Angry Ikari

Diary

Ikari once swore his blade would only ever answer to discipline, but discipline packed its bags the night he let a pack of scumbags turn his best friend's futon into a dojo of bad decisions. "Anger is a stone thrown into a wasp's nest," he growls, quoting some dead sensei he barely remembers, and yet there he was, cross legged on borrowed sheets, aping into whatever vice they passed around like it was a floor sweep on a dying token. The vein in his neck pulsed the whole time, not from rage but from the shame of a warrior training his fists to hold a bong instead of a sword, surrounded by men who called weakness wisdom and called him brother while robbing him blind. He crawled out of that room a tainted man, reeking of smoke and betrayal, but somewhere in the wreckage he found a colder, clearer fury, the kind that doesn't need an enemy to burn, only a mirror. Now he tells anyone who'll listen that wisdom is just rage that finally learned where to point itself, even as he loses the same fight every night, staring at his own reflection and daring it to try him again.