Trooper Journals
Chapter Four: I Want To Believe
A/N: I don't own the song "Crash And Burn" by Savage Garden. Totally appropriate song for the (seeming) theme of these: friendship. Don't you think? BTW, I think this is the first journal to actually mention the Ma Sho.. Hmmm..
//When you feel all alone, and the world has turned it's back on you, give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart.//
I'm sitting up in bed now, heart pounding, sweating. Another night, another nightmare. Just the usual.
I feel so helpless, a darkness thicker than a brick wall surrounding me as I try helplessely to breath, to scream, whatever. I can do nothing. The darkness closes around me, tighter, suffocating me even as I struggle. It's like quicksand, but worse. It's him.
But then I always wake up, exactly like this. It has been this way ever since Arago was destroyed. Nightmares of Anubisu, evil again, trying to kill me, drowning me in his thick black net.
Always in that nightmare I feel so alone. No one can help me, because they have gone.
I wish my friends were here.
//I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you, it's hard to find relief, and people can be so cold. When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore..//
It was bad enough before all of this. Everyone insisting that I do exactly as I'm told, exactly how I'm told, being looked down upon for my appearence.. Now I deal with loneliness, as well.
It's getting to be too much. I can't handle it.
Man, the others would laugh if they heard me say that. I was always the calm, collected one. Everyone else would be just about to lose it, and I would be the one who kept it all together. Me and Touma, that is. Touma, my best friend.. I can't think about them. It's too hard.
Everything is expected of me. I know that I can't let this stand in my way, but it's too hard not to. Grandfather noted my inattentiveness during practice, as well. I can't focus. My meditation brings only visions of them, or scenes from my recuring nightmares.
Mother and Father don't know what to do with me anymore. They say that all the progress I made, from a rebellious youth to the young man I was before the fight with Arago, is gone. I am inattentive, and I seem to get angry at the slightest thing.
Truth is, I feel like I'm losing it all. I'm losing myself.
Gods, don't let that be true...
//When you feel all alone, and a loyal friend is hard to find, you're caught in a one-way street with the monsters in your head.//
It doesn't feel right here anymore. I'm so used to the freedom I felt when I was with the others at Nasuti's place that I must have forgotten somewhere along the lines how to fit in here, where I must be the heir to the clan, not myself, not me. Never me, unless I'm with them. With the others I can be myself, thank the Gods for that small favor.
I could truly be me around them, not this other person I must become around outsiders, this person that is alien to me and yet familiar all the same.
I learned how to be him, but sometime in the two months when we were fighting Arago I must have, for lack of a better term, "un-learned" how to be the other me.
Sometimes I wish that I could go back to the way it was before Arago, but I instantly curse myself and remember that I wouldn't have met the others if I hadn't been a Samurai Trooper.
My sisters worry about me, "how are you ever going to succeed with an attitude like that" they ask me when I am angry with them, and I reply "maybe I won't". Then Satsuki will go tell Grandfather, and I'll be in trouble, because I was cross with her. It's getting to be more often.
At those times the "other me" slips away, I am myself for a moment, angry with them for acting as though they can not only tell me what to do, but tell me when, and how, and how to live my own life. When I am angry, I am myself.
That's rare.
//When hopes and dreams are far away and you feel like you can't face the day...//
I feel like a living zombie. That's me. I walk and talk and breathe, but I feel little to nothing, and I am unresponsive to many things.
That is the "other me". The real me is, I think, much more emotional than the other me who shows up when I am in need of a shield to block my true self from being hurt.
Hurt by others. Hurt by my own family and their endless demands.
I am not angry with them for it, though. I am the heir, after all. I cannot give into emotion all the time, or be rash with those who anger me. But I wish I could be me.
I don't want to be the heir of the Date clan anymore.
I want to be me, Seiji.
//Because there has always been heartache and pain, and when it's over you'll breathe again, you'll breathe again.//
Have you ever had one of those days where you just want to keel over and die? Now imagine having those days every day. That's my life. It's a living Hell.
Morning meditation (damn you, guys, get out of my head!), then school (like I can concentrate on it anyway), the walk home (my only peaceful moment), and then practice (I'm starting to dislike Kendo). That's my entire day, five days a week. The other two are basically meditation, then practice, lunch, and then more practice. Some life. This isn't a life. It's more like an endless existance that always repeats itself. Some days I wake up and I wonder if I'm just repeating the last day.
I long to be free from all of this, this pain that I feel whenever I think of my friends.
I just want to believe that I'll see them again.
//Let me be the one you call, if you jump I'll break your fall, life you up and fly away with you into the night. If you need to fall apart, I can mend a broken heart.//
My friends and I were always so close. I could be myself around them. But they're gone now, back to their own homes. I wonder if they feel the way I do?
I want them back. I want to go back to those days, living in the old Yagyu place with Ryo, Shin, Touma, Shuu, Jun, Nasuti, and Byakuen, all of us together. We were all so happy. But it will never be, or at least not for a few years. Nasuti headed off for college a while ago; she sent me a letter about it.
We rarely meet now: one of us at least is always missing. Usually it's me or Touma. I can't make it because Grandfather insists that I keep social interactions to a minimum (not his actual words, but my basic interpretation of them), especially with those "rowdy boys" (Yayoi's description of my friends. What does she know, anyway?).
I wish we could all be a "family" again.
//If you need to crash then crash and burn//
Family.. What is the meaning of the word "family" anyway? It means different things to all of us. Some, like my family, think that it is blood that makes a family. I beg to differ. We Samurai Troopers learned together that family does not mean blood. It is defined by caring and love. The Samurai Troopers are all brothers, myself included, and Nasuti is like an older sister to us. Jun is more like a younger cousin or brother. Something like that. We are a family, if only because we care for one another enough.
I wish we could be together like that again.
//You're not alone.//
There are so many twists and turns in life that one never knows what to expect. You just have to take it as it comes.
But, like I said before, I want to believe that Fate will throw us five together again.
Sincerely,
Seiji Date, Warrior of Korin
Yoroiden Samurai Trooper
Chapter Four: I Want To Believe
A/N: I don't own the song "Crash And Burn" by Savage Garden. Totally appropriate song for the (seeming) theme of these: friendship. Don't you think? BTW, I think this is the first journal to actually mention the Ma Sho.. Hmmm..
//When you feel all alone, and the world has turned it's back on you, give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart.//
I'm sitting up in bed now, heart pounding, sweating. Another night, another nightmare. Just the usual.
I feel so helpless, a darkness thicker than a brick wall surrounding me as I try helplessely to breath, to scream, whatever. I can do nothing. The darkness closes around me, tighter, suffocating me even as I struggle. It's like quicksand, but worse. It's him.
But then I always wake up, exactly like this. It has been this way ever since Arago was destroyed. Nightmares of Anubisu, evil again, trying to kill me, drowning me in his thick black net.
Always in that nightmare I feel so alone. No one can help me, because they have gone.
I wish my friends were here.
//I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you, it's hard to find relief, and people can be so cold. When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore..//
It was bad enough before all of this. Everyone insisting that I do exactly as I'm told, exactly how I'm told, being looked down upon for my appearence.. Now I deal with loneliness, as well.
It's getting to be too much. I can't handle it.
Man, the others would laugh if they heard me say that. I was always the calm, collected one. Everyone else would be just about to lose it, and I would be the one who kept it all together. Me and Touma, that is. Touma, my best friend.. I can't think about them. It's too hard.
Everything is expected of me. I know that I can't let this stand in my way, but it's too hard not to. Grandfather noted my inattentiveness during practice, as well. I can't focus. My meditation brings only visions of them, or scenes from my recuring nightmares.
Mother and Father don't know what to do with me anymore. They say that all the progress I made, from a rebellious youth to the young man I was before the fight with Arago, is gone. I am inattentive, and I seem to get angry at the slightest thing.
Truth is, I feel like I'm losing it all. I'm losing myself.
Gods, don't let that be true...
//When you feel all alone, and a loyal friend is hard to find, you're caught in a one-way street with the monsters in your head.//
It doesn't feel right here anymore. I'm so used to the freedom I felt when I was with the others at Nasuti's place that I must have forgotten somewhere along the lines how to fit in here, where I must be the heir to the clan, not myself, not me. Never me, unless I'm with them. With the others I can be myself, thank the Gods for that small favor.
I could truly be me around them, not this other person I must become around outsiders, this person that is alien to me and yet familiar all the same.
I learned how to be him, but sometime in the two months when we were fighting Arago I must have, for lack of a better term, "un-learned" how to be the other me.
Sometimes I wish that I could go back to the way it was before Arago, but I instantly curse myself and remember that I wouldn't have met the others if I hadn't been a Samurai Trooper.
My sisters worry about me, "how are you ever going to succeed with an attitude like that" they ask me when I am angry with them, and I reply "maybe I won't". Then Satsuki will go tell Grandfather, and I'll be in trouble, because I was cross with her. It's getting to be more often.
At those times the "other me" slips away, I am myself for a moment, angry with them for acting as though they can not only tell me what to do, but tell me when, and how, and how to live my own life. When I am angry, I am myself.
That's rare.
//When hopes and dreams are far away and you feel like you can't face the day...//
I feel like a living zombie. That's me. I walk and talk and breathe, but I feel little to nothing, and I am unresponsive to many things.
That is the "other me". The real me is, I think, much more emotional than the other me who shows up when I am in need of a shield to block my true self from being hurt.
Hurt by others. Hurt by my own family and their endless demands.
I am not angry with them for it, though. I am the heir, after all. I cannot give into emotion all the time, or be rash with those who anger me. But I wish I could be me.
I don't want to be the heir of the Date clan anymore.
I want to be me, Seiji.
//Because there has always been heartache and pain, and when it's over you'll breathe again, you'll breathe again.//
Have you ever had one of those days where you just want to keel over and die? Now imagine having those days every day. That's my life. It's a living Hell.
Morning meditation (damn you, guys, get out of my head!), then school (like I can concentrate on it anyway), the walk home (my only peaceful moment), and then practice (I'm starting to dislike Kendo). That's my entire day, five days a week. The other two are basically meditation, then practice, lunch, and then more practice. Some life. This isn't a life. It's more like an endless existance that always repeats itself. Some days I wake up and I wonder if I'm just repeating the last day.
I long to be free from all of this, this pain that I feel whenever I think of my friends.
I just want to believe that I'll see them again.
//Let me be the one you call, if you jump I'll break your fall, life you up and fly away with you into the night. If you need to fall apart, I can mend a broken heart.//
My friends and I were always so close. I could be myself around them. But they're gone now, back to their own homes. I wonder if they feel the way I do?
I want them back. I want to go back to those days, living in the old Yagyu place with Ryo, Shin, Touma, Shuu, Jun, Nasuti, and Byakuen, all of us together. We were all so happy. But it will never be, or at least not for a few years. Nasuti headed off for college a while ago; she sent me a letter about it.
We rarely meet now: one of us at least is always missing. Usually it's me or Touma. I can't make it because Grandfather insists that I keep social interactions to a minimum (not his actual words, but my basic interpretation of them), especially with those "rowdy boys" (Yayoi's description of my friends. What does she know, anyway?).
I wish we could all be a "family" again.
//If you need to crash then crash and burn//
Family.. What is the meaning of the word "family" anyway? It means different things to all of us. Some, like my family, think that it is blood that makes a family. I beg to differ. We Samurai Troopers learned together that family does not mean blood. It is defined by caring and love. The Samurai Troopers are all brothers, myself included, and Nasuti is like an older sister to us. Jun is more like a younger cousin or brother. Something like that. We are a family, if only because we care for one another enough.
I wish we could be together like that again.
//You're not alone.//
There are so many twists and turns in life that one never knows what to expect. You just have to take it as it comes.
But, like I said before, I want to believe that Fate will throw us five together again.
Sincerely,
Seiji Date, Warrior of Korin
Yoroiden Samurai Trooper