Faela cuts me a fat slice of bread for breakfast, some kind of jelly spread all over it, not too sweet but it's good.
Lirien ate quickly and left for work, all the better, showed him the work list and he just started complaining about 'safety' and 'being nice to the kids', like I'm a monster.
My clothes are all clean now, little stitches here and there but everything smells nice.
A little disappointing I couldn't get any laughs yelling 'I'm late for class' with bread in my mouth before I left, woulda killed back home.
Faela gave me a rough idea of where Merrik would be for this, but finding him is still a pain in the ass. All the houses are samey, the only thing that gave it away was the sound of kids giggling and yelling.
Merrik has ten kids lined up in a dirt patch with wooden swords like a dojo. He yells and the kids do a swing, a couple of them try and look cool and he gets pissy about it.
I sneak as close as I can and jump out.
"Heeey, class president! I'm here to help today!"
The kids giggle when he falls over, I take his wrist and help him back up.
"Gōki, thanks for helping out, we are working on swordsmanship today, here, take a sword and help me with a demonstration."
The 'sword' is a knotted tree branch with the edges shaved off, but it's got a nice swoop to it like a blade. I hold my weapon and pose like a samurai.
"Today I take my revenge for all you have destroyed! Know that my blade is the blade of justice!"
Merrik rolls his eyes with a smirk and starts explaining the move he wants to show the kids. He turns back to me and readies himself.
"Ok, have at you filthy vagabond! Take your revenge if you can!"
Nice to see him getting into it, he steps in quickly trying the move, I block it, slip my foot behind his and trip him to the ground.
A few kids gasp, a few cheer and start yelling for me to 'Finish him off'.
He jumps back up and whispers to me.
"Gōki, we gotta show them the basics, this isn't a real fight, play along."
It's a little boring, but we go through a few drills his way. It's hard to put any dramatics into it, a few of the boys keep copying our first fight instead of watching.
Tapping Merrik, I lean in close.
"The kids wanna see a real fight, all the rules and forms in the world don't help if a guy is stabbing you."
"But they are just kids, without the basics there's no way they will ever be able to win."
"I never learned the basics, I tripped you easy enough."
"T-that was different!"
We both stop and notice the kids watching, one of them puffs out his chest.
"We wanna see a real fight, like what he did!"
A couple other boys cheer in agreement.
Merrik tries to calm them down, but they push harder.
"We don't need all that boring stuff!"
He claps his hands loudly and calls them to attention,he sounds serious and a few boys flinch.
"Fine, anyone who wants to try things his way, form a line over by Gōki, everyone else next to me.
The kids scramble around for a second but in the end we have an even split, five boys on my side, two girls and three boys on his.
"Good, this will make things simple, we can have a little contest, if we win then you boys will do things my way, otherwise we can let Gōki be the teacher."
The kids are all pretty riled up on both sides, I don't remember offering to be the new teacher though.
He picks out one of the boys on my side, a tough looking kid with big eyebrows, and a girl with brown hair in pigtails.
"Ok, first one to get a good clean hit with their sword wins, best of five."
Eyebrows tries to copy my pose from before.
"Today I take my revenge! My blade is the blade of justice!"
We clap and cheer but Merrik's girl just stands ready, she copies the move from the demonstration, and is almost tripped the same way but with a twist she stands and cracks Eyebrows in the head.
The fighters switch, we cheer and yell, but I don't have any advice for sword practice, I only tried kendo once or twice.
We only win one match, the boys on my team are too busy trying to be tough or look cool but can't back it up. I can tell they wanna throw a punch or a kick, but this isn't that kind of fight.
Merrik looks proud of himself, I can't let things end one sided like this I'll look like a chump.
"Ok ok, you beat us at swords fairs fair, you make a way better sword master then I do. Now let's try another kind of fight, grappling."
He stares at me like I'm another one of the kids, he's not smug but it pisses me off more for it.
"We can't have the kids brawling like this is a bar fight, this is about–"
"It's 'about' them knowing how to fight, so how about we test to see how a fight goes without weapons, shit–I mean…Life is unpredictable."
He sighs and has the kids line up again.
"Ok same as last time…but…I guess you pin down your opponent? Striking is allowed but–"
"-Fight your best, don't poke the eyes, no groin punching, give up when your ready to give up!"
Merrik and his kids look worried at the rules, my boys shrug and nod like it was obvious all along.
This time Merrik sends his biggest kid, a lanky one a head taller than all the rest, he looks nervous. I send Eyebrows back in, he seems like he wants to show off.
The fight is quick, Eyebrows roars like a demon and charges, ramming his head into Lanky's chest before flipping him over his back.
Lanky coughs and moans, as he tries to stand up Eyebrows grabs him and twists his arms behind his back with a yell.
"Lookie here, caught me a prisoner, back to the work camp with you!"
Everyone on Merrik's team looks so serious, but it isn't even a contest, Lanky taps out to a round of applause. Eyebrows helps him up with a smile and I give him a high five.
We dominated them easily, Merrik's boys got into it a little bit, one even decided to give a battle roar of his own, but couldn't handle a punch to the nose.
The fights with the girls were both tied because they didn't want to get punched and no one wanted to punch them.
To make up for it the last two boys got to fight Merrik, it seems like he was getting into the swing of things when we groaned like a monster and swung the kids around before 'dying'.
We send the kids home in the afternoon, Merrik and I just relax and start our walk to Trav's, he's got a little bit of a smile to him now that he doesn't have that stick in his ass.
"So Gōki, you gonna stick around as our new brawling coach? Maybe not the most…conventional lesson, but…I feel like a lot was learned."
I slap him on the back.
"Maybe now and then, but if I send kids home with bruises every day Lirien will start bitching."
He pays for a beer and listens to me talking about boxing and wrestling for the rest of the night. He doesn't get a lot of it, the gloves, breaking a chair on someone's back, he doesn't know Antonio Inoki, but I can see the fire in his eyes.