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“Where did he go?”
Wrestlers looked up all around the locker room as a wild-eyed Kenny Omega burst in. “Where did he go?” he repeated, too agitated to use Japanese. “The wrestler. The one who showed up and fought Red Death Mask.” He brandished his fists. “Tiger Mask W!”
There were disinterested shrugs all around. Kenny glared at them all. Red Death Mask himself, still in full red velour regalia, chose this moment to walk into the locker room.
Kenny rounded on him, slamming him up against a locker. “Where is he?” he snarled, then repeated it in Japanese. “Where is Tiger Mask W? Speak or I swear I’ll rip those horns off and feed them to you!”
Red Death Mask shrugged. “I dunno, man,” he said. “He just disappeared after beating me.”
Kenny blinked. “Your English is perfect,” he said, surprised.
“Well, sure,” said Red Death Mask. He reached up and pulled the red mask off to reveal a familiar face.
“Juice Robinson?” Kenny gasped, recoiling in shock.
“I have no idea who he is,” Juice said later, taking a sip of beer. He usually wouldn’t be caught dead in public with a Bullet Club member, but Kenny had managed to bribe him with grilled chicken and all-you-can-drink beer. “They told me to wear the mask and my opponent would become clear.” He took a bite of skewered chicken. “I got a familiar vibe off him, though.”
“Damn that mask,” Kenny said, slamming his fist into his hand. “How can I tell who he is if I can’t see his face?” He remembered again the thrill of shocked joy that had gone through him when Tiger Mask had started to fight. There was something so familiar about his style. So crisp, so controlled and brutal, yet such grace in every motion… “I have to fight him,” he said.
“Dude,” said Juice. “He will kick your ass.” He winced. “I’m going to be feeling those kicks for weeks. Probably have nightmares about them for months..”
“Robinson, don’t dare to presume we’re on the same level,” Kenny said loftily. “That which could destroy you in moments would be a mere trifle for one of my stature.”
Juice raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Whatever, dude.” He finished off his beer. “Just keep the skewers and beer coming.”
That night he dreams of tigers, striped and dappled and dangerous, stalking him through groves of bamboo with watchful eyes. In his dream he runs through the forest, unsure if he is searching for something or running from it, and he wakes with tears on his face and a name on his lips that he doesn’t want to hear.
The second time was at Wrestle Kingdom. Kenny had been mentally preparing himself for the match against Okada, and usually when he was in that headspace he was hardly aware of anything. But he heard the crowd pop for Tiger Mask W, looked up to see him entering the ring, and couldn’t look away after that. He watched with a strange mix of joy and fury as Tiger Mask did a moonsault off the turnbuckle, his body curving and tumbling. “Stealing his moves,” he muttered angrily. “How dare he?”
Nick and Matt looked at each other uneasily. “Maybe they’re friends?” Matt suggested.
“Friends?” Kenny’s laugh was a humorless bark. “Oh no, he’s too busy to have friends. He’s off in America, or riding a bicycle to the ring somewhere, or I don’t care where he is, but he isn’t making friends with living anime characters.” He glared at the screen. “No, this Tiger Mask W, whoever he is, is a thief.”
“He’s really good, too,” said Nick.
“He’s an annoyance and a distraction,” Kenny said, and turned his back on the screen.
He heard the crowd noise lifting, heard their cries and joy as the bell rang. “Well,” said Nick hesitantly, “We’re off to our match now.”
Kenny nodded at the wall and felt them leave. He had to be ready for the biggest match of his career. He had to be ready for Okada.
Tiger Mask W didn’t come backstage after his match, but disappeared into the night.
Later, as Kenny stood on the turnbuckle, Okada far below him, out past the barricade, the thought came to him as if beyond his control: This is how you steal a move with style, you striped bastard.
He launched himself out into the air, the lights and the crowd and universe itself whirling around him, and there wasn’t even time to wonder if he might be watching before the world slammed back into him once more.
That night, his heart heavy with loss, even anger burned out of him by the fire of the match, he dreams of tigers again. In the dream the tiger fights a wolf, gold and gray against each other, and Kenny holds a spear in his shaking hands. The tiger’s eyes glint at him, beseeching or threatening, and Kenny leaps forward, and then somehow the tiger is dead at his feet, the wolf triumphant. He is surrounded by the howling of wolves and he stares down at the long lithe body of the tiger and feels himself weeping with shame, and nothing matters anymore. Nothing matters anymore.
The losses and setbacks piled up one by one, and so did the dreams. Dreams of a tiger prowling through billows of flame, heedless of the storm of sparks scorching him. Dreams of a samurai warrior with a tiger’s bright eyes and an opaque smile, holding a drawn sword between them. And over and over, Tiger Mask W appeared to fight and to vanish again, slipping away from Kenny’s ever-more-frantic searching. He started to take on Bullet Club members in matches, but never Kenny, never Kenny, never Kenny.
“If I could just fight him,” Kenny snarled. “I’d be able to tell who he was. I know it.”
Yujiro, who had been listening patiently to him for an hour now, looked dubious, and Kenny shook a finger at him.
“Don’t you dare doubt me! If I can just get that match, it’ll all make sense. The dreams will stop. I’ll start to win again. It’ll all make sense--” Again, he’d started to say, but stopped himself. Because there most definitely wasn’t any clear point at which the world had stopped making sense. The world was nothing but chaos and emptiness, and it always had been. There had never been a time when things had seemed to flow naturally, had seemed to come easily.
“He kick your head off, Kenny,” Yujiro said, touching his bruised cheekbone. “He’s as good as--”
He broke off without finishing the sentence at the look Kenny gave him.
“Don’t speak to me about people who’ve abandoned New Japan,” said Kenny. “Who’ve abandoned this promotion, who’ve abandoned--”
This time he was the one who broke off. There was a look of pity on Yujiro’s face, and Kenny didn’t know why.
No one here needed pity. No one here wanted pity. All Kenny wanted was an end to his dreams.
An end to his dreams.
And once Tiger Mask W was done playing cat and mouse with the Bullet Club, done beating each and every one of them soundly, then and only then he accepted a challenge from Kenny Omega. He stood over Cody Rhodes in Korakuen, and this time he didn’t flee as Kenny came to the ring, this time he stayed still and stared as Kenny took the mic.
“You want the leader?” Kenny said. His voice wasn’t shaking, which was the important thing. No one was going to notice that the mic was trembling in his hands. “All right, Tiger Mask! Fight me at the next show, and I’ll show you who’s the better man!”
Tiger Mask’s eyes flicked down to Kenny’s hands for an instant, and Kenny bit back a curse. A slight smile curved his mouth and he looked up to meet Kenny’s eyes again, then nodded.
His dreams leading up to the match are unspeakable, full of blood and pain. Sometimes it’s his blood and pain, which is bad.
Sometimes it’s not his, which is worse.
He tries hard to forget the latter dreams. He almost succeeds.
They stood across the ring from each other. Kenny’s heart was pounding. On a whim, at the last second, he’d changed from his black tights to the colorful ones, with the familiar pink and blue swirls. He told himself it was to show his contempt for Tiger Mask, to make clear this wasn’t a match he took seriously.
He hoped Tiger Mask believed that.
The bell rang and they locked up.
He knew, of course, he knew from the moment Tiger Mask’s hands touched him. The mask could obscure Kenny’s vision, but it couldn’t keep him from recognizing the muscles beneath his hands, the sound of his breathing, the very scent of his sweat. “Oh God,” he heard himself whisper, and pushed his opponent away, swinging in a punch.
Which was blocked perfectly.
He dodged the return punch without even thinking, feeling their bodies fall into familiar rhythm, as natural as falling asleep, as natural as falling in love. Dodge and tumble, leap and swing, too evenly matched to ever gain the upper hand, swift and beautiful. Tiger Mask’s hands ruffled his curls as they sliced past his head, the breeze kissing Kenny’s cheek. He felt something tugging at his mouth and realized it was a smile. Tiger Mask was laughing as he leaped in the air to dodge a hadouken.
He landed on his feet, cat-light, and said in a voice rich with delight: “Kenny.”
It was the sound of his own name in that familiar voice that finally undid him; he dodged a fraction too slow and staggered as the hand clipped his temple. Another kick sent him to his back and he watched, his head ringing with something that felt oddly like joy, as Tiger Mask climbed the turnbuckle and did the most beautiful Phoenix Splash Kenny had ever seen. Kenny gazed in wonder, unable to even move, at the body that curved and looped above him until it came down and somehow crushed both the breath from his body and the loneliness from his heart.
Tiger Mask put his hands on Kenny’s shoulders, holding him down, and brought his mouth to Kenny’s right there in the middle of the ring, kissing him as the ref counted three, long and sweet and wild. The crowd erupted into excited screams and the bell rang, but the kiss lingered on for a breathless moment, far more tender than Kenny deserved, far more gentle than he had ever dreamed.
“You came back,” Kenny whispered against Kota’s mouth.
“Came back?” There was reproachful laughter in Kota’s voice as he rested one hand over Kenny’s heart. “I have always been here.” He smiled, and Kenny’s breath caught at the love and the challenge in his tiger-bright eyes.
“Where have you been?” Kota said.