CHAPTER 151

"Can we come in?" A familiar voice from outside the Miyagi-Do students' dormitory called, knocking on the door. It was close to 10 am and the Miyagi-Dos were in their common room together, spending some much needed relaxation time before the stresses of the press conferences and the quarter finals began. They had gone to the dining hall early that morning, so they hadn't been present for the shitshow between Marcos and his opponent. They hadn't even heard about what happened to him the night before, so the Miyagi-Dos were still in high spirits when they opened the door to see Daniel, Johnny, Chozen and Barnes in the doorway.

It was only when their 4 senseis entered the room that the Miyagi-Dos realized that something was wrong. The smiles faded from their faces as they saw the solemn looks on the faces of the senseis that they loved so much.

"Good morning, guys." Daniel said, trying to keep a somewhat upbeat demeanor, though it was really difficult, and it fooled absolutely none of them.

"What's going on? What's wrong?" Demetri questioned nervously, asking the question that was on the forefront of all of the Miyagi-Dos' minds. "What did we do?"

"You didn't do anything. Don't worry." Daniel said, trying to ease a bit of the worry. "In fact, it doesn't directly concern any of us. I just figured you guys ought to know now, as it's definitely going to be talked about a lot in the press conference, and probably during the fighting later today."

"What is it?" Miguel asked, concern and curiosity amid the students continuing to rise. The four senseis looked at each other, took a deep breath before nodding.

"So, uh… you know Oliveira?" Johnny asked.

"Marcos?" Robby said. "What about him?"

"He, uh… he was admitted into the emergency hospital wing late last night." Johnny said.

"What happened to him?" Sam asked. This was the hardest part for the senseis to say. They gulped nervously before continuing.

"From what I was told, it happened right after he got back from the arena last night. He was walking through the facility alone and he got attacked by 6 people from the dojo that he's supposed to be fighting today - the Argentinian dojo who are the reigning champions." Barnes told them.

There was a moment of shocked silence as the Miyagi-Dos all processed this. Marcos had been attacked, had been jumped, the night before. He had been hurt so badly that it involved him being hospitalized late last night. Even though all of the Miyagi-Dos except Robby didn't particularly like Marcos, hearing this was still enough to stun them into silence.

"Is he okay?" Robby eventually asked, the first to speak up after they got over the shock of hearing what had happened.

"He's fine." Daniel reassured them. "He was discharged from the Medical wing this morning. In fact, he's still fighting tonight, so clearly he hasn't been hurt permanently. But apparently it was pretty bad last night. We don't know much more than that as that's all we've been told."

"Hold on. Wait… he's still fighting tonight? You mean the dojo who attacked him wasn't automatically disqualified?" Miguel asked, the first to put two and two together. This evoked thought from all of the other students. Surely if a dojo was literally assaulting people in the hallways and had been found guilty of doing so, they'd be immediately kicked from the Taikai altogether, right?

Daniel nodded.

"From what the Committee have told us, Marcos was given that option this morning. He could've had the dojo disqualified. They only have 1 competitor left in the competition anyways, and that's Marcos' opponent, so Marcos was offered a rest day to get himself prepared for the semis, while his opponent would be disqualified." Daniel said. "However, he chose to reject that option. Instead, the Argentinian dojo is simply going to be put on probation - going to be followed around by staff members 24/7 - but the fight tonight is still going ahead."

"So Marcos chose to, less than 24 hours after being gang assaulted, fight against the people who hurt him?" Sam asked, incredulously. Tory chuckled.

"He wants revenge. He wants to retaliate. Smart guy." Tory remarked.

"No. Not smart at all. If he retaliates by kicking the crap out of his opponent tonight, it's only going to make things worse." Robby quickly responded.

"Eh. Agree to disagree. If it was me personally who got attacked, there's no chance I'm lying in bed and letting other people solve my problem for me. I'm handling it myself." Hawk backed Tory up.

Before this could all spiral into an argument, Daniel decided to cut them off, raising a hand to quieten them down.

"Look, that's besides the point. I know that we all have different opinions on that topic, senseis included, but that wasn't why I brought this all up." Daniel said. "I brought this up for 2 reasons. The first being, if you guys see Marcos at any point today, ask him how he's feeling. He might be a rival, but health and safety comes first. I think all of us can relate to being attacked and ambushed by rivals, so while we might be opponents here at the Taikai, we're human beings first. Show concern."

"The second reason we told you all of this is to warn you to be careful." Barnes said. "We're not at home right now. We really don't know what we're up against. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen at the Taikai - it hasn't happened for a very long time apparently - but clearly it still does. So please be careful. Watch out for yourselves and each other. If you're walking the hallways at night… don't, if you can. And if you have to for whatever reason, don't go alone. Got it?"

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A little while later, it was time for the Miyagi-Dos to head to the morning press conferences, ahead of the Quarter Finals that would be occurring that evening. Contrary to prior rounds, in the Quarter Finals, the press conferences had been organized slightly differently. Rather than the press conferences being separated by dojo, they were instead separated by the division. The remaining senseis would all be together, followed by all of the remaining girls, and then finally, the remaining boys in the competition would take to the stage.

This had both positives and negatives. On one hand, it meant that from a press perspective, it was a lot more entertaining and had the potential to let sparks fly, as competitors would be seated only a few feet away from their opponents that night. But this was exactly why it was pretty troublesome from the perspective of the fighters. By this point of the competition, there was a lot at stake. They were touching distance from the grand final, and weren't going to let go of that at any cost, so emotions and tempers were definitely on edge.

Shockingly, the senseis' and girls' press conferences went by in a pretty calm manner. After all, the press didn't have much to say to any of them. All of their attention was on the boys' division, as they had heard all about the events of the night before, and were desperate to see and hear from both the victim and the perpetrator. They were positively frothing at the mouth at the prospect of getting one of their biggest ever scoops from the Taikai.

As all of the boys took to the stage for the press conference, the two feuding competitors being forced to sit on opposite ends of the long table, Robby caught a glimpse of Marcos for the first time. In fact, Robby moved to sit right beside him. When he did and got closer, he saw that Marcos had definitely been through it the night before. A large black eye had flowered on his left eye, and the bottom of his jaw was swelling like a balloon. The unmistakable markings of a couple of stitches were littered all over his body, as well as quite a few jagged scars and cuts that had only just closed.

"Hey." Robby murmured as the Miyagi-Do sat down beside him. Marcos didn't even bother turning to face him. His eyes were locked on the other side of the room, where his opponent, his enemy, was sitting. Even just seeing the piece of shit who had led the beating the night before was enough to reignite the rage that Marcos was feeling inside, and it took everything he had to not leap from the table and attack the boy right now. He'd get his moment soon enough, Marcos told himself. Only a few hours until the Quarter Finals, and then he'd his chance for revenge.

Not getting a response or even an acknowledgement that the Cobra had heard him, Robby decided to keep talking.

"I heard about what happened. Are you okay?" Robby asked. Still, Marcos didn't look away from his Argentinian foe. He was staring a hole into the boy, his knuckles restlessly tapping against the table, eager to bury themselves in the other boy's stomach. However, at least this time, Marcos responded, even if he didn't turn to face Robby at all.

"Fine." Marcos grunted shortly back, and that was all he said. It didn't take a genius to work out that Marcos was definitely not fine. He was hopped up on his rage and desire for revenge, and Robby could practically sense the fiery anger radiating off of the boy beside him.

As he felt all of this, Robby braced himself for what he was sure was going to be a rocky, emotionally tempered press conference between the two competitors. Because in all of the long months that he and Marcos had been on opposite ends of the war, things had very rarely gotten personal for Marcos. Even at the worst moments of their rivalry, Robby remembered that it hadn't gotten personal for Marcos. The closest it had come was when Marcos was projecting the issues he was having at home and turning that into aggression that he took out on the Miyagi-Dos. But at the end of the day, those issues had nothing to do with the people he had been fighting.

But now, it was different. Now, it was deeply personal between Marcos and Diego, his opponent. There was nothing to put a damper on the wrath, nothing to calm the aggression. Marcos was filled with unbridled menace that could only be released by beating the crap out of his opponent. Sure enough, just as Robby had expected, when the press conference got underway, the animosity and toxicity between the Brazilian and the Argentinean was instantly released. But as the conference unfolded further, Robby never could've imagined just how heated it got…