CHAPTER 112
"Everybody, listen up." Daniel called.
24 hours later, as the entire group of Miyagi-Do students stood in the dojo the next day for training, facing their senseis. Contrary to the meeting when Daniel had been furious at his students, this time he actually had a smile on his face. It seemed to be directed at Sam but nobody, not even Sam, knew why.
Not everyone in the dojo quietened down immediately. There was still a quiet hum of conversation ringing around the dojo, but not as soon as Johnny opened his mouth.
"QUIET!" Johnny snapped. Silence. Immediate silence. Daniel nodded at him before turning to address the whole group.
"So… as I'm sure all of you remember, about 2 weeks ago, the other senseis and I came to the decision that none of you are competing in the Taikai until you've proven that you deserve that opportunity."
Faces darkened around the dojo as the students remembered this, remembered the very real chance that everything that they had been working towards for more than 6 months could end up being for nothing.
"Well… I'm happy to say that one member of this dojo proved yesterday that they deserved to be let back onto the team. They showed the true qualities of a Miyagi-Do student: kindness, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Congratulations, Sam. Welcome back to the team."
Surprised applause rang around the dojo as the first member of the Taikai team had officially been confirmed: Samantha Larusso. Daniel walked over to his daughter, giving her a hug, murmuring quietly in her ear.
"On the way out of the club yesterday I ran into Sarah. She mentioned that you guys talked. She told me how kind you were to her." Daniel said. Sam was taken aback to hear this. She hadn't mentioned to Sarah anything that was going on with Miyagi-Do and the Taikai, it had been the last thing on Sam's mind. This was certainly a pleasant surprise for her.
Daniel walked back to the front of the dojo, facing the students once more.
"Everyone else, you know the situation. You need to prove that you deserve to go to the Taikai. Sam's done that successfully. Now it's up to the rest of you to do the same."
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"What do we do?" After training, Demetri asked the question that was on all 5 other Miyagi-Do students' minds. Although Sam was now back on the Taikai team, the other 5 were still very much on the outs, and they needed to find another way back in.
"We do whatever it takes." Hawk remarked. "Sam got back in by helping Sarah. How about we help her in some other way?"
"And how would you suggest we do that?" Miguel asked.
"Well… I have an idea." Hawk began.
"This is going to be good." Tory muttered sarcastically. Hawk nodded.
"It is!" Hawk exclaimed. "Hear me out here… with Marcos gone, Sarah's single, right?"
"I already don't like where this is going." Demetri grumbled.
"What?! It's not the worst idea! Helping her get laid could be the perfect way to make her happy, which can be the perfect way to get us back on the Taikai team." Hawk said. "We've got everything she could ask for. If she's into white guys, there's one of us. If she's into brown guys, there's Miguel. Even if she's into girls, there's still Tory. We can't lose!"
"No chance. I'm not doing that." Tory remarked.
"Yeah, no one's doing that!" Robby exclaimed. "Hawk, that plan's sociopathic!"
Hawk sighed.
"Okay. Fine. Maybe that wasn't my best idea." He admitted. "But all I'm saying is that we're going to do whatever it takes to get back on that team! There's no way we're going to spend a year training for this, only to not go!"
"Hawk's right. We need a plan." Miguel said. "Not Hawk's psychotic plan. An actual plan."
"What can we do though? Help someone like Sam did?" Tory suggested. Robby sighed.
"There's an issue there. Our senseis aren't idiots. They'll know if we're only helping someone because we think it'll get us back on the team. If we don't have the right intentions, there's no way we're making it back onto the team again." He commented.
"That's not great for us, given that pretty much everything we can do at this point will be with the intention of trying to get us back on the Taikai team." Demetri pointed out.
"Not necessarily." Miguel stated. "Not if we do something that we don't want to do, something we know would hinder us at the Taikai, but we do it because it's genuinely the right thing to do."
"What though?" Robby asked. Miguel sighed.
"No idea." He admitted. All of a sudden, Tory spoke up.
"I might have one."
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"This is really stupid. Like catastrophically stupid." Demetri remarked, as they stepped out of their cars opposite an eerily familiar dojo in Encino. Even from outside, the loud buzz coming from within told them that class was in session, that their enemies were all inside. And yet they were voluntarily heading over to the dojo.
"Gotta say… I agree with Demetri. Even by my standards, this is an awful plan." Hawk said.
"Look, we don't have to do this if you guys don't want to. It was just an idea." Tory said, backpedaling from her idea a little.
"No." Robby interrupted. "We're doing it. All of us. It's the best idea we have."
"It's also going to get us killed." Demetri shot back.
"He's right." Miguel spoke up for the first time.
"See." Demetri remarked to Robby. Miguel shook his head.
"No. Robby's right. Tory's idea is the best one we have. The fact that we all hate it so much, the fact that we're all kind of nervous to be walking inside, just proves how much we have to do this."
"What's to say it's even going to work?" Hawk asked. "I mean, they could just kick us out as soon as we walk in."
"If they kick us out, they kick us out. Nothing we can do. It's back to the board then." Robby replied. By this point, the 5 teenagers - Demetri, Hawk, Miguel, Robby and Tory - had made it to the door of the Cobra Kai dojo, and all of them taking a deep breath, Miguel grasped the handle and led them inside…
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Instantly, the entire dojo went cold as soon as the Miyagi-Dos walked in. It took less than a second for the Cobras to lay eyes on them, and tensions skyrocketed immediately. The last time they had been in the company of one another, a massive brawl had happened and a gun had gotten involved. That was all any of them could think about upon seeing their respective opponents for the Taikai.
However, a brawl wasn't what was going to happen today. For one, Cobra Kai's sensei was in the middle of leading a class, Kreese standing at the front of the room and staring at them, a mixture of shock and weariness on his face. The students, notably missing their male champion, got over their surprise pretty quickly, and the familiar feeling of wrath ran through every single one of them. They all glanced at Kreese, waiting for the order from their sensei to attack their enemies, but that order didn't come. Kreese was curious more than anything else to see what was going on.
"This is quite the surprise." Kreese remarked as he slowly walked towards them. "I don't suppose any of you finally realized that Larusso's Miyagi-Do is nothing but mumbo jumbo bullshit and that the Way of the Fist is the only way."
Nobody responded, but that told Kreese all he needed to know. He sighed.
"Didn't think so. Anyways, what can we help you with?" Kreese asked. Tory took a deep breath before speaking up.
"The fight that happened at the canyon a few weeks ago… that was my fault. It was supposed to be just Robby and Marcos. I broke the deal and I escalated into a brawl. And for that… I'm sorry."
"Nichols, it seems all that Miyagi-Do is rubbing off on you. Shame. You had so much talent." Kreese tutted. "What did I always teach you about showing weakness? About apologizing?"
"All you taught me was how to be an asshole. How to be someone I'm not. Or at least someone I'm trying not to be anymore." Tory responded, rather harshly. "Anyways, we're here to apologize. And to repay the debt that we owe you because of it."
"We're here to work off our debt." Robby told his former sensei. "Not as students. But as anything else you need us to be. Clean up mats. Clean the bathrooms. Hold targets for your students. Whatever you need. The entire week."
Kreese was taken aback by this offer, and it took him a few moments to reply.
"You can't possibly expect us to allow you to spend the whole week in our dojo, looking first-hand at our fighting style, just a few months before the Taikai." Kreese commented.
"What's the problem?" Miguel asked. "All of us, all 5 of us, have been affiliated with Cobra Kai in the past. Some of us have even won championships in this dojo. Our sensei right now is a former Cobra Kai student and sensei himself. Working here for the week, it's not like we'd be learning any deep secrets that we don't know already."
"Besides, we've already fought your guys plenty of times ourselves." Robby added. "We don't need to watch you to learn your fighting style. We already know it."
"Is that so?" Kreese chuckled at the teenagers' confidence.
"Look, we just want to do something good." Tory told her sensei truthfully. "We screwed up and we want to make it up to you. You don't even have to have us in the dojo. We'll clean the bathroom for all we care…"
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And that's exactly what Kreese had them doing, at least at the beginning. Who knew that the Cobra Kai washrooms could be so disgustingly awful. These weren't the times of Terry Silver, where he'd pay to have the entire dojo cleaning on a weekly basis. They started in the bathroom, giving both the male and female washroom and locker rooms the cleaning they both so desperately need.
They were then instructed to move onto all of the equipment in the entire dojo. All of it. All of the cardio machines Silver had bought, all of the punching bags, all of the gloves, everything. Who knew just how tragic a pair of sweaty boxing gloves could be. And if there was anything worse than the smell of a sweaty pair of boxing gloves, it was the retching oder being emitted from the laundry hamper. But the Miyagi-Dos pushed on. They knew that this was their debt to repay, and they needed to do it in full. So they cleaned up everything as the Cobra Kais went on with class, until eventually it was time for them to join the class.
Kreese wasn't teaching them. Of course he wasn't. All he had them doing was holding targets for the students within the dojo. It worked out perfectly as there were only 5 students in class anyways, Kyler, Shawn, Kenny, Piper and Sarah, and there were 5 Miyagi-Dos there. This meant that all of them could pair up to punch the targets that the Miyagi-Dos were holding.
Robby found himself paired up with Kenny. No, he hadn't just found himself paired with the young boy. He had insisted on it. He hadn't spoken to Kenny in quite a while, everything else that was going on consuming his mind, but Robby hadn't forgotten about the fact that in every Cobra Kai fight in the past 6 months, Kenny had been right there, frothing at the mouth like the rest of them.
The first drill was a kicking drill, one where they weren't necessarily holding targets, but instead the Miyagi-Dos were the targets themselves. They wore thin, worn, foam body armor that didn't do much to protect them from the powerful kicks of the Cobra Kais. The Miyagi-Dos soldiered on though, ignoring the pain from each kick that landed.
"Come on. More power." Robby instructed Kenny. "Thrust your front leg. Don't snap it."
"I know." Kenny grumbled under his breath, making a point to kick Robby even harder this time, with notably better technique after the Miyagi-Do's advice.
"Good." Robby complimented him. "Now make sure you recoil faster. If you leave your leg in the air for that long, it's getting grabbed and you're getting swept."
"Robby, stop! I know this!" Kenny snapped. Robby nodded.
"I know you do. I taught you it myself." Robby remarked. "I'm just reminding you."
"Yeah, well, I don't need any reminders or tips from you. You're not my teammate anymore." Kenny pointed out. Robby shrugged.
"Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact that like it or not, I still care about you. You're still my friend. I still want to see you do well in the Taikai."
"Is that why you guys are here? You're trying to recruit us to Miyagi-Do to join your team?" Kenny asked. Robby chuckled and shook his head.
"Come on. Even if I was, there's no way you'd agree to join." Robby commented. Kenny nodded.
"You're right. Because Cobra Kai's my home. My family. I'm not leaving. Ever." Kenny responded.
"I know. But like I said, I still care about you, Kenny. I still want what's best for you." Robby said. "I spent a whole summer not talking to someone I care about because she was in Cobra Kai. I'm not going to make the same mistake again with you. I want to be friends again. Same dojo or not."
By the end of the afternoon, Miyagi-Do were done with day 1 of 7 of their little volunteering project. They were absolutely physically and mentally battered, the relentless act of being target practice for the Cobras enough to have them all on the brink of exhaustion by the end. But despite all that, they were happy, none more so than Robby. Although things between him and Kenny were far from back to how they once were, at least things were on the mend now. He doubted that he'd be able to get Kenny out of Cobra Kai at any point in the near future - the kid was simply too far deep in for that - but come the Taikai, provided Miyagi-Do won, Kenny would be forced to leave that dojo once and for all.
When Day 7 finally came around and ended, it was official. Miyagi-Do had paid their debt, and were done. Shockingly, things had actually gone by without much of a hitch. Although tensions had spiked once or twice between Hawk and Shawn, things hadn't once escalated into a brawl, even after an entire week, an unforeseen record between the two sides.
The Miyagi-Do senseis hadn't even known about this 'volunteering project' for the first little while. Daniel, Chozen, Johnny and Barnes had been shocked to hear about all of it around 4 days into it, but by the time they were done with the full week, the senseis were thoroughly impressed. It had taken some serious heart, what their students had done. They themselves recognized and took responsibility for their actions during the canyon brawl, and had taken it upon themselves to try and make up for it now. They had risked a lot, walked right into the belly of the beast, without even batting an eye in fear, all to prove themselves worthy and repay the debt they felt they owed their opponents.
Sure enough, by the end of the week, it was official. The 5 other Miyagi-Do students were back on the team for the Sekai Taikai. Miguel Diaz. Robby Keene. Eli Moskowitz. Samantha Larusso. Tory Nichols. Demetri Alexopolous. That was the team they had. That was the team they were sticking with. A fearsome one. One that had the capability to not only take over the Valley, but the entire world, in the upcoming global tournament…