Description: Yuri Sakazaki is in the NDP finals! It's a huge step for a young girl who really wants to bring her family's fighting style to the forefront. As Yuri comes within arm's reach of fulfilling her dream, one Howard Rust is there to recap a couple recent events and give encouragement even in the face of hard news to swallow.
The Kyokugen Dojo. The minute details about grievous injuries, torturous numbers of repetitive exercises, excess of soba noodles, and Sakazaki family spats and arguments are probably worth glossing over for the moment for a bright and shining bit of good news for the entire school!
Yuri Sakazaki is in the NDP Season 2 finals! That's big news, considering how much money's on the line. Takuma really would like a bunch of new students. (It doesn't matter if they all drop out immediately after, that's an easy 200 US dollars per head.)
Howard Rust is currently sitting on the ground on the concrete lot, having himself some bottled water as he takes a break on finishing up a new desk for whatever sort of training purpose they have in mind (which likely involves getting it broken five minutes later, given the environment - carpentry here is a necessary skill that nonetheless crosses precariously over into the myth of Sisyphus).
It's fairly late in the day now. Most of the youngest students are already on their way home/to the hospital/to the courtroom, etc, etc, leaving at least a bit of time before most of the grown-up students come along.
Most of the younger students are on their way out, but Yuri lives here, and as a result she's one of the younger people who are coming instead of going. She's her usual cheerful self, and is wearing her usual attire as she heads towards the dojo. While she's naturally thrilled about being in the NDP Finals, that's not entirely on her mind right now. For her, it's just another day in paradise, since martial arts are natural to her and her optimal goal is all about spreading the word about Kyokugen. She grins as she walks into the concrete lot of the dojo stretching her arms over her head and rolling her neck around.
"Oh, Mr. Rust?" Yuri asks as she spies Rust enjoying a bottle of water and then the desk. "I see you've been working hard enough today!" She adds an extra curve to her grin at the witty comment she makes.
"Y-Yeah," he responds tiredly, coughing once as he sets the water bottle down. It seems like anything and everything around him is looking for an excuse to just jump down his windpipe and come live in his lungs. It must really be some prime real estate in there, but Howard is a harsh landlord. His coughs (eventually) evict all would-be tenants of his lungs!
"'scuse me," he says as he pulls himself up with the almost trademark creak of one of his elbows and knees while laying a hand up against the desk for support in rising up. "Havin' a, a really good day, huh," he adds as he straightens himself out a bit to be able to look Yuri eye-to-eye as opposed to eye-to-eye-while-sitting-down.
"Made it to, to the finals," he says what she almost certainly knows, "gonna be up against, ah, last season's champion... Jones, right?"
"Yup! I made it to the finals!" Yuri says while raising her arm in the manner of a winning boxer. "This Mister Jones guy, I wonder what he does. But I do know he's definitely not a member of the Kyokugen dojo." She shrugs. "Oh well, even if he doesn't wanna join our dojo, at least I'll be able to show him what the glory of Kyokugen is all about. And I don't care about winning or losing, really. I just want to show everyone just how great this style really is." She cracks her knuckles.
"I dunno where I'm gonna be facing him or even when, but I do know that I'll be ready when the time comes to challenge him!" She smirks confidently and looks up with eagerness. "This is gonna be sooooo cool!"
"You don't know Jones?" Asks Howard as he scratches the side of his head. The dark purple mass of NOT REAL HAIR on his head is strangely unflinching even as he touches it. (Did he bolt it to his head?)
"Film star, might've, might've seen a few of his films, couple years back?" They were certainly big in America, he's not so sure that'd be the case over here. "Really... really bold strikes, like, two punches at once, or, or a lot of 'em," he punches at the air a few times to illustrate, but he doesn't have Ryo's or Takuma's famous hand speed, "throws a, a lot of himself into 'em. I mean, hell, one of his movies, accidentally up and punched one of the extras." A bit of film trivia! "Flew so far that... that critics called it fake, but, they kept that in the final cut. Even the guy he punched was too, y'know, too impressed to say otherwise."
At this point he starts leaning up against the desk. "He got, he got caught up in the war too." Howard wasn't around the Kyokugen Dojo for well over a month because of that. It's kind of a wonder he came back alive, all things considered.
"Fought with him too, I mean... wow. You'd, you'd call the moves he does simple, but, it works."
"I dunno, I don't really watch older movies," Yuri says as she watches Rust, but his description does amuse her. "He sounds like one of those stars who pride themselves in their unique skills, but the fact he can fight well also really makes him seem like something else." She throws a few attacks into the air as if to emphasise her own point when she adds, "But I gotta wonder if he can stack up against Kyokugen?"
Howard leans back a bit when Yuri decides to do her own little demonstration, a brief wince and a raised hand. It kind of says volumes when a man who seems nigh unkillable with conventional war weaponry is afraid enough of being kicked by a very young, spirited, school-aged girl - or really the people and the times, for that matter.
"Yeah, well... 'bout to find out," Howard says as he leans back in. Last thing he wants to do is flop over atop what he's been working on and end up breaking it.
"I mean... I still remember, Yuri, King of Fighters, uh, don't you?" He speaks up as he pats his chest again to remind those attempting to immigrate into his lungs that these borders are closed! Only oxygen through here! (Ultimate atomic racism!) "One of your, your lifelong dreams, isn't it?"
"I mean, this is big - we're not... we're not talkin' round 1 of, uh, of something bigger, this is the championship." At her age, too! He nods his head a few times thinking about it. It's kind of amazing, maybe even heartwarming, to really be in the proximity of something going someone's way in a way that seemed previously distant and out of reach.
"Kind of.... kind of wish Quon stayed 'round long enough to see it." Quon Chen, also one of their KoF teammates, who passed away by suicide recently.
"I'm trying not to be so serious about this, because what happened during King of Fighters really got me down more than it should have. Even if I lose, the fact I made it this far really means a lot to me. Not to mention Kyokugen is shining brightly!" Yuri seems to have a ray of sunlight beaming on her as she talks. But then she turns to Rust and asks, "Wait, about Quon... what happened to him?" Apparently, Yuri never heard the news about what happened to him.
It got everyone down, really, to say nothing of all the... other events surrounding it. Howard shakes his head again as he finally wisens up to step /away/ from the desk. It is at this moment he finally grasps the idea of probability, realizing the chance of him falling over and breaking what he's been working on is basically nil as long as he's not standing right next to it.
"He, he took his own life. Decided... he had enough." Quon's tale is a pretty sad one, one he and so many hoped would take a turn for the far brighter after Vega's fall in China. The ex-shop teacher stretches out one of his legs a bit to get out a kink in one of his knees as he thinks about how others reacted to it. Zach was furious.
Even for somehow becoming who might be his best friend in some ways, he's pretty afraid to approach Sagat about the matter. Who... knows how he's taking it.
"A-Anyway, Yuri," he speaks up as he stretches out a hand, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to, to drag you down there, uh..."
A pause, as he draws his hand back. "Is it okay if I touch your shoulder?" Oh man, he remembers the trouble he got in at Pacific once when he touched a female student's shoulder while trying to give her encouraging words about a tragedy involving their parents.
Yuri isn't about to complain or question Rust. The news hits her like a ton of bricks and she drops to one knee, tears welling up in her eyes. She tries to get up, try to toughen it out, but she fails. The dam holding her tears back bursts and she begins crying loudly. "No! It can't be! Why would he take his own life?! That's not the answer! It's never the answer! He was a good fighter!"
Howard flinches at her sudden burst of emotion, thinking... maybe I should touch her shoulder, maybe... maybe I should do something before Takuma comes by and assumes he's responsible for her crying (which is kind of true), as he instead decides to kneel down (with great complaint from one of his knees).
"It's, it's pretty... sad for a lot of us too, Yuri." He tries to explain to her. That much is true - so many had stretched out their hands and offered so much to him, and yet... he chose what he chose. The middle-aged man bows his head slightly and thinks about what to say next, out here on the concrete lot.
"Look. Yuri. Look. Look up." He says. "He, he gave up on his dream... you still got one, right? I mean... you're starin' it right in the face." Not Howard himself! He means... "You got a shot at, at takin' the whole NDP, Yuri, I mean... it's the big thing today, you're so close."
He clears his throat again. God damn it, he thinks, maybe I should invest in a good flu mask, or a gas mask, or something, the air here is awful today. "I think... I think the best way to honor Quon, Yuri? Is if... is if you go out, do your best, 'n take home the, the title. N-No more of these tears for now, all right?"
Howard stands back up - hoepfully Yuri will follow suit! "You got, you got every reason to take this seriously, give it your... your 110%, right? Not just for Quon, but, for you."
"I... I know..." Yuri says after a moment of crying, "But it still hurts. I never expected him to do this. Nobody expected it I bet, and I doubt anyone can understand why." She slowly stands up, wiping her face off, and looks to Rust. "I want to give it my all, for him and for everyone else, but I don't want to let my grief cloud my view of this whole thing! If I do, I might lose!" She stretches her arms as if to try to release some of the tension inside of her. "Why, Mr. Rust? Why did he do it?"
Quon was certainly running pretty ragged through the war. He was young, he was stressed, he was afraid - everyone, on some level, was pushed to their utmost limits for the sake of keeping the world free (or at least getting out of mainland Asia alive at all). The man wonders if maybe it was a mistake to break what he thought she already knew, if it might affect her given she's about to fight /the freaking champion of the last season/. That's... going to heap a lot of pressure on her unto itself.
"Frankly," Howard shakes his head again, "I... I'll never know what, what went through his head at the, at the end." He exhales deeply as he decides now is an excellent time to roll his shoulder and get rid of some of the tension. Perhaps Yuri's arm stretches are infectious like yawning - you see her stretch out an arm, you kind of want to do the same.
His shoulder is decidedly lacking in pops.
"Anyway, Yuri, I, I'm sorry, didn't mean to... to make you sad like that. I mean, you got a, got a whole evening ahead of you. Lots of... lots of practice, right? For whenever you're, uh, fighting Jones."
Hell, he should probably make sure to come watch her. Zach, too, if the matches aren't too close to one another.
"Well, I suppose..." Yuri bites her lower lip, tears starting to shine in her eyes again, then she looks up to Rust and the nods a little. "I guess... you're right. I should start training. I need to get myself into shape so I'm in top form for when I fight my opponent." A slight smile starts to form on her face. "For Quon, for myself, for all the practitioners of Kyoukugen... for everyone!"
Then a big grin forms on her face. "I'm doing this for everyone! It's not just a victory, it's not just a competition, I'm putting myself out there for everyone!" She clenches her fists and looks up.
It's really nice to see someone so young not only with dreams, but being so close to reach out and /attain them/. Howard nods a few times in approval, though the speed she goes between sad and happy makes him wonder if she might be the same degree of bipolar as Zach might be. Maybe it's just a younger fighter thing, these days?
"Might have it in the bag," he comments as he claps his hands together once. "Zach's, Zach's there too. So are two guys from, uh, that other school." The Todoh goons. Maybe he ought to catch up with Daniel soon-ish, come to think of it.
"I, I don't think I should keep you," Rust looks back over to the thing he's been working on, "just know we're all cheering, all right?" Maybe not the recent wave of Kyokugen dropouts, but certainly, everyone in the dojo will be.
He'll have to cheer for Zach too on principle, but, still.
"Don't worry, I'll have this taken care of!" Yuri says as she jumps for joy, before giving a thumbs up to Rust. "I won't let this tragedy get me down!" She grins and pauses as she hears Zach's name. "Zach? He beat me a while back, but if I encounter him, well, this time things will be different!"
Log created on 19:13:02 06/03/2012 by Rust, and last modified on 10:01:33 06/04/2012.