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Tory didn't even bother looking back as she ran in the opposite direction of the Miyagi dojo, angry tears burning in the back of her eyes.
What would she have seen if she turned around? Robby begging for her to come back? Sam and Miguel looking all confused and sorry for her? Sensei LaRusso preparing a lecture?
No. She couldn't face any of them.
So she ran as far away from the dojo as she could, off into the nearby woods, barely even registering the direction that she was going in. Once she finally tired herself out, she took the gi out of her backpack and tossed it to the ground beside her, before curling up under a tree and finally letting her tears flow.
Screw that gi. Screw Miyagi Do. Screw all of them.
She was going to fight alone from now on. She was used to that, wasn't she? Hell, maybe this whole thing was her fault for believing that she'd finally found her team - people who would genuinely have her back! But teams never lasted long for her, did they?
A few minutes of this went by before she heard a familiar voice: “Do I dare ask?”
She looked up and grimaced. Kreese’s face was the last one she needed to see just then.
“What are you doing here?” Tory asked.
“I used to train in these woods all the time,” Kreese explained. “Now that I'm back in America, I felt…nostalgic. But enough about me. Why are you here?”
“None of your business,” Tory shot back. She knew that her exit from Miyagi-Do would be the perfect leverage for him to weasel his way back into her life, and she didn't want that.
He turned his head from the girl to the gi and back and said, “It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened.”
She supposed he was right: she was crying next to a tossed-out gi, after all.
“They finally cast you aside, didn't they?” Kreese continued. “Decided you were too much for them?”
Tory nodded. “They wouldn't let me fight.”
Kreese kneeled down next to her. “The Sekai Taikai…it means a lot to you, doesn't it?”
“...It's my mom,” Tory eventually replied. She didn't want to tell him, but she needed to get it out. No one else was listening to her. “She’s…she’s gone. And they don't think I can fight while grieving, but they don't understand. She raised me to fight!”
“I think you’ll find I understand plenty,” Kreese said. “Did I ever tell you about Betsy?”
Tory shook her head, and Kreese nodded. “I thought she was gonna be the love of my life, but I lost her too soon. After that, I became fully invested in karate, because it was all I had left.”
Tory blinked with surprise. His story certainly sounded familiar.
“I know you’ve been through a lot,” Kreese continued. “You're a survivor. A fighter, like me. And if I can't promise you anything else, I can promise you this, my Queen Cobra: I would let you fight.”
Tory certainly hadn't expected him to say all of that. Maybe he had betrayed her once…but maybe he was the only one who could truly see her. Maybe she owed it to herself--and to her mother--to give him another chance.
“We’ll be in Spain,” her old sensei finished. “Cobra Kai will be competing. And there's still a spot open for a female captain.”
He offered a hand to help her to her feet, which she hesitantly took. She wore a weak smile on her face, which Kreese returned.
She quickly found that her hand still trembled as it touched Kreese's. That must’ve been the part of her at the back of her mind that was still screaming at her to get out while she could.
But she had nowhere else to go. No one else she could trust.
So it was back into the cobra’s nest for her.