CHAPTER 61

"You don't have to do this, Miguel." Sam said to her boyfriend as the four of them slowly walked out of the dojo and over to the sparring deck in the backyard, which was being faintly illuminated by few lights around them. Stepping onto the deck, not for the first time that day, Miguel and Robby stood face to face. However, they stood at opposite sides of the deck, Sam talking to her boyfriend and Tory talking to hers, the two girls desperate to talk the fighters out of this extraordinarily stupid decision.

Miguel shook his head though as he shrugged his jacket off and tossed it aside.

"No. I do. Robby's right. Me throwing the fight was just disrespectful. Dishonorable. I don't want to fight right now, but if he wants to, I owe it to him to say yes."

Miguel said this with so much firmness that Sam knew there was no changing his mind now. She groaned, internally praying that neither Miguel nor Robby killed the other in this ridiculous rematch, and nodded.

"Fine. But it's 1 point only, remember? As soon as someone scores, it's over and we're calling it." Sam reminded him. Miguel nodded as he quickly warmed himself up, putting his mind in fight-mode.

"I know. One point. First to score, wins." Miguel reiterated. Across the dojo, Tory was equally frustrated with the stubbornness and stupidity being shown by the pair.

"You realize you're a hypocrite, right?" Tory remarked as she watched Robby stretching and shaking the tension out of his limbs, forcing his mind to be cleared of any emotion. However, these words broke through, and he stared at her, confused.

"What are you talking about?" Robby asked.

"Your entire point is that sometimes life just fucking sucks and you shouldn't change how you treat people because of it." Tory said. "While right now, you're clearly going through something, and you've completely changed how you're treating the people around you."

"That's not true." Robby snapped back.

"Oh yeah? Picking fights? Ignoring everyone that's trying to help you? Right now, you sound more like me than you and that's honestly scary to see."

Robby shrugged.

"Don't know what to tell you, Tory. I'm doing this." Robby stated determinedly. He was doing this. One point. One point was all it was. He needed to gather himself enough to score just 1 point on Miguel, and then he'd be officially crowned champion. No controversy about it. No second-guessing whether he was still good enough. One point and he could put all of this shit behind him, once and for all…

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But that one point proved harder to score than Robby thought. Because when the fight started, both fighters were reminded just how evenly matched they really were. Sam and Tory watched on nervously, ready to step in as soon as someone scored or if things got too out of hand, as Robby and Miguel came to blows for the second time that day.

It was Robby who struck first, no surprise to anyone given the cacophony of emotions that had been rushing through his head all day. The anger, the humiliation, the pain after finding out what Miguel had done… it was all channeled into the ferocious blows that Robby fired Miguel's way. Although none of them landed, it definitely took quite a lot out of Miguel to block them, and Robby even managed to knock Miguel to the ground with a brutal sidekick, one that although was blocked by Miguel's arm so not a valid point, still had enough power to send shockwaves through his system and knock him onto his ass on the ground.

Robby didn't say a word when he had knocked Miguel down. He didn't even move a muscle. He just stared down at him, locking eyes with his rival as he stood over him. And as they stared into each other's eyes, Miguel was once again provided a flash of the sheer anguish in Robby's eyes. He didn't move to finish the fight right there, so Miguel was able to get to his feet and face Robby once more.

"No point! Continue!" Sam declared, the last word practically having to be dragged from her lips as she was forced to allow the fight to continue.

So the fight continued, and this time, it was Miguel who was on the front foot. Robby had thrown so much of his energy in his first phase of attack that now he needed a moment to catch his breath, and Miguel was able to go onto the offense. They went back and forth like this, none of them scoring a point, blocking every strike the other threw. It was a chess match. Back and forth. Back and forth, they went. With every phase of the fight, they drained even more of their energy and with every passing second, it seemed more and more likely that neither would score. After all of the fighting they had done earlier that day, along with the unexpectedness of this fight, they were both extremely lethargic, and their offensive combinations were both sloppy.

They were beginning to get into a pattern, and one that they needed to break desperately if they wanted any hope of there being a winner in this fight. Because both were closer to passing out from exhaustion right now than actually scoring a point. Thankfully, Miguel managed to break that pattern though. After blocking one of Robby's tired right punches, Miguel managed to catch Robby off-guard by sweeping his leg, knocking him to the ground. Almost reluctantly, Miguel charged towards him to finish the fight once and for all, but he was so slow, so off his game from exhaustion, that Robby managed to block the punch that Miguel threw. He grabbed that wrist and used it to leverage himself and push Miguel off him, rolling with him in the process.

The two then proceeded to continue grappling for what seemed like an eternity. This wasn't Karate anymore. Hell, it was hardly a fight. The two right now would probably be most closely equated to two hogs, wrestling in mud. So exhausted that they couldn't even hear the girls yelling at them to stop and get off each other, Robby and Miguel continued to wrestle for a few moments later before Robby finally managed to gain dominance on the ground. He had Miguel on his stomach and had him pinned down, very similar to how Miguel had had him pinned during the school fight, only without the arm lock. He was about to raise his fist and send a blow to the back of Miguel's head to finish the fight when all of a sudden he looked up and stopped cold.

Their entire fight, Robby and Miguel had completely lost track of their surroundings. It had been just the two of them in the entire world, so they took no heed to their surroundings. They didn't even notice the fact that by now, they were no longer on the sparring deck, but were instead deep within the backyard of the dojo, right opposite the koi pond. Robby looked up and as he saw this, he saw his own reflection, illuminated by the faint moonlight shining against the water's surface and as he saw himself, he was finally dragged back to consciousness.

It was like he had returned to his body. He had returned to being himself again. He had let his emotions take over, let the adrenaline control him, and it had resulted in him definitely not acting like himself. Well the adrenaline was gone now, it had just drained from his system, evaporating into the night air, and Robby lowered his arm and collapsed beside Miguel, rolling onto his back and panting for breath, Miguel doing the same.

The fight quickly became forgotten as they lay side by side, unable to even gather the strength to stand right now, and it took Sam and Tory roughly dragging them to their feet and holding them upright for them to be able to do so. This allowed Miguel and Robby to stand face to face, able to deal with their emotions in that moment.

They didn't say a word. They didn't have to. Because in that moment, as Sam, Tory, Robby and Miguel stood face to face with each other, the message was extremely clear: they weren't alone. Any of them. They could lose every other family member in the world and they would never be alone, because they at least had a few people to have their backs at all times. Not so much Sam, but with other three teenagers, they had been alone their entire lives. They had had little to no support from anyone. Not from supposed loved ones. Not from society. They had been shunned their whole lives, casted as "criminals" or "poor" or "immigrants". Having someone in their corner, let alone a group of people.

Now that that message was ingrained in all of their heads - that no matter what happened next, they weren't alone - they decided to all finally leave for Moon's party forever. This chapter, all of the fighting between them, had finally closed. For good this time. They were finally on the same page, all of them, and were finally able to fully turn their attention to defeating Cobra Kai in the Taikai, and not getting distracted by each other…

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"Another round, everybody?" Bobby Brown called to the group of adults in the nightclub, and the collective cheer he heard from all of them told him his answer immediately. Of course there was going to be another round of drinks. The night was still young. They had barely even started!

"I'll help you carry them." Vanessa Larusso offered to help him, and Bobby nodded at him as they walked to the bar in the middle of the club together. It was definitely loud, but they were thankfully still able to have a conversation, as there was actually something that he wanted to talk to her about, hear a professional opinion about.

They bought the drinks, and as the bartender poured them all, Bobby and Vanessa decided to have a conversation.

"All this Karate drama, huh?" Vanessa remarked. "Who would've thought that a year later, we'd be right back to where we started?"

"A year later? This has been going on for 35 years now, where have you been?!" Bobby laughed.

"Yeah, 35 years and nothing's changed, huh?" She commented. Bobby sighed and nodded.

"Unfortunately. Same sport. Same dojos. Same people involved. Even those who supposedly 'died', are back for this one." Bobby said.

"Kreese, huh? I heard from Danny that he's hungrier than ever. But Danny and Johnny… they seem confident. They seem very confident. You really think he stands a chance against us?" Vanessa asked. Bobby took a deep breath.

"Honestly… I do." He replied. "Because it's not just Kreese who's a threat. He's a harmless old man; he's the least of our problem. But this kid that he found as his new champion… he's the real threat."

"I mean… I assume he's a kid though, right? Can't be that bad." Vanessa said. Bobby shook his head as he closed his eyes. He could almost see the teenager that he had spoken to at Coyote Creek standing in front of him. He remembered vividly the internal pain that he could see wracked the teenager's body, the pain that pushed him further into the arms of Kreese.

"I don't know about that." Bobby murmured. "I met him at Coyote Creek."

"So what? You think he's some monster?" Vanessa asked.

"No, I think he's the exact opposite. I think you and I are the only ones with our eyes open enough to remember that even during the worst moments, these kids are just that… they're kids. This boy, Marcos I think his name was… he's traumatized about something. You can see it with the way he talks. You can see it with the way he acts. You can see it with the way he fights. It's like every step he takes, he feels like he's fighting for his life. He feels like he's permanently stuck in that whole fight or flight instinct. He might be called a monster by others, but he's just a scared little boy."

Vanessa nodded.

"I agree. These are all kids. But you've got to remember, these are emotional, vulnerable, volatile kids. They're resourceful. If they want something, or don't want something, they're going to stop at nothing for it. This boy might be holding a lot of trauma within, but that only makes him more dangerous. It can make him prone to fits of rage, lack of control. We see this with so many teenagers that are left alone in this world for too long without help. They only become more dangerous and there's little we can do to help."

Little did they know that Vanessa was absolutely right. That tonight, everything was going to change. A truce, a stalemate that had been going on between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do for over a month while they trained, was about to come to a spectacular end, all at the hands of two emotional, volatile teenagers and an unfortunate case of wrong place, wrong time…