The Colour Purple Chapter 80: Vive Sine Ulla Paenitentia, a king of fighters fanfic

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

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 2016]

"I will devote my ENTIRE life… To you." For-even mired in hatred, you give my life meaning.

1981. Three hundred sixty [and] 6 days after [that] bitter incident. The sun still rose.

"Haagh.. haaahgh…" Yamashita could no longer hide her labored breaths that misted the space in front of her mouth as she ran up the path from Yagami palace's first East gate, down that cobblestone road to the second gate, now open wide. The four ninjas who stood guard simply scratched their cheeks and yawned lethargically, feeding the fatigue from a night before. One of them waved her by and just looked idly outwards to the dark sky, wishing the dawn would crack and release them from their prison.

Just before the sunrise, the boy wondered why he was still awake, and what deeper meaning… this had for you and me? 20 years in the future – would he still remember it? The world – was inconsequential, if yesterday was the same as today.

Yamashita nodded, and in similar fashion had no reply. She swung her face left and right to throw off the sweat that had dribbled down her forehead and collected in the edge of her eyelids. She continued to move, sprinting down the path past the guards through the gate eventhough she felt the bones that sandwiched her knees grind against each other, and was sure that the muscles in her thighs and calves would burst at any given moment.

Yet she continued. A light and steady jog, her entire black shirt was already drenched with sweat and she could not even keep her mouth closed under her mask. "Haagh.. haaahgh… GAGHkkghk," she coughed rancid viscous phlegm that soiled the space under her mask as she was forced to swallow it again.

5 A.M. 1981. In Yagami palace. Each step lightly breaking the silence. A young woman, all of 21 years old, crossed the first Yagami palace gates with a large sack of rice on her back. The sack was easily 4 feet tall, and like the tragedy of Atlas, she had willfully punished herself by carrying that vengeful weight on her back, all the way from the outer Eastern gate, through the first gate, the second, third, and finally to its destination about a mile away into the center of the compound. Taxing her body to the limit, the joints on her fingers had become dry and locked frozen, her fingertips raw yet she carried that sack of rice on her back and continued to jog, without fear of her body collapsing, at a steady pace.

…because… even repeated a hundredfold, this punishment would not absolve me from sin… THAT ONE SCENE…haunted me. When silent, and we were all alone, it tormented all of us.

Because this meager act, was penance. It was a punishment for what we could not do.

…back then. Back then, and when we look back – the pangs of regret would tear us apart. Oh I wish I would have, I could have… And that was the most expensive thing in this short and rancid life. "It was you…" Because of you… wasn't it!? That he…?

Regret.

[Had I been much STRONGER.]

She took one step then another… Motto tsuyokereba no.

…and why, did a soft and tender woman? Why did she have to endure such painful and humiliating lengths by her own choosing? Had she chosen the other road, maybe things would have turned out differently, yet, these petty, languishing thoughts no longer had a place in her frozen, hard, concrete heart. For every time it BEAT, it was like glass shards filled her lungs.

[Had I been a little bit FASTER.] Motto hayakereba no.

Even if it hurt, she increased her pace…

and continued to swirl around, like a cyclone, ripping and shredding flesh, without her noticing it tore her apart from the inside. The woman had willfully replaced the REGRET in her chest, instead, she filled it lovingly with a tearful, rancid, PAIN. SO she ran. Until her mind had washed blank and she could feel nothing. This is why we RUN. We run so far away.

…

"An Idiot, and a fool." The now, Ninja Master named Makoto crossed his arms and looked down from a tall rooftop, said.

"That looks rather tedious," a voice mused from behind Makoto sighed.

Just by his superior's recent passing, Makoto had become a Ninja Master. All thanks to that traitor Masao. Makoto grunted and snarled a gurgle from his throat like he was to cough up a grudge, "Muscle women are so ugly." He said to his comrade.

The sweat and saliva had already completely covered Yamashita's uniform that her twisting muscles begun to show as the cloth dragged across her flesh, yet she continued to sprint forward, down that cobblestone road, past the second gate.

"What a waste." Ninja Master Makoto spat. "A fine woman has become an ugly beast now. She should have chosen to be a slave if she wanted to cross those gates so much…"

"Haagh…" Like the slow treads of an armoured tank Yamashita could barely put one foot in front of the other and it was only her stark white mind that was able to make her forget the pain and fear to keep her body moving, one step at a time.

"Perhaps she feels this is penance for what she did to us that one night, Makoto?" He said.

Every Tuesday, without anyone forcing her to do so, she stood by the East gate at 4 A.M. in the morning and greeted the large delivery truck filled with a cargo of rice that would feed the palace. "Ridiculous. She does not care about us. She is just an ugl…"

Makoto held his thoughts - immediately swerved his body and looked over his shoulders to the rooftop behind him. However, there was no one there.

By the alleyway beneath Master Makoto, two buildings away, a young boy's toes touched the ground, the [boy], probably 10 years of age crossed his arms over each other and looked out to the world around him that was still at a fleeting twilight of darkness.

"Had trouble sleeping, 1." A brass spectacled ninja boy put his open palm over his masked mouth then stretched out his arms wide.

"Sempai. Respect your elders." The boy in front of him said crassly, leaning on the concrete wall by his side. "I will not reply to you unless you call me 1-sempai, 3" 1 addressed the younger boy behind him without even turning around.

"But you just did, did you not, 1-sempai?" The boy who would one day be known as [3] dug his fingers into the edges of his eyes to knock off the crusty grime from the night before.

"Just die, 3. Just die." 1 huffed as scratched the side of his lip and straightened his purple ninja mask.

…

"Thank you, Captain Yamashita." A pot bellied middle aged man said as he yawned and scratched the space between his man-breasts. "You know…"

[But MORESO…]

Yamashita paid no heed to the despicable man and twisted her body over to drop the bag of rice on the pile of other bags in front of the storehouse after the finality of her one-mile journey. She turned around and was about to make her leave.

"You know, you can just use the truck and drive the rice over, you know that right, Captain?

No response.

"Captai…"

[IF I, had I not WAVERED…] If... If I had not… I stammered that late night all-alone.

"Shut up." Was her reply that bubbled up from the viscous goo from her throat when she pulled up her cloth mask with her index finger and spat out onto the ground. She hunched forward and ran back out to the gates from which she came.

I was so lonely. I was so very… yet I…

[Had I not held myself back and instead fearlessly spanned that large and wide canyon.]

The man wheezed a sigh and just wobbled over to the sack that Yamashita had left behind. He put both hands on its corners and tried to pull back but he was unable to budge the full sack of rice. He pulled back, once and again, and even when he teetered on the balls of his feet, the mass refused to move until finally his heels skidded, his fingertips slipped and he found himself toppled on his back to the sandy ground.

As if to mock him, the large sack of rice remained in place almost bolted to the ground from where Ninja Captain Yamashita left it. The man looked it up and down. Maybe 4 feet tall and a width, a third its height. He was utterly bewildered as to how much it weighed – so much that he could not even move it. "Just how heavy is this thing?" He stammered.

"50 Kilograms." 1 said unconsciously, answering even though at a half a mile away, he knew that old coot could not hear him.

[A Captain of children,] who would one day fight for her.

[If not for HIM. Perhaps… You would STILL be alive.] My beloved master…

"Exactly 110.23 pounds." 3 pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose immediately calculating without fear of maths at lightning speed. "74% of the Captain's bodyweight."

…I will devote my ENTIRE life to you.

She pretended not to feel it, she grit her teeth and you and I would not be able to tell the difference between the moist, salty streams of water that came from the edges of her eyes from the sweat that sheeted down the front of her face from her forehead.

Every day and… every night.

…and with every morning… I Devote my life to your [destruction]…

Yamashita breathed out, then in. Down that road, and back to that first gate she knew so well – she knew and burned an image in her mind. It was perhaps a penance, and a willful desire that blocked the demons from her mind. Her body, this last 12 months had grown hard, brittle and even so much bitter – but, not as bitter as the heart that pumped the same blood through her body every single day.

For that one night, she understood – that one thing that she could not do.

[It was because of you EIJI. EIJI KISARAGI.] She committed the name to memory, burned it in the insides of her skull, so the bloody streaks cut by a knife would never ever heal.

Encased it in concrete. Steeled herself so she would never forget, that name. EIJI.

We were so weak, so very petty and weak. …and no matter of suffering could atone for this all – could it? From a slow pace, Yamashita breathed in and exploded into a full sprint back to the Easternmost gate of Yagami palace.

"It was because of you." Yes. You.

"This is ridiculous!" The old fart said with his ass on the ground and his trembling arms locked at the elbows keeping his upper body upright. "This is…"

The camera of the world. The eye of the world – like the camera of a movie swirled around his body – round and round 720 degrees around the man before it launched up into the sky – and under it was that middle aged overweight man, in a white tattered tank top looking around. Around him was not simply one, two or six, but around him were nineteen, 110 pound bags of rice littered about just steps from the brick storehouse.

"Two thousand, and, two hundred pounds." 1 uttered longingly. Up to the horizon as the sun was about to rise. "It is almost 6 A.M., 6. We cannot be late."

"Yes 1."

"1-sempai." Respect your elders, 3, 1 reminded once again. He ran. He ran so far away.

Such a great burden you bear. When? When will it come home? When you cross these gates?

When we could no longer take it – and we had to blame someone else.

Since 1981.

"I will devote my life…" She bit her lower lip from her mask as the emotions started to bubble from the sides of her eyes.

I WILL DEVOTE MY ENTIRE LIFE TO DESTROY YOU.

…

"Haaghh…" [A] young boy breathed out as the sun was sure to rise – finally… "I can go home." The dark night sky was about to end. I can still remember that night. The snow came as quickly as it left. Even 20 long years later I still recall it vividly. It had no meaning.

Your life and my life, our lives, would still be ruled by a king of pain.

…

You. EIJI KISARAGI.

A pride that drives US masked villains over the simple woes of mortal men.

BECAUSE, if we let these cloth masks fly free…

I now exist, ONLY to destroy you.

…then EVERYTHING would surely, and suddenly, lose its meaning.

Chapter 80: Vive Sine Ulla Paenitentia.

We. We made a wish long ago. But we made it too long ago.

The meaning was [fighting].

A Sequence of Uneventful Mornings, part 14.

The meaning of my life – was to fight. Fight, it did not matter who the enemy was.

…one over the other, each foot hit the ground after the other. 1980.

I AM HERE. One footstep. I hear your scream. Each of her footsteps beat so feverishly. One after the other. I am here. "I am here!" The salty tears now ran down the side of the ninja girl's cheeks. "MASTER!"

The camera that recorded the passing of time swerved skywards then looked down – watching her run from a bird's eye view, then it dove Earthwards and revolved round and round her body only to finally focus on her stoic, hardened, ruthless face.

…

The meaning… of fighting. 12 months before. Yes. We lived a life without…

…regrets.