The Phoenix Saga Part III: Phoenix Odyssey

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Torn

"Put me DOWN!"

Ranko wailed, her left leg racked with sharp, biting pain that radiated through the inside of her knee. Wannabe samurai Tatewaki Kuno, who had just moments before been her final opponent in the 1992 Honshu Mixed-Style Martial Arts Tournament, had scooped her from the blue vinyl mat the second he'd heard her scream. Kuno kicked the blue steel double door separating the arena floor from the locker areas at waist level, hard enough to send the handles on the opposite side crashing against the back side of the wall. Ranko did her best to stabilize her knee with her hands as the jostling of her legs dangling over his forearm sent another laser of pain up her leg with his every hurried step.

"Hey, where do you think you're..."

"Where in this blasted labyrinth is the medical staff? Can you not see an angel has fallen, man?!" Kuno roared at the young security agent that addressed him in frustration, a frenzied glare in his cobalt eyes. He turned to his left, storming down a long, nondescript cinder block hallway in the direction the stunned young man had pointed.

"Fear not, fair Ranko! I shall see thee made well!"

"If you were so worried about hurting me, ya shouldn't have kicked my knee out in the first place, ya pigfucker! Put me the fuck down!" She punched downward at his shoulders through his silver silk kendo uniform, as she was carried, but the young kendo practitioner was as a man possessed.

"Akane?!" Ranko wailed desperately, craning her neck in every direction looking for her sensei and wife as she was trundled down another featureless concrete corridor. She bit her tongue hard as Kuno bumped her leg into the door frame, bracing her leg in her hands again and whining loudly.

I don't care if they saw my fucking leg off, Tatewaki motherfucking Kuno is not seeing me cry.

"What the hell?!" A short man in his mid-forties, a dumpy fellow in a wrinkled blue polo shirt and khakis, whirled to face the door as it crashed open.

Kuno charged into the room, dumping Ranko quickly onto a padded waist-high steel table. "Well?! Be quick, man!"

The medic rubbed his chin, taking in the situation. "I don't even know what happened. What's going on, miss?"

"Get rid of him!" Ranko glared up at Kuno, growling through gritted teeth. Her leg throbbed furiously, and she winced as she pulled up the leg of her purple gi pants to look at it. A deep purple bruise was forming on the inside of her left knee, and something about her kneecap looked... off, and she wasn't quite sure she could put her finger on how.

"I'm sorry, sir, but she's right. If you're not family, I need you to step out now." The medic did not look up from Ranko, but his stern voice left little room for argument, and Kuno nodded, stepping out of the room without another word and closing the door gently behind him.

"Okay, honey. Now do you wanna tell me what ha..."

"Gyaaaaah!" Ranko screamed, arching her back off the brown vinyl covering of the table as he began a physical examination of her left knee, pressing gently in various places around the joint. The physician wasn't sure how much of her wail was a result of his ministrations and how much was pent up agony that she'd just refused to let out in the presence of her opponent.

"When he kicked it, it bent funny. I felt something pop. Fuck me, it hurts!"

The medic frowned. From the description alone, he had a fair guess what had happened, and he doubted she was going to like the diagnosis. "Alright. We'll get it checked out. Try to take a couple deep breaths, okay? What's your name, honey?"