Eren Yeager: The Karate Kid

by AssassinErik

Eren Yeager, a 15-year-old high school student struggles with his school life and the relationship between himself and his mother. However, one night, a janitor at Eren's school, who happens to secretly be a Karate master, decides to help Eren and show him how to face and conquer his struggles by teaching him the disciplinary martial art of Karate.

1. Chapter 1

Eren Yeager

The Karate Kid

This story is heavily based off of the 1984 version of The Karate Kid with a few elements of the 2010 version. This was just an idea I got while I was rewatching The Karate Kid (1984) and I honestly loved the idea so much, that I couldn't help but sit down and start writing it. I hope that you guys find it enjoyable.

Chapter 1: New Day

Karate. Yeah, I know what you're thinking when I say that word. You're thinking Karate is a sport used for kicking people's asses and looking like a king who's on top of the world. Well, you're wrong. Karate is not meant to be looked at as a sport (even though someone decided to make it into a sport anyway), it is meant to be looked at as a tool for self-defense only. But it's not only good for self-defense, it's also good for self-growth (Physically, Mentally, and emotionally) and being at peace with everything that wrongs you.

Karate has been such a big part of my life ever since I was fifteen years old and it has changed me in so many ways I couldn't even think possible. I cannot thank the man who taught me Karate enough for how much he helped me grow not just as a Karate student, but also as a person. I've made many relationships with people when I became a Karate student and I've helped those who were misguided in life find their way back onto the right road with the use of Karate.

When I look at the world today, I see many young children (even adults) who are being misguided and are being convinced that fighting and beating the living crap out of your enemies is the only way to make things better in your life. It really pains me to see the world go through such a dark age of misguided individuals. That's why I decided it was necessary to write out the story of what my teenage life was like before and after I started learning Karate, and how it really helped me with my troubles.

My name is Eren Yeager, and I ask you to follow me on the journey I've experienced many years ago.

I think I should first start of with stating that back then, I had short brown hair (but it was long enough to nearly cover my eyes), and teal green eyes. I know, I didn't look all that extraordinary in any way, but hey, even some of the most extraordinary people have the most ordinary looks…not to brag though, I am pretty extraordinary.

The date was August 20th, 2012. It was an early Monday morning and I was laying unconscious in my bed with my TV and PS3 left on as well as with a controller laying face flat on the floor in front of my bed. I had spent hours last night playing Soul Calibur V…well, I actually spent a quarter of how long I stayed up passed my bedtime trying to figure out which fighting game I wanted to play.

When I was young, I was obsessed with movies and video games that involved hand to hand fighting. I always found hand to hand combat movies to be badass and it was awesome to see people do so many cool techniques and fighting skills that I didn't exactly think were physically possible. I owned all of the current Soul Calibur games (counting Soul Blade since that was the first game)…well, all of the games at the time. I owned some Street Fighter games, and even couple of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto games. I also owned some most of the Bruce Lee movies and three Bruce Lee posters; one was hanging on my bedroom door, another was on the wall behind my TV, and the last one was on the wall next to my bed.

As I was sleeping blissfully in my bed, my slumber was disturbed by the noise of a really loud air horn. My heart jumped and pounded at rabid speeds as my eyes jolted wide open while I let out a short scream. I looked towards my left side to see my mother standing right next to my bed with an air horn in her right hand.

My mother, Carla Yeager, was a fairly lovely woman in her early thirties. She had the same brown hair I possessed, she had caramel colored eyes, she was wearing a cream-colored blouse, a pair of bright blue jeans, and a pair of brown Franco Sarto Bocca Loafer shoes. Her hair was so long that she kept it in a ponytail and left it hanging over her right shoulder.

My mother looked down at me with a rather unpleased look and let out a rather heavy sigh.

"Eren, I told you not to stay up late. I told you that you had school in the morning." my mother said with a displeased tone

Today was the first day of my sophomore year at Fritz High School. My mother had been constantly telling me yesterday to not forget to go to sleep because I had to be up bright and early. But to be fair, this wasn't the only time I've disobeyed my mother's wishes. This has actually become a trend ever since last year. I've been staying up late and have been having trouble staying awake as well as focused in school. I barely even passed last year.

However, the lack of sleep and focus weren't the only issues. I've also gotten into a lot of fist fights and have received many injuries from said fist fights. I've been getting black eyes, bloody foreheads, and even a few dislocated shoulders. Every time I had to come home with an injury or my mother had to come see me in the nurse's office, she always freaked up and gave me a half day long lecture afterwards. The only excuse I would ever have for getting into a fist fight was if the jocks at school were wronging me or picking on the other kids that were about half their size.

In all honesty, I think it's safe to say my Freshman year of high school was the worst year for both me and my mother. I've really damaged my study habits (even though my study habits weren't that great to begin with) and I've caused my mother a lot of stress and grief because of my actions.

I yawned loudly and stretched my arms and legs out as much as I possibly could while closing my eyes tightly. It felt difficult to keep my open, like the lids were made of led. As I moved me body up into a sitting position, I moved my legs over to the side of the bed…but in the process, I accidentally stepped on my controller, but luckily it wasn't hard enough to crush it. I moved my foot off my controller, picked it up, and held down the power button to operate the shut off option. Once the PS3 was off, I got up from my bed, walked up to my TV, and turned it off.

My mother sighed again.

"Eren," my mother started, "What am I going to do with you?"

I sighed in a rather annoyed tone as I walked over to my dresser and started throwing on a T-Shirt with Bruce Lee on it.

"Not anymore than you already are." I answered, "You've already got yourself stressed out over me enough as it is, so quit worrying about how much I sleep or the situations I get involved in."

"Excuse me?" my mother demanded now with an angry tone

"I would like you to stop getting into my own personal business." I shot back

And that's actually another thing that's been causing my mother a lot of stress: my attitude. Ever since I turned fourteen, I've been developing a rather snotty attitude of wanting my mother to stay out of my affairs and mind her own. Back then, I was feeling really fed up with all the times she lectured me about me doing the things I thought were right. I kept on thinking to myself "What's it going to take to get her to realize that I'm only doing something good and that she can't keep on being in control of the decisions I make for myself?"

"Eren Yeager," my mother raised her voice, "your life is not officially yours to live yet. You are still under eighteen years old and are still living under my roof. As long as you are living under my roof, you will listen to what I have to say and stop this bullshit behavior of yours."

"What's bullshit about standing up for myself or anyone else, huh?" I asked as I threw on a pair of dark blue jeans "The jocks at school are constantly bullying the other kids who are half their size and some of those kids aren't even brave enough to stand up for themselves. The jocks are making those poor kids lives miserable and nobody at the school is being brave enough to stand up to them and do something about it, not even the damn teachers."

"And look at all the times you ever got yourself involved. I see you come home with bruises, cuts, black eyes, and I even have to come see you in the nurse's office because of you getting your bones dislocated. You haven't made any kind of progress with this little goal of trying to show the big kids at school the errors of their ways. You don't have the power to do that." my mother said

I slammed my sock drawer shut after grabbing a clean pair of socks. I walked over to my bed and started slipping them onto my feet.

"If I don't take action and try to fix the situation, who will?" I asked "God knows that the teachers are refusing to take proper matters into their own hands, even the principal has been refusing to expel those assholes. If nobody else is going to even bother trying to make things right, I don't see any other reason as to why I shouldn't. I'd much rather get a bunch of broken bones trying to make a difference than get a bunch of broken bones not doing a damn thing."

As I finished slipping my socks onto my feet, I then slipped on my new white sneakers that my mother got for me last weekend. I then picked up my bookbag that was sitting right against a bottom leg of my bed and made an attempt to walk out through the doorway. But I was stopped by my mother grabbing onto my right shoulder.

I turned around to face her. I could easily tell that there were a lot of worry and concern in her eyes.

"Eren, please. I'm begging you. Please don't go picking any fights today, not on your first day." she pleaded

I hesitated for a while feeling all the anger towards my mother come to a holt. It made me feel so angry when my mother always told me to stop doing what I was doing. I felt like she just didn't care about how I was just trying to protect myself and others against the assholes at school. In the end, I let out a heavy sigh.

"Fine, I won't stand up for myself or anyone else today." I said angrily and I walk out of my bedroom

I walked down the entrance hallway of our house. As I nearly reached the door, I stopped in my tracks when I spotted the last picture that was ever taken of my father sitting on a small glass table.

My late father, Grisha Yeager, he too had long hair. His hair, however, was dark brown and only came down to the bottom of his neck. He also had the same matching teal green eyes that I possessed. He wore big circular glasses that looked like the glasses that Harry Potter wears, and he always wore a doctor's uniform and coat. My father was a doctor at our local town's hospital.

As I stared down at the picture of my father, seeing that bright happy smile on his face, I clenched my fists tightly in anger and walked out the front door.

When I arrived at the school, I thought back to what my mother said to me this morning. As much as I didn't want to do it, she was right about one thing on the matter: it was the first day of my Sophomore year and I didn't really need to start it off with a fist fight. I decided to swallow the bitter pill and just try to avoid things for today.

I walked over to the gymnasium because that's where everyone was required to go to before classes started for the new year. When I entered the buildings, hundreds of Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors were sitting on the bleachers and the loud echoes of endless chatter filled the entire building.

I suddenly felt a few taps on my left shoulder and I turned to see whoever it was that was tapping me. I smiled brightly when I saw a guy who was just about as tall as I was, but just a little shorter by a few inches. He has long golden hair (His hair practically made his head look like a golden coconut), blue eyes, a pair of rectangular glasses, a Sword Art Online T-Shit over a long-sleeved black shirt, bright blue jeans, and a pair of white and blue sneakers. This guy was Armin Arlert, my best friend since last year.

I met Armin when I found him hiding and eating his lunch in the bathroom during our lunch period. He was apparently trying to avoid the jocks because they so often dump his lunch all over him. Even if he finished all of his lunch before they got to him, he would still get dumped on with someone else's lunch. So I decided to watch over him until he finished.

As we walked out of the bathroom, we were confronted by the jocks. They tried dragging Armin over back into the cafeteria, but I attacked them with a few punches. But as you can probably already figure out, I didn't win. But they did decide to leave Armin alone for the day. Armin help me over to the nurse's office, and he said that I was just as cool as the good guys in the movie Kick-Ass.

Since then, we've been talking non-stop about martial arts movies, superhero movies (even parodies), anime, and Armin has even helped me understand a lot of things that were difficult for me to understand in Science class. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Armin is immensely intelligent. He actually gets the best grades in most of his classes. Me and Armin have been good friends ever since.

"Yo! Eren, bring it in!" Armin cried as we both embraced each other in a tight hug

"Hey, Armin. How was your summer?" I asked

"Well, if you can't tell by my T-Shit, I really got into this new anime called Sword Art Online." Armin responded as he held his shirt higher up "It's about this guy who gets stuck inside of a video game and has to play through the entire game in order to get out. It's a matter of life and death too. If he dies in the game, he dies in real life too."

"Ooh, that sounds pretty badass." I said

"I'm currently seven episodes into it already, the eighth episode hasn't aired yet." Armin said "What about you? What have you been up to this summer?"

"Oh you know, the usual. Playing my video games, kicking ass and taking names." I answered, "Aside from that, not really anything."

"Seriously? You didn't go see The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Hunger Games, or The Hobbit?" Armin asked with a surprised tone

"Why are you listing down movies that all begin with the word "The"?" I asked

"Eren, you need to get out of the house more often and live life." Armin lectured "You're not going to find any passion or any other hobbies if you keep yourself locked in your room staring at that flat rectangular box."

"Oh God, Armin, now you're starting to sound like my mother." I huffed

"Well, your mother is right. You're pretty much going to ruin yourself by playing videogames and only watching Kung-Fu movies all your life." Armin said

"I have other hobbies." I retorted like a little child

"Oh yeah? Name them." Armin said

I hesitated to try and think of what else I ever do aside from watching Kung-Fu movies and playing my video games. Truth be told, my mother and Armin really were right. I really didn't have any other hobbies in my life. I really didn't have any kind of passion that gets me out of the house, or even out of my own bedroom.

"Well…I uh…I watch anime." I answered

"Eren, you barely watch anime. You only watch about three or four animes, counting Dragon Ball Z and Naruto." Armin said "I know you hate it when your mother lectures you for not getting out of your bedroom enough, but she's right you know. A mother is always right."

I then flashed back to the argument me and my mother had this morning and the anger I felt towards her immediately came back to me.

"Oh, so my mother is right for being angry at me for doing things that I know is right?!" I snapped at Armin

"What?" Armin asked shocked at my sudden outburst

I then realized that I snapped at Armin and immediately took in a deep breath to cool myself down.

"I'm sorry, Armin, I didn't mean to yell at you." I said "It's just that…me and my mother got into an argument this morning."

"Really? I'm sorry for asking, but what were you guys arguing about?" Armin asked

"I'll tell you about it once we get to class. Discussing it here is not safe." I said

After the principal of the school did his welcoming ceremony for all of the students and finally allowed everyone to report to their first period classes, me and Armin reported to English class. Once we were there, I told Armin about the argument between me and my mother. I told him about how she kept on telling me to stop getting myself involved with the jocks bullying everyone and I kept on telling her that I'm the only who's ever going to step in and try to change things for the better.

"So now I think you understand why I indirectly snapped at you, Armin." I said

"Eren, I'm going to be honest with you." Armin said in a rather unsympathetic tone "As much as I understand your good intentions of trying to stop the jocks from bullying others, I'm going to have to go with what your mother says. She, once again, is right. You've made many many attempts to make a change and yet you still ended up with many injuries. You haven't really changed a thing by trying to step in; really, all you've done was make yourself another target for the jocks."

"Are you kidding me, Armin?!" I snapped again "What else can I do when nobody else is brave enough to stand up to those assholes when they bully other students like you?!"

"As much as I appreciate everything you do for trying to help me and other students, what good does it do you to get beaten up so often?" Armin asked

"…It saves other kids from misery, that's the good it does me." I answered softly

"So you're okay with making your own life miserable as long as you're preventing another kid's life getting miserable?" Armin asked

"I'm okay with trying to get the jocks to see the errors of their ways, even if it costs me many beatings." I answered in a serious tone

Armin fell silent for a little while as he looked down at his desk.

"I just don't want to see my best friend suffer because he feels like the lives of other kids are more important than his own." Armin said

As I was about to respond, our English teacher, Ms. Brzenska, walked into the classroom. Ms. Brzenska was a woman who looked like she was probably in her late twenties, had average length platinum colored blonde hair and silver eyes. She also wore a pair of oval-shaped glasses. She was wearing a grey power suit and black dress shoes.

Ms. Brzenska didn't look so pleased to be seeing any of us. She glared at most of us when she entered the room and walked over to her desk. And the first things that came out of her mouth only proved the feeling of her not being pleased that morning.

"Alright, all you little shits, let's get this over with." Ms. Brzenska said in a really annoyed tone "I'm going to start with rollcall. You know how this works, and you know who you are."

Ms. Brzenska took up a clipboard that contained the names of all of the students assigned to the class and skimmed through it.

"Arlert!" Ms. Brzenska called out

"Here!" Armin Responded

"Yeager!" Ms. Brzenska called out

"Here!" I responded

"Ackerman!" Ms. Brzenska called out

There was no response. Dead silence filled the room after someone by the last name of "Ackerman" was called. Ms. Brzenska looked around the room and back at the clipboard.

"Ackerman?!" Ms. Brenska called out again

Once again, there was no response. Feeling curious, I looked around the room myself. I saw nobody making any kind of response until I saw a hand being risen from someone in the back corner of the other side of the class room. I took a good look at the figure that rose their hand.

The figure was a girl with jet black hair that came down to the bottom of her chin, dark blue eyes, perfect lips, fairly smooth and reflective skin, a white short sleeved shirt underneath a black leather vest, bright blue jeans, and black leather boots. But the most notable thing about this feminine figure was that she was wearing a dark red scarf around her neck.

Ms. Brzensak seemed to have noticed the girl raising her hand.

"Ms. Ackerman, we are permitted to announce our presence when our names are called out. The next time I call out your name, you will give me a proper response. Do I make myself clear?" Ms. Brzenska demanded

The girl responded to Ms. Brzenska's question softly.

"Louder!" Ms. Brzenska yelled

"Yes ma'am!" the girl cried out

"That's better. Next time you disobey me, I'm getting out the stick." Ms. Brzenska said as she continued to go through the list of attendants

As I listened to Ms. Brzenska call out the rest of the students, I couldn't help but get a few good glances at the black haired girl. To be honest, she was looking (Dare I say it) very sexy in that black leather vest and those black leather boots. But each time I got a glance at her, I kept on getting the feeling she was also glancing over at me. I didn't know if she was somehow sensing that I was looking at her or if she was also taking some turns to glace at me.

But something suddenly struck my head as I glanced at her a few times more. For some reason that I couldn't really explain, the girl looked all too familiar for some reason. I couldn't put my finger onto where I could have ever possibly seen that girl before in my life…or so I just couldn't remember where I saw this girl before in my life.