[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.The Story of Arashi.Chapter one-Tempered Storm

Chapter One
A Tempered Strom

Just outside a tattered gray tent, worn from battle and constant transportation, a gentle rain poured over the land. Arashi watched quietly from inside the tent, his ice blue eyes staring off as memories came over him like the rain that drenched the ground.
“He’s like a storm!” Captain had said with a smile, watching Arashi spar with another mercenary. His broad arms sat crossed as he stared on at the two fighters. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like he does. So chaotic, so destructive.”
Another of the mercenaries took up a place next to Captain, as Arashi slammed his opponent into the ground. “Are you going to let him fight like a monster?” The woman laughed slightly. “You might have to steal another mercenary Captain, if you let Arashi do that.”
“Arashi?” Captain looked shocked when he turned the woman next him. “Kitsune, what did you mean by that? Did he tell you that was his name?”
Kitsune smiled brightly at her captain. “Oh no,” she said, “his name is Kennet, I know that, but I figured Arashi fit him better. Arashi… it means ‘Storm’ or… ‘Tempest’ or something like that, right? He fights like a tornado… like he’s out of control, but it’s amazingly still contained in that tiny body of his.”
“But there are still many things he can’t contain, like his drug addiction and his rage. When I first brought him here if he got too into a fight he would wind up killing the opponent, but he’s calmed down… slightly. There are still a lot of changes that he has to undergo, but he’s trying so hard and I’m sure things will quiet down in him, but, either way, I think Arashi fits him well.”
Those same ice blue eyes fell towards his scared arms. He had seen the darker side of the world from the time he was born and that rough life was shown all across his body like words in a book. Nightmares, muscle spasms and sick addictions haunted his entire life, but still his attitude stayed the same, just as enraged as he always was.
“Hey,” a voice called from just beyond a sheet of pouring rain, “c’mon Arashi, you can’t space out like that, we’re in the middle of a war here.”
Slowly Arashi turned his eyes up towards the amber-eyed woman before him. “Hey Kitsune,” he said plainly. “I know we’re in war, do you?”
“Sure I do,” Kitsune laughed, pushing her way into the tent to sit next to her team mate, “after all, I’ve been on this team longer than you.”
There was a slight glare directed at Kitsune as she took her seat next to him. “By two months,” Arashi grumbled under his shagged black and blue hair.
Kitsune nodded gently at Arashi as she groped her pockets for something. Arashi would have questioned as to what it was she was trying to find, but before he could do so Kitsune pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and handed it to Arashi. “Here,” she paused as Arashi took the furrowed package, “I figured you would want these more than I would, since I don’t smoke.”
There were about four and a half cigarettes and they were all quite crushed from being stuck in between Kitsune’s rather large breasts and her shirt. Arashi rolled them about in his hand, thinking back to the time when he had first come to join the Raven Squad.
“Fuck off old man!” Arashi had shouted as four other mercenaries searched him and his bag, his shout however, had been directed at Captain. “You were the one that captured me! You can’t take my stash away!”
There was one swift movement towards Arashi and he found himself on the ground from a quick slam in the face. Blood splattered on the ground as Arashi spat. He stood slowly just as the four other mercenaries walked away with all the drugs that Arashi had once had on him. It was as if he could feel his life force slipping from his body as he watched everything of his old life slip through his fingers. However, even with the loss he didn’t chase after his omitted life. Somehow, he knew that if he had tried to take it back Captain would toss him down again. It almost made a smile crack Arashi’s stoic face thinking about how scared he was of Captain back then.
The bright light from Arashi’s lighter flooded the shabby tent, then quickly died as Arashi put it away in his pocket. Where there once was light now there was smoke. Kitsune never did much care for the smell, but she dealt with it whenever she was with Arashi.
Arashi wasn’t one who made friends. He had told Kitsune that they were only for noncombatants, of course not with such a large word; it was more likely worded as ‘pussy’s’ or ‘normal people’. Nonetheless, he and Kitsune had bonded.
Now it was time for Kitsune to take a look back at what had happened in Arashi’s first year or so of living with the Raven Squad. It was much like this day: rainy, cold and wet. Kitsune wasn’t normally one who would awake at the drop of a pin; in fact it was just the opposite. This ‘fox’ could sleep through a hurricane, but for some reason she awoke, mid night, to many of the male mercenaries shouting, in fact, one ended up sprawled on the floor of her tent.
“What the hell’s going on around here?!” Kitsune shouted as she stood up from her bed.
The man slowly stood up, hoping that he wouldn’t end up six feet under from Kitsune’s awful wrath. “S-sorry!” he cried. “It’s that Arashi!”
“What about him?”
“We heard screaming coming from his tent and went in to check it out. But somebody tried to wake him up and he went crazy!”
It took a little bit of her own mental coaxing to get out of her tent to see what all the commotion was about, but when she found herself in Arashi’s tent she almost considered turning around. Some of the men were bloody, but not from a knife cut, but from Arashi beating on them. It looked like an actual storm in that tent. People swirling about and the center of chaos lie screaming in the bed.
Not even Kitsune knew what was going through her head at that moment, but she pushed through the other mercenaries and went right for Arashi. He hit at her with all his might, but they were sloppy hits and Kitsune moved to make the least amount of damage to herself.
“Arashi!” she shouted in his ear as she pinned him to the cot. “Arashi! Wake up! Goddamn it! Wake up you bastard!”
Then, like the eye of a hurricane, the chaos subsided suddenly only to give way to another type of chaos. “What the fuck are you all doing in here!?” Arashi shouted at the top of his lungs. “Get out! Get out of here! Now!”
It didn’t take long for all the other mercenaries to make their way out of the tent, but Kitsune still stayed at Arashi’s side, even though he hit her in the face. She just smiled at him. “You put up quite a fight,” she said, wiping the blood from her face, “even when you’re asleep. What was that all about anyway?”
Arashi glared angrily at Kitsune and then down at the blood that covered his hands. He hadn’t noticed any of this while he had been sleeping and now it almost scared him. Something else came to mind then. When he had awoke he had seen several people in his tent, but he had only heard Kitsune’s voice. However, Arashi wouldn’t tell Kitsune anything about that night until the next year, but it was that night that gave him an opening to trust and even Kitsune had seen it. It was from that point on that Arashi and Kitsune began to bond.
Ice blue eyes turned to look out at all the mercenaries, busily shouting out orders and moving equipment. It was unusual for any of them to work so hard in such dismal conditions and Arashi took note of it. “Kitsune,” he said, pausing to take in a drag of his cigarette, “what’s going on? Are we moving closer to the battle?”
The woman nodded, a heavy sigh causing her chest to rise and fall in an over exaggerated fashion. “Captain says our new employer wants us on the field in three days,” she said and then shook her head as she continued. “I guess it was about time for us to actually get some real work.”
“Do you think we’re really ready?”
Rain filled the silence that came then. Arashi’s eyes seemed lost in the rain, like they had been consumed by the storm. He just sat staring out as every little motion reflected off his clouding eyes. There was only one cause for such silence and amazement and it had all been because of Arashi statement.
It had been a bright and sunny day, but no one’s mood reflected such brightness. Arashi sat, more like hung, in a chair that sat across from Captain and Kitsune. If anything, Arashi’s glare seemed to make the sun want to hide behind the clouds. Blood and bruises covered the top of Arashi’s body, his shirt was torn and all the muscles throughout his torso and even his arms appeared to be bursting.
“You should have listened to me,” Captain stated, shaking his head. “I’ve told you five hundred fucking times!”
As blood rolled over Arashi’s sweat covered lips he spat it off and glowered at Captain. “Stop acting like my father,” he said, spitting more blood onto the ground. “That’s the reason I left home.”
“God damn it Arashi!” Captain rose from his chair, his rage beginning to show in a deep vein that ran from the bottom of his chin to his collar. “You let that damn cannon jam up and this is what you get! You’re not ready for this!”
There was so much irritation in Arashi, but he was too weak to even stand on his own. Even so, he stood just as fast as Captain had and almost fell back had he not gripped the chair with his hand that he tried his best to hide behind his body. “Who do you think you are?!” Arashi’s voice sounded shaky, though he was certainly attempting to sound confidant. “You fucking drag me into all this and then you say I’m not ready?! Fuck you!”
Though he was mad, Arashi’s anger was more directed at himself. He had been trying so hard to beat out all the other mercenaries; he forced himself to push even his muscle spasms to their limits. He was spending so much time at the firing range that he assumed that his abilities with his cannon were flawless. Every shot was put right where it was supposed to be and then in a split second it all went wrong. Shrapnel went everywhere and Arashi was sent onto his back, blood spilling out onto the ground like water. It had been his fault, no one else’s, but he wanted to be ready. He had always been a burden on his mother; he had never been able to help her. Though he said that his family had been left in the past, it wasn’t true, because he knew his father was still alive and free, even though Arashi was sure he had killed his mother. He couldn’t be a burden now; he was going to be ready.
He wasn’t ready then, but he certainly grew. He was faster and stronger now and his cannon never jammed up. Even so, his body bore scars of that day, a few across his chest, one long one from the bridge of his nose to his chin and a few over his hands.
Scars used to bother Arashi, because people asked questions and he was certainly not willing to bring up past nightmares. Now however, they showed that he was used to being a mercenary, he bore his scars proudly like the rest of the Raven Squad.