CHAPTER 159
"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"
Marcos and Sarah shot up early the next morning to the sound of someone yelling in the doorway of their room. They both groaned loudly - after the long day they had both had the day before, they could've used another couple of hours of sleep. However, they knew that they needed to get up. It was semi final day, a decisive day for both of them in the Taikai, and it was packed, between the morning press conference and the event itself in the evening.
The couple slowly sat up in bad, untangling their intertwined limbs, and they saw that it was Kenny standing in the doorway.
"What do you want? Let us sleep, man! Come on!" Marcos murmured tiredly.
"Trust me, you're going to want to see this." Kenny said, holding an iPad in his hands and gesturing towards it.
Sarah and Marcos eventually rolled out of bed and stumbled over to Kenny, exhausted as they looked at what was on the screen. They instantly recognized it as the the front page of a sports magazine, and their jaws dropped as they read the headlines.
"What the hell?!" Sarah exclaimed.
"Apparently, some paparazzi and journalists saw Silver leaving the facility late last night, with his suitcase with him, and he hasn't come back since!" Kenny explained. "Rumor is that he has dropped out of the competition entirely so he's not fighting in the semis."
"I'm sorry… rumor?" Marcos asked, confused. Kenny shrugged.
"None of us really know whether it's true or not. There hasn't been a statement by the Taikai Committee yet, and we only saw this article a few minutes ago. We don't really know the accuracy of it." Kenny said. Marcos slowly nodded.
"Well let's find out then, shall we?"
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
A short while later, Cobra Kai entered the Taikai cafeteria for breakfast and as they did, immediately they could feel every eye on them, the other competitors murmuring curiously as they looked at the L.A dojo. It was clear that all of them had read that morning's headline, and just like the Cobras, they were curious about whether or not it was legitimate.
They knew that there was only one person who could confirm whether or not the article was true, and thankfully they found him already inside the dining hall, sitting alone in the corner of the hall, drinking a cup of coffee. The Cobras all instantly ran over to him, Marcos pushing Kenny's iPad under Kreese's nose.
"Sensei, is this true?" Marcos asked. Kreese's head shot up as he heard Marcos' voice, and a bit of surprise overtook him as he read the headline and looked at the attached photo of Silver leaving the Taikai facility. All 6 of the Cobra Kai students stared at Kreese intently as he fell silent for a few moments, before slowly nodding his head.
"I planned to tell you this morning before word got out. But yes. Terry Silver is no longer with us. He's gone home immediately and will not be returning for the semi finals."
"But why, sensei?! We needed Sensei Silver to fight for us!" Kyler exclaimed. Kreese raised an eyebrow at the brash teenager and shook his head.
"First of all, Terry Silver is not your sensei, I am. And we don't need him to win. Miyagi-Do might have one final spot sealed for the senseis' division now, but that doesn't mean anything. If I take the second spot, and Ms. Gledhill and Mr. Oliveira make the finals too, our likelihood of winning is just as good as if Terry was with us."
There was an interesting split in opinion about this between the 6 Cobra Kais. All of them had different levels of allegiance to both Kreese and Silver, and in a defining moment like this, those allegiances showed.
Marcos and Sarah were both wholeheartedly on Kreese's side, as they had never trained with Silver, and Kreese was more than a sensei, but a father figure to both of them.
In contrast, both Kyler and Piper were on Silver's side. Even though they had trained under both senseis, it was Silver who had a bigger impact on both of them, and therefore they were very upset about Silver leaving.
Amongst the Payne brothers, Shawn was in a similar situation to Marcos and Sarah. He loved training with Kreese - he loved the man's blunt, no-nonsense, merciless training methods - and had no respect for Silver, especially after the way Silver had betrayed his younger brother the previous summer.
Kenny though… Kenny was less sure. He wanted to turn his back on Silver completely. After all, Silver had sold him nothing but lies for an entire summer. However, seeing Silver return to their dojo… it was hard to fully turn away from the sensei who had truly given him a chance. The sensei who had given him the attention he craved but never got at home. Silver was one of the only people in Kenny's entire life who had put his faith in him, rather than it just being the other way around, and Kenny would never forget the moment that Silver selected him to be their Taikai qualification fighter, the way Silver had selected him as the male leader of the dojo.
After a long silence during which the Cobras all processed what was happening and its long-term ramifications, Kenny asked the question that was on all of their minds.
"Sensei, why did Silver leave?" Kenny asked. Kreese took a deep breath as he answered.
"I heard about some of the things that Silver was teaching you. He was using our philosophy, our lessons, to manipulate and use you. It became very clear in the past few days that Silver doesn't have any of our best interests at heart. That was more than enough for me to decide to send him home. Terry Silver is no longer competing. He's no longer a Cobra Kai. If any of you come into contact with him, either here or back home, I want you to let me know immediately. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sensei." All of the Cobras agreed.
The new situation was clear for the Cobras. They had enemies attacking them from all angles. Silver. Miyagi-Do. Hell, even certain members within their current dojo right now, those who were clearly still allied with Silver, seemed furious at the decision to have him eliminated. With all of the enemies they had around them, it was more important than ever for the Cobra Kais to band together as a group. That was how they would make it through not only the Taikai, but whatever their enemies would inevitably throw at them after the Taikai had ended and Cobra Kai reigned victorious.
A few moments later, all of the Cobra Kai students stood up and walked over to the buffet line to grab breakfast. All of them except Marcos, who remained seated right where he was, opposite his sensei.
"Are you okay, sensei?" Marcos asked, concerned. He knew well the layered relationship that Silver and Kreese had, so no matter what Silver had done, Marcos knew that it must've been an incredibly difficult decision for him to make, kicking Silver out of the tournament.
As Kreese looked at his student and saw the manic aggression that had been present 24 hours ago already gone from Marcos' face, he nodded. He knew at that moment that he had made the right decision, and any doubts instantly faded to nothing.
"I'm fine." Kreese nodded, before regarding his student carefully. "Are you? I know that yesterday was kind of a rough day for you. I heard Silver had some words with you yesterday morning."
Marcos' face darkened slightly as he nodded.
"I'm much better thanks." Marcos nodded. "Yeah, Silver talked to me yesterday morning. And stupid me, I actually listened to him. I could've avoided everything that happened yesterday if I hadn't."
"Don't beat yourself up over it. He's a very persuasive man. He knows exactly what to say to anyone to get into their head. Even people much older than you."
Marcos slowly nodded.
"So he's just gone now entirely?" Marcos asked. "Like he's never coming back to the dojo, even if we win?"
Kreese looked around for a few moments before leaning a bit closer in and speaking in a much quieter voice so only Marcos could hear him.
"Please don't tell the other students this - they have enough to think about right now. But between me and you, I am fairly certain that we're not done seeing Silver yet."
"What do you mean?" Marcos asked.
"He's planning something." Kreese stated, without a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "I had suspicions of this - that he had a bigger end goal in mind that I don't know about - ever since he forced a return to the dojo. I thought it was just me being paranoid after what he did to me last time we were co-senseis of the dojo together. But last night, as we had our confrontation, he basically proved that to be the case."
"Proved what?" Marcos questioned. "What did he do?"
"He vowed that we'd be seeing him again soon. And I don't think it takes a genius to work out that he doesn't mean that in a good way. I initially thought that when he got out of jail, his plan was to bring Miyagi-Do down. But it's not. Based on the conversation I had with him last night, he seemed just as hell-bent on taking us out. He wants to bring us down. Doing what he did to you yesterday was just a taste. Just a start. But I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of surprise is waiting for us when we return to the Valley."
Marcos clenched his hands into fists as he thought about the vicious, pony-tailed sensei.
"Well whatever it is, we'll be there to stop it." Marcos stated, determined. Kreese smiled faintly at the boy who had become a son to him, and he nodded.
"We will." Kreese agreed. "So how are you feeling about your fight today? Are you ready?"
Marcos shrugged.
"Ready as I will be. I'm not exactly thrilled about who my opponent is. Hawk's the most offensive fighter of the 3, so that kind of prevents me from using that much offense of my own."
"Right. Well I'm sure whatever you have in your offensive arsenal, it's more than he's got. So just don't be deterred by his attacking. Don't hesitate to attack as well yourself."
"Yes, sensei." Marcos replied. "What about you? If you win today, now that Silver's gone, Johnny Lawrence would automatically be your finals opponent. It can't be easy, having to fight your former student. Are you okay with it?"
Truth be told, it had been something that was weighing heavily on Kreese's mind all morning. He realized exactly the same thing that Marcos had: that if Kreese managed to somehow get past Daniel and make it to the final, he'd be up against his former protege in the finals. And given that it was someone who Kreese had tried so hard to get a win for in 1984, and tried so hard to get him on his side several times since, it wasn't going to be easy to go up against and tear that dream of winning away from his old student.
"Well I'll think about that when I have to. Right now, I have a semi final to focus on. As do you. Let's just concentrate on our fights, and we can think about everything else after. Clear?"
"Yes, sensei." Marcos said.
It was no secret that without Silver, things had just gotten a hell of a lot harder for the Cobra Kais if they wanted to win the tournament. Beating both Daniel and Johnny in the span of 2 fights was an absolutely mammoth task. And if he failed to win even one of those fights, it would end up leaving Sarah and Marcos under pressure to win BOTH of their divisions if they wanted to win overall. It seemed pretty unlikely, but Cobra Kai were ready to beat the odds. If anyone could do it, it was them…