Ink Stained

53: perfect sight*

完璧な光景

Two days later, she ducked under a fist that would have caught her on the side of her head, at her temple. She swerved to the right, twisted on the balls of her feet to the left, ducked again. The blows kept coming, but she managed to dodge and avoid each and every one.

Just barely.

Her body moved instinctively, the ways to protect herself from the blows having been conditioned into her after weeks of practise. She knew Kaede was going easy on her (very, very easy), but even so, he still moved with incredible speed. It was all she could do not to land her foot wrong and fall.

A bead of sweat rolled into her eye, and she blinked it away. That single moment of distraction was enough to have her knee jerking out as she lost control of her footing. Kaede saw it, and moved instantly, sweeping his leg in a low swipe and kicking her own out from right underneath her.

She was weightless for a split second before she landed back jarringly on the thick mat laid out over the floor of the training room. The landing had her feeling like her insides were jumping out of place, and she groaned. Pai blinked back colourful stars that spotted her vision, breathing heavily.

"Ow."

"Oops." Kaede called. She heard light thumps hitting the mat, and he appeared in her line of vision. He wasn't even breathing hard. He extended a hand down to her and she took it to let him pull her up off the mat. "Sorry about that."

"It is fine. I am just a little winded after that one." It was the fourth time he'd knocked her flat on her back since they'd started her defensive sparring training only twenty minutes ago. It wasn't getting any easier.

"Hm. Pai-chan, can you do that again?"

"Huh?" she said, panting as she held her fist up close to her cheek with the other extended out in front of her, readying herself for the next round. "I do what again?"

Kaede's mint green eyes glinted with a strange light that made him look like he was being jokingly serious, even as he lifted a hand and beckoned to her. "Watch for my attack, defend, and counterattack."

"I just did that?" she asked, unsure.

Her fist loosened as she straightened slightly, confused as to why Kaede would ask her to repeat something she'd already just done. He and Daichi shared the responsibility of training her, but neither had ever asked her to do that before. It was a given that they repeatedly went through attacks and defence to ingrain them in her muscle memory and turn them into instinct, so she wondered why Kaede was asking her to do it again when they usually just went right ahead and did it.

"There's something I want to see," he replied. He sent her a lofty smile. "Hope you're ready."

There was only one reason she was able to avoid what happened in the next instant, and it was what had so interested Kaede in the first place.

She had gone lax, at ease with the conversation that started to build up between the two because of her confusion at his request (she had noticed that he did this on purpose, the talking. It was to distract his opponent, and she fell for it every time) – but she was still looking at him. She wasn't watching him with the eagle-eye she used when they sparred, but her eyes were on him long enough to see the slight twist of his hips, the turn of his torso.

A second later she ducked just in time to avoid the flying kick Kaede lashed out on her, moving so fast that she wasn't even able to see him jump from where he stood five feet ahead of her. Her heart pounded as she twisted around on the balls of her feet, but the tiredness from having already spent an hour training with Kaede had her tripping up. She fell to the ground again, landing on her back with a hard thump that knocked the breath out of her, momentarily stunning her.