Part I – Riku's Perspective
The crowd had finally dispersed from the day's accidental spectacle, but Riku lingered on the edge of the courtyard. His classmates joked and jeered about "Kai the accidental prodigy," but Riku's sharp eyes remained on the boy who had somehow humiliated him in front of everyone.
It wasn't humiliation in the ordinary sense—Riku wasn't crushed or broken. Instead, he was intrigued.
The fall, the stumble, the awkward dodge that became a winning strike… It hadn't been skill, at least not in the conventional sense. Yet something in Kai's movement had felt deliberate.
Or rather, too lucky to just be luck.
"Impossible," Riku muttered to himself, leaning against the wooden pillar near the dojo's shadow. His fingers twitched slightly, recalling the block he had thrown, the pressure of contact, the imbalance that followed. Kai had shifted weight at the exact wrong—and therefore right—time.
It can't be coincidence… Can it?
For the first time in years, Riku's pride wasn't comforted by his own dominance. Instead, it prickled with curiosity.
When he returned home that evening, his grandfather—the retired master who had trained Riku from childhood—noticed his silence.
"You fought today," the old man said, pouring tea with steady hands.
Riku sat down. "I lost."
The porcelain cup paused midair. His grandfather raised a bushy brow. "To whom?"
Riku hesitated, then sighed. "Kai."
The old man almost dropped the teacup. "Kai? The boy who naps through lessons?"
"Yes," Riku admitted through clenched teeth. "But it wasn't… normal. He moved like someone who doesn't care about rules. Not sloppy, not clean. Just… something else."
The grandfather sipped slowly, eyes narrowing. "Perhaps you've met someone who sees the fight differently."
Riku didn't reply. But inside, his chest tightened. No. He's just a fluke. He has to be.
And yet, as he went to bed that night, Riku couldn't sleep. The image of Kai's ridiculous grin—half embarrassed, half triumphant—wouldn't leave his mind.
For the first time, Riku felt the itch to chase.
Part II – Kai's Resolve
Kai lay flat on his futon, staring at the cracked ceiling of his room. His victory over Riku was the talk of the school. Students whispered, teachers raised brows, and even the janitor gave him a respectful nod that day.
But Kai knew the truth.
"That wasn't skill," he groaned, rolling over and burying his face in the pillow. "That was… physics. Just… probability gone wild."
Yet the thrill of it wouldn't leave him. He replayed the stumble, the twist of Riku's arm, the way momentum betrayed the martial genius. Logic, geometry, balance—it all connected in that instant like pieces of a puzzle.
And Kai realized something: Maybe I can actually do this.
Not because he wanted glory or to prove himself. But because his logical brain had found a new toy: combat. A system made of variables, probabilities, and outcomes that could be twisted, bent, and reshaped.
"Alright," Kai whispered into the quiet. "If I survived Riku once by accident… what if I could do it on purpose?"
The thought made his chest flutter. For once, he wasn't just the lazy observer in a school of warriors. For once, he wasn't just the guy who found loopholes in cafeteria lines.
Kai sat up, fists clenched. His eyes burned with a seriousness he rarely wore.
"I'll make a style," he decided. "My own martial art. A martial art that cheats the system. Logic versus brute strength. Analysis versus instinct."
It was foolish. It was ambitious. But for Kai, it was irresistible.
Part III – Training Mishaps
The next morning, Kai began his "secret training."
He crept behind the school gym, carrying a notebook, a bottle of water, and a broomstick he had stolen from the janitor's closet.
"Step one," he said, twirling the broomstick like a staff, "understand vectors. Force equals mass times acceleration. If I can redirect acceleration—"
He swung. The broom smacked the ground, bounced, and cracked him in the forehead.
"OW! Damn physics!"
He staggered, rubbing his head. Still, he scribbled in his notebook: Note: broomsticks have recoil.
Later, he tried practicing balance by standing on one foot atop a bench.
"If center of gravity is maintained within the base of support, I won't fall," he reasoned.
Five seconds later, the bench tipped. He crashed into a garbage bin, which toppled with a loud clang!
A janitor peeked out the back door. "Kai? Why are you wrestling with trash?"
Kai jumped up, face red. "I—I'm innovating!"
The janitor squinted, muttered something about "weird kids," and walked away.
By evening, Kai had bruises on his arms, dirt on his face, and pages of frantic calculations that made no sense to anyone but him.
But his eyes gleamed with determination.
"This is it," he told himself. "Everyone else trains their bodies. I'll train my brain. Even if I look like an idiot now… I'll figure it out."
Somewhere in the distance, Riku was sharpening his resolve too.
And fate was quietly arranging their paths for another collision.