Chapter 3: An Old Art for a New Age
The alley was suddenly quiet, save for the sound of my own ragged breathing and Kaito's pathetic whimpering about his nose. He was yelling insults at Goro's retreating back, but there was no heat in them. The fight, or whatever you could call the chaotic pinball game I had just starred in, was over. And standing in the fading light, looking like he'd been carved from the shadows themselves, was Sensei Akai.
My heart, which had been performing a frantic drum solo, promptly fell into my stomach. It's one thing to get into a bizarre, accidental fight. It's another thing entirely for your quiet, observant teacher to witness the whole embarrassing spectacle. I was expecting a lecture, a trip to the principal's office, a phone call to my parents that would end with my dad looking at me with disappointment. That would be worse than any punch.
"Sensei, I swear, I didn't mean to!" The words tumbled out of my mouth. "They started it! I just… I just fell on one of them! And the other one… his hand slipped, I think? And the third one ran away for some reason!"
Sensei Akai just raised a single, calm hand to silence me. He walked past me, his footsteps making no sound on the cracked pavement. He stopped in front of Kaito. I braced myself. Here it comes. He'll check if the kid is okay and then I'll be suspended for life.
But Akai didn't offer a hand. He just looked down at Kaito, his expression unreadable. He didn't say a word. Kaito's stream of curses faltered, then died in his throat. He looked up at our teacher, and whatever he saw in that calm, steady gaze made the color drain from his face. He scrambled to his feet, helped the wheezing Hebi up, and the two of them scurried out of the alley without a single backwards glance.
Now, we were alone. The silence felt heavier than my own body.
"Tell me, Po," Sensei Akai said, finally turning to me. His voice was as quiet as ever. "When it was happening, did you feel powerful?"
The question caught me off guard. Powerful? "No, Sensei," I said honestly, looking at my own paws. "I felt like a ball in a dryer machine. I was just… scared."
A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "Good. That means you are not a brute." He took a step closer. "I did not see a scared child. I saw instinct. Your body knew what to do when your mind did not. It absorbed their aggression and returned it to them. A perfect, if chaotic, execution of redirection. They defeated themselves using you as a mirror."
I stared at him, confused. Mirror? I was pretty sure I was a panda.
"My Quirk," he continued, as if sensing my confusion, "is called 'Perfect Equilibrium.' It isn't flashy. I can't fly or create explosions. It simply means I can never lose my balance. For years, I was told it was a passive, useless Quirk for hero work. A parlor trick." He looked me straight in the eyes, and for the first time, I felt a profound connection to this small, strange teacher. "We are the same, you and I. We have been given gifts that this world does not know how to value. It sees a soft body and a quiet skill and calls them weak."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the air between us.
"Your body is a gift, Po. A natural fortress. But a fortress without a soldier to command it is just a pile of stones. You must learn to be the soldier. There is an old way, an art form that teaches such things. I want to teach you… Kung Fu."
The words hung in the air. "Kung Fu?" I whispered, the name tasting foreign on my tongue. "Like… like in the old black-and-white movies my grandpa watches? But Sensei, this is the age of Quirks, of laser beams and super-strength! Who learns Kung Fu anymore?"
"A Quirk is a tool," he said, his voice gaining a quiet intensity. "It's a talent you are born with. But talent without skill is wasted potential. Kung Fu is not just fighting. It is discipline. It is the harmony of mind, body, and spirit. It will teach you how to turn your panicked flinch into a deliberate block. It will teach you how to turn your bouncy belly from a simple air bag into a precise weapon of counter-attack. It will transform you from just 'a panda' into a warrior."
My mind was spinning. A warrior? Me? The kid whose greatest ambition for the day was a bowl of noodles? It was too much. It was terrifying.
Sensei Akai saw the storm of doubt in my eyes. He didn't press me. He simply gave a small bow.
"I have a place where I train. A quiet place, forgotten by this loud world. Come with me tomorrow after school. There are no commitments. Just come and see with your own eyes."
He started to walk away, then paused and turned back to me, his expression becoming intensely serious, more so than I had ever seen it.
"One last thing, Po," he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "If you choose to walk this path, the man who teaches you cannot be the same man who teaches you history. At school, in that world, I am Akai-sensei. You are my student. Nothing more."
He took a step closer, and the air around him seemed to change, to grow heavier with unspoken history.
"But in the dojo... in that world... you will not call me 'Sensei.' You will call me 'Shifu.' It is a title of respect, of tradition. In that place, I will not be your teacher. I will be your master."
He looked at me one last time, his sharp eyes searching mine. "Then you can decide if you want to remain a stone that the waves crash against, or if you want to learn how to become the wave itself."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the evening shadows as silently as he had arrived.
I stood alone in the alley, the two names echoing in my head. Akai-sensei. Master Shifu. It felt like he was offering me a key to a secret door, a door that led from my world into his. And I whispered to the panda in the glass, a single, hopeful question.
"A wave?"