CHAPTER 3
A/N
Recently, I have gotten quite a few comments, particularly on ao3, asking about where irwindiaz11 is. As many of you know, irwindiaz11 and I were supposed to write this story together but they had to pull out last minute, and they also removed their other stories from ao3. This provoked a lot of questions on my story about where the author is, and the author reached out to me and asked me to put out this following statement as to where they are…
"I'm staying off writing fanfiction for a while for personal reasons but hopefully I will be back in the future but I say a huge thank you to everyone who read my stories and are actually asking about them because that means a lot to me."
Anyways, that's all they said. Let's begin the chapter…
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Sam POV,
The All-Valley was a colossal fail for Samantha Larusso, no other way to say it. Although Miyagi-Do had won the tournament which was great, her own personal performance, in her eyes, had been an abomination. She was supposed to be the leader of Miyagi-Do, the one that everyone looked to for guidance, the one that Miyagi-Do revered and Cobra Kai feared. She had been trained as a kid by the founder of Miyagi-Do, Mr. Miyagi, and then later by a 2 time All-Valley champion father, and then another 2 time All-Valley champion in Johnny. All 3 of those men had experience taking their students to the top, and being related to one of them had mounted the pressure on her by an extreme amount. She had gone into the tournament as the most technically skilled competitor, a favourite to get to the finals, but that all came crashing down around her ears as she cracked under the pressure in the quarter finals. The quarter finals! The first round after the prelims! She had underestimated the abilities of Hawk, and it had gotten her dumped out of the tournament faster than she could blink.
She wished that she could have said that Hawk had fought dirty to beat her, but he didn't. He fought extremely well, taking advantage of Sam's sloppy start to the fight and dazing her with a vicious head kick to score first. With her head pounding, Sam had found it impossible to get into her stride and Hawk capitalised, winning the fight 3-1. The fact that Hawk had gone on to win the entire tournament softened the blow a little bit but still… if she had gotten a better start to the match, because it had been such a close 5 horse race between her, Robby, Hawk, Miguel and Tory, it could've been her lifting the trophy.
Sam walked into school, her head down, not talking to anyone as she made her way to her locker and withdrew her books for the day. It was the final week of school before summer break and she just wanted to get through it quietly and spend the whole summer relaxing and hanging out with her friends, family, Miguel, and just forget about karate for a while.
However, her hopes of a quiet week at school ended a couple of minutes later, when she felt an ice-cold wave crashed over her head, frigid water dripping down her hair and onto her clothes. Sam spun around, almost slipping on the water that had puddled on the floor beneath her, only to see Kyler and his gang of Cobra Kai nimrods smirking at her, an empty water bottle dangling loose from Kyler's hand. Immediately, rage seared through Sam's body.
"WHAT THE HELL, KYLER?!" Sam shouted, shoving Kyler backwards and causing him to trip against Brucks, who caught him easily and kept his friend on his feet. Kyler wasn't fazed at all, and merely shrugged. He was obviously furious that Cobra Kai had been forced out of the Valley, and he knew that he had the responsibility to make every Miyagi-Do's life hell in retaliation.
"Sorry, Sam. Didn't see you there." Kyler drawled, his gang of buffoons guffawing.
"Turn around. Walk away. Now." Sam growled through gritted teeth, her Miyagi-Do training of not striking first the only thing preventing her from charging towards Kyler and attacking him right now. It had been a whole year of Kyler and his Cobra Kai gang throwing cheap shots at the Miyagi-Do students to try and get them off their game, and Sam had had enough.
"You know what? I don't think I will." Kyler replied coolly, stepping up to Sam's challenge and squaring up to her.
"You don't want to do this." Sam warned him, her hands balling into fists. Kyler was still not unnerved, and his face was still stretched in a slimy smirk.
"Oh yeah, you and your quarter final level karate skills really scare the shit out of me!" Kyler remarked, taking a smart verbal jab at a place where he knew it would sting Sam. "I can't imagine how you feel right now. Supposed to be the leader, but you got outperformed by not one, but TWO of your teammates."
Sam finally saw red. Who the fuck was Kyler to say this shit to her? Of course that was how she felt deep down, but the fact that Kyler was trying to pinpoint on those emotions set Sam off. She shoved Kyler with all of her might, causing him to fall on his butt on the hard tile floor. However, before she could do anything else, a sharp voice rang through the corridor.
"MS. LARUSSO!" The voice shrilly shouted, and Sam winced. She knew exactly who that was. Turning around, she found herself face to face with her least favourite teacher in the school: Counsellor Blatt.
Counsellor Blatt quickly made it over to them, and at this point, Kyler had gotten to his feet and stood beside Sam.
"What on Earth is going on here?!" Counsellor Blatt.
"Counsellor Blatt, I accidentally spilled a bit of my water bottle on Samantha, and when I was trying to apologise, she just… she just shoved me onto the ground!" Kyler stammered, in a small voice that's phoniness was obvious to everyone but Counsellor Blatt. Sam turned towards him incredulously, her mouth agape in shock.
"Are you serious?!" Sam exclaimed, before turning back towards Counsellor Blatt. "Counsellor Blatt, you cannot possibly actually believe what he's saying!"
"All right then, Ms. Larusso. What happened from your perspective?" Counsellor Blatt asked.
"Well… Kyler PURPOSEFULLY dumped his water bottle all over me and when I turned to face him, I…"
"Hold on, Ms. Larusso. Hold on." Counsellor Blatt cut her off. "You turned around to face him?"
"Yeah, and I…"
"You turned around to face him, meaning that you weren't facing him when Mr. Seo spilled his water bottle."
"Sure, but I…"
"Which means that you have no way of seeing whether it was accidental or on purpose." Counsellor Blatt continued. Sam's heart sank. She knew exactly where this was going and it didn't look too good for her. "And yet, you decided to resort to violence for solving your issues, breaking school rules and going against our strict no-violence policy."
"She did, Counsellor Blatt! She attacked me and triggered me in my safe space." Kyler remarked. Counsellor Blatt's expression turned stormy as she turned back to Samantha.
"Ms. Larusso. My office. NOW!"
Sam resigned herself to her fate and nodded. She knew there would be no point arguing as Counsellor Blatt was as stubborn as an ox once she had heard one side of the story, and given that it was Sam on the other side of it, it was practically case closed already. Sam followed the teacher down the corridor. This school truly sucked…
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Daniel POV
Daniel woke up that morning with a massive smile on his face and as he stretched his limbs out and opened the blinds, he felt nothing but peace. It was a feeling he hadn't felt since the day Cobra Kai had returned to the Valley over a year ago. He basked in the sunlight, lying spread-eagle on his bed, and he sighed contentedly. Cobra Kai was officially out of the Valley today. Daniel no longer had to worry every moment of the day about where Kreese and Cobra Kai were, which innocent soul they were going to brainwash next, or when the bullies were about to mount their next assault on his daughter and his other students.
The All-Valley had gone absolutely perfectly. Sure it would have been nice to have seen Sam win, but it was awesome in a whole different way to see Hawk on that top step…
6 months ago…
"Dude, what the hell are we doing here?" Hawk asked Miguel as they walked into the Miyagi-Do dojo for their second ever training session with Miyagi-Do, their first really as the day before, they hadn't done much.
Miguel sighed and looked at his friend.
"Come on, man. Look, it's either here or with Kreese. And besides, here's our best chance of winning the All-Valley." Miguel replied. Hawk shook his head.
"No! That's not true! We could train with just Sensei Lawrence in his new dojo. You know, in the park?" Hawk commented. Miguel chuckled and raised an eyebrow.
"So really? You're about to stand here and tell me that we stand a better chance of winning the All-Valley if we train with Sensei in a public park with no equipment than if we train here, with senseis with 4 All-Valley wins between them as students, an All-Valley first and second place finish as senseis, a fully equipped dojo and students we can spar with that are our level?" Hawk scowled at Miguel for several moments before sighing in defeat and nodding at his best friend.
"Fine. Yeah, you're right." Hawk admitted. "But look, I don't care, you might be kissing his ass 'cause he's your girlfriend's dad but I'm not down with his dumbass pussy methods and I'm not taking any of his shit."
Miguel rolled his eyes. Hawk had definitely been acting super aggressive lately and was lashing out at practically everything that moved. Maybe Miyagi-Do could help him deal with that, Miguel thought to himself.
"Look, you don't have to be as 'all hail Miyagi-Do' as the others. You know I'm not. I'm with Sensei Lawrence all the way. But just… just trust Mr. Larusso, man. He might be onto something. He clearly knows what he's doing as a sensei. I mean he did get a student to the finals last year without even coaching him during the lead up to the tournament." "Yeah, and Robby was the model of a good person, wasn't he?" Hawk snapped, slapping Miguel lightly on the back and causing his friend to wince in pain. His back was still really weak from being pounded on by Kyler and even the slightest touch from Hawk hurt.
"Just... keep an open mind, okay?" Miguel murmured as they approached the front gate of the dojo. "As much as you might want to think otherwise, Mr. Larusso isn't a bad guy. He's actually really nice once you get to know him. You don't have to be fully Team Larusso or fully Team Lawrence. The reason we're here is to get the best of BOTH worlds. And you can't do that if you ignore everything Mr. Larusso says. So could you please just calm down a bit?" Hawk eventually reluctantly nodded.
"Yeah, fine." He agreed. "But if he tries to make me start following that 'hugs, not hits' mantra that Counsellor Blat is obsessed with, I swear to God I'm outta here."
Miguel laughed.
"Haha. Deal." He replied, before unlocking the door of the dojo and stepping inside. Little did both of them know that Daniel had just gotten out of his car a couple of feet away and had heard everything the two had said. Daniel sighed. He didn't hold it against Hawk. The boy had been trained to hate Miyagi-Do and everything it stood for, and the events of the school fight didn't help. He had been Cobra Kai's top student since Miguel's injury, and had been the one to lead numerous assaults on Miyagi-Do, one of which involved breaking Demetri's arm. But rather than holding a grudge against the boy and not wanting to train him as vigorously as the others, Daniel clenched his jaw and determination flooded through his body. Hawk practically oozed karate potential, and he definitely had the ability and grit to fight at the level of Miguel, Sam, Robby and the other teenagers who had started training before him. He just needed the right guidance…
6 months later, Daniel smiled to himself. As expected, it had taken much longer for Hawk to gel with the Miyagi-Do ways and Miyagi-Do students than it had with anyone else. However, when he finally trusted Daniel, listened to his teachings and found the perfect balance between offense and defense, he had become practically an unstoppable student. Hawk's work ethic was unrivaled by all of the other students, and he often stayed later or arrived earlier to training to get some extra time in. THAT was what had won him the All-Valley crown, in Daniel's eyes. THAT was why he thoroughly deserved it.
Daniel hadn't just built a good relationship with all of his old and new students, but he had also built an almost friendship with Johnny. Sure the two of them clashed on almost a daily basis (Amanda said that him and Johnny acted like an old married couple in that way), but working together for the past 6 months had helped them finally earn each other's respect. In fact, him, Amanda, Johnny and his girlfriend - Miguel's mom, Carmen - were going out for lunch together that day to celebrate Cobra Kai finally going under for good. They could all finally relax knowing that the teenagers of West-Valley High were all safe from harm from the Cobra Kai senseis. How wrong he was…