The Colour Purple Chapter 70: a Monster, 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]

KARMA HAS A PLAN, FOR EVERYONE the colour purple

The realization just came to me now. It seems that it finally revealed itself to me after 20 long years. Of the things I did wrong, and the people I made sad. Indeed, I believe that KARMA has a plan for everyone. As the result of my actions, my punishment, was to live a life of loneliness.

These two words, are both four-letter words; A story for people who are trapped in the past.

This is a story of girls who wanted to achieve greatness, and boys who could never find peace.

At long last, I finally realize now... that Karma has a plan, for everyone.

…

Listen to a tired, aching, old man. Before we die, make plans to apologize to everyone you had wronged in your lifetime. Only then, can you find true peace.

…

"Hey. Don't you know…" the little blonde haired boy said, "That the only way to stop WAR – is…" He sneered with that evil, triangled, fang toothed smile that, as though both his cheeks were slit cleanly with a knife, spanned literally ear to ear, "The only way to stop war, and for all the children in the world to stop fighting is simply…" I can finally SEE you, now.

Is. For just ONE – for just one lonely girl to become the strongest KING of fighters.

…and simply render FIGHTING against each other, useless and utterly futile.

"Isn't that right?" He giggled.

Clarkie.

"Will you help me? Let us END all war." His smile, so sinister and hungry, spanned ear to ear just as he had recalled it, just as lucidly clear as 16 years ago when Clark first laid eyes on it.

The END of La Bizarre Love Pentagon – part 6 –

…

{Why doesn't anyone else see?} Yuri grit her teeth over her lower lip. {That you…}

That you are the DEVIL?! Clark Steel.

…

"Tu que passas e ergues para mim o teu braço,
Antes que me faças mal. Olha me bem.
Eu sou o calor do the…teu lar naa… nas noite…"

I am the heat of your home… your home… in… in… col… cold winter nights…

Lately, the days seemed to blur together. Yuri could no longer distinguish one afternoon from the next. Surely Mousse would probably ask her if she was okay after she stormed out of La Bijoux yesterday after an episode nausea in the bathroom.

Yuri stopped when she reached the other side of the street mumbling words in a foreign language she cared nothing for right now. "Augh." Yuri groaned when she reached into her pocket and pressed the short but wide button on the cassette recorder she kept in her pocket.

Pushing rewind – until it stopped – Yuri started once over. Memorization was a tedious and such futile a skill. "Ahhhh…" Yuri droned. "Tu que passes e ergues…" she said again in Portuguese after she clicked down the red record button and pushed that, by today's standards, was an obsolete machine into her jacket.

You that pass and raise your arm to me,

Before you hurt me, look at me well…

Before she knew it she had found herself once gain face to face with that door that made her throat tie itself into knots. It was for her, a sequence of uneventful mornings too. Yuri turned the knob with her hand and pushed open the door.

Despite the mid day bright sun, what welcomed her was a familiar sight of a dark hell. All the lights were off. And at the end of that horrible tunnel was no one else but the devil sitting by himself at the far end of the dark hall. Yuri never questioned its peculiarity but Clark always sat in that stool by the bar. His chin nestled calmly over the back of his interwoven fingers – staring out at nothing, sitting in the darkness even when his eyes were hidden under those peculiar Ray-Ban shades that were so popular in the late 1980s.

Wordless, Clark woke from his slumber and slowly, gingerly his head swiveled on his neck, looking to the side without a care. He said nothing, and in response Yuri bit her lip in a cold snarl.

"Tu que passas, olha-me bem e não faças mal." She recited in a broken accent.

You that pass, look at me well and do no harm. Yuri skipped to the ending.

…

Battle not with monsters;

L'est ye become a Monster.

…and, if you stare upon the abyss;

Does not the abyss, stare also unto, you?

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche

(1995-2015)

…

"Hey, Clark." Yuri said. She kept her tone calm and collected eventhough deep inside she knew that she wanted to roar, jump up and drive her fingers into that man's eyes. "Goo..." She said. "Good morning, Clark."

"Good afternoon, Yuri." He replied still trapped and unwilling to break away his vision from that one spot from the WALL in front of him.

THAT WALL.

"Where is everyone?" Yuri asked.

"You just missed them." Clark answered. "King took the girls out shopping.

The sour taste bubbled up from Yuri's stomach and laced her mouth. How long had it been since she held it back. She wanted to ask him, point blank, she wanted to punch him right in the face for no good reason but to sate the raging anger that made her fingers cold and made her heart beat feverishly.

All this small talk was meaningless, Yuri wanted to vomit again. Then she slowly realized as she stood in silence at a quiet stalemate with that man. It was a familiar feeling that held her back – a weakness, a feeling of helplessness, wishing that someone would save her. But King was now crippled, and Robert was now broken. No one would save her now.

…and that thought absolutely DISGUSTED Yuri.

…

in 1986. I did not realize it back then - Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda in Japan on the FamiCom. In 1986, the People Power Revolution pushes to dethrone Ferdinand Marcos.

That time – the specific day I have forgotten now – yet, distinctly, I still clearly recall my father telling me as I wanted to walk outside. When I put my hand on the dirty screen door front of me. "What are you doing? Don't you know we are AT WAR?" My father said, slamming that screen door shut.

Daddy?

"Master." Yuri, 9 years old said.

"Yuri-chan." Takuma replied in mid breath when he twisted his left arm up and over his weak side, mimicking a block then immediately following through with a quick right cross mid-height in a robotic karate kata. "Yes?"

It was two years since the 'SouthTown incident'. This time, Yuri Sakazaki recalled she was only 9 years old. Yuri sat on her bottom at the other end of the stinky dojo. A wide room lined with woven, curled hemp rope that covered the walls and floor with that familiar fire retardant chemical – that what Yuri had already grown so accustomed to, it did not matter and did not stall her pace as she talked. Yuri covered her left leg with her right crossed over in an Indian sit behind her father.

"Uhm… can I ask you something, Master?" she asked her father.

"What is it?" Takuma punched his right fist forward twice, low then quickly high to the chin, rolled is upper body to the left and followed through with a left uppercut.

"You know. With Miss King. And how I work for her."

"Yes."

"Master," she said again cautiously and purposely as her father instructed – he never wanted to be called 'Dad'. "I don't know what to do – she's kind of…" Yuri droned, carefully measuring her words. "She's NOT very nice. I'm kind of…"

"Yes?"

"I'm kind of afraid of her, Master."

I do not profess to understand everything, and sometimes men stay silent just because that is what they were conditioned to do. Has it been? Has it been 9 years? It felt like all of a century now since then…? How I sometimes wish… not a day goes by that I deeply wished she was still here but in days like these…?

"What's the problem, Yuri-chan?" Takuma replied as affectionately as he could but still did not break from his concrete concentration in his clockwork practice of Kyokugen Karate.

"I'm kind of afraid of, King." Yuri said as she bobbed back and forth on the tip of the bottom of her spine that teetered on the ground. "I mean, I know that she's like, like, you know…"

"Is she…"

"I mean I don't think King is a bad person and all, I mean I think she's my friend…" Yuri was quick to rush up and say before her father could say anything edgewise. "…and even Robert too! She…" Yuri chattered at a breakneck fully automatic fire.

"…" Takuma knew better and silently continued the rhetorical dance he started, obediently listening to his daughter. At times like this, I know… I know that.

"I kind of like… like… want King to be nice to me and all, you know…" Yuri droned out, likely, without her knowing. "I mean I am nice to her and all, what do you think if she…

The words from his daughter's lips seemed to continue on its own – and if he did not intervene, it would likely go on forever. Oh. On days like this. "Haugh!" Takuma launched a right kick slicing diagonally upward right under a left block into his imaginary enemy's chin.

On days like this, I especially wish that you were still with me, my dear wife.

He had lost track a while back – but he would never admit it. Following through Takuma twisted around and landed from his kick with both sets of toes and put both hands up and in front of his face. "Haahghh…"

There is never a day that passes that I do not miss your mother. "Yuri-chan." He said unconsciously as he exhaled slowly to end his kata. This much I know – I could never understand women. It is days like this that I wish even MORE that your mother was still with us. Because, eventhough – despite my best efforts, I don't know if I alone, can set you at peace.

"Yuri-chan." Takuma coughed and wiped his brow with a towel with his right hand. "I can't keep up with you… Come up and do the next kata with me and say that again to me?"

"Agh!" Yuri screeched, "MmmmMOU!" she puffed, propping her hands, elbows bent and palms on her knees . "Master!" She said absolutely – and positively – frustrated.

Takuma grinned "What?" Say that again – but I want your elbows up. He grinned.

…

Yuri punched up with her left hand – jabbed once, POW!, then, like clockwork, stopped, stepped back then forward to feint then jabbed again, POW!, only to swerve her right fist over her body and into her father's waiting block as predetermined, and as her fist contacted its target again, Yuri let out a hard exhale, a silent impact echoed in their minds as Yuri unleashed KOU KEN, a dense superhuman gravity attack that warped the space in front of Yuri's knuckles in a manner so perplexing, further augmenting her punch, just as men would fly – and walk over water - creating mass where there was once none.

GOD created, man. But, Kyokugen made them equal. This, Takuma always said.

…and my father said many things, Yuri smiled.

Takuma continued their kata but as he was fighting against a 9-year-old girl, made sure to limit his attacks to roughly 25% power. "Keep on using Kouken," Takuma instructed. "But pace yourself, we have a long ways to go, Yuri-chan."

A fundamental principle of Kyokugen Karate, and a cornerstone skill was Kouken. Even if she was merely a meek 9 year old girl, in exchange, bound by certain rules Yuri admittedly did not fully understand, her rigorous training the past 2 years gave her the ability to create an attack that would augment her punch, her normal punch that normally could be, at most 2 pounds force – could explode into a wrecking ball of a maximum of ten times, of about 20 pounds by manipulating the gravity around her body.

Just the moment before her knuckles connected with her father's block, she commanded a small explosion erupt in between their flesh, and as she requested, [it] obeyed, and that her father felt, yet blocked proudly.

"Is it me?" Yuri spoke slower now panting between breaths as she continued her monotonous fighting pace – Kouken obviously taking its toll on her stamina. "What did I do to make King hate me?" Yuri said when she kicked her right leg forward, only for Takuma to follow through with Kyokugen's predetermined path to cut his shin into her thigh to numb the blow. Blocking her punch with his left palm, Takuma attacked with the right softly so that his daughter could easily, in fashion, push down with her left arm to block his counterattack and push his body and her own back. Similar to talking when jogging a marathon, friends would measure their words and only say things of utter importance in order to save breath. Then – despite all that Yuri, so fresh and full of youth could not help but keep on going.

A slow choreographed action Yuri leapt forward just as soon as she jumped back and put her left hand over Takuma's right shoulder who had hunched down to accommodate the difference in height. Takuma put his hand over her wrists and put his left arm folded chicken wing over his chest in ample time before Yuri could twist on her toes to steady herself.

ONE.

THEN two.

Yuri, as she had practiced so many months now transferred her left hand from her father's shoulder into the back of his neck and pulled him down with all her weight. ONE then TWO – Yuri rammed her right knee into her his midsection so casually like you and I would walk up and pick up a cup of coffee. "Hagh… haugh…" Yuri panted. "Do you… think there's something I can do to make King like me?"

Measured and intentional. Even if you aren't here with us now – my dear. I still find peace when we could communicate this way. "Knee. Knee," Takuma instructed. I can hear you. I can hear you so clearly now.

I don't think…

"Yuri." Takuma said. "I'm sorry. Let me tell you…" Takuma said just when he was sure that his daughter had totally run out of breath and couldn't say a word edgewise, "Let me tell you – while there are deceitful people who could do that – most people really can't force a person to LIKE them."

…

Enough. ENOUGH! I can't take this anymore. I know – I know no one can save me anymore. I don't want to go back to that time when I was so afraid to die. I DON'T WANT TO BE AFRAID ANYMORE.

You can't take it away. I won't let you take this away from us.

Perhaps, this one day when Yuri and Clark were trapped alone in this dark, cold kingdom was a sign, a chance to END this stalemate once and for all. Gritting her teeth the girl, a girl who wanted to end all war, even at the expense of her own dignity jabbed her fingertips deep into her palm when they curled into trembling fists. "Hey.. Clar… Clark." She said. "Do you… Tell me…"

Tell me truthfully…

I won't let you take away the world Robert, King and I tried so HARD to build.

"Do you… do you?" she said, unknowing and unsure she did not know what she would do if the man said 'yes' or if he said 'no'. "Do you…?"

Tell me.

Chapter 70: a Monster

"Do you really, love, King?" Yuri inflected every word firmly with assiduous care.

Is.

Destroying our lives worth it? – do you really believe all your actions are justified?

…

He who fights with MONSTERS, should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

…

Clark tucked his index and middle finger under the bridge of his nose and into the edges of his eyes. Hiding behind the sanctity of the fortress of those sunglasses, he dislodged the hard concrete that had developed like buttresses in his brain.

"No."

"No?" Yuri repeated, stunned.

"I don't love King." He repeated so plainly.

…

Isn't it obvious, Clark sneered as he sat up from his slumber. "I do not love King." I do this simply to cause you pain. "And… and what will you do about it?"

…

and so, what could have been five chapters of long winded indiscriminate text came to and a screeching halt as Clark laid it all plain to see.

"Then why. WHY?!" Yuri said. "Hey, what? What?" She repeated over and over, waving her arms up and down frantically. "She," Yuri reasoned with him. "If you don't love King, don't you think that…"

"SHUT UP!" Clark shouted.

"A."

Clark roared with his lips in the clawed hand of his L shaped left arm that covered the front of his body. "I'm doing this just so you realize."

TO free you. I do this. So you can see just how petty your FIGHTING is.

…

"If… if you don't …" Yuri took two steps in that empty room that housed only both of them in this sinisterly peculiar afternoon. "Why?" She asked. "WHY?!" Yuri could no longer hold herself back – and her body that had held all her emotions finally came unchained – despite her greatest efforts – like wild beast held back only by rusted steel chains hunched forward with her trembling right fist cocked. With boiling blood about to burst at her seams, she so desperately wanted to punch and mangle, lacerate and destroy that sneer from across Clark's face in front of her. Clark came alive and in an instant swiveled on his barstool and lunged forward with both shoulders.

The chains pulled taut and pulled Yuri back, reeling her back with a step and two in retreat. Yuri's mind took control once again and held that instantaneous rage from that beast at bay. In a split second her bravery came crumpling down into the base of her back and she put both fists up in the defense now. Instead of attacking, she did the opposite, swung them back, both hand open wide and instinctively launched her defenseless face forward. "OKAY DO IT!" She goaded Clark venomously. "Come on! If you even so much as TOUCH me, my broth…"

"THEN WHAT!?" Clark's voice boomed and burst into animation. "THEN WHAT!?" Clark mimicked Yuri's move and pulled his hands back, puffing his chest, mimicking Yuri's roaring bravado – reeling back the same beast that was about to erupt from his chest like burning, overflowing magma now. Clark took in a deep breath to calm and steady himself. Clark was usually reserved, quiet - he seemed to simply not give a damn. The indifferent, nonchalant face that everyone saw, the façade had suddenly broken down as an instinctive response to the declaration of WAR, Clark's heart pumped so feverishly he could very much feel red blood streak out his ears.

…

How dare you? How DARE you?! HOW DARE YOU!

She. [She] would never, she would NEVER do THAT.

"That." Clark muttered, the rancid, disgusting sludge seeped from the edge of his mouth. Disgust, sorrow and then unbridled rage. All these emotions flashed over Clark's face like a kaleidoscope in a manner of an instant.

…

…and then, when it is dark, in places like this, I begin to wonder to myself, and ask – just where exactly did I falter and just where did I go wrong?

…

I don't think…

"Yuri." Takuma said. "I'm sorry. Let me tell you…" Takuma said just when he was sure that his daughter had totally run out of breath and couldn't say a word in edgewise, "Let me tell you – while there are deceitful people who could do that – most people really can't force someone else to LIKE them."

Yuri pushed his father back again separating their bodies after her dual knee smashes.

In response Yuri leapt forward, when she finally caught her breath she repeated. "I'm really scared of Miss King, Master."

Takuma's nonchalant face slowly melted into a grin. "Really?" He asked. "Are you so afraid?" He continued. "Even more afraid than when Mr. Big kidnapped you?" The next attack Takuma swung a slow left hook into Yuri's temple in a manner she could easily block.

Yuri stopped. She did not notice it at first but suddenly, dark, black barbed wire chains erupted from the ground and wrapped themselves around her small legs and up onto her torso – her eyes glazed open wide, she blinked and now her pupils were pinpoints, swimming lost in a pool of white in her eyes. Petrified in a frigid cold, her arms slowly, lethargically drifted down.

Before she knew it she found herself in a horrid, yet familiar place. A dark room sitting in a chair, her legs had grown cold and numb from hours upon days of stillness. That door in front of her – she did not know if it was even locked, yet her own fear imprisoned her [there].

There was no greater fear as she sat in that dark room, a fate worse than death, Yuri recalled that chasm that made her stop breathing. In a prison taken apart from and lost in time.

Takuma's slow fist was millimeters from contacting Yuri's temple yet she could not move.

No. Please. Don't take me here again.

…

Yuri took a step back and mayhaps regretted her sudden uncontrolled outburst. As she stumbled back to steady the rapid beat in her heart, Clark in similar fashion calmly put both hands on the bar table to rapidly calm himself. He breathed forcefully out his mouth to calm himself when he imagined red blood drip down his ears and the sides of his neck.

Reaching over the edge of the open bar Clark leaned and pulled over his head a familiar red object. Clark slammed IT over the wood countertop and pushed it forward in between Yuri and himself. "Call him!"

"Hah?" Yuri said perplexed.

"CALL HIM!" Clark roared, putting a red, corded telephone between him and the girl. His hands clawed over the plastic handset like vice grip jaws wanting to destroy it. "I know who you are. Yuri Sakazaki, of Kyokugen Karate. Call your brother, Ryosuke Sakazaki – the mad dog of SouthTown then. RIGHT NOW. I do not care. I will fight him HERE and NOW!"

Yuri extremities grew cold as she realized there and then what, that, despite her best efforts, what she tried to conceal had now erupted up to the edge of a cliff she could never walk back from.

"Are you going to hide behind your brother? You disgust me." Clark snarled. "SHE would never do something like that." I am sick – and I am tired of YOUR kind. "I am sick of people like you…" People like you who hide behind a rancid double standard.

"A."

"CALL HIM!" I do not care.

Women like you disgust me – thinking yourself so great you want to fight like a man, so brave to punch, kick and hit men you hate, yet… Yet you hide behind a wall when taken to task. SHE would NEVER do such a thing.

…

The woman I knew, was the greatest King of Fighters.

But because… Because of people like you – SHE became THIS way…

"You. You are a cancer." Clark finally said.

YOU ALL, ARE… A CANCER. A fucking… killing… CANCER.

…

You are a devil, and you have revealed a demon that was locked deep inside me too.

…

"Yuri-chan?" Mousse turned round when her friend bumped and rushed past her, but was unable to chase after Yuri with her hands full of groceries. In similar fashion the other girls didn't notice until it was too late and Yuri had already sped away beyond the reach of their voices.

"Clark." King laid down a box of bottled liquor, unsure of what to do next.

"Mr. Clark." Mousse asked. "Is Yuri okay? She was feeling bad yesterday too."

"She had to go home again." Clark said blandly. He grabbed three full grocery bags with one hand and heaved the 12 pack of bottles and put it over his opposite shoulder.

…

The woman I knew, was the greatest King of Fighters.

But because… Because of people like you – SHE became THIS way…

"You. You are a cancer." Clark finally said.

YOU ALL, ARE… A CANCER. A fucking… killing… CANCER.

…

You've mocked my happiness. You've crippled my friend. You've destroyed my savior.

That thing was content in the other side. We were all so happy the way we were.

The five sides of that bizarre pentagon drew tight and festered into a finality that was too disgusting to ignore any further. If you gaze into the abyss…

I had forgotten that THING. It was lost and forgotten in a memory – it was imprisoned by fear, and it was content, yet now... Does not the abyss… You are a devil, but now, you have set free a MONSTER that was locked deep inside me too.

Clark Steel.

Does not it stare unto you too?

…

MONSTER.

…