The small gang started to ease up on her brother bullying, so Honoka stopped sneaking behind the school grounds to beat them up. Her sunsengnim always knew when she went away to beat them up, not really saying anything other than increasing her training pace whenever she came back with so much as a small bruise.

Since things were starting to calm down and get back to a semblance of normalcy resembling the times pre kidnapping, Honoka cut off on the training a little bit to focus on her studies.

~~O~~

"It's always nice to study with you Hinata-chan, you're so smart! I'm sure what I would do if I didn't had your notes to help me. I would probably fail so hard my parents would disinherit me on the stop."

Hinata gently poked at her friend's cheek in admonishment at the implication. While it was good that Honoka was comfortable enough to joke like that once more the humor of the act had since long been lost.

"H-h-honoka-chan, y-you h-have to read your o-own b-book too, n-not only my notes."

Hinata stuttering had also eased from before, now more an annoying habit than a sign of ever present nervousness.

Honoka pouted cutely at her friend before shamelessly going back to her friend's notes. Sakura giggled at the sight of both of her friends going at it.

While both Honoka and Hinata had changed and were starting to go back to the way they were, Sakura had remained the same at first before she started changing little by little. She took to wearing a white bandana on her forehead, and it wasn't a day since she got her fighting gloves that she didn't wore them. Some teachers had a problem with her new additions, but Honoka's sunsengnim himself allowed it on his class.

She also started to roughhouse with some of the boys, entering into play fights with kids older than herself, which almost got her into trouble once, and going in and out of the karate and judo clubs of the school. Since she couldn't join both of them at once she did the next best thing and became a 'helper', an outsider that went to clubs to help them once in a while, alternating between the clubs she frequented. Except she went there every day, and if it weren't for the fact that she was really, really good she couldn't pull it off.

She also spent some time training with the circus performance Honoka sunsengnim keep at it, and Honoka suspected her friend knew very well what those movements and techniques were meant for. Well, Honoka suspected that Hinata also knew about them, but Hinata appeared on those meeting only once a week t most, and she suspected she did so only to spend some time with her friends.

Hinata poked at Sakura on her arm. "You t-too S-s-sakura-chan."

Sakura grinned sheepishly at her friend. "But math is soooo~ boring..."

~~O~~

A few months passed, and her sunsengnim confirmed that he would leave the country at the end of the year, when she graduates to an upper class. Because of that she decided to train even harder than before, and using that extra training time with her sunsengnim to learn more about him.

One day out of the blue she asked: "Can you tell me more about yourself?"

He paused what he was doing for a moment, taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it up. "Do you really want to hear about me or you want to hear an idealized version of your sunsengnim?"

"I... don't really understand?"

Chun-Woo Han sighed. "I'm not a nice person Honoka, sometimes I perform good acts yes, but they're not something I do as a matter of course. They're more like flights of famsy than an actual sense of altruism. If I were to give you any examples to follow you would go down a dark path, is that the sunsengnim you want?"

Honoka didn't hesitated in her answer. "You're still my sunsengnim, with the good and bad, but how can I form an opinion if I barelly know you?"

Chun-Woo Han snorted, shaking his head. "And here I thought you were a good girl, but here you are hanging out whit a bad guy like me?"

Honoka giggled at that. "Well, you better take responsibility for corrupting me then!"

"Cheeky brat", he said fondly while ruffling her hair, "if you must know, I'm a rather violent person all things considered. I prefer to smash the front gate and challenge everyone, which is simple and straightforward. I'm not fit for subtlety, never was and never bothered with it."

Honoka nodded, somehow having that image inside of her head about him.

"I also killed many people", he said in a somber tone, "some of them deserved it and I don't lose any sleep of their deaths, in fact some of my most fond memories are seeing their life escape through their eyes as I squeeze it away with my bare hands", he said with a malicious smile making Honoka shiver, "while others... others I didn't meant to. Didn't wanted to, but circumstances forced me to kill those people, either through accident or purposeful cause. I regret those deaths every day."

Honoka stayed quiet, waiting for her sunsengnim to give her a reason for his actions, which he did after a deep sigh.

"My sunsengnim committed a mistake once when he was young, and was exiled to a cave never to see the outside world. I stumbled into his cave when I was around your age, and he taught me and raised me into the man I am now. I wanted to save him from his exile in the cave, so I entered a tournament to be the strongest and use that influence to gain the pardon for my sunsengnim. Sadly things didn't go the way I planned."

"Someone recognized strength of my style before I could make my plea. The Alliance Chief of the Martial Arts Alliance of the Murin world, basically the highest authority of the largest martial arts association in the pacific which encompasses most of the eastern Asia and the Western American countries."

"He must be someone really important."

"He is THE most important person in the Aliance", said her sunsengnim with distaste, "he had power few people in the world hope to achieve, be they rulers of countries or corporations CEOs, and yet all that power wasn't enough for him". Taking another cigarette from his pocket he lighted it up and took a long drag of it. "He still wanted the secrets of the Black Heaven and Earth."

"When I won the tournament I got the title of Goomoonryong, the Nine Arts Dragon. Apparently it was a social faux pas to win the tournament so through like I did, taking all nine Dragon Seats and techniques by myself. I didn't cared about that at the time and went back to my sunsengnim to give him the news, sure that with this event my name would become even more famous and influential and that soon I could free my sunsengnim, but the Aiance Chief and his cronies beat me to it."

"While I gave the news to my sunsengnim the highest Alliance members came to the cave, accusing my sunsengnim to leaving his exile to teach me the Black Heaven and Earth and the Alliance Chief proposed that he either taught the Black Heaven and Earth technique to him or he would have my head as compensation for breaking his exile."

"What!" Shouted Honoka, outraged. The sunsengnim breaks the law, and his disciple had to pay? Besides what kind of exile was that? They wanted him to stay in a cave until he died of old age or something?

"Because of that my sunsengnim officially broke the exile, getting out of the cave for the first time since I knew him, and drop his fist into his own chest, committing suicide. His last words where that if they ever wanted the Black Heaven and Earth, they had no choice but allow me to leave since otherwise the technique would die with me."

Honoka was silent at the story, tears starting to form on her eyes.

"The rest isn't very exciting. I killed a couple of people in my rage induced rampage, killed more people as time passed by and decided to hide here in Japan for a while until things calm down a bit and my allies give me the all clear to go back to Korea."

Honoks sniffed once and nodded, though a question did remained in her head. How someone that clearly regrets some of what he did can talk about death so easily? How he can kill so easily even when he doesn't want to? Is it something that being raised in the Murin world does? Is it something she will pick upon in the future? She didn't know, and she wasn't sure what to think about it, even if for the most part she respected and admired her sunsengnim.

"And what kind of person was your sunsengnim?" Honoka asked after a few moments.

"He was basically my father, raising me and teaching me." He said with a tone of finality and Honoka nodded, taking the dismissal for what it was. Still one last thing was at the back of her mind.

"Sunsengnim, how come our school is so incredible?"

He looked at her for a moment before shaking his head. "Of course you couldn't know. Follow me."

The two of them went to the back of the school where there were a couple of old, rotten trees that were being off for new ones to be planted and a new garden be created in that spot. Her master looked at a particularly firm tree, and cocked his fist back. The motion wasn't very fast and didn't looked so strong either, but when it impacted the tree it basically exploded the plant like a bomb had been set off inside of it.

"This technique is called Soul-Crushing Strike. By synchronizing the movement of ki inside your body and the striking motion you can create an attack that's much greater than the sum of it's parts, it's basically a straple of my fighting style."

Honoka had her eyes bulged. "That's incredible! Is that why our style is so strong? Because of techniques like that?"

He shook his head. "That's not it, there are other styles that have similar techniques. In fact aside from the breathing technique, there are few native techniques for the Black Heaven and Earth style, which coincidentally the soul-crushing strike is part of. What makes the Black Heaven and Earth so feared is that we have the most efficient Ki Flow technique in existence, not only that but it have a perfect Neutral type. That means it can learn any and all techniques in existence to it's fullest. We can learn all of the Five Heavenly Path styles and their mutually exclusive ki gathering methods, all Nine Dragon Arts from the Murin faction with ease, to the outdated Sei-Dou dual ki methods without restrictions."

Flicks his wrist, and a small ball of fire hovers in the palm of his hand. "I traveled the world and learned as much as I could, learning many techniques and fighting styles, mastering them in weeks to months when normally it would take years to decades to do so, even if they would by definition close certain paths of power. The Black Heaven and Earth not only gives no fucks about it, but I'm confident I'm a much better practitioner of those techniques and styles than their supposed masters."

Honoka could sense how smug her sunsengnim felt, and he had all the right to be smug. After all with her style she coud in theory learn ALL THE THINGS, regardless of it's source. That was amazing!

"As a fortunate side effect of our ki flow being so efficient, that means the standard natural reinforcement from circling your ki on your body is at least an order of magnitude higher than normal. If I ever teach you an actually advanced ki reinforcement technique you could probably go toe to toe against many masters before even hitting puberty."

Honoka couldn't help it, but she felt like drooling.

'Wait a minute, I'm actually drooling! How gross!'

"The Murin world is rather dangerous", Honoka noted before going back to her training.

"As a Murinim you should get used to it." He said taking a last drag of his cigarette and tossing the butt on a nearby trashcan.

"I'm a Murinim already?"

"Of course, you're learning from me my secrets, like it or not you're already part of this world."

Honoka had mixe feelings on being equaled to a bunch of murderous people that lived by the rule of strength even in this modern era, but by spending months with her sunsengnim she felt closer to him so anything that associate herself with him was mostly alright in her book.

Besides, walking this path was one she choose for herself all those months ago, and she wasn't going to turn back on it so easily.

"Now lets get back to your training. If you master the ki deceleration method, you can train your body basically anywhere without suspicion since you will be artificially putting pressure into your body with your ki, strengthening your muscles much more than normal while technically using much less effort."

Honoka nodded and followed her instructions to the letter. After all soon she would be separated from her sunsengnim and she didn't want to disappoint him.