Connor tried to shake him off, but with the man's legs constricting his, he wasn't able to do anything meaningful apart from tiring himself out. And if you also considered how easy it was for Nostradamus to choke him, in a practical situation, Connor would've been done for if not for the Book of Fate...

After a few painfully long minutes trying to throw him off, Connor gave up.

"I... I give up!" He squeezed out in the middle of tired pants and desperate gasps for air.

Nostradamus promptly let go, dusted himself off, and lent Connor a hand.

"You..." He took it gratefully, "How did you do that?" He stared at Nostradamus in amazement as his brain remembered the way his body lost control of itself.

"You want to learn it?"

If Connor looked ardent before, he was positively smitten at the idea! He nodded, excited at the mere prospect of having such a useful skill under his belt.

"If you want..."

'Uh huh...'

"To learn it..."

'Uh huh,'

"...The most awesome of techniques!!" His hands were high in the sky, as if to show off how big it was.

'I'm bursting out of my goddamn seats here!'

"Yooooouuuuu..." He drew the word out, his tone progressively getting more and more intense.

By this point, Connor was holding himself back from pouncing at the man. Like, he knew it was dramatic and everything, but damn! You didn't have to milk it this—

"—Won't be able to learn it,"

"Eh?" Connor was blindsided, and he had trouble properly reacting to the suddenness of it all, "W-What did you just say?"

Nostradamus looked at him like he was an idiot, though he was decent enough to repeat himself, "You can't learn it; at least not from me anyway,"

"T-Then who?!"

"That would be me," The familiarity of the gruff, gravelly voice belonging to a certain man entered his ear canals, and he whipped his head back to find out who it belonged to.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

There, standing imposingly with a cigar placed firmly in his lip, was a man best described as grave. He was about 180 cm in height, but you'd never guess that with how his body unconsciously stooped with age. His accessories made one think of a well-to-do man, wearing a bronze pocket watch and an exquisitely broken-in overcoat that fitted him like a glove. Then there was his magnificently pruned facial hair, as a stark-white beard the likes of which would make even other men blush travelled all the way down to his breast pocket, ending in an orderly manner, much like the man himself...

"D-Darwin?!" That's right, it was Charles Darwin.

"That's Sir Charles to you!" He bristled at the boy's casual use of his last name, "But yes, I suppose I can teach you the Travail D'evolution,"

'Yes!!'

"However,"

'No!!'

"My secrets are only for those who've surpassed their limits and are already standing at the apex of evolution," His tone was severe, and the look on his face made sure to hammer it down if his voice wasn't enough, "Then, and only then, do I teach them my art, so that they may go further past that!"

"I-Isn't that a bit too harsh a requirement for a martial art?" I mean, reaching the absolute limits of evolution aside, just knowing where to go was hard enough, "And it didn't even look that impressive. Nostradamus just held me in a chokehold!"

His complaints were cut short when, for the second time today, he found himself thrown to the ground and choked half to death.

"Ach!?" Connor hacked and wheezed for air desperately, yet Darwin hadn't moved a single step.

His eyes, through the blotches of black in his vision, was able to make out the man just standing there, staring coldly at him. And only when he was an iota away from losing consciousness did the pressure finally let up...

"That was the Travail D'evolution. His was just a neutered version I made to pass the time," Darwin kneeled down and explained.

"You..." He croaked painfully, wincing from the searing pain he felt the moment he tried to speak, "...How?"

Connor watched him as he slowly ran a finger across his forearm, and as time seemed to move at a snail's pace, he could somehow see the individual cells that made up his arm. And he was terrified by what he saw.

Every single one of them was brimming with energy; wild, unreservedly destructive energy. All of them, from his tendons to his muscles, from the skin to his bones...

"This is insane," He finally articulated, forcefully talking through the crackling pain in his throat, "How the fuck aren't you dead?!"

"Heh."

It started with a small snicker.

"Heheh. Hehehahah! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!"

Before growing into earth-shattering laughter.

"I am Charles Robert Damn-Darwin! The man who conquered Evolution and became God! I don't know how to fuckin' die!"

And then came the declaration:

"And you, boy, have the makings of a successor! So, do you want to wallow in your weakness, or rise up and make Evolution your bitch?!"

Connor stared at the fist pointed squarely at his face... and fist-bumped it!

"Good. Now get ready, it's time you relearned the basics,"

----------------------------------------