Street Techniques

"Ar-! " My hand was ruthlessly slapped by Jimmy before my thrust ever became a threat. This obviously caused the military knife Rook gave me to fall and clatter on the ground simply.

"Pathetic" Jimmy didn't spare me or my hand a glance only saying these cruel words of criticism. I couldn't refute his words though, not while I had a stinging mark of affirmation on one of my hands.

"First things first, forget techniques" Jimmy said kicking the knife away.

"What?" I was somewhat shocked by his action of kicking the knife away. That knife wasn't anything new from what I could tell but it would be hard to come around.

"Knife fighting is not about fancy stances, it's about stabbing your opponent and trying not to bleed to death" Jimmy added not in any way addressing my confusion.

"Also... " He said purposely slurring the end of his words before reaching for his waist and pulling out a weapon.

Click

Not any weapon, however, a black handgun was aiming its cold barrel straight at my forehead.

"This is a waste of your time in Termina" Jimmy said without a shred of doubt and I had to say, that was true. Learning knife fighting was only helpful when fighting against mutants. With humans, I would get shot before ever closing the distance to stab them. But that was also all I wanted.

Plus, with my ability to sneak around it wasn't guaranteed that I would be unable to close the distance when facing someone.

"...But I'll teach you the basics anyway" Jimmy said shortly after weighing what he could possibly lose from this whole ordeal. I presumed that he wasn't opposed to having someone to bully for a couple of weeks.

Jimmy went behind and reached out for a cupboard. All the homes in the slums were residential. They were single bedroom apartments so to say. My assumption was that they were all made to house as many people as possible without considering safety of convenience.

This was the sort of building our group had rashly renovated. It was cramped and ill-furnished.

Out of the cupboard, Jimmy pulled out an old glass. He then slammed it on the floor leaving me agape.

"Here" He grabbed a sharp shard and tossed it at me. I was once more left aghast, but my brain somehow managed to process that I needed to catch this. So I did, though I definitely had no idea how in the world you were supposed to grip this thing.

Then again… he did say to forget about techniques. I had to make do.

"Protect your head, close the distance, stab like crazy" Jimmy said plainly. That was all I had to do. So I listened to his instructions.

I gripped my broken shard as if it was my only solace and stepped forward with an overhand swing. I had to stab like craz-

"Urgh-!" I grunted after receiving a straight-up sucker punch.

"Not that crazy" I heard Jimmy say while struggling to breathe. After the trip to the outside, we were all at more or less the same starting point. This meant that Jimmy who was naturally stronger than me was now indeed stronger than me. Our altered grade was the same after all.

"You left yourself exposed, you should be afraid to die" Jimmy scolded with the same disregard. It was a bit crazy of me to expect to kill someone when leaving myself so bare but wasn't I just following his instructions?

Perhaps because he noticed my confused expression he decided to explain himself a bit more.

"First of all, you didn't protect your head or your torso. You lose points in every bracket" Jimmy explained his reasoning and he was right but he hadn't shown me anything either. I didn't think I was some godly genius capable of understanding things from just a few words. No, actually, I definitely wasn't some godly genius capable of understanding things from just a few words.

"Watch" Jimmy said raising up a single finger. He grabbed another shard of glass and brandished it like a complete professional. I was left awe-inspired by his pose and careful position-

That was all a joke, but there was one truth mixed in. First, as Jimmy charged towards the wall he did not ever stop pointing his shard forward. Technically, I hadn't either but I did leave myself exposed. Jimmy didn't.

He made his body smaller, and kept his shard always at around or near head level. If worse came to worst he could always use his shard to deflect the attack. Well, maybe not with a piece of glass…

Then came the repeated stabs… The wall stood no chance. No, not even the glass shard stood a chance.

The unstable building shook with every pound and the glass started to become nothing but small bits in the hands of Jimmy. His hands started to bleed but even so the fury in his expression could not be clouded by pain. This wall had to have done something unbearable to him, it just had to.

After pounding the glass shard into glass dust Jimmy turned to me with a smile.

"Did you catch that?" He asked me who only blinked in response. Did I catch that? It was a good question. Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I did ever catch that with my thoughts being focused on why rather than the how.

"Y- Yeah…" But I lied anyway. I could keep his teachings to mind, but there was no way for me to replicate it seriously. Every single one of these guys was a lunatic!

"Good, you don't need anything else, and if you do, I can't teach you it" Jimmy added satisfied by the work.

"Wh- That's it?" I asked glancing at the punctured wall made of cement.

"That's it, you can only learn from experience" Jimmy said with sincerity causing me to be even more deeply confused. Why was such a loony saying something so logical?!

"O- Ok…" I decided not to ask further and to instead consider asking Kaiser to teach me to aim guns. I knew how to fire one, but not how to shoot one if that made any sense.

Outside of that, the short lesson wasn't entirely fruitless. I did learn not to mess with any of these guys.