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"You've trained hard. You've gotten stronger, tougher, faster. You've done your best. You're ready for this tournament, am I right?"
"Yes, Sensei!"
"Wrong!" Sensei threw his beer can down and the remaining liquid inside splashed on some of the students. "Your best ain't shit! If you wanna win the All Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament, you gotta give me better than your best. Which is why from now on, you're gonna get my worst. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sensei!"
"Are you losers?"
"No, Sensei!"
"Are you nerds?"
"No, Sensei!"
"Are you sure?"
"No, Sensei!"
Sensei had a list of activities he wanted the kids to do to prepare for the All Valley and get stronger. He had them run through tires first. "Move those feet. Go!" Mara panted as she went through the tires as fast as she could. Everything was going well until Aisha tripped and fell, causing Mara to fall on top of her, Miguel to fall on top of Mara, and Hawk to fall on top of all of them. They all groaned and got up. Miguel reached out his hand to help Mara up and she gladly took it not noticing the look Hawk gave the two.
Next Sensei handed them all makeshift bats and had them stand in a group. "Your enemies are all around you. Destroy them!" Everyone ran to different spots around the junkyard. Aisha and Mara found a random car and started smashing its windows.
Mara took out all of her frustration on the car and wiped the sweat off her forehead when she was done. She looked over at Aisha who was hitting anything as hard as she could and screaming. Her eyes widened at her friend. Aisha was scary when she was angry.
Mara wondered around, breaking things, and eventually, she found Miguel. "Hey, about yesterday. I'm sorry for lying to you about Sensei, I just didn't know if you were mad at me about the whole Ryan situation."
"Oh I am mad. I just like to hear both sides of the story before I punch someone."
"Look, I like him it's just I also really like Sam and now we're dating and I can't just break up with her. I like hanging out with her and she's really cool."
"You can go out with Sam if you want Miguel, but it's the fact that you hurt my brother and then turned around and started dating someone else."
Miguel looked down. "I know. I messed up. I shouldn't have said all of those mean things to him. He hates me now doesn't he?"
Mara placed her hand on his shoulder. "He doesn't hate you. He mostly hates himself because he thinks he forced himself on you."
