Chapter 39
"Well, say it again, Vic," she said, coming up from behind me as I sat at the desk, hugging my shoulders and gently biting my ear.
"Suo, I have already said everything. If something changes, I will let you know," I answered without turning my head.
"You really are something else, Vic," she sighed. "Is it really so hard to say?"
"Not hard," I objected. "But why repeat the same thing? It's not rational. And not logical."
"Since when did the words 'rational' and 'logical' start having any relation to you?" she was surprised.
"Exactly since Howard harnessed me to develop the logic circuit for our first new-generation processor."
"Processors, coprocessors, computers-shmomputers..." she said displeasedly. "Aren't you tired of it? You fuss over this, ahem... muck. And a young wife, by the way, is bored!"
"So much so that she appears at home for a couple of hours a day?" I put the pencil down and turned to her.
"Don't look so reproachfully," she rested her hands on her hips. "You know I have students, duties, a mission. I'm already bending over backward to be with you longer and more often."
"So what are you offended by? I'm just filling the time between your visits with something interesting to me. Right now I'm interested in computers. If I get bored, I'll take up something else."
"Magic?" she suggested hopefully. I grimaced as if biting into a lemon. I didn't say anything, but my facial expression was more eloquent than a thousand words. "Alright, don't say anything, I understand you."
"Nothing at all?" I raised an eyebrow.
"No, no! Not quite. I want to hear IT!" she immediately backpedaled.
"I missed you," I purred, approaching and gently embracing her.
"That's not exactly what I was hoping to hear," she sighed. But my kiss didn't allow her to continue the topic further.
Our wedding with her took place in Kamar-Taj, quietly and modestly, a week ago. According to some ritual completely unfamiliar to me. Most likely a magical one. Or maybe taken from the culture of the people to which Suo once belonged. After all, I never asked about her age. And I don't intend to do so in the future.
The result of the ritual was a matching tattoo on our right wrists. At first, my healing factor didn't allow leaving any marks on my skin, but Suo conjured something up with the ink. The result now flaunts on my arm, encircling it with a kind of bracelet of incomprehensible but beautiful ornaments and symbols.
Suo swore that it had no magical effect. That the drawing was of an exclusively ritual significance, and the symbols only mean the full name of my wife. And she accordingly has my full name. But in the language of her people. Extinct long ago.
I believed it just like that. Just like that, right away. But there is nothing to present yet. I still don't understand the symbols... yet. I have plenty of time: I'll dig through the archives, find them, figure it out. And then we'll see.
* * *
Today I finally decided. Decided to visit my childhood idol—Bruce Lee.
Since yesterday evening, I canceled all my affairs for today: postponed a working meeting-consultation with a group of engineers working on an ADSL modem prototype to another day; told Suo that I would be busy and there was absolutely no need for her to rush home; conveyed to Logan through Xavier that our traditional chess game would be postponed to an indefinite "sometime later" (he, like me, has plenty of time ahead, he'll wait).
"And here I stand, on the edge of a waterfall. Water pours from the sky—meaning the sky needs it to..." as the unforgettable Butusov once sang in "my" world. For some reason, on the threshold of the idol's abode, exactly his song was spinning in my head. Maybe I should get into show business? Not myself, of course, although... Remember all the "great" hits that haven't been written here yet, honestly plagiarize them (fortunately, I'm capable of reproducing not only the words but also the notes, I didn't get a musical education for nothing), put together a band of normal young musicians, not necessarily even talented ones, and rake in the money, pushing "culture to the masses"...
I shook my head, driving away untimely thoughts, and took a step. Pushed the unlocked door and finally entered the hall sacred to me...
And rested my gaze on Logan's back.
"You're here too?" I put my hand on his shoulder, approaching quietly and imperceptibly, trying not to distract the master from the class, especially since Howlett himself was standing aside, as a spectator, not a participant.
"I'm the one who told you about him," Logan chuckled. "Naturally I'm here. And Cap is here," he nodded at a tall figure among Master Lee's students. I chuckled.
"At least Fury isn't here?"
"No," Logan smirked. "Not today."
"And generally?" I frowned.
"Generally, she is. And quite often. Takes lessons. For twenty years now, she's been training like crazy. Dashing from master to master, trying to become ever stronger."
"And how's the progress?" I inquired sluggishly.
"Doesn't reach Steve's level yet," Logan shrugged. "Shall we go to the bench, why stand in the aisle?"
"Let's go," I agreed. "Only quietly. I don't want to distract the Master."
"Unlike you," Howlett smirked crookedly.
"It's Bruce Lee himself! Alive! Real!" the smirk on Logan's face gave way to amazed bewilderment. But he didn't ask anything. Just shook his head, as if trying to wake up or drive away a stupor.
Meanwhile, I was completely absorbed in observing the course of the training. And especially the idol of my childhood himself. And he fully justified this title: precise movements, elegance of technique execution, power that shone through literally in his every breath...
Beautiful.
I didn't even notice how the time flew by. Bruce finished the class, the students drifted off, some to the exit, some to the benches, some stayed to practice a movement.
Steve approached the Master and started saying something to him, pointing at Howlett and me. Bruce became interested and purposefully headed towards us. I got nervous and started twitching like a schoolgirl before her first date. I surprised myself, but I couldn't pull myself together and calm down. Even the Beast, for once, wasn't breaking down the closed "door".
"Hello, gentlemen," approaching, Bruce bowed politely. "Mr. Rogers told me that you are Martial Arts Masters. He wasn't mistaken?"
"Nah," Logan answered first, while I was trying to cope with the excitement. "He's the Master," this shaggy bastard pointed at me with his thumb. "I just came to gawk."
"Mr. Rogers said otherwise," Bruce objected politely. "He said that it was you, Mr. Howlett, who taught him for twenty years. And he himself is practically a Master."
"I am not a Master. Just a brawler with a lot of experience. I haven't studied any Arts," Logan shrugged. Lying through his teeth, the dog, and doesn't even blush. But it's not for me to judge him. "But he," again he passed the buck to me. "Is at least a sixth dan in Aikido. And before that he had been doing something like that for many years," this bad person sold me out lock, stock, and barrel.
"Gentlemen, will you not refuse me a sparring match?" Bruce bowed.
"I pass," Howlett immediately backed out. "I only came to gawk." Bruce shifted his gaze to me. I sighed and slowly got up from the bench. To my full height. Then squared my shoulders to their full width.
Then bowed low, respectfully, in the Japanese manner.
Actually, I would be lying if I said that wasn't what I came to the gym for today. Naturally I wanted to fight Bruce Lee himself. And I knew that I would do it. So why be hypocritical and play embarrassed.
But the excitement and trembling... The first time this is happening to me.
But I didn't come in sports clothes today. Especially not in a kimono. So I had to take off my silk shirt, so as not to tear it in the process, and patent leather shoes, for the same reason. And my trousers were loose-fitting anyway (I can't stand clothes that restrict movements. Can't stand it at all. It annoys me).
Bruce cast a glance at my bared torso and even clicked his tongue. And there was a reason: I had always been muscular, as long as I can remember in "this" life, by "nature". Most likely thanks to the mutation. And with my height, it looked like a mountain of muscles. Impressive.
But long decades of persistent everyday practice "convinced" even a carcass as stubborn to any changes as mine to get rid of the excess bad volume of useless meat, transforming it into "sinews" dry as belts, hard as oak wood, tight as ropes. Was "pumped" became "sinewy". Perhaps this is what they call "pink muscles", never took an interest in it.
But at the same time, having lost volume (in comparison with the initial state), I didn't lose weight (thanks to the experiments of Issei and Schmidt).
Actually, I looked roughly like Bruce himself, only adjusted for height and shoulder width. Dry and sinewy.
We walked out to the middle of the hall. The people who had begun to disperse at the end of the class returned and were now taking more comfortable seats. Not only Logan wanted to gawk at a fight with Bruce Lee.
Bruce began "bouncing", preparing for an attack and expecting mine. I, on the contrary, "anchored", focusing on the attraction of my center of gravity to the center of the Earth's gravity, as both Morihei and the Masters in Shaolin taught.
Bruce got tired of waiting and attacked me first. And I... And I, like a fragile crystal vase, was afraid to damage him with a careless movement. Let me remind you—mutant abilities, twice... now already thrice artificially enhanced. It was Logan at the "Weapon X" base that I could hit with full force, breaking reinforced concrete walls with his unkillable carcass. Here, however—a simple human without abilities and a healing factor. If even one strike gets through accidentally, even a glancing one, that's it—a corpse. Or a cripple.
I couldn't allow such a thing.
And decided to answer him with the softest of the styles known to me—Taijiquan. Slowly and softly, against fast and hard. In kung fu there are many different tricky sliding blocks, deflections, interceptions, feints... Except ordinary fighters rarely use them due to low combat effectiveness. Combat... rather, fighter's. They do not inflict damage on the opponent, after all. And a fighter needs to exactly inflict damage.
In my memory, they were used precisely by Masters. And old Masters at that. Old in age.
Actually, in this case, I fit this definition perfectly.
And I succeeded!
Almost like in the legend about the Taiji Master, to whom a young hard style fighter came: Bruce struck fast, beautifully, effectively, with his legs, with his hands, jumping and from a standstill, tried to grapple... and I always ended up behind his left shoulder. He was fast, and I deliberately acted slowly, according to the precepts of the style. But it still turned out exactly like that.
Beautiful. The very essence of this fight was beautiful. Beautiful to me. I don't know about the others, but to me for sure. An amazing fight.
It suddenly began to dawn on me that Taiji doesn't teach how the weak can defeat the strong. No! It teaches how the strong can not cripple the aggressive weak. How to softly stop an aggressor without killing him and without increasing aggression.
Unfortunately, it couldn't go on forever. Bruce got tired.
Once again not finding me in front of him, he stopped and lowered his hands. I stopped too.
He turned to face me and with a bow performed a kung fu greeting (fist pressed into an open palm).
"Mr..."
"Lehnsherr," I gave my surname so as not to put the man in an awkward position.
"Mr. Lehnsherr, I am infinitely grateful to you for this sparring match. You are a true Master! To show me so beautifully and effortlessly how little I still know."
"No," I shook my head. "I am only stepping onto the path. My teacher was the true Master."
"How I would like to meet him!" Bruce didn't insist on the truth of my mastery. And I only sadly spread my hands.
"And what is this style called? The movements are all painfully familiar, but their combinations... And this deceptive slowness..."
"Wushu Taijiquan," I didn't obfuscate.
"Taiji?!" Bruce was surprised. "That's just health gymnastics!"
"I thought so too. Before."
"Thank you for another lesson, Mr. Lehnsherr," he bowed to me, already without the kung fu greeting. I bowed too: politeness and etiquette is another thing that the old Masters always strictly performed. I'll have to think—maybe there is a meaning in this too, which I hadn't noticed before?
"May I hope to see you at least once more? Perhaps, if you agree, get a couple of lessons?"
"See—yes. Teach—no. I am not ready to teach yet. Too much needs to be realized."
"Then, perhaps, sparring?" he didn't give up.
"Alright," I smiled. "Next time."
"I will be glad to welcome you in my gym at any time, Mr. Lehnsherr," and a bow again. Maybe there really is no meaning in these rituals? It's tiring.
We left the building together with Logan.
"Bullshitter," I nailed him. Howlett knows Russian, so I wasn't afraid of being misunderstood.
"In what sense?" he was surprised.
"You went to Japan after the war. And studied there."
"Uhm... Well, compared to you, that's nothing."
"That's what I'm saying—bullshitter."
"I'd have crippled him. You understand that, right?" Logan became serious.
"Naturally," I shrugged. "But still a bullshitter."
"Agreed," Howlett smirked and took out a cigar. "Shall we arrange a game?"
"Let's go," I smiled.
* * *