Two months passed quickly.
Baki's recovery took far less than three months. His left hand healed well ahead of schedule.
During those two months, he trained in ITF Taekwondo while learning another style from scratch. The moves themselves took only a few weeks. Weaving them into what he already knew took longer.
He also finished mastering Xiaoli. He couldn't overuse it without damaging his muscles, but he could sustain it through a dozen fights a day as long as the impact stayed within range.
On top of his own training, he had been teaching Taehun and Yeonwoo. Taehun was exactly what he expected: rude, obnoxious, and genuinely talented. No gifts, no tricks. Just raw ability buried under the attitude of someone who looked like he didn't care about anything.
Yeonwoo was the surprise. That boy was an addict. He was hooked on learning, driven by something Baki rarely saw. He purely loved martial arts.
Watching them reminded Baki of another boy he had trained not long before. Gu Hajun. That one had drive too, though not for fighting. He had the drive to win.
What Baki didn't know was that his one decision had shifted the entire landscape of Gangbuk. The boy he trained was making waves.
Now Baki was on his way to meet someone.
---
That Morning
Hayan Taekwondo Dojang
Baki sighed as he watched Hansu Seong settle into his fighting stance.
"Old man, do you really want to do this?" He rolled his shoulders lazily. "My Taekwondo's gotten better. There's no need to test me. I'm not a kid."
Hansu didn't answer. He shifted his weight and spoke.
"What I'm going to teach you isn't traditional Taekwondo. In the 1960s, after the Korean War, a Northern agent was captured alive. The government tested his abilities through a series of duels with fifty South Korean martial artists. Some were killed. Others were knocked unconscious. He had been trained in a style built from Soviet technology combined with ITF Taekwondo. They called it Warfare Mass-Destruction Northern Agent's ITF Taekwondo. Northern ITF, for short. As a counter, the government developed their own style. They borrowed from Northern ITF, identified its weaknesses, cut them out, and added stealth techniques for infiltrating enemy camps. That became RE Taekwondo. It's a perfect counter to ITF."
Baki stepped forward into his stance. "Didn't expect a history lecture."
Hansu moved first.
A clean front kick, textbook form. Baki slipped to the side and returned with a roundhouse to the midsection. Hansu's forearm came up and absorbed it without flinching.
"You've gotten stronger," Hansu said. "But you're still loading up."
His leg snapped out in a side kick before Baki could respond.
CRACK!
Baki twisted away and felt the wind pressure brush his shirt.
He came back with a spinning hook kick. Hansu ducked under it, stepped in, and launched an axe kick that forced Baki to give ground.
"Every technique, you're winding up," Hansu said, not breathing hard. "There are better ways."
"That's how you generate power," Baki said.
"That's how amateurs generate power."
Hansu's leg shot out. No wind-up, no prep. One moment his foot was on the ground, the next it was fully extended.
Baki barely got his shin up in time. The collision sent a sharp jolt up his leg.
What the hell.
"This is what I'm talking about," Hansu said, lowering his leg. "Zero to a hundred instantly. No wasted motion. No telegraphing. You compress everything into a single point."
Baki's eyes narrowed. "Sounds simple enough."
"Normal Taekwondo gathers power through rotation and spiral motion," Hansu said, motioning with his hand. "RE Taekwondo is about compression. Linear. Direct."
He demonstrated with a front kick. His leg extended like a piston.
SNAP!
The sound cut through the empty dojang.
"The knee doesn't load back," he explained. "It rises and extends in one motion. The power comes from alignment, not from swinging your leg like a bat."
Baki watched. Hansu threw a roundhouse, and the leg didn't arc wide. It shot straight from the chamber, all the force packed into the moment of contact.
"Wouldn't it still lack power?" Baki asked.
"This style is built for killing," Hansu said. "The impact won't be as heavy as what you normally throw, but it doesn't need to be. Land it clean and the target goes down. Less draining, more efficient."
Baki raised his leg, mirrored the chamber position, and extended it fast and straight.
CRACK!
Hansu blocked with his forearm and nodded. "At this point, I'm not surprised you picked it up that fast."
They exchanged. Baki threw a side kick. Hansu deflected and countered with a spinning back kick. Baki slipped it. The old man was relentless, each technique flowing straight into the next without pause.
"There's no slow retraction in RE Taekwondo," Hansu said between exchanges. "You snap it back just as fast as you extended it. Every movement is both attack and preparation."
Baki blocked a front kick and immediately transitioned into his own.
Hansu smiled. "There you go. You've learned RE Taekwondo."
They separated. Baki could feel it now. His muscles weren't loading up. They were compressing and releasing, tight and instant.
"One more thing." Hansu shifted his stance. "The spinning kicks. The spin isn't for momentum. It's for torque concentration."
He spun and his back kick came out with no visible effort.
Baki raised his leg to check it.
THUD!
He slid back.
The old man isn't holding back at all.
"The spin shortens the distance your leg travels," Hansu said, resetting. "More speed. But more importantly, it lets you transfer your full body weight into one point."
He spun again with a tornado kick and the air displaced visibly.
Baki launched into a spinning hook kick and applied the same idea. His foot whistled through the air. Hansu caught it on his forearm and slid back a few inches.
"Good," Hansu said. "Again."
They went harder. Baki threw combinations, each kick sharper than the last. Hansu defended and countered when he found the opening. Neither of them was going all out. There was no reason to.
"RE Taekwondo fits into your style easily," Hansu said, blocking a spinning back kick. "But use it only when you need to."
"I don't fight unless I need to," Baki said with a grin.
He faked low with a question mark kick, then snapped high. Hansu leaned back just enough.
"You know," Hansu said, lowering his guard slightly, "I still remember having to go on an assassination mission to take out the supreme leader of North Korea. Jincheol Park and Manager Kim were with me."
Baki blinked. "That's a little too much for a bluff." He paused. "It is a bluff, right?"
Hansu said nothing.
Baki sighed. "I should have been born in that era. I bet you guys had more fun than we do now." He threw a side kick and Hansu blocked it.
"Not necessarily," Hansu replied with a small nod. "Those times were very dark."
A phone rang from across the room. Hansu broke his stance and pointed at the bench. Baki walked over and picked it up.
"It's been a long time," he said. "Why are you calling me?" He went quiet for a moment. "What? A kid invited you to join his crew?"
He laughed. "I can't even imagine it. The White Viper of Seoul joining some second-generation kid's gang." The laugh settled. "Don't worry. I'll be there within a few hours."
He ended the call.
The smile dropped.
The bloodlust hit the room like a pressure change. Even Hansu went still. Normal people would have run. Normal people would have already been on the floor.
Hansu crossed the room and placed a hand on Baki's shoulder. Within seconds, all of it pulled back and went quiet.
Baki turned around and smiled like nothing had happened.
"What happened?" Hansu asked.
"There's a rat," Baki said, still smiling. "Been snooping around my friends."
Hansu nodded slowly. "Sounds like a foolish one."
Baki's smile shifted into something else. "Yeah. I've been too easy. A rat belongs in the gutter. If it crawls out, it dies."