STRAWKUZA: Like a Douchebag (Chapter 1 - Compromise)

If anyone told me this time last year that I'd be competing in a ladder match over the custody of a koala bear, I would have told them they were crazy.

But time makes fools of us all.

Funny how I went from avoiding these kinds of matches, to eagerly seeking them out.

What can I say, Daytona? 

This industry keeps finding new and interesting ways to piss me off.

I’m simply doing as I’ve always done throughout my career.

I adapt to the circumstances.

Bodies moved like blood cells down neon-lined veins of asphalt.

Loud music poured forth from the entrances to cabarets and dance clubs.

Barkers coerced people to come inside, promising cheap drinks and beautiful women.

The nightlife of Kabukicho was on full display in the form of a bacchanal of sights, sounds, and smells, enticing the foreign and familiar alike.

And yet, Kerry Kuroyama was blind to all of it. His attention fixated only on the man in white ahead, leading him against the flow of the crowd.

“This better not be bullshit, Erik,” he called ahead.

Erik Black, his unwitting financial partner, turned to look at him, and an insincere smile crept over the brim of the foam brace around his neck (a parting gift from his questionable and equally ill-fated attempt to romance a Queen).

“KYER-ryyyyy…” he said, appealingly. “Seriously, where’s the TRUST these days!?”

Kuroyama wanted to say he trusted the former Goat Bastard about as far as he could throw him, but also knew from personal experience that he could hurl the dipshit pretty far when properly motivated.

Black shook a finger through the air. “Well, good buddy, perhaps you’ll change your tune after TONIGHT!”

They continued onward, until the man white abruptly stopped and pointed out a narrow gap between two buildings. His smile seemed to widen as he motioned for Kerry to follow.

Moments later, they went in.

The alley was barely wide enough for two of them to stand shoulder to shoulder. The din of the main drag gradually faded behind them as they plunged single file deeper into the murk of the red light district’s back alleys, following an endless corridor of grime and concrete.

“Tell me about this ‘friend’ of yours,” said Kerry.

He was feeling a need for context and answers with the burgeoning sense of sketchiness evolving around them.

“Anzu and I go WAY, WAY back,” Black explained without explaining. “He’s a man of connections! Tapped right into the lifesblood of this city, I tell you! If there’s anyone who can find a koala in Tokyo, believe me, IT’S HIM!”

The passage eventually branched off into tributaries of even narrower alleyways that spiraled out further into unseen and unknown corners of the urban abyss. Black entered one without hesitation, following a path known only to him by memory.

The establishments back here were more subtle than those on the main drag. Small, quiet bars and tiny street food eateries. The wary and suspicious eyes of patrons and proprietors alike silently followed them as they passed by.

Turning one final corner, they arrived at the end of the alley, marked by a single unremarkable, nondescript gray metal door leading into the back of a random building.

“This is the place,” said Black in a hushed tone. “Try not to embarrass me with these guys, yeah?”

He knocked twice.

Moments later, it came open.

The menacing face of a hulking man in black appeared on the other side, greeting the pair of them with an unamused scowl.

“Konbanwa!” said Erik in salutation, all while wearing an implausibly huge grin. “I believe we have an appointment with the guy upstairs!”

The expressionless doorman looked between the two of them a moment before disappearing back inside.

For Kerry, the growing sense of sketchiness had blossomed into something that was now impossible to ignore.

“So I gotta ask…” he began. “This ‘Anzu’ guy… he wouldn’t happen to be involved with any criminal organizations, would he?”

Visibly nervous by the question, Black cleared his throat and tugged at his collar.

“You know, now that you mention it, I think they prefer the term ‘chivalrous’ to ‘criminal’ these days…”

Kerry grabbed him by the lapels of his suit and shook the shit out of him.

“You’re getting me involved with the fucking YAKUZA?!”

“OW-OW-OW, HEY, TAKE IT EASY!! I’m an INJURED MAN here!”

Black clutched at his neck brace. Kuroyama released him and huffed, holding back the urge to throttle him further.

“I knew asking you for help was going to be a mistake…”

Black glared pointedly, flashes of anger and reproach glimmering in his eyes.

“And yet, you STILL asked,” he seethed. “And right NOW, I am TRYING to DELIVER for you! All I am asking in return is this ONE SMALL compromise! But if you’re not feeling up to it, then we can walk away from this at any time! No skin off my back!”

Kuroyama ground his teeth, fighting against instincts that were screaming for him to walk away and doubts that kept him standing still.

Black’s words were clear to him. Walking away now could mean he would be walking away from any chance to learn of Kerry Koalayama’s whereabouts. And all that mattered to him now was knowing whether or not the fuzzball was safe and sound.

The door came open once more.

The man stood off to the side, gesturing for them to enter.

Drawing in a breath to ready his soul for whatever may come, Kuroyama went in.

When he heard the news that Kerry Koalayama had been kidnapped, Erik called it a blessing in disguise.

Said it was nothing more than a distraction and a liability. Something for my enemies to use against me

Can’t say he doesn’t have a point, after what happened with Williams and Daniels.

Or even with the situation you yourself have brought upon me.

No koala means no ladder match, as he put it.

Partly because he feels what’s at stake in the Manhunt is more important than this.

And partly because deep down, while he’ll never come out and admit it, he doesn’t think I can win this.

Because I would never stoop to your level.

But I’ll be honest, Daytona… 

While I’m not sure I can fully explain what it is that I see in that smooth-brained fuzzball, I will willingly go there to keep him safe.

To prove that dipshit wrong.

And, most important of all, to pay back the receipt I’ve been holding for the better part of a year.

“SO ANZU, ol’ buddy, how LONG has it been?”

On the elevator ride up to the building’s high-rise luxury suite, Black described his contact as a low-ranking member of whatever outfit he was a part of.

But as soon the two of them were brought into the plush private lounge, it was clear that his “old friend” was anything but.

Anzu was a man that looked to be in his sixties, with a face that was hardened by many years of strife. Everything about him, from the clothing, to the body language, to the Cuban he smoked, conveyed a single message.

In this place, he was the BOSS.

His lounge was furnished to be cozy and relaxed, accentuated by the lilt of soft piano jazz and the soft glow of an electric LED fireplace. The three of them occupied a triangular arrangement of plush chairs facing in on each other.

Kerry couldn’t help but notice that since their arrival, the old man never stopped staring at him. For reasons he couldn’t immediately explain, his smile made him feel increasingly unsettled

“Twenty years, give or take?” continued Black. “Man, it’s CRAZY how time flies, AIN’T IT?? Looks as though you’ve moved up in the world! Same with me, and I’m actually happy to say, I’m OUT of the weed-smuggling racket these days! These days, I work with CRYPTO and TIMESHARES! On that note, how would you like to hear about some PRIME property I have right now over in--”

“Yagi-san,” said Anzu, in a voice that was ancient as it was cold. “Shut the fuck up.”

The former Goat Bastard immediately fell silent, and wilted in his seat.

A decanter of amber liquid rose from the space next to Anzu’s chair.

“Kerry Kuroyama…” said the boss, in remarkable English. “I have waited a long time to meet you in person.”

Curious, though Kerry.

Anzu poured two fingers apiece into a set of ice-filled tumblers resting on the coffee table between them.

“Drink?”

He raised his own glass, and gave it a shake. The familiar clink-clink sound ran shivers down Kerry’s spine.

“Daijōbu,” said Kerry with a wave of his hand.

Anzu’s eyes narrowed into slits.

“You refuse my offer of hospitality?”

Kerry could feel he was being judged. Resolutely, he shook his head.

“Bujoku wa arimasen,” he apologized with a bowed. “I don’t drink alcohol.”

Anzu continued to stare at him a moment longer in quiet, brooding judgment, then left it with a gravelly chuckle.

“Erik tells me you can help me out on something,” said Kerry, hoping that by cutting to brass tacks, he could expedite their exit from this situation.

Anzu nodded. “I am aware of the situation, yes. I have the information you want… which I will happily hand over to you, in exchange for something of yours.”

Curiouser, thought Kerry.

Still, he felt himself close to a solution to the more important problem at hand: Kerry Koalayama’s safety and well-being.

All it would take is one simple compromise.

“Name your price.”

But Anzu shook his head. “Money is not what I ask. In this instance, I only require a single request of you.”

He leaned forward to extinguish what was left of the cigar into a glass ashtray resting on the table. Again, he flashed that unsettling smile.

“I want you to surrender the Kuroyama name.”

The sudden and disorientating confusion hit Kerry like a heavy wave. He looked briefly to Erik, then back to the grinning yakuza boss before them.

“I’m not sure I follow,” he said, unable to mask his agitation. “You want me to give up my name? But why?”

“Because it does not belong to you,” answered the old man. “It belongs to me.”

Curiousest of them all, though Kerry.

But then it hit him.

And right then, he finally realized what it was about his smile that he found so unsettling.

Or rather, what made it so familiar.

It was the smile he recognized as his grandfather's.

The boss straightened up in his seat, exuding an almost regal aura.

“My name is Anzu Kuroyama,” he said. “The firstborn son of Daisuke Kuroyama… and the patriarch of the Kuroyama-ikka.”

Time froze. The world seemed to go black and white.

Looking into the eyes of a blood relation he never knew existed, Kerry found himself to be at a loss on what to say or how to react.

Slowly, his head swiveled over to his business partner like the turret of a tank.

“Erik…?” he said with the rumbling softness of a volcano on the cusp of eruption. “Is there something you’d care to explain to me here?

Black’s eyes flitted back and forth with all the subtlety of a monkey puppet, before inexplicably slapping his forehead in frustration.

“Shucks, I KNEW there was something I forgot to mention!”

It doesn’t surprise me that you can’t understand why I have it in for you, Daytona.

You’re a man that acts on a whim, without consideration for a single person around you.

I bet you get approached by strangers all the time, seeking reparations for old crimes and offenses you can’t be bothered to remember.

Such as it is, I wouldn’t expect you to remember anything from ReVival 43, outside of the birth of your Poor Whoresmen. 

Nor would I expect you to remember the bodies you left on the mat to make that grand debut happen.

But fate has brought one of those bodies back on his feet, and delivered him to your doorstep.

Here I am, Daytona.

The living hand of karma, with a message to give you.

A life without consideration doesn’t gift you a life without consequence.

“You have been taught to believe that your grandfather was a great man.”

Anzu Kuroyama reclined comfortably in his seat, seemingly staring down at his newly acquainted nephew with an untouchable sense of arrogance.

“You were told that Daisuke Kuroyama was a warrior in the ring, and a provider for his family,” the old man continued. “In truth, he was neither. In truth, your grandfather was a coward.”

He prepared a fresh Cuban. One of the two bodyguards standing at his shoulders stepped forward and lit with a gold-plated Zippo.

“Daisuke Kuroyama had married into a prestigious family within our organization,” Anzu went on. “And with that union came certain responsibilities. An obligation to serve that family with unwavering loyalty.”

The smile on his face disappeared, as was any trace of Kerry’s grandfather.

“But rather than face those responsibilities, he abandoned his family. He fled to the safety of America, along with his soapland bitch mistress and their mongrel bastard.”

Kerry listened to his half-uncle stunned, speechless, and emotionally wracked. Every revelation caused his blood temperature to drop by several degrees.

“I, however, remained here in Nihon,” said the half-uncle. “I was forced to grow up with the shame and the dishonor he brought upon our name and family. And yet, it only served to make me stronger. It gave me reason to climb to the top of this organization. To wield untold power. To crush enemies that once mocked me behind my back. But you…”

He waved to Kerry, grunted with disgust, and shook his head in dismay.

“Your very existence offends me,” he said with repugnance. “Because you are a reminder of the disgrace that old coward brought to this family. Every moment you spend in this city, you tarnish the name and prestige of the Kuroyama-ikka.”

There was a painful twist in the back of Kerry’s head, as his entire central nervous system felt like it was freezing up on itself. An act of rebellion, against a conscience that screamed for him to do or say anything.

“Choose whatever name you care to be known by,” Anzu reasoned. “But my name is not yours to inherit. Nor is his legacy. So promise me you will honor this request when you leave my home country, and I will personally bring the koala to you within the day.”

Anzu Kuroyama smiled again, and smoked.

Kerry Kuroyama stared back, still and resolute as a statue.

Erik Black fidgeted uncomfortably in the seat next to him.

“If I can interject here…?” he said, trying to pry his way back into the conversation.

But the stony glare of the Emerald Apex dissuaded him from saying anything more.

Anzu Kuroyama, the uncle he never knew he had, awaited a decision with a bob of his eyebrows.

“...do we have a deal, then?”

The sigh was enormous and drawn out. Kerry tipped his head back in his chair, closed his eyes, and looked inward.

There was far too much for him to process. In the course of a single meeting, his entire life had been thrown upside down.

Years had been dedicated to building his life around the family legacy. Now, he was being told he was the product of Daisuke Kuroyama’s secret shame.

Years trying to live up to that image of his grandfather… all in service of a delusion.

Was a name really that important, when it belonged to a coward?

The twisting sensation left his head, and his body went to ease.

He had never felt so defeated.

“You know…” said Kerry. “I think I’m ready for that drink now.”

The familiar smile on Anzu’s face grew larger. Obligingly, he slid the glass across the table.

Rising to his feet, Kerry took the tumbler up in his hand and absentmindedly gave it a shake.

Clink-clink.

It almost seemed to be saying to him, “welcome home”.

“Kanpai, oji-sama,” he said.

Down it went.

A second later, he felt that old, familiar plume of fire rise up his lungs, along with the wave of electricity that ran down the length of his esophagus.

“...yeah, that’ll do,” he said with an almost criminal level of satisfaction.

Then, he acted.

Lightning could not streak as fast as Kerry’s arm, nor could it strike as hard as his fist. Likewise, not even thunder could drown out the peal of his knuckles blasting his uncle’s jawline.

Anzu Kuroyama’s chair rolled with him to the floor, and he flopped onto his back with a surprised grunt.

Then… things got fuzzy.

Anzu’s men, suddenly flustered and cursing, were on Kerry in an instant.

They were hulks, to be sure; good enough for regular thug-work and roughing up civilians. But neither one had the faintest idea on how to handle a pissed off grappler coming out of sobriety with a vengeance.

The world became a blur.

The bedlam escalated from grunts, thuds, and stomps into smashing and crashing and screams of pain and groans of defeat.

After some indiscernible length of time, the storm finally settled.

When his vision came back into focus, Kerry found himself standing sweating, bleeding, and panting heavily, standing upright amidst a scene of devastation.

The bodies of the vanquished lay at his feet, lightly writhing around in the debris of wooden splinters and glass shards that blanketed the carpet.

Somehow, he’d lost his shirt in the chaos.

He didn’t mind, as his torso longed to breathe.

After a cursory glance over the wreckage, he was somewhat surprised to discover the decanter of whisky had miraculously survived his hurricane of violence.

Footfalls crunched heavy and tired through the glass as he waded over and swiped it off the table as one would claim a trophy.

“Kuso…” cursed a voice from the floor.

Anzu Kuroyama glared at him from the floor, holding his red and swollen jaw.

“I will NEVER forget this, zasshu!”

Somehow, the old man managed to chuckle, despite the fury of his eyes promising a vengeance of untold horrors.

Kerry threw back the decanter. More fire. More electricity. The gates of perception were being blown wide open.

He crouched near his half-uncle, and spoke from the heart.

“Listen, Uncle Anzu… it’s been a day of enlightenment for me. I appreciate the help you’re offering, but, regrettably, I’m going to have to turn that shit down.”

Grabbing a handful of the old man’s suit, he yanked him off the floor and brought him groaning, seething, and whimpering inches from his face.

“For one, think I’d rather just get my koala back by beatin’ the holy hell outta that motherfucker that’s been pissin’ me off as of late. For another, soapland girl or not, Sobo Michiko was a GODDAMN SAINT, and I AIN’T gonna stand for you disrespectin’ her memory!”

Kerry ungraciously dropped the boss to the wreckage-littered floor, while he himself rose back to his full height.

“But maybe most important of all is because all my life, I busted my ASS for the privilege of bearin’ this honored name of ours. Givin’ it up is not -- nor will EVER be -- an option for me.”

He turned for the exit, swigging from the decanter once more.

“Anyway, good to know I got more family out there,” he said as parting words. “Consider yourself added to the Christmas Card list….”

Stumbling through the wreckage to the door leading out, he was only half-surprised to find Erik scurrying out from behind an overturned chair like some cockroach that had just survived a bombing.

“KYEURRY?!” he shrieked, scrambling through the door after Kuroyama. “What the HECK did YOU JUST DO?!”

Kuroyama yanked him through the door by the neck brace.

“Whuzzit LOOK LIKE, asshole?!” roared the Emerald Epex . “I made a COMPROMISE! Now let’s get the hell outta here, because I am FUCKIN’! HUNGRY!!”

I won’t lie to you, Daytona… 

I’m in a weird place right now.

Certain things have come to light that have led me to reassess a lot of what I held to be true and meaningful in my career as a wrestler.

But as I said… I’m simply adapting to circumstances.

The only thing that feels true to me anymore is that fuzzy, stupid little spud you lassoed out of my life.

That, and one other thing.

The undying urge inside to punch a motherfucker in his face.

Gloves off, Diamonds.

You challenged ‘the Eternal Climber’ to a ladder match, dumbass.

Now I’m coming for my koala.

And your fucking head.