CHAPTER 149
"Great work, everybody. Seriously, superb!" Daniel told his students as the Miyagi-Dos gathered in front of the students' dormitory for a quick roundup before the end of the night. "You all started your fights excellently, all built pretty sizable advantages. And then you could've taken your feet off the gas there but you didn't. You kept your heads down, kept pushing, and look at the result! We're still very much in this thing!"
"Still in this thing? 7 of the 24 fighters left in this competition are Miyagi-Dos. We make up almost a third of the fighters left! We're fucking dominating this thing!" Hawk exclaimed gleefully. Daniel chuckled and shook his head.
"Alright, alright. I'm glad you guys are having a good time. And I'll be the first to say that you guys are doing so great. But you can't get cocky." Chozen said. "You're so close to the finals. Getting cocky now would be a huge mistake."
"Yeah, we know." Miguel nodded. "But it's hard not to be happy. All 5 of us are still in this thing. And our main rival in the boys' division is fighting against the reigning champion, so at least one of them is getting knocked out by the end of tomorrow."
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." Barnes suddenly spoke up, rather harshly shutting up all of the cheerful Miyagi-Do students. "If I hear any of you even so much as mention who your opponents are fighting at any point between now and the final, if you mention any matchup except the ones you yourselves are fighting in, I will personally guarantee you a few hours of extra 1 on 1 training with me in the gym."
The Miyagi-Dos internally groaned. They knew what that meant. Barnes was arguably tougher than Johnny with his training methods, even if he didn't resort to death-defying stunts. He wasn't afraid to have them doing pull ups until their arms felt separated from their sockets. He wasn't afraid to have them sparring against him without holding back whatsoever. A few extra hours of physical training with him, especially on top of the strenuous tournament, would be torture.
"Barnes is right. You shouldn't be thinking about anyone's fight but your own. This is our tournament to win or lose. We shouldn't be hoping for the downfall of anyone else to help get us to the top, as we already have what it takes to make it there ourselves." Daniel said.
"Not only that, but the minute you start looking beside you at the other fights going on, you over-complicate everything. Right now, your task is simple: opponent is chosen; you score 8 points on them; repeat. By doing all of the internal calculation bullshit of who you want to fight and who you want to see eliminated and who's left in the competition… it only puts more on your plate and ends up impacting your performance. Trust me." Barnes said.
"He's right. So all of you go to sleep tonight, thinking about your own fights." Johnny demanded. "Not anyone else's. For those of you who make the semis, you'll find out your opponents tomorrow night, so don't think about any of that before then. Understand?"
"Yes, sensei."
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Knock! Knock! Knock!
Later that night, Shawn was roughly awakened by the loud knocking of the bedroom door. It had been a long day for him, having been officially eliminated from the Taikai, so after all of it, he was less than pleased to be woken up in the middle of the night. Kenny, who he was sharing a room with, hadn't woken up, so Shawn was forced to get up himself and open it.
"What do you want?" He snapped, before opening the door wider to see none other than Cobra Kai's female champion standing in the doorway, a concerned expression on her face. "What's up, Sarah?" He asked.
"Have you seen Marcos?" She asked, her voice slightly wavering in panic. Shawn glanced at her, confused.
"Thought he was sharing a room with you." Shawn remarked. "Oh wait… didn't he say he was going to the medical wing to get some ice or something?"
"Shawn, it's 1 in the morning. It's been almost 2 hours since then. I fell asleep as soon as we got back to the room and when I woke up, he still wasn't back."
That explained the worry, Shawn thought to himself, as slight concern flickered across his face.
"You think something happened to him?" Shawn asked.
"I don't know." Sarah murmured. "We need to go looking for him."
Shawn nodded and quickly grabbed his coat from the rack in the corner of his room, before closing the door behind him and following Sarah towards their dormitory door.
"I'm sure he's fine. Dumbass probably found where they store all of the food here, so he's probably there stuffing his face and just lost track of time."
"2 hours worth of time? I don't think so. Something happened to him." Sarah murmured, feeling her hands begin to tremble slightly from inside her jacket, but not from the slight breeze that was blowing through the facility. "Let's retrace his steps to the medical wing. See if we can see any sign of him."
"Sure." Shawn nodded. And that's exactly what the two teenagers did. Marcos' girlfriend and his best friend jogged through the accommodation facility, searching the empty halls for the Brazilian teenager, hoping upon hope to find him. They went through hallway after hallway, corridor after corridor until finally, they turned a corner and they saw him…
As they had looked for Marcos, the two teenagers' minds, especially Sarah's, couldn't help but wander over to the worst possible outcome. But whatever that was, when they eventually saw the boy, they realized that the state he was in was about 10 times worse.
Marcos lay on the ground, flat on his back, trying desperately to sit up but every time he tried, searing jabs of pain in his head, his sides, his back and his limbs forced him back down. All he could do was quietly groan in agony as he rolled around on the ground, unable to do something so basic as to stand up, let alone walk to the Medical Wing to get the treatment he most certainly now needed.
"Oh, my God! Marcos!" Sarah shouted, sprinting over to him, Shawn close behind. As they neared him, their hearts stopped as they saw that his condition was worse than they could have possibly imagined. Not only had he been knocked to the ground, but blood was also pouring out of his nose like a faucet. Bruises and gashes covered almost every inch of his face, arms and legs. And his sky-blue shirt had been darkened considerably by a terrifying crimson liquid that had begun to splatter all over the tiled floor.
As Marcos moved his head slightly and saw them, he couldn't find the strength to say anything. He couldn't find the strength to do anything. All he could do was allow himself to be lifted to his feet by Shawn, his body screaming out in pain from the sudden movement, but he forced himself to bite down and bear it as he was carried to the Medical Wing, drops of blood still dripping from his body onto the ground but Marcos not having the strength in that moment to care…
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"Any sensitivity to this light?"
"No."
"Any numbing sensation throughout your body?"
"No."
"Any trouble remembering the events that occurred that led to being here?"
As Marcos was asked this question by the 24 hour nurse at the medical wing, he gritted his teeth and felt a rush of anger stab through him. There was certainly no forgetting what had just happened to him a few hours ago. There was definitely no forgetting who had done this to him.
"No." Marcos eventually muttered in reply. After a while, seemingly satisfied, the nurse sat back and nodded.
Marcos had been in the Medical Wing for nearly an hour now. It had been a really long process, first of all cleaning and closing all of the various gashes on his body, and stemming the bleeding from his nose. Then came checking that he hadn't broken or sprained a limb. Then came the arduous concussion protocol testing, which consisted of a plethora of questions that Marcos had just finished answering.
"You're lucky." The nurse told him. Marcos looked at her, looked down at all of the wounds and scrapes all over his body, before looking back up with an eyebrow raised.
"Clearly." He remarked. The nurse chuckled and shook her head.
"I mean that it could've been a lot worse. Nothing seems to be broken or sprained. You don't seem concussed either. You've taken quite a few knocks so you're probably going to feel it for the next little while, but there's nothing more to it than that."
"So I can fight tomorrow?" Marcos asked, almost eagerly, especially given that he was currently lying in a hospital bed. The nurse winced slightly but nodded.
"Officially there's nothing that prevents you from being medically cleared to fight. Will you be at 100% fitness? Probably not. Would I recommend you fight? Definitely not. You need another day or two of rest. But I know that chances are, you're going to want to fight anyway."
"You're right there." Marcos murmured. So help him God he was going to fight.
"I am going to keep you here though tonight, just as a precaution. But provided everything's okay, you should be all good to be discharged by the morning." The nurse told him.
Turning her attention away from him, the nurse then turned to Sarah and Shawn, who were watching nervously from the corner of the room.
"You two should go back to your dorm. Mr. Oliveira will be fine." The nurse said. Sarah was unsure about this though.
"Can I stay here with him please?" Sarah asked. The nurse sighed.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Gledhill. Unfortunately, until you have been signed into the Medical Wing by the hospital staff, you're not allowed to stay the night here. It's a liability thing."
"Marcos getting jumped in a hallway by a gang is also a liability thing, is it not? Who's to say that the people who did this aren't going to come looking for him later tonight? Marcos isn't exactly in the state to be able to defend himself."
"Trust me, Ms. Gledhill. Nothing is going to happen to him. I promise. But you need to leave now."
"Sarah, it's fine." Marcos murmured. "I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow morning."
Sarah still looked really uncertain, and it took a lot of convincing, but eventually Sarah agreed to head back to the Cobra Kai dormitory with Shawn. Once they were gone, Marcos' eyelids began to feel heavy and he found himself drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
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Footsteps. That's all it took. The faintest of footsteps were enough to snap Marcos, the light sleeper that he was, out of his sleep. As he opened his eyes, he found the hospital room pitch-black, which meant that he was unable to see even a few feet ahead of him, but knowing that he was in the presence of someone else immediately caused his heart to start racing. Who the hell was it?! Was it the Argentinian dojo, back to inflict more damage?!
It wasn't. Because as the visitor opened their mouth to speak, Marcos immediately recognised who it was, and it caused him to feel anger and mistrust in a whole different way. He could almost see that bloody pony-tail, even in the faintest of light that the room possessed.
"Mr. Oliveira…" They purred. Marcos' jaw clenched in annoyance at their presence, but he forced himself to remain calm.
"Mr. Silver. What do you want?"