could have survived a crash like that."
"He has a very thick head." Zoisite commented in all seriousness.
Jadeite sighed and looked up at the ceiling as if to ask "Why?" to some higher power. Kunzite rubbed the bridge of his nose and gave the doctor an apologetic shrug.
"Uh… anyway." the doctor stuttered, "He's lost a lot of blood and he has numerous burns across a good portion of his body. He also sustained a broken shoulder, three broken ribs, and multiple minor abrasions and bruises, but he should make a full recovery."
"I-uh, I bet he'll have some sick-ass scars." Nephrite droned incoherently, "Chicks dig scars, ya feel me?" He loosed a thunderous belch.
"Is that man drunk?" the doctor asked appalled.
"No, his mother did a lot of heroin when she was pregnant with him." Kunzite lied.
The doctor raised an eyebrow and stared blankly for a few moments before shaking his head and walking away, leaving the Shitennou with one of the hospital receptionists to fill out paperwork. What felt like several hours later Kunzite repeatedly flexed his fatigued writing hand and they were admitted to visit Mamoru for a few minutes.
"God, he looks dead!" Zoisite gasped and tried to grab onto Kunzite for support who simply sidestepped away.
"We should be so lucky." Jadeite mouthed off-handedly.
"Shut up, jackass!" Kunzite rebuked him, "Fuck me, you people can be positively bankrupt of all humanity."
"I was just joking, dude!" Jadeite argued back, "Lighten up."
"Oh you know how he gets when Mamoru is involved," Zoisite prattled, "He goes into "fearless leader" mode and tries to pretend he's in charge of the universe."
"I do not!" Kunzite growled down at him.
"I just don't want him to suffer …" Nephrite sighed only partially conscious. He passed his hand across Mamoru's forehead and brushed his raven hair away from his partially singed forehead and in one swift move Nephrite was pressing the man's pillow over his face.
"Goodnight my sweet, sweet prince!" Nephrite howled, tears flowing down his face in alcoholic torrents.
"What the fuck!" Kunzite shouted and lunged at Nephrite.
"NO! Let him sleep!" Nephrite continued crying as the other Shitennou tried to pry him off their leader, "Let him have his peace!"
"Get off him you dumb shit!" Kunzite roared and roundhoused Nephrite straight across the jaw. Inebriated as he was, the auburn-haired alcoholic never saw it coming. The next moment he was slumped unconscious on the floor.
"Wha?" Mamoru groaned as he sluggishly regained consciousness.
"Hey there, boss!" Kunzite greeted with far too much schlock, "You had us worried for a minute!"
"How's your head?" Zoisite asked in his detached way.
"Come … closer …" Mamoru moaned weakly.
The three alert Shitennou moved closer, knocking their foreheads together to listen to what their ancient ward had to tell them:
"I don't think I'm going to make it." He confessed.
"Nonsense, you're going to be fine!" Kunzite reassured him and slapped him heartily on the shoulder which nearly sent Mamoru spiraling into a coma.
"Nice one." Jadeite snickered.
"You've always been there for me … I never thanked you …" Mamoru suddenly spattered out. A few moments later the injured man was heard to say, "In my bedroom closet I have a chest of drawers. In the bottom drawer … underneath my favorite Corona shirt, the one with the hot chick holding the surf board… there's something …"
Mamoru began to slip out of consciousness again and Kunzite tried to keep him awake with supportive reassurance. Jadeite and Zoisite began to fidget.
"There's something I want you to have …" Mamoru said finally and dozed off.
He started snoring almost immediately; a sure sign that his unconsciousness wasn't the result of any life-threatening brain damage. Kunzite led the group out of the hospital suite ordering Jadeite to sling Nephrite on his shoulder and drag him along. After a short elevator ride they were back in Kunzite's Jeep heading out of the underground parking lot.
"Are we really going to go to his apartment?" Zoisite asked, resting his head against the window watching street lights whiz by.
"What choice do we have?" Kunzite asked with his characteristic authoritative tone.
"We could not go to his apartment." Jadeite answered casually.
"It is our duty." Kunzite responded in stoic monotone, now fully engaged in what Zoisite called "fearless leader" mode.
"He's going to be fine, you know." Zoisite reminded him, "He probably just framed that dumb picture of the five of us from when we took that trip to Gettysburg last summer."
"The one where we stuck our heads through the wood cut-out mural and it looks like we're all Confederate soldiers." Jadeite continued the train of thought.
"Quick step, my boys!" Nephrite half-intoned in his restless drunken slumber, "Give 'em the cold steel!"
"We're going to go see what's there." Kunzite said firmly, "We wouldn't be here if not for Endy-" he stopped abruptly and corrected himself, "Mamoru."
"You were gonna say something else!" Zoisite accused him of his slip-up.
"No, I wasn't." Kunzite replied shakily.
"Yes you were!" he argued back, "Jadeite, backup?"
"Yeah, dude," Jadeite agreed, "You were going to say—
"Shut up!" Kunzite hollered at the top of his lungs, "It was a slip of the tongue, get over it!"
"You wanted to say Endymion!" Zoisite shouted angrily, "YOU! You were going to say it, you god damned hypocrite!"
"Don't you even start, Zoi!" Kunzite screamed towards the back seat, "I am not in the mood for this bullshit!"
"You're the one who's been preaching to us for what? Ten, twelve years now?" Zoisite continued arguing and began poorly imitating Kunzite's commanding voice, "The past is in the past! We shouldn't talk about the old days! We need to find our new place in the world!"
"These are difficult circumstances," Kunzite acquiesced, "I'm not a hundred percent with it right now!"
"You put on your little front just like the rest of us," Zoisite continued his assault, "You're probably the only one here who cries himself to sleep at night longing for Elysian."
"Alright, now I'm getting misty." Jadeite commented and shielded his eyes from view.
"Can we not have this argument now?" Kunzite pleaded, "I'm sorry … you know I get edgy when Mamoru is in danger. Can we drop it?"
"Yeah, drop it like it's hot." Zoisite huffed and shrugged inwardly.
All of a sudden Nephrite stirred in his seat and his hands began wildly swinging at the door. Kunzite's concentration was broken and the Jeep swerved violently, tossing the occupants around like a pinball table. Finally Nephrite managed to find the window controls and rolled down the passenger's side window just in time to shove his head out and vomit all over the highway.
"Oh for Christ's sake!" Kunzite swore as he watched his associate heave all over the road, "Aim down! Aim down! I just washed this thing!"
"Fuck off!" Nephrite stammered through fits of wretching.
They continued down the highway until the city exit where Mamoru's apartment complex was located. Another uneventful elevator ride ensued and the Shitennou found themselves at their master's front door where they realized none of them had a key to get in.
"Fantastic." Nephrite commented woozily.
"He's got to have a spare key somewhere." Kunzite blindly assumed, "Check around the edges of the hallway carpet. Maybe a piece of it comes up."
Jadeite reached out and turned the knob on the apartment door and it swung wide open.
"Or maybe he doesn't lock up." He snidely remarked and walked inside.
Kunzite glowered at the back of the younger king's head and the rest of the group followed Jadeite in. Mamoru's apartment was, as it always had been, rather Spartan. He had mostly brown furniture and mostly white walls with a few accent paintings. Upon closer examination they were discovered to merely be store-bought frames with the sample pictures still inside. A few of them retained UPC bar codes and price tags.
"I'll be in the bathroom." Nephrite announced and slogged across the kitchen to the hallway in the rear of the apartment.
"I don't feel right doing this." Kunzite confided in the two blonde Shitennou.
"I don't feel right when I watch scrambled softcore porn on the premium cable channels that we don't get, but it doesn't stop me." Jadeite said reassuringly. Kunzite merely sighed.
"Let's just find what he was talking about and get out of here." Zoisite suggested.
Kunzite nodded and they moved to Mamoru's bedroom which was much like the rest of the apartment: white and boring. Much like Mamoru himself, Kunzite couldn't help thinking and he immediately knocked the insubordinate thought out of his mind. Zoisite absentmindedly began straightening things on Mamoru's dresser shelves and folding his clothes while Jadeite rifled through his CD collection.
"Jesus." Jadeite noted, "He certainly has enough Genesis albums."
"There's nothing wrong with Genesis." Kunzite told him as he opened the sliding door to Mamoru's closet.
"Yeah, in moderation maybe." Jadeite argued, "Genesis was a huge progressive pioneer in their day, but after Peter Gabriel left they should've renamed themselves the Phil Collins Catchy Pop Singles and Electronic Drums Project."
"I like Phil Collins." Kunzite replied.
"Yeah, so do I, but you have to be able to see the artistic difference between, say, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Invisible Touch!" Jadeite pointed out delving into his ridiculously deep musical knowledge, "It's like comparing Van Gogh to Thomas Kinkade."
"Right." Kunzite agreed, "One is for opium-craving self-destructive lunatics and the other is for sexually frustrated middle aged Christian women."
Jadeite stalled dead for a moment and finally stated, "You're fucking obtuse."
"Or I just don't care." Kunzite replied with a fake grin.
"Find it yet?" Nephrite asked as he sickly stumbled into the room.
"No, we've been debating the finer points of Genesis." Kunzite responded haughtily.
"Genesis fucking rocks." Nephrite stated with incontestable finality.
"Let's get moving here." Zoisite pleaded as he continued folding random bits of clothing that were strewn about the room.
Kunzite nodded and pulled out a rolling chest of drawers that was shoved in the back of Mamoru's frighteningly unkempt closet. It was somewhat disarming in the face of the largely pristine and orderly apartment, but he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. A dirty closet was probably the one terrifying, life-altering secret that Mamoru hid from everyone. He rolled open the bottom drawer and found the Corona shirt Mamoru spoke of. Sure enough underneath it was a large package covered in plain brown paper. He carefully removed it and set it down on the floor as the other Shitennou gathered around.
"Plain brown paper usually means it's something embarrassing." Jadeite observed and everyone cocked an eye at his unusually perverse comments as of late, "What? Don't look at me like that!"
"Whatever this is, we have to remember it comes with a sacred responsibility," Kunzite reminded them speaking authoritatively again, "Mamoru gave this to us, we have to honor him for it."
"Open the damn thing." Nephrite said and everyone echoed his sentiment.
"All right …" Kunzite shrugged, "Here we go."
He tore the brown paper off to reveal a white, plastic-wrapped box stamped with three large pastel letters that nearly left the Shitennou devoid of breath:
Wii
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Nephrite asked, obviously disappointed and flustered.
"Jesus Christ." Jadeite cursed and leaned back against the wall, "Here I was expecting, I dunno, a tome of ancient knowledge or something."
"A photo album or something sentimental at least!" Zoisite agreed.
"Guys, stop!" Kunzite ordered haltingly, "Don't you see what this means?"
"Mamoru is a fuck head?" Nephrite asked sarcastically.
"Hasn't cirrhosis of the liver killed you yet?" Kunzite insulted him with unnerving ease, "This gift carries a profound message!"
"Dude, listen to yourself!" Jadeite tried to reason with his superior, "The man we are sworn by oath to protect thinks he's lying on his deathbed and his last living wish was to bestow upon us a great gift. You'd think that would entail more than a god damned video game."
"Mamoru knew we needed this Wii to make our lives better!" Kunzite argued feverishly, "He doesn't want us to wallow in misery wishing life could go back to the way it used to be with candles and swords and … fucking cherubs or whatever we used to have!"
"I still don't understand what all the hype is with this Wii!" Zoisite confessed and threw his arms around wildly, "I mean it's going to be obsolete in a year!"
"This Wii is symbolic!" Kunzite continued to argue, "It represents a transition from the lives we knew to the new life ahead of us! We need to embrace the new world! That's what Mamoru, our Master, is trying to tell us!"
"The new world involves nuclear hostility, religious intolerance, sexually transmitted diseases, education crises, global warming and a bunch of other dumb shit." Nephrite ticked off his fingers as he spoke, "I don't know about you, but I kind of the like the old way."
"Yeah." Jadeite and Zoisite chimed in.
Kunzite grabbed the Wii off the floor and shoved it out in front of him with both hands and sternly gazed at each one of his subordinates in turn. He burned his eyes into Jadeite's and the younger man shrunk under his gaze. Nephrite growled and turned away after a few moments as well. Zoisite's eyes began to well up and he had to loudly sniff back tears. Kunzite tended to have that effect on people.
"We've been going at it strong for years." He spoke somewhat more gently, "Things aren't always easy for us, but all we have is each other."
His speech continued, "The Dark Kingdom nearly destroyed us." He turned to a surprised Zoisite, "You're right, Zoi. I do think about Elysian a lot; but I think about that horrible, lightless void more. I think about how it felt being isolated from my brothers even when we were in the same room. I think about the things we did and it makes me physically ill."
He turned to Nephrite, "You feel it too, I know you do. You can drink and hide it, but it's not as simple as just shutting off that part of your memory. It stays with you."
He moved on to Jadeite, "We all have our little quirks that we use to disguise what we truly feel, but this is the life we're living now. We have to do the best we can and we can't spend the next thousand years in memory and regret."
He addressed them all again, "We wouldn't be here if not for our Master. Despite how we live beyond our means and tear away at each other's privacy just for laughs, we still have a sacred duty to perform. Mamoru wanted to give us this Wii as a way to keep our friendship alive and we owe him at least that much for all he's done for us over the years."
"I guess." Nephrite said with a hiccup.
"Yeah." Jadeite and Zoisite spoke with melancholy respect
"All right!" Kunzite smiled and laughed slightly, "That's enough of the doom-and-gloom! Let's go get this baby hooked up. We're going to need some Fritos and jalapeno cheddar dip."
"We're out of beer." Jadeite mentioned and everyone turned to stare at him, "FINE! I'll buy this time."
"Great!" the Shitennou all shouted in synch and far too stereotypically.
Suddenly Kunzite noticed an envelope lying on the floor amidst the brown paper wrapping that covered their Wii. He tore it open to find a note in Mamoru's practically illegible handwriting that read:
Dear Fun Boys:
I hope you like the present I bought you. If you're reading this note it means that I'm dead and you're dividing my stuff among you. Or, if I had the chance, I gave a dramatic speech as I lay dying and told you where to find this gift. I hope I got to give the speech. I've been practicing it for a while now. I got this book from my buddy Andy about speech writing. Andy is a great guy. He comes over on Tuesday nights to watch House and then we stay up to midnight talking about how House and Wilson are totally gay together. He's so deep!
"It goes on like this for a while." Kunzite said in the middle of reading the letter.
"Skip a few paragraphs, ace." Nephrite suggested.
This Wii wasn't easy to get. I had to order it on Amazon and it took a whole month for it to show up, but it comes with that cool Wii Sports thing so you can play golf and stuff. The only problem is I got it discounted as an open-box special so there's no controller with it. They only come with one controller the way it is, so you'd have to buy a few extras anyway. I figured you could each buy your own this way. It can be like a quest! You guys haven't had one of those in ages!
Anyway, if I'm dead I hope you remember all the good things about me. I sure will miss you guys and I wish you all the best. Have fun with the Wii! The controllers are only like thirty bucks each, you guys should be able to handle that no problem!
Swimmingly yours,
Mamoru
The Shitennou all soaked in the words for a few moments and individually reflected on their meaning. All at once their eyes seemed to fall on the Wii sitting in the middle of the floor, pondering its meaning. Kunzite finally broke the silence and his stoic expression degenerated into a grim scowl of the utmost contempt:
"That son of a bitch …"