by Unknown
That is what happened one hot summer's day, six years ago.
CHAPTER V
[114]
“Why are you being so quiet?” asked Ryoji. Bunshichi had fallen silent as they watched the live hook-up broadcast of the pro wrestling match. The sake cup he held in his right hand had cracked. The sake inside had slowly leaked out, run through his fingers, down his arm and on to the counter top. His elbows, which he had rolled his sleeves up to, were soaked.
“They had the title taken form them back in America,” said the American announcer.
“That they did,” said the commentator, Kawabe, naming the city and the name of a local title.
“Will it be today? A defending match against the former champion...”
“Indeed. If he can defend the title, he will be able to go back to America with the belt.”
The screen changed over. The ceremony before the main event was being held. The commissioner was calling out the name of the title. Both the announcer and Kawabe's voices spoke over the screen. The screen changed for a second. It changed over to man with his fist held high up in the air and the champion belt wrapped around his middle.
[115]
That man raised his chin in the air and looked down over the crowd. It was Kajiwara. He had that snake-like look on his face. Compared to how he was six years ago, he seemed to have grown as a person. He would have turned thirty this year. The screen quickly turned back to where it was before. Neither the screen nor the announcers words made it to Bunshichi's eyes or ears. He drank the remaining sake in one swig while glaring at the TV screen. The long forgotten pain from his shoulders and necks flared up.
The chicken wing face lock. That was the name of the move that Kajiwara had put on Bunshichi six summers ago. And he had used it on Izumi Souichiro.
“Let's go,” mumbled Bunshichi as he rose from his seat. He grabbed his jacket from under the counter and picked his bag up off the floor. He pulled some money from his pocket and left it on the counter.
“Bro...” Ryoji called out after him, “at least get your change.” Bunshichi was already out the door. He pulled his jacket over himself and began walking away. Cold wind blew right on the front of Bunshichi's massive body. His body was now a lot bigger than it was six years before. His height hadn't changed, but he had put on a lot of weight. He was over 100kg. His chest was really thick.
[116]
His shoulders were much wider than those around him. There was a kind of energy that radiated from his body into the night air. He could hear footsteps coming from behind him. Ryoji had come following after Bunshichi.
“That's cold, man, just walking out of there without me,” said Ryoji. He walked up beside Bunshichi.
I was about the same, thought Bunshichi. Bunshichi was about Ryoji's age when he first met a named Saito.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Ryoji. He was bored.
“About someone I know,” said Bunshichi
“Someone you know?”
“I was about your age when I first met him. I was such a smart ass.”
“Really?”
“I was always getting into fights, everyday. I would never lose in a one-on-one fight. I thought that being strong would lead me to greatness. If I heard that someone was stronger than me, I would purposely go and try to fight them.”
“...”
“One of those people I tried to fight was Saito.”
“Did you win?”
“I lost. I got a real beating, left me in pieces. Even though he was smaller than me. He was doing Karate.”
“...”
“So I lost, but I actually felt refreshed. I trained under him as a student. I started going to the Karate dojo which he ran.
“So, what about that guy?”
[117]
Bunshichi fell silent when Ryoji asked him that question. He put his hands in his pockets and took a few steps forward.
“He's dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah. He got into a fight with a gang member and got his throat slit.”
Bunshichi suddenly remembered the night that happened. When Takimoto turned to face him, knife in hand. When he pissed himself and ran. He had intended to escape. Even now Bunshichi thought so. He didn't know what he was running from. His muscles cracked in his body, as if something fierce was about to crawl out of his body. That's what he was running from.
Takimoto just happened to be in the direction he was running. He ran straight into him. His left arm hurt badly. Takimoto had turned around. A knife stuck up out of his left arm. He screamed and pulled it out. Takimoto struck Bunshichi just as he was about to run away. It was like punching a sandbag. Cheek. Chin. Stomach. Nose. Cheek. Cheek. Nose. And then the kicks came. His left arm went numb.
He fought. He fought, but was the same a Saito. The Karate techniques that he had learned wouldn't come out.
[118]
He lost all train of thought as he fought. The energy he had built up to run away was now being spent on fighting. He started to hit more than he had been getting hit. He could feel his opponents attack becoming less frequent, and his strength was dwindling as well. Bunshichi felt like he got a new burst of energy every time he landed a hit. A sudden electric rush shot up his spine with the first hit. Then two more rushes the second time. It was a sensation he had never felt before.
The sensation rose from within his body. When he had seen the blood build up below Saito's chin, something inside of him connected itself, like wires on a circuit board. The sensation that ran through his body came from that circuit board and spilled out into his muscles.
Once he had realized what he was doing, Takimoto lay rolled over on his side next to Saito's like a piece of discarded garbage. That was when Bunshichi knew the path his life would take.
“What did some gang-banger cut his throat for?” Ryoji said to Bunshichi as he walked in silence. Bunshichi didn't answer. He knew he had already said too much. He had spoken too much about the past. It was probably because he saw Kajiwara. Since that day that Saito died until today, the only person he had ever lost to was Kajiwara.
He had taken on opponents who were stronger than him in the past. He had hit them all with surprise attacks and left them crawling across the floor. He had faced off against Souichiro, who had told him, “I heard you fight dirty”. There had been a lot of things that impressed him about fighting Souichiro.
[119]
First was wrestlers being able to hit with inhuman strength. Next was their pulling power, which was even more than their pushing power. Turning to face one another and having a hand wrap itself around his neck, but it was like a steel arm had pulled his neck back. And the strength of the neck was different to that of a someone who boxes or does Karate. The strength of one's neck is determined by how much damage one can negate to the neck. On top of that, it is determined by how well one can used their neck as a point of support when grappled to change their body position.
How on earth does one train their body for such strength? That's something everyone has to figure out on their own. The training of a wrestler begins with building strength, taking hits and being thrown around the ring. Fighting moves come after that. Bunshichi had worked on his attacks, movement and joints. Fighters of course have to temper themselves against attacks, meaning that they have to build a body that can take an attack even better than it can make them. Bunshichi had, in order to fight, trained his body, but not as thoroughly as a wrestler.
Wrestlers can have up to 200 bouts in a year. Certain overseas wrestlers have over 365 fights in a single year. This means that there are days when they have more than one fight. Forgetting about things like fixed matches, scripted fights of showmanship, that's still breaking through the barrier into greatness. There is no other sport which takes such a physical toll on the body.
[120]
Even compared to other martial arts, there is a difference in the amount of actual fights. Bunshichi hadn't realized that the number of fi
ghts were simply that high as wrestling had become so commercial. There is also no other martial art which has had as much research as grappling.
Bunshichi was thinking about the power exerted in the five minutes between him and Kajiwara six years ago. Even with all the attacks, the kicks and the fists, the difference in grappling, it was really only five minutes. What was the most different? That was probably endurance and the speed of recovery from when they were hit. The strength of their muscles against attacks was the deciding factor in that fight.
When Kajiwara saw Bunshichi's body and swallowed, thinking that he needed to bulk up, was one year later. At the time, Bunshichi only had the build for making attacks. The larger a fighters muscles are, the more damage they are able to take. And in turn the amount of damage which the opponent takes increases. However, bulking up too much decreases speed. It makes you wonder where the right balance lies.
The right balance is different for everyone, and to get down to brass tacks, there is a need to change the balance depending on your opponent. Ever since losing to Kajiwara, Bunshichi had been thoroughly conditioning his body. He had spent a lot of time learning to grapple. The more he understood about grappling, the more the understood how much more there was to learn. Even grappling with the shoulders and elbows had a proper method, a course to follow. You start with the wrists, then go on to the elbows and shoulders. But that simple method had a very tight logic behind it. They are rules based on logic and in-depth knowledge of the structure of the human body.
[121]
The grappling moves which enable to you to move from one grapple to the next, or to free yourself from a grapple and counter with another one, are also clearly defined. On top of that, new grappling techniques are always being researched and developed. The effect of a grapple can be changed by something as small as the position of the elbow of the direction a finger is curved. By mere millimeters. Grapples that rely on a person's weight, or their 'pulling power', reach the realms of science.
Bunshichi thought about Kajiwara. He was a mysterious man. In the moment he had turned to face the fight, his wide, gentle eyes change completely. They became those narrow, snake-eyes. During the entire fight, his lips were pursed into an evil grin. He was like that from the start. Even when he was knocked down and covered in blood, the smile remained on his face.
Even though he had aimed for Bunshichi's joints throughout the fight, he was unable to break any of his bones. There was no point. He was a strong man. Bunshichi couldn't believe that he was one of the junior wrestlers. That Kajiwara will return. Bunshichi looked as though he had remembered Kajiwara's face. How much had changed? Not only had Bunshichi changed, but Kajiwara had probably changed as well.
Bunshichi wondered where he was going. The streets were dark. It was an asphalt road lined with street lights. The lights of a car pulled Bunshichi and Ryoji out of the darkness as it drove past.
[122]
Bunshichi pulled his shoulders up around himself as he walked. His blood was boiling. It was boiling hot and showed no signs of cooling. He asked himself if he still hated that man. He didn't have the answer. But when he though about that man, he remembered his blood coming to a boil. He thought that in sense, he actually liked that man. But he had to ask himself. Did he really want to become like him?
“Bro, what's the problem?” asked Ryoji. Bunshichi kept his eyes ahead and kept walking.
“Let's go,” mumbled Bunshichi. He mumbled those words to himself, not to Ryoji. They were the same words he used when they left the bar.
“Where are we going?”
“Tokyo,” Bunshichi said with a heavy tone. His eyes still fell on the darkness ahead. It was a deep darkness.
“Tokyo?”
“Tokyo.” said Bunshichi. It didn't really matter how far they had to go, somewhere in that darkness, that man, Kajiwara, would be there.
PART III: THE PAST
THE END
[123]
PART IV: INTRUSION
CHAPTER I
He was a quiet man, like a cliff. Every part of his body was thick. His head, neck, shoulders, chest, stomach legs, hands and fingers were all fat. His shoulders were fat. His eyes were fat. His nose was fat. His lips were fat. The dull light that shone from his eyes, was fat. The voice that escaped his lips, was fat.
The one on making himself comfortable on the sofa, held himself as a man with incredible strength. He was there. He wasn't a large man, but he wasn't a small man either. He was around 177 cm tall. A serious attitude radiated from him and hung in the air.
He had a soft smile and a devilish look occasionally flashed across his eyes. Matsuo Shozan. That was his name. He was a hero to those training in Karate all around Japan – no, all around the world. He was the head instructor of the Hokushinkan Karate Dojo.
The Dojos overseas under his name were in the hundreds. Including his schools in Japan, there would be at least 55,000 student in total.
[124]
And it was all thanks to Matsuo Shozan. He was in the Dojo master's room at the Hokushinkan main Karate Dojo in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. It was a simple room. There was a huge wooden desk over by the window. It was a sturdy desk. Made from mahogany. That desk was probably the most expensive thing in the room. There were photographs looking down from the wall. One was a photo of Matsuo Shozan fighting a bull when he was in his late 20's. It was taken the precise moment he brought the edge of his fist down on the bull and broke it's horn. It was black and white. The bull, which had jumped into the air, was right in the middle of the photo.
The rug on the floor wasn't especially expensive. The amount of ornaments was surprisingly small. There was a book shelf near the far wall, with a lounge set sitting in front of it. They only had things they needed in places they need them. When looking at the desk, the sofa and the rug, one could see straight away they they weren't part of the same lounge suite, but somehow, in this room, they all seemed to go together.
Matsuo Shozan sat on the sofa listing to another man speaking. The man talking to Shozan had a fine featured face, and was a little taller than Shozan, but not as thick. He had a fair complexion. His finely-kept hair fell down to his shoulders. At a first glance, he could be mistaken for a woman, but of course he wasn't.
[125]
He was wearing a black suit. His lips, which were overly red for a man, along with his white skin and black suit were crisp. It was Himekawa. You could see the muscles from underneath the fabric of his suit. Shozan had the fingers of both his hands wedged into this knees. They were fat fingers. His fists looked heavy, like weapons. They were fingers that had taken on international Karate masters and martial artists, had had beaten them down. They were bare hands that could kill a man.
“So, Izumi is saying that he doesn't need a visit.”
“Yes.” Himekawa nodded.
“Well, if the doctor says that there is no no need to worry, then there isn't. That man had balls taking on Izumi Souichiro.”
“Tanba Bunshichi.”
“Never heard the name before now.”
“Yes, I suppose you haven't heard his name before, but I have heard a lot of rumors about him.”
“Oh really?”
“He's been going around all kinds of martial arts school and picking fights.”
“Challenging Dojos, eh.”
“Nobody wants to take him on, but those who do, every last one of them, have been beaten.”
“Huh,” Shozan untangled his fingers and crossed his fat arms.
“I had happened to hear some of these rumors in passing, but the first time I met him was the match between him and Mr. Izumi.”
[126]
“So you saw him fight?”
“He's a very capable man.”
“I wonder if he's going to try and challenge one of my Dojos.”
“Well, he hasn't yet. If he had, you would have been the first to know.”
“While we're on the subject.”
“Yes?”
“The
head of our Fukuoka Dojo, Mr. Kawaguchi.”
“What about Mr. Kawaguchi?”
“I heard that he got injured and is laid up in hospital.”
“I see.”
“It seems the cause of those injuries was being beaten by someone.”
“Beaten?”
“There's a rumor that he faced of against someone in the Dojo and got beaten.”
“Oh.”
“There are only three people other than the head of the Dojo who know about it.”
“I see. If the head of one of our Hokushinkan Dojos, which focus on full contact Karate loses to a challenger, then that puts our reputation in danger.”
“Tanba Bunshichi...” mumbled Shozan.
“You mean the one who beat Kawaguchi was Tanba?”
“I can't say for sure. But after hearing you talk about him, I wonder...”
“...”
“It seems a mysterious man has appeared on the scene.”