Chapter 20: "Study Group of Punches & Parkour"
(Or: I Learned Muay Thai From YouTube and Beat Up a Tree)
After a lunch that almost ended with Miki-san threatening to enroll me in military school, I decided I needed a little fresh air and low-stress bonding time.
You know, something casual.
Chill.
So obviously, I met up with my martial arts training buddies to study ways to beat people up more effectively.
Enter Haruki Fujimoto—a guy with the muscles of a ramen noodle and the heart of a lion cub. He had this whole "earnest underdog" thing going on, which honestly made him more relatable than half the Ninjas I'd met. He wasn't strong yet, but he was trying hard, and more importantly, he didn't give up.
And then there was his little sister Hana—cheerful, spunky, and frighteningly determined to make her brother "cool."
Honestly, she reminded me of some of the younger kids back at the Veiled Moon Sect if you gave them pigtails and weaponized guilt trips.
We met at our usual spot in the park—just a dusty clearing with a tree stump, some grass patches, and a suspicious number of pigeons that were either spying on us or plotting their own gang war.
Haruki waved as he pulled a tablet out of his backpack.
"Hey, Kaito! I got the footage. Took me forever to find high-res clips of elbow strikes from six different angles."
Hana beamed.
"I told him to download more grappling this time. We keep losing to big guys who do ground stuff!"
"Appreciate it," I said, plopping down beside them. "Let's get started."
We sat like ancient scholars of violence, watching videos of Muay Thai fighters slicing through guards with their knees, taekwondo masters defying gravity, and judo practitioners folding opponents like laundry.
There was even a full playlist dedicated to baton-control techniques used by police.
Haruki had labeled it:
"Kaito's Future Stick-Fu."
I approved.
"So here," Haruki said, pausing the video as a man controlled an attacker's arm and twisted him toward the ground, "if you control the elbow and pivot your stance—"
"—you break his balance before applying the throw," I finished, already mimicking the movement with a wooden training dagger in my hand. "His upper body goes one way while his base can't follow."
Haruki stared.
"…Right."
I grinned.
Knowing anatomy and leverage had plenty of uses outside cultivation.
Yep, ever since Hermes and his goons decided that jumping me with half the neighborhood was a reasonable way to spend an afternoon, I'd upgraded my bag.
It now contained:
Wooden training daggers—for deflections, practice, and style points.
A training baton—for respectable violence.
A pouch of carefully selected throwing stones.
And my secret weapon:
Steel-plated shoes.
Stylish.
Durable.
And capable of turning a properly placed roundhouse into an orthopedic emergency.
"You've gotten way too good at this," Hana said, eyes wide as I copied a taekwondo spin kick and landed back in stance.
"I already knew how to fight," I said with a grin. "I'm just learning how these styles fight."
Also, having spent years avoiding blades, fists, shadow attacks, and people trying to knock me unconscious helped.
A little.
Haruki tilted his head.
"Do you ever wonder if we're the only ones doing this?"
"You mean training for underground street dominance in a peaceful Japanese suburb?"
I considered it.
"Nah. Totally normal."
Hana giggled.
"It's more fun than cram school. Besides, if we get strong, maybe we'll have a better future, right?"
There it was.
The heart of it.
We weren't just three idiots sitting in a park learning martial arts from videos.
We were building ourselves up.
Together.
Haruki wanted to stop being pushed around.
Hana wanted to protect her brother.
And me?
I wanted allies.
People I could trust.
A team.
Even if that team currently consisted of one nervous martial-arts nerd, his dangerous little sister, Shōgo the bubble-gum Berserker, and a scheming gang leader named after a Greek god.
You had to start somewhere.
We spent the next two hours copying stances, drilling body mechanics, and hitting the tree stump with focused strikes.
I even let them try my steel shoes.
They were way too big.
Hana immediately tripped into a bush.
Ten out of ten effort.
After soaking in enough martial-arts videos to qualify for an honorary black belt in Internet Studies, it was time to take theory into painful practice.
That meant sparring.
Real hits.
Real sweat.
Real flying bodies.
Okay.
Maybe just one flying body.
And it may or may not have been Haruki.
We'd already agreed this wasn't going to be one of those gentle demonstrations where everyone bowed politely and tapped each other like porcelain dolls.
Nope.
This was war.
War with pads, wooden weapons, and steel shoes that only one of us was allowed to wear.
Hint:
It was me.
Hana got the light version, obviously.
She was only twelve, and Haruki would probably die from guilt before I ever managed to injure her.
So she practiced movement, timing, dodging, and what she proudly called her "secret technique."
Which was throwing pebbles at our feet while giggling.
"Distraction is part of battle strategy!" she declared.
I pointed at her.
"She's right."
Haruki looked betrayed.
"You're encouraging her?"
"I'm a Ninja."
That answered everything.
Haruki and I, however, had no such mercy clause.
"You sure about this?" I asked, spinning the wooden dagger around my fingers. "We keep going until you drop."
Haruki gulped.
"I'll be fine. Probably. Maybe. I read that pain is temporary—"
"—and glory is forever," I finished with a grin. "Alright, Haruki. Let's go."
We squared off.
Haruki opened with a front kick.
It was...
Slow.
Predictable.
The sort of attack I could probably avoid while thinking about lunch.
I stepped aside, tapped his leg off-line, and gave him a light push.
Haruki hit the grass.
Hana clapped.
"Nice fall! That was... almost graceful!"
Haruki groaned.
Then rolled back onto his feet.
"Okay. Again!"
So we went again.
He attacked.
I defended.
He struck high.
I slipped low.
Whenever his stance became too wide, I attacked his balance.
Whenever he dropped his guard, I tapped him exactly where an actual punch would have landed.
Sometimes I deliberately let him hit me.
Not because I was being nice.
Well.
Not only because I was being nice.
He needed to understand what it felt like when a strike actually landed.
The rhythm.
The impact.
The adrenaline.
The realization that getting hit didn't mean the fight was over.
Mostly, though?
Haruki got bruised.
Not hospital-level bruised.
I wasn't that cruel.
More like I-am-definitely-sleeping-on-my-other-side-tonight bruised.
And yet…
he kept standing.
"Again."
Whack.
"Again."
Thud.
"Again."
Eventually, I slowed down enough to let him build an actual combination.
His jab landed.
Then his knee came up.
THUMP.
I stepped back.
"Huh."
Haruki froze.
"What?"
I rubbed my ribs.
"That one actually stung."
His entire face lit up.
"Seriously?!"
"Yep. B-minus."
His smile disappeared slightly.
"B-minus?"
"Maybe B-plus if you stop closing your eyes when you punch."
His mouth opened.
"I don't—"
"You do."
"Do you close your eyes when you punch?"
"Never."
He stared suspiciously.
We both started laughing.
Hana brought us water bottles and snacks, behaving suspiciously like the team manager she insisted she wasn't.
"You did great, Haru-nii," she said, handing him an ice pack shaped like a rabbit.
Haruki accepted it.
"I feel like a training dummy."
"Strong training dummy," I corrected.
He gave me a look.
I sat beside him.
"Seriously. Most people panic when they get hit. Their mind locks up. Their breathing changes. They forget everything they practiced."
Haruki looked at me.
"You kept getting back up."
I tapped the side of my head.
"Fear matters. Pain matters. But you can't let either one make your decisions for you."
That was something the Veiled Moon Sect drilled into us constantly.
Technique became useless the moment your mind stopped cooperating.
Even something as simple as Substitution could fail if your concentration broke at the wrong moment.
Haruki looked down at his bruised arms.
"You really think I'm getting better?"
"You're not just getting better."
I clapped him on the shoulder.
"You're becoming someone who won't back down. That matters more than knowing a hundred fancy techniques."
He smiled, though the smile turned into a wince when he shifted his ribs.
"Then tomorrow... we go again?"
"Definitely."
I paused.
"Maybe tape your ribs first."
As the sun began dipping lower, throwing golden light across the park, something warm settled in my chest.
This wasn't just training.
It wasn't just preparation for whatever ridiculous delinquent empire I had somehow decided to build.
These were...
bonds.
Forged through effort.
Sweat.
Bruises.
And the occasional pebble thrown by a twelve-year-old menace.
After our epic sparring session—which involved one bruised Haruki, one pebble-throwing menace named Hana, and me totally not going easy on either of them—we collapsed onto the grass like exhausted warrior pancakes.
The sun was setting, giving the park one of those ridiculously perfect anime backgrounds.
Which meant it was obviously the ideal moment to casually bring up something completely insane.
That's how normal conversations work.
Probably.
"Hey," I said, tossing a twig into the air. "What if Ki and magic were real?"
Haruki blinked.
"…Like, actually real?"
"Yeah."
Hana looked over.
I kept my expression casual.
"Hypothetically."
Haruki narrowed his eyes.
I continued.
"Say Earth had some kind of hidden energy system. Ki, magic, spiritual power, whatever people here might call it. How would someone normally discover they had access to it?"
Haruki stared at me.
"Why do you sound like an isekai protagonist trying not to reveal he's an isekai protagonist?"
"…Do I?"
"Yes."
Hana snorted.
"You really do."
Look.
She wasn't wrong.
But I had a reason.
I already knew how Ki worked.
I had spent years cultivating it.
I understood pathways, circulation, control, compression, reinforcement, elemental application, and enough related theory to make an ordinary beginner's head explode.
The problem was that Kaito's body didn't have my cultivation.
Whatever energy system Earth used—if normal humans could access one at all—was something different.
And after meeting a Magical Girl and hearing that mysterious voice inside this body?
I had questions.
A lot of them.
Unfortunately, I couldn't exactly say:
Hey, guys! I'm an interdimensional Ninja currently occupying your friend's body, and I need to know whether ordinary Earth humans can awaken supernatural powers because something ancient may be living inside this one.
That wasn't normal conversation material.
So I had to be subtle.
Like a spy.
Or a raccoon stealing snacks.
Haruki scratched his head.
"Well, if we're going by anime rules—which I take very seriously—there are usually a few ways."
"Hit me."
He raised one finger.
"First: bloodline or destiny. You're secretly descended from some legendary warrior, or you've got an ancient dragon living in your soul."
I went very still.
Hana noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Ancient dragon?
Close enough.
Except whatever I'd heard wasn't a dragon.
And somewhere very far away, Ballom was probably chained to a pillar while Kaito annoyed him.
Haruki raised a second finger.
"Second: training with a master who keeps saying useless things like feel the energy and then hits you when you say you can't."
"That sounds disturbingly believable."
"Third…"
He raised another finger dramatically.
"Life-or-death battle. You're losing, everything seems hopeless, then you scream really loudly and unlock enough power to destroy a mountain."
I raised an eyebrow.
"The scream-until-it-works method."
"Exactly."
Hana took a bite of melon bread.
"There's also emotion."
I looked over.
"Emotion?"
"Yeah. You really love someone, or get really angry, or desperately want to protect somebody and—"
She threw both hands outward.
"BOOM! Secret power."
I stared at her for a second.
That one wasn't actually stupid.
Strong emotions really could affect Ki circulation.
They were also one of the things that made Ballom's power leak through my seal.
Not that I planned to explain that.
"So…" I said slowly, "what if someone hypothetically felt like there was something inside them?"
Haruki frowned.
"Inside them how?"
"Not physically."
I tapped my chest.
"More like... deeper. Something waiting. Like there's a door but you don't know where the handle is."
Haruki thought about it.
"Then meditation?"
"Maybe."
"Or training until you accidentally trigger it."
"Possible."
Hana raised her finger.
"Or fall into a cave and find a magical scroll."
Haruki nodded solemnly.
"That is also an established method."
I laughed.
Part of me genuinely considered finding a cave.
Just in case.
We fell quiet afterward.
The wind moved through the grass.
Leaves rustled overhead.
For once, nobody was attacking me.
Nobody was trying to manipulate my destiny.
Nobody was talking about Sages, Abyss creatures, soul swaps, rival gangs, or whether I should get married before I was old enough to legally complain about it.
I looked over at Haruki and Hana.
Two ordinary kids.
Tired from training.
Dreaming about becoming stronger.
I liked that.
I liked them.
"Thanks," I said.
Haruki glanced over.
"For what?"
I rested my hands behind my head.
"For being weird with me."
Hana smiled.
"That's what friends are for."
And as we lay beneath the orange sky, I found myself thinking that maybe Earth really did have its own kind of magic.
Maybe not just spells.
Not glowing beams.
Not cultivation.
But something simpler.
The strange way people who had been complete strangers a few days ago could suddenly start feeling important.
I smiled.
Still...
I was definitely punching the tree tomorrow.