CHAPTER 120

Another month passes. Time really was flying by for all of them. There was so much to keep them all busy, between training, schoolwork and for the Miyagi-Do, there were two massive other things going on in their lives. Number 1 was the baby, who was doing wonderfully, even if she insisted on crying at all hours of the night. But number 2 was Johnny and Carmen's highly anticipated wedding!

It was the end of April now, and the wedding was in mid-May, so there were only a few weeks left. Everyone was in full planning mode. Dresses had been bought and fitted. Tuxedos had been altered. Venue and food had all been booked. It was all ready for Johnny and Carmen's ceremony in a few weeks.

That was what was consuming one half of the Valley, one side of the territory. The other side was still in disarray. The hole that Marcos had left had still yet to be filled. Their current male champion Shawn, but nobody was under any illusions: as good as the boy was, if this was still the case by the time they got on the plane for Japan, they'd all but already have sacrificed the male division to Miyagi-Do. They needed some kind of change but were quickly running out of time and options. That was until one fateful day, on April 30th, when Kreese got a call from a certain old friend of his, asking to meet.

"So…" Kreese murmured, sitting back in his chair, staring through the plexi glass at the man opposite him. "Did you call me here to brag about getting out next week?"

"I thought about it." Silver laughed. "But instead, I had a better idea."

"Oh yeah? And what's that?" Kreese asked, almost tiredly. Over the past few months, Kreese had grown increasingly exhausted. He was worn. Ever since Marcos had left, Kreese couldn't shake the feeling that he had… lost. The Taikai wasn't for another few weeks and yet Kreese was already consumed by feelings of defeat. The vast majority of this was because Marcos, the boy who had become all but a son to him, getting deported, with there being nothing Kreese could do about it. And he had tried. He had tried hard. He had tried every idea he had and more to attempt to bring Marcos back, but it was no use. Everything he tried, he failed. And as more time passed, the less likely it looked that he ever would. Marcos had been gone for almost 3 full months, so the likelihood of any of them ever seeing him again was slim. Or so he thought.

"A proposition." Silver replied. "April 30th. Do you know what today is?"

"I don't." Kreese murmured. That was a lie. Sort of. He knew what today was: it was Marcos' 18th birthday. The day his boy officially became an adult. It was the deadline that Kreese had set himself to find a way to bring Marcos back, find a way to get him a visa and a flight, but now that deadline was passing with Kreese having come up with nothing. He just didn't figure that that was what Silver was referring to. He figured it was something else, hence why he shook his head and said he didn't know what was going on.

"Come on! And you call yourself a mentor!" Silver exclaimed. "Today's…"

"Marcos' birthday. I know." Kreese murmured. Silver nodded and smiled at him.

"So you do know." Silver nodded. "That's right, Johnny. Your boy's officially an adult. He can officially come home. He only needs a visa and a flight."

"Yeah. Only." Kreese muttered, looking downwards. Silver noticed and he chuckled.

"I take it you haven't managed to get him either of those things." He remarked. "It's a shame you don't know a rich, connected businessman who could get him both with just a few phone calls."

Kreese's head shot up and he looked at Silver, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"You wouldn't…" Kreese began. Silver nodded.

"You're right. I wouldn't." He admitted, and Kreese's face fell. "Not for anything but the right price at least."

Kreese slowly looked up, already knowing what Silver was going to say, but deciding to ask anyways.

"What do you want?" He asked. Silver shrugged.

"I think I've made it pretty clear before. I want to fight for Cobra Kai as a Sensei in the Taikai. Simple as that." He stated.

"But why? Why do you need to fight for them if you're so hell-bent on destroying Cobra Kai?" Felipe asked Silver a few days earlier. Silver smiled.

"Well part of it is to supervise from there. Make sure there are no suspicions about our plan." Silver replied. "Part of it is to add insult to injury to Miyagi-Do. I still want to destroy Kreese, but the vast majority of my enemies are still part of the Miyagi-Do dojo. It's still Johnny Lawrence and Daniel Larusso and their people's fault that I'm even in jail. I can't wait to see the look on their faces as they realize that everything they love has come crashing down around their ears as I lift Cobra Kai's first Sekai Taikai trophy."

Kreese stared down at Silver for a while, an internal debate raging inside him. He couldn't lie. He was tempted. He was so tempted. Simply complying and allowing Silver to fight in the tournament like he so desperately wanted, a spot that was already empty without Kim around anymore, honestly could benefit them. Silver was an extremely accomplished fighter, one who definitely had the ability to win the Senseis' division of the Taikai. Not to even mention the fact that allowing Silver's request would bring back Marcos, Kreese's star pupil, his champion. It all looked so good on paper, but at the same time, Kreese was hesitant. He knew just how much damage Silver had the potential to cause from the moment he would slither back into the Valley. He was going to be eager for revenge on everyone, with enough resources to rival God himself, and an anger to rival the God of War. Who knew who would be left standing if Silver was allowed to wreak havoc?

"Come on, Johnny." Silver murmured, sensing Kreese's hesitating. "How long has Marcos been away?"

"3 months." Kreese eventually replied. Silver nodded.

"3 months that he should've spent with you, training. 3 months that he's spent facing God knows what horrors, losing all of the values you've taught him, losing hope that you'd ever help him, losing hope that he'd ever get to compete and win the Taikai. Are you really going to keep leaving him out in the cold? With a few calls, I can bring him back, get him a visa that allows him to be here for as long as he likes. Provided of course, you live up to my end of the favor. So what will it be, John?"

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"There's the birthday boy!" A fighter at the club remarked mockingly as Marcos walked in. Rolling his eyes, a faint smile on his face, Marcos accepted the joking cheers and applause.

"Why are you all so happy? Don't tell me you've all started to care about me." Marcos joked.

"No chance. We're just happy we don't have to have 'beating the shit out of a kid on a daily basis' on our consciences anymore." Someone else replied. Marcos laughed.

"Right. Well put on some gloves. This kid is about to whoop your ass." Marcos told him as he put down his bag and prepared to start training.

"Ooh. Looks like it's taken adulthood for him to finally grow some balls." The man commented. "Shame. Seems like you were much smarter as a kid. Adulthood's gonna kill you in a few days."

"I don't know about that one. I'm a pretty hard man to kill." Marcos responded. "Now come on. Let's get this party started…"

After a few hours of brutally tough training, Marcos now relishing and loving every moment of it, accepting that this was probably the closest he'd ever get to a professional fight and therefore reigniting his love for the sport without the added responsibility of his end goal in mind. For this reason, he felt liberated now when he fought. He fought fearlessly. Confidently. He was almost dancing at times, the moves were so fluid.

By the end of the session, there were only two of them left in the dimly lit club: just Marcos and Hulk, the guy Marcos had sparred on his first day, now a distant memory almost three months ago. Because he had arrived on February 15th and it was now April 30th. Although the man was still very untalkative, he had a soft spot for Marcos, and the teenager learned a little more about his life. Hulk was just like Marcos: a castaway from the rest of society, forced to live a life without family, without money, without anything that brought the traditional person joy. All he had was fighting. That was his one love, one that he could only spend a few moments on with the busy restrictions of his minimum wage job.

"Any fun plans for today?" Hulk asked him as the two of them sparred in the otherwise empty fight club. Like everyone else, Hulk knew that today was Marcos' birthday. His 18th birthday, a monumental day in a boy's life as it was officially the day he became an adult, became a man. And yet Marcos was surprisingly blase about it.

"Not really. I managed to pick up a shift waiting tables at a random restaurant to earn some money so when I leave here, I go there. Then I go back to the group home, finish packing my bag and then move it to your place, because they kick me out in the next few days. Thanks again for letting me stay with you. I swear it's only temporary."

"It's only a couch." Hulk responded. "Nothing like what you've probably had, Hollywood."

Marcos rolled his eyes at the nickname he'd been dubbed with given that he had lived in L.A. It was one of the less intolerable names, among all of the other mocking, patronizing ones.

"Yeah, I'm sure it will be nothing like the enchanted, flying bed I used to sleep on." Marcos replied sarcastically. "Thank you though. Seriously."

"No problem." Hulk replied, timing his response with a combination that he threw at Marcos as they sparred. "Still… nothing else you're doing? No friends, no girlfriend to spend it with?"

Marcos sighed and shook his head. Not anymore.

"Don't have any. That just wasn't the plan." Marcos told him. Hulk nodded.

"Right. Back when you were hell-bent on returning to L.A and making it to that championship tournament." Hulk stated. "But let's be honest, you and I both know that you're not making it over there. At least not anytime soon. So you might as well make this place your home."

"This place, Brazil, is my home, man. It always will be." Marcos responded. "The people, the language, the culture… it's where I've been for most of my life, where I've loved being most of my life. It's just not… where I want to be right now. I still want to find a way back to L.A."

"I get it." He responded. "If that girl of your is even a fraction as beautiful as you say, I can imagine why."

Marcos chuckled and shook his head. Even just thinking about Sarah still wracked him with pain. He had gone from seeing her every day to not having even spoken to her on the phone or texted her in 3 months. He was starting to become under the impression that he'd never see her again. But he still had hope. A miniscule amount of hope inside him to fuel the fantasy that one day, they'd be reunited.

"Whatever I've told you about her, imagine 10 times more incredible. That was Sarah." He eventually replied, throwing a few punches of his own at Hulk. "Another reason why I'm not about to start dating around here."

"That's fair." He murmured. "And hey, look, I'm not your mother. I have no place to say what's best for you or what isn't. All I can say is be realistic. If more likely than not, this is going to be your home for the future, you might as well make it that way as soon as possible, or transitioning away from your life in L.A is just going to be more painful."

All of a sudden, as if on cue, the doors of the fight club swung open, and two men walked in. They were tall, they were large, and definitely looked like fighters. However, they were both dressed in 3 piece suits, so it put to bed any possibility that they were here to exchange blows.

That raised the question as to who exactly they were and what they were doing here. Seeing the unfamiliar figures and growing immediately wary and hostile, Hulk stepped out of the ring and stormed over to them, Marcos following close behind.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Hulk snapped, his superior size towering and flexing over the two visitors. Dressed in formal outfits, a bitter taste was immediately on Hulk's tongue, weary that they were police or other governmental figures: the people who had pushed Hulk away from society in the first place and forced him to seek refuge in places like these. He wasn't going to allow them to take this place, his safe haven, at any cost.

But as it turned out, the two men weren't there for the place. Or for Hulk. Instead, both of them turned towards Marcos.

"You Marcos Oliveira?" One of them asked. When Marcos nodded, they smiled at him.

"Good. I'm Snake. This is Dennis." The man informed him, answering absolutely none of Marcos' questions with those random nicknames.

"What do you want with me? And how the hell did you find me?" Marcos asked.

"We have friends in these parts. We asked around. Found out that you spend a lot of time here." Snake informed him. "Now… take this."

All of a sudden, Marcos found himself catching an extremely familiar bag.

"Hey… that's mine!" Marcos exclaimed as he recognised the duffel that had been thrown into his hands. Sure enough, as he unzipped it, he found all of his clothes from the group home, all incredibly neatly packed in the bag. "This is my stuff! What the hell?!"

"Come with us, Mr. Oliveira." Dennis told him. Still weary of the strangers, Marcos shook his head.

"Look, I don't know who you guys are, or how the hell you managed to find me or my stuff. But I don't know you, so I'm not coming with you."

Snake chuckled.

"Shame. Because we're your ride back to Los Angeles…"

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12 hours later, Marcos stepped out of the airport and took a long, sweet inhalation, a wide smile creeping across his face as he breathed in the familiar L.A smog. He listened to the oh so familiar cacophony of sounds that were downtown L.A's traffic. It was official. Marcos Oliveira was back in town.

He had absolutely no idea how this had occurred. Even though Snake and Dennis had explained it to him, it was all such a blur to him that Marcos was still puzzled at how things had worked out. Apparently, Cobra Kai had managed to bring him back now that he was an adult, as Terry Silver - the former sensei - had managed to get him a visa. Marcos had no clue why the man would choose to do something so nice for him, so Marcos was eager to thank him whenever their paths inevitably crossed for the first time.

It hadn't taken Marcos long to make the decision that he was returning. After Snake and Dennis provided him with the opportunity, Marcos realized that this would actually be a chance. A chance to live everything he had been dreaming of and was losing faith would ever happen. He could go home, see Sarah again, see his friends again, compete in the Taikai and win it for the dojo that were so kind as to grant him the return. He wasn't dumb. He knew that if they were approaching him now after so long not training with them, it was probably because they still needed a male champion. But still. They were doing so much to bring him back that Marcos didn't particularly care.

After a quick goodbye with Hulk, as he was one of the very few people Marcos had actually connected with on his second stint living at home in Brazil, Marcos headed to the airport. He even already had all of his stuff, courtesy of Dennis and Snake packing it for him. The only thing left was to travel. It truly was the best birthday present that he ever could've gotten.

Marcos landed in L.A at around 12 am. Even at this late hour, Marcos had half a mind to go to the Cobra Kai dojo directly to thank Silver and Kreese and anyone else who might've had a hand in bringing him back. However, they probably wouldn't be there at this time of night. And there was also something else he needed to do first…

Getting in the taxi to the extremely familiar house in Bel Air, Marcos found himself nervous. He shouldn't be nervous and he knew that, because no matter how bad her reaction would be to seeing him again, he would still be seeing her for the first time in 3 months, after 3 months thinking that he'd never be seeing her again. He'd be staring into those gorgeous, piercing eyes that he had been seeing in every dream for the past few months.

In his delight, Marcos had completely forgotten about everything that had occurred towards the end of his time in L.A with his father. The city didn't feel haunted or spoiled for him after everything that had happened to him at the hands of his father, at least not yet, as excitement was the only emotion running through him, nervousness beginning to fade. Excitement only increased as he pulled into the driveway and got out of the car and walked to the door. With a trembling hand, he rang the bell.

As there was no answer, he rang it a few times more before finally, someone opened the door. He could almost sense their annoyance at first as they were opening the door to have someone intruding at such a late hour. However, as Sarah opened the door fully and saw who was standing in front of her, she was rooted to the spot in shock. The mug of tea that had been in her hand went crashing to the ground as her whole body went limp, her brain struggling to process the sight before her. It was Marcos! He was here! She had been dreaming about seeing him again every night for the past few months, and now he was actually here! He was actually here, wasn't he? She wasn't dreaming?

"Hey, Sarah." Marcos murmured, his traditional faint, lop-sided smile appearing on his face. It was hearing his voice for the first time that put to bed the theory that Sarah was dreaming. It really was him!

Not wasting another second, fearing that if she did he would somehow vanish again, she flew towards him, wrapping him up in an embrace so tight that he heard a few bones pop. A few tears stained the shoulder of his shirt as he held her for the first time in months, and a few tears trickled out of his own eyes too. At that moment, they were the only two people in the world. It was just Marcos and Sarah. They were in their own world, elated beyond anything they'd ever felt before that they were standing opposite each other again.

"W-w-what are you…" Sarah couldn't find herself to ask the complete question, almost hesitant in fear of hearing the answer. What was he doing here? Was he here for a few hours? A few days? A few weeks? Forever? Right now, honestly it didn't matter, as Sarah held him like no tomorrow.

"I'm back." was all Marcos replied. Quite frankly, that about summed up all he knew about the entire matter. Sarah didn't care to question any more than that. Dragging him into the house, it didn't take long for the finally reunited couple to find their way to the bedroom, where neither slept a wink that night…