The Martial Unity

“I mean, sure.” Kane shrugged.

“Good, hear me out.” Rui moved closer to him and began whispering his plan, he knew the Squire had sharp senses, so he took all the precautions he could, to avoid letting her in on the plan.

Meanwhile, Fae launched a flurry of powerful palm attacks, each one with incredible force. Yet Kyrie managed to parry all of them handily.

WHOOSH

Felix lunged towards her from the other side, looking for a takedown, but she simply evaded his attack with a summersault, cleanly dodging the shooting maneuver. This resulted in Fae’s and Felix’s attacks heading towards each other.

“Not this time!” Fae narrowly avoided Felix’s charge while diverting her attack away from Felix.

“Looks like the same trick won’t work too many times, eh?” Kyrie noted blankly. Yet four Apprentices attempted to dogpile her from four sides, while three more were circling around ready to pounce the moment they failed.

All eleven of them couldn’t attack her simultaneously. It was almost physically impossible, there was limited space around a person through which they could be attacked. Even if it were physically possible, it could only be achieved through practiced and rehearsed well-timed and well-placed attacks. Such a thing was, of course, impossible in this sparring session, which was why no more than five people ever attacked Squire Kyrie.

BOOM

Kyrie blew away the last of her attackers with blitz kick, dusting her attire as the Apprentices recuperated.

Suddenly a commotion of the other side of the ring grabbed her attention.

“NO NO NO! That’s a stupid plan!” Kane shouted at Rui. “That’s not gonna work!”

“HUH?” Rui snarled. “You think you can do better?!”

The two of them started bickering loudly, uncaring for their opponent, who simply gazed at them blankly before sighing.

(‘These idiots are arguing in the middle of a fight.’) She facepalmed. (‘They’re the type to die young in the field. I’ll beat some sense into them.’)

“Enough.” She commanded, earning their attention, interrupting their debate. “Seems you the two of you have much to learn. I’m going to beat that attitude right out of you.”

Kane responded by resuming the fight. He dashed at her with multiple Apprentice-level techniques, throwing speedy jabs. She responded by throwing a long straight kick into his gut, literally kicking the air out of his lungs.

“Rushing straightforwardly towards an opponent with greater range and power than you, is a foolish move.” She told him as he dropped to the floor.

She turned her gaze towards Rui, who glanced back at her with a fearful expression, earning her ire.

(‘If you’re afraid of a sparring session, you’re not cut out to be a Martial Artist.’)

She dashed over to Rui at incredibly high speeds, throwing a barrage of punches and kicks. Rui simply tucked his tail between his legs and ran away from her as fast as he could, nearing the edge of the ring, all while still facing her, using Elastic Shift and Acute Edge to mitigate the damage, all while trying to open the distance between them.

This irritated her even more. She forbade blatant escapism in her sparring sessions. Her sparring sessions were meant to push the Apprentices beyond their limits, to have them get used to fighting losing battles under extreme pressure and exhaustion, yet Rui was merely running away.

She chased him with even greater speed, reaching the edge of the ring.

“End of line.” She announced, yet Rui immediately turned around with a grappling stance standing at the very edge of the ring, making his intentions very clear.

(‘He wants to use my own momentum to throw me over the ring.’) She mused. It wasn’t an original idea, but at the very least it was better than running away. She intended to beat him up a bit before throwing him back in the center of the ring.

​ She twisted her core, generating torque, launching an uppercut to Rui’s solar plexus.

Just then, the slightest hint of a grin could be seen on Rui’s face. He rushed in for an upper takedown simultaneously. The uppercut reached Rui faster than the takedown reached Squire Kyrie, yet the moment her fist made contact;

WHOOSH

The upper takedown was an illusion, and her uppercut hit empty air.

This was the Mirage Dive technique.

Rui grinned like a madman as he rushed in for the lower takedown, yet just as he began the shoot, Kyrie halted her missed uppercut, and swung down her elbow, aiming to crush the lower takedown. The timing was impeccable, she launched the elbow almost as if she knew that the upper takedown would be a fake.

(‘Every Martial Squire is well-versed with all the foundational Apprentice-level techniques.’) She mused. This was the orthodox way one countered the Mirage Dive technique; to throw counters that could very easily be diverted to handle real takedown. Yet to her surprise;

CLASP

Rui grabbed onto the incoming elbow hammer with all four limbs, using the Binding Lash technique, the sudden shifts in center of gravity was dangerous at the edge of the ring. But she was not impressed.

(‘A desperate attempt, the force you’re using is just barely enough to destabilize my center of gravity temporarily.’) She sighed mentally. (‘You won’t be able to throw me out with just tha-!’)

Her thoughts were interrupted as her senses detected an attack moving towards her incredibly fast, in just an instant, it had crossed almost all of the distance and was about to strike her.

Kane was moving so fast that every Apprentice, including Rui, could not even see him!

This was the same technique that Kane had used in his fight with Fae! It was an incredibly high-efficiency Apprentice-level technique with extremely low flexibility; it could only be used in one way. But in that one scenario, when used, it was extremely potent, reaching the very pinnacle of what Apprentice-level techniques could offer.

In the span of several milliseconds, he had crossed the distance.

Yet Kyrie was able to perceive him, such was the prowess of a Martial Squire. But she had limited herself to peak Apprentice-level speed and power. Furthermore, Rui had brought her to the very edge of the ring, and had destabilized her center of gravity with the Binding Lash technique, Kane had aimed to strike her at that very moment. Under these extenuating circumstances, she could only do so much while holding back almost all of her power and speed.

Ordinarily, she would have cleanly redirected him back into the ring, but with her center of gravity destabilized towards the edge of the ring, she was remarkably off-balance. It was almost an incredible coincidence that Kane had chose to strike her at the moment.

(‘Or it was all planned from the very start.’) She realized with a tinge of shock.

Just as Kane was about to strike her, time slowed down from her perspective, she glanced at both the boys, realizing they had coordinated this from the very start.

From the very start, the arguments between them, and Kane’s defeat at her hands immediately after were to take her attention away from Kane and focus only on Rui. Then Rui went through an elaborate and convoluted course of actions all with end goal of hampering her defenses by either locker her body partially, or destabilizing her gravity, all so that Kane could use that incredibly potent ability to knock both him and the Squire outside the ring.

This was the only strategy Rui had been able to think of that wasn’t an utter failure. Kane’s technique was their very best chance, yet it had too many flaws. It had low flexibility making it extremely predictable, it required preparatory stances, its rigid linearity meant that Kyrie would normally be able to easily redirect or knock him out or use his own momentum against him with delicate finesse.

Rui’s one and only goal was to mitigate these shortcomings to give Kane a better chance of landing that technique successfully. He was fully prepared to be knocked out with Kyrie if that was what was needed to win.

He knew Kyrie wouldn’t knock him out of the ring,l; this was one of her policies after all. He also knew she would chase after him aggressively, just as he needed her to, when she saw him blatantly running away. She punished those who blatantly ran away from all confrontation with a painful beating, this was to ensure students didn’t do that.

All of these were quirks and patterns Rui had observed from her in the initial part of the battle, as well as her own instruftions and rules. Allowing to create a plan that wasn’t a complete dud.

(‘You did well to push me this far.’) She smiled, closing her eyes. (‘Gentle Fury Style: Whirlwind Tempest.’)

WHOOSH

All three of them disappeared for a moment, a huge gust of wind washed over the bewildered onlookers. They seldom witnessed such raw speed and power!

In the very next moment, Kane and Rui landed in the center of the ring, unconscious at Kyrie’s feet. The other Martial Apprentices looked on with awe and shock.

“These two won’t be getting up any time soon.” Kyrie announced. “Let’s put an end to today’s session just a little early this time.” She turned and walked away, having ended the sparring session, only confusing everybody even more.

“Er, what just happened?” Fae couldn’t help but ask.

Kyrie halted, turning to meet her eyes.

“…They forced me to use a Squire-level technique from my Martial Art.”