I truly wish I were dead.

  That thought crosses my mind for the third time in as many minutes as Kai and I stagger apart, gasping. My lungs burn. My arms feel like they’re filled with wet sand. Worse than that, we’re sloppy.

  I clip Kai’s shoulder on a bad recovery step. He nails my ribs when I overextend trying to compensate. Neither of us meant to, but intent doesn’t matter when the staff is already moving.

  We stop at the same time, both of us bent forward, hands braced on our knees, chests heaving. Sweat drips onto the training floor in uneven splashes.

  Instructor Jin is already walking toward us.

  “You need to stop trying so hard,” he says, voice sharp but not angry. “You’re fighting your own bodies. Ease back into it. You have time.”

  I bite my tongue and nod. Kai does the same.

  It doesn’t make it hurt less.

  We’re terrible.

  Everything we try feels half a step off. Our timing is wrong. Our instincts fire too fast for bodies that can’t keep up. When I advance, Kai isn’t there yet. When he pivots, I’m late to cover. It feels like trying to run with a broken foot, always tripping over the next beat.

  Jin makes us stop sparring entirely.

  “Forms only,” he says. “Slow.”

  Painfully slow.

  We run through basic staff forms we haven’t thought about since our first year. No power. No speed. Just movement. Foot placement. Weight transfer. Breathing.

  It’s humiliating.

  By the end of the session my arms are shaking, not from exertion, but from restraint. Holding back takes more effort than pushing through ever did.

  That night, I ache in places I forgot existed.

  Something changes, but only barely.

  We’re still slow. Still weak. Still embarrassingly out of breath. But we stop hitting each other by accident. That alone feels like a victory.

  Jin has us work mirrored drills. No contact. Just movement. When I step forward, Kai steps back. When he turns, I turn the opposite way. We don’t look at each other much. We don’t need to. I can feel where he is, the way I always have.

  The problem is trusting that feeling again.

  I keep second guessing myself, hesitating when I shouldn’t. Kai does the same. Jin notices.

  “You’re both waiting for permission,” he says. “From yourselves.”

  That night, we eat more. It’s deliberate. Protein. Grain. The kind of food that sits heavy but honest in your stomach.

  My legs still shake when I climb into bed.

  We spar again.

  Light contact only. Jin watches closely, staff resting against his shoulder like a reminder.

  This time, when I move, Kai is there.

  Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. But present. When I press, he covers. When he withdraws, I don’t chase blindly. We miss more than we land, but the misses are cleaner. Controlled.

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  I feel something settle into place midway through the session. Not strength. Not endurance.

  Coordination.

  We’re not fighting as two people trying to sync up. We’re fighting as one pattern with two points of contact. When one of us falters, the other compensates without thinking.

  Jin stops us before exhaustion can ruin it.

  “That’s enough,” he says. “Remember this feeling.”

  I do.

  That night, I sleep hard.

  We don’t spar at all.

  Instead, Jin sets up moving drills. Rotating coverage. One advances while the other anchors. Switching roles mid-motion without stopping. It’s complex enough to demand focus, simple enough that failure doesn’t hurt.

  We mess up. A lot.

  But when we do, we laugh instead of curse.

  The frustration is still there, but it’s quieter now. Less sharp. Less personal.

  By the end of the day, I realize something that catches me off guard.

  I’m tired, but I’m not wrecked.

  My breathing recovers faster. My hands are steadier on the staff. Kai’s movements are smoother, less guarded. We still have a long way to go, but we’re no longer fighting our own bodies.

  As we leave the hall, Jin speaks again.

  “This isn’t about getting back to where you were,” he says. “It’s about learning how to move forward from where you are.”

  I don’t like that.

  But I understand it.

  For the first time since everything went wrong, I don’t wish I were dead.

  I just want tomorrow to come so we can try again.

  My body stops surprising me.

  That’s the biggest change. I still feel weak compared to where I was, still lean in the wrong places, muscle tone slow to return. But when I move, my body does what I expect it to do instead of lagging half a beat behind my intent.

  Finn and Banks take over coaching today.

  Finn paces like a caged animal at first, clearly itching to do more than watch. Banks keeps him in check with a look and a quiet word, positioning us carefully, spacing us out like pieces on a board.

  “Slow power,” Banks says. “Structure first.”

  They have us run drills that emphasize ending positions instead of strikes. Where you finish matters more than how fast you get there. Kai excels at it immediately. I have to fight the urge to rush.

  When Finn finally spars with us, it’s controlled to the point of being almost boring. He limits himself deliberately, pulls power before it blooms. Even so, the difference is obvious.

  We don’t get flattened.

  That feels like progress.

  Endurance creeps back in quietly.

  I don’t notice it until the third drill, when I realize my breathing has steadied faster than yesterday. My legs still burn, but the burn fades instead of stacking.

  Banks runs footwork with us, relentless and precise. He corrects angles with the tip of his staff, taps ankles when our stance drifts. He doesn’t raise his voice once.

  Kai and I start anticipating each other again.

  Not the old way. Not automatic. But intentional. When I shift left, Kai adjusts without hesitation. When he slows, I don’t crowd him. There’s space between us now, but it’s usable space, not absence.

  Finn watches us like he’s trying to memorize the pattern.

  “You’re thinking again,” he says approvingly.

  I hadn’t realized I’d stopped panicking long enough to do that.

  We spar together against Banks.

  It’s humbling.

  He dismantles us without ever breaking form, turning our momentum against us again and again. But he does it cleanly. Educationally. Every mistake feels obvious the moment it happens.

  After the fifth reset, Kai mutters, “I hate how calm he is.”

  Banks hears him and smiles faintly.

  By the end of the session, we land a solid exchange. Not a hit, but control. We force Banks to reposition instead of dictating the flow.

  Finn cheers like we won a championship.

  We didn’t.

  But we earned that inch.

  Muscle memory starts waking up.

  Not strength. Not power. Timing.

  Our staffs stop colliding by accident. Our recoveries tighten. When I overextend, Kai covers without needing a cue. When he stumbles, I’m already there.

  Finn finally cuts loose a little, still controlled but faster now. He pressures us in short bursts, then backs off, forcing us to reset under stress.

  It’s exhausting.

  But it’s clean exhaustion. The kind that makes your hands shake for a reason you trust.

  Afterward, we sit on the floor together, backs against the wall, sharing water and quiet.

  I realize I’m smiling.

  We run a full sequence without stopping.

  Warm-up. Forms. Partner drills. Controlled sparring. Cool down.

  I don’t hit the wall. Not once.

  My muscles are still smaller than they should be, still soft where they used to be dense. That will take months. Maybe longer. But the framework is there again. The shape of us.

  At the end, Banks nods once. Finn grins like an idiot.

  “That’s it,” Finn says. “That’s the version of you two we were waiting for.”

  Kai and I exchange a look.

  Not the old us.

  But something stable. Something workable.

  As we leave the hall, sore and sweaty and alive in a way that doesn’t hurt, I realize something important.

  We’re no longer recovering.

  We’re rebuilding.