The Colour Purple Chapter 97: Shiki, 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 2016]

"A sight fit for a Prin-cess..." The sweet cadence of her words caught between question and statement. Mocking, yet envying the time that had long passed, and left her in this world all alone for the dead had been already set free.

…

"Haaagh." Yamashita pulled her mask up after washing her face to rip off the oily grime that had accumulated earlier that sweaty morning. For certain her frustration from earlier before did not help to calm her mood. The ninja captain walked out the bathroom, into the kitchen and made her way to the large two-compartment sink.

"Slave." Yamashita said tersely. No reply. "SLAVE!" She called out again, this time looking out left and right in frustration. The captain looked over to the side into the living room, and there was Eiji still glued to that flashing box like a zombie. Absolutely oblivious and indifferent to what was going on.

With her left arm in a sling she was unable to brace herself as she leaned over with her one good hand, but still she heaved the sliding window open with just her weight in awkward fashion.

"SsssLAVE!" She snarled loudly, pushing herself up.

All the things she took for granted before today came to materialize when she leaned over with just her right arm to brace herself and pushed her body up with just one hand over the counter. It was, in essence, a one-handed 'dip', and would have been absolutely difficult for anyone else, but a woman of her incredible physical stature was still able to sling her right foot over the marble counter to make her way out the window despite her center of mass being ever so off balance.

"Ugh." Yamashita grunted, but gave in half way when the pain of her left arm shot up her spine and pierced her brain. Exhaling forcefully and steadying both feet on the ground, she reconsidered her course of action. Interrupting her mid-thought, she heard a faint voice, barely audible and served to only annoy her.

Yamashita twisted her face over to the side and the sliding door beside the counter was wide open, the welcoming breeze now from outside pushed the curtains wildly inside. A familiar voice resonated repeatedly in the back of her head. She finally gave in and instead of her original plan – despite her frustrated expression hidden under her mask, went for the easier path of egress out the glass sliding door.

Yamashita-sama.

Absolutely infuriated, which was not entirely uncommon with the ninja captain, Yamashita brushed the off-white curtain that wailed violently in the air, refusing to answer, with her one good arm and walked outside to meet the welcome breeze that immediately broke the humid climate earlier.

Captain Yamashita.

The quiet voice once again made its way into Yamashita's ears, barely audible and absolutely drove her insane. Her twisting emotions refused to acknowledge it even though she wanted for it to just stop.

Pages of words – tabulated and strung one next to each other, yet nothing... It frustrated her how these lonely days seemed to drag on like chapters where nothing of consequence ever happened. Wanting to see it to the end, all heroes had to endure the silent and frustrating moments in between. And we; as we followed in tow could do nothing else but think, and wonder, if we endured the silent and boring moments in between – would we, be, rewarded?

"Agh!" Yamashita cried out, instinctively putting her right hand over her face as the sun blinded her. She looked away, walking forward with her face sideways towards the sound, hoping that all this agony would just stop.

So we could be free. We had to endure it. One day.

After a short minute or two she was able to make her way to a place where she could clearly hear the slave girl's voice without the annoying strain in her brain to parse the words.

"Captain Yamashita! Over here, please!" Ojyou's voice, now clear and crisp, greeted in glee, yet the captain was still unable to see with the sun behind the slave and searing her eyes.

[LIFE] WAS FILLED WITH SUCH IMMEASURABLE PAIN. But, is it fathomable, that eventually, we, would find solace in the boring refrains in between these moments.

"Slave…" Yamashita grunted, walking forward, obviously her slung left arm had taken its toll, confusing her mind and made her walk off balance. Her left and then her right foot creasing the moistened dewdropped grass and feeling every sensation through her thinly weathered, woven tabi ninja boots.

One, two, three and four… five and six steps one after the other – LIFE WAS A [TEST] BUILT UPON SUFFERING - steps we made with purpose, yet took for granted as we passed the time – when we wasted every day. She was not so sure what she thought in her mind then and why she even bothered to walk a short trek through the grassy path to the place she found herself in now, but, perhaps, one day… when the world was calm and peaceful again, When the pains that plagued us so savagely in our youth would become so inconsequential in our old age – we would look back at this day with a stinging feeling of nostalgia.

We took for granted every day that was gifted to us by God, because we were ALL ARROGANT and we had thought we were above it all. Our reward would be sadness, and it would be death. And all we could do is softly watch. JUST as did, a fighter's wife had done.

The burning bright sun turned her vision into a pure white, and unable to resist, Yamashita turned her face to escape the blinding glare yet she continued to walk defiantly forward. That was who she was.

We would endure a mind numbing story of a woman who walked aimlessly, so that one day… we…

Into an equally blinding brightness we continued to walk… so we could free ourselves from darkness like she did. Then.

Yamashita pulled her right hand down in sync with the beams of the sun that had shown her mercy finally and turned to the wayside. Her vision returning, the captain now found herself on a pathway, away from the house that imprisoned them all in a pitiful existence of mediocrity, now, to a grassy plateau that overlooked a tall cliff over the water.

"Slave."

A welcome wonder it was to behold. When the cool breeze brushed her face through the mask of the Yagami Captain. …and one day, may we remember this moment, with a fiery, blazing, raging, seething anger – the kind of sensation that would force us to gouge our eyeballs and tear our faces - yet wrapped with a melancholy of peace – as we realized how that the God we worshipped had, instead, cheated us when he gifted us with freedom.

…a pensive sadness, with simply, absolutely, no obvious cause.

"Yamashita Taichyou." The answer to Yamashita's twisted scowl was Ojyou's innocently plain face and curling smile that was as calming as the welcoming cool breeze. "Welcome. Captain Yamashita." Eventhough the captain was ready to rip the slave girl's face right off – the young girl beamed back with a full toothed grin excited in mid bow. "Yam…"

Captain Yam… cha… She whispered pensively yet… fearlessly.

"A," from a tight focus, Yamashita's gaze darted back when the rectangular freeze frame of the video camera that showed us the ways of the world rocketed up and backwards, skywards spinning around the two women, in this silent place of green peace, this lonely place up from heaven – for all of us to see. A picture perfect scene saved just for us to enjoy.

Minutes from the house, was a crisp green grassy cliff, with absolutely nothing around to impede the imagination – at the very edge, overlooking the clear blue bay was a solidary wooden chair taken out of context next to a short wooden table, a single pair of scissors on top of it.

A comb tucked in her left hand. Ojyou rolled a white cloth sheet over her arms and bowed low, reflecting instead an expression nothing less of a happiness.

"Taichyou," she smiled warmly. Ojyou's eyes were thin slits and her mouth was a radiating smile that had waited days and even weeks for this one day. We welcomed you – here – to this day. Forget, for we are in heaven now... Everything fades to a white nothing sunlight.

Captain.

For here. Nothing may touch us.

…

Chapter 96: Shiki.

Shishou. Master Masao. I wanted to show you how much I had grown since you left me.

A MAN can never completely understand a WOMAN. They existed in two worlds separate from each other where their logic and their definition of "right" and "lies" absolutely conflicted with each other. This chaos was what made the world turn. [Conflict], the push and pull of opposing forces, was what made the world exist.

And though the clouds – those things – that block our clear vision of the heavens would separate us, may you feel this punch in heaven, as a gift, and a proper farewell that I was too late to be able to give you before your passing.

…and when we reach the end of this story – may we be reunited, and the past sins we shared be forgotten; with prejudice.

…

"A!" Yamashita felt a jolt shock run down her spine as it rattled her awake from a frightfully cold nightmare. From the aftershock her entire body trembled uncontrollably, and just in time she caught herself from falling off the wooden chair she sat in just as she gained consciousness. She pulled her left arm in and doubled over when the searing pain tore her insides with a rusty corkscrewing blade. The pain reminded her that her left arm was in a hard plaster cast, and it would be best if she refrained from any further reckless movement.

"Are you okay, Madam?" A girl's voice asked.

"I…" Yamashita breathed out slowly, inhaling purposely through her teeth to seethe the pain away. "I… I am… fine." She cut tersely.

Yamashita forced herself to breathe in through her nose, looking upwards – to take her mind away from the pain in her broken, obliterated left arm and the swelling, numb sections of her face.

After a few moments of silence, like the sensation one would feel when you woke up with an extremely painful cramp in your leg, the pain slowly subsided, leaving Yamashita with a thankful sense of glee amidst the cold sweat that beaded her brow.

Yamashita sat peacefully in a wooden chair, looking outwards into the calm water of the blue bay in front of her. It was a beautiful sight. The water seemed to go on forever, the peaceful waves pulled her mind in tenderly. "A sight fit for a Prin-cess..." The sweet cadence of her words caught between question and statement. Mocking, yet envying the time that had long passed, and left her in this world alone as the dead had been already set free. "What day is it… today?"

"It is Sunday, Captain Yamashita."

"Oh. I see… Ofcourse." The captain sighed through her grinning teeth.

We are ALL, KINGS. And even if the entire world becomes your enemy.

It would still be a lazy Sunday afternoon. In 1992.

"Well then… Let us get this over with." Yamashita closed her eyes, leaned back into the wooden chair, put her open palms on the cloth apron on her lap and pulled her gaze from the water up, up into the clear blue sky, that G_O_D put in between us, where birds flew carelessly across heaven as a MOCKERY.

Did my message cross this despicable, endless sky and at the apex of its sweet, sweet journey, did it reach you?

Ojyou, the slave girl patted down the clean white sheets over Yamashita's shoulders before taking a tuft of the captain's hair in her left hand, placing it in between the blades of the scissors in her right.

Still uncertain, but she did her best to bite her lip and understand what she had to do. The slave girl's thoughts were interrupted. "How can you bear being a slave. It is a horrible life."

Ojyou uncurled the sensation that earlier hardened her stomach into concrete, "It is not so bad…" she said with a smile. "Everyone is nice to me. If you do your job, it is easy to take care of Master Iori. If you do your job, everything is okay. …and people are nice to you, if…"

"Stupid!" Yamashita was quick to cut in. "There are NO kind people left in the world!"

"Yamcha-sama…"

"No one is kind to you. You are either IGNORANT," Yamashita signed, closing her eyes in frustration. "Or… you are simply DELUSIONAL, slave."

There it was, a hard slap to the face and invisible attack that rushed up to penetrate Ojyou's being when she stood still behind the ninja captain. Her eyes were a blank stare, her hair brushing up in tune with the sudden gush of wind. Despite the harsh insult, the slave girl kept in place with a zig zagged curled smile that did not change, seemingly defiant to the barrage of concrete words. But…

"Yam-ch… Yamashita Taichyou." She said grinning a bit. "Delu…delusion…al?" the girl stammered, trying her very best to reconstruct the unfamiliar syllables that had recently run through her brain.

Yamashita hunched over in defeat once again. What use was it to engage in combat with someone who is unable to understand the consequence of weapons laid in front of them – this much was true – "Ignorant;" she mused slowly and purposely, so the young girl behind her could understand her distinct meaning… "[Ignorance], means that you can not see the truth." She said mouthing every word with slow injecting venom. "[Delusion], means that you make yourself believe that what is wrong is right." That was all there is…

"…" Ojyou remained ever so silent, however, as the last word rolled out of Yamashita's mouth, the picture on her face slowly curled a rancid colour – that – when the girl bit by bit absorbed the taste of the bitter fruit of truth, then reflected it plainly on her visage.

"No one is kind to you, slave. You will one day understand that all these people you think your FRIENDS, just abuse you, they…"

"NO!" Ojyou screamed. "NO!" She put her hands on Yamashita's shoulders to steady herself as she felt herself faint from the sudden rush. "You are wrong. Captain…" From once a bitter angry scowl, the girl's face had softened with bubbling tears in her honest face that could hide no lies. "You are wrong, Captain. YOU ARE WRONG! Everyone… The soldiers, Iori…"

"No." Yamashita's slit eyes opened slowly and hardened into a frozen stare, looking outwards to the horizon so matter of factly. "I am NOT wrong." I am never wrong… no.

Not ever since that day.

…

I was fighting for just a glimpse of light… and that small, pitiful, insignificant light…

In front of her was now a cold body of a man she knew well, and from its lifeless husk were two dozen wooden arrows sticking out, each wound pouring red blood into the ground.

..and had I had not held back...

And that light… "My Captain." A woman of 20 years old cried.

…

"I am NOT wrong, slave girl." Yamashita reminded mercilessly. "Ever since then, I am ABSOLUTELY!; UNABLE to make a mistake, and even if everyone says otherwise – all I KNOW is that, not I, but the WORLD is wrong. …and fools like YOU are wrong."

Both you, and I. We. We made a wish a long time ago.

Had… Had I been stronger.

The air was so cold, our bodies could not feel anything. The mist had crystalized into wonderful icy feathers and slowly but surely began to collect on our shoulders and around our feet. Yet, I know, we had grown so accustomed to these things, that we did not even notice the world envelope us and trap us in its icy grasp. This night that snowed for just a few minutes, a short instant – reflecting this lonely woman's heart.

"Haaagh." The girl signed in defeat.

"Aghh?"

"I am sorry, Captain." Ojyou took a clump of the Captain's hair and begun to cut it as she had originally been commanded – and all of a sudden the spiraling turmoil in her heart had begun to ebb away.

A simple peon, and a small brain with the capacity of a goldfish. This was all that was all that had to be thought as Yamashita sucked a calming breath in. "Everyone you thought was kind to you – no one does anything without a selfish motive, that you have to understand."

"I have to cut it short." Ojyou reminded. "To remove these burned ends."

With a sigh once again, "It does not matter, maybe…"

The steel met each other, now it was too late to turn back, long strands of hair near a foot in length littered the ground by their feet. It was too late to go back now.

Ojyou bit her lip and focused deeply on her task. Cutting bit by bit her Captain's hair, and with each motion she put her heart into it, and with a silent wish. …and when the silence was too much to bear Yamashita could not help but shift her shoulders slightly and tilt her head back, her pupils embedding themselves at the corners of her eyelids that slowly looked to the side and back.

I do not believe…

The soldiers…

Everyone…

Master Iori… Master Iori will never…

Ojyou bit her lip to hold back the tears that were now rushing down her puffed up crimson cheeks. It was absolutely obvious now that Ojyou could hardly breathe and think coherently from the ravaging thoughts that devoured her mind absolutely overflowing with heavy complications and indecipherable, difficult words.

"Fuuuu…" Yamashita breathed out. Truly there was no joy to be gleaned from fighting someone who is unwilling to fight back. "I… sorry." She said for a moment, a slight feeling of uncertainty clouded her voice – but the captain pulled back quick, then again flatly, but, "I am sorry. But I am not wrong."

"…"

"I do not apologize for what I said, for that is truth." But, "But I am sorry for hurting you. For speaking, when my worlds would not have improved on silence."

Did I not tell you though, that everyone EVERYONE selfishly wants to hurt you. Just as I spoke, it was likely not to nobly impart truth to your feeble brain – it was perhaps because I wanted to HURT you. This is who I am.

…and a silence that was exchanged by the two with every motion – it was – long masses of hair fell to the ground. Leaving what was once a beautiful flowing hair into a tattered mass that could not even be pulled back into a ponytail.

"Captain?"

Nothing.

Nothing mattered here.

In a ludicrously monotonous story that had no end. Had no meaning.

"Captain…" the little princess smiled, with a power so unbelievable to an older woman who had fought hard, tooth and nail after a century of masturbating agony, releasing herself almost instantly from the razor wire chains that the captain had wrapped around her mercilessly just seconds before. "It is okay." She grinned, wiping tears in her eyes that were so easy to cry.

…

Let me be free, just as those who died had been released from chains.

So that tonight, those LIES we shared – would be right at home together.

…

A Sequence of Uneventful Mornings part 32.

"Captain… Yamashita…" Ojyou's voice started firm, but eventhough she had already steeled her will to see it to the end, still, part of her felt a bit of unease when a small mound of ebony hair littered the area by her feet.

A clump of long hair near a foot in length tied with an elastic band, and around it were tattered shards of what once was intertwined by the green grass. Looking up, the small insects that skittered underneath God were still unaware of the meaning of the world, yet in their constant march, on occasion these ants would look up to the sky – and could they understand that they could no longer see?

Ojyou handed a small mirror to the Captain who put it calmly in front of her face. Just this instant, when she was sure that no one else was watching, she let herself be and pulled her cloth ninja mask down – exposing her entire face. Her eyes were cold, mimicking her mouth that was reflected the indifferent stare of her heart. Her once long hair that could be tied into a ponytail was now barely long enough to cross her lips. Yamashita's bangs were in a chaotic array, flailing about in the wind with enough length to annoy her when it rushed past her eyeballs. A rough boyish cut caught between two distinct places.

Her hair was neither long not short. A handful of thousand of words – bookended by the past and future, this was simply today.

At first, Captain Yamashita felt her stomach curling at the sight, to her – more grotesque had her arm been lobbed off at the elbow. Her hair had now been a remnant of what it was before… yet…

"Ah…"

…

"If… If you believe that what you [believe] is truth and TRUTH follows you – and only you, then, is not the same for me?" Ojyou asked innocently.

In the end of it all, when we found ourselves in a place – a mistake – do we… would we not want to turn back time? Slowly?

"One day, I will change your mind, I promise." Ojyou said eagerly, "Un!" she cocked her fist in full eagerness, "I will change it!" now her frown replaced with a fearlessly coy smile. "If you change your mind, and I am sure… this world that is your enemy as you say…"

…and that soft piano tune echoing through the air, a soundtrack only these two women could hear, such small small beings trapped in a large overwhelming world.

But if we are unable to turn back time. There is only ONE recourse.

"This world will… it, ah…" The girl stopped mid sentence, for the unyielding, like a fire hose blasting water into a tiny cavern unable to contain it, rushing thoughts in her mind was simply stunted by her shallow limited vocabulary – but in her mind she knew what she wanted to say…

This WORLD, the world that you had fought against so so very vehemently with all your might – may it one day lie in bloody DEFEAT, and succumb to your belief. Despite God's wishes. AND may [HE] find himself absolutely powerless to the TRUTH.

…

"Ah…"

Yamashita put the mirror face down on her lap to hide the sky from its reflective gaze.

…

[Do you really believe that there are no more kind people in the world?]

Looking outwards losing herself, if only to escape from these petty words that for some reason she feared would compromise her foundation.

"No, there was one person." Yamashita said blankly, she could not help and her mouth moved on its own. Amidst it all… Just one.

Aru hito. There was one person…

…kono kitanai bashyou he… in this despicable world.

Kare ga…

[He.]

Kono asamashii sekai ni…

浅ましい

…

The 50th year of Showa – 1975. Winter.

It was cold enough that she could see her breath waft in front of her mask. Yamashita, now fifteen, stood bored, standing guard all alone above the East gate that evening. She ran her hands annoyingly up and down both her biceps, patting the dirt away from her uniform.

"Is it that cold?"

"No, Captain." She was quick to respond sternly to Captain Masao whose lone voice came from the empty darkness behind her without warning. She rubbed a both her hands across her upper arms violently and continued to look outwards, scouting the perimeter, her breath now smoke ribbons curling around her face as she turned back and forth to herself.

When the mass of that heavy thing that cocked her head forward without warning - that blanket wrapped itself over her head – she felt a warm sensation.

Unlike no other the world could provide.

…

AH.

"I remember…" Yamashita sighed… "YOU." Putting the mirror face up on her lap, staring at the face that looked back at her from that reflection of times long past forgotten.

"I… I am.. I am so…" Ojyou, the slave girl took a quarter dozen steps back, covering her face in a mixture of fright and shame. "I am so sorry Captain! I… You do not like your haircut?"

Yamashita, through thousands of words – wrapped her index finger round the tips of her patchwork hair and pulled it to her mouth. She rubbed her fingertips against each other and pulled it down as they could barely meet her lips.

She balanced the mirror on her lap and with a sigh leaned back and tilted her head up.

Two swords lay at rest by Yamashita's feet, their peculiar curved hilts separated themselves from anything else under the sky – and Yamashita looked again upwards.

Yamashita gazed deeply into that mirror on her lap, looking deeply at her own face then rolling her eyes to Ojyou's reflection who patiently stood in wait behind her liege. Through the illusion in the mirror, Ojyou tried to meet Yamashita's eye, that, for some reason drifted outwards totally oblivious to her. "Eh?" Ojyou turned her body to the sides, looking behind her, "Who, who is there?"

The seething anger in Yamashita's eyes was gone now and in its place was a calm, soft and peaceful look that seemed to span thousands of miles when she looked at the picture – to a cloudy image over the slave girl's shoulders.

You and I could not see it. Ojyou could not see [it]. Yet, a cloudy mass was surely there, trapped between the 60th and the 61st second.

"Arigatou."

Thank you.

"Yamashita – Captain? What is that?" Ojyou asked, affixing her gaze onto a piece of paper that was clipped in between Yamashita's lone right hand – a hand that had a ball point pen interweaved in between her fingers. A hand that wrote one handed on her lap.

…

…but at the end of her journey, at the center of the courtyard was a single middle aged masked man who waited for her. When she looked up, she saw the sky. Perplexed, the girl looked outward and forced her eyes to regain focus, her arms wrapped over her chest. The man who had waited for her in the middle of the Yagami courtyard had lowered his stature, knelt on one knee to meet her eye to eye, as equals.

"I will only ask you this question once." Ninja Captain Masao said.

What is your name, girl?

The girl's bangs were in a chaotic array, flailing about in the wind with enough length to annoy her when it rushed past her eyeballs. A rough boyish cut caught between two distinct places.

Back then, her hair was neither long not short. A handful of thousand of words – bookended by the past and future, this was simply today. Finally. Yesterday AND today, could be…

…

"Ageru yo. I give it to you." On her lap was a piece of paper on it was scribbled roughly…

SHIKI.

"What does it say?"

…one and the same.

"Nothing. It says nothing anymore." Tucking it in her left half that was trapped in a cast Yamashita tore that piece of paper into sixteens and with her right hand tossed the shreds out into the sky – as an offering.

…and as the wind rushed through their ankles, the memory that had been left in her hair, was like a burden that had been, all so suddenly, here, at a time without our choosing, at a time we would one day remember –

That paper note, that once held meaning, had no more meaning now, because… it had been REPLACED.

"It has no more meaning. Because, HE gave [it] to me. A name, more precious. And now…" I have only one job to do.

…here, at a time without our choosing, an obligation, at a time we would one day remember –

Would be LIFTED.

And be FREED. From agony.

As if to give us a taste of freedom. The torment would be lifted from our shoulders.

…This Lonesome, Sunday afternoon.

…