Zara and Dadan’s eyes widened, mirroring one another in stunned disbelief.
Their gazes darted between Dr Zein and Master Eman, a silent flurry of questions dancing in the air like motes of dust suspended in stillness.
The atmosphere grew taut, breathless, as though the very walls of the dojo were holding their breath.
“Your saviour, Sensei?” Zara’s voice barely rose above the hush, the words slipping out like the first crack of dawn. “What do you mean… who is he, truly?”
Master Eman offered no immediate reply. His gaze, glassy with the weight of memory, remained fixed upon Dr Zein.
Then, slowly, almost reverently, he shuffled forward, his every movement carrying the weight of decades.
And then, in a gesture both startling and sacred, he sank to his knees before the doctor and bowed low, his forehead nearly brushing the polished floor.
“My saviour…” he murmured, voice trembling with awe. “Welcome… to this humble dojo. Forgive me! Forgive these old eyes that failed to see sooner…”
Dr Zein inclined his head with quiet humility, reaching out to steady Master Eman as he rose from the floor.
His touch was gentle, reverent, not of pity, but of deep, unspoken respect.
“Master,” he said softly, his voice like a wind rustling through old leaves, “I am no deity. Merely a man. It is not fitting for you to bow before me.”
Eman stood, his aged frame trembling slightly, not from weakness, but from the weight of memory.
Dr Zein offered him a faint smile, tinged with a melancholy that seemed to echo from some forgotten past.
“It has been many years, old friend,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Perhaps… more than two decades.”
The words hung in the air like drifting ash, and for a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath once more.
Eman’s face softened into a quiet smile, equal parts reverence and warmth, “So… it is you, the one who holds the heart of my disciple. The one who once pulled me back from the brink.”
Dr Zein dipped his head in acknowledgement, “Yes. Zara is one of those I hold dear.”
Eman’s brow twitched with curiosity, “One of?” he echoed slowly. “You speak as though… there are others?”
Zein met his gaze steadily, “There are,” he replied without pretence. “Five. Zara is one among them.”
A pause. Then his voice deepened, laden with unspoken history, “And another… is Zelena. Disciple of Ohara.”
At that name, the shift in Eman was instant. His spine stiffened, and the lines of age carved deeper into his face.
“What did you say?” he asked, breath catching. “Ohara’s student? Narumi Ohara?”
Dr Zein nodded once, the gesture slow and deliberate, “I am bound heart and fate to two students. One taught by you. The other, by the woman once your greatest rival.”
Eman fell silent, lowering his eyes as though looking inward, into the corridors of memory where ghosts still lingered.
At last, he inhaled deeply, the sound trembling with the dust of time.
“It strains belief,” he whispered. “Twenty years ago, I fought a duel that nearly cost me my life. My adversary hailed from the shadows of Japan. Ohara, too, bore his wounds, his grudges. And now…”
He looked up, his voice distant, like a man standing at the edge of an old battlefield.
“…now, our pupils are united by the very man who not only saved my life, but brought a quiet end to a war we never truly finished.”
Zara and Dadan edged closer, their expressions still etched with astonishment, as though trying to gather the scattered pieces of a puzzle too vast to comprehend.
“Sensei… are you saying that the man you so often held in reverence, the one from your stories is him?” Dadan asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if speaking louder might shatter the fragile truth that hovered in the air.
Eman inclined his head solemnly, “Yes, Dadan,” he replied with the quiet authority of a man unburdening himself after years of silence.
“The secret I have guarded all these years is this. It was not I who vanquished the shadow of death that day. It was this man, my saviour.”
A stunned gasp escaped from both Zara and Dadan, their eyes locking for a moment, wide with disbelief.
“So… all this time…” Zara began, but her voice faltered, the sentence dissolving like mist before the morning sun.
“Do not fault your master,” Dr Zein said, his tone measured and calm, yet tinged with something unshakeably resolute.
“It was me who asked him to remain silent. The world was never meant to know who truly ended the blood feud of that long-forgotten night.”
A wistful smile touched the old master’s lips, his voice coloured with wonder, “And the most curious part of it all… even now, I know not your name. I remembered only your face, and… your blood.”
Dr Zein stood quiet for a moment, as though searching within himself for a memory misplaced beneath years of dust.
Then he offered a gentle smile and bowed his head slightly.
“My name is Zein, Master Eman,” he said with quiet dignity. “But… my blood? I don’t quite follow.”
Eman let out a soft laugh deep, weathered, and honest, “So… Zein. At last, I have a name to place upon the ghost who once saved my life,” he mused. “Do you remember what you asked of me, moments after the battle, when the silence had finally returned?”
Zein frowned, rifling through the faded corners of his recollections, “I’m afraid… I don’t. Forgive me.”
Eman gave a slow, knowing nod, “You asked for cupping. You said your body ached, that you felt unwell.”
A flicker of realisation crossed Zein’s face.
He brought a hand to his temple with a quiet chuckle, “Ah… That’s right. And then…?”
Eman met his gaze with unflinching sincerity, “The blood that was drawn from you that night… I kept it. I dried it and sealed it in a talisman. I have carried it with me ever since.”
He said it not with shame, but with reverence as though the dried blood of a stranger had, in truth, become a relic of profound gratitude and silent reverence.
Dr Zein’s eyes widened, his brows lifting in disbelief, “Good heavens…” he murmured, a faint shake of the head following. “Surely… that’s a touch macabre, sir?”
Eman gave a low chuckle, the kind that lingered in the chest.
His gaze, however, held nothing but earnestness, “Perhaps so, to the unacquainted. But to me? It is sacred. It is the blood of the man who spared my life.”
Turning with measured steps, Eman approached an old, lacquered cabinet nestled in the dim-lit corner of the room.
Though age had bent his frame, his hands moved with unshaken purpose.
With a click that echoed like memory, the ancient lock yielded, and from within the shadows, he drew out a timeworn wooden box.
Its grain darkened by age, its surface adorned with elaborate carvings.
The motif upon the lid was striking, a sabre-toothed tiger coiled in a protective circle around an upright sword, its fangs bared in eternal defiance.
The engraving shimmered subtly beneath the lamplight, as though some forgotten power still pulsed within.
Eman opened the box with the reverence of one handling a relic.
At once, a pungent aroma arose earthy, sharp with spices long fermented, the scent of a world long buried yet not forgotten.
The room seemed to still. Even the light felt suspended, caught in the breath of something ancient.
With great care, he retrieved a small vial nestled in aged velvet.
It was of dark ruby glass, cloudy with time, yet the liquid within glimmered faintly thick, viscous, and strangely luminous under the amber glow.
“Look closely, Mr Zein,” said Eman, his tone hushed, almost devout. “This… this is your blood.”
Dr Zein’s gaze locked onto the vial, unblinking.
For a moment, silence reigned. He inhaled deeply, the weight of the moment sinking upon his shoulders.
“My word…” he breathed, his voice somewhere between wonder and wry disbelief. “You truly kept it all these years…”
His eyes flicked to Eman, a glimmer of bemusement touching the corners of his lips.
“Only in your dojo, I suppose, could a bottle of dried blood be a token of eternal gratitude.”