Only for her to immediately explode up into her Nightmare Lady form, the transition near-instantaneous. The sight of her dread black form, gleaming and emaciated, elicited gasps from the other students, but Scorio ignored them. He leaned forward, watching avidly, as her wicked tail blade shot forward over her shoulder to pierce Feng’s chest.
A frisson of power flooded out from the sparring circle as Feng ignited his Heart, and with incredible precision he smacked away her tail blade with the palm of his hand and stepped away, ducking under a sweep of her claws then throwing himself into a backward roll as her tail lanced down to dig deep into the white stone where he’d stood.
He came up smoothly, smiling with enjoyment, but the Nightmare Lady was on him immediately; her tail was nearly a second opponent on its own, coming at him from all angles even as she slashed and kicked at him with terrible speed. He was forced to parry her frontal attacks and then contort and throw himself aside each time her tail sought to impale him or cut him in half.
“How is he doing that?” asked Scorio in awe.
“Dread Blaze,” was Leonis’s only response.
But even he was hard-pressed to avoid her attacks; her tail was simply too flexible and strong, able to change direction mid-sweep without effort, so that when she caught hold of his forearm and brought her tail blade speeding toward his back, Scorio was sure the fight was over.
Instead, Feng stretched out his free arm and caused a burst of white dust to flow forth in a cone, washing over the tail and slowing it, reducing the strike to a turgid, almost lazy-looking attack. He wrenched his arm free, leaped back, then brought his cone over the Nightmare Lady so that she stood as if in the center of her own, personal blizzard.
“Feel free to concede whenever you like,” he said, tugging at his robe with his free hand to smooth it out.
The Nightmare Lady snarled and leaped at him, but she was visibly held back; Feng, nimble and quick, avoided her clumsy slash, stepped around her tail as it slowly sailed toward him, then hit her in the knee with a smart kick.
With each passing moment, the Nightmare Lady moved ever slower, as if she were drowning in honey, and Feng moved commensurately quicker; soon he wasn’t even bothering to block but simply ducked casually under her blows, stepped brazenly within her guard to tap her throat with two fingers, and otherwise displayed his mastery of the combat.
Even more incredibly, each time he stepped around her flank or out of her line of sight, she’d suddenly stiffen, freeze up, and cast around, looking confused and unsure of herself. Only to react in shock when he touched her shoulder or tapped her in the center of her spine, whipping around and seeming to remember what was going on.
By the time the Nightmare Lady sank into a crouch, her tail settling beside her, she was so stiff and slow that a child could have walked safely past her without much concern.
“Not a terrible first technique,” said Feng, stepping safely back and ending his cone of dust. “In time, and as you develop your other powers, you’ll become an effective close-quarters combatant. Still, try not to rely on your tail so much; deploying it so wildly will result in it being severed. Hold it back for critical strikes. Dismissed.”
Naomi reverted to her human form and rose to her feet, face downcast. Scorio could sense her fury and misery from where he sat. She trembled as she stood before Feng, thick hair sliding forward to obscure her face, body rigid, and when he dismissed her, she quickly returned to her seat, where she sat tightly coiled up upon herself.
Scorio wanted to talk to her, to reach out, to connect, but everyone was staring. He knew that Naomi would loathe any more attention at this point, so with great reluctance he let her be.
The rest of the class was more methodical; they drilled against each other, moving at first at half-speed, working on the cleanliness of their technique and trying to react smoothly to each other’s strikes, then at three-quarters speed, then at full.
This was followed by Feng demonstrating different bare-handed parrying techniques against different weapons, such as how a block against a stick differed from that of a swung knife. They took up wooden props and practiced, and then transitioned to working together on striking large, stuffed pads, going all out until Feng called time.
It was humbling how quickly Scorio ran out of strength when he gave the strikes his all, pounding the pads as hard and as fast as he could. Humbling when he was forced to slow while others continued savagely beating their targets, and in those moments, hands on his knees, sweat dripping down his brow, he thought on how real the advantage everyone else had over him due to their months of optimum training.
It only hardened his resolve to do better and cover lost ground.
The last section of class was the five demonstration bouts, and though they were held between unfamiliar students, Feng’s commentary was both thought-provoking and logical; Scorio found himself nodding as the instructor demonstrated why certain decisions had proven poor or inspired, and by the end of class felt eager to return the following day.
When the lights pulsed to signal the end of class, everyone set to putting away the equipment, while the five losers of the showcase matches went to fill large buckets with water and set to mopping the ground.
“Good work, class,” said Feng, fixing his hair as he turned away. “Tomorrow, do better.”
“He always says that,” said Leonis, scratching at his beard.
“Good advice,” said Lianshi, face gleaming from exertion and sweat. “Come on, let’s head back to our rooms. Leonis, I want to practice that take down a few times before lunch.”
“Do I look like a punching bag?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” said Lianshi with a laugh, tossing her hand towel over her shoulder.
The pair of them moved ahead, discussing the move, so Scorio allowed himself to move slower, matching Naomi’s pace. She’d done everything since losing her bout with listless energy, as if going through the motions, and more than once, Scorio had caught Feng watching her pensively.
He didn’t ask her anything though, just walked by her side. When Lianshi looked back to say something, she caught his expression, closed her mouth, and resumed walking ahead.
They entered the common room in silence, and Lianshi dragged Leonis aside when the big man went to make some jest.
For a moment Naomi just stood there, staring blankly at the floor, and then she turned and strode into her room, closing the door behind her.
“Hey,” said Scorio, rapping his knuckles softly on the wood. “Naomi?”
Nothing.
“Hey,” he said, knocking again. “Can we talk?”
Nothing. Or wait—was that a sound? Something small, barely heard.
Scorio tried the door, found it unlocked, and cracked it open.
He saw Naomi sat on her bed, arms wrapped around her shins, face buried against her knees. Her shoulders were jerking silently, and she didn’t look up when he stepped up beside her bed and sat slowly down on its edge.
“Naomi,” he said, unsure of himself, half-expecting her to change into the Nightmare Lady and cut off his head. “Hey, talk to me. What’s going on?”
Her struggle to remain quiet grew all the more violent, and when he tentatively moved to sit beside her and wrap his arm around her shoulder, she let out a pained moan that sounded as if it had been torn right out of the bowels of her soul and leaned against him, her whole body a clenched fist.
“Hey,” he repeated, squeezing her gently. “Hey, it’s all right. You’re all right. You’re with friends. It’s going to be fine.”
She leaned against him as stiffly as a cartwheel set against a wall and wept. Deep, guttural sobs that were clawed out of her, fistfuls of pain that she fought against every time, and lost.
“I wanted to beat him,” she said between breaths. “I—I wanted to destroy him, to—to show him I was worthy of—of—”