The days passed and Honoka started her breathing technique training. It was much harder work than she initially expected, after all she would spend most of her time sitting down but in reality it was the most demanding exercise regimen she had up until now, requiring an intense amount of focus and concentration in order to get it right. And she was expected to use those breathing techniques to fight one day? She could hardly believe it.

Her physical training also started to get much better now, before she always ended the exercises like she was about to collapse from exertion, but now she could finish the runs and strength training without having her chest trying to jump from her throat. Not only that but she felt that she could start pushing her body further and further forwards when before she was barely breaking it even.

Overall things where going really well for her, and she felt really optimistic that her good mood would last forever.

~~O~~

"Why world, why do you taunt me so much?" Honoka said with a sigh of resignation while looking at the scene in front of her.

Her brother had volunteered to walk Honoka and her friends back home, and the time she on the bathroom in the park on the way back her home was all it took for a small group of middle schoolers, from Kenichi school if Honoka's guess was right, were standing in front of her brother and friends.

"So, is the loser and his little girlfriends have anything to say?" Said one of the bullies, stepping forwards menacingly before Kenichi tried to defend the other two girls but getting hit in the jaw, the lucky hit managing to knock him out.

"Oniichan!" Yelled Honoka while dashing towards the group. While her physical abilities had improved she wasn't arrogant enough to believe she could take on a group of upperclassmen, even if somehow her friends helped her.

She did however had a trump card under her sleeve and prayed that it would work. As her sunsengnim told her before, when you channel ki through your body it naturally become stronger, tougher and faster even if no advanced skill is used, the same went for the Black Heaven and Earth school. In fact due to her school being based on efficient ki flows this natural increase in power would be disproportionately higher compared with other styles.

With each step she tried to calm herself and go through the motions of her breathing technique, before she was at the side of her friends, the two of them taking unknown fighting stances. Since she herself wasn't taught how to properly fight yet she set on a natural stance with her feet slightly apart and her arms loose at her side, careful to maintain her breathing.

"Oh, the little girls want to fight, isn't that cute guys?" Said the one who looked like the leader, earning a couple of laughs from his lackeys, "let's show the little princesses the real world is far from-"

Honoka didn't let him finish, quickly taking advantage of the feeling of her ki flowing in her body to lightly step under his guard and kick him in the groin as hard as she could, following by an uppercut on his chin just as his face dropped lower with pain. As if that was a signal both her friends attacked, with Sakura at her left going for a straight kick directly at the knee of one of them before twisting up and hitting him on the face as he bend over in pain, while Hinata performed a brutal palm strike on the ribs of another one followed by a rapid succession of finger strikes at his already abused ribs making him drop on the ground howling in pain.

The last goon could only stare in shock as three primary schoolers dealt a devastating blow to three of his friends, meaning now he was the one outnumbered. While the others would give him a lot of flak later, he did the immediately smart thing and turned tail, fleeing from the scene. As their last backup had fled the downed thugs looked at each other and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and grabbed their almost unconscious leader and limped away from the three very dangerous little girls.

The three of them looked at each other in surprise, not really knowing what to think of their respective friends. While energetic Sakura never had formal instruction in martial arts before and yet she performed a difficult move rather easily, and Hinata while already knowing martial arts from her family style never had showed anyone how strong she was, surprising everyone that the gentle girl could be so advanced in her style. As for Honoka she was the most surprising since she never had been active or had any interest in martial arts, and yet her blows was the fastest of the group and arguably the strongest in sheer physical ability alone, at least for that ephemeral moment.

"Wow", said Honoka after a few moments, "we rock!"

Tension broken Sakura giggled at the situation before pointing at the thugs they defeated. "Did you see their faces when we beat them? That was so awesome!"

Honoka nodded quickly in agreement and even Hinata had a small smile on her face before she remembered something. "I-I think w-we need to w-wake up your b-brother H-honoka-chan."

"Kenichi!" Honoka said in alarm before going after her brother. She hopped he was alright and wasn't too injured.

~~O~~

"So", said her master on the next day of school, "I heard you beat some middle schoolers?"

"How did you know?" She yelled in alarm before catching herself. "I mean, I don't know what you're talking about?"

Her master expression was unreadable, and Honoka had no idea if he was mad or not at her. If he was, would she be punished? Would she stop being trained? Frankly she was scared of his wratch and wanted nothing more than to run away, but instead she just opened her mouth and said "at least we won?"

Her master stared at her for a few moments more before sighing. "This must be karma, I'm paying for all those years I was a pain in the ass to my own sunsengnim."

"Uh, sunsengnim? Are you angry?" Honoka said while looking down in shame, and once more Chun-Woo Han sighed.

"I really don't have a leg to stand when it comes to fighting like that", he finally admitted, "but you're not ready to fight. I still haven't taught you how to even throw a punch, I'm more surprised that you didn't break your wrist while fighting with those morons."

"Does that mean I'm not in trouble?" She hopefully asked.

"I'm going to increase your training regimen, if you have enough free time to get into fights, certainly you have time to train more."

"That's, that's not fair!"

He simply snorted at that notion. "Life not fair brat, the sooner you realize that the better. Besides it will end up helping you in the long run. I was about to increase your training soon anyway, this just move up our schedule, specially if you are able to use the Breathing Technique to fight." He took a step forwards and ruffled her hair affectionately, "good work by the way, even if it was probably a fluke."

Honoka couldn't help but grin at the backhanded compliment from her sunsengnim, and now with more training she's one step further to stop being weak.