Let's get this trainwreck moving.
It's the middle of March, and I'm still coming up with ideas for the various martial styles I've proposed. I can visualize them in my head, but something always seems off...like when you visualize the impossible in a daydream, except I know that what I'm trying to achieve can be done. It's irritating, and I don't know what the problem is with whatever I could call this thought process I'm going through.
Very few categories of people would know the human musculature better than an athlete or a fighter, with the notable exception of doctors, and I know that it's a thing which is possible. Otherwise, I wouldn't be trying.
In addition to the visualization, I'm having trouble coming up with stances and intermediary steps that are inherent in all other martial arts. I can take you through the full motion, but the individual freeze-frames that make up the movement are difficult for me. I'm not good with doing things in parts, I do things in totality. I don't think about the parts a machine needs in order to run, I just let the machine run and watch it go.
I'm much better with action than thought, and this thinking about acting is proving to be just as difficult as anything else I've tried to put from thoughts into words. Sometimes, I really do hate the limitations I've had since long before I earned my metal bones. All I can really do is throw thinking to the wind and trust whatever luck might come my way.
Ironically, that very moment is where realization hits me. Maybe the problem is that I'm only thinking of one style?
The way I've thought about it, martial arts are based on the five elements. The power of fire, the speed of lightning, the malleability of water, the flexibility of the wind, and the solidity of the earth. I prefer fire- and lightning-based arts, because I'm someone who fought to cause damage rather than outlast my opponents, but each element has their place.
Someone with both legs would benefit from an earth-based art, with strong ground-rooted stances and powerful kicks, something that would mean they wouldn't need to worry about being swept off of their feet. People with one arm would need wind- or water-based styles that focused on evasion and redirection rather than pure power. A person who only had one leg would need a combination of water and fire. Someone missing one arm and one leg would require fire and wind.
Well, that's one roadblock down. A few more to go, but one down.
"Hello, my name is Hisao. I hope we can be friends."
A transfer student...and just like me, he has all of his limbs. Something on the inside, then. Lungs or heart, I bet.
"There's a seat between James and Misha that you can take. If you have any questions, just ask someone." Muto informs him, pointing, and he sits down to my left.
How like Muto to say, "someone," instead of naming himself as the person to come to.
I hold out a hand for him to shake, and he does. "James Slae'im. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too."
Once class is over, I take Hisao off and give Miki a look that says we'll meet up later. "Okay, so there's basically two things you need to know. First, stay away from Misha and Shizune or they'll try to force you into the Student Council. Second, you're not actually stuck here because there's a bus into the city and another that goes down into the town at the bottom of the hill. It's not that bad a gig, to be honest. Oh, and another thing, wa-"
Without warning, Emi turns around the corner and slams straight into the new guy's chest, just like she did to me seven or eight months ago. He doesn't have a metal chest plate, though, and gets bowled over before I can catch either of them.
"-tch out for people who run in the halls." I finish the words slowly, almost painfully, helping the two of them back up. Hisao is holding his chest, and I'm fairly certain now that he's got a weak heart.
"Good job, Emi. That's two for two transfer students you've slammed into on their first day here. Anyone else you plan to hit like a truck?" My admonishment isn't really condemning, and she knows it, but she has the grace to at least look worried.
"Aw...don't be mean, James. I was in a hurry, and..." She finally sees Hisao, and how he's struggling for breath. "Oh, gosh, are you hurt? I'm so sorry!"
After another minute or so, he recovers. "Yeah. Sorry. I'm fine now."
I resist the urge to clap him on the back. "Anyway, is there some specific thing you'd like to learn about?"
As we walk, I tell him about the school and its buildings, the different ways to navigate it, and all the other stuff you'd expect from an orientation. I think.
We get lunch, and Miki joins us. "Educate the new kid yet?"
"You make it sound like a job. Oh, by the way, Hisao, this is my girlfriend."
"I'm Miki." She smiles, then looks to me. "You want me to stick around, or head out?"
"Either's fine with me." I say. "Hisao?"
"I think I got it all, thanks. You guys seem nice enough."
Miki smiles again, and then shifts her eyes around suspiciously. "Just don't let him catch you at night when there's a full moon," she says conspiratorially, knowing I can hear her, "or else he might eat you!" She finishes with a wink.
"That joke was so lame, we had it enrolled." I say, and it looks like Hisao almost sprayed me with his food.
"That was awful!" He says through his laughter, as are Miki and the others around us who heard my line.
I'm not much of a comedian, but that one just kind of set itself up for me.
"I'm a bad person, and it's not like anyone cares a whole lot around here...for the most part, anyway. You can tell all the blind kids that you see their point, and who the hell's to say that they don't see it with you? Speak to the deaf, see if they can lip-read. Just avoid tripping the kids without legs, and you should be pretty good as far as screw-ups go. Before I leave, though...you sure there's nothing else I can tell you about?"
"Um...oh, right! Where's the library?"
"From here...go 'til this hall dead-ends, take a left, go straight, and you'll end up staring it in the face. Nothing else?"
"That's all. Thanks."
Well, he seems like a nice guy. Probably feels like this isn't where he belongs, but he'll see. Like I told him, it's really not that bad of a situation, and the adjusting comes pretty easily.
It did to me, anyway.
That night, I'm back in the designated destruction area for the first time in a while. This time, though, I'm not really intending to break anything.
I run through my forms, but keep one hand behind my back at all times. When it comes to kicking, I put both hands behind my back. Each set of movements I go through, I take the time to do them how someone missing one or more of their limbs (or even just sections of their limbs) would do them, rather than someone like me.
It feels different, but not bad. Not strange.
This only reinforces my mission, the thought that I will be able to do what I've set out to do. I start to figure out which arts, and which parts of others, would benefit others the most.
Jeet Kune Do would do a lot of good for people missing one leg, and potentially one arm as well, since it focuses mostly on punching, putting as much power behind each of your blows as you can.
Muay Thai and Savate would be excellent for people without arms, since those are based on leg strength and kicks...
Somehow I end up picturing Rin in a fighter's robe, and I lose all train of thought because of the image. For the rest of the night, I have to hold to the flame and the void to keep from risking a laughing fit over the idea of Rin's expressionless face and flat stare put into a martial artist's clothing.
Words come unbidden, eventually, while I'm lost in the mindless task of going through my forms the normal way.
Hear me now, feel my hate! There is no more time for apologies, malevolent emotions take hold of me! Are you ready to begin your trip to the other side? Death is an old friend of mine!
I can feel it in me, the...thing...that came out the night I broke the tree in this place. The stump there is a permanent reminder of what I did, jagged and accusatory.
Blessed visionary, cut me with your sun! The rivers ran in blood, spark fueled to fire...the screaming arrows tear through my soul. In the dawn your face is haunted, white ghostly dreams of hope! I can see the pain, it's written all over your face!
I lift my head, my nose flaring, and I give a backhanded slap to one of the wooden posts; it snaps off with virtually no resistance, and goes flying, but I can't see it. All that exists, for me, is the image of mountains. Mountains of corpses. Defeated enemies who couldn't stand against my power...and still I fight on, slaying more in my mind as the beast within me starts to awaken.
By the sword in my hand, I will conquer the land; I will decimate, and decapitate, those who question the sword in my hand.
Blood and death are waiting, like the raven in the sky! I was born to die!
I am death, in my mind, on wings of blood-stained glory. The reaper's scythe is my hands, his grin is my own, and there are none who can win against the expiration of their lives.
What I've felt, what I've known...never shined doing what I've shown. Never free, never be, so I dub thee: unforgiven.
Earth flies as I spin, and another mountain begins to form itself in my imagination...until, finally, there are no more enemies for me to kill. Then I retreat to my throne, made of skulls taken from all those who I felled, and await the coming of more.
Peace sells, but who's buying?
Run for the hills, run for your lives.
Cry out to be saved from your fate.
The monster in me finally rears its ugly head, beginning to wreak havoc on this peaceful space, and I black out.
When I wake up, all that I can honestly understand from the torn earth and cracked trees around me is that I was on a mission to destroy anything that I could get my hands on. Not exactly what I'd call a good prospect, especially considering that the last time this happened I could have died.
I move to my room slowly, taking time to get reacquainted with muscles that shouldn't feel this unfamiliar, this detached. I don't understand what's going on.
My world spins, and I collapse. When I get up again, I feel better.
"What was that?" I wonder aloud.
I'm alright now, though, so I put it out of my mind. Come what may, I'll do the same thing I've always done: fight.