Because sometimes the quietest person in the room isn't weak. Sometimes he's simply strong enough not to prove it.
The first Saturday of spring, Daniel Carter stood outside the academy again.
The same glass doors. The same faded sign. The same smell of floor wax and sweat drifting out every time someone pushed the door open.
But this time, he wasn't alone.
His daughter, Lily, held his hand so tightly that her small fingers had turned white. She was eight years old, with her mother's dark eyes and her father's habit of going quiet when she was nervous.
"Dad," she whispered. "What if I'm bad at it?"
Daniel knelt down in front of her. His worn gray jacket creaked at the elbows. The faded bracelet slipped down his wrist.
"Then you'll be bad at it," he said gently. "For a while. Everybody is. That's how you start."
"Were you bad at things?"
He smiled. "Lily, I was bad at almost everything."
She laughed, just a little. And that was enough to get her through the door.
Inside, the training hall was full of children in white uniforms. Parents sat on the benches along the wall, holding phones and coffee cups. A few of them looked up when Daniel walked in.
At the far end of the mat, a man in a black belt was helping a small boy tie his uniform.
Victor Cain.
He looked different now. Not in his face. Not in his body. He was still tall, still broad through the shoulders, still moved like a man who had spent his whole life training.
But something had changed in the way he carried himself.