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The blood mixed with the rain and fell, wet and heavy, to the ground, seeping between the cracks in cement that had been kicked and pummeled to rubble. The wind screamed.
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Shi-Woon believed in Chun-Woo with the fever of someone who had never believed in anyone before. He had stumbled through life, head down, knowing the world was unfair and too tired to fight back. Then Chun-Woo-Sunsengnim had ripped a hole in his life like a tornado. And it had been terrifying and painful, but in the end he had a life whereas before he had had nothing. He had looked straight at death and he had decided to believe in the world. And in his master.
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The fight had been the stuff of legends. Three buildings with gaping holes, two skyscrapers toppled, and the greatest martial artists of Murim hadn’t even been able to approach the eye of the storm.
There was no previous record in history of two masters of the Nine Dragon School fighting each other.
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When the rumors drifted in, Shi-Woon had been unwilling to believe them. The S.U.C. had racked up crimes throughout the city—robbing convenience stores, destroying whole streets, barging into wealthy homes and taking what they pleased, and killing martial artists, the police, and random bystanders in broad daylight. Theft, murder, and rape. The last had truly appalled Shi-Woon, as he still remembered what Chang-Ho had tried to do to Sae-Hee. How could someone like that now claim to be his master’s apprentice?
He wanted to stop the S.U.C., and not the least because they were dragging his master’s name through mud.
He would have fought anyone who claimed that Chun-Woo-Sunsengnim knew of all this, and was the one behind it.
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For a battle that lasted almost ten hours, it was over in a minute. One brought in an arm for a punch just a hair too close, and a swift movement twisted it clean off, breaking off at the elbow. But as the blood spilled over his hands, the other hesitated millisecond, long enough for his opponent’s spare arm to drive straight through his middle.
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Shi-Woon had continued to deny whatever Jin-Ie and Sera told him. He hadn’t been able to accept that Chun-Woo truly was the leader of the S.U.C. until he led the attack on the Sun-Woo clan headquarters, fighting alongside the skull-masked underlings. And when he had seen Chun-Woo, Shi-Woon had retreated, pulled back, refused to fight.
Only one Nine Arts Dragon could stop another, Sera had told him. She’d promised help, fighters under his command, a way to fix his Ki center. Shi-Woon had only tried harder to pull away from the martial arts world, in accordance with what he believed were his master’s wishes.
It wasn’t until So-Sul’s death at his master’s hands that he accepted that Chun-Woo had to be stopped.
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One fell, and the other dropped to his knees next to him.
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Even then, Shi-Woon hadn’t completely stopped believing in Chun-Woo. He’d wanted to stop his Sunsengnim for his own sake. “I can’t let Master do bad things anymore,” he told Jin-le with a wistful smile.
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Slowly, gently, Chun-Woo removed his hand from Shi-Woon’s chest. It was coated in a thick layer of blood. He wrapped his one remaining hand around his student’s back as he toppled forward.
“Shh, it’s okay. It won’t hurt much longer,” he said, rubbing the other’s back in slow circles. “You were amazing back there. You’ve mastered every one of my techniques, and I have nothing left to teach you. I’m proud of you, kid. I really am. You gave a fight worthy of a Nine Arts Dragon, and did both me and my master proud. Another few years, and I think you could have surpassed us both. Now that’s something, I don’t think I ever surpassed the old man. But I didn’t learn foot techniques from seeing them once.
Just two years of training, and a barely mended Ki center, and you took my arm. That’s something no one else in Murim could do when I was fighting them half-dead. That was a fight you could be proud of even as a loss. But you didn’t die for nothing. Everyone had time to evacuate those buildings before I was able to break through. You did good, kid. I’m honored that I had you as my apprentice.
Shh, it’s okay. Everything is okay, you can just close your eyes and rest.”
With great care, Chun-Woo laid his student’s body down on the shattered cement. Then he picked his right arm off the ground and began to walk. He still had the last surviving members of Murim to kill.
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The End
kuv28 Wed 11 May 2022 07:13PM UTC
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