CHAPTER 84
The next morning, bright and early, the Christmas break had finally come to an end and the teenagers were all back in West Valley to begin their final 6 months of High School. It had been a whirlwind of a Christmas holiday for every single one of them, that's for sure. It had been one that none of them would even forget for a variety of reasons, both good and bad. For the Miyagi-Dos things had only been getting better for them in the past few months. They had at least 5 students all capable of winning the Taikai and 4 senseis capable of doing the same. Between training with multiple senseis, building stronger relationships with the other students and more, things at Miyagi-Do were at an all-time high.
The same couldn't be said for the dojo across the Valley. Things were rocky, to say the least. Even if Marcos and Sarah had technically improved their skills, both were emotional wrecks after their breakup the night before, definitely not firing on all cylinders now. And that was a horrible thing for Cobra Kai, who unlike Miyagi-Do, didn't have any other champion-level students to pick up the slack. Then there was everything that was going on in Marcos' home life, which caused his mind to be pulled even more off-course and prevented him from improving his skills at the speed Miyagi-Do were. Needless to say, things at Cobra Kai were far from ideal, the likelihood of them winning the Taikai decreasing by the day.
As the Miyagi-Dos walked into West Valley High that morning, though they were in great spirits, a few things crossed their minds that put them slightly on edge. That was the fact that since Robby and Hawk's showdown with Marcos at the canyon, they hadn't seen Marcos or Sarah at all. In fact, since that night, all of Cobra Kai had seemed to have retreated into the shadows. At the beginning, the Miyagi-Dos had thought that was a good thing. After all, their enemies weren't actively trying to attack them anymore. However, what the Miyagi-Dos quickly realized was that the only thing scarier than knowing your enemy was going to attack is when you don't know what's going on their side. When you can't see into their plans and prepare to defend yourselves. That was exactly the case right now, as they hadn't seen or heard from the Cobra Kai leaders since the night of the fight, even long after they had gotten back from the amazing camping trip.
This fact didn't change as the students walked through the corridors of the school and still couldn't seem to find Marcos or Sarah.
"This is not good. Where are they?" Hawk remarked quietly to the other students as they collected books from their lockers and prepared to go to morning homeroom.
"Maybe they skipped town?" Sam asked, almost hopefully.
"Nope. If their two champions skipped town, right now Cobra Kai wouldn't be hiding. They'd be right in everyone's faces, trying to recruit." Miguel replied.
"Still though. We haven't seen them in like 2 weeks. There's no way they could've gone for 2 weeks in the Valley without any of us seeing them once." Tory commented.
"Maybe they went camping like we did?" Robby suggested. Everyone shrugged. That was a plausible explanation. Although for some reason, they all had a sneaking suspicion that it was something more than that. But they couldn't think about that now, Demetri reminded them.
"Look, for all I care, they could be in China, learning from Jackie Chan himself. This shouldn't be our focus right now." Demetri stated. "We've got college acceptances and exams to worry about."
Demetri was right. Even in the midst of the karate war, the rest of society was still business as usual. That meant that they still had to keep up with all of their school's requirements and their other responsibilities. The next few months were going to be crucial for all of them, as they would end up deciding their futures, their lives after high school. It was going to be a decisive few months for them, that's for sure, so they knew that their only focus couldn't just be Karate. College acceptances would be coming in the next few weeks and good performance in their exams would be crucial to maintaining those offers.
As the Miyagi-Dos headed for morning homeroom, they still hadn't seen the Cobra Kai champions just yet. They were swept up by the wave of students and the familiar hum of a day in the life of a West Valley student. They were carried by the tide first into their homeroom and then to the school field for Phys Ed class, which was their first class of the day.
Morning Phys Ed in mid January… it was freezing outside! The teachers didn't care though, nor did they move the lessons indoors. Put on a sweatshirt if you're feeling cold, the teachers told them. Lack of facilities in McKinley High meant that they were forced to play on the outdoor turf field. Thankfully though, they'd all have at least one extra layer for warmth, as they were quickly instructed by their Phys Ed teacher to put on football pads and a helmet. They finished their Soccer unit in Phys Ed going into the Christmas Holiday so would now be working on Football instead.
It was a nervy prospect, even for the Karate students. The main reason for this was that the vast majority of their Phys Ed class was made up of members of the two dojo. Things had been frosty enough between them during the Soccer unit in Phys Ed that they had almost gotten into a number of fights and scraps even playing the relatively harmless sport. So playing football, a sport where you could tackle one another as hard as you could… that wasn't exactly something many of them were looking forward to.
As the Miyagi-Dos stepped onto the field for class, wearing their football pads and holding their helmets in their hands, they looked across the field and their hearts stopped for a second as they saw who was sitting on the other side. It was Cobra Kai. ALL of Cobra Kai. Their two champions, as well as the rest of the students, were all there, also decked out in their football equipment, looking ever-ready for a fight.
The Cobra Kais spotted the group of Miyagi-Dos immediately as they stepped onto the field, and Marcos could immediately feel the unrest and aggression from his teammates as soon as they set eyes on the enemy.
"Man, it's so good to have you back." Kyler muttered to Marcos, who was sitting silently beside him. "Sensei banned us from attacking anyone while you were away."
Marcos turned and glanced sideways at Kyler for a moment, scoffing and chuckling quietly.
"Yeah. Because you would've gotten your ass kicked without me." Marcos replied bluntly.
It was a different Marcos who had greeted the Cobras that morning. Certainly different to the man who had left the Valley 2 weeks ago, and even different to the man he had been last night. After the hell that last night had been, both with Sarah and with his father upon returning home, something had died inside Marcos. He had lost his… humanity almost. He no longer felt the same emotion he used. No longer felt sympathy for his enemies. No longer felt restraint. Or conscience. All of this pain, all of this suffering that he had gone through over the past month had killed any sense of feeling within him, to the point where his only feeling was pain and the only way to temporarily quench that was to inflict pain on his enemies.
"We would've been fine." Shawn argued. Marcos slowly turned towards him, raising an eyebrow.
"Agree to disagree." Marcos told him. "Anyways, what are you even doing here?"
"Nothing much to it. I just asked the school if I could return and they let me for the last 6 months of school." Shawn responded. Marcos raised an eyebrow.
"But… didn't you just get out of jail or something? The school just let you back in so easily? I heard that Robby needed to get special permissions and everything to come back." Marcos said. Shawn nodded.
"Robby got expelled from school. He went to juvie for what happened at school. I went to juvie for… personal reasons. Nothing to do with school so I never got expelled. So they can't exactly kick me out now." Shawn stated. "I'm here for the next 6 months until graduation, even though starting from January, I won't be able to properly graduate or anything."
"You can't get your diploma? Then why are you even here?" Marcos asked.
"In case there's another fight at the school, I want to be there to fight for my side. As Sensei Kreese always says… that's what a soldier does, right?" Shawn stated, determined. Marcos nodded at the large thug's loyalty to their side, something he knew would be vital in case of another brawl, as Cobra Kai really were in short supply of high level fighters like Shawn. Although the thug hadn't trained for too long, he had two things on his side that the rest of the students in the Valley hadn't had: natural fighting instincts and innate physical strength. This meant that he already had a leg up and was able to play catch-up to the others at a much faster speed, especially in the past 2 weeks with Marcos and Sarah's absence, when Kreese had paid special attention to him as the next best fighter there.
"Well there's going to be a fight soon." Kyler chimed in confidently. "We haven't forgotten what Robby did to you bro. We need to strike back."
"We're not going to do that." A voice came from behind Marcos, one that he recognized immediately, and he turned to see Sarah walking over to them with her Phys Ed equipment in her hands. Marcos didn't even acknowledge her as she walked over, though he could feel a stab of pain straight through his heart as he saw her. "All engaging them now is going to do is risk one of us getting hurt before the Taikai, which we CAN'T afford to let happen."
Marcos listened to this, taking in her words, before turning back to Kyler and completely ignoring his ex.
"What did you have in mind, Kyler?" Marcos asked. He could almost feel the death glare from Sarah behind him but he didn't care. She had lost the right for him to listen to her when she dumped him the night before, that's how he saw it.
"I don't know, I was thinking something like another brawl. Another home invasion." Kyler said, but Marcos immediately shook his head.
"No. I'm not getting my ass thrown in jail for this shit." Marcos remarked, before turning to Shawn. "No offense."
"What do you think we should do then?" Kyler asked.
"We can't just go busting down the door to someone's house. That's ridiculous. We have to be more subtle than that."
At that moment, the Phys Ed teacher walked onto the center of the field and blew her whistle, indicating that class was about to begin and they all should gather in the middle of the field. A small smile graced Marcos' lips as he watched the Miyagi-Dos all gathering on the field, fully kitted out in their football equipment. They were dressed to play a contact sport, so who was really going to pay that much attention if a bunch of amateur high school students who had barely played the sport tackled their opponents a little harder than they should have?
"I have an idea…"