Defenceman: Parallel Ice (Non-Canonical Saga)
Copyright© 2025 by Cold Creek Tribute Writer
9. Rika Arrives
Coming of Age Story: 9. Rika Arrives - Defenceman: Parallel Ice (A Non-Canonical Saga) builds on Cold Creek’s Defenceman series while offering a new interpretation. Michael Stewart’s journey extends beyond the rink into intrigue, modeling, and the launch of his AI: Aegis. From Ann Arbor to London, Japan, and Spain, the story explores honor, love, betrayal, and resilience. Rivals and allies test his limits in the arena, courts and shadows—where triumph demands sacrifice and heart both on and off the ice.
Caution: This Coming of Age Story contains strong sexual content, including Romantic Celebrity Sports Interracial White Female Oriental Female White Couple Royalty
April 2010
Rika’s Arrival
The flight has left my body taut, but it is not fatigue that stiffens my shoulders, it is the knowledge of why I am here. When the Matsuda elders call, you do not decline, you obey, or you are nothing. So, when they told me to go to Ann Arbor, to enter the foreign halls where Michael Stewart trains and learns, and to stand against him, I bowed and accepted without protest.
Now I walk through the streets of this quiet city, the air crisp with April’s leftover chill. Ann Arbor is green in a way Kyoto never is—broad lawns, trees unfurling with spring’s impatience. Beauty does not concern me, what matters is the gate ahead, the familiar sweep of wood and tile that marks a dojo even across an ocean.
The Matsuda family arranged everything—the driver, the quiet car, the subtle but unmistakable reminder that I am not traveling as myself but as their chosen instrument. Every detail whispers: do not fail. I step from the car and stand before the entrance. My hands remain loose at my sides, but inside I can feel the pulse of duty, here is where the test begins.
Inside, the smell is instantly familiar; wood polished by years of bare feet, straw mats that carry the faint tang of sweat and resin. Incense burned just enough to remind students that this is not merely a place of exercise but of spirit. For a moment, my chest tightens—Kyoto’s summer halls feel only a breath away.
The students are already assembled, rows of white gis, backs straight, eyes sharp. I sense the ripple that passes through them as they see me, some curious, some suspicious, a few already hostile. This is not unusual; outsiders are viewed with suspicion.
Sensei Ogata steps forward, his presence stills the air as if the walls themselves bow to him. He is unchanged—stern, unreadable, an immovable stone sculpted by years of discipline. His gaze sweeps the room and returns to me, he does not speak my name as though introducing a guest, he speaks it as one announces a challenge.
“Students, this is Rika Sato,” he says, each syllable striking like a staff upon stone. “By command of the Matsuda elders, she comes to us as kōtekishu to Michael Stewart.”
The air trembles with shock, I hear it in the small intake of breath, see it in the shift of eyes from one student to another. To declare me so openly, to replace Asuka without hesitation—this is not diplomacy, it is declaration. I bow, deep and deliberate, silence expands around me, honor binds me, I will not falter.
When I rise, my gaze does not wander, nor do search for Michael among them, though I can feel his presence like a talisman. That meeting will come soon enough, for now, my role is simple: bow again, acknowledge the task set before me, and accept the burden aloud only through gesture. Inwardly, I whisper to the elders across the sea: I will sharpen him until he gleams, or I will break him until he is dust. He will endure—or he will be nothing.
The students remain hushed, uncertain whether to see me as threat or teacher. Their opinions carry no weight in the balance of destiny. Sensei Ogata raises his hand and with a single motion dismisses them. The mats shiver with their retreating steps, in moments, the hall is empty save for him and me. The reception is complete, the path has begun, and in my chest, my heart beats once, heavy as a taiko (war drum).
Sensei’s Instructions
When the last of the students leave, Sensei Ogata inclines his head almost imperceptibly, and I know what it means: follow. His gestures are few, his words even fewer, but none are ever mistaken. He leads me into a private chamber, a small room with bare tatami, a single low table, and the faint scent of ink and cedar. Sensei sits across from me, his spine is unbending even here, his eyes as still as a pond at midnight. For a long moment, he studies me without speaking, it is not judgment, just measure, finally, he speaks.
“Do you understand why you are here, Sato Rika?”
“Yes, Sensei,” I answer, bowing. “The elders have charged me to be Michael Stewart’s kōtekishu (rival or formidable opponent).”
He nods once, but his gaze sharpens, and I feel the cut of it.
“You speak the words; do you also understand the weight? Rival is not protector, rival is whetstone, the steel that does not grind will never cut.”
The lesson is ancient, I heard it as a child, whispered by instructors who believed pain to be a teacher more faithful than kindness. Still, hearing it from him now, spoken with such calm finality, makes me pause.
“I understand,” I say.
He does not let me breathe relief; his words fall with the gravity of judgment.
“Do not protect or temper your strikes, do not shield him from failure, push him, break him if needed, so that he may be reforged into the man he is destined to become.”
A silence follows, but it is not empty, it is filled with the echo of command. I bow deeper, “Hai, Sensei.”
Inside, I feel the burden, to be ordered to break a man, not my enemy but my charge, is to shoulder a paradox heavier than steel. If he fails, it will not only be his shame, but it will also be mine. If he collapses under my hand, have I sharpened him—or destroyed him?
Sensei’s eyes never leave mine, “Michael’s talent is immense, his body strong, but his spirit...” He shakes his head once, “Clouded. Longing pulls at him; distraction obscure his focus and if he does not shed these, his strength will wither into weakness.”
I let his words settle into me; they are not exaggeration. Already I have seen the shadow in Michael’s movements, the hesitation where purpose should strike. A warrior cannot serve two masters—desire and duty cannot coexist without fracture.
“Do you accept this charge fully?” Ogata asks, his voice low, steady, final. “I do,” I say, my voice does not waver, though my stomach knots. Duty is not chosen, it is obeyed.
For a long moment, he studies me again, then he nods once, as though a verdict has been passed, “You may go.”
I bow deeply once more and rise. The door slides open, cool air brushing across my face. As I step out, the silence of the chamber clings to me. Ogata’s command is not one that can be set down, it is carried in every step, in every breath.
Ogata’s words echo with merciless clarity, commanding me to push Michael past every limit, to break him if needed so that he can be reforged, or else to accept that his path will end beneath my hand.
I walk the corridor back toward the training hall. My hands are steady, but inside, a whisper coils like smoke: If he fails, it will be my failure too, the burden of his destiny is now mine to bear.
Flashback: Rika & Asuka as Trainees
The hallway smells faintly of cedar and dust, as I walk, memory rises like heat from the tatami, unbidden. Kyoto’s summer presses down on me again—humid, relentless, the air thick enough to drink.
We were children then, though we never thought of ourselves that way. In the dojo of our youth, age was irrelevant, only strength, precision, and spirit mattered. The instructors treated us as iron waiting for the forge. I see Asuka again, standing opposite me on the training floor, even as a girl she burned brighter than anyone else—every movement a spark thrown from flint. Her eyes gleamed with ferocity, her stance never still, I remember the way her hair clung to her temples with sweat, the defiance in her stance even when bruises bloomed across her arms.
She attacked with instinct, always forward, always hungry, I countered with patience, with calculation. She was flame, I was steel and every clash between us rang like hammer on anvil. The instructors circled, wooden staves in hand, “perfection is survival,” they said. “Rivalry is your grindstone.”
We struck until our limbs shook, until breath tore ragged from our lungs, her kicks came in furious flurries, my blocks absorbing each one until the final strike slipped past and left me gasping. Then it was my turn, waiting for her to overextend, slipping inside her guard to drive her back. Neither of us yielded easily nor wanted to.
Yet respect grew between us, each bruise was a lesson, every fall a teacher. We did not say it aloud—words of praise were rare in those halls—but in our eyes we acknowledged one another. She sharpened me, I sharpened her, together we rose higher than we could alone.
But time twists even steel. I remember the day I sensed her drifting, she lingered in shadows, spoke less during training, her eyes searching corners no one else saw. The instructors pressed harder, demanding focus, but Asuka had begun to change. When she finally spoke her choice aloud, my stomach turned.
“The way of the shinobi (ninja) is my path,” she said, her voice quiet but unyielding. I felt my blood run cold. A path of shadows? Deception, poison, assassination—tools of cowards, not warriors.
“You would abandon honor for shadows?” I spat, my words harsher than I intended. “The way of the shinobi is unworthy of a true warrior.”
She only met my glare with calm. “And what is honor worth when it chains you?”
We clashed again that day, but it was no longer the same, my strikes carried anger, hers a cold finality. Our rivalry had been the crucible of our youth, yet from that moment, the metal cracked. The years since have only widened the fracture, she embraced the shadows, I remained with the light of the dojo. The elders still speak her name with caution, some with disdain. For me, there is only the memory of a rival who chose to step into dishonor.
Now, as I walk the halls of this foreign dojo, I feel that memory harden inside me. Asuka was my mirror once, even a friend. She forced me to see myself more clearly, to temper precision against ferocity, but her path is closed to me now. Michael must face the same challenge she and I once shared. Without it, he will crumble, and perhaps he will endure and will rise higher.
The memory fades, but the resolve remains, I ball my hand into fists, feeling the echo of those long-ago sparring matches vibrate through my bones. Michael will be tested as we once were, lessons cut whether one desires it or not.
Flashback: Asuka’s Shadow Years
I can still smell the dojo of Kyoto when I close my eyes — cedar beams polished by decades of hands, but even there, even in the place that raised me, I never felt like I fit completely. Rika could flow like water, her patience endless, her precision almost cruel. I was not patient, I burned. I wanted the strike, the clash, the immediacy of combat. Instructors praised my spirit, then cautioned me to temper it. They told me fire could harden steel or shatter it, I smiled, bowed, and the moment their eyes turned away, I attacked again with everything I had. It was only a matter of time before I crossed the line.
One humid summer afternoon, during sparring, my opponent — a boy older and heavier — struck me harder than he should have, his elbow catching my jaw. My vision swam, pride ignited, and before thought could intervene, my counter came sharp and final. He dropped and did not rise, he lived, but his training ended that day. The silence in the dojo after was suffocating. No lecture, no punishment, only the weight of their eyes, the quiet judgment that said: she cannot be trusted. That silence drove me out more than any words could have.
When the recruiters came, they did not speak of patience or honor, they spoke of freedom. They told me I was wasted in halls where discipline smothered instinct and said my fire was not weakness, but strength — if only I would let it burn without restraint. I wanted to laugh at them, but the words lodged in me like hooks, because hadn’t I felt it myself? The suffocation? The way the elders watched me as though they feared the very thing that made me who I was.
The decision didn’t happen in one night, it festered slowly, in the ache of bruises, the silence of disapproval, the loneliness of knowing even Rika, my mirror, my friend and rival, looked at me differently now. I left the dojo one morning before dawn, carrying nothing but my gi and my stubborn pride, and followed the voices into the shadows.
The world of the ninja was nothing like the dojo. There were no bows before sparring, no speeches about honor, there was silence, drills that pushed the body to breaking, nights of hunger and tests designed to strip away hesitation. I adapted quickly — speed, instinct, the refusal to yield. For a while, I felt alive in a way the dojo never allowed.
The clan marked its loyalty not with scrolls or vows but with ink. The tattoos began early, pressed into my skin with deliberate, merciless care. The first ink was the phoenix on my back, wings spread across my shoulders, rising from fire. They told me I was reborn — no longer Matsuda, no longer bound by honor, but something freer, sharper, deadlier.
Over time, the tattoos grew, a snake wrapping my right arm in the traditional irezumi style. Dragons coiled along my shoulders, koi swam upstream across my biceps, blossoms drifted over waves that curled down my ribs. To outsiders, they were beautiful, a living mural, to the clan, they were sacraments. Every scale, every petal, marked another step into their world. I told myself they were only symbols, that they didn’t define me. Each time I looked in the mirror, I saw less of the girl who once sparred with Rika, and more of the weapon the clan demanded I become.
At first, the missions were simple, listening, watching and acquiring information. My skills fit well — fast, quiet, clever, I told myself there was no dishonor in it, battle had always relied on scouts, on shadows. Then came the orders to sabotage, to injure, to eliminate.
The first time I was told to kill, I hesitated, the target was not a warrior, not even a soldier, but a merchant accused of defying the clan’s “protection.” My blades were sharp, my body was ready, and yet my spirit recoiled.
I carried out the mission anyway, my hand moved when my heart refused, and when it was done, the blood washed easily from steel but not from memory. That night I lay awake, staring at the phoenix inked across my back, wondering if rebirth meant killing the girl I had been. The clan praised me and gave me more ink, blossoms falling across my arms to mark the impermanence of life. Where they saw beauty, I saw reminders, every flower, every wave, was another name I could not erase.
It was Mitsy who reached me, though she had no reason to keep vigil. Quiet Mitsy, who rarely raised her voice, who lived in the spaces between the louder, brighter personalities around her, somehow her words crossed the distance I had built.
She sent letters at first, through channels I don’t know how she found, they spoke not of honor or betrayal, but of home, meals and laughter shared. Simple things I had left behind, a life that I could never have, so I never responded, while obsessively reading every word. The first time she saw me again, I was in Kyoto on a mission. I expected anger, accusation, instead, she cried. She took my inked arms in her hands, unflinching, and whispered: “You are not gone, you are still ours.”
Something cracked inside me then. Not enough to leave, not yet, but enough to let doubt bleed through.
The mission that finally broke me came months later, another merchant. A man guilty of nothing but refusing to bow. I followed him through the alleys, my blades ready, my tattoos hidden beneath dark sleeves. I watched him buy sweets for his daughter, I saw her smile, and in her eyes, I saw myself — the girl I had been before the ink, before the silence, before the shadows.