Today Is Now Chapter 1: Part One, a dead or alive fanfic

(03/'08): It has been about seven years since I wrote this…And what was probably the beginning of my writing career. Anyways, figured I should make some revisions and such; revisions have been made according to the evolution of the game. Criticism of either/or is appreciated. I rarely care enough about your hatred as it is, so it won't help to waste your breath.

The past is behind us
(So don't dwell upon it)

The future may never come
(So don't worry about it)

Today is now
(Make it count)

Wayne H. Clouser

Part One –

The loud, annoying buzz of the alarm clock at the side of the bed echoed through the scarcely cluttered room. After a few minutes of outright ignoring it, it was swiftly silenced with a heavy thud.

Jann-Lee sat up in bed and groaned as he kicked away the bed sheets. He didn't need the alarm clock to wake him up. He'd barely got any sleep that night as it was. Rubbing his neck, he sighed, recalling how he was aware of every cricket outside his window and every tick of the clock. This was nothing new. He'd been deprived of a good night's rest far longer than he could remember. Still, the previous night set upon him a feeling so unsettling, the evening world ate at him more than usual.

He rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple of times.

The room seemed brighter this morning. Looking up, he noticed the curtains in the room where pulled back and tied neatly with a small purple ribbon. Odd, yet he couldn't recall whether or not he'd closed them the previous night.

Swinging his feet over the side of the bed, he flinched slightly when his toes touched the morning-cold tile floor; he'd have to tell the landlord to do something about the A/C. He stood up and stretched a bit then picked up the large pillow lying on the floor next to his bed. Dropping it back on the bed, he looked back at the hollow room. The bed, a dresser with an attached mirror, a nightstand and simple square rug. Plain and simple, just like how he liked it. Yet it was the lack of anything visibly personal—save for a polished brass trumpet—caused a tension in his spine he wasn't used to.

"Dammit," he mumbled. Today was the day. The day he'd been looking forward to for the last year and a half. Now that it was here, he began to wonder if anticipation was the wrong feeling. After all, one usually felt a tingling of excitement for the incoming, rather than the increasing trepidation in the pit of his stomach that for all he was worth, he couldn't explain.

Either way he was tired of the same old routine—wake up, work, train, then sleep. Today, he'd just meet like he'd promised and get it over with. Then he could come home and have a beer and relax, maybe get a good night's sleep for once—a pseudo vacation from the everyday trivial of freelance work.

Like he promised. The finality of it sounded so…promising. He didn't like that. He was no pessimist, but the idea of anything good happening to him was not something that he nurtured. And he learned early on that expectations only led to disappointment.

"This is ridiculous," he sighed, already frustrated. He'd proved countless times that he was the stronger opponent and this time was going to be no different. Yet for some reason, this time it was different. He didn't know why, but the unfamiliar ache of an always familiar fight caused a faint pain in his chest. Gritting his teeth, he attempted to force calm on his nerves. That seemed futile.

After haphazardly making the bed, he made his way into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The water was ice cold when he dipped his fingers under the spout and he twitched involuntarily at the temperature. Why did nothing seem to work today?

"Son of a…? Cold tile, cold room, and now cold water. Fantastic." he clenched his jaw at the unusual anger erupting from his conscience. Breathing slowly he shoved his hands under the water and splashed his face.

"Maybe if you try getting carpet, turning up the thermostat yourself and letting the water warm up, everything wouldn't seem so wrong, now would it?" said a frighteningly familiar voice.

Jann-Lee bolted upright and stared into the mirror, clumsily turning off the water. He stared at his reflection for a moment before twisting around. Grabbing the shower curtain, he nearly ripped the rack from the walls pulling it back. Nothing. Tentatively, he stepped outside the bathroom and looked around the bedroom, moving next to the conjoining living room and kitchen.

"Who's there?" His voice echoed slightly against the bleak, champagne painted walls. After a few moments of complete silence, Jann-Lee turned back into the bedroom. This was sickening; now his mind was playing tricks on him? Jamming his fingers through his hair, he shuffled back into the bathroom and turned the faucet back on. The water seemed unusually warmer now.

After washing his hands and finishing similar toiletries, he turned the shower on, mindful to turn on the hot water. In that instant he stopped, biting the side of his lip before shaking his head. This was all ridiculous. Discarding his grey boxers, he stepped into the shower and let the water wet his cool skin. It wasn't much, but it gave him a slight calm that allowed him to clear his mind somewhat.

Do you honestly want to do this again? To fight for something you know you'd rather not have? Jann-Lee's mind quietly whispered to him.

He cracked open his eyes and stared down at the porcelain floor of the shower. Thick, brown lines adorned it, carefully arranged so that the user would not slip and fall while continuing a daily routine of cleansing oneself.

"If only I…"

If only what? He concentrated on banishing the question, however, the thought lingered. It echoed in his head, growing louder until it seemed to take control. If only you could quit playing these games with yourself and admit that you've been wrong all along… That you are not the stronger opponent?

"What?" he looked up towards the shower head, blinking away the water that sputtered into his eyes. Setting his hands on the wall in front him, he shook his head and spit. He chuckled slightly at the thought that his mind had a mind of its own. "There is no game," he told himself quietly, "I am stronger."

Stronger how? Sure, he'd won countless tournaments, beating once unbeatable opponents, and more than proved his worth as a warrior and champion. So why, in spite of all of that, did he feel like he was still losing? What was this quiet battle that haunted him in his dreams at night and distracted him during the day? He stared at the showerhead for a while, then stared down at himself, analyzing the suddenly strange feeling of his own skin.

His body was tanned, almost a light bronze, and the muscles in his body weren't crudely developed, but they were by no means soft. Toned was still an awkward way to describe it. The thin hairs covering his arms, legs, and chest were few and curled and matted. 'A lucky break that came with being Asian,' Hayate would joke.

After some time, Jann-Lee turned the shower off and stepped out, wrapping a towel around himself and shaking the excess water from his hair. He walked out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the tile, and headed for his closet. Sliding it open, he pushed the rest of his clothes aside and reached behind them for the single black outfit in the back. He sighed as he looked at after laying it out on the bed, and then moved to slip on his boxers.

Once he was fully dressed, he walked to the mirror sitting atop his dresser and stared at his reflection for a while, before looking down to find his comb. Running it twice through his short hair, he brought his head up to double check his reflection. His mouth went dry and a chill enveloped his skin in gooseflesh. The sweet mocha brown eyes that stared back at him twinkled with amusement. The heart shaped face framed by chocolate locks. He felt his chest tighten.

"Hi," she grinned.

Jann-Lee's eyes widened and he twisted around; still no one what there. After turning his head a few times, he reached behind the mirror and looked behind it. The narrow space between the back and the wall revealed it as a simple, flat mirror. Turning back, he stared open-mouthed at the reflection, now eyeing him innocently.

"Oh, yes. I'm quite unreal, aren't I?" her grin turned lopsided.

"W-Who…are you?" Jann-Lee sputtered out.

She blinked a couple of time before answering, feigning offense with pout lips, "Oh, darling, I'm Lei-Fang, of course. How could you forget me so easily?"

Jann-Lee's eyes narrowed inauspiciously at the answer. "Liar."

Her pout morphed into a tiny smirk. "Who I am is of nothing to you; I think you've made that quite clear this past year. The question is: who are you?"

"W-What? I…I'm Jann-Lee," he countered. The figure smirked on but shook her head and sighed.

"Simple minded as ever, just as they said you'd be. I think too much training has neglected your intelligence," she giggled.

"Who? No, forget that. What is going on here?" He felt breathless, almost exasperated.

She shook her head, "I am not asking you what your name is; I am asking who you are. Are you a man who is willing to realize what is right in front of his eyes? Or are you just another male whose pride is more important than his happiness?"

Jann-Lee quirked his brow, confused.

"My point exactly. You don't know who you really are, do you? You've spent so long trying to grow stronger, trying to be the best, than now it's all you can think about. The bullies are gone now; winning isn't everything," she had lost her smirk and now her eyebrows furrowed slightly. The crystal clear mocha of her eyes darkened to point of seriousness that irritated Jann-Lee.

"It i—" he began.

"No. It's not," she interrupted. "You've wasted your adulthood believing the stronger you are the most power you'll have. You used to fight to hide the pain…now you don't fight for of anything; you fight to show others that you're strong. Yet in reality, that's not strength, that's arrogance." She crossed her arms, settling her weight on one leg. "And you know as well I as do that arrogance is just an excuse." The familiar red dress was just as form-fitting as always, and seemed to emphasize the determinedness of her figure at getting her point across.

Jann-Lee eyed her carefully, pursing his lips. "Don't preach to me about knowing who I am and why I fight. I fight to live; I fight because if I didn't, I'd be a stray dog left out on the street to rot." He took a breath, forcing the images of his past out of his mind. It seemed the distractions were just adding up this morning. "My skill doesn't boast arrogance, it speaks of strength and—"

"Discipline," she echoed, rolling her eyes. His mouth snapped shut and he clenched his fists. This apparition was starting to hound him and he didn't like being talked down to. "Spare me your so-called argument, I've heard it before. It's all you ever try to think about."

There was a coy look in her eyes now. "And you only try to think about it when your mind starts to wander." Jann-Lee looked at her carefully. She was getting into something he really, really did not like to think about. "And when your mind starts to wander, you start to think about the very first time you actually played a hero."

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"I think it was made perfectly clear that I was no hero. Rather, a nuisance," he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh pish-tosh. Listen to yourself, Jann-Lee," she said, faintly annoyed. "You're letting your anger cloud your mind, like always. And your pride cloud your feelings."

"I don't have any feelings. For anyone." He pointed out.

She smirked, "Liar."A shroud of rage encircled him and he breathed in, but she continued before he could get anything out. "You're human just like the rest of us and just like the rest of us you feel. In fact, you feel—quite particularly, I might add—for someone. God knows why you try to mask it all with the stoic, apathetic exterior that clearly is the biggest lie you've ever to—"

"Listen, I don't know who you are or what you are or what you're trying to do to me here, but I'm sick of this bullshit!" By now, Jann-Lee's anger was showing through and clear. His eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, and fists clenched even tighter, leaving his knuckles white. "No one told me how to feel when I was young, and I'll be damned if some ghost I made up for God knows what reason, is going to tell me how to feel now! I don't need your mind games."

Her expression turned bleak and her eyes narrowed. "I am not here to play games; you've accomplished that well enough on your own. I'm simply here to guide you into admitting the truth you so fervently deny. You have a nasty habit of writing off personal feelings as petty and weak—two attributes you obviously treat as completely unforgivable."

"You want to guide me to the truth? What truth? That you're just a figment of my imagination? A shitty excuse for a hallucination? And maybe I am the one playing the games. I mean, of all things, you're the best I could come up with," he threw his arms up and leaned against the dresser, laughing quietly to himself. This was insane; he had to be dreaming…yet the churning of his stomach reminded him that despite this imagery before him, he was very much awake.

The vision gasped and glared at him, open-mouthed and insulted. Her voice was low, and condescending, "If you weren't such a damn stubborn buffoon, then you wouldn't have to conjure up hallucinations to argue with—you'd actually have a few friends, wouldn't you? Maybe even someone more."

A chord snapped inside, and Jann-Lee's fist swung out and smashed into the mirror. He breathed deeply, attempting to talk himself into a better reason for doing that than simply offense. It wasn't that he was insulted by the comment—by all means, it was hard to insult him for anything—it was that he was unnerved. The vague hint of truth in her comment caused the familiar ache in his chest to hum. His fist still connected to the ruined mirror, he left it there for a moment longer, barely noticing the blood oozing down the broken glass. His jaw clenched and he felt a shiver as his teeth ground together. He hissed as he breathed in and quickly let it go. This…thing was working his nerves more than any sparring session ever had. In reality, his reaction was not a good premonition; and today was under no circumstances the day bad premonitions should be occurring.

"Mature." The voice sounded like an echo and after his frustrated reverie, he looked up and choked as the figure reflected in every shard. His hand swung again and broke the mirror into even more pieces. Pain was not an issue. On the other hand, the insanity that was slowly becoming his day was.

"Go. Away." Jann-Lee quickly turned, stressed and aggravated, and made his way to the bathroom. The voice sounded behind him. "Living in the past will do nothing to your future. If you don't start counting now, the then will never matter."

"Shut up." He said evenly. He whipped around to face the figure but only saw a shattered, empty mirror. Shards were strewn about the dresser, glinting off the sunlight cascading into the room. A few scattered on the nearby floor. Still, Jann-Lee ignored the notion to clean them up, instead focusing on erasing her last words from his mind. What did he care about the future? There was nothing in it. He already accepted his bachelorhood as private and secluded. The only difference about today was that this was all pre-arranged and not at his request. He was simply…humoring his opponent.

As he stood there, in the middle of his bedroom, he realized it wasn't so much the pain of the impact on his knuckles that caught his attention, but rather, the vague uneasiness of being lied to…

"Aw, shit." He turned and continued towards the bathroom, and rinsed his hand.

Not bothering to bandage the flesh wound, he looked at the clock. As the minute changed to read 12:45 P.M., he groaned. Wonderful, he was going to be late. He grabbed the keys to his apartment and glanced at the broken mirror once last time before leaving.

He chuckled cynically as the classic superstition crossed his mind. Weirder things had happened. After all, he'd just had a half-hour long conversation with a figment of his imagination. How bad could bad luck get?

Nearly slamming the heavy door, he pushed the thoughts out of his mind. There was no time no to worry about any kind of distraction. He would fight. He would win. And that was it.

As Jann-Lee made his way through the city, he snatched an apple from a traveling vendor stand that commonly circled the district where his apartment was located. He might as well occupy his time with eating, for doing any thinking was out of the question. He was not about to spend the hour and a half long walk to the temple outside the city permeated with thought.

After discarding the apple core in a well placed trash bin, he struggled to find something else to occupy his mind with. The struggle proved futile, however, when all he could think about was the figures last words before conveniently disappearing.

"If you don't start counting now, the then will never matter."

He sighed, turning as he began the lengthy walk of steps up the mountain to the shrine. What he couldn't figure out was how real it all seemed. If it really was all in his head, then he should have been able to be done with the whole charade in a snap. And yet he wasn't. In fact, had there been any chance that someone would walk in, he would come off looking like a lunatic, standing there yelling at his own reflection. But as farfetched as the whole situation was, the amount it upset him was beyond normal.

"Shit…" This was turning out to be far more confusing than any one person needed at the moment.

"A-hem!" Jann-Lee was startled out of his thoughts. Quickly gaining his composure he looked up into the eyes of a middle-aged woman and her young daughter. The expression on her face was none too happy, either. Clutching her daughter small hand, she pulled her close and pursed her lips. "I hope a gentleman such as you does not use that sort of profanity on an everyday basis."

Jann-Lee stared at her, rendered speechless and dumb. He quickly recomposed himself and bowed, mumbling a barely coherent apology. The woman seemed satisfied enough and continued down the steps

Clutching her mother's hand as she stuffed her mouth full of a too-large lollipop, she stared at Jann-Lee with round chocolate brown eyes, her pigtails horribly lopsided. Suddenly, her mouth stretched into a wide, toothy grin, briefly letting go of the lollipop to wave a no doubt slimy and sticky hand his way.

Instinctively, he waved back, staring at her with a mixture of puzzlement and amusement. He heard her faint giggle as she hobbled behind her mother, and without warning, a familiar face flashed before his eyes.

Hastily shaking his head, he thrust his fingers through his hair, sighing in frustration. As he continued up the steps towards the top, he watched the few shrine maidens sweep the grounds, stopping only occasionally to switch to a new position. As he finally reached the top of the stairs, just before the main temple building, he veered left, towards a small self-made path off the side tucked behind a cluster of thick foliage. The row of trees and their thick trunks on one side and the rise of the mountain on the other helped to keep it scarcely visible from sight, lest you were actually looking for it. It was for this reason that made it such a perfect spot to train. Or in today's case, battle.

As he pushed his way down the path, a nauseous feeling began to churn in his stomach, adding to the sickening anticipation he'd been feeling since the moment he opened his eyes. He frowned, trying to find something else other than the forthcoming battle to blame this new feeling on. The apple? No, he'd ate from there before…there was no chance one little apple could amount to what he was feeling right now.

As he thought about it, the brush around him slowly began to clear, until a crystal clearing opened before him. Surrounded by mountains that stretched on as far as the eye could see, and dotted with various extensions and additions to the temple that split into a series of wings few were allowed to venture into, the view only thrilled more with an inch-deep pool that was part of a series of natural filters. The ornate buildings were connected by a string of equally gorgeous bridges. Without looking up, he knew one of those very bridges crossed a ways above him. His ears picked up the tranquil flow of the stream that emptied into the pool before him before pouring over the edge.

As Jann-Lee pushed through the last shrubbery to step into pool, he fixed his eyes upon the silhouetted figure that stood at the edge of the cliff. The wind caught in the lapels of the figure's dress, drawing the fabric away somewhat. Still, there was nothing that could cause him to mistake the sinewy figure for someone else; it was ingrained deep in his mind.

Knowing well enough who it was, the anticipation building inside him all day had reached a peak. His blood thrummed with the thrill of release, and his heart pounded in his ears like never before. Vaguely and momentarily, he questioned all of this, but soon pushed that aside. He'd come too far to turn back now.

Realizing his presence, the figure turned to look at him askance. Staring at him over the neatly braided loop of a pigtail, Jann-Lee only faintly noticed something odd flash through the familiar mocha eyes. A strange tingling in his spine chilled him, but he fought to ignore it.

The figure finally turned to face him and step forward, smiling, and he noted something strained about it; yet pushed that aside as well.

The lilt of the voice was unmistakable and in a rush of heat, Jann-Lee felt thrilled. His reply was simple.

"I'm still here."

A/N #2: And there's chapter one. Revised and Re-edited (yes, they are two different things). Now I sleep.