I could feel the sweat gathering in my palms as I held one of the wooden rods I’d brought with me. In front of me, Aiyana stood in a low stance with her staff held at a diagonally. Her body was as motionless as the boulders that surrounded us, but her eyes were darting within here skull, seeking out an exploitable within my own stance. Despite the sound of birds singing in the distance and the rustling of the leaves, I know that her attention was entirely focused on me. She gave away nothing while simultaneously taking in every little tweak I made.

Simply trying to brute force my way through this fight wouldn’t accomplish anything. When we’d first started training I just overwhelmed her with my strength, but after a while, it became harder and harder to hit her. She had an answer for every swing, thrust, feint, and parry I made and once I got caught in her rhythm I wouldn’t escape until I admitted defeat.

My only chance of victory was to knock her off balance before she had time to react. Interrupting her rhythm before it had a chance to really get going. So what was the best opening act?

Barely a moment had passed in between me being in a ready stance and my rod coming down in a single-handed overhead swing. Aiyana's staff was already raised to block my attack, but I’d expected that. Before the blow connected I let the rod fall out of my right hand and took a half-step back. I saw the utter surprise run over her eyes as I caught the rod in my left hand and immediately launched into thrust. The tip of the rod grazed her abdomen before she took two large back-steps.

She hadn’t seen that coming, but that trick wouldn’t work twice, I had to follow up before she regained her composure. I felt the muscles in my legs tense up before leaped forward and followed through with a two-handed horizontal swing, but she’d managed to catch it with her staff. However, as the rod bounced of her staff, I hooked my left leg around hers and yanked it from right under her.

Rather than try and fight against my strength, Aiyana immediately braced herself and allowed her body to fall to the ground. I stabbed at her central mass with the rod, but she managed to roll out of the way. Unfortunately, despite doing my best to hold back, I’d managed to bury the rod a few inches into the ground. Before I could pull it out, I felt the end of Aiyana’s staff slamming into the right side of my face. I clenched my teeth and winced as my vision blurred for a moment, but that moment was all that she needed.

A sharp kick caused my left knee to bend backward before a series of body shots had me to staggering. Aiyana knew that it would take more than this to keep me down, even now my body was wrapped in a golden light and the bones in my leg were popping back into place. Instead of trying to put any distance between us, Aiyana continued her assault, in between every couple of limb and body shots she would strike my head with a heavy blow. As my vision began to swim I dropped to a knee and struggled to block some of her attacks. She seemed to think that I'd fallen into her rhythm, but I was exactly where I needed to be.

Two blows to the side, an overhead strike to my left shoulder, a kick to my right leg, and then the horizontal head stri⎯

My left hand shot out and grabbed hold of the staff in the middle of her swing. I immediately rose to my feet and forced the other end of the staff into her abdomen.

“Huuaaaaaah”

I could hear the air leaving her Aiyana as she released her hold on the staff and fell to her knees while clenching her abdomen. With a short dash, I closed the distance between us, turned on my heel, and slammed my elbow into the left side of her face. She flew back a few feet before landing on her backside. She was already beginning to stir, so I chucked the staff away and clenched my fist to deliver the finishing blow. Just as she setup I pulled back my arm and charged at her, however, I made a slight oversight. Aiyana had managed to position one her legs in the right place and kicked out with all her might, her foot slamming right into my crotch.

“Hiyya Aaaaahhhhh” I took me a while to realize that the high pitched squealing I was hearing came from my own mouth.

My own momentum combined with the force of her kick had made the blow all the more painful. The world went white for a moment as my knees hit the ground. Even with my fast healing, it felt like an eternity before the pain subsided. For a while, I even questioned if I would be able to use my penis properly again.

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I suddenly became familiar with the sensation of a wooden rod slamming against my throat at ludicrous speeds. It began difficult to breathe for a moment and impossible to see anything clearly.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

When I saw a shadow in front of me, I reacted on instinct and throw out a straight right punch with all of my strength behind it. However, when I remembered where I was and what I was doing, I immediately redirected my fist, just managing to miss the shadow by a slight margin. Unfortunately, that shadow hadn’t been a figment of my imagination.

Aiyana’s arms cradled my head as she used a bar to force my head down, while she simultaneously brought her knee up. A loud crack accompanied a crunch before I fill backward. While I was enjoying my view of the cloudy sky above, a sudden weight on my chest demanded my attention. Aiyana had me pinned to the ground with her legs and held a broken piece of wood over my throat, hair had come undone and her skin was covered in sweat and dirt. Her breathing was ragged and I could already make out the bruises forming on her cheek and abdomen.

“Alright, I give. I give. You win.”

Only after I managed to choke out a hoarse response did Aiyana toss the broken piece of wood aside and roll off of me. It felt like more time had passed than it actually had. For a while we just laid there, neither of us uttering a single word, as we looked at the sky above. Only when did glow around me subsided did Aiyana speak up.

“You know, that opening move was a bit reckless. You left yourself open for an enemy chop your arm off.”

“That’s why it's only intended to be used against an opponent once. Either the enemy would be dead once the fight was over, or I would never try to use the same trick on them again. How’d you managed to reach your staff so quickly? I’m pretty sure it landed on the other side of the clearing”

“I didn’t reach it. You dropped your rod when you started cupping your crouch. I made do with that.”

I rose to my feet and offered Aiyana a hand, but she shook her head and stayed on the ground.

“Let me take in this view for a while it looks like it’s gonna rain tonight so I want to take in this view before its nothing but gray clouds for a week.”

I struggled to not roll my eyes at that and proceeded to gather the broken rod pieces and staff from around the clearing, snagging the unbroken rod along the way. Aiyana had just rose to her feet by the time I returned to her side. The bruise on her abdomen had begun to turn a dark shade of purple and she winced when I lightly brushed my fingers along the side of her left cheek.

“Admiring your handiwork?”

“No, just trying to figure out how long I have to wait before I have another chance to best you. My laziness is dependent on how long it's gonna take you to heal.”

“Sorry, but not everybody can stab themselves in the foot and just walk it off.”

“It’d been dark and you were the one that left the knives all over the place before you fell asleep. How was I supposed to know I’d slice my toes up when I got up to relieve myself.”

“Anyway, I’m about done here. You wanna come with me?”

“I’ll catch up in a little bit, there are a couple things I want to work on while I’m out here.”

Aiyana simply shrugged her shoulders, gathered her things, and climbed over the boulder on her way towards the cave.

“Haah, that was close.”

My lack of control was a real problem, it’d nearly gotten Aiyana killed. The whole point of these sparring sessions was to prepare for inevitable violent altercations, not to actually kill each other. Yet, if that last punch had connected Aiyana wouldn’t have walked away from that bout. One slip up and everything would have been over. The thought alone sent shivers down my spine. If this continued⎯ no, I wouldn’t allow things to continue as they had been.

I gathered my thing up and headed in the opposite direction Aiyana had gone. My approach scared away the animals that had set up the nest and barrows in this area. When we had moved the ring of boulders into place, there'd been a few boulders left over that had been too small or misshapen to use, so we just dumped them a few yards away from the clearing. A few of them have already fallen to the ground, though it must have happened recently, given the stainless areas on the pile and the fallen boulders

After placing my things down nearby I approached a boulder about half my size, pulled back my fist, and punched it at about half strength. A couple slabs of stone fell off the boulder when my knuckles embedded themselves four or five inches into it. When I pulled my fist back I could see the whites of my bones pecking through the skin.

“Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!” Then the pain set in, followed shortly after the soothing golden glow wrapping itself around my arm.

“Punching boulders. The best idea I ever had.” Despite my protest, I pulled my fist back and tried to punch the boulder with half of the strength of the previous hit, however, the imprint was three inches deep instead of the two inches I’d hoped for.

“This is gonna take a while.”