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buzzkillchainsaw · 15 hours

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⚠️ addiction, child abuse/neglect, death

Takumi Hoga was twelve years old when he first entered the ring. What else was he to do, really? He had just found out that he would be held back another grade again. Usually kids like him would hear the same old "You're not stupid, you're just lazy" speech over and over again, but not Takumi. He knew what the teachers thought of him. The current ones, that is. The teachers at the last two schools he was expelled from were probably relieved to never waste another thought on him again, after what he did. Bit a child here, broke a bone there. Bruises. Bloody noses. "Beast types", teachers would sneer whenever Takumi caused another "incident". Other than that, nobody paid much attention to him, even in class. You see, Takumi was born with abnormally large and abnormally many teeth very similar to a shark's. Whenever he opened his mouth to say something, teachers and students alike would cringe at his impeded speech, the latter even making fun of it in front of the former. So Takumi just stopped speaking altogether. His grades steadily worsened. His job prospects looked bleaker and bleaker each year. His parents didn't care. His mother was busy with drugs and whatever affair she had going on currently and his father often left for "work" for days at a time, leaving his son to fend for himself more often than not. There was nothing in his life that could've prevented Takumi from entering the ring.

On that fateful day after school Takumi was prowling the streets, homework and upcoming tests being the last thing on his mind. Some kid, a few years older than him, approached him. A fellow "beast", with sharp teeth and blue scales on his skin. He was wearing a cool leather jacket and expensive sunglasses. Takumi liked them.

"Hey, buddy. You look bored.", the guy said.

Takumi nodded. He was bored.

"I know a place where kids like us can have fun and earn cash on the side. Interested?"

"Like a job?", Takumi asked.

"Yeah, but more fun.", the guy answered.

Takumi was unsure. His teacher had told him that he'd never have a good job with his lousy grades and long attack record. "No respectable company will want to hire a beast like you.", she said. So how come this guy now wanted him for a job? And a "fun" one, at that?

"What do I have to do?", Takumi asked.

Everything moved quickly after that. The guy introduced him to "the boss", a man in his thirties who loved expensive food and loud cars. He even let Takumi sit on the passenger seat and choose the music they listened to on their drive to the ring. When they arrived, Takumi was handed a simple white shirt and shorts which reminded him of the clothes he had to wear in gym class. "Now all you gotta do", the boss said, "is beat up this guy over there." Another beast was in the ring, not much older than Takumi. He waved towards the excited crowd beyond the cage that surrounded the ring.

"Beat him up?", Takumi asked, "I'm allowed to do that?"

"Yeah. Beat him, scratch him, bite him, do whatever you want until he taps out or you hear the alarm."

"What if I have to tap out first?", Takumi asked. The boss grinned and handed him a tiny plastic bag with some powder inside. "I don't think you will."

The guy from before didn't lie: This was fun. Takumi didn't even break a sweat during his first fight, knocking the guy out cold. The second fight was against an older girl who transformed into a wolf, Takumi grabbed her nape with his teeth and shook her until she tapped out. At the end of the evening the boss gave him his payment and drove him back. He handed the boy a phone and said he'd text him if he had another fight for him lined up. Takumi stuffed the phone and the money in his pockets and went to buy himself a leather jacket and sunglasses.

Takumi Hoga was thirteen years old when he adopted the stage name "Armageddon". The boss had turned him into a rising star in the local business. Bets were made on whether Armageddon won or lost the fight and the boss always gave him a cut of the winnings which Takumi would spend on food, video games and clothes. Sponsors would sometimes pay him directly to write messages and contact details on his white shirt in permanent marker, displaying them in the ring for all to see. After the fight, the boss would get him cleaned up and drive him home. Takumi then spent the next day eagerly awaiting a message from the boss. On nights without fights Takumi felt horrible, writhing around in his bed, sweating bullets and sometimes even throwing up. But as soon as a new fight came up and Takumi got his hands on that powder the boss always gave him beforehand, the world was alright again. He felt light but focused at the same time, fearless, excited and full of energy. He had finally found something he was good at. And he loved doing it.

Takumi Hoga was fourteen years old when he almost died in the ring. The boss didn’t tell him beforehand that the reptile-looking beast he was about to fight had venom. Armageddon knocked out his opponent, but then sunk to the floor, foaming at the mouth, breathing raspily. “This wouldn’t have happened if you just killed the fucker before he bit you”, the boss hissed into his ear. After some back and forth the manager of the reptile guy decided to hand over some antivenom. Even with that, Takumi felt horrible for days afterwards, unable to move the bitten arm. But when the boss texted him again the week after, he jumped at the opportunity to get back in the ring.

Takumi Hoga was fifteen years old when he fought his first adult opponent in the ring. He was hesitant, but the boss said that nobody wanted to pay to see Armageddon wipe the floor with boring ol' kids who couldn't even fight back. "There's just no money in it", the boss said, "and you wanna keep making money, don't you?" When Armageddon entered the ring, he saw a young man in front of him. Some kind of fish beast with claws and glowing spots on his skin. "Please", the man whispered, "I have debts. I need to get out of here. Please just forfeit, I need the money. I really need it." Armageddon shook his head. "Please", the man said, "Don't hurt me." Armageddon was fifteen years old when he took his first life in the ring.

Armageddon was sixteen years old when he first tried to leave the business. He kept having nightmares about the man he killed and the side effects of the powder started getting to him. But he craved it more and more and that tiny little packet the boss always gave him just didn't cut it anymore. He would've just bought himself more if he knew what it was. The boss wouldn't tell him. So one day, Armageddon stopped answering texts from the boss. He prowled the streets instead, picking fights, doing anything to distract from the withdrawal symptoms plaguing him. Eventually, he collapsed on the street and woke up again in the hospital. Police were called, his parents were called, social services were called. Lots of big words were thrown around that he didn't understand. Negligence. Addiction. Custody. Takumi Hoga was sixteen years old when he was removed from his parents and placed in temporary care with social services. But he didn't stay there very long. They wanted him to go to rehab, anger management classes, school. They took his phone and his hard earned money and placed him on a strict schedule with an early curfew. And Takumi tried. He really did. But he just couldn't live the life everyone else was expecting of him. Takumi Hoga was sixteen years old when he escaped back to the only life he knew how to live well.

Armageddon was seventeen years old when he fought “Razortooth”, a masked volunteer from the crowd. It was a rare occasion. Usually the boss decided who would fight him and the fights would be advertised in the business days in advance. Sometimes the book would drive him to private fights in some rich guy’s basement where Armageddon would fight and kill exotic animals, other beast-types or just random people who probably wronged that rich guy somehow. But tonight was open cage night in the ring, so whichever brave soul thought they could kick Armageddon’s ass was allowed to. Razortooth was a green-skinned beast wearing a short-sleeved hoodie and a ski mask. Armageddon immediately noticed that she fought wildly different from what he was used to. When you spend a lot of time in the ring, you tend to adopt a certain style. Flashy. Violent. Ruthless. But Razortooth didn’t seem to be here for the show. She dodged a left hook and rushed him, wrapping an arm around his neck.

“Hey”, she whispered into his ear as he struggled to get free.

“Hey”, he whispered back. He then punched her in the back, but the angle was weird, so it didn’t hit as hard.

“You want out?”, she whispered and shifted her weight, letting him stumble backwards towards her leg and kicking him in the back of his knee.

“I can’t”, he whispered back.

“He’s got you on Flick? That powder?”

“Yeah. Powder.”

“Alright. Sink to the floor and punch me in the kidney.”, she whispered.

“Why?”

“I’ll slip you my number and then I’ll forfeit.”

“Why?”

“I wanna help you get out.”

So Armageddon sank to the floor, then used her lowered defense to punch her. He then grabbed her and pushed her against the cage wall. Her arms flew up and he noticed something brushing against the pockets of his shorts. Razortooth forfeited.

Takumi Hoga was eighteen years old when he joined the Purpose Program. It was a long back and forth with Hitomi, the beast who had fought him in the ring under the name “Razortooth”. He thought about calling her for weeks after the fight, but something always came up. When he finally did, he didn’t expect her to be actually serious about helping him. But she was. They met up in secret and just talked for a bit.

“Are you a cop?”, he asked.

“No.”, she said, “Cops won’t help much in a situation like this.” Takumi nodded.

It felt great to talk about all this to someone. Hitomi never judged him, even when he talked about how he enjoyed hurting people in the ring. Or when he told her how he once woke up almost choking on his own vomit the night after a big fight (and big dosage of Flick). She showed him where to get Flick so he wasn’t dependent on the boss for it anymore. But she also told him what the drug actually did to his body, how he was cutting his life short if he continued consuming it. Takumi didn’t wanna die. But he also didn’t know what to do with his life if it wasn’t in the ring. Hitomi then offered to go get him tested, no strings attached. Takumi remembered how he did get tested once in elementary school, but not much was revealed there besides “big teeth” and “stronger than his peers”. The tests of the Purpose Program were different, though. It really felt like the scientists were interested in him, in what he could do. Apparently he was able to breathe underwater all this time, it just required a little surgery to open the gills in his neck. The first time he dove into the pool at the research center was heavenly, it was like he had discovered a piece of himself that was always hidden away from him. He was also strong, which he already knew, and had a lot of endurance. And the cherry on top was his excellent sense of smell underwater. He could locate a drop of blood on the other side of the pool while blindfolded.

“Water rescue” was the verdict. A job. For him.

He didn’t take it. He was scared. He relapsed multiple times, going back to the ring on nights where his mind just wouldn’t stop racing. But instead of the boss, it was Hitomi who picked him up. “Recovery isn’t linear”, she’d say. “But if you wanna enter the program, you gotta commit, Takumi.”

“I don’t wanna be Takumi anymore.”, he said, “But I also don’t wanna be Armageddon.”

“So who do you wanna be?”, she asked.

#buzzkill mirai #tw addiction #tw child abuse #tw death #oc #oc lore #worldbuilding

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