All hail The Demoness! All hail The MOD!

[itami]

{Itami is sitting in front of a green screen in a small room inside The MOD Estate that had been converted into a studio for promos. She presses a button on a remote and a backdrop of the IWF Odyssey logo appears, and her promo begins to record.}

My life has taken many twists and turns in my twenty-seven years in this world. When I was barred from competing in judo as a young teenager, I was heartbroken because the sport had become my life. It was the only safe way that I had to feed The Demoness, and now it was gone forever. I was honestly about to give up on life when my uncle put me in contact with a man from Thailand that offered to train me in the sport of Muay Thai.

I knew nothing about the sport of kickboxing, but it was the only way that I was ever going to be able to feed The Demoness without bringing even more shame to my family. So at just fifteen years old, I got on an airplane for the very first time to fly to a country that I had never even visited. I knew that it was going to be the hardest thing that I had ever done because I didn’t even speak the language.

The man that agreed to train me owned a gym in a place call Koh Samui, which is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Sadly, I rarely had an opportunity because my life became about either training or working on one of the island's many resorts. I was pushed to my breaking point more than once, but I pushed through the pain because The Demoness was being fed every day.

{Itami's pupils visibly dilate, and she is breathing faster}

Fighting just became a way of life for me, and I was soon having two or three matches every single month. I am not so prideful to admit that early on I lost more fights than I won, but I worked hard, and soon I was considered one of the top young fighters in my gym. Then just like always happens when things in my life start going well, tragedy struck and my father and brother were killed in an automobile accident.

{She closes her eyes and stops speaking for a moment, but when she reopens them, her pupils have returned to Normal.}

Three years after I left home in disgrace, I was forced to return to play the dutiful daughter. My mother was stricken by grief that I was barely able to get her through the wake and funeral without having a total breakdown, but that came as soon as the guests left. Soon she took to her bed and would not leave no matter how hard we tried to ease her grief. I became the one that had to take care of my family, but I was eighteen years old, and I knew how to do was fight, which led me to fall in with a bad crowd just to find a way to make a few yen.

The Demoness had never been happier because there was no end to the violence that I could perform. I was no longer held back by the rules of one sport or another, I was living in a kill or be killed world, and more than once I found myself in a dark Tokyo back alley full of people fighting just to survive. Compared to that, a wrestling match is a child’s game, and it doesn’t matter how many women I’m up against.

Dawn Warren, Charlotte Shimizu, HIJOU, Virginia Stepanov, and Caroline Machado might be considered some of the best in the world, but all The Demoness sees are victims. She smiles at the sheer amount of violence that we can inflict, and salivates at the amount of blood that we can spill. There is not a single woman in that match that The Demoness does not long to hear the sound of them screaming the pain from the pain we are inflicting, only to have them silenced by Baku or Shinigami.

When I look at the women in this match, I only see an opportunity to bring honor to The Demoness, and prove the superiority of The MOD System. The five women I’m about to face range from being very good professional wrestlers to total wastes of oxygen. There are two women that have been champions in the past, two that could easily be in the future, and then there is Dawn Warren.

{A grin that can only be described as predatory comes onto the face of Itami.}

Everything about ‘The Pink Puppy’ from her obsession with a children’s cartoon to her superhero act makes me want to vomit. Instead of working to be a top-notch professional wrestler, she is nothing more than a child trapped inside the body of an adult. I almost feel bad for the things that I am about to do to her, but she is standing in the way of me reaching my destiny. That is why I am going to be her kryptonite and end her match with a kick to the back of the skull.

Charlotte Shimizu has the talent to one day be the IWF Women’s World Champion, except she doesn’t have the guts to do it. Not long ago, she was walking the path to being a great joshi, but she walked away from it all. She could have excelled in that world by leaning into her mixed heritage to become one of the biggest heels this business has ever known, but she threw it all away to come to IWF and be just another pretty face.

{She shakes her head.}

She has all the talent needed to be a World Champion. Since coming here, she has looked dominant at times, and showed everyone that she is one of the best high-flyers in the entire company. One on one, I might be a little worried about facing her, but in a match like this she is going to take one too many chances and crash and burn. She is going to quickly learn that the only person holding her back here in IWF is herself, and that will be the case until she learns some discipline.

The third lesson of The MOD System is the importance of positivity, and I’m having a lot of trouble with it. It is hard for me to always see the good in things because The Demoness will take over and drag me kicking and screaming into a very dark place. Just watching a HIJOU wakes The Demoness up, because she fights with zero honor.

There is not a single match that HIJOU has been in that she hasn’t taken shortcuts to try to pick up a win, and I have no problem doing the same. If she wants to try to hurt me, The Demoness will come out, and I will happily leave HIJOU a pile of broken limbs. She spits in my face, and I am not responsible for anything that happens after that. IWF management needs to know that the blood will be on their hands if the little bitch tries to pull anything and I release The Demoness on her, and they will need to call the coroner!

{'Lady Pain' stops to catch her breath.}

Then we have Virginia and Caroline, a pair of women that couldn't be more different. Caroline is a sweet girl that wants to be everybody's friend, while Virginia is a total bitch. The only thing that they have in common is that at one point they had gold around, which I should respect, but I don't.

Caroline Machado has grown to be a good professional wrestler, but she lacks the killer instinct. She doesn't have it in her to do whatever it takes to win a match, even if it means snapping an opponent's bones in half. It's a weakness that will keep her from ever reaching her full potential.

Virginia has no problem being violent, but her head just isn't in the game. Sometimes she seems like she is haunted by what IWF used to be, and she just can't let go of the past. Other times she is very much in the present, but she just whines about the matches she has been put in like a spoiled child.

{The look on Itami's face changes to one that could almost be described as serene.}

I know that I have just as many faults as my opponents, but when I look in the mirror, I see them staring back at me. I see the scared girl forced to leave her home, so I wouldn't bring my family any more shame. I see a broken woman doing everything that she can to get better. Most importantly, I see The Demoness lurking beneath the surface, just waiting for her chance to inflict pain.

The MOD System teaches that I'm all of these things and none of these things at the same time. We are all the sum of our experiences, but our experiences do not determine who we are. I am the captain of my own fate, and if I want something, I have to take it.

None of my opponents have what it takes to will their way in The Extinction Event. Dawn Warren is far too busy watching her cartoons and reading comic books, Charlotte is too busy showing off like a drunk frat boy, Caroline is just too nice, and Virginia just isn't in the right state of mind. I know that for all of my faults, I am better than them every night of the year.

Tuesday night when all is said and done I will have brought honor to The Demoness, and proved the greatness of The MOD System to the entire world.

All hail The Demoness! All hail The MOD!

{The scene fades to black.}