CHAPTER 98

"You can't actually be considering this!" Tory laughed in incredulity at the sheer ridiculousness of what Robby had just told them.

Upon returning from the Cobra Kai dojo, Robby called an emergency meeting with the rest of the dojo. They all arrived immediately - all of the students and senseis too - and once they were all there, Robby told them everything. Him, Chozen and Tory briefed them on what they had discovered vis a vis the trip Cobra Kai had taken to Okinawa, to much shock and outrage from the rest of the dojo. They all couldn't quite believe how low Cobra Kai had slithered, how dirty they had decided to play. Once they had all finished with their initial reactions to this news, Robby then told them about the challenge that he had set with Marcos, and this latest addition caused a mixture of reactions from the group. Tory, having just heard the threats that Marcos had made to Robby's life that morning at school, was adamant against the idea, and many people agreed with her.

"I'm not just considering it. I created the challenge. This was my idea. I'm fighting." Robby stated.

"You remember what he said to me at school, right?" Tory snapped. "He said the next time you even so much as lay a finger on him, he's going to kill you. And he meant it too. He wasn't just joking around."

"He can try." Robby quickly responded.

"Robby, stop being an idiot. You're letting your anger talk for you. You don't actually want to do this." Miguel said. Robby gritted his teeth in frustration as he shook his head.

"I'm not doing this out of anger." Robby grumbled.

"Why are you doing this then?" Hawk asked. Robby replied with one simple word, two syllables that summed up the entire situation.

"Honor." He said. It wasn't just his honor. It wasn't just about his personal issues with Marcos. It was also about the honor of the dojo, the dojo Marcos had effectively robbed during his trip to Okinawa. However, unfortunately for Robby, that argument wasn't as impactful for everyone else as it was for him.

"I've got to say… Robby, this is absolutely ridiculous." Daniel said. "We're all furious about what Cobra Kai has done, but fighting them to the death seems…"

"Let him fight." All of a sudden, Chozen interrupted Daniel, voicing his unexpected support for his student. Everyone turned towards him, shocked at the side that he had taken. "He wants to fight for the honor of the dojo and has every right to if he wishes."

"Chozen… he's just a kid." Daniel replied.

"We were just kids back then too, in 1985. We still fought to the death." Chozen shot back. "Our senseis allowed us to do so if we wanted. We owe Robby the same."

There was nothing Daniel could say to respond to this. He knew that Chozen had a point. Back in the day, Mr. Miyagi had informed him of the situation, warned him of the risks of a fight to the death, but at the end of the day, the decision to fight had remained with Daniel. With that in mind, could they really stop Robby from doing this?

Robby, meanwhile, was getting increasingly frustrated. There was no way that twice in the space of a week, he was having to listen to the adults in his life trying to ban him from doing something. Robby was doing this. He had issued the challenge. He had started it. Now it was up to him to follow up with it.

"Look, for the second time in like 2 days, I'm not a kid anymore. I can make my own decisions. And so I don't care if you're against this… I'm doing this. It's for the greater good of this dojo."

A long silence overtook all of them as they processed Robby's words, sensing the finality in his decision. There didn't seem to be anything that could change his mind, despite the many protests from some of the Miyagi-Dos, especially after the next person spoke up.

"Not that it matters, but I think he should be able to fight." Johnny remarked, to the shock of everyone, especially after Robby and Johnny's feud the day before, where they had exchanged such harsh words about a very similar topic.

"You… you do?" Daniel stammered. Johnny nodded.

"Like Robby said, he's not a kid anymore. He's an adult, capable of making his own decisions. He knows the risks and if he's willing to take them on, who are we to stop him?'

It was very evident that Johnny wasn't just referring to the fight that would be occurring that night. He was also talking about Robby's next year plans, and admitting the mistakes that he had made the afternoon before when he had still been consumed by shock about Robby's announcement. Right now, Johnny was also giving his blessing to Robby's future with the Army, something that Robby greatly appreciated as he nodded at his father, a faint smile gracing the teenger's face.

"Thank you." Robby murmured. "I know some of you aren't thrilled. But I need to do this. I'm going to fight Marcos tonight. Besides, what's the worst that can happen, right?"

As if on cue, all of a sudden, Miyagi-Do heard the back gate of the dojo swing open. Glancing at one another, they were confused as they realized that every single member of their dojo was present and accounted for. Who the hell could this be? They would very quickly find out as the person soon came into view, and as soon as they did, everyone's guard immediately went up. All of the students recognized this person instantly, and it was someone with whom they automatically expected some kind of confrontation. It didn't look like they were here to fight though. If anything, the expression on their face was more worried than anything else.

"What do you want?" Tory was the first to find her words upon seeing this new intruder, and so she snapped at the person, none too kindly. The other person, Cobra Kai's female champion, raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I'm not here to fight." Sarah said, her voice almost quivering as she spoke. "I just want to talk."

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Half an hour earlier…

Marcos paced forwards and backwards in his small, cramped apartment, mentally preparing himself for the task that was about to come in a few hours. He forced himself to calm down a little, focus on the task at hand rather than all of the emotion surrounding it, but that proved to be extremely difficult. It was almost impossible to fully clear his mind and get himself in the optimal mental state before the fight, as he hadn't been in that state for what felt like years now, but was really just since December break started a little over a month ago. His mind was royally fucked up, he knew that, but there was nothing he could do about that now, so he couldn't afford to worry about it. Even without being on top form mentally, he knew that he had what it took physically to win the fight.

That being said, he didn't trust Robby. Not at all. Not with a single fiber of his being. It wasn't about Robby personally, but any Miyagi-Do in general. The feud between the warring dojos was reaching an unprecedented state, like a minefield that would only take one person to step on and trigger a massive explosion. Because that explosion would be coming. It was coming tonight. He knew that neither him nor Robby would be going easy on each other at all, and both would be fighting to finish their opponent. Literally.

With all of this in mind, Marcos knew that he needed a backup plan. Not something he wanted to use, but something that just in case everything went south, he could rely on to get himself out of a sticky situation. He didn't know why, but he had a sneaking suspicion that something was going to go horribly wrong tonight. It was a feeling that had been following him all afternoon, ever since Robby had issued the challenge, and one that Marcos was extremely unfamiliar with. It was eerie… it almost felt like he was convinced he was going to lose the fight for a reason that he wasn't quite sure yet. Well Marcos couldn't let that happen at any cost, which is why before he could stop him, he found himself making his way into his father's trashed bedroom and into the small safe at the corner of the room. Unlocking it, Marcos took a single item out, the cold steel resting in the palm of his hands, his finger slowly curling around the trigger.

It felt weird holding the small handgun in his hands. It felt… wrong. His whole life he had been taught to fight with his hands, so holding a gun just felt like he was betraying all of his training and cheating, in a way. Shockingly, it was far from the first time Marcos had held a gun. Living in the roughest parts of Brazil, the likes of drugs, guns and crime hadn't exactly been a stranger to him during his childhood. Although he always stayed away from all of that, living just a few meters away from those who didn't, it was impossible to fully avoid them. Thankfully, even the criminals in his neighborhoods hadn't been actively aggressive towards him, but instead were more playful than anything else, so although he had held their guns before, he had never actually fired a shot. And Marcos hoped more than anything that that fact would still hold up after tonight. He didn't want to have to bring this, but it was a decent last-ditch plan in case something went horribly wrong and his life was in danger.

Still though, Marcos debated whether or not this was a smart idea, his mind flickering through a variety of the ways this could quite literally backfire. However, he was dragged from his chain of thoughts as he heard a loud knocking on the door. Forced to make a split-second decision, Marcos decided to tuck the gun in the back of his pants, hiding the grip of the weapon with his shirt, before turning around and walking back into the living room, opening up the door.

"Can I help y-" Marcos' voice trailed off as he saw a familiar figure storm into his apartment.

"I heard about what's going on. Tell me you're not doing this, Marcos!" Sarah exclaimed as she strided into the living room and turned to face him.

As Sarah stood in the same living room that she had been in so much over the past 5 months, she couldn't help but feel shocked. It was like she was standing in a completely different place. Marcos had always been meticulously tidy, he always took pride in keeping the apartment spotlessly clean, and yet right now Sarah found herself standing in what looked straight out of a landfill. Garbage strewn everywhere in sight, Sarah's eyes were immediately trained on the numerous liquor bottles that now seemed to be the main source of decor in the apartment. Seeing tens of bottles of alcohol was enough to make her eyes widen for a moment in alarm as she looked from Marcos to the apartment and then back to her ex-boyfriend.

"Oh, my God." She murmured, trying to piece together what could be going on from what she could see. Marcos didn't seem drunk - he still wasn't a drinker at all - so if it wasn't him getting drunk, was it his dad who had consumed all of this alcohol? Because Sarah wasn't an expert or anything, but for one person to drink this much, it didn't exactly strike her as healthy or happy.

"Can I help you?" Marcos grumbled gruffly, clearly taken aback by his ex-girlfriend's surprise visit. He definitely hadn't been expecting her, as the two had barely said a word to one another since their breakup a few weeks ago. Their relationship, even as friends, had very much died with increasingly little chance of being revived.

"Marcos, please don't do this." Sarah almost pleaded with him to see reason. "You really don't have to do this. All you're doing is unnecessarily risking your life and for what? Nothing."

"What's it to you? You're not my girlfriend anymore. You dumped me, remember?" Marcos murmured, his pain involuntarily seeping into his words.

"Yeah, but I still care about you though. We might no longer be together, but that doesn't mean I've stopped caring about you at all, it doesn't mean I've completely forgotten about the 5 months. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I'm going to be fine." Marcos stated in reply. "I'm not the person who needs to worry about getting hurt. He is."

"Please don't fight, Marcos." Sarah repeated. "Do you know why they even agreed to this fight in the first place? Because you're terrorizing them. Because they're scared of what you'll do to them if they don't fight. Everyone's scared, Marcos. Everyone's scared of what you're doing to people, who you've become."

"You have no right." Marcos muttered. "You have no right to stand here, after dumping me yourself, complaining about the person I've become."

"I'm saying this because I'm worried about you. We all are. The person you've become… it's not you. All the aggression, I know it's not who you are. I know you better than that, remember?"

"I don't know what to say. I'm fighting, Sarah. You lost the ability to change my mind the night you broke up with me." Marcos replied, starting to head towards the door. There were still a few hours until the fight, but Marcos just wanted to get out of the house, go for a walk, anything to get away from this conversation. This was the exact opposite of what he needed right now. He needed to clear his mind, not refill it with the heartbreak of remembering what he had lost that night that Sarah had broken up with him.

Marcos opened the front door and was about to walk out when he heard Sarah speak up for the final time.

"What would your mom say?" Sarah called after him. Marcos was rooted to the spot upon hearing this, and he slowly turned back around to face her.

"Don't." He murmured quietly.

"You told me once that everything you do, you do to make her proud. If she were here right now, do you really think she'd be proud?! Do you really think she'd be happy to hear what her son has become?! What he's about to do?!"

The words pierced straight into Marcos' soul, and he was about to respond, but he decided not to. Instead, he didn't say another word, turning on his heel and walking out of the apartment, leaving Sarah behind him.

"Shit." Sarah audibly swore after he left. This wasn't good at all. She knew that with the horrific headspace Marcos was in right now, he would do far more than simply take Robby down. He was going to attempt to eliminate Robby entirely, and Sarah couldn't let that happen at any cost. For one, she wasn't about to sit around and let a 17 year old get seriously hurt in the way that she knew Marcos would hurt him if given the opportunity. But also, Sarah was all too aware of the legal implications that could befall Marcos if he seriously harmed Robby, starting with deportation and even potentially including imprisonment.

She needed to do something, but she could tell that the clock was quickly running out, as the fight was in a mere few hours from now. There was only one thing that she could think to do right now, but it would go against everything she stood for as a loyal Cobra Kai. She still did it though, as her lingering feelings for Marcos far surpassed her loyalty to the dojo, quickly driving away from Marcos' apartment and over to a dojo she definitely didn't expect to be setting foot in right now.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, she thought, as she parked her car and stepped out, reading the sign in front of her.

Miyagi-Do Karate