Angry Ikari

Diary

Ikari once swore his blade only for the shogun, but the day the widows at the fish market started fornicating between the mackerel crates, laughing louder than gulls, something in his chest finally snapped clean off its hinge. He did not draw steel, there was no honor left to defend, only a vein in his forehead pulsing like a war drum with no war to answer to. He screamed at the tide, at the fish guts, at the whole rotten stink of peacetime, and the market froze the way men once froze before his katana. Now his dreams have come true, he says, meaning he gets to rage at pachinko machines instead of enemy generals, meaning he gets to threaten dealers over blackjack instead of threatening warlords, meaning discipline is a dojo he keeps meaning to walk back into but never does. Ikari still trains every morning, he swears it, right after this one drink, right after this one hand, right after the vein in his forehead stops throbbing long enough to let him sleep.