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Regal walked up to find Hunter had already arrived, scanning the empty campus with his hands on his hips like a conquering king. Which Regal supposed he was, in his way. “And here I had expected to be early.”
Hunter turned to look at him, a smile on his face that was too satisfied to be truly apologetic. “Couldn’t sleep. I always like to sign contracts first thing in the morning, I feel like it sets a good tone for the day.”
“So you’ve decided on Full Sail, then?”
“You sound doubtful.”
“Some of the other facilities seemed like very good candidates.”
“I know, I know. I just kept coming back here. Something about it.” He nodded like he’d been carrying on an entirely different conversation with himself. “This is it. This is the right home for NXT.” He turned back to Regal, on eyebrow raised. “Have you considered my offer?”
“I suspect most of the roster has been hoping you would rescind it”
Hunter gave him that shark smile of his, the cerebral assassin peeking out from the suit. “They’ll adjust. You’re the general manager I need here. They’ll need a firm hand. We’ll transition you in slowly, I know you have unfinished business with Ambrose.” He let out a long breath. “It’s hard to step away from the ring,” he said. “Believe me, I know, I haven’t figured out how to do it myself. If you’re not ready....”
“No,” Regal said. His chest felt tight at saying it out loud but he knew his mind had been made up the moment Hunter had made the offer. “It’s time.” Hunter clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll let you two get acquainted.” He left Regal to his thoughts, already on his phone handling some other surely important bit of business. Regal took a slow walk around the quad; the last time he and Hunter had toured here it had been teeming with students and the feeling was very different now. He actually hadn’t been in favor of Full Sail as NXT’s permanent home – he hadn’t been much in favor of being surrounded by twenty-year-olds even when he himself had been twenty – but he was beginning to feel like perhaps he had been wrong.
“You feel it, don’t you.” Regal looked over to Bray Wyatt lying down on one of the benches lining the path to the campus library, his hat over his face. He leaned up on one elbow, tipping his hat up enough for Regal to see his eyes. “What lives here.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Regal said. “Not that anyone ever does.”
“Oh, I believe you do.” Bray sat up. “You should call ol’ Helmsley back and get him to change his mind. Nothing should have ever been built here, not when there was something so wild and hungry living just below.”
“And what exactly would it be hungry for?”
Bray smiled. “Pain. Blood. Or did you think all of us being called here was an accident?”
Regal didn’t engage with Bray further – it was generally poor judgement to engage with Bray at all – but he wasn’t able to quite push the words from his mind. William Regal had lived too long in a superstitious, violent world to be foolish enough to ever dismiss any possibility out of hand. “Is that true, my girl?” he said under his breath, to the campus and, just maybe, to whatever may be waiting under his feet. “Are you hungry for something?” He felt one of those unexpected, painful pangs that had plagued him all walk now that very soon the ring and all that happened in it would soon be a memory for him. “Then perhaps you and I will be even more well-suited than I’d thought.”
***
Sometimes people would ask Kenta if he was surprised his assailant had never been uncovered – all that time and no one had talked? It was a marvel, an actual secret in a business that notoriously hated secrets. Why did you never say? they would ask. Just tell me, I promise I’ll keep the secret.
He never knew what to say. Early on he would sometimes murmur how he hadn’t seen who it was (strange, since he hadn’t been knocked out) and eventually he would just walk away whenever the topic came up. By then he’d earned a reputation for surliness and it was a convenient thing to hide behind.
A little shameful perhaps, but easier than saying out loud that there had been no attacker.
Not one with a name, at any rate.
He would close his eyes during that endless, painful rehab sometimes and see the shadows rising up from the ground the way they had that night, knitting themselves together while he stood there frozen. On good days he could convince himself he’d been mistaken, that what he saw had all been shock.
Good days were harder to come by as the years dragged on.
In his darker moments Kenta would sometimes feel that shadow still on him. He would wake up to his shoulder burning the way it had with the second infection. He would be training and his fingertips would go numb, just like that moment in the parking lot before something dark and formless tried to wrench his arm off.
He should have left then. Broken the contract, whatever the consequences, it wasn’t as if he had been working up to his standards anyway. But he couldn’t. The failure, the whispers, he tried to turn it around through the sheer force of will.
And through it all, that shadow was always reaching for him, just beyond his field of vision.
Even going home hadn’t chased it away, and the creeping horror of standing in the ring that first night of the G1 – a night he had dreamed about since his first day of training – only to feel his fingertips go numb was the closest he hoped he would ever come to a full nervous breakdown. And then there was the jeering, ungrateful crowd, the strong start that disintegrated into the same mediocrity he’d fled in America. He would never admit it out loud to anyone but there were nights late in the G1 when he’d considered retiring.
The night before the pointless finals Tama Tonga sauntered up to him in that carefully careless way he had, sitting opposite him at the darkest table Kenta had been able to find in the bar. “Mutual friend asked me to check in on you,” Tama said, staring up at an unspecified spot on the ceiling. “Thought you might do good with a change of scene.”
Kenta had smirked. “None of you will get rid of me so easily.”
Tama smiled. “Not that kind of change. Get some people around you, that kind of thing. Hard to be an island in New Japan.”
“Not interested.”
Tama turned his glass around and drew a crude skull in the condensation with one finger. “Take a night. Think it over.” He handed Kenta a tissue wrapped package. “Try it on, see how it feels.”
Kenta had intended to leave the shirt in the bar. He was never quite sure why he didn’t.
He did try on the shirt that night. It was the first time he’d slept through the night without dreaming about shadows in five years.
The night he won the NEVER Finn called to congratulate him. “You could have done something sooner,” Kenta said.
Finn took an audible breath. If they’d been face to face Kenta knew he would be trying to lie with his smile. “I couldn’t,” he finally said, and Kenta only forgave him because he tell it was a rare moment when his actual friend was peeking out from the friendly mask. “Not there.”
“Stay away from that place.”
That smile was back, but even though the phone Kenta could tell it was the genuine, cutting one. Finn ended the call without saying another word.
***
Johnny Gargano was a deep, walking ache. Empty.
Hungry.
It had learned. That first time, things had gone wrong, it had taken too much. After that night it had sunk down into the earth and watched, taught itself patience, and had slowly learned that if it chose wisely it didn’t need to push very much at all. Just a nudge, a small suggestion, that was all that was usually needed. And there were so many opportunities.
It stared at Black through his eyes, kindling the resentment towards the man Johnny usually tried to smother. What right did Black have to be involved, anyway? Johnny tried to choke down the memory of Full Sail booing when he’d accidentally helped Tommaso win the title. As if he’d meant it to happen that way. It smoothed over a flicked of doubt at that thought and focused his ire back at Black.
Johnny Gargano didn’t need that small nudge. He only needed permission. You will have everything you want it whispered to him; he shook his head like a startled dog, as if the words were things he’d heard and not felt. It felt him smile, a sour, tasty thing. “What I want is long gone.” But he hadn’t been able to keep himself from picturing it: the title around his waist. Him firmly back in the heart of the fans. Candice and Tommaso both by his side, like Chicago had never happened.
Everything.
It directed his gaze back to Black. Only one thing in the way.
Months later Johnny would all but stumble over Aleister Black sitting on the floor in the bowels of the Barclay Center, Johnny riding on a high from finally winning that title, from Candice’s arms tight around him and her whispering “I knew it I knew it I knew it,” into his ear. And the most impossible part of the night, Tommaso coming out and looking at him with clear eyes for the first time in what felt like an eternity. It all felt like a dream.
“Oh. Hey,” Johnny said, sweat breaking out across his arms. He didn’t know why. “I, um...." The words faded out into and awkward silence. "I’ll miss seeing you around Full Sail.”
“No, you won’t.”
Black had a level stare Johnny had never quite figured out how to match. He had the sudden, sick flashback of clapping one hand over Black’s mouth to keep him quiet that night in the parking lot, feeling those three quick panicked breaths against his palm before he’d finally hit Black hard enough to make him go limp. That night felt like a dream too when Johnny let himself think about it, but a fever dream instead of the beautiful, impossible one he’d just achieved. Thinking about it always made him feel like spiders were skittering up his spine. “Well, don’t worry,” Johnny said, pushing the memory down and forcing himself to smile. “NXT is in good hands.”
Black hadn’t taken his eyes from Johnny for a second. Johnny wasn’t sure he’d blinked. “Don’t trust it.”
Johnny felt his smile slip. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”
Black’s lips tipped up for a single, uncharacteristic instant before he heaved himself up. “Goodbye, Johnny.”
***
Io felt something curdle deep somewhere in her stomach when Kairi’s smile faltered. “Aren’t...aren’t you happy for me?”
Io hugged her before Kairi could see how very fake her smile was. “Of course. You will do amazing on Raw! Or Smackdown, whichever one! And with Asuka! I just…we were just starting.”
“I loved Sky Pirates,” Kairi said, sounding a little wistful. Io found herself wishing she sounded a little more wistful and squashed that down very far. It wasn’t fair. Kairi had worked so hard. “It’s such a surprise!” Kairi said, pulling away. “I’m sorry, I have no time! I’m already late to meet with Mr. Regal to let him know. I’m so glad I ran into you before I left!” Kairi gave her another quick hug and rushed away, leaving Io standing alone in the lot.
“Io? You okay?” Io’s head snapped up; Candice was looking at her, eyes wide and concerned. Io hadn’t heard her come up.
“Ah…yes,” she said. She realized it had started to rain at some point without her realizing. “I had just…just heard about Kairi.”
“What happened? Did she get hurt?”
Io realized she would have rather that had been the news and felt ashamed of the thought. “No,” she said, not able to keep the sour twist from the word. “Called up.”
Candice clapped her hands together. “Oh my God! That’s great, I’m so happy for you two....”
“No,” Io said again. “Just her.”
Candice did a very poor job of hiding her surprise. “Oh! That’s…huh.” She nudged Io’s shoulder. “Guess it’s up to the two of us to take Shayna down now, huh?”
Io nodded, plastering on a fake smile. “Partners.”
Candice smiled and then rushed into the PC, trying to shield herself from the rain. Io watched her go, her soaked hair plastering to her face.
Hit her.
Io startled. The voice had sounded like it was right behind her, although Io knew if she turned around she would see nothing. “No,” she said, irrationally needed to argue anyway. “She’s my friend.”
What good are those?
Io would remember those words weeks later while crouching hidden next to a car, waiting for Candice to arrive. She tightened her grip on the kendo stick, a giddy smile on her face. She felt wonderful. So free.
She kissed the kendo stick and whispered a word of thanks. She should have listened sooner.
***
Finn stepped onto the pavement, his shoes unnaturally loud on the asphalt. He wasn’t rude or unwise enough to try to sneak back to the PC unnoticed. There were rules to this sort of thing, after all. One should never slight the mistress of the house. He had made that mistake when he left the first time with things left undone and paid dearly for the insult that fateful Summerslam. He felt the darkness touch him, curious, and consciously lowered his defenses. “Hello again.”
Finn pressed his lips into a hard line. “I wish you could have made your point some other way." He closed his eyes, listening. “No, I understand how it must be this time. Nothing held back.” Finn felt a shiver go up his back. It seemed like he’d been looking forward to this moment almost as long as he’d fought it. He rolled his shoulders, letting the darkness in him rise to just under his skin in a way he hadn't really done since leaving Japan.
He smiled as he gradually lost track of where his darkness ended and Full Sail's began. He should have had the courage to do this so long ago. So many things might have been different. “I promise. Of course you'll be fed.”