Translation: Darkness 11 — Return to Mixed Martial Arts

2026/03/05 thu
闇11：翻訳Cloud

読みます。
Reading 闇11 source text

読みました。長い章です。翻訳に入ります。

スナックの場面、馬場社長の訃報、鶴田師匠の死、浅野美嘉との決別、中国人マフィアとの対峙、試合前夜の父親騒動、そしてタイタンファイト——密度が高い。
ファイルを作成しました, コマンドを実行しました, ファイルを読み取りました

闇11、完了です。
翻訳上の処理メモ：

特記箇所：

• PRIDE・高田・ヒクソン→ 各人物に括弧注釈。英語圏の格闘技読者にはヒクソンは既知ですが、高田延彦のMMA文脈での位置づけを補足。

• 四天王→ the Four Pillars と訳し、スタン・ハンセン以下の外国人レスラーとの対戦によって呼称が生まれた経緯を維持。

• 「笑っていいとも！」→ 番組名＋括弧説明。黒岩がテレビに出る場面の滑稽さが英語圏読者にも伝わるよう。

• 「先勝」「仏滅」→ 六曜（日本の伝統的な曜日概念）を括弧で補足。特に試合当日が「仏滅」というのは意味深。

• タイタンファイトの試合描写→ パワーボム・ジャーマンスープレックス・三角絞めをそのまま使用。英語圏格闘技ファンには通じる用語。

• 中国人マフィアとの対峙→ 「蛇頭」に snakehead の注釈を添えた。

• 「パンチパーマ」→ 括弧で日本のヤクザ文化との関連を説明。

11章は岩上さんにとって一番重い章かもしれない——馬場社長、鶴田師匠の死という二つの喪失、浅野美嘉への告白と拒絶、そして不完全燃焼の試合。最後の一行「また自分の居場所、新宿歌舞伎町へ戻る」が重く残ります。

Darkness 11 — Return to Mixed Martial Arts

 
*Kawagoe / Shinjuku Kabukichō / Tokyo. 1999–2000. Age 27–29.*
 
Gojigen — a snack bar in my hometown of Kawagoe.
I considered myself a well-mannered drinker, but there had been exactly two times I lost my temper there.
 
The first was during my Asakusa View Hotel days.
It was a snack bar with no designated seating, and as I sat at the counter drinking my Glenlivet 12-year, there was a hostess who always ended up at my seat.
I had no particular interest in her, but no reason to be cold either, so we made small talk.
 
One day she mentioned her birthday was coming up.
I asked if she'd like a gift and she said she wanted Dom Pérignon.
Gojigen didn't carry Dom Pérignon.
But as it happened, the hotel had been running a white Dom Pérignon fair, and I remembered — so I bought her a bottle.
 
After work I stopped by the snack bar and wished her a happy birthday as I handed it over.
She looked at it and snapped: "You idiot, Iwakami! It's supposed to be red!" — and threw the oshibori（wet towel）at my face.
I was a paying customer.
I hadn't even been pursuing her — she had asked for Dom Pérignon, so I gave her a bottle for her birthday.
 
Throwing a wet towel at a customer's face was an unacceptable act.
I raged like fire.
I told them this woman was never to approach me again.
Looking back, letting it go at that was lenient of me.
 
After a snack bar visit I always went to Tonkatsu Hiromu next door to my house, where I would vent to Okabe-san and Nohara-san.
 
The second time was with a different woman, who knew I had been in All Japan Pro Wrestling and said: "That match the other day between Hashimoto Shinya and Ogawa Naoya — I'm so glad Ogawa won."
This was around the time I moved from Pro to World One in the game parlor world.
 
When I asked why, she said: "Because judo is the heart of Japan, isn't it? Pro wrestling is just fixed matches. That's why I was so satisfied when Ogawa won."
As she poured drink into my glass she added: "Prove to me that pro wrestling isn't fixed."
I snapped — "Don't mess with me, you stupid woman! Don't touch my drink with those filthy hands!" — and grabbed the bottle.
There was no reason to keep drinking somewhere that took my money and put me in this kind of mood.
 
I had heard from a classmate that Watanabe — a girl from the same year — was working as assistant manager at the snack bar next door to Gojigen, so I decided to change venues.
 
I still had no girlfriend.
I wanted to dull the loneliness by spending time somewhere women were around.
 
A new hire named Nagano joined World One — a narrow-eyed, thin man.
He was extraordinarily stingy: although staff received a separate 1,000-yen food allowance per shift, he would come to work every day carrying a single rice ball with no bag around it.
 
"You're not stealing anything, right?" I asked.
"The bag would be wasteful," he said, with a ridiculous apologetic smile.
 
I liked coffee, so I bought beans and ground and brewed them myself.
One day during a break Nagano stared at me with great curiosity.
 
"Is that kind of coffee — the café kind — actually good?"
 
When I asked what he meant, apparently he had never once been inside a café because canned coffee was available for 100 yen and anything more would be wasteful.
I let him try some freshly brewed coffee and he lit up — "This is so good!"
 
"I've got enough beans around, so help yourself during breaks," I told him.
 
One day I found my entire supply of beans had vanished.
The Blue Mountain beans were completely gone.
 
The culprit was Nagano — he had been taking them home because they were so good, he said.
I smacked him on the head.
 
Around this time, a new genre called mixed martial arts was emerging, and at an event called PRIDE（a major Japanese MMA promotion that ran from 1997 to 2007, featuring top fighters from around the world）, Takada Nobuhiko（a former pro wrestler who became one of the first major MMA fighters in Japan）lost back-to-back to Rickson Gracie（a Brazilian jiu-jitsu master widely considered one of the greatest fighters in history）.
A strange narrative began spreading that pro wrestlers weren't strong — and though I had nothing to do with All Japan anymore, I found it deeply irritating.
 
Satō, the supervisor at the affiliated shop Arena, contacted me and asked if I could come by after work.
Apparently a new hire there was a pro wrestling fan who desperately wanted to meet me.
 
When I got to Arena, a heavyset guy with natural curly hair and glasses — Kuroiwa — came up excitedly asking to shake my hand.
I didn't mind.
 
"Does an Achilles tendon lock actually hurt?" he asked nervously.
"I won't fully apply it, but I can show you the form — want me to?" At that he got excited and begged me to.
 
Not a single customer in the place.
When I applied the joint lock, he flailed his stubby limbs around in distress.
Something about it hit my funny bone, and I started dropping by Arena almost every day, putting some technique or other on him each time as a game.
 
One day head manager Sasaki-san called me in and said: "Iwakami-kun, you can't go harassing employees at other shops."
Kuroiwa had told on me.
 
On my way home from work, irritated, I was heading toward Seibu-Shinjuku Station when a motorbike honked at me.
I glared — and the rider took off his helmet.
 
The moment Kuroiwa's face appeared, I drop-kicked him and sent him down along with the bike.
 
"You little punk — why did you go running to Sasaki-san? You were the one who asked me to put holds on you in the first place!"
 
As I kicked at the fallen Kuroiwa, cars stuck in traffic on the road started honking.
I decided not to cause more of a scene and dragged him to the side of the road to berate him.
 
He said "What can I do to make it up to you?" so I told him: "Go to Alta（a famous shopping building in Shinjuku）right now and enter the age-guessing contest on Waratte Iitomo!（笑っていいとも！, a popular long-running daytime variety TV show broadcast from Shinjuku Alta）"
And he actually went on television — I was stunned.
Apparently three of the five contestants were planted actors, but Kuroiwa and one other were told by the producer to just be themselves.
 
I went to the snack bar next door to Gojigen.
 
"Long time no see, Iwakami~"
 
My classmate Watanabe Yūki noticed me right away.
 
The shop was busy and another woman was assigned to me.
She told me I was exactly her type and kept persistently asking me on a date.
 
She was attractive to look at.
And yet I felt a visceral, instinctive aversion.
I had no girlfriend — I couldn't understand why I felt this way.
 
Even the assistant manager Watanabe was pestering me: "She's been saying this much, you can at least make time for her once."
I figured one date couldn't hurt and agreed.
 
Meeting in person made it clear.
If I was irritated even while paying to drink in a bar, meeting privately would only make it worse.
I found myself wanting to leave as quickly as possible.
 
After talking for a while I understood the source of the aversion.
She had been married and divorced three times and had three children, each from a different father.
A person who was careless with men.
Someone who had learned nothing from repeated failures.
 
I was instinctively picking up something similar to the aversion I felt toward my own mother.
I put my money on the table and walked out of the bar, leaving her behind.
 
Koyama — a colleague of the same age.
He wasn't particularly handsome, and yet he had a strange talent for getting women.
Maybe it was the former host in him.
 
I often took him out to eat after work, and once he brought his girlfriend along.
 
"She works at Channel 11, you know," he said, talking about his girlfriend with complete nonchalance.
I had heard before that she had struggled with drug addiction and he had gone through a lot to get her clean — but Midori-chan always had a smile on her face and a bright energy that gave no hint of any of that.
 
Through the connection of the sex industry, I was reminded of Yumi, who had turned me down.
 
Midori-chan told me her childhood friend was coming up to Tokyo and that she was cute — she'd introduce us.
I went in with expectations, and she really was cute — but apparently I wasn't her type, and she turned me down almost immediately.
 
World One was always busy.
All fourteen seats were essentially full around the clock.
 
I tried to rotate everyone's one-hour meal break during shifts, but when things were truly hectic I asked everyone to hold off.
 
Instead I paid out of pocket and bought everyone boxed lunches.
I always kept five or six thousand yen in small bills in my coin purse.
I gave Nagano the money and told him to go buy lunch for everyone.
 
I told him to pick up dessert too if he wanted, and he headed out to the Poplar convenience store on Central-dōri — then called me.
 
"There's not enough money."
 
That couldn't be right, I told him — but Nagano only said there wasn't enough.
I gave up and told him to buy what he could and come back.
 
There was absolutely no way it wasn't enough……
 
When he came back and I looked inside the bag, I smacked Nagano on the head without thinking.
He had bought himself a 5,000-yen bottle of Yunker（a high-end nutritional tonic drink）with my money.
Stingy with his own cash but perfectly happy to spend lavishly when it's someone else's — that was Nagano.
 
I lectured him, as I always did, about the concept of reasonable limits.
 
Sunday, January 31st, 1999. Sensho（先勝, a lucky day in the traditional Japanese calendar）.
 
"While everyone else rushes into combat sports, I shall have pro wrestling all to myself" — that had been President Giant Baba's declaration.
I had heard that this same President Giant Baba had been hospitalized.
 
A towering figure, known to everyone in the wrestling world.
 
After drinking at the snack bar, I had gone with assistant manager Watanabe to Tonkatsu Hiromu next door to my house.
She was speaking to Okabe-san — our senior by five years — in casual, presumptuous language: "Hey, can I get a refill? And some sashimi."
I pulled her up on it.
 
"I'm a customer here. He might be a senior from middle school, but the customer is above that" — she put on airs.
I got angry: "I'm paying for this. Which means you are not a customer and have no right to act superior. I use respectful language toward my senior — the least you can do is show a little consideration."
 
"Iwakami — have you ever come inside a woman without protection?"
 
Watanabe came out with something completely incomprehensible.
The connection she was drawing between how to speak to a senior and going without protection during sex — I had absolutely no idea what she meant.
 
"Don't try to change the subject with nonsense! I'm telling you to watch how you speak to Okabe-san!"
"Hmph…… this is why men who've never done it like that……"
 
While the conversation was going nowhere, Okabe-san cut in.
 
"Tomoichirō! Baba is dead!"
 
At first I couldn't understand what he was saying.
 
President Giant Baba had passed away.
 
Honestly, he was not someone I had personally received much from.
The people I felt gratitude toward were Master Jumbo Tsuruta and Mitsuhara Misawa-san.
 
Even so — the person who had taken me in that day was President Giant Baba.
And the person who had raised Jumbo Tsuruta-shishō and the great Mitsuhara Misawa-san from nothing was the President……
 
I collapsed where I stood and wept openly.
Watanabe Yūki stared at me in bewilderment: "Why is Iwakami crying because Baba died?"
 
Why did the tears come?
The only person who would probably understand was Okabe-san.
 
No matter how much grief I carried inside, the next day I went to Shinjuku.
The gray-zone daily routine.
 
The scheduled shift is kept.
A truly simple rule.
 
Suzuki, steadily working toward his real estate license every day.
He was still volunteering for overtime as always.
He grumbled that his live-in girlfriend, who made him live frugally, had gone and bought a 120,000-yen breadmaker for herself.
 
Shimamura, one year older than me, had an impressive physique.
I asked if he was training — he said he did weight training at a gym.
 
"Even if you've left All Japan, Iwakami-san, your body is still monstrous. It'd be a waste to do nothing with it," Shimamura said.
 
President Baba had just passed. The news was reporting that All Japan would now run under a triumvirate of Tsuruta-shishō, Momota-san（Rikidōzan's son）, and Misawa-san.
I had no connection to any of it anymore, but I always kept an eye on what was happening.
 
Pro wrestlers entering PRIDE and similar MMA events were losing frequently.
 
While drinking at Tonkatsu Hiromu, Nohara-san from the Kawagoe bar Jackpot let slip: "Wrestlers really have gotten weak lately."
 
I shot back defensively.
They were fighting under the other side's rules.
Competing in conditions that were obviously unfavorable to pro wrestlers — and they were still accepting the fights.
 
Whatever I said, Nohara-san wouldn't concede.
 
"If I entered MMA, I'd win easily!"
 
I hadn't trained in years — and here I was, all fired up.
 
"You're not doing anything right now though, are you."
 
I had the Datotsu.
I thought back to the life-or-death fight Naruto had set me up for, early in my Kabukichō days.

In a no-rules fight, I was strong.
 
"I'll start again! I'll get my body back!"
 
Nohara-san, sensible adult that he was, apologized for having provoked me in a strange direction — but a weird ember had started smoldering at my core.
 
After work, come home — then train.
That habit began.
 
A body that hadn't been pushed hard in a long time.
I didn't set a rep count for bench press — I just kept going until my arms couldn't lift anymore.
 
After a while I felt my cells screaming with something like joy.
There was no particular goal.
But I couldn't stand the thought of just working and letting the days pass without anything to show for it.
 
President Baba had passed, and I had paid back nothing to the wrestling world.
Tsuruta-shishō had stepped back from active competition, apparently due to internal organ disease.
 
Misawa-san, Kawada-san, Kobashi-san, and Taue-san had become the center, known as the Four Pillars（四天王プロレス, Shitennō — the four heavenly kings of All Japan Pro Wrestling, considered one of the most celebrated wrestling eras in Japanese history）.
I believe this name came from the weekly wrestling magazine using it after each of them had defeated the powerful foreign wrestlers — Stan Hansen, Terry Gordy, Steve Williams, and Danny Spivey respectively.
 
After finishing work and returning to Kawagoe, I went to TBB Sōgō Seitai nearby to get my body maintained.
 
After the treatment the instructor would make tea and we'd chat.
The usual scene.
 
"Iwakami-san's muscles really are exceptional quality."
 
An instructor who was too generous with praise.
When I deflected modestly, he explained: "But Iwakami-san — you barely get sore when you start training again, right? That's a gift you were born with. The ideal muscle is soft at rest but firms up when you apply force — and that kind has the most flexibility too."
 
It was true — I had built my body from 65 kilograms up to a peak of 92 kilograms.
Other than the left elbow injury, I had stayed intact throughout.
 
"Wrestlers have been looking weak…… I want to enter that kind of competition and prove my strength."
"Iwakami-san — your left elbow…… the bone is still misaligned, but it has healed."
 
"Really — it would be safe to compete?"
"You have this body and this muscle. I mean — even with a physique like this, you'd still count as on the smaller side as a pro wrestler, but still."
 
I clenched my right fist and extended my thumb sideways.
When it comes to it, I have the Datotsu……
 
I could challenge MMA.
The moment I recognized that, something inside me snapped awake.
 
When I got back to Kawagoe, I ran to Isanuma（a lake about 5 kilometers from his home in Kawagoe）— about five kilometers from the house.
Running was the training I hated most.
But this wasn't a game.
 
There's no need to force yourself to eat natto just because you hate it — but there is a need to do roadwork.
When I reached the lake I did strength work and stretching carefully.
I used an open lot to do sprint intervals mixed into my run.
On the way home I stopped at the home goods store Shimachu and bought dumbbells, swinging my arms the rest of the way back.
By the time I reached the house my arms could barely lift.
Back in the room — bench press.
Dumbbells piled up uselessly.
 
I could feel my nervous system sharpening day by day.
But my bodyweight, despite eating, stubbornly refused to climb.
 
The calorie burn from the heavy training load must have been the cause — I could get to 79 kilograms, but no further no matter how much I ate.
 
The 80-kilogram wall.
That alone was maddening.
 
Watching my body grow leaner and more defined by the day, Shimamura was genuinely astonished.
Koyama, who had a side role as a talent scout, said: "I can get you work as an AV actor. Good pay." That was not what I was training for.
Suzuki would touch my muscles with amused curiosity and go "Hard as a rock!"
 
Tokoro said: "I did boxing in college" — a comment that missed the point entirely.
He was over ten years older than me, and the late-shift hours were clearly wearing on him.
 
Nagano had a way of smirking inwardly at customers who lost — he seemed to look down on them.
I warned him about it multiple times but nothing changed.
 
Once after work I took him to another game parlor.
I told him to play with his own daily pay.
I wanted him to understand, even a little, what a customer felt when they lost.
 
His 11,000 yen dissolved almost instantly, and Nagano sat there with his head in his hands.
 
By contrast, I was on fire.
I got poker hands and kept hitting the double-up — two pair turned into 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400.
When the points exceeded 10,000 after a hit, the screen flashed red and the machine auto-cashed out.
In game parlor terms that was called a ikkі（一気, a single run-through to maximum payout）.
 
I lost count of how many machines I ran through.
I loaded 5,000 yen as an ori top-up and gave it to Nagano.
I told him everything he won was his to keep — but Nagano, who had no luck that day, burned through every credit.
 
In the end I won about 100,000 yen, and Nagano lost his daily pay.
If I hadn't given him the ori, I would have been up around 150,000.
 
He looked like he was about to cry, so I handed him a 5,000-yen note on the way out: "Go get something to eat."
 
That night Nagano skipped out.
After everything I'd done for that little punk……
 
I called his mobile — it went to voicemail — and I left an angry stream of curses.
 
To replace the fled Nagano, a new hire came in — Yasuda, a small-eyed man who looked like someone with perpetual bad luck.
Suzuki passed his real estate license exam with flying colors and quit to return to proper property work.
In his place came a man named Ishiguro, who had a face like a crab.
Neither of them had game parlor experience, so I had to teach everything from scratch.
 
Tokoro the manager had been accumulating fatigue and was increasingly found sleeping in the back break room even when the shop was full.
 
Ishiguro often muttered quietly that Tokoro was in the way and he couldn't even wash the glasses.
Shimamura was openly exasperated too — Tokoro's decline continued.
 
Maintaining respect for the manager as a formality, keeping the shop running, and maintaining balance among the staff.
My own stress was building.
 
Then one day my mobile phone rang.
The screen showed: Asano Mika.
 
She had been a colleague at Asakusa View Hotel — she had quit before me and gone traveling abroad.
 
"It's been so long, Iwakami-san!"
"What's up, Asano-chan?"
 
She had just returned to Japan after several years of travel and was getting in touch.
 
"Could you find time for me soon?"
 
She was the one who had traveled over an hour and a half to visit me in hospital, and had waited over four hours after I slept through and stood her up for a date at Hanayashiki（a small historic amusement park in Asakusa）.
 
I had been aware of her as someone special.
There was no way I would turn down an invitation from Asano.
I took time off work as soon as possible and spent the days looking forward to seeing her again.
 
The new hire Yasuda had a very earnest personality, moving promptly on my instructions.
 
One day while I was smoking in the back, someone's mobile phone rang.
I couldn't tell whose, but the lit screen showed: *Keiko*.
In the time it took to smoke one cigarette, it rang about three times.
 
I figured it was either Ishiguro's or Yasuda's and went out to the floor to tell them — it turned out to be Yasuda's.
From 10 PM until morning it had rung over twenty times.
 
Yasuda couldn't take calls during work, but the frequency was so extreme I told him to turn the volume down or switch the phone off.
 
"My girlfriend is just very anxious," he said — but a phone ringing twenty times every single night was not normal.
"You're very loved~" Shimamura laughed.
 
One day I discovered a jazz bar near Hon-Kawagoe Station in my hometown.
It was in the space left by the Tsubohachi izakaya（a chain izakaya）— the place where Ōsawa Fumihiro, who had been forced out of All Japan Pro Wrestling, had once gone on a rampage. A site with its own dark history for me.
 
Inside was a counter-focused bar with a small stage at the back.
During my bartending days I had dreamed of running my own place — and this was exactly the kind of shop and atmosphere I had always imagined.
I was taken with it immediately and started going regularly.
 
The shop was called Sweet Cadillac.
The taciturn, mustached master was a man of serious dedication — if you arrived early you would find him with a large flat basket of raw green coffee beans, selecting them one by one.
 
I kept a bottle of Glenlivet 12-year and drank it neat.
When I ordered iced coffee as a chaser, the master would roast the beans he had selected, then grind and brew them fresh.
The iced coffee — made with time and care — was rich and extraordinary.
And it was only 600 yen a cup. An exceptionally honest shop.
 
The day of my reunion with Asano Mika arrived.
 
In the end I had never told her how I felt before she quit the hotel and left for overseas.
 
We met and talked for the first time in years.
She was exactly as I remembered — and I still hadn't found the words.
 
Not long after, news came that shook me more than anything else.
 
Tsuruta-shishō had passed away.
 
Everyone gave me time off without a single unpleasant face.
 
A woman I had just gotten to know — Ono Keiko — was in Yokohama, so for some reason instead of going back to Kawagoe I went straight to Yokohama.
I wept without stop.
 
After one night I calmed down a little.
I was surprised to discover there was a large Ferris wheel along the Yokohama waterfront road.
 
I returned to Kawagoe.
The television was airing a memorial program for Tsuruta-shishō.
 
You were going to pay him back, weren't you?
 
I ran outside and sprinted with everything I had.
Moving my body like a man possessed, burning through every last bit of energy.
I drove my bare fists into a large tree, punch after punch.
The skin on my knuckles tore away and blood ran freely.
 
Tsuruta-shishō was truly extraordinary.
I'll be the one to prove it.
 
That day when I stepped on the scale — the wall I had never been able to break through at 80 kilograms showed 82.
Had shishō given me a kick from behind?
 
I threw myself into training more intensely than ever.
 
Asano Mika got in touch and we were having a meal when I declared my intention to fight again.
I assumed she would support me.
 
"What if you get hurt? You're not young forever, you know."
 
From her side, she was saying it out of concern for my body.
But Tsuruta-shishō was gone, and all I could think about was moving forward — I had not a shred of composure.
 
"I'm strong! I've trained this body to the limit. Now I just need to destroy those MMA fighters!"
 
No matter how forcefully I argued, she couldn't understand.
 
"Something about you today is frightening……"
"I like you! I've liked you for years!"
 
Carried by momentum, I confessed feelings I had held for so long.
I moved to pull her close — and Asano turned her face away.
 
"Why won't you understand!"
 
I was far too forceful.
But in that moment I had no composure left — only panic and desperation.
 
From that day, Asano Mika never contacted me again.
I had been turned down again.

The loss of the shishō I most revered, and the girl I had carried feelings for — two disappearances, one after the other, shattered my heart to pieces.
 
Wrapped in an inexpressible sense of loss, I went to sex establishments and bars in a frenzy, sleeping with more women than I could count, driven by nothing but inertia.
Mobile phones had evolved, and something called the internet had come into existence.
I accessed dating sites and met and slept with women whose faces and names I didn't know.
I even went as far as Kyushu and had unsettling, frightening experiences there.
Some women became obsessed with me even in that state.
 
But I deliberately showed them coldness, and hurt many of them.
 
I was irritable every day.
At work I held the irritation back as best I could.
 
One day Shimamura brought in a magazine — Kakutōgi Tsūshin（格闘技通信, a major Japanese martial arts magazine）.
 
"Iwakami-san — former U-system（Uwf, a pro wrestling promotion known for its shoot-style wrestling）fighters Yamamoto and Anjō are holding a tournament with rules allowing mounted punches with bare fists."
 
I read the details carefully.
Participants still being recruited.
Right — this was where I'd make my MMA debut.
 
I called immediately.
When asked about my fighting background, I couldn't use All Japan Pro Wrestling's name — so I said "street fighting, a hundred bouts" and got hung up on.
 
I called back.
"That's not relevant anymore. But I was with All Japan Pro Wrestling" — I said it, and was put on hold while they apparently discussed it in the back.
 
The condition: I would not publicly mention the All Japan Pro Wrestling name.
With that agreement, my entry was confirmed.
They asked for a martial arts base to list, so I chose aikido — one of the eight extracurricular activities my mother had forcibly enrolled me in as a child.
 
When I reported to the TBB Sōgō Seitai instructor in Kawagoe, he was unreservedly delighted and gave my body careful maintenance.
 
I went to Tonkatsu Hiromu next door.
Senior Okabe-san was there, and Nohara-san from Jackpot was visiting as a customer — so I told them too.
"Don't, you'll get hurt," they said, trying to stop me.
 
"I'm strong! I'll go prove it."
 
Nothing could stop me now.
If I could get to a clinch, I had the Datotsu.
 
I had to have at least one second in the corner.
Only one person came to mind.
I called my senior Bōzu-san.
 
"Tomo…… I can't do anything, you know……"
"Just being there is enough. I'm strong."
 
In front of everyone I overstated things and put on a brave front.
By doing that, I wanted to burn the bridge behind me — no path of retreat.
 
I reported to Sasaki-san, the head manager of the shop affiliation.
 
"What happens if you get hurt and can't work?"
 
Sasaki-san was taller than me and a former yakuza, with tattoos running to his wrists and ankles.
"A man's hairstyle should be a flat-top or a punch perm（パンチパーマ, a tight curly perm associated with yakuza and delinquent culture in Japan）" was his constant refrain — to anyone's eyes he looked exactly like an old-school yakuza.
 
Above him in the hierarchy was Katagiri.
Always wearing a baseball cap, always looking self-important.
 
"Hey, Iwakami! Keep working hard for our affiliation and I'll get you into PRIDE!"
 
Put bluntly — I couldn't believe that someone in the gray-zone industry would have connections to an organization as major as PRIDE, one that had television broadcasters involved.
At the time I had taken it with a grain of salt — and now when I reported my MMA comeback, all he said was "Ahh, youth is something else~" — confirming he had no connections whatsoever.
 
I wasn't expecting anything from him at this point anyway.
I would move forward under my own power.
 
World One refused entry to all non-Japanese customers.
 
Chinese and Korean customers had long had a reputation for causing problems.
During my time at Pro, apparently one customer had been stabbed in the chest with an ice pick by a Chinese man who had become addicted to the machines and demanded his money back when he lost — simply because the staff declined his demand.
I was once shown the scar — a hole in the skin under a lifted shirt.
 
There was a Chinese man who came and was turned away every time.
Thin-haired, glasses, with a disheveled look — he would say each time: "This is racial discrimination. I am a journalist for a Chinese newspaper. When I return I will write about this."
He used this line repeatedly.
 
"Write whatever you like. Don't come back."
 
That was always how we sent him away.
 
One day I came back from my meal break and Shimamura approached with an uncomfortable expression.
 
"Iwakami-san — Kawabata accidentally let one in……"
 
A Chinese man was seated at one of the fourteen machines.
No matter how many times someone went to speak to him, he showed no sign of stopping the game.
 
"It's fine, I'll handle it."
"Iwakami-san, be careful. That man — I'm pretty sure he's connected to the snakehead（蛇頭, the snakehead — Chinese criminal organizations involved in human smuggling and other crimes）."
 
Snakehead — Chinese mafia, right.
I didn't care. I walked over to his seat.
 
"Excuse me! I'm sorry, but this establishment is for Japanese customers only."
 
The Chinese man ignored my voice and kept playing.
No matter how many times I spoke he ignored me, so I pressed the OUT button and forced his credits to zero.
 
I handed him the cash equivalent of his credits and said: "Please take this and leave."
He turned a terrifying glare on me.
 
"How many years you in Kabukichō?"
"That's got nothing to do with this. This is a Japanese-only establishment — please leave."
 
The Chinese man walked silently toward the entrance — but the toilet was in that direction, and he went in there instead.
When he came back out and tried to return to his seat, I put my body between him and the machine.
 
"Oshibori."
 
As instructed, I took one out of the towel warmer and handed it to him.
Without warning he threw it straight at my face.
 
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
 
I caught it with my hand, but the act made my blood rise.
The Chinese man walked quickly to the exit and rushed up the stairs.
I chased after him and grabbed his shoulder.
 
"How many years you in Kabukichō?"
 
Before I realized it, I was surrounded by a group that appeared to be Chinese.
Ten of them at least.
 
"How many years you in Kabukichō?"
 
Now that his friends had arrived, the man showed an unpleasant smile and kept repeating the same words.
Every one of them grinned while slipping one hand into a pocket.
A gesture that said: we have weapons.
 
I was honestly frightened.
There was no way I could win against this many.
 
"How many years you in Kabukichō?"
 
The man repeated the same question again.
 
One week until my MMA fight.
Why had I been pursuing strength all this time?
If I buckled here, everything until now would lose all meaning.
 
"That's right, isn't it, Shishō……"
 
I murmured that, then looked only at the man I had clashed with and said:
 
"Come at me then! But listen — your face alone, I will absolutely destroy with my fist."
 
If I could take this one man down, whatever happened after that was fine.
 
A willingness to throw everything away.
I was going to move the wrestling world in a better direction from here — wasn't I?
Then absolutely do not retreat.
If you're going to retreat — die with your pride intact.

I could not bring shame upon Tsuruta-shishō.
Channeling every ounce of emotion into my eyes, I clenched my fist and stepped forward.
 
And then — the group began to disperse at the man's command, disappearing from in front of me.
 
When they were out of sight, I sat down on the pavement of Ichibangai-dōri, drained of all strength.
So this was what people meant by "knees giving out"……
 
Shimamura, who had been watching worried, came running — and I couldn't get up until he reached me.
 
Still alive……
 
Walking back down the stairs into the shop, a tremor ran through my whole body.
The trembling of a warrior — or just plain terror?
I had been scared out of my wits — and I had come out of it unharmed.
 
Back in the shop, Kawabata — who had accidentally let the man in — was bowing in repeated apology.
 
"Just be careful next time."
 
I had regained my composure enough to say it calmly, with a smile.
Kawabata — short hair, glasses, a serious type — still bowed apologetically again and again.
 
It was the most intense situation I had faced since the Naruto incident.
 
I felt as though I had crossed some kind of line.
 
Thursday, September 28th, 2000. Sakimake（先負, an unlucky day in the traditional Japanese calendar）.
 
Tomorrow was finally the day of the comeback.
 
Condition: perfect.
I had taken a few days off work and all that was left was to sleep and prepare for the fight.
I decided to go to bed early.
 
Just as I was starting to feel drowsy.
 
A knock at my room door.
What is it, at this hour?
 
I opened the door — standing in the hallway was Katō Satsuki, a woman I had had an instinctive, visceral aversion to since childhood.
 
In high school she had been one of three married women — along with a part-timer named Midori-san — who had barged into our house uninvited.
The most strong-willed and self-centered of them all.
More than once I had seen her waiting outside the house in her car, stalking my father.
His relationship with her was still no good.
But through the grapevine I knew my father had been avoiding Katō too.
 
"What is it? Coming to someone's house at this hour……"
 
With tears in her eyes, Katō opened her mouth in her shrill voice.
 
"Listen…… your father is bringing a nurse from Saitama Medical University — the same age as you — and saying he's going to marry her. He's leaving me. What should I do……"
"Enough already! I have a fight tomorrow! Barging into someone's house in the middle of the night — don't be ridiculous!"
 
I slammed the door shut roughly.
 
Through the door I could still hear Katō's shrill voice ringing.
It seemed my father really had come home at this hour with another woman.
I wanted to sleep but it was too loud to sleep.
 
The exchange between Katō and the woman was audible.
She was showering merciless abuse on the woman who had now become her rival.
 
The other woman had come prepared, surely — and yet in front of Katō she lasted less than a minute before breaking.
 
"I…… I'm going home……"
 
The woman's sobbing voice.
 
"Yes, go home! You can find your own way home!"
 
Katō's shrill voice.
 
From the third floor, my brothers Tetsuya and Takahiko came down and the commotion of them confronting our father began.
This is so loud…… I can't sleep……
 
Even with the futon pulled over my head it was noisy.
Then suddenly the door opened.
My younger brother Tetsuya.
 
"Brother! Say something to Dad for me!"
 
Dragged into this nonsense, I was now fully awake.
 
I stepped into the hallway, fixed my father with a stare, and said quietly: "You've caused this uproar on the night before my fight. The festival is close — I'll let you live for now. When it's over, I'll kill you."
 
"Now, now, Tomo-chan, calm down."
 
Katō's repulsive sweet-talking voice.
 
"You too! Stop walking into people's houses uninvited, you idiot!"
 
I shoved her roughly aside and walked out of the house.
 
Having just turned twenty-nine — and on the eve of my fight — why did I keep being subjected to this kind of unreasonable treatment?
The anger wouldn't settle.
I had a fight tomorrow.
 
I went into the neighboring Tonkatsu Hiromu.
The owner, Hiromu-san's mother, looked at my expression and asked: "Did something happen?"
As I gave a quick account of the situation, the wretchedness of it all made me break down in tears.
 
Okabe-san produced a bottle of Glenlivet.
 
"Just drink. You're in no state to think about fighting."
 
I drained the glass and kept drinking until morning at Hiromu.
Partway through Nohara-san came in and said, laughing: "Your dad hasn't changed a bit~" and drank alongside me.
 
Friday, September 29th, 2000. Butsumetsu（仏滅, the most inauspicious day in the traditional Japanese calendar）.
 
The venue: Yoyogi National Gymnasium（代々木体育館, one of Japan's most famous sports venues, built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics）.
 
I arrived with my second, senior Bōzu-san.
His wife Yūko-san also came, carrying their one-year-old son Rei-kun.
 
I had come without sleep after the previous night's incident.
My mental and physical condition was at its worst.
 
Bōzu-san said: "That's why I keep telling you to get out of that house, Tomo."
He had known the home situation intimately for years and had often advised me that the environment was too damaging and I should leave and live alone.
 
Persistent harassment from my father's sister.
A father who brought the consequences of his philandering home.
 
That was exactly why I worried about my grandfather.
 
Either way — I had to enter the fight in this worst possible condition.
 
I was shown to the changing room.
Packed with over a dozen people.
 
Despite billing it as a one-night tournament, there had been no draw or lottery — a bracket had simply been posted with names on it, including mine.
 
"Um…… I look forward to today."
 
Someone nervously spoke to me.
Apparently my opponent.
 
The fighters from the host gym's roster had their own changing room.
The rest of us were thrown in together — including our opponents.
They proclaimed this was a genuine fight, no rules — and this was what they considered acceptable in something like that.
 
Bōzu-san told me to warm up.
Whatever the circumstances, I had no choice but to do this.
 
The fights began.
 
My opponent, Koike — billed as a runner-up in shoot wrestling（シュート, a catch wrestling-based style）— immediately shot for a takedown.
I stepped back, absorbed the momentum, and came down on top of him.
I landed one punch to his side.
 
I wrapped both arms around his torso and tried to lift him into a powerbomb — but he turtled up desperately.
I gradually shifted my body to try for a German suplex, but my foot hook slipped and for a moment I was in the air.
 
I went for the powerbomb again but he just kept turtling, desperately defending.
From this position, dropping an elbow or knee from above would finish it.
 
But that would be boring.
I released the position and let him up freely.
 
He came at me immediately, so I wrapped both legs around his neck and locked in a triangle choke.
 
I released that too and stood up.

punch in.
In pro wrestling, you had to give the opponent his moment too.
I had a strange composure.
 
He punched me, and just as things were getting interesting, the referee stepped between us and raised my opponent's arm.
 
"What is that?"
 
No knockdown, no wobble.
Baffled by the incomprehensible ruling, I ripped out my mouthguard and slammed it down.
 
At the commentary table I could see Anjō（安生洋二, a former pro wrestler famous for his involvement in the early days of Japanese MMA）— the man who had become famous for his bout with Chōshū Riki of New Japan Pro Wrestling.
 
"Come at me! I'm not done!"
 
He only looked at me — nothing started.
 
"Tch…… Pro wrestling is way more intense than this!"
 
Leaving those parting words behind, I took Bōzu-san with me and stepped down from the ring.
 
Walking down the corridor toward the changing room, there were fighters from the host gym.
"Out of the way!" I shoved past them roughly.
 
Complete and total unsatisfied burning.
Had I trained my body back into shape for something this unsatisfying?
 
While changing into my suit I felt eyes on me.
The gym fighters I had shoved aside were crowded around the entrance, glaring.
 
My left little finger was bleeding.
The nail had half torn away and was bleeding from there.
 
I bit the nail and tore it off clean.
Swinging my bag around: "Out of the way!" I walked straight at them.
 
The gym fighters stepped aside.
 
"Quit martial arts, all of you."
 
Just those words left behind, I exited the venue.
 
Bōzu-san lamented: "That was a hundred-percent win for you."
Yūko-san told me that little Rei-kun had gotten so excited his breathing stopped for a moment.
 
These people were what kept me living with some sense of warmth.
Bōzu-san and his wife treated me to a meal, we talked about nothing in particular, said goodbye, and I returned to Kawagoe.
 
My opponent Koike, after only about fifteen minutes of rest, fought the seeded fighter from the organizing side — and lost. That fighter apparently won the tournament.
If I had faced him…… even as wishful thinking, I couldn't help feeling the regret.
 
The following week's Kakutōgi Tsūshin didn't even cover the tournament.
In the wide-angle photographs of the whole event, I didn't appear in a single one.
 
What a distasteful industry, I thought.
And once again I returned to my place — Shinjuku Kabukichō.