By the time a month passes, my body has stopped filing official complaints and started treating the pain as background noise.
The schedule is simple and stupid:
Morning: wake up sore, stretch so I don't die
Day: work at Haim's, lift things that hate me
Evening: get beaten up in an alley "for educational purposes"
Then home, limp into bed, wake up and repeat.
It works.
My falls are cleaner. My feet trip less. My guard stays up longer without feeling like I'm holding buckets of stone.
I still feel small. But I feel less fragile.
Today, Kain decides it's time to test that.
The alley is damp. It rained earlier and the stones haven't forgiven anyone yet. The air smells like wet brick and stale smoke.
I drop my bag and boots in the corner like always. My feet are used to the ground now. Not happy about it. Used to it.
"Warm up," Kain says.
I don't need instructions for that anymore.
I start with footwork. Forward, back, side to side. Small steps, hands up. Then shadowboxing: slow punches, visualizing a shape in front of me, not just randomly hitting air.
Jab. Cross. Low kick. Pivot. Guard back up.
My breath settles into a rhythm. In through the nose, out through clenched teeth.
Bruk watches from the wall like a bored cat.
"Less windmilling," he says. "Your hooks are still drunk."
"Yes, coach," I say.
I fix them. Smaller arc. Elbow closer. Shoulder turned.
Kain calls, "Enough."
I stop, sweat already trickling down my back.
"Today," he says, "we see what happens when someone actually tries to touch you on purpose."
"I thought that was every day," I say.
"On purpose with structure," he says. "Not some idiot swinging his arms."
He jerks his chin at the open space.
"Stance," he says.
I plant my feet, hands up.
"Here's the rule," he says. "I hit light. You're allowed to move, guard, and hit back with control. No wild shots. No flailing. You aim, you place, you don't try to take my head off. Got it?"
"So I can't win," I say.
"You can't win," he agrees. "You can show me if you've learned anything."
"Fun," I say. My heart is beating faster already. It's not street fear. It's… something else. Anticipation with teeth.
He steps in front of me, loose and balanced.
Bruk pushes off from the wall, straightening a bit.
Bruk POV:
You can tell a lot about someone the first time they spar for real.
Not street nonsense. Not ambushes. A straight-up exchange where both sides know what's coming.
Some kids look sharp until the first fist comes toward them. Then they freeze. Others go rabid and forget everything you taught them.
This one? Hard to say yet. He's coiled tight, but it's not the wrong kind of tight. He's holding himself together. Eyes clear. Breathing a little fast, but not stupid.
If Kain goes too hard, he'll fold. If he doesn't go hard enough, the kid learns nothing.
Finding that line is the whole job.
Ryu POV:
Kain raises his hands. His guard is higher than mine, elbows tight, shoulders relaxed. He looks like he's just standing there.
He's not.
He takes the first step.
A jab snaps toward my face.
Before, that would've felt like a blur. Now I see the shoulder twitch first, then the arm.
I bring my guard up. His knuckles tap my forearm. Not hard. Enough to make my skin sting.
"Good," he says. "You saw it. Again."
He throws another jab. This time I move my head slightly as well. Not big. Just off the line.
"Better," he says.
He adds a cross. My arms absorb both hits, feet grounding me.
Pain buzzes up my bones. I don't drop my guard.
He smirks a bit.
Then he starts really moving.
Jab, jab, low feint, cross. All light, but precise. Testing my guard, my reaction, my balance.
I block most. Some slip through. One gets around my elbow and taps my ribs. It doesn't hit the bruise, but my body remembers it anyway.
"Don't fold," he says. "Breathe."
I force a slow exhale.
"Your turn," he says.
I throw a jab.
He parries it lazily, redirecting it just enough.
"Again," he says.
I jab, cross, low kick. He blocks, checks, slides just out of reach.
I don't land clean. Not once.
It's like punching a shadow attached to a brick wall.
We go like that for a while. Light contact, small adjustments. My guard gets sloppier the more tired I get. My feet tangle once; I nearly trip.
"Stop crossing your feet," he says. "You do that in a real fight, you're on the floor."
He clips me on the cheek to underline the point.
Not hard. Enough to ring my skull a bit.
My eyes water.
I force them to stay open.
"Good," he says quietly. "Stay with it."
He jabs again. This time, I slip a little further outside and send a short hook to his body.
He twists. My fist brushes his ribs and slides off.
"Too wide," he says. "Shorter. Right in here."
He taps a spot just under my hand.
I try again.
Slip, hook.
This time, my knuckles land on the target. Not full power. Not with perfect timing.
But they land.
A small shock runs through my arm.
Kain's eyes flick down, then back up.
"Better," he says. "Again."
We repeat until my lungs feel like they've been scraped and my legs are starting to shake.
Kain POV:
He's clumsy. Of course he is. He's nine. His arms are still figuring out what length they plan to be for the rest of his life.
But he listens. You correct something, it changes on the next punch. Not always perfectly, but the effort is there.
Most people don't fix habits that fast. They nod, pretend, then go back to what feels good.
This kid forces himself to do what doesn't feel good yet.
He took that cheek shot and didn't sulk. Filed it as data. Stayed present. That's rare.
His power's not there yet. Needs weight, age, more muscle. But his timing… that can be trained.
If he lives long enough. Big if.
Ryu POV:
At some point, Kain steps back and drops his hands.
"That's enough for today," he says.
I'm breathing like I ran the slope three times. Sweat drips into my eyes; I blink it away.
"That was… awful," I say.
"Accurate," he says. "But less awful than it would've been a month ago."
I wipe my face with the back of my wrist.
"What was that level?" I ask. "How hard were you going?"
"Ten," he says. "Out of a hundred."
I stare at him.
"Good," I say eventually. "I was worried you'd say five."
"Five would put you in the wall," he says. "You're not ready for five."
"Yet," I say.
He doesn't contradict me.
Bruk steps forward.
"You know what the point of that was?" he asks.
"Besides making me wish I was dead?" I say.
"Besides that," he says.
"Seeing if I panic?" I guess. "If I flail or freeze?"
"Close," he says. "Seeing if you can think with a fist coming at you. You can't win if you can't see."
He taps his own temple.
"Street fights are messy," he says. "Training is controlled. Here, we strip it down. One angle at a time. Your job is to stay conscious in your head, not just in your body."
"Does that ever get easier?" I ask.
"No," he says. "You just get better at doing it anyway."
Comforting.
Kain adds, "You did fine. For now."
I snort. "You say that like it's an insult."
"It's a placeholder," he says. "Don't get cocky because you blocked a few feather jabs."
"Feather?" I say. "My arms disagree."
"They'll live," he says.
We finish with the usual cruel footwork drills and a few more falls to remind my spine who's in charge.
By the time they let me go, my whole body feels like it's humming.
Not just from pain.
From… alignment.
I head home slower than usual, not trusting my legs to sprint if something jumps out.
No one does. The city's busy pushing its own people around.
The next morning, we get an immediate practical test of "things are different now."
I'm at the workshop, carrying a half-dismantled pump housing with both arms, when Haim decides to be educational again.
"Ryu," he says.
I look up.
He doesn't throw anything this time. He just steps toward me and bumps my shoulder with his own.
It's not hard. But before, that would've sent me stumbling back, arms pinwheeling, very expensive parts flying.
This time, my back foot slides just enough to catch the shift. My stance adjusts. The pump dips half an inch, then steadies.
I place it on the bench.
Then I look at him.
"You're gonna do that every day now, huh?" I say.
"Maybe," he says. "You didn't fall. That's new."
"I've been practicing," I say.
"I can tell," he says. "You move like your bones know what they're doing."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me," I say.
He grunts.
"You hit anyone with those new tricks yet?" he asks.
"Not unless they start it," I say. "And I'm trying to make sure they don't start it often."
"Good," he says. "Pick your battles. You're not a Guard. You don't get paid to be stupid."
I smirk. "You sure about that? Feels like half my job is 'touch dangerous things and hope they don't explode.'"
"That's skill," he says. "Not stupidity. Usually."
He eyes me for another second.
"Don't bring the alley into the shop," he says. "Leave it at the door. Here, you're not a fighter. You're a mechanic's rat."
"Understood," I say.
But when I go back to work, I notice it again.
The stance. The awareness. The way I set my feet before lifting. The way my arms don't jerk when something slips. The way my head turns when I hear a tool fall, ready but not jumpy.
It's subtle.
But it's there.
That night, I lie in bed, every muscle complaining in its own language.
I replay the spar in my head.
Every blocked jab. Every failed counter. Every tiny moment where I saw an opening half a second too late, or covered a spot that wasn't being attacked.
I catalog it all.
Not to torture myself.
To build the next layer.
Street fights will still be chaos. People will still swing wild and try to stab you in the kidneys. Nen, when I finally get to it, will blow all of this open into something much bigger.
But under all that, there has to be this:
Feet that don't betray me.Hands that know where to go.A mind that doesn't blank when pain shows up.
I'm not there yet.
Good.
If I felt satisfied at nine, I'd be an idiot.
I close my eyes.
Tomorrow: work, sweat, fall, get up.
Then again. And again.
Until "ten out of a hundred" isn't the limit anymore.