Too Much Heaven

Akashi Tanikaze had pretty much been sprinting down the runway of Tokyo Airport as fast as her geta'd feet would carry her. She fumbled for her cell phone and baggage and everything else.

Only two days ago, she was informed that she would be taking an impromptu flight from Tokyo to London for a one day event that was very prestigious and needed to be represented by both AFW management as well as one of the top wrestlers in the league. Akashi was chosen and she had spent most of the day arguing that they needed to send someone else. Especially when she knew that Taylor's title match was coming up that reven9ing. When she found out that Lukretia herself wasn't going to go, she threw a fit. It took more than a few security to wrangle her and calm her down. Hilde was the unfortunate one who was both working as the AFW Management representative AND Akashi's personal assistant and PR person. The tall blonde seemed equally flustered about it, much to Akashi's chagrin. She couldn't be mad at HER, and there seemed to be no one else to direct her ire at.

Once she had been made to gather her belongings, she sent a phone call to Mina and one to Taylor. She was obviously miffed in Taylor's voice mail but she knew her blue haired imouto was probably sleeping before the fight. She smiled at the thought and prayed for her success before she was whisked off, arriving in London let in the evening.

The event seemed mostly like some weird board meeting. There was some promotional work but int he end, it was a long day of work that was excruciating. Hilde had even removed her from phone and internet contact. It had felt like this whole trip was made to prevent her from being aroudn that title match.

In the end, she was ableto convince Hilde to let her see a replay of the match and as she watched it unfold, she became furious. She was awake the rest of the time, wanting to call and get hold of Taylor. Hilde tried her best on her own, but found the task difficult. The flight back home was spent trying not to boil over.

Now, as she rushed back, she was desperately trying to dial Taylor. She would leave a hundred voice messages if she had to! She hopped on the bus, bringing her luggage with her as she rode it to the hospital to try and meet up with her friend.

When she arrived, she saw them wheeling Taylor out.

"TAYLOR-CHAAAAN!" She screamed hoarsely and rushed at Taylor, trying to get to her and practically tackling the girl as she was still int he wheel chair.

It was a rough couple of days for Taylor. After the match, she woke up in a hospital bed, doped up and full of painkillers. Nursing staff and a couple doctors were in and out, they took x-rays, did a few other tests. She found it difficult to pay much attention to anything they were saying. She just kept thinking of the match.

Not much even went wrong in it, but the odds were stacked heavily against her. She needed to be perfect and she wasn't. She never was. Of course this is what Lukretia was looking for. Everyone was always only out to break Taylor, to make her suffer and to make themselves feel superior. Without being able to put her finger on any one person, she seethed with hatred for everyone while she laid there in her hospital bed, staring at the wall and counting each minute as they ticked by.

She just wanted Akashi. She didn't want Johnny to see her in this condition, but Akashi knew what it was like to get hurt like this... Or maybe she didn't. Had she ever been hurt this bad? The closest she knew of was after her match with Sarah, but she didn't get it like this. The drugs dulled everything, but she could tell by the way her body refused to cooperate, and by the way they had her bound up, that she was fucked.

She waited until after dark to cry, and she cried most of the night and part of the following one. Eventually she was told that her tally was now up to two fractured ribs and one broken. One of the fractures was new, and the broken one was fractured before the match. Her entire side was horribly black and blue. She couldn't wrap her head around the implications.

She wasn't interested in sticking around any longer than was absolutely necessary, and by the time she was discharged she was feeling pretty bummed out about how lonely the experience was. Granted she'd tried to keep Johnny away as much as she could, but she certainly didn't have friends rallying around her bedside. How pathetic. She just wanted to see Akashi.

As she was being wheeled out the front door, which was itself humiliating, she heard her unmistakeable voice. "Kashi?" She said, excited to see her onee-chan. But suddenly, her eyes widened and she was filled with dread as she realized what always followed Akashi's greetings.

"Nononononono!"

She waved her hands frantically at Akashi, the orderly behind her chair tried to step in front of her to protect her from Akashi, and she sprung out of her chair. As a last ditch effort, she threw a fast right uppercut at Akashi's chin to try to stop her.

Akashi saw Taylor's waving as a welcome for one of Akashi's patented hugs. She didn't hear the words or care about the orderly, she was only interested in embracing Taylor and wishing her well under a mountain of love.

What she wasn't expecting was a punch from Taylor. It slammed into her chin and made her stagger back with a loud grunt. She bent over and rubbed her jaw.

"W-What... the hell!?" The sumo shouted and looked at Taylor. She furrowed her brow and demanded an explanation with her eyes. "Taylor-chan!" She chirped. "If you can throw a punch... then you can get hugged!" She said firmly with a smile creeping over her features.

Taylor flipped out. "Jesus Christ, Akashi!" She said in a sort of hushed shout, since being loud caused her extraordinary pain. "You can't just do that every goddamn time! The fact that you're here means you know I got wrecked. My shit is broken right now, a'right? Not for nothin', but how 'bout you think twice before you try to put me right back in the hospital, eh?" She was angry enough in the moment that she began to sound like a cab driver. She took a breath and calmed down.

"Okay. Hi, Kashi. Where've you been?" She said with a glance at Akashi's luggage. "I guess you probably know how my week went. It wasn't great, ya know, I've had better and stuff. Can you... help me get home? And, um..." She looked down at the sidewalk, embarrassed and already turning red over her next question. "Could you carry my bag? It... hurts to carry it. Um... I guess I was just gonna take a cab home."

Akashi furrowed her brow at Taylor's rebuke. "I know what I'm doing!" She protested but sighed and blushed. "S-Sorry... Taylor-chan.." She said and called for a cab. "Yeah, let's get you home and get you relaxed. We can talk about the match and stuff once we get you settled in."

Akashi had a lot of questions. She had definitely seen the match and was shocked by the outcome. That Brittany girl had been a pretty pathetic jobber that wasted the few big breaks she had been given. For Taylor to lose to Brittany... Her injuries really had to have been serious. That made her even more pissed off at the people in charge!

Aashi loaded Taylor into the cab and followed suit. She then looked over Taylor and grimaced. "Sorry.. they called me away on short notice... I feel like I was bamboozled into going to that stupid thing. Like they wanted me to miss out on your match or something..."

"Yeah." Taylor said as she tried to adjust herself into a comfortable position in the cab. It made sense that Lukretia would want to keep Akashi away while she set Taylor up. Honestly, Taylor didn't even blame her. She certainly didn't want to feel like she needed Akashi around all the time just to stay safe. Safety was overrated, anyway.

She didn't bother trying to buckle in, it wasn't worth the effort, and stayed pretty quiet for the ride. "I'm pretty bummed out, man." She said quietly with a vacant expression, and then was silent, spending the rest of the trip staring out the window.

In no more than ten minutes, the cab pulled up on the curb outside of Taylor's apartment building. Without bothering to go through the usual awkward exchange with each of them demanding politely to pay the fare, Taylor pulled some money out of a wallet in her bag and handed it to the driver before opening the door. She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and heaved herself out, bracing herself against the pain it caused. She grabbed her bag before Akashi could try to carry it and started for the door to her building.

Her apartment was the way it always was, a peculiar combination of empty and messy and clean in a very disorganized way. She dropped her bag on the floor and headed for the futon, which was still in bed-mode. She stood still for a while, not wanting to worry about the effort of sitting down, and looked over the posters on her walls. The wrestling posters had drastically overtaken the music ones in number, and looking at them made her scowl. Not only did she have to live with her loss and her injury, but her whole apartment was arranged to constantly remind her of the things she could do.

Akashi was about to go on a rant to try and encourage Taylor but with her mouth agape for a long moment, she closed it and turned her head. She spent the rest of the cab ride in silence. When it stopped, Akashi reached between her breasts for some money, but Taylor was faster. Akashi didn't protest. She tried to help Taylor up but the blue haired girl seemed quite content to shuffle herself along on her own. This perturbed the bulky sumo but she quietly let it go until Taylor was inside and on the bed.

Akashi paced around near the kitchen area with her arms crossed. Being on this end of things, seemed much harder. Finally when she felt she had paced enough, she stopped and looked at Taylor. "I've been in that position too, you know!" She blurted out. "Please let me help you cope, Taylor-chan!"

Taylor's face tightened irritably. "Alright, well, what do you want to do? Knock yourself out, man, whatever." She said without making eye contact.

She looked up at her poster of Akashi axe-handling the shit out of Angel at last year's Summer Splash. "Have you really, though? I mean we've both lost belts now and got our asses kicked doing it, but... I guess I was asking for it, though, I don't know when to quit." She said, inadvertently putting too much emphasis on the "I".

"Whatever, I'm just glad you're here, I... I dunno. Right now I feel like I'm done." She said, and hung her head, her hands fidgeting in her lap.

Akashi was going to smile, but Taylor's words made her frown. What WOULD she do? "Ah.. Well.. You know... Be there... For you... Like how, um... You were there for me." She let out a huff. This was proving difficult. "What do you mean?" Akashi asked. She didn't even think that Taylor thought maybe the two matches weren't the same.

Still, Taylor's attitude was unhelpful. Akashi walked over to her and sat down on the bed. "Sorry..." she said. "I know you don't wanna talk or anything like that, but, I'll do whatever I can." Akashi flashed a smile at Taylor. "Even... If you just want me to go for a while."

Akashi then huffed. "But... I can't believe they let you fight with Broken ribs!" She began to mutter some epithet's in Japanese.

Taylor snorted. "They weren't broken until after the fight. Before they were just fractured. Now they're both." She said with a dark little laugh. "But what was I gonna do, right? I'm not gonna back down just because my sides hurt. Fuck that, c'mon, you know me. You know how it went, but even if they didn't want me to fight, I've got to do it. Right?" She paused, and winced at the thought. "But... I guess I that won't be me for a while now." She said, and gingerly padded her side.

She closed her eyes and slowly drew a breath, and then slowly let it out. "Wanna see?" She asked, and pulled up her shirt, holding the hem up in her mouth, and began to peel off the many long strips of basket-woven sports take from her ribs, revealing a massive, horrifically discolored bruise. Her entire side was black and blue and red, with a couple small cuts from the point of Brittany's elbow that had been sewn up. "Pretty nasty, right? Just... don't touch it. This rib's the broken one, and there's obviously a lot of bruising, like, on the inside too and stuff. I don't really know. It hurts like a bitch."