INT. A DARK ROOM — ANIMATED.

MUSIC CUE: “GLIMPSES” by THE YARDBIRDS.

CLOSE UP on a cold, unforgiving wall, hand-drawn in a style inspired by classic TMS Entertainment films Golgo 13: The Professional and Akira. A block of light shines down on the alternating bricks, each a unique shade of red. After a beat, a small, right fist flies into frame from OFF SCREEN and smashes into the wall with a dense thud.

NOTE: Voice Over (V.O.) is in Japanese with English subtitles. Spoken dialogue is in English with Japanese subtitles. The narration is provided by Japanese voice actress ATSUKO TANAKA.

TANAKA (V.O.)

One of the earliest memories Yelena has is of her father educating her on the skeletal structure of the human hand.

Another strike hits the wall, this time the left hand.

TANAKA (V.O.)

She was six years old.

The right fist flies back into frame and crashes into the brick.

CUT TO: A BROODING MAN’S FACE, half hidden under long, black hair hanging. His eyes, ice blue and gleaming, are seen in the breaks where his thick locks of hair separate from one another in jagged slices. He’s smoking a long, straight kiseru pipe. This is her father.

The sickening sound of a child’s fists hammering brick is still heard off screen. He lowers it from his lips and with smoke rolling out of his lips, he speaks:

SPIRAL

Fourteen phalanx bones make up five fingers. Our bodies fashion them from porous, hard tissue. All those tiny little holes make them weak and useless from birth. But repeated trauma fractures the bone. Calcium fills in the cracks and pores. They become hard as hammers.

Yelena, only a young girl, with her blonde hair in pigtails and wearing a blood-spattered white gi, continues to attack the wall. The heavy, dense pulse of smacking fists have taken on a more sickening sound. It’s wet, and sticky, as skin breaks open and blood-stained knuckle imprints are left behind on the crumbling brick.

TANAKA (V.O.)

Unconstrained by pain or fear, she punched with reckless abandon, fueled by uncompromising violence. Over and over, systematically alternating from right to left, the room echoed with the soggy, spattering thuds of her flesh smacking against the wall and the crunch of bones that followed in its wake.

This is how she spent her summers, punching that same wall over and over again until her hands were bloated and purple.

Yelena, now eight, continues to attack the same wall, only now her aim is higher, hitting above the dried, flakey, coagulated crust from the previous year’s targets. Past her jabbing arms and flying fists, in the dark recesses of the room, her father stands watching, as always.

SPIRAL

Your fists will become concrete. Every time you hit someone, it won’t just break bones. It will obliterate them. Nasal cavity crushed. Orbital socket splintered. Jaw shattered.

YOUNG YELENA

Yes, father.

Yelena, another year older, throws a straight right. She winces but doesn’t stop.

SPIRAL

Your hands will hurt for the rest of your life. Every ache will be a reminder that you are special. You are unique. Say it.

YOUNG YELENA

I am special. I am unique.

He holds his hand up. His fingers are knotty and knuckles covered in thick calluses. It curls into a deliberate fist. The skin stretches like old, worn leather.

SPIRAL

Just like me.

TANAKA (V.O.)

Even when he was imprisoned, she continued his lessons.

EXT. CHISINAU ALLEYWAY — DAY. AGE NINE.

Yelena stands between two soviet-era buildings. Her hands alternate attacking the concrete exterior. Past her, in the mouth of the alley, other children have gathered to watch…

INT. MOTHER’S KITCHEN. AGE TEN.

Taller and stronger, her hands soak in a bowl of bloody ice water as she reads the latest update on her father’s incarceration in the psychiatric hospital…

EXT. PLAYGROUND — DAY. AGE ELEVEN.

A teenage boy with bits of wiry hair sprouting around his mouth scowls. A fist cuts through the frame and connects with his cheek. His face reverberates from the impact, causing the flesh to ripple as his eyes squint shut. Blood spurts out of his nose and mouth, ribboning through the air like thin, red ropes. He hits the ground. Yelena stands over him, surrounded by gawking children. Off screen, the boy tries to talk but his words come out in gurgles and chokes…

TANAKA (V.O.)

She was still a little girl when he was released from the hospital. Imagine his pride when he saw his daughter’s mangled hands.

INT. COPENHAGEN AIRPORT. AGE TWELVE.

She runs off the plane and into his arms. A terrible smile crawls across his lips as he inspects her bandaged hands. The white is stained pink along the peaks of her knuckles. He pulls her into a hug. Her arms wrap around his torso.

SPIRAL

I’ll never leave you again.

TANAKA (V.O.)

She believed him. It was the last thing she ever let myself hope for because hope, like everything else in this world, always dies.

INT. SMOKEY BAR. AGE FIFTEEN.

A make-shift MMA cage constructed from chicken wire and 2×4’s is surrounded by a rabid, drunken mob screaming in German. Spiral stands on the perimeter. A hood hangs over his head to conceal his identity.

CUT TO: INSIDE THE CAGE. Yelena is tall and her built body fills out an all-black fight kit. Her opponent comes running into frame. He’s a full grown man, thirties, overweight but bullish. He throws a wild haymaker. She ducks under. Quick attacks fly back and forth.

He spins backward with his fist. She catches his arm and turns. Momentum sends him flying over her hip. He lands hard. Her leg lifts and she slams her foot down a breath late, missing his face as he rolls and stands.

He charges like a wild animal.

She spins and throws a roundhouse right that slams into his ribcage.

His mouthguard goes flying and he struggles to recover.

She takes three running steps and leaps into the air.

Her knee smashes into his face.

He falls backward.

She straddles his chest and raises her right hand in the air.

Scarred, crooked fingers form a hammer. It slices downward and connects.

Her left fist follows, coming down straight at the middle of his face.

CUT TO: Spiral, in the crowd, watching deadfaced as the drunken onlookers around him cheer and scream. Their bellowing voices fade out, even as their mouths continue to articulate words and wails. What’s left is the horrible echo of every punch his daughter, unseen, continues to land on her opponent. A moist, smacking sound, and the crackle of splintering bones and breaking teeth.

TANAKA (V.O.)

It was Yelena’s idea to focus on the Olympics. If Spiral had had it his way, she’d still be fighting in cages, far away from cameras and notoriety. But she wanted more. She wanted something for herself. She wanted to accomplish something he never could.

INT. JUDO COMPETITION. AGE SEVENTEEN.

Spiral continues to watch, only now it’s from the stands in a school gymnasium. A banner hangs above him that reads IJF TOURNOI DE QUALIFICATION OLYMPIQUE. On the mat, Yelena grapples with another young woman. She loses her balance. Her opponent uses this to take advantage and deliver a hard throw. The judges award an IPPON victory. Yelena slams her hand onto the mat. Spiral stands from the bleacher and walks away.

TANAKA (V.O.)

Like the bloody brick wall, his disappointment broke her.

INT. 2017 WORLD JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS. AGE EIGHTEEN.

Yelena stands on the podium, to the right, on the lowest riser. She drips her head forward as the official places a bronze medal around her neck. She stands straight as the audience applauds her failure. Her eyes look past the cameras and photographers, toward the audience. CUT TO: An empty front row seat.

TANAKA (V.O.)

And it made her stronger.

INT. 2018 WORLD JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS. AGE NINETEEN.

Yelena raises her gold medal overhead on the center podium. Her eyes search for her father. A smile spreads from cheek to cheek. CUT TO: Spiral, in the front row. He stands from his seat and claps with the thousands in attendance.

TANAKA (V.O.)

She earned his approval, but like everything in life, it was fleeting.

Spiral FADES away, like a spirit being called from the physical world, and once again his seat is empty.

INT. NIPPON BUDOKAN — 2020 TOKYO OLYMPICS.

Yelena, fighting back tears, stands on the podium with the gold medal around her neck as the Moldovan flag ripples on the giant display behind her.

TANAKA (V.O.)

He died seven months prior to the games, which were delayed a year during the pandemic.

CUT TO: An empty seat in the front row with a RESERVED marker still taped to the back. All around the chair, people are on their feet cheering the medalists. Slowly, the empty seat DISSOLVES TO:

EXT. ASSISTENS CEMETERY. COPENHAGEN  — NIGHT.

A SPIRAL is engraved on the tall, narrow headstone and the name NIELS GRAM is chiseled underneath. After a beat, a shovel flies into frame and sinks its blade into the grass and dirt. Rain starts to fall as the shovel stabs, digs and scoops mounds of soil. You PULL BACK, revealing Yelena with the shovel in hand. She sinks it into the ground, jams it in further with the heel of her boot, then turns to toss grass, mud and rock onto a growing pile.

CUT TO: The grave, overhead. The hole is much larger and deeper. The rain is pouring down now. She tosses the shovel to the side before dropping to her knees. From her pocket she takes out the Olympic medal and places it into the hole. She then begins pushing the wet soil over it.

TANAKA (V.O.)

It broke her heart that he didn’t live to see her win Olympic Gold but at least he’s not around to see all her failures as a professional wrestler.

MONTAGE OF MATCHES:

…In UPRISING’s Lethal Lottery match to decide the next world title challenger, Yelena believes she won after throwing Sam Tolson over the top rope, but Sam is saved by Jace Parker Davidson from hitting the floor. Sam gets back in the ring, attacks Yelena from behind, and throws her out of the ring…

TANAKA (V.O.)

Never pinned.

…At PWV’s Blood in the Water, she refuses to submit to Spencer Adams’ bulldog choke but in the final seconds of regulation, the referee rules her unconscious. She sits in the middle of the ring and seethes while Spencer celebrates…

TANAKA (V.O.)

Never submitted.

…Yelena battles Ozbourne in a Haunted House match for the Pro Wrestling Valor Disavowed championship. She loses when her opponent kicks her out of a second story window…

TANAKA (V.O.)

And yet she is empty handed.

…At Rainbow Road, Yelena tries to climb back into the ring but fails to reach Jessa Wells to prevent her from pinning Kimberly Stark and earning a chance to fight for the Valkyrie championship…

TANAKA (V.O.)

Dead three years, she can feel her father’s disappointment.
And still it makes her stronger.

INT. A DARK ROOM.

That familiar sound of flesh and bone smashing into a wall with sopping thuds. FADE IN to that old, dingy brick wall, and a picture taped on it. A woman, wrapped in an American flag with a gold medal around her neck. Her name is Karlie Nash. A layer of running, thick blood is smeared over her face.

TANAKA (V.O.)

On December 30th, in the Tokyo Dome,
She will become a wild thing.
Without boundaries.
Without definition.

When Karlie Nash stares across the ring, it won’t be a person that she sees.

Yelena’s right fist flies into frame, smashing into the picture. Then her left. Then her right… You PULL BACK over her shoulder as her arms shoot forward, one after the other, driving their fists into the stylized, bloody leftovers clinging to the print.

One more hard right and her arms drop to her sides and she turns, letting her unnerving gaze focus on your attention, with her cold eyes peeking through strands of hair. A hideous, unnatural smile is cut across her face like a knife slash.

GORGO

It will be the monster in the abyss staring back.

FADE OUT.

XI

NEO-TOKYO

The future is not a straight line. It is filled with many crossroads. There must be a future that we can choose for ourselves.
— Kiyoko, Akira.

DECEMBER 17 2023—THERE I WAS getting blitzed on the bubbly and booze in a Tokyo host club. I wore my black Dolce & Gabbana corset longuette dress with, of course, reindeer antlers on my head. ‘Tis the season and all that. Loud J-Pop Christmas covers bumped in the bar but in the VIP room it was no more than a subtle rumble. Yellow light reflected off a turning gold disco ball hanging from the ceiling as it leisurely rotated on its axis, directing moving flecks of gold across the glitter-decorated walls. Our both was shaped in a large u, large enough to seat ten people, and was cushioned with plush, black leather upholstery. A knee-high table stood in front and was covered in half-drank cocktails, empty glasses and ashtrays.

Angel, my closest confidant, accomplice and (consensual) sex slave, was with me, talking to the host she picked for the night. He’s taller than most Japanese men and fit, with sharp features and a neat anime haircut.

My host was melted into me, with his body against mine and head gently on my shoulder. He was thin with smooth skin and had a darker complexion than Angel’s man. His hair wasn’t teased and stiff with product either, but like the other hosts I had my choice of, he was wearing makeup.

His fingers lightly traced my skin from hand to shoulder and down my collarbone and then up the crook of my neck before reversing course. I felt his palm casually brush over my right breast through the corset’s sheer fabric.

He stopped touching me only once without being told, after I fished a clove cigarette from the case in my Louboutin clutch. He had a lighter struck before the filter was between my lips. I took a deep breath as the flame danced around the end of the cigarette and then exalted. He slipped the lighter back in his pocket and then resumed his service.

He doesn’t talk because I don’t want him to.

If you’re not hip to this interesting corner of Japanese culture, a host club is a bar or nightclub where rich women go to blow all their money on alcohol. In return, they get to pick one of the hosts to spend time with for the night, which mostly involves the host complementing the customer, listening to her talk about herself or her problems, and drinking a lot.

Sex was not on the official menu, but everything in life is a negotiation.

I wonder who you are, reading this now. Are you my brother? I don’t think you could manage the stairs but with modern medicine what it is these days, a pair of robot legs might help you overcome your paralyzed state. No, my money is on law enforcement. I’ve either been arrested or killed in the process and now you get to pour over all my notebooks and read about all my little misdeeds. The media circus has spread like wildfire. My face is on screens all over the world. They call me a MONSTER. Holy rollers decry my name in the light of day and at night they rub themselves raw thinking about me.

One can dream.

Or perhaps my little voyeur is me, many years from now, having somehow climbed my way to old age without being forced to answer for all I have done. I imagine myself sitting in a rocking chair, reliving all my sordid moments through my descriptions of sex, torture and murder (oh my!).

“Yelena,” Angel said, turning toward me. “What did he say?”

Her host looked at me and repeated himself in Japanese before his attention returned to my darling Angel. I bent down with a sly smile and said, “He says you have nice tattoos.”

She fawned at the complement and stretched her arms overhead, giving the young man a full view of her intricate sleeves. The black-scale tattoos were a starter kit for gen z kids who have really gotten into paganism and new age spirituality. He touched her arm and traced a black tree from the pumpkin path around her wrist and into the sky where a small witch flew away on a broom. Goosebumps pucker up on her skin and her nipples harden and press through her Brunello Cucinelli black and white striped cashmere tank top.

The next time the waiter came around I ordered shots of tequila for the table. Twenty thousand yen, or about $140 US, and what did they bring us? Jose Cuervo. After downing my shot, my eyes watched Angel lick salt off the back of her host’s hand before knocking back her own.

Is that what it’s like to watch your kids open presents on Christmas? Sitting back, drinking overpriced mid-shelf booze while your darling opens his/her/their presents, seeing all the money spent to illicit happiness be shredded apart like wrapping paper, all so you can witness a fleeting moment of absolute joy and, most importantly, feel better about your choices in life because if you can make someone feel that good, you must not be human garbage.

Giving is not selfless, no matter what all the songs say. John Lennon was a lair. The war is over…if you want it… If human history has taught us anything, it’s that we fucking love war. War is the best joke we ever came up with. Great set up followed by a killer punchline. Like the Aristocrats!

I know, I know. Where’s my Christmas spirit? Bah, humbug! ¿Feliz Navidad? ¡Hoy no, señor! Deck the halls with bells of holly? Only if I can use its berries to poison the guests! I fucking hate holidays that don’t involve horror movies and light bondage. So Halloween. And Valentine’s Day, if you play your cards right.

“What do you do,” Angel’s host said to me at one point. I blew a stream of smoke in his direction and then showed off my Japanese that I had been working very hard on for the last two months.

“I kill people,” I said.

His eyes go wide. I add, “In the ring, of course! I’m a professional wrestler.”

“Oh, I see,” he said in broken English with a little laugh.

My thumb points at Angel. “She helps me kill people.”

He looked at Angel, then back to me. “She is a wrestler, too?”

“No,” I said with a smile before taking another drag.

He laughed, nervously this time, before reaching for his cocktail on the table. Angel shot me a look, expecting a translation. I started to make something up when a shadow appeared in front of our booth.

Both hosts froze when their eyes raised to greet the newcomer. Before a word was said both slid out of the seats and disappeared from the room with their heads bowed to the dark figure.

Angel was tense and looked at me for directions. “Who’s this,” she dared say under her breath.

With the cigarette between my fingers, I pointed at the shadow and said, “This is Yaponchik. I told you about her. She works for the Shōgun. The deadliest woman in Japan, they say.”

Yaponchik was dressed in her finest retro 80s punk rock cosplay, save for the gun peeking out of the holster under her leather jacket. Her hair was spiked in a mohawk and her eyes were accented with black liner. I didn’t see the sword. She must have left it at home but her belt has a no-so-well hidden blade in the buckle.

“Oh,” Angel said with that sweet, innocent naivety that I love so much. “She doesn’t look happy.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” I said out of the side of my mouth. “It’s all a ruse. Deep down, she’s a lover, not a fighter.”

“You talk too much,” Yaponchik said in English. “Just like your father.”

I smoked my cigarette and said, “I’m sorry, darling. Did he wrong you in some way? Is that my penance to pay on his behalf, to be required to deal with your scowl every time I hop a flight to Tokyo? Tut-tut, if only you smiled a little bit. Do you like jokes? I know a banger. What did the boy with no arms and no legs get for christmas?”

Angel cracked up. “I love this one. Go on, tell her!”

Yaponcick’s glare shot to Angel, which caused my little flower to wilt in her seat, which I didn’t care for. The Other Me stirred in her dark space in the far reaches of my mind, slithering violent thoughts into my conscious thought with her forked tongue.

“Kill her now,” the Other Me said with a breathy giggle. “Seize her gun and splatter her pretty brains all over this disco nightmare room! You know you want to.”

I wanted nothing more but the urge was repressed. Her time would come, along with her boss’s. Cold and obscene will be my vengeance.

The hitwoman must have sensed the sinister change in my energy. The part of the human brain that has survived since prehistory, the soft squishy amygdala which served to warn our ancestors of impending danger from deadly predators, must have tipped her off of my homicidal intentions.

Her black eyes met mine and she said, “If this is going to go wrong, you should tell your friend to leave.”

Smoke streamed from my nostrils. “She stays. If you came here to kill me, you have to kill her, too. We have an arrangement. Isn’t that right, flower?”

Angel proudly said with her back straight and tits out, “Fuckin’ A.”

Yaponchik chewed on that for a minute before, surprisingly, breaking her hard ass exterior by walking around the table and sitting down at the end of the booth. She bent forward and grabbed one of the half-drank cocktails off the table.

“We heard Vanessa Byrne took ill,” she said and then took a drink. After licking her naked lips, she leaned back. “The news said COVID.”

“Tragic,” I said with a shake of my head. “She should have gotten vaccinated.”

“Of course the story said she tested negative in the hospital.”

“See there,” I said with my cigarette pointed at her. “Must have been, what do they call it? A false negative.” Then I took a drag before adding with a sly shrug, “Or maybe she didn’t have COVID. Maybe she smoked one too many cigarettes.”

Yaponchick took another drink before turning her attention back to Angel. “What’s your story?”

My little flower meeps, “Thank you for asking! My name is Angel. I’m twenty one years old and—”

“She’s my fuck doll,” I blurted out before cackling away. Angel gave me a sideways look and then rolled her eyes. “That’s true but I’m more than that! I have a life. I have hobbies!”

Yaponchik took another drink of whatever was in that glass while relaxing into the cushion. She then snaked her arm over the back, her fingers only a short distance from Angel’s shoulder.

She said, “I imagine you have all sorts of hidden talents.”

Angel giggled. SHE GIGGLED. You must understand, I’m not a jealous person. Angel and I sleep with each other. We sleep with other people. We sleep with other people together. It’s a beautiful thing. But something about the way this woman was speaking to her got under my skin. I know now she was trying to get under my skin. It worked.

“There she is,” I said to Yaponchik with a nod toward Angel. “You want to take her home? All you have to do is ask.”

Angel, of course, immediately moved a little closer to the other woman’s hand while pushing her short blonde hair back behind her ear. “Yeah, all you have to do is ask and I’m yours.”

Genuine temptation was boiling up in the hitwoman’s engine. I could see it in her eyes, with the way she was gazing at my little flower. She was willing to play the game until her attention broke away from Angel and found my cold stare.

“What did you think was going to happen here,” I asked flatly. “We were all going to head back to the hotel and screw?”

Angel laughed and slinked back to me, grabbing her drink off the table on the way. “Sounds like fun,” she said, drunk and sloppy, before emptying her glass in two gulps.

Yaponchik sat forward, unable to hide a knowing smile. “I’m here to deliver a message. You did what was asked, and you will be allowed to operate in Japan unimpeded. For now.”

“For now?”

She tipped her hand. “So long as you play nice while here. Stay out of trouble. Don’t do anything that would alert the police. Just be a professional wrestler. Leave all the spiral bullshit at home.”

“Lucky me,” I said. “Mind if I ask a personal question?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “You used to work for the Russians, yes?”

“I did.”

“And when they fell apart, you came running back to Japan to be Fukuyama’s right hand girl.”

Her jaw clenched. “We don’t say his name in public.”

I ignored her and said, “Don’t you ever get tired of being the bitch for these men? Haven’t you ever wanted to make something for yourself?”

She finished her drink, placed the glass back on the table, and stood. The leather of her jacket makes a cool little groan, followed by the subtle jangly of its zippers. She said, “I’ll forgive your disrespect this time. You’ve been drinking.”

My hand moved, drawing an immediate reaction from the hitwoman. Her hand went for the gun under her left arm but stayed when she realized my fingers were only moving to the top of my head, to switch on the multicolored lights wrapped around my reindeer antlers. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer started playing from a speaker in the headband.

I said, “Tell your boss he should come to the Tokyo Dome and see me antagonize fifty thousand of his countrymen and women.”

“He’ll be there,” she said, letting her hand drop. “He has a box reserved. Try not to let that American woman embarrass you. She’s a big girl.”

‘Compared to you,” I clarified and stretched my arms out across the back of the seat, displaying myself like a fabled Amazon. Look upon me and despair.

She started to leave, but stopped after a step and looked back at me. “The Japanese have a saying. Saru mo ki kara ochiru. Even monkeys fall from trees. After all you had to do to secure safe harbor in Japan, do not let overconfidence leave you ripe for failure. Otherwise, what was the point of killing Ms. Byrne?”

“For the lulz,” I said stone-faced. “It’s always for the lulz.”

She didn’t say anything else. She just turned and left us alone in the VIP room. After a short time, it became evident that our hosts had been scared away for the night. Angel, horny and grumpy, sat up and said, “How’s a girl supposed to bust a nut in this country?!”

I thought about it for a moment until an idea popped in my head.

“Have you ever heard of soapland?”

“No,” she said with a pursed look. “Is that like, some sort of bubbly amusement park?”

“You have no idea,” I said while stamping out my cigarette on the table. “Get your coat.”

She grabbed her mink coat and slid her arms in as I dragged her out of the VIP room and through the bar. The cold air bit at my skin as we stumbled out onto the sidewalk. I found my phone in my clutch and unlocked the screen. My thumb scrolled through the app list to order a taxi.

That’s when I received a most curious text message. I nearly burst into a fit of laughter as I read it. Angel, seeing me struggling to stay upright and not hyuck-hyuck it up in front of all the bar crawlers and club kids passing by us.

“What is it,” Angel asked while saddling up next to me to see the screen. She let out a hoarse, giggly little chuckle.

“It’s from Rick Ravenswood,” I said after a stabbing cackle forced its way out of my throat. “He wants to talk to me about Kalinda.”

“I guess he realized he fucked up,” Angel said.

I hooked her arm and started walking with a crooked smile. “C’mon, my darling Angel. Rick can wait till tomorrow. Tonight, soapland!”