CHAPTER 77

The next morning, Sarah and Marcos awoke in their hotel room bed, their arms wrapped around each other. It was bright and early, with the sun barely even risen, but they forced themselves out of bed, even if jet lag wanted them to sleep for another few hours.

"Come on. We've gotta get up." Marcos murmured to Sarah, as she lay resting on his arm, rendering him unable to move.

Sarah didn't respond with words, but instead let out an exhausted groan. The time difference from Okinawa to L.A was 16 hours, so the jet lag was absolutely immense. Their bodies screamed at them in confusion. It was 9 am in Japan, so it was evening time in L.A, and yet they were waking up now and expected to go the entire day. All they wanted was to curl under the blankets and get a few hours of shuteye, but they knew they couldn't. After all, Kreese definitely hadn't sent them all the way out here to sleep.

So the couple forced themselves out of bed and half an hour later, they were finally awake enough to leave their hotel suite, the penthouse suite, that they had been booked in. They went down to one of the hotel's many restaurants for breakfast, ate a quick bite, and then finally left the room, ready for the mission. Today's objective was simple: infiltrate Miyagi-Do. They needed to convince the senseis there to teach them for the next 2 weeks. It wasn't going to be easy, but they prayed that all of the cards fell in their favor because only then could they possibly pull this thing off.

It didn't take long for them to find the Miyagi-Do dojo. Even in a place as remote as Okinawa, there was still Google Maps. It turned out that Miyagi-Do was around a 20 minute walk, so after breakfast they set off for the dojo. It was an absolutely breathtaking walk. The incredible city was somehow even more beautiful in the light of the morning, maybe because they now had a couple of hours of sleep in them and were not as shattered as they had been the day before. The walk took them through a forest, into what seemed like the middle of nowhere with no sign of a destination. They followed a walking path for an eternity, several times nearly turning around and assuming that they were lost, until finally they made it.

It took a while for them to see it, but a partially concealed sign behind the trees indicated that they were close and sure enough, when they came to a clearing, it looked like they had arrived. By now, they were on the outskirts of the village - Tomi Village - where they were staying. It was forest all around them, apart from the large dojo that now stood before them.

"Wow." Sarah murmured, and that single word encapsulated this place perfectly. This was nothing like any dojo or gym they had ever seen nor been to before. It wasn't even like the Miyagi-Do dojo in L.A. This place was straight out of a movie. For starters, the dojo was elevated high off the ground, resting on a cliff at the top of a mountain. As they made the long walk up the mountain, following a clearly marked trail, they saw that it was forest all around them. They could only see the tops of the treetops, a lush canopy that blanketed the entire forest, with this place peering out about. It was a pearl in the middle of the ocean, unable to be found except by luck or if you knew exactly where you needed to go.

Marcos and Sarah glanced at each other, silent in amazement, before taking a deep breath. Here it goes. It was now or never. If they didn't manage to infiltrate the dojo, then this entire trip was for nothing.

"Ready?" Marcos asked quietly. Sarah nodded and together, the two of them knocked on the door. They could hear the faint sounds of a class going on inside, and so it took a while for the doors of the dojo to finally swing open. A short, grumpy asian man opened the door, wearing a Miyagi-Do sensei gi.

"Foreigners." The man muttered under his breath in Japanese, before looking up and speaking to them in English, in a pretty harsh, short tone. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, um… sorry to bother you." Sarah began. "I'm Rebecca. This is my friend, Julio."

"I don't care." The man snapped. "What do you want?"

"We're here for the next two weeks on a trip with our college, we heard about this place and we wanted to join. We were wondering if you'd be able to teach us for the next 2 weeks we're here." Sarah told him. The man tutted and shook his head.

"No." He grunted bluntly in reply. That was all he gave: just the one word… 'no'. Sarah and Marcos glanced at one another, unsure as to what to say in response. Marcos decided to pull out his wallet, filled with money that the Cobras had been given by their senseis for any fees necessary, and he held out a bit to the man.

"Please, sir, we'll pay." Marcos told him. The man let out a loud grunt of annoyance and almost slapped the money away from him.

"You think I accept bribe?!" The man shouted. Realizing how quickly this conversation was getting away from them, Marcos and Sarah quickly shook their heads.

"No, no, no. Sir, we're not trying to bribe you. We're just… offering to pay you to teach us Karate." Marcos stammered. He realized how redundant that sounded. Too late. The man scowled daggers at them.

"Get out!" The sensei demanded.

"S-sir, please." Sarah begged him.

"We do not teach foreigners here." The man sneered. "Only those worthy of Miyagi-Do's legacy, descendants of the Miyagi clan and others close to them, are fit to learn our secrets. You two are not. Good day."

With that, the man slammed the door shut, leaving the two teenagers outside. They had failed…

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It was a long walk back into Tomi Village, one during which neither Sarah nor Marcos said a word. They were still trying to gather their thoughts after what had happened, still processing the fact that they had been in Okinawa for less than 24 hours and yet there was no point being here for even a second more of the 2 weeks. They had failed, and so spectacularly too. They didn't know what they could do.

They re-entered Tomi Village in the late afternoon, making their way to the main village square, and as they did, Sarah turned to Marcos, her face defeated.

"Look, I'm gonna go find a bathroom. Maybe afterwards we can call Sensei Kreese and update him?" Sarah suggested. Marcos nodded and Sarah set off, looking for a bathroom.

Once she was gone, Marcos was left alone with his thoughts. He was standing in the center of the village square, his head slowly whipping around as he turned in a circle on the spot, staring at his surroundings. He didn't really know what he was thinking about right now to be honest. His mind was an absolute mess, a complete jumble. All of the troubles and stresses within him were even more muddled up inside his mind due to the bitch named jet lag.

His emotions were in overdrive, and they only became more so as Marcos glanced at an ice cream shop beside him and he saw a father and his son, sitting down together, sharing a ginormous ice cream sundae. He saw the sheer adoration and love in the father's eyes as he watched his son greedily tucking into the dessert. He heard the genuine, sincere laughter coming from both the father and the son. He could feel the mutual love and joy radiating from both of them. Taking in all of that, and then thinking about his situation back at home… it was all too much for Marcos.

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. What had he done to fucking deserve this? His whole life, it felt like nothing had ever gone his way? No matter how much he tried, no matter how hard he fought, the world possessed an even stronger right hand that wasn't afraid to clobber him 10 times harder in return. He had lost almost everyone in the world who cared about him: starting with his mom, then his friends when he left Brazil, and finally his father, who he might as well have lost as well, as he couldn't help but think that there was no possibility of a relationship between them at any point in the future. Marcos had taken loss after loss after loss but this one stung as bad as any other. They had come all the way out here, had had so much hope, had had so much riding on this trip, only for it to crumble on the very first day… it was the straw that broke the camel's back for Marcos.

Before he knew it, he had found himself walking over to a back alley behind the main village square, and had begun punching and kicking the wall furiously. He was crying out in anger, screaming at the world for the latest shitty hand he had been dealt. He felt his knuckles first bruise and then begin to bleed from the sheer force he was attacking the wall with. He didn't stop though. He didn't even feel the pain. The agony of the emotions he was feeling ripping through him outweighed any physical pain he could've felt. He continued throwing left after left, right after right, until all of a sudden, an unfamiliar, japanese accent stopped him.

"Hey! Are you okay?!"