Chapter four is here. Before I start, though:
Grimnir: I was actually planning on that order, I just wanted input; I chose Miki because, as you've said, there haven't been any stories about her. Why not make one?
I do pride myself on my grammar and spelling; I wasn't very good at it when I first joined, but over time it became the best feature of my writing. Thanks for noticing!
As far as the update rate/chapter length goes...2000 words (not including ANs) has generally been my fanfiction standard for a chapter, as opposed to 3000 words for non-fanfiction works. Before my massive hiatus, I was slowly starting to approach a 3000 word chapter for fanfiction, but 2000 is what seems comfortable to me. It's also not too hard to crank out six or seven pages of material in a day when I have an idea in my head.
I wasn't sure that anyone would get my song references, but knowing that even just one person did makes them worth the insertion. There will be more, I can promise you that. The title is actually twofold; not only does he listen to metal, but he has metal inside of him...I don't know, I like double-meanings.
...let's get this trainwreck moving.
It's been almost two months since I first came to Yamaku, and I think I finally feel like I'm fitting in. I've earned my couple of friends here, and more than a few acquaintances whose company I can enjoy. It's a novel feeling, to be honest.
I haven't had friends for most of my life. Those who I might have once called by that name have died, or they abandoned me; I scared everyone with who I was in those days, just a few short months ago. When I wasn't showing up to class with victory scars and blood-covered cuts, I was fighting. In the halls, in the streets, in the ring...it didn't matter. I'd show up, bringing fists to a gunfight, and I'd be the one walking away as the winner. Sure, there'd be a bullet hole in my arm, I might crack or break a bone, but I still one. Knives could cut my hands and arms, but they never got near my chest or gut.
No matter how many times I won, people kept thinking that I might eventually lose. They were fools, all of them; I am the child of the grave, the undefeated warrior; even my last name is pronounced as a contraction of "slay them."
The ways in which it comes and goes are as varied as the number of people who partake in them, but war...war never changes. You can take away the weapons, you can make it religious or political, you can leave it down to one man against one man on a field, but the fact remains that one side will win and one side will lose. The strong side, as a rule, is the one to win...but only when they have the skill, the wisdom, to back up all that strength.
That's how I've always looked at life. It's a war, my war, and it's me versus the world.
I go through each school day routinely, quietly; I avoid most people, now, and they've learned to avoid me too. It's nice, this mutual understanding between all people that I'm not to be disturbed. When I'm not cutting class to cloud-gaze with Rin, meditating near Hanako in the library, or giving half-assed participation in whatever sport the track club is doing that particular afternoon, I'm practicing my forms and listening to whatever song is playing.
It's not a bad way to live my life, all things considered. Worse things have happened, crueler things have been done to me. I'm actually finding myself enjoying those days when I do nothing physical, a complete one-eighty from before I came to Yamaku; back then, I was always doing something with my hands. If I wasn't fighting or playing some sport, I was working with them. Physical labor was just another way to make myself tired and feel good about doing it.
Inwardly, though, I find myself struggling. I'm torn between three potential roads, and only those three, that I can walk. If I choose one, though, I can't take the others...yet, at the same time, I know that I want to choose one of them. I just can't decide which of them to pick.
Another change from my life before Yamaku: I never thought about romance. No woman was enough, none of them could keep up with my drive, none of them were...without fear of me. Those words are, at this point, painful to recognize. "What if" doesn't do anybody any good, but I occasionally find myself wondering how I might have turned out if I'd been willing to let other people in.
I'm glad I didn't, though. They would've just been more strings to cut from my life upon coming here, which is something I didn't need. I once again think about my family, and the fact that I don't plan to see or hear from any of them ever again. At the time, I was ecstatic. Part of me still is, the part that remembers what life was like with them...but I'm also wondering if things have gone better without me there, or if they've only gotten worse due to my absence. My uncaring father, beating either of my brothers or my sister? The thought fills me with a rage I didn't know I had. My mother, passive, seeming to simply let it happen? It's what she would do, after all, damn the consequences her eldest child might have to face for it.
My heart twists a little as I remember that I essentially abandoned my youngest brother. He's a simple boy, he didn't deserve getting his hero torn away from him like that. He didn't deserve to be left alone in that house, in this world.
It's almost enough to make me consider recanting my unspoken oath, that I'll never go back now that I'm essentially free of them. They're not even paying for this, I am; at this point, I'm completely in control of my own life. All of my possessions are here in this room, with me, and they won't be leaving for good until I do too. All of my money is mine, not my father's or my mother's, and of all the things I might have ever thought to spend money on...education wasn't one of them, I admit, but I'd have done almost anything to be free from that "home."
I go through this particular day without feeling much of anything, even without my constant on-the-go meditation. It's just not a day for feeling, I guess. Even my music can't do too much to brighten up the grey and dreary day, though I try to sing along with it and feel the messages of the songs.
Clearly, I'll need to do something later. I'm not entirely sure what that will be, but it's going to happen.
It's going to happen tonight.
Over the last few days, I've felt some of my previous strength and speed returning; I'll be much stronger than before, by virtue of lugging around something like two hundred pounds of metal inside of me, but neither my agility nor my reflexes will ever get back to what they once were. No fighter on earth would easily take that trade, but the fact that I have a barrel-plate instead of a rib cage sort of makes up for it; it's also been great for endurance training.
Against the nurse's unspoken orders, I've been pushing myself to my breaking point; old habits die hard, as they say, and who would deny a man of the one thing to give him any pleasure in life?
I skipped taking my sleeping pills tonight, and I move into a "designated destruction zone" that was built for people who needed to take out frustration in a physical way without hurting anyone.
For me, it's just another way to test my power.
I wrap my hands around a tree, lifting up, but it's no use. I try again, but still nothing; it's an exercise in futility, and I knew that before I tried, but what kind of person would I be if I simply accepted all of my assumptions and knowledge as truth?
Instead, I begin hitting it. One strike. Two strikes. My legs start to move as well, the sides of my feet occasionally mixing in with my hands in order to keep battering the tree. Very slowly, the cracks begin to appear in the bark; yet again, I idly realize that I'm singing. Or am I just thinking the words? I can't tell anymore.
"You said it couldn't be done, told me that it's the kind of battle that just couldn't be won, you know?"
You're too sick, too hard, too fucked in the head. You'll never make it, no, not in this lifetime!
"Well guess again my friend...don't act surprised, we've got the bass drum kick that will blow out your eyes! HAH!"
'Cause when you hear this shit, you'll get to steppin', gonna fight the war and use my music as a weapon.
I'm bleeding from both hands now, but I keep punching. Bark begins to fly off in small oddly-shaped fragments, and I pay them no mind. All that matters is the task at hand, and the words flowing through my mind.
"Voices of victory all shout and proclaim: the kingdom of glory is mine! The rays of the will are a prophecy filled, I'm the lord of the day and the night! I've nothing to sell but the power of hell, my armies of fire await! I'm here to be paid, for the pact that was made; my payment can never be late!"
The inner wood of the tree is splintering, biting into my knuckles and crashing against the metal in my fingers. There is no pain, there is no feeling, there is only the known need to continue hitting this tree until it falls down or I faint from exhaustion. That isn't even a thought, it's just an action spoken louder than any words I could ever have shouted. I need to do this. I need to do this.
It's rhythmic, almost relaxing, almost lazily done.
I can feel the metal in my little finger start to give way, on my right hand, so I tuck it behind the ring finger and continue. Just a little more, just a little...more...
Seed of doubt, it exists and it grows, a glimpse of light from somewhere deep within...is there anyone there, can anyone hear me? Oh, I can take no more! Here it comes, the real me...not someone else! Another, stranger, me!
With a roar, and renewed ferocity, something snaps. I can feel anger within the void, and it can't be contained within the flame; I'm hammering away at the tree, my attacks no longer rhythmical or precise...only powerful. I am not hitting a tree, I am hitting an enemy who will not hit back and who will not fall down. They are not made of wood, but barbed and twisted steel. With a final kick, one with all the power of metal and rage behind it, I break through to the center of the tree.
It groans.
As my vision fades to black, the thought strikes me that I don't know whether the tree will fall towards me or away from me.
A little short, but a nice way to start each route, don't you think? Next chapter begins Miki's route.