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Tory doesn’t know where she belongs, but she knows what’s familiar. She goes to Kreese when she said she wouldn’t. It makes her feel weak, and the weakness confirms she needs his guidance to be strong. Sensei Kreese knows anger and heartache. He knows betrayal. He had a best friend once, too.
When she comes crawling back, Kreese smiles and calls her, “My champion,” but she’s not his, and she is not a champion. Tory looks away, but doesn’t argue. She has a keen sense for knowing when she won’t be heard.
…..
Kreese takes her to South Korea to train where he trained, with the Master he studied under. A year ago, Tory would find it an honor and a privilege, but now she wonders what happened there to make Kreese who he is, and wonders if it will happen to her.
Tory has inserted herself into another dojo, but it’s not a family like Miyagi-do. Sensei Kim Da-Eun’s students are cold and disciplined. Their movements are deadly and precise, and when Tory’s strike is blocked by an up swinging arm, it feels like hitting concrete. She leaves the first few trainings with purple bruises and wet eyes. Kreese watches with arms folded and brow furrowed as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t.
…..
At night, Kreese sits with Tory by a bonfire while the other students obey curfew. He lets her break the rules and it makes her feel special, like a babysitter allowing a child to watch movies past bedtime.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Kreese says. He’s said it before. Here, in the quiet dark, she knows this conversation will be different.
Tory replies, “Thanks,” and it isn’t dismissive like in the past. This time she means it.
“You hold anger inside, but you’ve forgotten how to use it. Training with…LaRusso…has made you weak. You’re letting your emotions defeat you.”
He’s stern and direct, and sounds like every authority figure she’s ever known. Tory huffs sharply through her nose. She doesn’t want to say Kreese is right, but he knows he is.
“Everyone at Miyagi-do,” Kreese spits, “they live in their fantasy world of butterflies and rainbows. They don’t understand the reality we endure – how cruel life can be.” He gestures towards the fire that cracks and sizzles and consumes. “They don’t know what it’s like to struggle, to lose someone, to be alone.”
Tory is quiet a moment, jaw tightening, thoughts overwhelming. “They don’t understand,” she parrots forcefully, eyes wide. “Sam, Miguel, Robby…” A choke silences her halfway through. “I needed to fight. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone! They wanted me to act like everything was okay, and it’s not! It was like I was inconveniencing them by being upset my mother died. And I thought…I thought they were my friends.”
Kreese leans back, chin tilted upwards, eyes drawn down. He says, “Tomorrow, I want you to think about how Miyagi-do abandoned you, how your friends dismissed your pain, how LaRusso fed you lies. I want you to think about how they care more about keeping up appearances than protecting their sister. Take that anger and make it your strength.”
Tory’s eyes are stern but her mouth quivers. He sounds wise, like he’s lived this before, and she nods in agreement. She knows not to trust him, yet trusts him with her heart because she believes his heart is the same.
…..
The next morning at training, the air is crisp and damp. It feels refreshing on Tory’s hot skin, though her lungs burn with every breath. She’s already been run ragged, but steps forward obediently for sparring.
Her opponent is a young man who’s trained under Sensei Kim since childhood. His ideals, relationships, and instincts have been molded by Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai is his life. For Tory, Cobra Kai is a means to an end.
They bow, and he’s animated, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Tory readies her stance, stiff and tense. She’s on the attack immediately, lunging and swinging haphazardly. Her opponent dodges and counters with ease. He can see she’ll wear herself out.
Another near miss and Tory’s frustrated. She retreats and he lets her – flashes a grin that he makes sure she sees. Behind her opponent stands Sensei Kreese with fist curled under his chin. Sensei Kim is to the right, watching with nose in the air. Kreese convinced her to allow Tory entrance to her grandfather’s dojo, and Sensei Kim put her belief in him.
Tory can’t help but look to Kreese for guidance, with a twisted expression that says she’s ready to tear herself apart. He nods, barely noticeable, but it’s all the reassurance she needs not to feel alone.
Tory inhales sharply and re-centers herself. She’s always made her own rules because she had to, because she was young and weighted with responsibility and had to figure life out on her own.
Now, she does as she’s told.
Tory thinks about being an outsider at school, an outsider at Miyagi-do - working long hours and late nights while her peers spent weekends at parties. She thinks about being hungry, in every sense of the word: Starving for food, for love, for normalcy.
She gave her heart to Miguel and Robby, just for them to watch her run away sobbing and do nothing. She thinks about all the time wasted fighting Sam, just to reconcile and then discover Sam will never understand her.
Tory misses her mother - feels an overwhelming, suffocating sorrow - grief for her mother and grief for herself. She thinks about how her little brother had even less time with their mother than she did. She feels guilty.
Her eyes are wet again, but this time the tears feel like daggers. Tory circles her sparring partner like a predator, and he’s forced to follow her lead. She comes at him, swifter than before, with an attack that’s more like an assault. Tory bares her teeth, hot rage shooting up her spine and through her fist as it connects with her opponent’s head and knocks him to the ground with a sickening thud.
The young man touches a shaking hand to his lip and tastes blood. Sensei Kim’s expression is unreadable. She doesn’t berate him. Doesn’t coddle him, either.
“Excellent, Miss Nichols!” Kreese applauds. Tory’s attention snaps to him and his praise brings her back down, like being released from a spell.
Tory revels in the looks of surprise and fear on the other students’ faces, and for the first time in days, she smiles. For the first time in days, she feels confident and strong - and it scares her. This wasn’t supposed to feel good. This wasn’t supposed to be where she belonged.