Miyagi-Do Karate

Chapter 10: The cracks begin to form

Samantha LaRusso was really starting to hate social media. Even though Miguel had utterly humiliated Kyler and his friends, the popular kids still kept tagging her in derogatory post. Daniel came out of the family dojo, looking for a sparring partner since Samuel, who was on his way back from his camping trip, was not back yet.
"Hey, hey. What's going on? You going for a swim? You gonna invite the girls over?" Daniel asked Sam, seeing the sombet expression on her face before remembering that Samuel had convinced Samantha to stop hanging around Yasmine during the events of the Halloween dance.
"No. Not today." Samantha replied.
"Great.You wanna spar with your old man?" Daniel asked.
"Karate? What happened to Samuel?" Samantha asked in shock.
"Yeah, you don't have to say karate like it was the flu. And Samuel is not back from his camping trip yet. He will be in a few hours though. I was thinking of having him over for dinner tomorrow." Daniel explained. Samantha nodded. Why didn't she do karate now? Samuel was back in her life. But then she decided against it. It reminded her of the fact that Samuel had left to Fresno to begin with.
"I haven't done karate in a long time." Samantha told Daniel.
"It hasn't been too long. Remember that time you nailed me in the jaw with the flip kick? Samuel kept laughing at me since I had to eat soup for a week. It was funny though." Daniel replied.
"Today's just not great. I've got a lot of homework." Samantha responded.
"All right. I gotcha. No sweat. Gotta hit the book, you hit the books." Daniel said. Samantha smiled and nodded.

Samuel was looking through his social media pages and was surprised when he was seeing Samantha getting cyber bullied. Samuel sighed.
"Something wrong?" Ramon asked.
"Remember when your sensei painted Mr. LaRusso's billboard?" Samuel asked. Ramon nodded.
"Well now, while we were gone Kyler decided to spread a rumor about her saying that she and him... did the deed, because she loved him and suddenly started ignoring me, which I don't even know how people could believe that she was into Kyler again.." Samuel started to explain. Ramon noticed that Samuel did not comment on the part of the rumor where Kyler pretty much tried to say he was better than Samuel, but he knew Samuel was not the kind of guy who focused on his own problems when his friends were down.
"So Miguel stood up to Kyler, gave him and his buddies quite a beatdown, but it's not stopping Yasmine from being a total psychopath and running wild with the rumors." Samuel explained.
"That girl has the most annoying superiority complex." Ramon said. Samuel nodded in agreement.

The next day:
Samuel tied his headband on his forehead before he got his backpack out of his school locker. Sure, he didn't need the headband in school, but it was Mr. Miyagi's last gift to him, and he liked to think that he had a part of his old mentor with him.
"Looks like Big Man on campus is back." He heard a few people saying. Kyler was walking by and he froze when he saw Samuel. Samuel turned to look at Kyler, wondering why he was staring at hin for. Kyler ran as fast as he could, slamming into another row of lockers before picking himself back up and running.
"What could make him run like.... Hey Samuel!" Nicole said happily as she ran to him and hugged him, followed by Tahj, Marie, and Alfredo.
"Hey guys." Samuel said cheerfully.
"How was your camping trip?" Marie asked. Samuel smiled.
"It was great! While I was over there I met another karate dojo's students and their sensei gave me a flyer for the All Valley Tournament coming up! I'm going to ask Mr. LaRusso if I can compete!" Samuel replied.
"Isn't the All Valley the same tournament Mr. LaRusso won, twice?" Tahj asked. Samuel nodded.
"Yup. I just gotta fight in it! I want to see where I stand amongst other martial artist." Samuel answered. Alfredo chuckled at his friend's enthusiam.
"I swear, the way you get excited about fighting... you're as bad as an anime character sometimes." Alfredo joked. Samuel chuckled in amusement at the joke at his expense.

Robby Keene left his friends at his apartment as he started working at his new job working at LaRusso Auto. Robby didn't want the job out of some kind of necessity, but rather because he wanted to piss off his father. To his credit though, he was actually a hard worker. Daniel decided to ask his employee Anoush about him.
"Hey, how's the new kid working out?" Daniel asked.
"Great. We got a bunch of pain in the ass stuff piled up for weeks... inventories, sticker swaps. Kid knocked most of it out before lunch." Anoush replied.
"So you're saying I should fire you and give him your job." Daniel teased. Anoush played along as he pointed at Robby.
"Oh, that new kid? No, he's terrible. Very unmotivated. You gotta keep explaining stuff to him. I'm pretty sure he's got a head injury." Anoush said. Daniel smiled.
"Something on your mind?" Anoush asked.
"Yeah. I'm really looking forward to working with my students at the dojo today." Daniel explained. Anoush smiled.
"Your mini me is back, isn't me?" Anoush asked, refferring to Samuel. Daniel nodded.
"Anyway, tell the kid to keep up the good work." Daniel said as he walked back to his office.