Tora walked passed the display of trophies and through the hall with various photos that littered the wall. The hallway formed a timeline of stories told in the pictures from most recent to the oldest.

She passed walked down the hallway as if walking down memory lane, watching the years go by along the wall. She reached a photo of herself in her teens as she stood in the middle of an auditorium, with hundreds of people in the background as she held up a trophy.

Next to that was another photo of her and her team when they won the year's US National Youth Martial Arts Competition. She was in the middle of her knockout roundhouse kick, as she stood on one leg with her other leg extended toward her opponent.

Many more photos of other students and of herself spread along the wall. Some of the images were of competitions while other pictures were of training. Those years went by in the blink of an eye.

Tora entered the studio with her duffle bag and was immediately bombarded with a loud chorus of, "Hah!"

The children performed in unison, calling, "Ha!" with each move.

There were about a dozen youths spread out in four lines across the wooden floor of the studio. Each person wore a yellow uniform, with black trims on the cuffs. The buttons on the shirts went straight down along the body from the neck to the navel. She watched the people for a moment before she took in the rest of the studio.

Along the walls were a store of different weapons: staffs, spears, Jian, katana, dao, sais, fans, bastons, nunchucks, daggers, ropes, and many others. Although they were all dull, practice, and prop weapons, they are used by the students of the Black Dragon Martial Arts Studio to master their martial arts style.

Tora was once one of these students.

As a teenager, she was violent, aggressive, and emotional. She had too much rage and energy and had no way to channel it. She was getting into all sorts of trouble. Anyone who had enough balls to get on her nerves would end up at the end of her daggers of verbal and physical abuse.

The only people who knew how to calm her down was Darren, and her master, Samuel Levi.

While Darren would talk her down during her tantrums, Master Levi would force her anger to build up until she released all of it through her fists. Rage became the source of her strength until she no longer needed it.

Practicing martial arts for most of the day, she was no longer around people who angered her. As she channeled her energy elsewhere, she found it tedious to become angry at any little thing her peers said. Even after she left the martial arts school, she channeled her energy into the military.

Her eyes finally came back to the center of the room. She noticed a familiar figure standing in the back of the room with both hands clasped behind his back.

Her master. Samuel Levi.

Master Levi wore a black version of his students' uniforms with yellow rims and a grand yellow dragon embroidered on the back of the shirt. As he turned around to face the front of the room, there was little surprise on his face when his eyes met Tora's. He walked between the students, who paid him no mind as they continued to practice their forms.

His large built became more evident as he walked closer to her. If not for the gray hairs sprinkled throughout his short black hair and neatly trimmed beard, no one would infer that this seventy-year-old man was a day over forty.

As he approached her, Tora dropped her duffle bag in a corner and took a few steps toward her master. She stopped about a meter before him, with both feet together.

"Master," she said. She clasped her right fist in her left palm as she bowed to him. "I have returned. I hope that you will accept me."

Samuel Levi nodded. "I've been expecting you. Welcome home, Tigress."