Akira drew a large square in the gravel, digging two swords and two scabbards into the corners of the makeshift ring. He hung his kimono on one of the newly erected corner posts.

Stretch marks covered Akira's pale skin, and Jay could see where they came from. Akira packed an impressive amount of muscle on his compact frame, and none looked like it was for show. There was no water puffing out his muscles, each and every one looked dense and functional.

“Look but don’t touch… Or touch if you want, I don’t mind!” Akira said. He went into a posing routine that he’d clearly practiced in front of a mirror before. “It’s a shame about the stretch marks. The coliseum heals almost all injuries, that’s why I don’t have any scars, but it doesn’t heal anything self-inflicted. Oh well.”

Akira ended his posing and started jogging on the spot. “Let’s do something familiar to start, touch sparring. Three two-minute rounds. Full speed. No power. Just try your best to touch me.”

“Arrogant kid.” Jay muttered. He stood up and shook the stiffness from his thighs. Akira might know all about essence and Harmony, and he was definitely stronger than Jay. But Jay was a legitimate world class boxer. He wasn’t gonna let some wannabe samurai talk to him like that.

Jay threw his tracksuit top on the corner opposite Akira's and started warming up. Sending some blood to his muscles and letting them know it was fight time.

Once he was ready, Jay stepped into the ring and waved his opponent forward. Akira didn’t hesitate. He charged in, instantly stopping just inside his range. Jay was used to close-range dogfights. It came with the territory of being undersized for the division. What he wasn’t used to, was an opponent this quick.

Jay fired out a pushing jab and backpedalled, creating some space to work in. He’d gotten his body ready, but now he had to prepare his mind. And that meant throwing jabs and establishing his range. It was every opponent’s job to stop this at all costs however, and Akira Joined the long list of people who had tried to ruin Jay’s day with relentless aggression.

Jay let off a few more stiff jabs, holding his arm out for a little longer than necessary. Even in a real fight, these weren’t meant to hurt your opponent, but every touch meant more information for Jay's database. He’d already started gathering pieces, could he crack the puzzle in front of him within the next six minutes?

Akira clearly had very little boxing experience but a wealth of talent. He closed the distance in a southpaw stance, leading with his right hand. This wouldn’t normally be a big issue, more of an oddity, but he was fighting a fighter with much better footwork. Sometimes it didn’t matter how fast your feet were, if you put them in the wrong position, your opponent would tie them in knots.

Jay circled left, behind Akira's back. If Akira wanted to hit him now, he’d have to break his spine. Jay tapped Akira's liver and attempted to push his opponent off.

This is what happens when you get cocky kid.

Jay expected to shove his opponent away, establishing control of the ring. But pushing against Akira felt like leaning against a mountain. He wouldn’t even budge. Instead, Jay launched backwards, pushing himself out of the ring.

Jay stepped back into the gravel square, wondering what the hell just happened. Akira was a heavy guy but, even with all his muscle, Jay was simply bigger. How had he brushed him off so easily? Akira didn’t give Jay much time to think though, this time advancing in an orthodox stance while peppering Jay with jabs to the head and body.

Outmuscling Akira wasn’t going to work, and to save his pride Jay didn’t want to even try outpacing him.

Guess that leaves outthinking then.

Jay dropped his guard, firing flickering jabs in twos and threes. He knew Akira would decide to rush him at some point, so Jay made that decision easier. By consciously giving up an opening, he’d remove Akira’s element of surprise.

Sure enough, in one of the lulls after a triplet, Akira fell for it. Jay had prepared a chopping right, but his opponent was just too fast. Both fighters landed at the same time. If this had been a real fight, there would have been a pause as they reeled over the hits they’d just taken. But they tapped each other, and Akira just kept coming.

Head down, Akira barraged Jay’s body, daring Jay to lower his arms. Jay bit, but only to trick his opponent. Only to make Akira's focus, and his chin, float upwards.

Jay struck as soon as his opponent started to swing. Since his arms were already down, Jay unleashed a left smash at his opponent.

Throwing a smash was the kind of thing that would get you a bollocking as an amateur. Half-hook, half-uppercut, and almost always thrown off-balance, the smash was an incredibly hard punch to get power behind.

It was also one of the most effective ways to completely bypass your opponent’s guard.

Donovan Razor Ruddock created the smash because he couldn’t hit his opponents cleanly. He was a power puncher that only needed one clean hit to win a fight. Since the smash’s angle could change so rapidly, it made it almost impossible to defend. Jay was far from a power puncher, so he found a different use for the smash. In Jay’s hands, it was a more of a mental weapon than a physical one.

Jay unquestionably had the fastest left in the heavyweight division. When his opponents saw him lean out and load up the smash, they knew they were getting hit. It didn’t matter which direction they blocked. Jay would get around their guard.

Every. Single. Time.

It didn’t matter if Jay was the weakest puncher in the heavyweight division, heavyweight fists fucking hurt. When any hit could be your last, an accurate opponent was a heavyweight’s worse nightmare.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He didn’t even need to use the smash often, the threat it carried affected his opponents enough to make his stronger weapons more effective.

Instead of crashing into Akira's jaw, Jay's fist opened. He grabbed Akira's face and twisted it to the side before spinning into the newly created blind spot.

World level boxing was a high stakes chess match. Jay was having fun stretching his tactical muscles for the first time since... Well, since dying.

Jay banished the rather morbid thought from his mind and faced his opponent again. Akira stood still in the ring’s centre. In less than two minutes, Akira had figured out what took most of Jay's opponents three rounds. No matter how fast you rushed in, you couldn’t beat Jay in a close-range fight.

Jay threw a few jabs that he knew wouldn’t land. He wanted to see if Akira would bite, but Jay got no response. It seemed he’d worked out his range. Akira remained patient, standing still and watching Jay's fingertips stop right before his eyes. When Jay threw one that would have landed, it was nullified completely. Akira swatted the punch away with little more than a flick of his wrist.

Jay's left arm flew off to the side. His shoulder slammed against its socket. The forceful swing pushed Jay's tendons to their limits as they desperately clung onto his flailing arm.

So much for no power.

But Jay didn’t have time to worry about his body though. His opponent was moving forward, and he only had half his guard to block with.

Akira held both hands up as he entered his range. He wasn’t committing to one direction. He was waiting for Jay to choose for him.

Jay couldn’t step back, it would only delay the inevitable and he would eventually leave the ring. He absolutely couldn’t go left. His guard there was non-existent, and Akira would land a direct hit. That only left right. But Akira knew this, he was already shifting his feet in that direction.

That only left forwards.

Jay ducked in, leaning on his lead left foot. Meeting his opponents charge. Akira saw him and began to wind up an uppercut. Jay's face kept moving closer to his opponent’s fist.

But Akira wasn’t the only one charging up an attack.

With all his focus on landing the uppercut, Akira's only had eyes for Jay's jaw. Jay knew this, so he attacked at the same time. Jay's trailing overhand right flew, completely out of his opponent’s eyesight but directly towards his head.

Both punches landed. Jay felt Akira's palm jolt his chin milliseconds before his own fingertips made contact. It always felt weird moving with such intensity while holding back power, but it was the best way to train your brain without risking an injury.

Akira stepped back, face beaming with a smile almost as big as Jay's own.

“You’re frickin’ good man.” Akira said, slumping to the ground and catching his breath.

“Says you!” Jay replied, “Nice trap at the end, you caught me off guard with that one.”

“Thanks, but something felt off about it and I’m not sure why.”

Jay raised an eyebrow in surprise as he looked down at Akira.

Impressive.

“Didn’t think you’d notice that. You’re right. It was a good trap, but it might not have worked in a real fight. Since I leaned in a lot, I mitigated a lot of your uppercut’s power, my overhand would’ve probably done more damage depending on how aware you were of it.”

Jay could almost hear the gears turning in Akira's head as he mentally replayed the situation. The kid was getting used to his style, and Jay would have to go deeper into his bag of tricks for the next two rounds. Regardless, that was the most fun two minutes of Jay's new life as a gladiator. Akira's superior athleticism made him a great training partner, Jay couldn’t rely on just his speed while sparring, he had to actually think.

The next two rounds were more of the same. Akira pushed Jay to his limits, using his athleticism to force out every technique and tactic Jay knew. Boxing was tough on both the body and the mind. Sweat rolled down Jay's temples and he could feel his lungs heaving inside his chest. But his mind was sharper than ever. By the end of the third round, he was exploiting weaknesses in Akira's style that he hadn’t even spotted in the first.

Three hard-fought rounds told Jay that, although he wasn’t an experienced boxer, Akira was a damn good fighter. He never made the same mistake twice and fought more cerebrally than almost all of Jay's sparring partners from earth.

“When you’re trying to learn a new technique, it can be helpful to warm up by doing something familiar.” Said Akira, hand resting on one of the corner scabbards. “It grounds you and quietens down any internal doubt. You need to clear your mind of doubt before you even try and manipulate essence. If you can’t control your emotions, how can you expect to control lightning, or fire, or anything else? I usually read, but I thought this might be more your speed.”

Akira’s gentle breaths heavily contrasted Jay’s panting. He seemed nowhere near as tired as Jay, who had a hunch his friend was probably holding back during their spar.

Fucking monster, I guess that’s what rank fifteen looks like.

“When you’re closer to Harmony, it can actually be detrimental to warm up like this. It entrenches preconceptions of your personal essence and you become less malleable to the world. But you don’t need to worry about that right now.”

Jay nodded, grateful for the tip and the explanation. “That makes sense. But how do I get from this to turning my punches into thunderclaps?”

“Eventually it’ll become natural, but the first step is to form a link between yourself and thunder. This is the Venn diagram overlap that I told you about before.”

Akira pulled out a coin and flicked it towards Jay's face. The coin shot through the air. Stopping mid-air, inches from Jay's eyes. The coin slowly began to spin on its edge, before accelerating rapidly. It looked like a frisbee, hovering in the air.

Jay's focus shifted from the coin to its master. Akira, intensely focused on the coin, twirled his finger in a circle.

“It’s a very precise movement. Keeping the coin still but constantly rotating. Yet if I visualise the iron in my blood spinning when I move my finger, it makes it way easier. Why? Because the two are similar. The movement of my blood is part of my personal essence. It’s me. There lies the overlap, my magnetic blood. And the magnetism spinning the coin. By focusing on the moving iron in my finger, I can more easily use my power over magnetism to move the coin. Get it?”

Akira pointed to his other palm and the coin returned to him. He seemed rather proud of his explanation.

“Now, I chose that example because I think something physical will work best for you. But if you attack the problem more holistically, there’s many ways to create an overlap. For example, if you view magnetism as the force that draws things together, instead of the physical force created by the alignment of electrons within a material, a different overlap would be better. Perhaps something like how people are inherently drawn to your personality. I imagine the storm sage would use a method similar to this. It entirely depends on the individual.”

Jay wasn’t sure how to feel about Akira's teaching style. He clearly cared about Harmony greatly, and put a lot of thought in his explanations, but it felt like he was packing an hour’s worth of information into a minute long paragraph. Training with Akira was like being in science class all over again, although Jay could take in the information, he didn’t learn how to use it. Jay needed to see what he was talking about, he needed to feel the essence, rather than just hear about it.

But that would come with time, and Jay needed to extract everything he could from the man in front of him. Besides, Akira’s explanations were far more palatable than the sage’s. They had just the right level of alliteration in them.

None.

“I’ll be sat by the wall if you need me. I’m going to go over that spar again and see if I can use any of those tricks in a real fight.”

It looked like they were both squeezing every drop of knowledge they could out of each other. Jay could hardly blame Akira though, he had made some time to teach him. If Jay had a tournament in a month, he'd be training every chance he got.

Jay stood alone in the ring. No more lessons, no more tips.

Time to get to work.