Chapter 21. Training Ground

The dojo floor was cold under her bare feet, even in summer.

Aika exhaled slowly and reset her stance. Her left foot forward, arms raised, knees bent low. Her wrists stung with the memory of yesterday's wooden drills, the slight tremor in her calves warned her she hadn't rested enough. But rest was not the point.

Discipline was.

She threw the first strike—an open-hand palm thrust followed by a swift turning kick—and immediately pulled back into defensive position.

Again.

And again.

Her shadow danced on the rice paper walls in the dim amber light of the morning. Outside, cicadas hummed in the trees, their cries folding into the silence of early summer heat. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of cedarwood and worn tatami, a quiet reminder that the ground had known many feet, many warriors.

She was not the first. She would not be the last.

"Your centre," came the voice from behind.

Low. Firm. Weathered by time.

Aika's body froze mid-strike.

"Too much tension in the shoulder," her grandfather said, stepping onto the floor with his cane. "When you strike, it is not rage that moves the body. It is clarity."

She bowed deeply. "Yes, Grandfather."

He looked her over, eyes sharp beneath a weathered brow. His white Gi was creased from years of wear, and the dragon-embroidered patch on his chest was nearly threadbare. But to Aika, he had never looked more commanding.

She had once asked him how old he was. He'd only replied, "Older than the last man who tried to challenge me."

Now he lowered himself onto the small wooden stool at the corner of the training hall, his cane resting across his knees.

"Again."

Aika turned back toward the centre. She took a breath—long and slow—grounding herself. Her grandfather's presence was like a weight behind her, one that both tested and steadied.

Strike. Block. Duck. Pivot.

Her body remembered even when her mind faltered. The rhythm of training had been etched into her since childhood. She had first stepped onto this floor at five years old, too small to reach the wooden practice dummies, too quiet to answer back when corrected.

But she had endured.

Because this place—this discipline—was hers.

And it was here that she learned who she could be.

"You're hesitating," her grandfather said after her third sequence. "Your mind is elsewhere."

Aika didn't stop. But her movements faltered—only for a second.

"I'm not," she replied, breath catching in her throat.

"You are." He stood, walking slowly toward her. "You think I do not see? Your heart is somewhere else today."

She lowered her arms at last, sweat clinging to her forehead. "I'm just… thinking."

He waited.

And in that silence, Aika finally said what had been pressing at the back of her thoughts all morning.

"I don't want to just win fights," she murmured. "I want to… stop them from happening."

Her grandfather's expression did not change, but the silence that followed was heavier than before.

He sat back down.

And when he finally spoke, it was not with correction—but memory.

"Your grandmother was like that," he said.

Aika's eyes lifted.

"She had fists like lightning. But it wasn't her power that made people stop. It was the way she stood. The way she was. Her presence told people that hurting someone near her… was simply not an option."

He looked at Aika then, eyes sharper than his tone.

"You protect with more than fists, child. You protect with presence."

Aika stared at her hands.

She'd always thought strength meant domination. Meant showing people you couldn't be broken.

But her grandfather's words slipped under her skin, reshaping something fundamental.

"Presence," she echoed softly.

He nodded. "There is power in being the one person who does not flinch. Who does not shout. Who does not step away. Presence doesn't just block harm—it makes others reconsider causing it."

She swallowed.

He tapped his cane once on the floor. "Now. Show me again."

She returned to the centre. This time, when she raised her arms, it was not just to strike.

It was to hold space.

To command air and silence and intent.

The kata flowed from her with steadiness she hadn't known she possessed. Each strike was precise. Each transition seamless.

When it ended, her grandfather was watching her—not with pride, but with quiet satisfaction.

"You're learning," he said.

That night, Aika sat on the porch outside the dojo, watching the fireflies blink into existence beneath the maple tree.

She thought about her mother's quiet warnings: "You'll never be soft enough to be loved properly if you live like this."

She thought about the whispers at school: "She's weird. She doesn't cry. She doesn't date."

She thought about the times she stepped in when someone was being picked on. When she stood between anger and the vulnerable. When no one said thank you—but no one got hurt either.

And she thought about presence.

What it meant to take up space in a way that didn't ask permission.

What it meant to say, I exist. I endure. And I will not let this pass.

That night, Aika slept with her palms open, not clenched.

She dreamed not of fighting…

…but of standing still and being unshakable.

What if the strongest people aren't the loudest—but the ones who simply refuse to move?