Description: Frei's got something on his mind, and needs to talk it out with a very specific type of person. The person he chooses proceeds to hurl a wrecking ball at him. Fun is had by all.
Things have been quiet in Frei's life now that summer is winding down and fall is starting. Some of his classes at the YFCC have lost a member here and there as kids get ready for classes to resume, or head on vacations with parents, or any of a thousand reasons why they might start showing up. And while he's offered to train Dr. Tran somewhat, those sessions are sporadic... if intense. The monk is still wearing the bruises he got in the last one.
This makes Frei's already fairly open schedule even more flexible than normal, and this particular morning he woke up with a weird question in his head... as if it had come to him through some strange inspiration late at night, or a burst of sudden insight. Either way, there's only a few people he knows that could legitimately answer what it is he wants to know... and the Kyokugen-studying Sakazaki family -- known to Frei through their daughter Yuri -- is one option, an option he chooses to pursue.
It's a long walk from his apartment in Southtown Village to the northern outskirts of town, but the monk has all the time in world. In fact, once he reaches the forest edge and finds the fields of grass surrounding the dojo, he slips off his sandals and just stands there for a moment, enjoying the breeze and unbuttoning the clasps along the long sleeves of his Chinese-style shirt. The surroundings are nice, anyway...
"A little different than... home," he murmurs, putting his sandals back on.
Presently, Frei arrives at the compound and knocks at, then pushes open the main gate if it's unlocked, poking his head inside and looking to see if the place is occupied or not.
Ahhh, yes! The gentle breeze, the smooth grass and the cleaner air makes the Kyokugen Dojo quite an interesting place to be admist the busy, ugly heavily urban city near-by. Butterflies flutters idly, a birds chrips and sings, some squirrels are engaging in bloody territorial turfs, Takuma's beautiful flowers slowly regrowing after the Robert Car's disaster, the sickening noise of wood being broken apart by an enormous, rolling wrecking ball down the gate's way...
...Wait. What!?
A giant, 'training grade' ball of steel is rolling down a small slope heading to the dojo from a ball-shaped hole in the wall, followed by a man in orange shouting a few curses as he tries to run after it in an effort to catch it!
That last Haoh Sho Ko Ken was maybe a little to strong...
"LOOK OUT!"
Upside: There's someone here.
Downside: They're behind that giant steel ball rolling toward him at high speed.
This is a surprise, to be sure, and one auburn-red eyebrow on Frei's face does indeed rise in curiosity at the situation. Ryo's "LOOK OUT!" is sort of extraneous, since... let's be honest about this, a giant steel ball rolling toward you really does command all of your attention and is quite difficult to miss. But Frei's got to deal with it, and lucky for him he's not easy to catch 100% off guard, either. But he definitely doesn't have the physical strength to *stop* the thing, or the speed to really get out of the way...
So he does neither. In a flash of blue-white, he sweeps his arm in front of him to the side, and along the ground in front of him, in a curved path, he uses water chi to freeze the humid summer air into a very slick patch of ice in the path of the ball. Sure, it's kind of an ACME Products, Looney Tunes sort of solution but it IS a giant steel ball we're talking about here.
The ball hits the first part of the slide and actually does begin to alter course. A bit. Perhaps not as much as Frei had hoped, but...
*WHAM*
The sound comes from the giant steel ball impacting the outer wall a mere fraction of an inch from Frei's body, the concussive force of the ball meeting the barrier blowing the monk's red hair and long-tailed headband off to the side as he shouts to Ryo, over the noise, "IS THIS YOURS?!"
Waaaait, what's this! Sakazaki slows down his mad dash as, evidently, the wrecking situation is taken care off -- even if it was a pretty close shave on the part of that guy down there. Hm...Ice. That's no regular visitor, to be certain. Good. He didn't want to have to pay somebody else's hospital fee. Again.
Not paying much attention to the deafening WALL CRUSHING noises, Ryo still shouts over it to be heard. "YEAH! SORRY ABOUT THAT!" He then jogs down to meet Frei, letting out a breath. "Whew! Nice one, there. I went a little too hard on the thing, I think." He says, taking a deeep breath in. "So! Sorry about that again! You need something?"
The problem with nerves of steel in the clinch is that just occasionally, they result in nerves of something much weaker -- say, silly putty -- once everything's said and done. Case in point: once Ryo has arrived, and the ball is gone, and the monk processes that in fact he DID just escape a brush with if not Certain Death, then at least Certain Ow, he turns to Ryo and says, in a somewhat wobbly tone: "Yeah... to sit down."
Landing with a thump on his backside, Frei sits on the concrete of the inside with his back to the gate for support and closes his eyes for a second, taking a couple deep breaths. Eventually, he looks up at Ryo with a wan smile, having recovered some of his gravitas. "Sorry. I was looking for a Sakazaki," he says, trying to fight through the adrenaline haze to remember the exact details of his visit. "My name is Frei Renard... I'm a friend of Yuri's."
What's Ryo's thinking right now is, sigh, that could have hurt another visitor or possible student! Worse, now there's ANOTHER wall he need to repair! Oh well. At least this time around, it was /his/ own fault, instead of the craziness of the others.
"Take your time," The Tiger says, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks down at the monk, eyes squinting. Hm...Vaguely familiar. Didn't he see him somewhere, before? Hrm. Hard to tell, hard to tell. "Well, you found one! I'm Ryo Sakazaki -- I'm Yuri's older brother."
Now, now, a friend of Yuri, hm? This could be good and bad. Good or very, very bad indeed.
Well, that's a blessing. What are the odds he'd find a Sakazaki at the family's home? "Oh, I've heard of you... nice to meet you," Frei says, squinting his eyes shut for a moment and then hopping back to his feet, extending a hand to be shaken and hoping that Ryo is into that, at least... and blinking at the Tiger's appearance. He does sort of look familiar, but in his escape-addled brain Frei's not exactly accessing drives at full RPM right now.
Breathing out, Frei looks back at the dojo, which is pretty damned impressive, giant hole in the wall or no. Then he turns back to Ryo and clears his throat. "I, uh... Mr. Sakazaki, I have a strange request. It won't take up much of your time, but if you'd hear me out, I'd appreciate it."
Ryo takes the hand and shakes it. He has a pretty damn good grip -- fortunately, his intention is not to crush bones, contrary to popular belief, so you should be alright!
He takes back his hand, looking down at the still dazzled monk. Impressive, really -- he's just /stunned/. Most would have fainted or worse! "A strange request?" He echoes, suspiciously. Strange request. This better not be 'Hey, I go out with your sister!' or some madness like that!
Wait. No, that wouldn't make sense. Relax, Ryo! "Certainly, no problem, I'm free for a while, now." Thanks to the lack of wrecking balls. Hotaru's going to be pleased, he's sure -- she wont need to touch that thing for a while!
Frei himself is not exactly a bonecrusher, despite his appearance, but he doesn't have what one would call an 'extremely firm' handshake either. He pulls his hand back and then laces the fingers of his hands together, bowing his arms out behind his torso for a moment and looking off into the distance as he thinks about how to phrase his statement. "Thanks," he offers, while he thinks, biting his lip in concentration.
Suddenly, he turns back to Ryo with a penetrating look. "Kyokugen-ryuu karate... it's a hereditary style of fighting, isn't it? One of the last few times I saw Yuri she talked about how her dad trains her, so I assumed it was a family thing..." He pauses, trailing off at a memory: Takuma, in the stands at Taiyo Dome, cheering on Yuri as she fought... somebody? The entire thing seems like it was ages ago... shaking his head, he looks back to Ryo. "I'm guessing you're also training in it. That or you take a really personal interest in the construction company you run from the family home."
Ryo furrowed his brows. Yeah, that was a completly different question than he thought it would be. He nods. "In a way -- my father taught it to Yuri and I, but it's not 'hereditary'. We teach Kyokugen to anybody and everybody that is willing to learn and train." So what that the main representants of the martial arts are of the same family, barring Robert and Marco? It's not limited to them!
"What, you mean the wrecking ball? Hahahah, no, we don't use that for construction -- just for training. Really good punching bag. Ball. Whatever."
That gives Frei pause. He'd heard about Yuri's brother and father, but he didn't know about any other non-Sakazaki Kyokugen trainees. Not that Frei himself considers this a bad thing at all; far from it, his expression is definitely one of respect for the family's attitude toward sharing their style's martial arts secrets. Still... it's not exactly what he had hoped for. "Oh." It's impossible to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but at least he doesn't sound like Ryo just kicked his puppy through a wall.
Pausing to take in the Kyokugen Tiger's point about the wrecking ball, Frei turns to look at the hole it made in the dojo wall, before turning back to Ryo with a faint grin. "Maybe I need to work my way up the punching bag ladder before I'm ready for wrecking balls," he admits. There's a pause, and then the monk launches into his explanation. "Hmm. So I guess it's not really a hereditary style after all... not that that's a bad thing. But I guess I really needed to talk to someone who..." He pauses, then glances at Kyo with furrowed brow. "Like, if your father refused to give mastership of your dojo to anyone but you or Yuri or any other siblings you have I don't know about. That kind of situation."
"I see." Ryo replies simply, furrowing his brows. He has no idea what would have made this guy think that his family's martial arts style was like that. Don't they have tons of publicity running around, telling to come to the Dojo and learn Kyokugen? Hrm. Sounds like they'll have to go double time!
"And why, excatly, were you curious about this? You're interested in the style?"
"It's... philosophical," Frei explains, scratching at the back of his head with one hand, partly in confusion and partly in embarassment. With a swish, he lets his arm drop to his side and glances off in the distance. "The truth is I have too much time on my hands lately and have been thinking over... some things from my past. I won't bore you with details, it'd take forever to explain anyway." Locking his fingers together, the monk pushes both arms up, making an arch with them as he stretches. There is something peaceful about the Kyokugen dojo setting, construction equipment notwithstanding.
Taking a few steps forward, Frei turns and looks at Ryo with a smile. For someone talking with such gravitas, he has a decidedly cheerful expression. "Maybe I will study Kyoukugen, someday. I know Yuri has some interesting techniques I'd like to learn more about..." He pauses, then points a finger at his cheek. "I'm sort of a chi scholar, see? I'm interested in how lots of fighting styles use it in their methods. But..." There's a pause, and the bright green eyes do seem to lose their lustre, if only for a moment. "It's just not how I was raised."
Ryo's head tilted to a side. "A chi scholar, huh?" He echoes. Now that's pretty interesting -- but then again, he's not too surprised. With the numbers of fighters in the world, there ought to be some guy that'll go around and observe all the crazy supernatural skills out there. "I see, that's a path you took up on your own, I assume?"
That question actually takes Frei by surprise, because he doesn't know exactly how he should answer it. His expression reflects that, as he brings a hand to his chin in thought, index finger draped along his cheek. "Well..." There certainly isn't time for the whole story, and he'd like to avoid bringing up his family as much as possible. But it was asked in good faith so he has to come up with some kind of answer.
"I guess you'd say, it was a path that became apparent to me over time," Frei says finally, crossing his arms over his chest, more a note of satisfaction than of superiority or annoyance on his part. "That's the best way to describe it. I was coming from a place where I knew I was unhappy with what I was doing, and then I came upon this way of doing things... sorry. I know this must sound evasive, but some of this stuff is... personal."
That answer seems to satisfy Sakazaki! He was not expecting an complicated and convoulted answer out of this in either way. "No problem -- I probably shouldn't have asked, anyway." Ryo replies, noding his head faintly. "In either case, do you need anything else?" He asks. Who knows, he might have some incredible questions about Kyokugen all of a sudden and the dojo always accepts new student! Wait, you said that already.
Frei shakes his head, glancing at Ryo again for a moment. He certainly does have a certain... vibrance to him. Still, the egalitarian virtues of Kyokugen, while admirable, are just not what he needed right now. "No, I guess not," the monk says, sounding a little defeated. "But thank you for listening to my spiel anyway, that's nice of you." He very pointedly does not mention that having been nearly killed by a large, rolling metal ball, perhaps being listened to is the very least Ryo could do.
Stepping toward the gate, Frei walks over a chunk of timber from the outside wall, then turns back and gives Ryo a typical karate practitioner's wasit bow, grinning a little as he stands up. "I might take you up on the idea of training in Kyokugen someday," he says. "Maybe once... once I've gotten myself sorted out."
Listening to the poor man was, indeed, the least Ryo could do after nearly flattening him like that. Even if the wrecking ball didn't came around, he would have listened anyway!
"You're welcome -- take your time. Finding -- or sorting -- yourself is an very important part of your life, something that you must not be rushed!" Sakazaki replies, sagely. Or at least, that was a vailliant attempt. He's not too good at that philosophical nonsense, sometimes.
Log created on 14:55:10 08/20/2007 by Frei, and last modified on 15:16:19 08/23/2007.