First martial arts lessons.

“Hana Kato,” Victoria said. “You said you have experience in kendo, but want to learn hand-to-hand combat, correct?” The girl nodded. “Then you and Angela will be following the same starting program. Angela,” Victoria said, turning to the blonde. “You have the strength and the instincts, but no technique in the slightest. You’ll be learning the basics along with Kato, starting with proper jabs.”

“Why do I have to train with her!?” Kato-san demanded, gritting her teeth and glaring towards Angela.

“Because I’m not going to waste time creating two different programs when you two need to learn the same things. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”

Kato-san clicked her tongue, but didn’t say anything else.

“Valerie,” Victoria continued. “I want you to try some things first, so start warming up with following these exercises and wait for me. We’ll get in the ring.” She spoke Japanese despite knowing Valerie didn’t understand, but handed her a sheet of paper with the exercises she needed to do depicted with pictures and a number next to them. Valerie could understand that, so she nodded and got to work on another opened space of the room.

“Leonardo,” Victoria then turned to address him. She crossed her arms and sighed. “You’re not really here to learn to fight, are you?”

“Eh?”

“You’re here because the girls are here, I can tell. So I have something a little different in mind for you. Follow me.”

Confused and curious, Leo followed the coach to a corner of the room, where a couple of wooden dummies were stationed. They were simple contraptions, consisting of a thick wooden pole with some rope tied around parts of it and thinner slats across it.

“I want you to warm up first and then train with this. I’ll show you a set of movement to follow, and I want you to start slow and try to replicate them. The beauty of this thing is that it’s not meant to teach you to hit fast or hard, but to hit the correct way. This is a tool used mainly in Chinese martial arts, and it’s great for coordination, footwork and positioning,” she explained, giving the dummy a few pats that made it give an oddly satisfying rattling sound. “Once you get the hang of how to strike, speed and power come more naturally. But that isn’t why I want you to train with this.” She sighed and started speaking in a lower voice. “Old lady Wisler has told me about you, and what you have to do,” she revealed, making Leo’s heart skip a beat. “Sounds like a stressful job to me, so while you’re here, I suggest you don’t train to fight, but to meditate. That’s something Chinese martial arts excel at. They help you find inner peace through training the body. What do you think? Sound good?”

Leo blinked. “…Very good, actually.” He smiled. It sounded just like something he needed.

Victoria supervised them as they all did their dynamic stretches, such as squats, high knees and hip circles. She was the only trainer, and she seemed to have a different program made for each of their personal needs. Leo found it nothing short of impressive.

She taught him how to stand in front of the dummy, with legs in a relatively wide stance, knees lightly bent forward and correcting his back posture. She showed him a set of basic moves to practice until he mastered them, focusing only on using his hands and aiming for the main body and the two chest-level slats pointing at him that represented the arms of an opponent.

It went like this: 1) right palm to left slat, 2) left palm to right slat, then to left slat, 3) left punch to head area while also blocking the left slat with the right hand, 4) right punch to head area while blocking with left hand, 5) left punch to head while blocking right, 6) right punch to face while blocking right with left hand. Victoria did it very slowly first. Then the second time, she increased the speed. The third time she went even faster, and the fourth time it was hard to even follow her hands. The sound of the loose wood resonated in the room, making an even more satisfying sound than before.

“The fourth one is what you want to reach, but don’t try it immediately,” she told him. “Start slow. You’ll find that it’s harder than it looks. If you forget the steps, look at this,” she instructed, leaving a sheet of paper on bench next to him that detailed the same things she had explained. “Any other questions, just give me a shout, okay?” Leo nodded, and the coach went to check on Angela, Valerie and Kato-san.

Leo stood in front of the dummy, consciously trying to be as aware as he could of his posture. He was about to start the exercises, when a loud noise startled him. He looked towards the source, and saw the other guy there, Inoue-san, standing in front of a sandbag with boxing gloves on. He seemed focused, and hit the bag with a barrage of quick and powerful jabs, sneaking in a right straight every other left. Considering his build, his stance and the sounds he was making, he was clearly no beginner. Leo spared another glance towards the group of women, who’d finished warming up and were now being taught by Victoria a proper stance and how to throw a basic jab punch.

Since they were all into what they were doing, Leo decided to do the same. He took his stance again in front of the wooden dummy and slowly, step by step, performed the moves the coach had taught him. He did it over and over until he started to feel comfortable and tried going a little faster. The result? He completely messed up. His head knew what he wanted to do, but the sudden change in speed made him lose his coordination. A bummer, but he felt like something suddenly clicked regarding Valerie’s Gift. If she stood in front of this dummy, Leo would bet she’d be able to go at full speed after only a couple of tries. Where people like him had to practice constantly to build muscle memory, the link between Valerie’s thoughts and movements was as polished as it could be. Well, he wasn’t here to master anything on his first day, so he just kept at it.

He stopped after about 30 or 40 minutes to glance around the room again. He’d lost track of time, and now everyone was in a different spot. Inoue-san was jumping the rope, Angela and Kato-san were practicing jabs against the sandbags, and Valerie was with Victoria on the ring.

The coach had training mitts on and was leading the redhead along the ring, prompting her to punch in the places she set the mitts. “Good, good! That’s it!” Victoria praised. “Your body quickly got used to the punching motions, but now you need to learn where to hit!” She was having Valerie aim at the height where important areas would be, like the stomach, liver and chin. Valerie had training gloves on, so the sound of her punching the mitts was loud, even with two other girls on the sandbags.

Leo noticed Angela glancing towards the ring with an expression of jealousy and longing, something that made him chuckle a bit. His girlfriend was probably sick of punching a sandbag and wanted to get in the ring as well.

An alarm sounded from the coach’s phone, signaling the end of one round. “That’s good for now. How do your arms feel?” she asked, tapping Valerie’s arms. “Heavy?”

He had to reiterate, Victoria was only speaking Japanese. If Valerie understood anything, was because she was being given hints using body language. Case in point, she pondered on it for a moment before nodding and repeating in Japanese. “Heavy.”

“Punching for 3 minutes straight will do that to you. You’re in excellent condition, but your body is not yet built for this. Take a break,” Victoria said, pointing to the bench, “and remember to drink water.” She pointed to the bathroom. She took off the mitts and exited the ring before making her way towards Leo. “What, you already mastered the training dummy that you have the time to look around?”

“Sorry,” he chuckled. “I’m just impressed. Valerie understands you even if you don’t speak Spanish.”

“It’s not her first time working out. She knows the process, so if I point to the bench and the bathroom while yelling words, she knows I’m telling her to rest and to drink water. That’s how I learned to speak Spanish and Japanese, too.”

“You’ve been to many places?”

“Traveled a lot, yeah,” she nodded. “For fights and for training, learning as much as I could from everyone I could.” She frowned and pursed her lips. “Hey, after we’re done with training today, I want you to stay for a moment. I have something to tell you.” Leo blinked, but nodded in agreement. “Now let’s see your progress. I noticed from the ring you’re using your shoulders too much. You need to let the strength come from your wrists, not your hips or shoulders.”

She had him show her the routine and made several corrections regarding his posture and strikes. Really, Victoria was not only a professional, but extremely knowledgeable. She was teaching Leo techniques from Chinese martial arts, boxing to Inoue-san, and working on the general basics with the three girls. He was impressed by more than just her ability to communicate with Valerie.

“…”

Maybe the impure thoughts crawling into his head weren’t appropriate for the kind of training he was doing… But Victoria was very attractive, and she said she was aware of the situation of the Tensai Clan, so…

Leo brushed that aside for the time being. He’d get to talk to her later. For now, it was time to keep training.

Author's Note: An important notice. Due to some personal issues, I'll be slowing down the updates to my stories during the month of August. I'll continue updating, just not nearly as much as I have so far. This should only be during August, hopefully. You can read more details in my Patreon post if you wish.

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