Seomara eagerly stretched her arms as the sun started rising next to the sheep pasture. Today she was going to learn real martial arts techniques!
The party had been a low key affair, except for the mountains of food. She'd bought a cheesecake, but honestly no one would have noticed if she'd shown up without anything. In addition to the (correctly prepared) dishes each of the other girls had brought they'd all grabbed another dish. Seomara had somehow ended up having to finish off half a chocolate cake and a full skewer of Taiteann carp in addition to nibbling on the snacks left about.
She'd also played mediator to Mina, Cecilia, and Ysolte as they bickered amongst themselves. It was pretty obvious that Cecilia wasn't the only one with a crush. Still that was all unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Somehow Cecilia managed to convince Keane to teach them how to fight. Well she'd convinced him to teach her how to fight. And neither Seomara nor Ysolte was going to pass up that opportunity!
"You're here early."
Seomara looked up to find Ysolte frowning down at her. "Yeah. I don't really have anything else to do though. And I've been wanting to learn how to fight with knuckles for as long as I can remember."
Ysolte sniffed then shrugged. "I suppose I can't claim to be any better. I'm just doing this to keep an eye on Cecilia."
"Of course." Seomara did her best to keep her skepticism out of her voice. She had a feeling the blue haired woman would take confrontation poorly. And she wanted to learn how to fight, not start one.
Ysotle sighed. "It must be nice being a Milletian. You don't need to eat or sleep. You get to focus on whatever you want."
"I suppose it is pretty nice yeah. There are some downsides too though," Seomara said. 'Like having everyone expect you to be a master of everything,' she thought.
The blue haired woman's expression seemed to soften. "I suppose so. I don't know what it would be like aging so fast most people couldn't recognize me."
"Well everyone's here." Seomara and Ysolte looked up as Mina, Keane and Cecelia approached the duo. Mina adjusted her glasses and headed to the top of the low hill. "I'll be giving you three the direct instructions, while Keane acts as your training partner all right?" Keane smiled and nodded to confirm the setup.
"Okay," the three pupils responded.
Mina held up a finger and began lecturing. "Now all the moves we're going to teach you are meant to be chained one after the other. You probably can't get an enemy to drop their guard enough to use the later skills without hitting them with a strong opener." Keane whispered something in her ear and she nodded. "Ah right. Martial arts is more about overpowering your enemy's will to fight then brute force. If you can make your enemies panic with your opener, your follow up and finisher should be effective on them, even if they weren't the one you hit the first time."
Seomara frowned as she considered that. It seemed a bit of a limitation, but maybe she was underestimating the power of the skills.
"First Cecilia. You seem to favor fast attacks. These moves will help you add power to your speed. Thus the first technique. This attack can be released at any time, but it becomes quite strong when fully powered up. First focus your willpower into your fist." Keane slowly pulled his right fist back. As the man did a strange glow formed around it. "Then release it!" The man seemed to launch forward with a resounding smash. Seomara shifted eagerly with excitement. This was what she had wanted to learn!
Mina looked down at the trio. "Alright. Why don't you all try the move now?"
Seomara closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to focus her will into her fist. At first it seemed like there was nothing happening, but then she had a sudden flash of insight. Instead of thinking about making her fist stronger, she tried to imagine the glow that had surrounded Keane's hand. As she did her fingers began to tingle with energy. Carefully and slowly she drew her fist back. Then when she reached the limit of her wind up, she stepped forward and struck.
There was a satisfying stomp and she opened her eyes to reveal she had indeed shot forward. Unfortunately, she was both a foot short and two to the right of the tree she'd been aiming for. She couldn't help but sigh internally.
"That was amazing, Seomara." She blinked and looked over to see Keane smiling and Mina lightly applauding. "Not many people can perform the move on their first try. Now you just need to work on your accuracy and distance. Why don't you work on that while we help Cecilia and Ysolte?"
"Ah sure." She mentally kicked herself. It had been a good first try! She just needed to make it even better. She lined herself up with the tree and tried focusing her power again. And this time she'd keep her eyes open. That would help with her aim if nothing else.
It took about a half hour for the other two girls to manage the move, and about a full hour to be able to do it consistently. When Ysolte managed to perform the attack three times in a row with ease Mina clapped her hands for attention.
"You all did well." Mina adjusted her glasses again. "Now that you've gotten this attack down you can start learning the follow up. This attack also involves summoning your will, but instead of using pure energy, try imagining it as flame." Keane did a short chi punch then crouched down before leaping into the air with a burning uppercut. "This attack will break your enemy's defenses, both mundane and magical."
Seomara nodded and picked a dead tree to practice on. She carefully focused her energy, stepped forward and slammed her fist into the tree, then she crouched down. She tried to think of fire, of warmth, and she was rewarded by a roar as her fist ignited. "Haaaaa!" She pushed off with her left foot and let her full body spin forward as her uppercut shattered the tree's bark.
"Hiyaa-ooow!" Seomara winced as she heard Cecilia's fist smack into the her training dummy with more of a slap then a crash. She turned to see the woman shaking her hand. Ysolte on the other hand was resetting her initial attack. It seemed the blue haired fighter hadn't managed to focus her second attack right after her first one. Mina hadn't noticed Seomara's success, but Keane gave her a shy smile, a nod, and a shushing motion.
She nodded. It was probably a good idea to be a little quieter about her success. She turned back to the tree to continue practicing. Still she was starting to feel better then she had in a long time. This was actually working!
After another hour all of the trainees had managed to perform the move successfully. Mina clapped again to signal they should break and motioned Seomara and the others to the foot of the hill. "Now the finishing move. If you've gotten to this stage your opponents will be off guard enough that you can break through any defense or counter they try to use. And since the last hit just lowered their protection, the best follow up would be a series of rapid blows. Let's see..." Mina paused and looked over the three students. "Um, Seomara would you be willing to help Keane demonstrate?"
"Sure, I suppose." Seomara walked forward a bit. "What do I need to do?"
Mina stepped down next to Ysolte and Cecilia. "For now, just stand there as Keane demonstrates. Don't worry, he won't hurt you."
Seomara nodded and turned to face the softly smiling man. He bowed his head a bit, then assumed a fighting stance before moving towards her. She instinctively wanted to block, but she forced herself to stand still despite the incoming attack.
It probably wouldn't have mattered. One moment she was facing the martial artists, the next she was flying through the air. She coughed in surprise as she landed on her back on the ground. At least it was thick pasture grass here. Sensing something dangerous was coming she tried to stand, but as she moved to push herself off the ground Keane appeared flying through the air. "Oof," she exhaled as her breath was driven out of her by the man's landing on top of her. She found herself pinned as Keane straddled her waist. Before she could even begin to recover the man slammed ten punches on either side of her head.
The tall man then blushed and pushed himself off of her before extending a hand to help her up. Seomara shook her head to clear it and allowed the man to pull her to her feet before looking over to see what Mina had to say. Instead she found all three other women glaring at her with burning green eyes. She stepped back before their wrath and looked for an out. "So, uh how do we practice this technique?"
Mina's rage slowly dissipated. "Ah, right. Well we should pair off. The pummeling part is rather straight forward, so the main trick is the kick, leaping on your opponent to pin them, and the dismount."
"I pick Keane!" Cecilia said immediately. Seomara was startled and impressed at how fast the woman was.
Mina was almost as quick however. "Oh no, Keane is watching to correct our technique. I'll be your partner." The woman's happy grin as she said that almost looked like a real smile.
Seomara walked away from that disaster in the making and approached Ysolte. "I guess we'll be partners then."
Ysolte snapped around to face Seomara, then slowly relaxed into her usual frown, "Yeah I suppose so. Do you want to get your perfect performance out of the way first, or should I go?"
Seomara winced. "Hey, don't be so hard on yourselves. You learned in an hour. Given a year to me is a week to you that's pretty fast."
"Hmph," Ysolte's frown didn't change but the woman seemed mollified. "Well you're still going to get it right the first time, so why don't you go first? Maybe I can learn some more hints from watching you."
"Right." Seomara carefully tried to figure out the best way to launch Ysolte so she'd be helpless, yet without hurting her. She eventually settled for the stomach and a rolling back kick that would add a lot of push. "Ready?"
Ysolte tensed her muscles to absorb any errant impact. "Ready."
Seomara rolled forward with the kick, then used her momentum to pull a forward somersault. She couldn't see where she was headed, but somehow her move felt right. Sure enough as she straightened out she found Ysolte lying right at her landing point. She did her best to use the ground instead of Ysolte to absorb her landing, then she unloaded a few quick punches into the ground, just to get the feel of the attack. She wasn't nearly as fast as Keane, but that could be fixed easily. Then she used her legs to push off again into a lazy backwards flip.
As she landed she saw Ysolte slowly rising to her feet. "Ugh. Didn't hurt much but it's still something of a shock."
"Maybe we'll learn how to absorb the fall better as we train," Seomara said. "Anyway it's your turn."
"Right." Ysolte's frown became more serious, then the woman moved forward with a kick.
Seomara cried out as the blow hit her in the stomach and drove her backwards, but it didn't send her flying. She rubbed at the spot that Ysolte had hit while the blue haired woman cursed. "I think you need more push. Also more 'up.'"
Ysolte grimaced. "Yeah." Seomara noticed as the other fighter's eyes shifted to where Keane was watching. "Can I try again?"
"Sure." Seomara let a smile flicker to life. "And you might also do better if you paid more attention to me than Keane."
She regretted the words immediately. Ysolte's eyes smoldered as she focused on Seomara, and the woman's vicious smirk had returned. "Sure thing." Seomara forced herself to remain still as Ysolte rolled forward in a mirror of her own attack, then kicked.
There was a brief flash of pain, then the sensation of falling, then a rough impact as she hit the ground. It seemed the launch had worked, she thought with a wince. She considered trying to get up, but the sight of Ysolte spinning through the air stopped her. No reason to make the woman's landing more difficult. As the blue haired fighter finished her final rotation however Seomara could tell the woman had rolled too far forward. Ysolte's eyes widened as she began to head face first toward Seomara.
Stars exploded in her eyes as the two women smashed foreheads. Seomara flopped backwards on the ground, while a soft but heavy weight fell on top of her.
She felt dizzy, like she'd been drinking. But she hadn't been drinking had she? She didn't even remember if she'd ever drunk something before. Perhaps she was just basing it off one of her stories. Something like those cheap romances where they got drunk and the girl pushed the guy away going, "Kya~ No we mustn't. Not on the first date~."
"What?"
The voice was slurred a little, but still shocked. The realization she'd said those lines aloud helped bring her vision back. There, looking shocked and angry was Ysolte. The woman had managed to get her hands underneath her so she wasn't pressed up against Seomara, but they were still nearly nose to nose. Seomara found her face heating up as she blushed. "Um. Sorry. You knocked me silly for a bit. My brain just kind of wandered."
Ysolte pushed herself up so she was sitting on Seomara's stomach. The young fighter slowly clenched a fist. "Oh really? And what kind of fantasy were you thinking about, huh?" Seomara followed Ysolte's flickering gaze over to where Keane was watching the two with a concerned look.
She swiftly moved to save her skin. "No no no no! It's not like that at all. I don't have any interest in Keane, I mean I prefer girls anyway and-" Seomara stopped abrubtly, realizing she'd just made an even bigger mistake. Her face felt even hotter. She was sure her skin had probably turned the same shade her hair.
Ysolte was blushing too, though the woman's fist was trembling with embarrassed anger. "Is that so?"
Seomara desperately thought about a way to fix her missteps, but her mind rejected all the answers she came up with. There was no good answer. So instead she sidestepped. "Um. Anyway we're training right now, so we should probably get back to it."
There was a long awkward paused, then Ysolte stood up. "Alright. Let's try that again."
Seomara slowly stood and braced herself for the inevitable kick. "Whenever you're ready."
