Page 21 of The Last Tiger

The winter had been brutally cold. From mid-January to the end of March, I flew through the regimen of offensive and defensive moves with tenacity and ease, quickly acquiring abilities in strength, endurance, and healing.

And over the course of ten weeks, I climbed from seventeenth place to seventh.

My classmates began to look upon me with a newfound respect with each new streak of successes.

As I was growing up, the sons and daughters of yangban families had paid me polite compliments out of duty and lip service, and, likewise, I to them.

But now their admiration started to feel genuine.

People actually wanted to sit with me at lunch.

To train together during study hours. I began to wonder, is this perhaps a fraction of what Kenzo Kobayashi has felt his entire life?

I’m not gonna lie. It felt good .

It made me want to work even harder.

When midterm evaluations came around, I earned a nearly perfect score in every category. The next time class rankings were updated, my name had replaced the number four guy.

Things then got serious. I sensed a sudden change in the air of the dojo.

The kids of Dragon elites, who had always dominated the top five slots in the class, began to stir. I was the first Tiger student in many years to make it to the top five.

Throughout April, I began to notice Dragon students staring whenever I took extra hikes up the mountain or additional shifts in the weight room. In prior months, whenever we happened to inhabit the same space, they’d acted aloof, as though my Tiger peers and I didn’t exist.

But that spring, during mealtime, when a Dragon classmate tripped into me and knocked my tray of food into my chest, I knew it was no accident. And at night, when I found a nest of roaches in my pillow, I knew exactly who it was from.

It wasn’t the first time my classmates and I had experienced mistreatment due to our background. But the abuse became more focused, more targeted. Of course, the ki masters running the school willfully turned a blind eye.

The empire refused to let us feel at home at Adachi.

That was all right, though. I knew better than to get comfortable.

Slowly, surely, as I worked myself into shape, I became something I had never been before. Maybe it’s always been true somewhere in my soul, unbeknownst to me, awaiting its opportunity to bloom into reality.

Somehow, I’ve become a soldier.

Clap. Clap. Clap. The sound of quiet, slow applause brings me out of my thoughts and back into the arena.

Behind me, beyond the row of flickering torches, I hear someone chuckling.

“Well done…”

Out of the shadows, Drill Captain Nari moves forward in her wheelchair, approaching the edge of the sandbox.

I blush with pride. My instructor is cunning, fierce, self-assured—everything I wish I could be someday.

What’s more, she’s one of the few ki masters at Adachi who doesn’t seem to grimace every time a student from the Tiger Colonies ends up in her section.

Unlike the others, Captain Nari has never once treated me differently due to my background.

At eighteen, Nari was the first female graduate of Adachi to catch a tiger in the colonies—to earn the prestigious honor of becoming a Slayer.

She blew the empire away with her prowess, despite her male classmates who were dead set on seeing her fail.

According to Nari, that disadvantage turned out to be her greatest strength.

It made sure she worked twice as hard, fought twice as tough, as any of the peers who underestimated her.

A decade later, in addition to teaching here at Adachi, she runs an elite squadron of impressive young soldiers in the Dragon Army known as the Tiger Slayers, named back when there were still enough of the animals to make hunting them a regular profession.

Although a tiger hasn’t been seen for almost two years, and the empire has officially declared them extinct, Nari’s elite squadron is still called the Tiger Slayers for old times’ sake.

Those Slayers now make up the most revered and coveted positions for entry-level soldiers in the entire Dragon military. They’re renowned throughout the empire.

I’ve been hoping all year to secure an invitation to Nari’s squadron.

She’s been particularly hard on me since winter break, probably because we’re coming down to the line, I figure.

She must be testing me. So I’ve doubled down too.

Invitations to coveted military positions for fresh graduates go out at the end of Finals Period.

Which happens to be today.

And never has a job in the Dragon Army not been offered to the number one ranking student in Adachi’s graduating class.

Which, if my evaluations pan out as planned, should be me.

My wedding is scheduled for the end of this week—giving me only six days to return home with a new prestigious position in hand and convince my parents to change their minds.

“You know, Choi Eunji, it really pains me to watch you fight.”

That’s one more thing I appreciate about Nari—she uses my real name, my Tiger name, instead of the adopted name Yamamoto so preferred by Father and his associates. I immediately straighten up, at attention.

“That bad, huh?” I’m still catching my breath.

Captain Nari unsheathes her cane from the side of the wheelchair and rises. Her long, reddish-brown hair, tied together in a flowing tail behind her back, swings around as she stands. The metal foot of her prosthetic leg crunches in the gravel around the sandbox.

“Far from it.”

I look up to meet her gaze.

“Nearly ten years teaching here at Adachi Academy,” Nari says, “and I never knew that I could be so equally proud and disappointed at the same time. It’s a pity. You’re one of the most promising trainees that I’ve ever had, Eunji; I really wanted you on my team.”

Disappointed? Want ed ? My stomach drops.

“Oh,” I say dumbly, trying to conceal how crushed I feel.

“Which is why I forwarded your name to the Dragon Army ten weeks ago for early enlistment to the Tiger Slayers,” Nari continues.

Early enlistment?

That’s the same offer that Kenzo was given. It’s rarer than rare. It’s a badge of incredible accomplishment, of extraordinary talent. I can’t conceal my excitement, nearly leaping into the air—

“Nari, you have no idea how much this means to me—”

“Clearly I don’t,” she interrupts me, raising a brow.

“I…I’m sorry? I don’t think I understand.”

“Why work so hard, Eunji, just to turn down my offer?” Captain Nari kneels beside me in the sandbox, her metal foot sinking deep into the sand.

As the rest of my classmates chatter and disperse, Nari rolls up one leg of her military uniform, detaches her prosthetic, and applies oil to it carefully from a can in her jacket pocket.

“Turn it down?” I shake my head, still giddy. “No, I’d be thrilled to join the Tiger Slayers—how could I turn down your offer if I’m only now just finding out about it?”

“We sent the offer letter home during the new year, while you were on break. I just received word yesterday that you’ve declined.”

The smile melts off my face.

“You sent it…home?”

Nari nods.

“I didn’t go home last winter,” I whisper, mortified. “I stayed here to study.”

Nari frowns. “Well, someone declined for you.”

Father. There’s no way he—he couldn’t have.

“No, no, no , this was a mistake,” I blurt, blood rushing to my cheeks. “Can you please tell them it was a mistake? I—”

“I’m sorry, Eunji,” Nari cuts me off. “They’ve already filled the position that I recommended you for. And I’ve already submitted the rest of the available offers…I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until next year.”

Next year? But the wedding!

“I can’t ,” I say, despairing. “Please, Captain Nari, there has to be something they can do…”

“Sorry, Eunji. Believe me, this is really a disappointment to us both.”

Captain Nari reattaches her leg and stands. Then she turns and bows toward me. Devastated, I mirror the action.

“Congratulations, kid. You’ve mastered the art of Dragon ki. You’re an Adachi graduate now.”

I guess that means that I’ve passed my final exam.

“How are you feeling, Eunji?” Bomi chirps as I make my way, dejected, back toward the barracks.

She’s a cheerful, petite girl—but don’t let that fool you.

Bomi knows how to pack a punch. The other girls in my drill group clamber around me, gathering with eager grins. “Your wedding’s next week, isn’t it?”

Kenzo’s sneering face flashes into my mind. Deep in my belly, dread sits like a heavy stone.

But Choi women must smile through pain.

I lift my lips, plastering a pleasant expression to my face.

“I’m looking forward to fulfilling my duty to the empire,” I lie with a smile, measured and collected, like the daughter I’m supposed to be.