𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 ᵃˣᵉˡ ᵏᵒᵛᵃᶜᵉᵛⁱᶜ

10

-🥋-

chapter ten

MADDIE

I stand watching Cobra Kai fight their match, unknowingly resting my hands on the collar of my gi.

"Madison Stone."

Immediately, at the sound of the voice, my blood runs cold, my eyes widening slightly. Silver walks up beside me, smiling. I suck in a breath, turning to face him.

"I'm glad to see you finally made it," he says. The thing that disgust me the most, is the fact that he's smiling at me as if he didn't give me the biggest scar on my body.

"What do you want?" I snap at him, my palms tightening around the collar of my gi.

He shrugs. "Only to welcome you to your rightful place at the Sekai Taikai. It's sad to see that your new dojo doesn't feel the same based on how they left you out in the cold on that first match. Maybe they don't see a champion when they look at you. I, on the other hand, always saw the champion inside you. I helped build it."

I clench my jaw, looking up at him. I can feel tears forming in my eyes at his words. He steps forward slightly. "You know, there are loopholes in the system. In a heartbeat, I can have a spot ready for you on my team."

My mouth opens slightly as if I'm going to reply, closing again when I've got nothing to say to this man. "No. I can't do that to them."

"What have they done for you?" he asks me.

My lips curls upward as I wince. Nothing, is the answer to his question. They've done nothing for me other than give me two friends, and even more people that doubt me.

"Did you come here to win? My team is undefeated. You'd have a much better chance if you were on the winning team, with athletes up to your level."

I can feel myself questioning his words, leaning into them, and I hate it. I hate it with everything in me, but I can't walk away from him.

"It's up to you, Ms. Stone." He gives me one last smile, before walking off.

I let out the breath I was holding, turning my head to look up at the scoreboard. Iron Dragons sit at the very top, with Miyagi-Do at the bottom. This is what Silver does, he finds your weaknesses and words his sentences to manipulate. It's working. I can feel myself wondering what it would be like to have a team that supports me.

I shake my head quickly, moving my entire body away from the spot and onto the mats as our team begins our next round. Tensions is riled up inside me as I bounce on the balls of my feet as I listen to the pep talk Daniel gives us.

"So, we need to win this one to stay in the tournament. We know it's hard with Silver here, but we're not fighting his team now."

Johnny nods at Daniel's words. "We've heard this garbage going around about loyalty, but almost all of us have trained somewhere else at some point. What matters is where our asses are now. We're Miyagi-Do."

"Come on y'all, let's go," Miguel claps, turning to the team.

I follow behind the team, running my hand along my neck, while shaking the other one by my side. Shaking the tension out of is as I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet.