Each year, tens of thousands of people are reported missing in the U.S. Today, a young man practicing at a dojo will be reported missing.
***
"Wu-da-da-da-da-da!" A young man attacked the wizened man furiously, his hands steadily moving faster than his rapid heartbeat. The release of a short breath in the manner of the late Bruce Lee punctuated each blow. However, nothing landed, and nineteen-year-old Koji Adalwin Becker grew more and more frustrated with each failure.
In contrast with the young pupil, his sifu, Luon Yi Man, kept a serene facial expression as the teacher blocked with his eyes closed and one hand behind his back. The master was secretly pleased, though, because every attack targeted a pressure point, which was the philosophy of Dim-Mak, the mysterious but deadly martial arts taught at the Yin-Yang Self-Defense Academy in San Francisco, California.
The two continued their training session non-stop for another ten minutes before Sifu Man called for a halt. The master opened his eyes, which expressed his happiness with his pupil's progress. "Good job, Koji," the teacher praised with a smile. "You're my best pupil!" he added with mischievous eyes.
"I'm your only student, Sifu!" the pupil replied glumly with a respectful bow from his waist. This verbal exchange was an old joke between the two even though Koji WAS the last student at the dojo.
The master patted the young man on the shoulder. "Now clean up and go home. You have school tomorrow. I don't know how you keep up with your studies and homework if you're staying here so late every day. I'm headed out now to meet friends," Sifu Man said.
"Yes, Sifu!" Koji replied with another bow. The teacher enjoyed meeting his old friends over sake and karaoke, and he left the chore of cleaning the dojo to his student. The pupil joined his teacher once and regretted it. Imagine being in a room full of drunk old men, each singing poorly while trading insults for their mangled songs.
Once his sifu left the dojo, Koji entered the closet and pulled out a bucket and a big rag. He went to the washroom to fill the bucket with water. While carrying the heavy bucket, Koji walked carefully to avoid splashing water on the ground. He plunged the cloth into the water and wrung some of the moisture out.
Koji placed the wet rag on the ground. He bent his hips and leaned his torso forward until his hands were on top of the cloth. He locked his knees and started pushing the rag on the ground. "Vroom-vroom!" he said while pretending to be a race car driver at the Indianapolis 500; this was his dream when he lived overseas with his dad, who was serving in the U.S. military and stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
At first, Koji hated this chore and felt it was beneath him. But sifu insisted on him cleaning the floor over the pupil's protest, and eventually, Koji understood why. The task appeared simplistic, at first. But it required a delicate balance and concentration. If he goes too fast, his legs will soon tire out. If Koji loses his focus, his elbows will bend, and his back will slouch. This task trained the pupil's focus and concentration, and Koji was a stubborn person who took pride in doing things the right way. Thus, he worked diligently to clean the dojo before he left for the evening.
Koji's mind returned to the day he walked into the dojo for the first time. Back then, the thriving academy had many pupils, and the student practices were noisy and lively. Koji was majoring in Eastern Medicine in college, and he was intrigued by the notion of targeting acupressure points as a form of martial arts. Through research, he came across Dim-Mak and wanted to study this martial art. Unfortunately, Koji learned that Sifu Man's style of Dim-Mak focused on self-defense rather than the "death touch" which made Dim-Mak notorious within the martial arts world.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Nonetheless, Koji decided to enroll in the school. At first, the instructor made his new student study and memorize a chart which showed all the pressure points which Dim-Mak targeted. Also, Sifu Man forced him to engage in physical training to strengthen Koji's body.
However, his body was in excellent physical condition already from years of training in the Wing Chun martial arts, and Sifu Man viewed Koji as an unpolished diamond. The boy had a sharp memory and learned all 720 acupuncture points of the body quickly.
After every training session, Sifu Man would give pop quizzes to test his pupil's memory because physical fatigue often led to mental fatigue, and the teacher wanted to sharpen Koji's mental concentration. However, Koji upended the sifu's plans by answering every question correctly, regardless of how long each physical training session lasted.
A month after Koji's enrollment, Sifu Man gave up on the quizzes because he realized it was pointless since his pupil never gave a wrong answer in the short exam. The teacher recognized that Koji had a fierce determination, and this iron will would distinguish him from other martial artists in the future. Thus, the teacher elevated Koji to the status of an intermediate student after merely one month of enrollment in the dojo.
However, the backlash was swift. The other students at the academy became jealous of Koji's rapid advancement. Some students took six months or longer to reach intermediate status; others remained stuck at the novice level and even quit due to their lack of progress.
The students thought that Sifu Man had displayed favoritism because Koji was Asian, but none dared to voice this opinion to the teacher's face. Instead, the students offered other reasons: Koji was a new student who hadn't paid his dues; he needed more training to break with his previous martial arts training in Wing Chung. They were vocal and forceful in their objections to Sifu Man, who offered a simple solution: beat Koji during the next practice session.
All the students challenged Koji--and lost. Koji was a prodigy in martial arts, with extensive close-range fighting experience from his years of training in Wing Chung. His fighting instincts were sharp, and every move against him led to an immediate counterattack.
What impressed the teacher more, though, was Koji's restraint in avoiding the use of lethal attacks. The young lad respected his fellow students and passed up on big openings in his opponent's defense during combat. None of the students realized this, however; they thought Koji was "lucky" and never gave him the proper credit he deserved.
In the end, the students, who were Caucasians, Blacks, and Hispanics, publicly accused Sifu Man of racism, and most of them quit in protest. Also, the former students began to post their accusations on social media. The negative attention drove the remaining students to leave the school due to public pressure; eventually, Koji became the last student in the academy.
Of course, these accusations left out something important--Koji was half-Caucasian, too! His father was a U.S. Marine stationed at the U.S. military base in Okinawa when he met his mother, a Japanese native who also worked at the site. The two eventually married, had Koji, and returned to the States.
The parents named their child after his maternal grandfather. Despite his mixed German American-Japanese heritage, Koji's physical appearance was Asian as he possessed yellow skin and black hair. People were often surprised to learn he wasn't a full-blooded Japanese. Only when they noticed his crystal blue eyes did people realize that Koji was biracial.
When Koji was half-finished with his chore of cleaning the dojo, something came in through the open windows. He saw several Molotov cocktails! Before Koji could reach any of them, the bottles exploded! He ducked and avoided most of the exploding glass, but some pieces stuck to his shirt and cut his forearms.
Koji pulled himself up and raced to the door, only to find that the flames were too intense to touch! He desperately turned left and right and found himself trapped inside the burning building. Keeping his mind calm, Koji alertly grabbed the bucket and started running toward the bathroom to get water.
Suddenly, a black vortex popped up in front of Koji! He stopped his body in time and hopped back. It looked like a wormhole from an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Koji saw stars beyond the wormhole. However, an impossibly brutal suction force pulled his body through the vortex!