Our sensei, Tsurusennin entered the room and shut the door behind him. The atmosphere in the room was abruptly changed and we arose to our feet to show our respect, me swiftly removing my headgear.

'Tenshinhan-kun, Chaozu-kun, have you opened your gifts yet?' he said sneering.

We both knew that under his shaded spectacles he'd already caught sight of them lying on our desk. Tenshinhan immediately got the hint and fetched them, at the same time he managed to cover most of the adult oriented doujinshi that lay littered throughout the desk while keeping his calm.

'Go on, let's see you open them. I haven't got all day' sensei nodded towards us.

We obeyed and for a moment focused entirely on removing the gift-paper from the cube-shaped packages that he had given to us, and given to everyone else for that matter. Within lay something small, firm and excessively wrapped in paper. Of course it had to be the special crane-textured wrapping paper that sensei had had custom-made. And it wasn't cheap, the memories of having nothing but porridge, day and night for fortnight flashed through my head and I caught myself muttering some inaudible profanities towards sensei for being so mean.

'What's this?'

Sensei had been strolling around the room as we were occupied opening up our presents. We turned around and saw sensei bending down towards a carelessly thrown doujinshi. Sensei had informed us all very well that he, as a disciple of the legendary Mutaito had *never* wasted time on such things such as manga.

As he was bending towards it I noticed how a gigantic sweat-drop was evolving on Tenshinhan's forehead.

'Ranma vs. tentacle man? .. and I thought I was a big Takahashi-sama fan' he said smiling. Tenshinhan instantly fell to the floor with relief; the sweat-drop gone but his relief proved to be short-lived. Tsurusennin-sensei immediately realised he'd been thinking aloud and thus his smile vanished as he regained his more vicious and formal state of mind. He stood there with the h-doujinshi in his hand lecturing us about how manga was a mere waste of time and how we should be.. Well, to be honest we had ceased to listen to his preaching a long time ago. They were usually very brief since his authority was more than enough for him to motivate his standpoint against any of us.

I thought of how lucky Tenshinhan must be feeling, things could be much, much worse. The h-doujinshi sensei was holding in his hand did have a very modest cover that didn't suggest anything about its content. Tenshinhan, who had been mechanically nodding throughout the whole time with a red-face, apologised and took the manga away from sensei and stashed it inside his drawer. Although he was too quick, the whole drawer fell loose and it's content - perfectly sorted and stored yaoi doujinshi from several years back fell out and littered the once so virginal floor.

---

Later that night after having drunk our tea we sat once again alone in our room.

'Stop grunting now' I pleaded.

Tenshinhan paid no attention to my plea and continued whilst stirring with his spoon in what was now an empty teacup.

'So he confiscated all your yaoi-manga, and our Xmas-presents ended up being nothing but lumps of coal. We still have our pride, and we got to keep our shogi-board. It could have been worse, we could have been expelled'

As I'd mentioned the part of the manga he looked away and began to mutter profanities only to cease when I came to the part about us being expelled.

'Bah!' he exclaimed harshly. 'You do really believe for even a moment that he would expel his most promising disciples? Do you think sensei isn't jolly, he's probably selling my manga on ebay in this very moment that..'

'...that scoundrel!' I broke of in order to calm him down. 'There is at least one good thing that's come out of all this. When you were rampaging and yelling on how about in which magnificent condition you've kept your doujinshi-collection you discovered a new technique didn't you?'

'That right, I did' he smiled sardonically recalling how that's how he came up with the newest addition of techniques he managed, the shiyoken.

'And myself.' I uttered. 'Have also mastered a new technique, as you already know'. He nodded still smiling. After having been fed up with Tenshinhan's rampaging I had myself grown outright pissed towards sensei. I had been so excited this Christmas, how I had been looking forward to the Christmas three, the gifts, and the whole cosy package we call Christmas. And what do I get, the black-hearted sensei gives us a mere lump of coal and a sardonic laugh. I had grown to utterly enraged that also I had come up with a new technique. As I was boiling with anger I heard something snap, a large cracking sound right in front of me. I opened my eyes and saw that my lump of coal had been cracked. I recalled briefly how Tenshinhan had ceased his rampaging for a moment and stood there gazing on the piece of coal, then on me, on the piece of coal and on me and so on. 'Did... you..?'.

I answered that I at least thought it was my doing. And after having discovered this new found ability of mine I spent the next days training it with as various tasks as moving objects and folding origami cranes. I remember that I thought about what my future wish would be and that the simple answer was for me to be as strong as skilled in martial arts as Tenshinhan.

I remember the words my brother used to describe it, 'I always knew that you were more gifted in the mental training but to you developing powers of this kind I never would have imagined.'.

How content I was, and in retrospect as I write this I don't think that if this had not occurred I never would have been able to continue and improve they way I did during my training as disciple of Tsurusennin-sensei. And after that mastering telepathy which was something of a special technique unique to the crane-school.

As I stood there gazing out the window that night watching the large snowflakes slowly descend upon the ground I decided that I would continue my efforts at the school and continue focusing after having learned to know myself. I was slowly drifting away in my own thoughts, building castles in the air when suddenly. 'Did I mention that I,.. err "loaned" some money from your savings to.. err "invest" in that yaoi-manga..? It's ok, right? What are you looking like that for, come on... Now wait.. what are you doing..? Come on! Put the table down.. I'll pay you back as soon as.. aeeeeeee!!'.

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