CHAPTER 93

After Cobra Kai training that afternoon, Marcos did not go home immediately. This was a habit of his. He only came home at the very end of the night, not wanting to spend any more time around his father than he had to. Before, he would spend time either with Sarah or at the dojo, but now he was doing neither of these things. He felt like he was on a life raft, stuck in the middle of ocean with no land in sight, unable to move from his position. He was lost, directionless, unable to pull himself of this pit that he had dug for himself.

Wandering aimlessly around the streets of L.A until the sun began to set and the temperature dropped, Marcos then finally went home. As he arrived at his apartment complex that night, he hesitated before opening the door. He always did this, spending a moment to gather himself before walking into whatever hell his father had planned for him. This time, however, something was different. Rather than hearing nothing but dead silence as he unlocked the door, he could hear voices within the apartment. Talking.

Marcos raised an eyebrow, confused. Someone was in the apartment with his father, that was for sure. But who? His father had no friends in the entire world - serves him right for being someone who was rotten to the core. That left very few possibilities as to who this was.

Whoever Marcos was expecting to be in there, this definitely wasn't them. That's what Marcos thought to himself as he walked into his apartment and saw none other than Sensei Kim Da-Eun herself, sitting at the kitchen table opposite Marcos' father. Marcos' heart dropped to a stone when he saw her. What the hell was she doing here?! What was she telling his father, and what was his father telling her?! Whatever it was, Marcos knew the outcome couldn't have possibly been good.

"Come, sit down." His father gestured to one of the other chairs at the kitchen table, not in his recently vile mood, but instead in the normal gruff tone Marcos had gotten used to in the past. "You teacher here was just telling me about how you've been slacking off in class."

"Excuse me?" Marcos muttered, turning towards Sensei Kim and scowling slightly at her.

"Mr. Oliveira, your son has unfortunately become pretty withdrawn the past few weeks. The number of classes he's missed in the past little while…"

"Boy misses his girl." Marcos' father interrupted her. "Nothing unnatural about that. They were together for 5 months."

"Of course. But there are still responsibilities that every student needs to adhere to as part of our dojo…" Kim began, but she was interrupted by Marcos' father once again.

"Pretty bullshit ones too if you ask me." Marcos' father responded. "From what I've heard, you need him there more than anyone else because he's the only student of yours who's worth a damn and you're trying to win a bet. Well let me get something straight with you… I don't give a flying fuck about your bet. My priority is my boy, and right now he's going through a lot. If he doesn't feel up to going to your training, he won't go. Simple as that."

Marcos' eyes were so wide they were threatening to pop out of his head. Who the hell was this man and what had he done with Marcos' father? What had happened to the ruthless, merciless dickhead who took his anger out on Marcos night in, night out. This man was… defending him? Something Marcos never thought possible from his father.

But it did the trick at least. Now that Kim could see everything was steady enough at home, clearly that wasn't the problem for Marcos. His father seemed convinced that the cause of Marcos' recent slip was the fact that he was still getting over the breakup, and Kim had no reason to suspect otherwise. Or did she?

"I just want you to know, Marcos, that Sensei Kreese and I are here to help if things ever get too… difficult."

As Kim said this, her eyes flickered around the kitchen and she spotted a collection of alcohol bottles scattering across every inch of the kitchen counter. She was starting to fit together pieces in the puzzle about what was going on. Very few pieces mind you, but the excessive amount of alcohol and the very faint slur in his father's voice give her a slight clue.

"We appreciate your concern. And Mr. Kreese's. But you know, Marcos and me, we're… we're doing okay out here, aren't we?"

Marcos' father glanced sideways at his son, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. It was an innocent enough gesture to see from Sensei Kim's perspective, but Marcos could feel his father's fingers squeezing into him, his nails threatening to pierce skin from the sheer force he was grabbing him with. Marcos quickly realized that the act his father was playing was just that… an act. He had little choice but to nod along with his father, out of fear of the potential consequences of not doing so.

"Yeah, we are." Marcos murmured quietly.

With that, Sensei Kim rose to her feet and turned to leave the apartment, leaving Marcos and his father behind her. She walked towards the door but as she was about to make it over there, that's when she saw it…

It wasn't much at all, and anyone with less than eagle-like eyesight would've missed it. But Kim didn't. She saw it, the faintest traces of crimson staining the already dark mahogany door. It had clearly been washed over, and so it was all but invisible, but it was clearly there. And not just that, but it had been there in two clear distinct lines, almost like someone's nostrils had been dripping blood because of a heavy impact against the unforgiving door.

Kim left the apartment anyways, her mind whirring with her theories about what was going on within the small confines of the apartment. Although she left the house, she didn't leave the apartment complex though, standing just outside and almost pressing her ear up against the door, trying to hear whatever conversation Marcos and his father were having from within.

She didn't hear much. Mere snippets. But enough to render her immobile in shock.

"YOU'VE GOT PEOPLE SNIFFING AROUND NOW, YOU FUCKING FOOL?!"

That was the first thing Kim heard, an echoing bellow that she could easily hear from her spot just outside their apartment. It was unmistakably Marcos' father, presumably yelling at his son.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU WOULD HAPPEN IF ANYONE EVER FOUND OUT?!"

The second snippet, a few seconds later, and this one was even more telling than the first. It couldn't have been more obvious what was going on now. Between the aggressive middle-aged man living with her student, the countless number of empty bottles that covered every surface in the kitchen, and the complete spiral that Marcos had gone into over the past few weeks, Kim could tell exactly what was going on. Sure enough, her theory was confirmed by a loud, unmistakable sound coming a few seconds later.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

This wasn't a punch. Kim could tell this for certain. She knew exactly what these sounds of impact were, as they took her back to her own incredibly strict childhood living in the most rural areas of Korea. Marcos wasn't simply being hit by his father, but he was being beaten by a belt. There was no other sound remotely like this, so Kim could imagine the blinding, splitting pain that Marcos was feeling right now as he took brutal whips from a belt all over his body.

Kim had half a mind to storm into the apartment right then and there and stop Marcos' father by any means necessary. He was whaling on his own child, a boy much smaller and younger than him. It wasn't even remotely fair on the teenager. Kim Da-Eun the human being wanted to help protect the boy from further harm, get him out of the tough situation as quickly as she could.

However, Sensei Kim Da-Eun had other ideas. She knew for a fact that what was going on inside that apartment right now, what Marcos' father was putting his son through, would only make Marcos stronger. If the man pushed Marcos far enough, Marcos would finally be relieved of the weakness and mercy that seemed to be his biggest weakness, and the sky truly would be the limit for him as a Cobra. And they needed that. They needed their boy performing at his full potential, firing at all cylinders, as with that occurring, they wouldn't simply just beat Miyagi-Do, but they would obliterate them.

So Kim turned on her heel and retreated into the night without another word, leaving Marcos at the hands of the psycho within the prison of an apartment. She returned to the dojo, now empty as Kreese had left for the night, and to her shock, as she sat in the office, contemplating the plans and future of Cobra Kai given this most recent development, the door to the dojo swung open.

Hearing the familiar DING of the doorbell as the door opened, Kim stepped back into the main dojo and she did a double take when she saw Marcos there. He hadn't seen her yet as his back was to her, so Kim silently watched as he stormed inside, his chest heaving with anger, and he took off his shirt and threw it against the wall in frustration.

As Kim saw his now bare back, her eyes widened slightly. His father really had done a number on him, the skin raw from various lacerations and bruises made by the belt beatdown from his father. He looked like he had been beaten to an inch of his life, at least the blood dripping off his back made it seem that way. But he wasn't. He was standing upright, the overwhelming enough inside him not pain but rather fury.

Kim watched as Marcos turned his attention to a punching bag at the far corner of the dojo and began to whale on it, unleashing the full effect of his pent-up wrath. It was a miracle Marcos' entire fist didn't drill a hole through the bag with the sheer venom with which he was striking. It was a vicious chain. Marcos' father got angry; so Marcos' father beat Marcos; so Marcos got angry; so Marcos beat something himself. In this case, it was a punching bag, but Kim Da-Eun knew that one day, it would be a live opponent, and that was the day she was waiting eagerly for with the champion.

"Very good." Kim remarked, finally stepping fully into the main dojo and making her presence known. "Good combinations. Fast. Powerful. Excellent work, Mr. Oliveira."

Marcos spun around and his eyes widened in alarm. He had been certain that he was the only person in the dojo, which is why he had allowed himself to take off his shirt and allow the cool air to blow on his severely damaged skin. Hearing Kim's voice, Marcos immediately stammered to come up with an excuse for the sorry state of his back and as Kim noticed when he faced her, his chest and stomach too.

"Oh, uh… Sensei, uh… hi. I, uh… uh…" Marcos' couldn't get a sentence out, his heart pounding too loudly for him to be able to think. Shit! Shit! SHIT! She knew about what was going on now with his father! She had to! There was no way she didn't! He just prayed she hadn't told anyone yet!

Sure enough, Kim raised a hand to stop his rambling.

"I know what's going on. With your father." She remarked. Immediately, Marcos' face paled to the color of his snow-white knuckles after having curled them into indestructibly tight fists. "How long has it been going on?"

"About a month now. He started hitting me in the last week of December I think." Marcos replied quietly, figuring he might as well be honest now. She already had found out the worst part of it. "Sensei, please, please don't tell anyone! You can't tell anyone! If you do, I'll get taken out of his care and deported and I…"

"I won't tell anyone." Kim interrupted him. "And I don't even think you should either."

"You don't?" Marcos asked, slightly taken aback in surprise. Kim nodded.

"Tell me, Marcos. When you were punching that target just now, what were you feeling inside you?" Kim asked him. Marcos paused for a moment before replying.

"Uh… just rage, really. Being so pissed off at everything that's going on." Marcos replied. Kim smiled faintly and nodded.

"Exactly. Less than 15 minutes after being physically attacked by your father and you can already no longer feel the pain. It's just anger inside you."

Marcos nodded, beginning to understand what she was implying.

"It's a funny thing, anger is." Kim commented. "We're always taught from a young age to not act out in anger. To push down these emotions. Lock them away. It's only when we get older do we realize that anger is actually our greatest tool. It's what pushes us past our limits and beyond. Desire alone isn't going to get you anywhere. You need that extra added fuel that anger provides. And right now, you have been given the opportunity for free fuel for as long as you stay with your father. Rather than dwelling on what he's doing, use it to your advantage. Use it to push yourself further. Past what you believe is humanly possible."

"What do you mean?" Marcos asked. Kim gestured to him to follow her and she then led Marcos into the rarely used backroom of the dojo. In the room, there wasn't much at all. Just a single training item, one that Marcos had never used as it had never been stocked and loaded. Well it was now. Rather than being an empty skeleton of a human, the human's head, arms, stomach and legs had been comprised of at least inch-thick blocks of solid stone.

"Come over here." Kim instructed him, and Marcos obeyed, standing in front of the stone target, slightly unsure about this as he began to have a feeling what was going to be asked to do.

"Sensei?" Marcos murmured, unsure.

"Break the stone." Kim ordered, pointing at the target dummy.

"Uh… I can't. It's too thick, sensei." Marcos said, feeling just how heavy and thick the stone was as he ran his hand against it. Kim tutted at him.

"Sure you can. Like I said, when you have anger on your side, anything is possible. I want you to close your eyes and picture your father right now."

Marcos followed the instructions and did exactly that, closing his eyes for a moment. And when he opened them again, he was no longer standing before a stone target. He was standing in front of none other than his father himself.

"Hey, kid." His father smirked sadistically at him. "How are you doing? How's the back feeling? I really did a number on you, huh?"

His father walked around to face the back of him, and he chuckled for a moment before walking back in front of him to face him.

"Nah… you know what? That's really not that bad. You've had worse."

"Yeah. By you." Marcos snarled bitingly at him. Marcos' dad nodded.

"And? You should be thanking me. I'm punching the little pussy out of you, one fist at a time." Marcos replied. "I'm really doing you a favor if you think about it."

Marcos scowled daggers at the man, his fists balling so tightly that he was threatening to lose circulation to his fingers.

"You… terrorized me for the past month. I already have a target on my back every time I step outside as a member of Cobra Kai, and you personally made it so I don't feel safe at home too! You caused my whole life to go down the shitter! You wrecked me! You wrecked my relationship!"

"Now, now, can you really blame me for that one? After all, even if I hadn't touched you, I'm sure she would've opened her eyes and gone for someone better at some point." Marcos' father replied. "You don't deserve her, Marcos. You never did. You deserve nothing."

That was the final straw for Marcos. He couldn't listen to this anymore. Raising his hands, Marcos threw a killer blow right at the face of his target.

CRACK!

It was so powerful that it probably would've been enough to dent the nose of his opponent so heavily that they were forced to smell only the inside of their body rather than the outside for the rest of their lives. However, he quickly remembered as his fist made contact that he wasn't actually standing in front of his father. He was standing in front of a stone slab, and the slab was a lot less prone to dent than anyone's face.

The punch was enough to shake the entire target, but not enough to dent or break the stone slab. Not yet anyways. Marcos hardly noticed as even before he had recoiled his last punch, another one was steaming towards the target.

CRACK!

Before he knew it, he was throwing punch after punch without taking so much as a break to allow himself to feel pain. Pain was no longer a word he understood anymore. Anger and determination were the only feelings coursing through his otherwise dead veins, and so he barely felt a thing as he continued to swing the thick stone punching target, long after blood had begun to drip from his knuckles and heavily stain the target. As he punched, tears of not pain but fury trickled down his cheeks, and he even let out an anguished sob as he continued to slam his knuckles against the unyielding stone. Finally, he did it. Around 10 punches in, a loud SMASH was heard echoing through the room as Marcos broke the target.

Kim couldn't help but smile. She had done it. She had created a champion, a heartless, emotionless monster programmed not to feel pain, and to wipe out any threat in his path. She almost felt bad for their enemies, as now that Marcos had successfully been pushed to the very brink, to the point where it was a stretch to even call him a human anymore, he wouldn't stop at anything anymore.