DISCLAIMER: You think Ultimate Muscle/Kinnikuman Nisei is my property? Dream on, beeyatch.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

GODDAMN!!!

Life has been hard on me the past two years. What can I say? Certain personal problems and crises kept brewing with no signs of stopping. Eventually, it was all so intolerable that I had partially lost my love for writing. Talk about tragic.

I'm turning 20 next Saturday, and I'm of the firm belief that things are looking up.

As for the not-so-appropriate introduction to this section of the chapter, er… hell. The idea of this fic has been lingering in my brain for a very long time (Years), but for whatever reason, I forgot that I had uploaded the three chapters I had written here. For all I knew, the Word documents in that particular folder titled "Fic" were drafts and no less.

Yes. It's the most idiotic of excuses, and that is why it's also particularly great in its own right.

Now I know how parents feel when they forget to pick up their kids after soccer practice! It looks like it took about seven hundred and thirty days (A modest delay!) for me to remember. My little boy must be hatin' on me real bad now. So yes.

GODDAMN!!! (Suplexes cow into meteor)

Seeds of Glory: A Sonata for the Fallen
Chapter 4 – Defeat and Redemption By MexMarco!

Mantaro's neck continued throbbing like a pressure hose about to reach bursting point. Even though his uncle's vicious attack had definitely hurt him, he never lost consciousness and experienced no more than a heavy daze. Of course, having painstakingly made his way towards his attacker's quarters, with hardly a chance to rest, left him with a vague yet veritable desire to let go and drift away from the stinging sensation; nevertheless, he knew he had gotten very far in this encounter with his uncle, perhaps too far for him to back out now and start from scratch later. Despite the chaotic state of his mind at that time, the Prince could easily recall Ataru's look of disbelief like a sharp, recently taken picture. This was the first time he had seen him react in such a vulnerable and let alone human way.

In other words, curiosity piqued him enough for him to stay awake. What exactly had he said to inspire that reaction in the soldier?

"We're finally here." said a deep voice, followed by the characteristic sound of a greased doorknob turning. "Come on in."

The hog wrestler forced a grunt and reacted to the source of that voice. Blinded by the still-present pain, he reached out his hand and began to wave it gently, taking a step forward to come in contact with the doorframe. He held tight to it and walked into the room, his other hand assuming the duty of holding his forehead as if fearing that the contents of his head might spill if he didn't do otherwise. By now, Mantaro had discovered his legs had more leverage and that the floor no longer seemed to be made out of jello.

Ataru firmly squeezed his nephew's shoulder and led him towards a comfortable padded chair with great care; then, he took a step backwards and crossed his arms over his broad, spectacularly built chest. The look in his eyes was now quizzical.

"I don't recall. Is this the first time you're here?"

"What? Sorry. I wasn't listening." Mantaro's attention was diverted with other endeavors besides listening to his uncle, such as figuratively melting on the reclining chair he was sitting on and finding the right position to rest his sore neck.

Ataru repeated his question.

"-Oh. I'm not sure either. I thought you lived in the Chojin Tower?" The Prince shrugged and let his eyes wander around the dark red room. His sight was forced to a squint as he looked directly into the four lights of a solitary ceiling fan.

Unlike most rooms that existed throughout the castle, prevailing with their royal and baroque air of opulence and wealth, Kinnikuman Soldier's study room was by far the most mundane of them all, replacing expensive silk, flawlessly clean carpets and many other neoclassical features of eclectic nature with a sober and far less outrageous ambience. Sculptures, paintings, and items of the sort were replaced by neatly framed photographs and newspaper cutouts, Chojin Wrestling memorabilia, military replicas and even a scaled down anatomical model held still by a silver stand on the room's solitary desk. As for the desk itself, it possessed no trait that would allow it to stand out as a luxurious piece of furniture, even despite its golden borders and outlines or its superb painting job. The same could be said about the plain executive-style chair behind it.

"I do live there," Ataru answered Mantaro's question, "but I don't mind having a place to rest and meditate somewhere else; after all, this used to be my room before I ran away from home." He sat at his desk afterwards, fingers pressed together with an air of wisdom.

Mantaro looked around another time. The room could have been a bedroom before, alright; at least judging by its dimensions.

Meanwhile, the soldier fixated his eyes on his nephew for the briefest of moments, longer than a heartbeat and shorter than the blink of an eye. The boy was still dazed.

"So… just a while ago you were asking me why I renounced the throne and ran away. If you're so interested, then I guess I'll tell you." The elder Chojin said while browsing the desk's drawers, grunting with increasing displeasure every second the task at hand took. His fingers eventually wrapped themselves around a small box he casually flung at the Prince who, after having caught them reflexively (with his head), discovered it contained some aspirins. He slipped one of the white pills into his mouth and focused entirely on the former prince of Muscle Planet.

Ataru breathed a sigh and lowered his head, masked lips and nose pressed against the sides of tightly clasped hands. It seemed that the soldier had a fair deal of difficulty trying to begin his story; however, it was not because of the search of a vocabulary that could suit someone with the kind of stunted intelligence Mantaro boasted. No. His account of the story was widely unknown for one reason: He had never shared it with anyone, and certainly it had passed to become a dusty old page in his memory. In a way, it was a few years close to be a mystery even to himself.

"Let's see." The elder superman rested his palms on the desk and lifted his gaze, looking at his nephew. "Do you know who the Spartans were, boy?"

Mantaro let go of his forehead and rubbed at his neck. A reply came from him in the form of a nod. "Some… ancient Earth civilization or something, right?"

"Good." Ataru reclined on his chair. "The Spartans were part of the Greek republic. They were a warrior race that was bred entirely for one purpose: War. While the strong and apt underwent the unthinkable to be a part of one of the histories' greatest war machines, the women, the weak and the frail worked as no more than mere slaves forced to sustain the mighty warriors, who could win wars simply by appearing in a battlefield." The soldier made a pause. "Ages ago, our clan was no different from them."

The Prince quit patting his pained neck and quirked an eyebrow.

"Your grandfather, your great-grandfather and the fifty six men before them were all trained to be gods of the ring, wise sovereigns and invincible warriors. Once they became of age, it was established that every prospect for the Kinniku throne would train to reach their ultimate goal or die trying. Either you become the king of your people… or you don't. No other way existed to tackle the tradition; at least not until the past generation: your father's and mine."

"One good day, exactly in my tenth birthday, I was told I had become a man. Long gone were the games, fun and joy of youth. Toy cars, storybooks and affection were replaced by grueling workouts, history lessons and strict discipline. Your grandfather thus began to train me, his only son back then, to succeed him in the throne." Ataru continued. "I fought him every day and I was scolded by him just as much. In a matter of days, or dare I say, hours, a grinning, bell-headed gentle giant was replaced by this stern and unforgiving ogre."

"Above all else, I wanted the pain to end, and since I hardly had a notion of what pride and tradition were back then, I had no idea as to how I could bring my father back… until the hardships and tortuous challenges forced me to develop a callous here." The soldier knocked a palm against the left side of his chest. "I no longer knew which one of the two was the real Mayumi Kinniku, but it was clear that I wanted… no… I needed to take revenge on the one who was causing me all that pain, even if that meant hurting the father I so dearly loved."

At that point, the Choujin stopped and tilted his head upwards, looking to the ceiling as if pondering a crucial decision. Mantaro, on the other hand, had forgotten entirely about the pain. The tale that had reached his ears was too incredible to believe, considering the way he had been raised. He realized he had indeed fought cruel battles with sundry foes, but prior to his wrestling days, he didn't have anything to worry about in his life; nevertheless, the heir's musings came to a stop upon realizing Kinniku Ataru had stood up from his chair.

Before Kinnikuman's only son could wonder what was happening, Ataru was facing one of the many framed newspaper cutouts on the wall, apparently the largest one of the whole collection. The headline and picture were large enough for Mantaro to discern them, even from such a distance. It was a first page spread celebrating the forming of the Chojin Untouchables; nonetheless, the Prince soon discovered that it wasn't there for display purposes.

A click was heard several moments after, with the utmost delicacy, his uncle slid his fingers behind the border of the beatified memory. Ataru removed the frame to reveal a hidden panel behind it, and so he was greeted by a hi-tech safe lacking any unique characteristics, save for the keypad on its center. A code was swiftly introduced with the mild clacking of plastic against sinew, removing the hermetic lock that so diligently kept the contents of the safe shielded from the eyes of anyone but Kinniku Ataru himself.

Until now.

"That is why I decided to run away from the castle, the petty traditions, the lifestyle imposed upon me… and my home. The moment I denied my father his successor, I had ceased being a member of the royal family before his eyes." Kinnikuman Soldier resumed his story with a melancholic ring in his otherwise stern voice. He motioned at Mantaro. "Come here, kid."

His nephew obeyed in an almost Pavlovian fashion, standing up and walking towards Ataru in the same way the King Cobra sways to the music of its charmer. The Prince stood behind his uncle and waited, curious and at the same time scared of what Ataru might reveal to him; but then he saw hesitation in the otherwise nimble fingers of his uncle. They were holding the safe's handle, yet, due to some unknown influence, they refused to pull.

"What's wrong, unc?" Mantaro was surprised. This was probably one of the few times he had called the soldier that since his childhood.

Ataru turned around to face Mantaro, letting go of the safe's handle and resting his back on the wall.

"Do you know how your father became King?"

The Prince nodded. "Yeah. I've heard that story a lot of times from my grandpa and dad. You had a lot to do with his reaching the throne, right?"

"That's correct." Ataru nodded. "I helped him by teaching him the move he needed to win the tournament and beat Super Phoenix. Or at least I tried to." For all the soldier knew, this story could have been told to Mantaro ad nauseum. "I died too… but your father brought me back when I thought it was all over."

Mantaro nodded. This was more or less what he had heard from other sources, but now that he had listened to his uncle's reasons for abdicating before even being crowned, he realized something was not right. He tried hard to think about it, but his temples began to hurt shortly afterwards.

"What is it?"

"It's just that…" The Prince finally thought it through. "If you ran away from home like you did, leaving the family behind and all, why did you come back?"

Ataru remained silent for almost a minute, never breaking eye contact with his nephew. Needless to say, he made him feel really intimidated, fearing another retaliation in the form of a wrestling move as powerful as the previous, or even worse. Instead, the soldier lowered his eyes again.

"Because I discovered that following traditions isn't mandatory for my people to develop great power and equally great values. Your father spent all his childhood and most of his youth on Earth, away from the royal trials… and yet he became a memorable champion. He didn't need father's training to be a natural leader, or an honorable warrior with a heart of gold." A cough. "I followed his progress from the shadows, at first with a powerful hatred, then with disdain, later with curiosity and, lastly, with hope."

"I came back to help him because he deserved to be king, even if that mix-up controversy at the hospital couldn't be completely ignored." Ataru shrugged his shoulders. "Your father, Suguru, made me have faith in the power of our bloodline once more. That's why, as soon as it was announced that your mother was pregnant, I talked to my brother about my experiences while growing up away from home, as a result of my escape."

"We accorded that you would be raised without the cruelty of the severe Kinniku training regime. I was not going to remain idle and allow such measly things to split the family like that ever again." He sighs. "Of course, it took us many years for the Council to allow this trespass. We made it just in time, before you were given the royal mask, you know." Then, he added. "I'm entirely aware I am no more than an outcast in the eyes of the Council and the former king, but I felt I had that responsibility towards you, boy."

Mantaro gulped. "Wow."

It all made so much sense to him now. Everything did. But now that the story of the past generation had come almost full circle, the devious and perverse ghost of guilt crept over the Prince and possessed him. Only then he began to realize the extent of the idiocy and ignorance behind the words he had so self-righteously uttered back in the library.

"I… uncle Ataru…" Mantaro wasn't very good at apologizing from the heart. He forgot that quite often. "I'm sorry for what I said. If I had known how much I owed you, even before I was born, and how much you had been through, I wouldn't have even thought about saying all that crap."

"It's alright, Mantaro." Ataru stroked his beard. "I'm happy that you have understood. I should apologize, myself, for losing control back then. I shouldn't have been so rough on you." He paused abruptly then. "But there is something you still need to see."

Thus, the elder Chojin and now mentor turned around to grab the previously ignored safe's handle with a drive that was an exact antithesis of his previous reluctance. The soldier turned it open and, with his still impressive and large frame, obscured its contents from his nephew's sight.

"Have you ever wondered why I wear this black and green mask instead of the customary one worn by everyone else in the family?" Before Mantaro could even process the question, the old superman continued.

"The day I left home, Mantaro, I used the same pocket knife I gave you to tear my former mask open. Back then, of course, I was bitter, full of negative emotions and very hurt. I had no one to tell me what repercussions my actions would have had for the future." A pause. "But you know what's interesting? That even if I was aware of that, I would have still done it."

The soldier turned around. In his hands, he held the rags of an era long gone, the tattered remains of an age that will be no more. He gave it to Mantaro who, after an immediate inspection, easily identified what it was. "This…?"

Time and dirt had worn the item out to the point of having its former tan color faded, but there was no need to ask. It was a Kinniku royal mask, ripped nearly in half by the lethally even and brutal cut of a blade.

"I ripped the mask off and dropped it at the palace's doorstep the night I fled. Father had thought about burning it, but mom kept it with her as a private treasure. She gave it back the day I returned to the palace, exactly after Suguru's coronation."

Mantaro was about to smile when he noticed something unusual about the all too familiar mask. Upon closer inspection, it had dried blood smeared everywhere, but particularly in the areas circumventing the main rip in its fabric. The Prince had attempted to ask his relative what was the story behind such a prominent stain, but quickly he realized there could be only one logical explanation to it all. He would only ask the obvious if he proceeded with his inquiry.

The hog wrestler prepared the most sincere and sympathetic look he could offer to his relative, but a thinly curved monkey lip smile and a tender gaze were replaced by an agape mouth and an eyebrow arched well beyond the levels of exaggeration. An interjection of surprise tried to come out through his voice; however, only a cacophonic stammer was heard.

"Uncle!" Mantaro finally shouted.

Every iota of the world had ceased to exist when the prince was handed the tattered mask to partake in its appreciation; but when he had finished doing so, he met the sight of Kinniku Ataru carefully tugging at the brim of his military mask and rolling it off his head without a care in the world. Mantaro couldn't believe his eyes. Was a Kinniku clan member really disposing of his mask that moment?

As for Ataru, his pale face sported medium length grey hair as wild as fire, with many bangs falling freely on his forehead. A thick beard of the tone neatly outlined his strong and masculine angular jaw, chiseled and seemingly diamond hard.

Nevertheless, the most outlandish of his otherwise normal facial features was a brutal scar that ran diagonally, from the left side of his brow to halfway down his right cheek. Even though it was only ever so jagged, the thickness of it, nearly as wide as a finger, was enough to twist the Prince's expression into a fatal and instant grimace. It was evident that the shape of his scar matched that of the rip in his former mask.

Then another piece of the puzzle neatly fit into place. Mantaro's lips quivered momentarily.

"…So you're really not a part of the royal family anymore."

"As you can see, that is correct." The now maskless soldier thus inferred that his nephew knew of the penalties that could befall a clan member, if he or she ever decided to unmask: death penalties.

"I was spared, if you want to put it that way. I would never be able to come back and take the throne even if I wanted to. I was considered, as a matter of fact, dead as a royalty figure." Ataru scratched his now bare chin. "My father considers this a coward's life, and openly voices that belief when he thinks I'm not listening. But I do. Every time."

"It doesn't hurt anymore." He added.

By this point, Mantaro had nothing to do. Nothing to add. He was, for the lack of a more suitable word, overwhelmed.

"Why?" He asked weakly.

The elder Chojin took a deep breath, holding the Kinnikuman Soldier mask in his hand.

"Mantaro. My name is Kinniku Ataru. I was once a prince, just like you were… but the difference remained in the fact that I wasn't ready for that responsibility. Thus, I got rid of my mask and left home. I traveled the galaxy with as many aliases as I have fingers, having nowhere to go and nothing to live for. Then your father and his prowess as a superman revived my sense of hope and will to live."

"I did my best to help him in his quest to become king later on, dying and eventually reviving thanks to one of the universe's most inexplicable miracles. For the services I had voluntarily offered to the crown, ignoring my own status as an outlaw, my life was no longer considered forfeit, but I would never be considered royalty ever again. It didn't take too long before I was branded a joke. An opportunist."

Ataru sighed.

"But now, as I'm close to reaching my seventh decade of life, I look back to all the hardships I've underwent and the terrible mistakes I made… and I don't regret a single thing."

"I, just like you, have suffered terrible defeats. I have felt ashamed. I have felt miserable. But now that I am older… wiser… I have discovered that sometimes the growth we experience as losers of battles great and small, broad and intimate, far outweighs the darkness that tries to devour us from within. I have discovered that, from the most brutal of defeats, as well as those narrow, a promise for the future is forged. You only need to focus on surviving, so that you may live on to fulfill it."

"That is why it no longer hurts."

The soldier gently placed his hand over Mantaro's and the old ragged memory he was holding.

"…And tonight, Mantaro, I intend to pass down this teaching to you. I'm handing the torch to you, so that your loss against Kevin Mask will be rekindled no longer as a bitter chapter of your life, but as a new chance to reassert your path as a man and a superhero."

A solemn but brief pause filled the room. Soon it was broken by a frail and moved voice.

"Fight on, boy! For as long as you are alive!"

The prince, moved just as much by the words expressed by his uncle, stood still a dozen heartbeats. Soon enough, he found himself wrapping his arms around Ataru, holding him tight in an embrace that no longer expressed anguish, fright or compassion. This gesture embodied the brightest and most powerful bond that can exist between men.

A bond of respect.

Now, the mention of Kevin Mask's name no longer pained the Chojin prince, nor did it evoke any hollowness in his spirit. Instead, it now evoked a very different, intense and distinctive feeling.

Two minutes later, while still sustaining their tight embrace, Mantaro whispered.

"…You probably know what I'm going to do now, uncle."

Ataru closed his eyes and offered a nod.

"You have my blessing, Mantaro."

Next Chapter - ??????????