Chapter 439: Who Needs Therapy When You Can Get Your Ass Kicked?
Chapter 439: Who Needs Therapy When You Can Get Your Ass Kicked?
I threw myself into training, grinding away every day for the next week. I’d spend hours locked in the dojo, pushing my limits until my limbs burned and my breath came in ragged.
It wasn’t because I was worried about the Mock War.
Seeing Thalia up close confirmed that she had improved a lot, but... I had slain a god. A literal god.
One that was weakened by the centuries of rotting corruption and slain only with the help of a divine intervention, sure.
But it was a god nonetheless that fell to my blade.
So I was fairly confident that my combat skills were more than enough to handle a teenage girl.
Pftt.
Then what was the actual reason I was subjecting every single muscle fiber in my body to this extreme torture?
I guess it was just therapeutic.
There was far too much on my mind.
The mark of the Mother of Mercy branded on my flesh, which had now shifted to my lower abdomen, was still bothering me.
The way I somehow tapped into an unknown, alien power to inflict True Death without ever meaning to was still bothering me.
Accidentally seeing Underreality, the code of all existence itself, but having no way to learn more about it, was still bothering me.
The fact that Selene was a counterspy, but in the game she opposed the main characters and became the reason for the fall of North was also still bothering me.
The Faceless One was on the move. The Syndicate was succeeding in their plans and I had no idea what was next. The Academy was full of moles.
I was now an existence outside of the Loom of Fate, probably the first in eons — since the only other such entity I knew about was Asmodeus’ daughter.
Oh, and while we were on the subject of fate — the Spirit King was apparently fated to win and achieve his goal of killing all the Destined Ones to assemble the final lost shards of the Tenth Card.
This endlessly long list of existential crises that kept piling up without any regard for my mental well-being was still bothering me to a point where I really needed to hit something to keep myself from cracking under pressure.
And this isn’t some fancy narrative exaggeration for the sake of sounding dramatic.
Recently, I was actually starting to feel waves of panic washing over me if I sat still.
I constantly needed to do something, keep myself busy, or my mind would start spiraling.
So, I ran. I lifted. I swung my blade. And I avoided Juliana as best as I could.
To my relief (mixed with some immense disappointment which I would never admit in the light of day), she never tried anything as bold as kissing me like that evening again.
Though I did catch her stealing glances at my lips when she thought I wasn’t looking.
She thought she was being subtle. She was not.
You have no idea the amount of self-restraint I had to practice to not just throw myself at her.
For all her confidence and teasing, Juliana was inexperienced in the matters of real intimacy. I’d make a quivering mess of her if I actually took her to my bed.
Gods, was that a tempting sight in my imagination.
I knew I would do that eventually.
I had already made up my mind for it.
I would strip all of that haughty arrogance, that cold and calculating persona, piece by pleasant piece until she was just a flushed woman breathlessly wrapped in my sheets.
...But that would be for later — after I had won the Mock War, preferably after I had returned from my venture to the Iron Height.
For now, I needed my mind to function without any distraction.
And as for that list of existential crises weighing down on me? I’d take it one step at a time.
One step at a—
—THWAACK!
"One step at a time, bro! One! Step! At a time!" Alexia screamed at me like she was a military instructor and I was a new recruit, towering over my prone body as I blinked up at the ceiling of the dojo.
A bitter taste of copper was building in my mouth.
"I think I bit my tongue," I groaned.
I was currently flat on my back, the matted floor soft against my sweat-drenched vest.
"You dropped your left shoulder there when you pivoted," the blind girl grunted, wiping a trail of sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm.
She was in a simple gray sports bra and black track pants, her Origin Card floating high above her head, the runes on it ablaze in a bright glow that matched the orange of her hair.
Her ponytail swayed as she leaned down, hands on her knees. Her sightless eyes, though, were fixed on my nose. "Can you tell me why you did it?"
"...To lure you inside my guard."
"Oh? And how did that work out for you?"
"With me on the ground..."
"No, it ended with me redecorating the floor with your face!" Alexia huffed out what I was sure was a sadistic chuckle. "You know what’s your problem? You keep fighting like every exchange is your last. You’re not a martial artist."
"Hey! Rude."
"I mean it as a compliment," she shook her head. Then paused. "Well, somewhat." Circling around me as I got up to my feet, she continued. "I had already noticed this before, but you don’t think in combinations. You don’t think in positions and opportunities."
Her finger poked my shoulder. "You willingly sacrifice balance." A poke against my ribs. "You abandon your centerline." Then my forearm. "You expose openings that literally every instructor on the planet would beat out of a student."
She stopped in front of me, and I started internally cursing myself for accepting her proposal for a spar.
She had been pestering me for months about it, so three days ago I finally caved in. It was a mistake.
Don’t get me wrong.
I was learning so much from her. She truly was a once-in-a-generation talent. Her insights were helpful. But they came with lots of pain and humiliation — the former I could endure, the latter bruised my ego to the point I went to my bed sobbing every night.
"Basically," she carried on, "you open yourself to hurt because somewhere in that ridiculously thick skull of yours, you’ve already accepted getting hit. You’ll take a broken rib if it lets you stab someone in the throat. You’ll let someone dislocate your shoulder if it means snapping theirs first. Instead of exchanging techniques, I don’t know why you are so hell-bent on exchanging injuries."
"Because that’s how people fight outside dojos," I muttered. "In real fights. You know, on the streets."
Yes, yes. I know how stupid a retort it was to talk about real fighting with Alexia. I just did not have anything better.
"No. I’ve been in street fights, too." Alexia shook her head firmly. "How you fight is how desperate people fight. When you encounter someone who has even the slightest advantage over you, you start thinking of counters and trades-offs. I’m guessing it’s because you were young when you started getting into street brawls. It drilled in you this twisted instinct that survival is a zero-sum game."
I shrugged. "Isn’t it?"
She sighed in response, pacing over to the other end of the ring and assuming her fighting stance once more. "Listen to me. Don’t try to solve the entire fight. Take one step at a time. Trust your technique. Turn off your instincts. You’re phenomenal when chaos begins, but don’t try to force it. Focus on winning small exchanges. From now on in practice, don’t use feints against me."
A frown contorted my forehead. "Huh? How will I trap you, then?"
Alexia looked like she was seriously considering accidentally strangling me. "Hey, Sam? Can you do me a favor?"
"...Sure."
"Shake your head real quick. I want to hear if there’s a brain rattling around in there, or if it’s all just rocks."
There are only a few things worse than being beaten by a short, blind girl. One of them is being beaten by a short, blind girl and then having her roast you.
I really was on the verge of tears.
"The entire point of this exercise is making you trust your technique, you absolute turnip!" she barked, again in the tone of a military instructor. Which was a little comical considering her voice was so high-pitched. "Your feints are good, but against someone like me who can read even your tiniest movements, they’re a telegraph for your next move. You might as well tell me you’re going to follow up your hook with a bodyline strike."
Right.
I always forgot her innate ability to see aura allowed her to read the flow of one’s intent before their muscle even twitched.
In a way, for her, my clever little feints were just loud announcements that the real attack wasn’t coming.
"Fine," I grumbled. Every combatant has their own fighting style. Mine was entirely built around everything Alexia had just lambasted.
You know? Misdirections, high-stakes overcommitment, borderline suicidal willingness to tank a blow if I could get a better angle for a counterattack, and a pathological need to chase decisive finishes.
All normal stuff.
But now, apparently, I needed to revamp my entire foundation. Sure, why not? Easy.