Chapter Fifteen

The next morning, the jump through the rift back to Armis and Ryu's home galaxy was brief and remarked upon to Picard for the sake of courtesy. While Beverly kept to Sickbay, Jean-Luc stayed in an office that had been set aside for his use as Ambassador-at-Large with Emerald to begin his education in Galactic Standard or Basic as it was more commonly known. He had been told that with occasional stops for navigational checks, the hyperspace trip back to Coruscant would take several days so he decided to put the time to good use because while he would have his protocol droid, Emerald to help him, he wanted to be able to read and write Basic for his own benefit. Elsewhere aboard ship, Michelle met Ryu in one of the many gyms aboard to start her training. While this gym had been largely outfitted for use by Jedi, it looked and felt much like any other to her. Ryu met her there, dressed in a white sleeveless gi top and gi pants, black belt around his waist and his usual headband.

She couldn't resist asking, "Don't you ever get tired of wearing that headband Ryu?" In a rather deadpan tone of voice he said, "I have others and they do get cleaned regularly. I just like it is all." She smiled and said, "Why do you wear it so much?" He said, "It helps me feel closer to my dad. He used to cover my eyes with one like it when I first started my lightsaber training. It was of immense help to me and enabled me to learn how to use more than just my eyes. You too will learn in time. You don't have to wear a headband unless you want to but eventually, you'll work your way up to it or something like it."

Michelle asked, "What's first then? We won't be starting with lightsabers will we?" Ryu knelt down on the mat and motioned for Michelle to do likewise. When she did, he said, "Not yet, we'll start with a simple Force meditation to clear your mind. Repeat after me, 'There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force." As Michelle did so, she felt her pulse lessen, her breathing deepen and suddenly felt as if a door of pure light had been opened before her. Ryu said, "Do you feel it? Do you feel the Force reaching out to you?" Never having felt anything like it before, she gasped and said, "I do. I can feel it. It's almost like the very universe is welcoming me." Ryu said, "The Jedi Code sums up the overall Jedi perspective on the Force but there are many levels and many nuances to these levels that you will discover for yourself over time. Now, stand up." After she did so, she saw him strap on some fighting gloves, tossed a similar pair to her and said, "For now, show me your power. In some of our conversations to this point, you've mentioned some martial arts training. I need to see what you've got in order to get a better idea of how to direct your training until a Master is assigned to you; en garde."

Several bouts followed over the course of the morning. It soon became obvious to Michelle that she was in the presence of a master martial artist, not just a Jedi. Unconsciously, as the bouts continued, Michelle tapped into the Force to bolster her stamina but still she usually lost the matches she and her cousin fought until finally, at one point, they both stopped. Both were sweat-soaked by this time. Ryu knelt on the mat again and when Michelle followed suit, Ryu said, "I can feel you already using the Force to ease your aches. This is just one aspect the Force allows." Michelle said, "What style do you fight with Ryu? It seems somehow familiar and somehow, I know I've never seen the like." Ryu took another calming breath and said, "Like my father before me, I use Teräs Käsi. It has existed for centuries but only a Force user can fully harness its potential. My dad taught me most of what I know and my mother added to it. Let me show you two techniques that only a long-time Force user can perform. The third I can only describe to you because it's too powerful to be used aboard ship. Someday, I can show it to you. But first, we go to the Central Jedi Temple to formalize your status as a Padawan Learner."

Standing up, he took a stance that equally balanced his weight on both feet, his left hand held parallel to his waist, his right held vertically and bent up at the elbow. Taking a few breaths, he closed his eyes and began to focus the Force. Michelle felt him draw in energy from all around him and to her perception she saw brief flickers of small blue orbs everywhere being drawn in like metal filings to a magnet. Drawing his left foot in, he opened his eyes and leapt into the air in a spiral uppercut that Michelle had never even considered possible since it seemed almost to defy gravity as his shout echoed throughout the gym, "Shoryuken!"

Up he spiraled and came down to land in almost the exact same spot he leapt from. Moments after recovering from his leap he jumped forward with one leg extended forward and the other pointing down like the balance point on a spinning top as he said loudly, "Tatsu-maki-sen-pu-kyaku!" Michelle's eyes widened in seeing this technique since it too seemed to defy gravity. Ryu landed from his spinning kick, walked back over and knelt back down next to Michelle. Before she could say anything he said to her, "I can already see the questions in your eyes Michelle. Patience; after you have unlearned some of what you have learned; you too can do things like you've just seen." Michelle swallowed her questions for now and asked instead, "What is Teräs Käsi?"

Ryu said, "As I indicated earlier, Teräs Käsi is a martial art that has existed for centuries but only a Force user can tap its full potential. I already sense in you the same instinctive ability as I did my father. He used it naturally and was so skilled in it that Master Skywalker, whom you'll meet after we get to Coruscant, asked him to take on the title of Jedi Master and teach other Jedi in its use and also asked him to relate everything he knew about Teräs Käsi into a Holocron, a type of recording device older yet much more capable of absorbing Jedi Lore than any standard audio, visual or holographic method yet discovered or created. Armis learned most of his fighting ability from my father as well. My mother and I were also taught by him, and my mother in turn taught me the vortex spin kick I showed you. When my dad first saw her use it, he later told her that it reminded him of a technique that a fictional warrior idol of his used. He decided to give my mother's vortex spin kick the same name as the one his fictional hero used. I saw my mom use it in combat once. It was so powerful, that it seemed to draw in the very air around her. It drew her opponent in like some kind of vacuum and promptly defeated him. It was my father who taught me the rising punch and the other technique, the kinitite energy wave punch. Over time, I learned how to apply the kinitite in a different way than my father but it's no less powerful than his. In fact, though it doesn't much matter to me one way or the other, I am considered the foremost authority on Teräs Käsi and as a result am called its Master, much to my chagrin."

Michelle asked, "Why do you feel that way? I think your father would've been proud to know that his son is the undisputed Master of a fighting art." Ryu said, "I know he is, he's told me on more than one occasion, but like him, titles and ceremony don't mean much to me. I think I take after him on the point of receiving recognition and attention in that I don't really like it or need it." Michelle asked, "How can he have told you since he's gone? On that count, in fact, if you can tell me, how did my Uncle die?" Ryu shifted from a kneeling position to a cross-legged one on the mat and said, "I thought you might ask that very question today. Warbler should be arriving any moment now to help me answer you Michelle because you have to see it to even begin to understand." As he said that, the doors to the gym opened and Ryu's droid Warbler trundled into the room on his tripodal legs. He rolled up to where Ryu and Michelle sat as that she too had changed positions on the mat. Warbler's language was indecipherable to Michelle but Ryu understood his question and said, "Warbler, please show Michelle your holo-record of my father's passing."

Warbler rotated his inverted flowerpot head and a beam of light emitted from it. Michelle saw a picture of an older man sitting up in bed with a light blanket over his legs. He had on robes similar in cut and appearance to those that she saw Armis Rau wear. He had snowy white hair in a militarily short style that stood up straight on his head and an equally snow white goateé on his chin. In his face, Michelle saw the lines of the plainly handsome features of her uncle from the Message that had been passed down in her family. His slightly wrinkled features gave his face a maturity and grace that Michelle couldn't help but pay attention to. He was speaking into a crystalline orb that floated near his face like an ancient microphone out of a history text. He was saying, "Now we arrive at the end of my story, or is it the beginning? I leave that for you to decide. Twilight is at last upon me, and soon, night must fall. That is the way of things, the way of the Force. This record I am relating as well as all of my knowledge of Teräs Käsi, is to be stored in this Jedi Holocron that Luke sent me. He knew my time was growing finite and I hope that any future Jedi who hear this tale will take from it a better understanding of the path we must all travel. Light and Dark, Good and Evil, never one without the other, which path will you choose to follow?"

"I know the light and it summons me now. I see . . . I understand . . . the light . . . Gabrielle . . . I see you . . . I am . . . with . . . you." The voice of the man in the picture faded and he laid his head back against the pillows. He took one last breath and relaxed so totally that his head gently rolled to the right. He lay there a few moments and then his body faded from sight and the cover over his legs collapsed in on itself. As the recording ended, Michelle found herself crying tears that seemed to stream from her eyes like a trickle from a faucet. She wiped the tears away as best she could only to have them replaced by new ones as she said, "Why am I crying? I never knew my uncle and yet I feel as though I've lost a mentor and friend." A few feet away, a person appeared. Floating in the air just above the floor, surrounded by a soft blue nimbus, wearing the same style of robes as seen in the recording; Michelle saw the man from the recording but somehow knew that this wasn't a recording. Ryu didn't turn as he said, "Welcome Father. Will this be our last meeting then?"

The man spoke in a voice like a faint echo from far away, "Yes, my son. I can no longer delay my final crossing. I'm glad that I got to see my niece, several generations removed perhaps, but my niece all the same. Michelle, you cry for me because you feel the Force everywhere around you right now. You feel it between me, you, my son, the ship and yes, the very stuff of the universe itself. I have watched over my sister's family and have gotten to know you though you never saw me. I was the sunlight in your hair, the imaginary friend in your heart and the love you felt in your family. Despite the passing of the generations Michelle, I love you as much as I loved your great grandmother, my sister. Never forget that. As for you Ryu, you are ready now to make your way in the galaxy. Someday, we will meet again, when you are ready, but don't hurry. I will have plenty of company until then, your mother among them. Farewell my son, I love you and am very, very proud of you. The Force will be with you . . . always."

Michelle barely stammered out, "I love you too, Uncle Ronin," before the apparition faded from sight. Ryu was crying too as Michelle came over to him and embraced him from behind to place her chin on his shoulder as the two cousins released the last vestiges of pain that neither knew they were carrying.

Elsewhere in the ship, while Deanna meditated on a slightly raised seat across from the identical one that Armis sat upon in a special meditation chamber, his meditation was broken as he felt the final passing of his Master while the tears that ran down his face were left to run their course unhindered. Minutes later, his heart feeling lighter and fuller than ever, he resumed his meditation.