The Colour Purple Chapter 68: Natural Enemies, a king of fighters fanfic

The Colour Purple... The King of Fighters '95

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This (chapter) fanfiction was originally written circa: [XX.96] (Thank you)

"Which Character are you?"

Note to self: Legacy chapter numbering (32- - -), does not match. [Original chapter written 2015]

"Oh God." Yuri groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose mercilessly with her thumb and ring fingers. All at the same time, her index and middle fingers stabbed into her forehead hoping to break the crusty, sleepy sensation in her brain.

Oh God.

The morning sun had already hung itself way above her head, yet no matter how much she tried, getting up so early in the morning was a dreadful chore. Did you remember those times? If you are over 22, and have now subjected yourself to a life of monotony and slavery, mayhaps you could still recall how it felt when you woke up on a Friday morning holiday – and even if you escaped from school – all that was left were remnants of a holiday you now forgot. Youth is wasted on the young…

{It's a holiday, but I still have to go to work. Aghhh.} Yuri groaned with her head in her hands.

Even when the sun was half way onto its way to noon, Yuri's body was still clouded in darkness. She massaged her forehead in a defiant effort to wake herself up and get to work a little bit earlier.

Unconsciously, her left hand reached into her pocket and after rummaging through loose trinkets, coins and clusters of hard, unidentifiable items, she pulled out a crumpled piece of scrap paper and put it in front of her.

[Yuri, please reread chapter 29. I modified it a little bit, thanks.]

"Mmmouuu…" Ugh, Yuri groaned when she tilted her head upwards in defiant plea to wake herself up. "I don't have time to deal with this…" she said, "You wait 19 years and now I have to reread that chapter."

Before she knew it, her lethargic steps brought her to the end of her journey and now Yuri stood once again in front of that door she had grown to loathe these past few weeks. Scratching her cheek to rip off the hard concrete that encased her face the night prior, Yuri lifted her hand up apprehensively.

Before her fingertips could reach their target, she unconsciously twisted her right wrist and peeked at her watch. 9 O'Clock. Depriving herself of the luxury of sleeping in, she thought, that, maybe just this once she could go about her duties without harm nor chastise. "FINE Marie. I'll get in early for once."

"You bitc…" Yuri's mind wandered off to a blurry place, so much she didn't even notice that she was silently whispering out loud.

Before Yuri's fingertips could touch the door, it swung open, the humid air wanted to suck her in and forced Yuri to peel her eyes open a little bit further.

…

Near a decade of the same monotonous droning Yuri, this one morning, gazed upon a sight she never thought she would see.

Friday. At 9:02 AM.

"Ah. Good morning, Yuri-chan."

Near a decade of the same monotonous droning, every day that whispered a cloudy promise into her ear… Eversince that day when her life as a little girl, trapped in a world of captivity and pain. When I was young, an evil man took me away from my family and gave me witness a world of fear and helplessness. And I, Yuri Sakazaki, once freed from that darkness lived every single day since, every week, month and year in a boredom of everyday.

When did my life that was once filled with tears replace my racing heart with a droning monotony? Perhaps while I wake up every day in peaceful bliss, mayhaps, do I long to return to a time when I was trapped in a dark prison? Maybe that time, in that chair in that room, unlike now, even if I was wrapped in a chasm of uncertainty – it would be better than to be imprisoned HERE.

The door opened, and what welcomed her to heaven was a sight she never thought she would see for as long as she as alive.

"OHAYOU! Good morning Yuri-chan." King greeted with a cup of steaming hot coffee in her off hand.

"Ah."

It was 9 AM. The sun was still shining.

I never thought I would see this day …and King greeted Yuri. In what felt like a century too early for both of them.

"Oha… Ohayou, King-san." Yuri replied. Good morning.

Eh? Isn't it too early for you to be awake?

Chapter 68: Natural Enemies

The END of La Bizarre Love Pentagon – part 4 -

…

"King-san." Yuri cut in. "I don't have enough money to pay you back, but…" but let me repay you my own way. "Let me repay you…"

"I don't hire children, here." King said calmly to the baby girl. "Go home."

"WAIT!" Yuri called out before King could turn away. Yuri put both hands on the door keeping it from closing shut. "My dadd..y…" Yuri began but caught herself mid sentence. "No, Master told me. That ALL debts have to be repaid!"

…

Taken away from that scene lost in time, Yuri was jolted awake.

Has it been 10, 11 years since she decided to do this chore day after day? Before she could even touch it, the wooden doors of La Bijoux opened on its own without her intervention, and without her best intentions.

Near a decade of the same monotonous droning Yuri, this one morning, gazed upon a sight she never thought she would see.

"King-san, why are you up so earl…" Yuri…

"You stupid JERK! What makes you think that…"

"No, you are the idiot." Clark's voice interrupted Yuri as he cut Marie tersely.

Yuri, distracted from her initial thoughts looked over King's shoulder and saw Marie face to face with Clark almost ready to leap up and bite the skin off his face. "Just who do you think you are?! I've been doing this for YEARS!"

"You are an idiot and you must be deaf." The tone in Clark's cold voice did not change. "I will say it again," Clark said, "You've been fucking this up."

"What?" Marie sna…

"You are arrogant, you are inefficient, you are useless," Clark said stretching three fingers up, "You are ignorant, and frankly you an absolute waste of time." All five fingers of Clark's hand were now splayed wide.

"You fucking ASSHOLE!" Marie screeched, so piercing that her voice made the rest of the waitresses screech to the hold and roll back their shoulders, petrified. "How dare you…" Marie shouted. She paused, clenching both fists and trembling so violently she was about to burst into flames.

Marie's pinpoint eyes drilled holes into her enemy, the pressure built up so much, blood was about to ooze out her ears. She held herself back - almost as if she was winding up a punch, waiting for Clark to say something in response, it seemed, all so just so she could interrupt him.

"…ugh" Marie groaned. "Agh. Shut up, you ass you asshole!" She spat out frantically when Clark instead, remained frigidly silent trough her tantrum. "Go ahead! Tell me! Tell me what makes you better then me you piece of shit!?" Marie could not contain her rage anymore and pushed both hands on Clark's chest and followed up with a slap across his face.

"A." Yuri whispered. However, in a deep hidden glee of satisfaction – and just this once she imagined that Marie's hand was her own and Yuri relished in the delicious sensation of slapping that bastard Clark across the face. For once Yuri found herself standing behind that bitch, Marie.

Clark's right hand was on his glasses, keeping them from flying away. He made no motion to retaliate and simply adjusted his shades over the bridge of his nose. Clark turned around and calmly took a perch calmly on a chair behind him and put both open palms on the table in front. "Are you done?"

Clark's comment only served to make Marie fume even more.

"I will tell you. You give the girls menial tasks, and punish them for taking initiative. You scold them for helping others and doing things you don't tell them to," Clark tilted his head shrewdly, all the time keeping his hands defenseless on the table. "I don't think your small, small ignorant brain even realizes it's doing it on purpose does it? Everyone hates you, Marie, and because of you this place can't even function properly."

Marie took a step forward and roared "No, you…"

"YOU SHUT UP!" Clark's voice now boomed through their house, rattling everything round when he slammed both palms on the table in front of him. Marie felt her neck cut when her heart raced up into her throat. The tables had now been turned on her. "NOBODY made you 'manager' in La Bijoux, Marie. By simply being here you've crippled everyone unable to do ANYTHING just by you being here."

"A," Marie stammered. "I… you…"

Clark let out a labored sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and jabbing his index finger and thumbs into the edges of his eye sockets. The look on his face was a look of disgust, a twisted expression like he had swallowed sewage, and he was so very desperate to vomit it out the mouth. "Just leave."

The sound of Marie gulping down a hard mass in her throat was heard clearly for the world around them was dead silent. Trembling and alone, the gears in Marie's brain, rusted and unexercised finally broke from their atrophy and began to move. As they rotated and locked into place she felt a rancid disgusting feeling suddenly bubble from the pit of her stomach. The colours. The colours, red, blue, purple, black and green. Taken alone, was pretty and pleasing, however when each of these emotions slowly swirled into a miasma of chaos, left the mind with a vision of disgusting remain. …and even the bliss of ignorance could not save her from wanting to vomit the feelings of denial.

"No no no no!" Marie shrieked, waving her fists up and down. A different look was now plastered on her face. "King!" she turned to her boss. "I've worked for you for 5 years! Tell him he's wrong. KING!"

King scratched her temple frustrated and simply pulled back a chair and sat down. "I'm not going to get in between you and Clark," she said matter of factly. "I'm not going to get involved. You fight this alone."

{Wha.. what?} Yuri shrieked in her mind. {King-san. Wait… no this isn't supposed to…} Yuri looked at King, then to that son of a bitch, Clark.

Are you blind? This isn't how this is supposed to turn out. KING!

Marie's soul dropped to her ankles, and now the base of her spine felt cold and heavy. The silence was unbearable. Even with Clark's hands defensively placed on the table in front of him, she felt them wrap around her neck and submerge her drowning head in a dark swamp with no shred of mercy. DROWNING. Marie's eyes glared wide in that quagmire unable to breathe as Clark slowly killed her. "Hey. HEY!" Marie turned to the gallery of waitresses behind her, pleading, "He's LYING! He's LYING. TELL HIM!" Marie screamed.

However despite her feverish pleas, the young girls simply looked away and said nothing. HEY!

Amidst the quiet, one waitress took a brave step forward. "Marie…" Ophelia said…

Yuri and Mousse immediately turned their heads on their necks so fast to the side it almost broke off its hinges. After all these years, neither of the two recalled the timid Ophelia ever speak – so much they didn't even know what her voice even sounded like, but now…

"Marie. Clark is right. Please. Please… Just stop. Please, just GO AWAY!" Ophelia tensed her trembling fists by her side and screamed.

"Ophelia…" Marie stammered, taking a step back – a sharp dagger stabbed into her stomach. "Ophelia… I've… For 5 years… I've given up 5 years of my…"

"NO!" Nana steeped in between Ophelia, putting herself in between Ophelia and Marie. "She's right, we HATE you!" Nana punctuated everyone's thoughts with an outstretched index finger. "Just GO AWAY!"

"5 years…" Marie turned her head side to side, pleading, begging… Drowning in vomit so horribly she could not breathe, Marie desperately reached out, leaving claw marks in smooth concrete as she felt the last bit of life's breath ebb away.

But none of them would reach out their hands to save her. "She's right. Clark is right. We don't want you here, Marie."

The last cluster of bubbles left her mouth as Marie's body sank into the abyss - the evil quagmire replaced her red blood in her weak arteries with dark sludge.

…

Go to hell. All of you can go to hell!

Marie, her face flustered crimson and drenched in sobbing tears grabbed her gym bag and slammed the door behind her as she left this one last slice of heaven the last time.

{a.} Yuri droned out when the dark ceiling swirled around and threatened to kill her too.

When Yuri looked back into La Bijoux Clark pushed his shades up his nose and stood up. However, before he could turn and take his leave, a warm body threw itself onto his chest. Thank you.

{A.} Yuri cut all her thoughts. This one wonderful day, she would be presented with a miracle twice in her lifetime.

"Thank you. Thank you, Clark-san." Ophelia cried as she hugged him tightly – with all her might.

King grinned and sighed eyes closed.

Clark looked up and over the top of Ophelia's head to gaze face to face with Nana's reassuring smile. Thumbs up Nana wiped the tears that ran down her face with the back of her wrist. "You are…" Nana said, "you're AWESOME, Clark." She radiated a wide toothed grin.

Without an answer, Clark firmly gripped Ophelia's left shoulder with her right hand and patted her head with his off hand. Perhaps, if you believed, maybe someone, anyone, and, someone will one day save you… a God who would save you from death, if only you would relinquish your life to him. As men and women gave up their lives.

One by one, the troupe of waitresses, so moved by Ophelia's display couldn't help but wipe their faces with their aprons.

…

I will not be fooled.

Yuri Sakazaki could not even feel her friend, Mousse's arms wrap around her bicep as she trembled coldly in that dark void when each and every one – one by one the bulbs within La Bijoux's ceiling turned dark.

Her inheritance was the same miasma of colours that swirled in her gut. Yuri pulled her palm up to her face to keep the regurgitating agony from erupting from her mouth. You…

CLARK.

No… wait. What did you just do – in a final realization with shards of broken glass crunching in her gnashing mouth.

Yuri looked around at King, and the smiling waitresses around her, praising and laughing… and in their midst, the man Clark who had now saved them from a world of spiraling, killing HATRED.

Embedding themselves into her cheek, Yuri's fingers tore bloody pools into flesh in order to keep herself sane. I…

Yuri looked around at King, and the smiling waitresses around that skipped in glee and passed the edges of her vision, praising HIM and laughing… and in their midst, the man Clark who had now saved them from a world of HATRED.

"What have you done, you bastard…" Yuri murmured, and those around her were too deaf in their elation to even notice. "You…"

Clark… their tears were bright gleams of light that illuminated the once evil pool of darkness. These girls rushed to their savior despite Yuri's pleas for them to stop.

No. Do…

All of you – do not – do not be deceived by the darkness. {No.} Yuri Sakazaki stretched her hand out in vain as one by one the young women around her paid her no heed and ran past her in slow motion, each of their warm radiant glows served to brighten Clark's warmth.

"A." A. The essence of truth finally touched Yuri. As if like a vision.

You.

"You are evil. You are an EVIL man." Yuri said under her hushed breath.

And as one by one each of her friends rushed at her enemy, who saved them from a world of despair, Yuri realized clearly. YOU. I SEE what you've done. YOU. You are en evil man.

Clark gently stretched both his arms and returned Ophelia's warm gaze with his own, only to slowly, like seconds turned to minutes, as each gear in that rusty machine he looked up – up and over Ophelia's head that he towered over and locked those dark hidden eyes across the room at Yuri who now stood petrified.

Yuri looked out.

…and Clark's hidden pupils looked back fearlessly.

And

Had Yuri imagined it? Clark's face, once clam and stoic, the edges of his lips cocked to either side – slowly, one ratchet at a time like the hammers of two revolvers pulled aside stretching opposite ways the supple flesh on his cheeks - and sneered a seething evil grin, so bright that it served to engulf the sparkling lights around him.

Clark looked back at Yuri. With a sneering sinister EVIL grin.

Finality. In a final death snarl of defeat – all she could think of as she felt the dark black claws of the deep grab her arms drug her deep. "You. YOU! YOUUU!" Yuri's white eyes popped from her face when the black viscous goo, in shape of talons, wrapped themselves around her young face, yanked her head backwards and dragged her down.

You… You are an EVIL man. CLARK STEEL.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

CLARK STEEL.

I hate you… The remnants of Clark's smile kept her barely above water.

I hate you SO much… Rubbery black straps mummified Yuri's enraged face, just before her rancid vomit bubbled up from its edges, that HATRED pulled her down to her drowning doom.

Clark Steel.