Carmen got a higher score than Daniel on a drumming game.

He finished first in a racing game.

At the crowded fighting game simulator machines, she won two to one.

To celebrate their victories, Mr. Stone had dropped the three of them off at Taito Station in Akihabara, the biggest arcade Daniel had ever been to. They changed out of their fighting uniforms and wore hoods to keep their identities hidden, and Rafiq had strolled off alone a while ago.

Every floor was like a city of arcade machines, with rhythm games, racing games, three different themes of fighting game simulations, and their ultimate challenge: a claw machine. On the third try, to a symphony of bleeps and pixelated sound effects, Daniel finally snagged the pink teddy bear they were aiming for.

“Yes! Yes!” Daniel exclaimed.

“You’re almost there!” Carmen said. Chip perched on Daniel’s shoulder, flapping his wings with excitement.

Bear in hand, the claw trembled, and Daniel held his breath as he slowly guided it over to the exit hole. It dropped, and he threw his hands to his head in surprise, but the bear barely landed inside of the exit hole.

Daniel whooped and pumped his fists in celebration, and Carmen threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly. He pulled the pink teddy bear from the dispenser hole and handed it to her, living in her bright smile.

“Not too bad, right? Told you I’d get it on the first try.”

“That was your fourth try.”

“But it was my first try trying my hardest,” he said, taking her hand in his and leading her into a casual stroll down the aisle of arcade games. The floor was striped green and white, and figures and posters of anime characters on the walls smiled down at them. “Do you like it?”

“I’ve always wanted a scented bear.”

“Didn’t you already have some back home?”

“Yeah, but I bought those!” She clutched the bear tighter. “I always wanted one that I won. I just didn’t think it would cost so much more.”

She wasn’t wrong. After so many attempts, the cost of winning the claw machine was more than if he’d simply bought one from a store.

“If you love it, it was worth every penny,” Daniel said. But, the bright pink shade of the bear looked too familiar, and it brought his mind elsewhere. “You know, when we were talking about our fights, I forgot to ask something. Did you use your protein shake…medicine…performance enhancers?”

Carmen’s eyes went wide. Her gaze sank to the carpet. “No. I didn’t.”

“So that was all you?” He patted her on the back. “Then this was really worth all the money.”

“I couldn't ask for a better reward.” Carmen stopped once they reached the window, looking down on the busy street below from the sixth floor. “Actually, I take that back. An answer would be an even better reward.”

“An answer?”

She let go of his hand and held her bear with both arms. “Remember what I’d asked, when you first found me using my experimental performance-enhancing protein shake medicine?”

“No way it’s actually called that mouthful! But…yeah. I do.”

Daigo’s cocky expression still haunted him, bringing him back to his heartfelt lecture about their dimensional conflicts.

Daniel sighed. “Daigo, that guy I fought, he was from another dimension, too. I kinda left that part out.”

“What? Why?”

“Because he made me think about your question more, and I figured it out. I’m done being on the fence. I know that I love this dimension more than where I came from, and…I know that I love you more than anyone from back home, too.”

Carmen blinked in surprise, stiffening, as if she didn’t expect him to say those words. She turned to face the window, watching the cars below. In the reflection, a flush crept across her cheeks. “I’m—I love you too, Daniel. Aren’t you still gonna use your wish to get back home? That’s getting rid of your entire life here.”

“Yeah, I’m still on the fence on that part.”

Below, a man crossed the street, holding his hand out and forcing a taxi to stop for him while he hurried across.

“I never would’ve seen Japan in my entire life back home, let alone Paris. I don’t want to leave this all behind, but I could try using my wish to erase my memory, too. Or keep the memories and take myself back home to the exact moment when I left. Or connect here with back home.”

“You’d make a portal?”

“Yeah! That way I could just go back and forth and come see you guys!”

Carmen gave him a look over her glasses, tightening her eyebrows and lips in skepticism.

“Oh, I definitely just said something really dumb.”

“Were you gonna wish for world peace next? History’s shown enough that we have a hard time not fighting each other on the same planet. Your idea would introduce an entire second world of conflict.”

“Not if I put Multiversal world peace in the cards. I could wish for everyone to sing Kumbaya twenty-four seven! Really, though, if the Wishstone can do anything, why not that?”

“World peace’ is obviously too vague,” Carmen said. “You also couldn’t logically wish for no one to fight again, because then you’d destroy the whole system of fighting that creates The One anyway. There’s just too many variables.”

“Ah, yeah. But anything specific works.”

“It seems like that. Do you have a better idea for your wish?”

“No, but that’s got me thinking about something else. The One can use the Wishstone anytime, right? Last time, The One sent a System announcement to let everyone know what they changed. Have they made wishes without doing that?”

Carmen nodded. “It’s happened a few times as long as I can remember, yeah. Then everyone’s just left to theorize and figure out what’s new.”

“Did it happen around three years ago?”

“I think so…yeah! I remember it happening during eighth grade, because everyone lost their minds wondering what got changed. Why?”

“Because Daigo said he showed up here around three years ago. So if the One could hypothetically use a wish as specific as ‘bring this guy from this dimension’…”

Carmen gasped, her eyes widening as the same realization hit her brain. “You’re saying the One might have wished you here, too?!”

“Maybe! Were there any blank dishes recently?”

“Before the Burst Update, no, not since several months ago.”

Daniel watched the traffic jam building far below, as rush hour hit. There was a chance the One wished him here too, perhaps on a delayed wish. But, why were they wishing people from other dimensions?

Why him?

“There y’all are!”

To their right, Rafiq waved at them and paced down the aisle, carrying cute stuffed plushies of a pink cat and a cup of noodles with eyes. “Oh, shit, my bad. I’m not interrupting no cute stuff, am I? I peep the bear!”

“You’re talking about us doing cute stuff? Who’s all this for?” Daniel said.

“Not me, dawg. My mom really wants a souvenir, so I used my tickets to grab these.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” Carmen said. “What did you get?”

Rafiq shrugged. “I bought her stuff first. I ain’t really have anything left after that. Y’all tryna call Mr. Stone, though? I’m getting hungry.”

Daniel pulled out his phone. At that moment, it went off with a familiar yet chilling text notification.

Jazz Hands Insurance had sent him a message.

Stolen story; please report.

They abandoned the previous subject immediately, and Carmen and Rafiq waited with bated breath for him to read it aloud.

“It’s a different person. John Bubbles got sick and couldn’t come to the office, so they assigned him as our handler instead.”

“Oh, no, no more Bubbles,” Rafiq mimed tears. “Get to the important part, bro!”

Daniel read further, excitement rising in his chest. “They’re congratulating us on our wins. We’re still in the program!”

----------------------------------------

The smoky scent of incense seasoned the air as Jonathan touched his toes, marveling at the fact that it didn't hurt anymore at all.

In the training room of her penthouse, Akane stood behind him and pressed her warm soothing palm into the wound along his back as he flexed his arms and struck different stances, each meant to push his limits on where he could move each muscle.

It had been too long since he relied on his arms for fighting. The wound was too deep for him to use his legs and mainly kicks ever again. They learned that the hard way during their last training session, when an attempt left him paralyzed on the ground for a minute straight.

He had to abandon the crane kicks of his Stream stances, returning to his classic Monsoon style. Relying on his upper body, he had to move with purpose, striking with accuracy the moment his opponent showed weakness in their advance.

Jonathan released his stance, feeling the tension leave his body. Akane pulled back.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I believe so. Do you require any initial setup before—”

Akane was already lunging at him as he turned. A high palm thrust, aimed for his jaw, her hand shooting forth like a bullet.

Move like water.

Jonathan drew in a sharp breath and weaved aside. His back ached and his shoulders threatened to freeze once again, but they’d spent their time practicing well exactly which muscles to tense and which to relax to minimize the pain.

Strike like thunder.

He exhaled sharply, tightened his fingers and stopped an inch before driving them into Akane’s neck. Jonathan continued into the final step, holding his breath, bracing his body and holding the tension in his triceps and core to still the pain.

He relaxed. She swept low.

Breath in. Loosen the muscles. Dodge. Breathe out. Tighten.

Calm before the storm.

Jonathan paused, his knuckle a moment away from striking Akane’s temple.

She panted. “I agree, Jonathan. You seem ready enough for me.” Akane rose to her feet as Jonathan wiped his sweat and fixed his dreads around his forehead. “But, are you ready for her?”

Jonathan rubbed his wrist, feeling the soreness. “Indeed. This is as far as I will go without facing her.”

“Yet, if you fail, you’ll be consumed by your darkness.”

“Perhaps, but if I don’t try, I will never be strong enough to protect my students myself.” The last time he looked into her eyes, his life’s work burned around him once again. Jonathan shuddered. “I must.”

Akane smiled, closing her eyes. Her fingers wiggled, plucking at strings in the air that didn’t exist. As she raised her hands, the flames of the candles along the wall intensified, until geysers of flame devoured themselves. Smoke ebbed from Akane’s fingernails, hissing from her closed eyelids.

“I always loved your confidence, Jonathan Stone!”

Her eyes flew open like gaping, broiling pits of lava. Jonathan wasn’t ready; she spit a cloud of black smoke into his face. He hacked and coughed as it swallowed his vision.

Even when he could breathe again, the darkness remained. The candles were gone. In the face of infinite darkness, Jonathan calmed his heart. His footsteps sent silver ripples dancing through the void. He kept walking far past where the walls used to be. Ahead, a light rose from the watery surface, forming the shape of a young girl as he approached.

A pang of recognition seized Jonathan’s chest. He knew that sharp and narrow jawline, that black hair, those piercing eyes finding ten questions in an instant, even if he couldn’t see them. A blurry haze obscured from her nose to her forehead, but he recognized her all the same.

“Sensei Stone? Where are we?” Haruki Takahara said, her tone fragile and scared. She wore the signature white and ocean blue gi of the Monsoon Arts Academy.

He’d only seen her in memories, in distant flashes of nightmares. Jonathan crouched down to her level. His throat tightened. To see her in person, alive and in front of him — he put his hands on her shoulders, so she’d never disappear again.

“Haruki?”

Red mist escaped his lips. It oozed forth, enveloping her body, forming caked blood stains and tearing her pristine gi. Her straight black hair became wild and disheveled, and her hands dropped top fists at her side, dripping the blood of her own peers.

“Stone…!” Haruki growled.

Blood on her hands. Blood on the walls. Blood on the windows.

He’d seen this form of her enough in his nightmares of the night she destroyed the Monsoon Arts school. The night he’d caught her playing with discarded human organs, and she snapped under his pressure.

She stomped forward, and Jnathan released her shoulder, stumbling back. “I was never good enough for you. You were always putting so much damn pressure on me!”

“No…!”

The red mist transformed his words once again, forming an aura around her body. Haruki grew taller, leaner, sharper, shedding the torn gi for stylish, yet haunting black clothes with pink highlights in her hair and piercings.

Apex glared down at him.

“Hello, Jonathan!”

She kicked him in the mouth, launching him several feet away in the darkness.

“What’s wrong, old man? Get up. Look at me. Look at your failure.”

Apex grabbed him by the dreads and yanked him to his knees, holding him by the scalp just as she did in front of his burning dojo.

“No!”

Breathe in. Relax. Strike. Breathe out. Tense.

Apex dodged his throat strike and welted his jaw, letting him fall.

“This is your new style? Pathetic. You teach yourself just as sloppily as you taught us.”

“No. I’m not a horrible teacher. I taught them. I brought them to—”

“To what? Fame? Glory?” Apex threw her head back in laughter. “I won’t stop hunting you, Jonathan. You’re only leading them to their deaths.”

Her iron grip seized his throat, forcing him to watch. In the darkness, a second Apex stood over Rafiq and Carmen’s limp corpses, face down in the black water. Chip flickered in and out of his muscular form, while Apex choked Daniel a foot off of the ground.

“How can you call yourself a good teacher when you let a child sneak in a box of intestines?” Apex said. “You were negligent. You let me have access to that. Imagine what I could’ve become if you were a proper teacher.”

To his right, he saw an alternate world. Haruki, the same age as now, wore a matured version of the Monsoon Arts Fighter uniform. Flashes of colors burst and exploded around her hands as she ambiently tested different abilities.

“I could’ve been the greatest,” Other-Haruki said. “The only Fighter in history with a perfect moveset. I could’ve been the new One, and you, the legendary teacher of the One.”

“But you messed up,” Apex said. “You pushed me. You trapped me. You ruined me!”

She slammed her fist into his nose hard enough to plunge him into the frigid ocean of darkness. His vision blurred as he sank further, fighting the void of oxygen threatening to tear his chest apart. Jonathan flailed and jerked to try and swim upwards, but the wound in his back paralyzed him, the permanent reminder of his own failure.

Deep in the ocean of blackness, those weren’t whale noises. It was the final cries and shouts of his students, as Haruki killed them with her own two hands, spilling the blood of his own failures. She was right. If he was different — if he was better — none of this would’ve happened. Haruki wouldn’t have become the monster she was today. His other students would have still been alive.

He would’ve still been a Fifty.

Yet…why couldn’t he see her eyes?

Because that is not her.

That wasn’t Haruki. This wasn’t real. That wasn’t her: it’s a figment of his imagination, representing the very same words he used to scold himself.

The words he was here to defeat.

Hands of light pushing him upwards as a newfound energy surged inside of him.

You aren’t powerless, Mr. Stone.

You’re still an awesome teacher. You have students again!

It was never my fault. She was insane from the start.

The words and spirits of the new School of Flow guided Jonathan back towards the surface, numbing the pain in his back. He broke through the surface and pulled himself to his feet. Apex and the Other-Haruki turned to face him in surprise.

Jonathan smiled. “Allow me to teach you one last lesson.”

Apex fired a blast of yellow energy, shouting with effort.

Breath in. Loosen the muscles. Dodge. Breathe out. Tighten.

Jonathan easily pivoted aside and reached out into the air. The silver hands formed a cane that he plucked and stabbed into the ground, supporting himself.

Apex grit her teeth. “You should’ve stayed dead!” She pulled a knife from the blackness and closed the distance in a single bloodthirsty bound.

Jonathan knew she’d stab high with a left-handed thrust; she always had a habit of attacking from the left first.

Breath in. Loosen the muscles. Dodge. Breathe out. Tighten.

He ducked and slammed his cane into her stomach, smashing her nose with a thrust. As she reeled, he grabbed her by the wrist.

“Never let yourself be bound by guilt, Haruki. Guilt over past trauma is only a shackle that binds you to the past and restricts your future.”

Apex twisted against his arm and tried striking, but he smacked her attack aside from his cane and pulled her closer by the neck.

“You will restrict my future no longer. What happened was not my fault. I raised you like a daughter, but I did not turn you into a psychopath, and I did not fail the rest of my students. I accept that truth, and you won’t hold me down.”

“You really think you can free yourself that easily?” Apex grinned. “You’ll have to kill me, Jonathan. And we both know—”

“We both know that’s what I’ll do if that’s what it takes to protect my students.”

Calm before the storm.

Jonathan flexed a two finger thrust, and blue energy trailed his hand as he plunged through her throat. Silver blood sprayed and streamed from Apex’s neck, spilling into the water below and purifying it, banishing the darkness once and for all. The void became light, and the darkness above brightened to a blinding blue sky.

Apex faded away in Jonathan’s arms, and he squinted against the light of freedom. Before he knew it, he was back in of Akane’s training room. The smoke cleared, and he pinned her to the ground in a wrist hold.

Akane laughed. “I think you’ve passed, Jonathan.”

Jonathan returned her heartfelt smile and the love in her eyes as he pulled her to her feet. “Please. I could not have done this without you. I think you know a better name.”

Akane ran her hands up the side of his head and pulled him closer into a kiss. “My love?”

“Your love. Flow. Because I’m back, Akane.” In the corner, his phone went off atop his discarded shirt with a call from Daniel. “And I must pick up my students.”