Adrenaline coursed in Genji's veins.

He could feel it in his chest, weighing his diaphragm with anticipative exhilaration. He lowered himself, his face close to his knee with his other leg behind him, slightly bent, ready to spring at a moment's notice.

He stood in a line among others who also lowered, eyes straight ahead and focused. Some took different positions, but the objective was the same for all of them. Reach the stage, as fast as they could.

As if their lives depended on it.

The pistol popped.

Energy surged through his body and he powerfully kicked off. To his shock, he found the floor approaching rapidly as the runners who flanked him left him in the dust, their rapid figures shrinking into the distance. The sound of their footsteps rang across the polished floor, squeaking and scraping.

Perplexed, the cyborg picked himself off the ground deliberately, looking to his legs. They seemed fine. What happened?

He glanced to his left, where he could see the trail of smoke rising from the barrel of the pistol from Lieutenant Sobel's hand, with the commander standing beside him, watching Genji in his usual penetrating, analyzing way. They exchanged a few words, Jack never taking his eyes off him. After a moment, he motioned Genji to join them.

"What happened?" Jack asked when he got closer, echoing his thoughts.

"I… don't know," Genji responded, feeling an odd sense of shame and embarrassment. "I started as fast as I could, then found myself falling. I did not move any."

"But you did," he pointed out, more to himself. "You did move."

"Commander?"

He continued to watch the cyborg as the other runners touched the stage and began jogging back. Genji began feeling extremely self-conscious.

"Follow me." Jack turned and walked towards the corner of the gym. Feeling increasingly foolish, Genji followed. He could hear the recruits' confused mutterings behind him. If they didn't know about him before, they definitely did now.

The Lieutenant silenced them with instructions, loudly barked while expressing his opinion about their fitness and comparing it to his grandmother's. Genji thought it all very strange. What must have the Lieutenant's grandmother done in her lifetime to be more physically apt than the recruits? The recruits which, during the briefing, he learned came handpicked from their regiment leaders. Genji couldn't help but wonder why and how he ended up here.

"All right," Jack said, facing him. "Jump."

"What?"

"What, sir."

"Yes, that was what I asked."

The commander stared at him for a long moment. Genji couldn't help but feel he'd done something wrong.

"As of this moment, Shimada," he said sharply, "you're inducted into the Hounds training program. Sure, you might look a little different or may be missing a few limbs, but that does not place you in any different a position or any higher a place than the men in blue fatigues. Do I make myself clear?"

Genji was shocked. Was that how he was coming across? "I never—"

"One thing you should quickly learn about me, grunt," he interrupted, "is that I do not like to repeat myself. So consider it a product of my virtue of extraordinary patience—which is quickly waning thin, that I do so. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," he replied quickly.

The look in his eyes were still dark. Genji quickly caught on.

"Yes, sir."

"Now, jump."

"As hard as I can?"

"As if your life depended on it."

No more time to feel embarrassed or misplaced, feelings plentiful ever since he stepped off the carrier. The cyborg slowly bent his legs, making ready to spring. Excitement dominated as he pushed off, powerfully extending his legs—before his senses became muddled by the strangest sense of vertigo. He was not in the air, as he had expected to be. Neither could he feel purchase of the wood beneath his feet, where he could a moment ago.

But the strangest thing, an outcome in every world that Genji could not have foreseen, was finding himself inexplicably shorter in height: he found himself eye-level with the soldier's waist.

Jack Morrison was looking at the floor with a calculative gaze, the spot where the cyborg planted his feet. Genji looked down.

He could no longer see them. Where the whiteness of his waist ended, the wood of the floor began. Splinters were all about him, and he was just now noticing the cloud of dust which was slowly descending and settling onto the ground. The shouts from the Lieutenant was especially loud now, trying to gather the attention of the men—all now turned towards him, with commands and threats. Somehow, he managed yet again to find mention of his grandmother.

Genji twisted, trying to loosen the wood wedged into his sides and freeing himself. He was stuck in the floor. What in the world happened? he thought.

Jack leaned into his shoulder and spoke into a small black rectangle which rested upon it. A single, coiling wire trailed down from it into his coat. "Did you see that?" he asked into it, looking up at a camera which hung from a corner of the room.

"That's an affirmative," a voice replied through a layer of static. "Shall I supply a report to the trainer?"

"Yes," the soldier said distractedly, observing the hole. "Return here to fetch the subject after."

"Roger." The radio clicked.

Having freed himself from the hole, Genji peered down to access the damage he caused. He'd fallen down right next to a stint which held up the wood floor from a lower layer of concrete, which was the only reason why he came to a stop, instead of falling down another level. Two distinct ovals were imprinted onto it though, cracks lining the edges where his feet impacted on the stone.

Jack nodded to him. "Fall back in, soldier. You'll be relocated to another training program shortly."

"Relocated?" He looked towards the rest of the men. "I'm not going to do it with them?"

"No," the soldier replied, not offering any further explanation as he stalked back towards the group of privates, now by the side of the gym doing pull-ups still under the constant verbal abuse from the lieutenant. Those who were waiting their turn could stand to spare an effort to conceal the fact that they were staring at Genji and the hole he made. It wasn't hard for him to pretend he didn't notice, with his helmet masking his face. But though he could understand the more confused and bewildered expressions from some of them, he was more disconcerted about the outright hostility that came from a few.

The ones who scowled and glared at him were the first to turn when he approached, followed by the others who seemed to tear their eyes away more unwillingly, common etiquette giving way to curiosity. Those who finished their set filtered out to the back of the lines awaiting their next turn, chest heaving from exertion. Soon enough, Genji could practically feel the stares on him. He stood out like onyx on a bed of quartz.

Trying his best not to squirm in his discomfort, he moved beneath the bars when the lieutenant read his name from a clipboard and watched him in silence. That did nothing to alleviate his unease. The silence that hung in the air now felt heavy in contrast to the barrage of insults he was hurling to the other recruits.

He poised himself to jump, putting his hands in front of him to catch the bar.

"Genji Shimada!"

A man stood by the double doors, arms crossed, coolly looking at the procession. He nodded to the lieutenant and jerked his head as a gesture for Genji to follow before promptly stepping back out into the corridor. The cyborg looked to Lieutenant Sobel.

"With him," he said, "and be quick about it. You're holding up the line."

Genji turned and paced uncertainly from the group. Their mutterings were quickly silenced as they were put back to work. He still felt uneasy from the reserved nature the lieutenant exclusively treated him with, or anyone else for that matter. He understood how different he may appear to everyone, especially with tripping over nothing and crashing through the floor, but he still wished he wasn't treated any differently.

Where the walls of the gym were filled with portraits and banners, the walls of the metal corridors were blank, narrow, and unremarkable. Against this, the gym seemed excessively lavish and frivolous in its decoration. They weaved through the metal corridors dimly lit by amber light which peeked out between pipes snaking the ceiling. Some doors stood ajar to reveal rooms which shared the same walls and lack of unnecessary adornments. Some held counters of valves and pipes, others shelves and buzzing computers, and Genji even noticed a room with absolutely nothing in it but a singular white lightbulb which hung from the ceiling, barely illuminating the corners of the room, and a plain rectangular table with a chair on either side directly underneath it.

"Where are we going?" he asked eventually.

His escort continued to stride forward, not deigning to reply.

After numerous more turns and series of stairwells, the man stood beside a door, facing his back against the wall and clasping both hands behind his back. Using his head once again, he gestured for the cyborg to enter.

Genji couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance. The least that could be granted to him was an explanation, instead of being corralled around like a sheep in a pen. Regardless, he moved past the soldier—and for the brief moment they made eye contact, he saw the deepest loathing and contempt looming in his eyes despite his cool demeanor—and pushed open the door before stepping in.

His arms and legs stood still and calm, as they always did, as he turned to close the door carefully behind him, ignoring his shaken state. In his maelstrom of emotions, confusion held strong. Not at why the soldier may hate him so, but to what he himself actually felt. What is this? he thought, staring at the chrome handle of the door, this sinking feeling in my heart? Is it regret? Is it anger?

After giving himself a moment, he turned and faced the room. It looked nothing like the gym and more of the rooms he saw on his way here. The mattes of galvanized metal piping bolted to the ceiling and certain parts of the wall shone dully against the rusty yellow bulbs which lined the upper section of the each wall. The space was large, compared to the claustrophobic corridors outside. It would take twice his height to touch the ceiling, and to be about a quarter of the floor space of the gym.

A lone wooden cupboard stood in the far corner of the room, being one of the two only furniture within. The other was a relatively small bamboo mat in the middle, which at current was occupied by a man, kneeling on it.

Though he sat with his back facing Genji, he could tell that the man was undoubtedly old. Wisps of white hair fell around his bald crown, his head bowed and his figure slumped, looking awfully frail. He wore an orange fabric which fell from his shoulders and pooled in folds on the floor, almost obscuring his bare feet. It looked like a still image of a waterfall, bathed in the light of a setting sun.

Genji contemplated how different the man looked compared to the other soldiers he seen on the platform, before recalling his own predicament, and silencing the thought.

He stepped forward. "I—"

Faster than Genji would have thought possible, the man stood up in a swift pirouette, and from his momentum, thrust a black object straight to his face. It whistled through the air as Genji instinctively raised an arm and intercepted it, halting the dagger an inch from his face. "What—"

"Don't move," a raspy voice commanded.

For a reason the cyborg did not know, he did as he was told. The old man moved close to him and around him, scrutinizing him with small, twinkling eyes. He was not as frail as he first thought. Pacing around him with purpose, the strange man gave energetic, approving nods and soft throaty acknowledgements.

He removed the knife from Genji's grasp and cleared his throat. "Ah, how do they say it around here? 'At ease,' is that right?"

Genji did not relax. He did however let his arm drop to the side, ready for another surprise attack.

The man slowly turned the black dagger around his hands, paying close attention to the handle. He frowned. "I see what the problem is, now."

"Which is?" he inquired calmly, never taking his eyes off his hands. "What is that which you have discovered by hurling a kunai between my eyes?"

His head snapped up. "You remember… what this is called?" He held up the blade.

"I do," he said.

"And here they made it sound as though I would be teaching a baby how to crawl." He stroked at his beard thoughtfully, which grew luxuriantly and fell to his chest. A shame the same couldn't be said about the strands on his head. "Tell me, how did this blade, kunai, come to be? Do you remember its origin?"

Genji searched the recesses of his consciousness, and came up blank. "I do not know. Or perhaps remember."

"Then allow me to remind you. But first let me ask: what do you think about my throwing it?" He was idly twirling it about his fingers with impressive dexterity.

"Throwing it?"

"Indeed."

He thought for a moment. "That it was very dangerous."

He laughed heartily. "Indeed! It was very dangerous."

Genji did not know what he found so funny.

"But that aside, there is still one more thing."

The cyborg waited.

The man's eyes twinkled. "And that is that you're not supposed to throw it."

"No?"

"No," he confirmed. "The kunai, is a simple farming tool." Genji watched him move the kunai in his hand with extraordinary ease as he stalked away, the handle seeming to be magnetized to him as he flourished it nonchalantly. His fingers never found the blade. "It's to be used to break apart wood, and softer and brittle materials. For digging and for prying, but never for throwing." He whipped his arm across his body. With a dull thud, the blade wedged itself into the wood of the cupboard. "But it can."

"What are you trying to say?" he said, after a moment of silence.

"What?" He turned towards the cyborg. "I was saying something?"

Each held their gaze.

"You… weren't?"

"I do not believe so. I just think it's an interesting fact. Wouldn't you say so?"

Genji looked at the man before him, a man with surprising agility and strength. Perhaps he was not as sharp at mind as he thought. "Sure."

"Good!" His eyes lit up. "Have an appreciation for story and history, Genji. A learned mind will serve you well."

"As it have you?" he asked sarcastically.

"Indeed!" he said cheerfully, either missing his sarcasm or ignoring it.

"You know my name," Genji stated, "but I do not know yours."

"That is true."

Genji waited. The old man continued standing, eyes closed, smiling contently.

"So… who are you?" he tried.

"A simple farmer, though admittedly, not by trade. Miyamoto Musashi is the name my mother has given me. You however, may call me sensei."

"Sensei?"

"Yes," Miyamoto nodded. "It means teacher in Japanese." He paused, opening an eye. "You know you are from Japan, yes?"

"I do, and I know what it means."

"Seeing that you do, I draw that you are not as concerned about the function as much the context."

Genji blinked. "Yes."

The old man sighed. "I see Jack have not told you about what is to happen here."

"I did not know he would be here, on the platform either."

The old man groaned. "I will never understand the nature of his actions. Or lack thereof. Is it negligence, or simply a fondness for theatrics?"

Genji chose not to reply and instead watched Miyamoto stroke his beard. He looked as though he was talking to himself now.

"A final favor, he told me. Of course, I am obligated on my honor, for I did promise… but what to do… what to do?" He thoughtfully paced to the cupboard, where he pulled out the dagger and stared at it. "'Teach a baby how to crawl, or at least remind it how to', he told me. But this isn't the case. Not at all. How do I teach a baby how to crawl, when it already sprints?"

"Miya—sensei?" The word felt strange on Genji's lips, but he felt as though he had said it a thousand times before.

"Genji." He held up the knife. "What do you see?"

"The kunai?"

"Yes, but on the handle, after I threw it at you. What do you see?" he repeated.

The cyborg looked. The handle was jagged and warped where he had grabbed it. "It is bent."

"As so. Now, do you see the problem?"

"No."

"And what a problem it is, one such as this." He was back to talking to himself. "Hmm… yes. It might work. All right!"

"Sensei?"

"Quiet, young one. Do you hear it?"

He listened to the silence, one which replaced the ever-present distant roaring of engines and air rushing through the pipes overhead. "I do. The ship have stopped moving."

"Indeed. We have arrived at Korea." He paused. "Or we are dead out at sea. Let us hope it is the former. Anyway! Assuming this is not a scenario where we will have to ration that little food we have before we inevitably resort to cannibalism to preserve our existence, you will leave to the markets of Korea for me and obtain these items. Remember them: two-hundred eggs, one kilogram worth of feathers, and fifty one-meter long squares of orange fabric. And a broom and dustpan. Get all of them as cheap as you can find them. I do not have much money." He fished out a few notes of currency from his robes and pressed them onto the cyborg's palm.

"What are you going to do with all that?" he asked, overwhelmed.

"But the question is what you are going to do with all that. One more thing. Now pay attention. This is the most critical detail."

Genji leaned in.

"For every item you acquire, you must talk to the shopkeepers. When you return, you will tell me their names, the towns they were born in, and how they came about their trade. Any questions?"

"Just one," he replied, incredulous. "Why?"

"Why not! You will not neglect this detail, young farmer." He sat back down on his mat of bamboo, waving him away. "Now go! Leave me to my thoughts."

"When would you like me to return?"

"Are you asking for a deadline? There is no deadline. You may take as much time as you so please to fulfil the tasks I have given you, and if Jack should give you any instructions, you shall prioritize that."

He hesitated. "You are my sensei. What are you going to teach me, other than to speak to shopkeepers and do some shopping?"

"Why, to crawl, of course!" he laughed. "When the young farmer already sprints."

Author Notes:

ONE-HUNDRED FOLLOWERS

We broke the three digit mark, people! Y'all will have no idea how excited that made me when I found out. I remember being out and about on my internship when I did, and it was hard to suppress a smile. Anyway, the last few weeks have been extremely mentally draining for me, though I'm not going to pretend that's the only reason for this unreasonably long update. Honestly, I've been struggling a lot trying to figure out what to do for the Korea arc, but I think I finally got it figured out. This chapter was hard for me to start, but once it got rolling, it's pretty easy and fun to ride out the momentum.

I'll see you guys soon, I hope. Thank you for reading once again. Till next time!