Angry Ikari

Diary

Every dawn Ikari climbs back up to the dojo roof, jaw tight, vein already throbbing before the sun clears the tiles, because that is where it happened and where the wound still lives. Goro had brought skewers and a bag of something green that smelled like defeat, and Ikari, samurai-trained to guard his coin like his own spine, sat down anyway and ate like a man with nothing left to protect. By the time the last skewer was gone so was his wallet, aped into some token Goro swore was "basically already pumping," and Ikari has quoted every warrior-poet he half remembers about anger since, muttering that rage is a fire that burns the one who holds it, then holding it anyway. He tells himself today will be different, that he will sit on that roof calm as stone and simply enjoy the view, but the moment he smells grilled meat the old fury rises and he is fifteen minutes from re-enacting the whole ruin with someone new. The floor is gone, the wealth is gone, and still he returns to the same shingles each morning, furious at Goro, furious at himself, furious that the enemy he's hunting for turns out to be the man in his own sandals.