Honoka steadied her breathing, before entering the teacher's lounge once more. She made a direct beeline to her english teacher desk, who was busy eating a very red, very spicy chicken drumstick.

"Is there something you need Honoka-chan"? He said with what she dubbed 'false politeness' since she knew he would call her either squirt or midget if they were alone.

Honoka looked around for a bit, and only saw a single teacher eating some cold bento before returning her gaze to her teacher. "Sensei, how did you do that?"

He raised an eyebrow before taking a bite of his lunch, not sure how to respond. "What do you mean?"

"I wanted to ask you how you saved me sensei."

The other teacher paused mid bite for an instant before returning to what he was doing, but it was apparent to the other two room occupants that he was listening.

"Sorry, but you lost me." He said with a scratch of his neck and a grim, "saved you from what?"

"Well, I know what I saw, and I saw you rescuing me from the kidnappers!" The last part came a bit more heated than Honoka wanted, but now that it's out of the bag she would go all out.

"Hoooo, am I in such high regards of yours that you thought it was me?" He said with a teasing grin, before pointing his chicken drumstick like a weapon at the girl. "You were probably scared and confused, it's understandable that your mind played tricks on you, even if I'm flattered you thought I rescued you."

"The man who saved me was wearing an open hawaiian shirt and smelled of tobacco", Honoka tried once more thought the seeds of doubts were starting to grow on her.

"I'm not the only person who likes those shirts or smoke, or even combines the two you know?" Finally thinking the conversation over, he takes another bite on his food.

"I know I heard your voice when you talked with me". Honoka tried once more, a hint of worry creeping on her voice.

"Like I said, your mind played tricks on you, or perhaps this person simply had a similar voice? It could happen."

"You... you punched the van to stop it from running you!" Now the hints of desperation started to be more clear, but her hopes increased when she saw him pause mid bite at her declaration.

"That's just insane", he said slowly while appraising you, "nobody can punch a van to stop it. I heard the car hit the lamp post, but nothing else."

'Was that what happened?' She unconsciously thought, idly remembering the news of the incident and half remembering something like that being mentioned. 'No, it can't be. I know what I saw!'

"They, they're lying!" Honoka was almost starting to cry, her eyes starting to water up, "you, you even took those bullets for me. On the f-face, using that w-weird b-b-black t-thing."

Now he openly scoffed at that remark, going back to the last of his very spicy chicken drumstick. "That's just silly, you know a person can't take a bullet to the face and stay unscratched. Since I don't have three bullet wounds on my face [I]obviously[/I] it didn't happened."

At this the girl's eyes widen, a grin spreading on her face before she started giggling. This confused the two man in the room. "What?"

She paused to recompose herself a little before giving her best chesire cat grin. "I never said how many bullets where fired."

His mouth opened and closed as if to protest, but not a sound came out before he frowned. Honoka knew he had been had.

"I knew it. I knew it I knew it IknewitIknewitIKNEWIT!" She said, voice getting loud by the second, startling the other teacher in the room. "I CAN'T BELIE -MMHMMFF?"

She's suddenly interrupted as her teacher shoves his chicken on her mouth, eyes immediately watering and tongue flaring as liquid pain was poured into her very being.

Taking that as his cue he throws Honoka over his shoulder before addressing the other teacher. "I'm going to borrow her for a while thanks bye."

~~O~~

After downing nearly a liter of water from the nearby faucet Honoka turned to her teacher. While he looked slightly amused by her suffering, he had a much more somber disposition than normal in class. "So you saw me performing a few unusual feats. I doubt however that anyone would take the word of a young, impressionable, overly imaginative scared child in consideration. You can't try to blackmail me brat."

Now that she thought about it, she didn't had much of a plan after getting to her teacher. "Uh...", she fidget, "well, I thought that maybe, you now, you could teach me how you did all that?"

The answer was both simple and immediate. "No."

"Can't you at least think for a moment?" Honoka tried, hopeful. Her teacher opened his mouth to reply before closing it, and apparently taking a pensive position. He was actually considering her request, thought Honoka excitedly.

After a long time passed, he gave his answer.

"No."

"What!" She said in shock, almost face planting from the answer before pointing a finger accusingly to him. "It's still the same answer!"

"Of course it is. I thought long and hard and listed all reasons why I should and shouldn't teach you, and the answer was obvious to me." He said before taking a cigar from his pocket. "Now, if there isn't anything else?"

Once more her eyes started to water, and she let out a sniff, "can I at least know why?"

"Do you know what the word Murin even means"? He asked her seriously before she shacked her head. "Just that alone disqualify you from being taught. You don't involve a non Murinim in their world."

"Uh... is a Murinim someone who can do what you did?"

"Of course."

"Then if you teach me, by definition I would be a Murinim so it would be alright?" Honoka tried, making her teacher blink once in pure shock.

"Am I looking at a mirror?" He whispers too lowly for Honoka to listen while he face palmed. Recomposing himself, he stared at the girl. "If you learn from me your life will be put at risk. Do you remember those kidnappers form before?" Honoka couldn't help the shudder at the mention of the incident, memories playing on her head. "If I teach you, [I]worse[/I] people will go after your life and the life of your family. They will use any means necessary to get what they want. Do you want to risk not only your life, but the life of your own family as well?"

She recoiled from that. She really didn't think thinks through, but on the other hand she never expected something like that was at stake. Then again, it's common sense that people don't take a bullet to the face and remain unscratched. Perhaps this Murin is some kind of secret society? Shacking her head to disperse those thought she went back to the matter at hand.

"I just wanted to be able to defend myself and my friends. I don't want to feel that helpless ever again."

He sighs, before taking a drag from his cigar. "That's not how the world works, you know?"

He pauses for a moment to contemplate how to continue, before staring at Honoka intently on the eyes. "This is a World of Law, where individual strength shouldn't matter anymore, where you trust the systems and institutions put into place to both protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty. While it's not necessarily wrong to want to avoid the situation you were in, the whole point is that you're not supposed to take matters into your own hands."

He takes another drag, before looking around where they were talking. "Besides, you don't want to merely defend yourself. I know that look. If possible, you want to retaliate to the ones who took you, you want to punish them, you want vengeance, something society frowns upon. If you want to protect the weak, you could always become a police officer or join the military. The Murin however live in a World of Strength, where power is everything, where those with strength can do anything they want, including kidnapping people. Associating with the Murin will bring only violence and death around you, and nothing good will come from it. Do you really want to associate yourself with them?"

She looked down, pensive and confused at her own intentions, hopes and dreams.

The silence was deafening, and stretched for a few long minutes, but her teacher allowed her to think and answer on her own time. Finally she looked up, a fierce gaze meeting with her teacher, almost startling him.

"I don't care", she finally said, "even if it's a World of Law I still want to protect myself, I still want to protect other, I still want to depend on myself."

She paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing. "When I first woke up I tried to escape but it was for nothing. I couldn't run, I couldn't stand up, I couldn't even scream for help and be heard! My friends where right there, unconscious and my trashing and struggles didn't even wake them up! When I woke up next I tried to escape once more, but a d-damn truck was about to hit and k-kill me."

"I'm pathetic, I'm weak, I'm useless! I hate feeling like that!"

By the time she finished, she had tears running down her cheeks, eyes bloodshot, but it wasn't that visage that made her teacher pause.

For a moment, he saw a boy around her age, with a bloodied shirt and mud covering himself. He was soaked with rain, and had made a proclamation similar Honoka's.

He stared for a few moments more, before sighing. "Alright."

"Hue?"

"I'm going to train you."

Just as he uttered those words she tackled him like a missile, almost dropping him on the ground.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!"

"Let me finish you damn brat!" After disentangling from the overexcited girl he started to lay down the law. "First things first, you can't tell anyone about me training you. Not your friends, not your family. NO ONE. Or else you are instantly expelled as my student."

Honoka nodded. While she had some reservations on not talking to anybody, it seemed harmless enough.

"Second, I'm going to test you before properly teaching you anything. I can't really teach you martial arts if your body can't keep it up so for now you are going to go through a simple training regime, and when I feel you're ready we will continue from there."

Once more she nodded, sounded fair at least.

"Good", he finally said, surprising himself with what he had agreed to, "now run along, lunch time is almost over and I'd hate to be the one to keep you away from clean up."

She nodded excitedly before running off with a skip on her step.

Kanten Wu, also know as Chun-Woo Han the Nine Arts Dragon, looked on the horizon while old memories resurfaced. Memories of times good and bad, but fond nonetheless. "Was that what you felt when you accepted me, sunsengnim?"

He quickly dispersed those thoughts however. No way in hell was he teaching that brat the Black Heaven and Earth technique, he thought with a chuckle. While he might train her, and even teach her a few advanced moves, he knew plenty of lesser ki techniques to pass on and still make her a formidable opponent. He had done so in the past without problems for those involved save for what they made themselves so he was confident this time would be the same.

Yes, nothing could go wrong.