31 31 - Two-Man Team

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

when you have my back, the security I feel

gives me the strength to endure any ordeal.

-R.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Cuts and dents covered the wooden dummies as a couple more weeks passed by.

From early in the morning, Grisia supervised them in handling weapons and martial arts training. At night and whenever Grisia was away on a quest, they were told to maintain their ki aura active as long as possible.

It had been four weeks since winter started, the same date Kairo arrived at the mansion.

The first two weeks were spent as pre-training due to the conflicting schedule caused by Aisia's attempt for atonement at the bakery she used to steal from. Once the agreement with the bakery owner concluded, they were able to focus and move on to actual training.

Grisia was away frequently the week after to get some things done at the guild in order to prepare for their training. Sometimes, he would be absent from the manor for days. But after that, he would only be summoned by the adventurer's guild for emergency quests if they encountered a problem that they were unable to handle without him.

Since then, he told the two that he would have more time to train them.

During one of their training sessions, he made a new pair of wooden dummies using chakra as the ones before were seeing signs of wear and tear from their steady progress. Though, they were not going to face the training dummies today.

This time, he wanted to personally assess their teamwork.

He urged the two to come at him at the same time, using everything they've got. He asked if they prefer to have their weapons so he may manifest them before starting, but they told him they also wanted to see how well they would do with hand-to-hand combat first.

"This will be an assessment of firstly," Grisia raised his pointer finger. "Your teamwork, as well as your progress since the last time you two sparred with me individually. That means, you must go all out, but with consideration for each other's movements."

Aisia and Kairo looked at each other and nodded, readily turning towards Grisia in a combat stance and unleashing their ki simultaneously without missing a beat.

It seemed that they'd begun to shape their character in his absence. At this point, Grisia could see a faint hue of their ki. Aisia had streaks and hints of yellow while Kairo had a peaceful, pale blue aura emanating from him.

He was surprised to see quite a different color from what he saw from Kairo before. He knew that it was possible to change its color through an evolution of character, but to see it turn from that hateful black and red at the start, to a pristine and blank colorlessness, and finally to this almost-wispy blue in such a short amount of time. It was an enigma to him.

"Maybe Remi knows something about this..." he thought to himself.

"That listless expression of his again," Kairo commented as he saw Grisia distracted. "Well, part of combat is to catch our opponent by surprise. Ready, Aisia?"

"Ready!" she turned to Grisia. "Ready or not, pops, here we come!"

They dashed right at him, their lunge was boosted by their ki aura.

Grisia caught both of their attacks with his hands, sustaining no damage, but the force of their attacks enhanced with ki made his cloak wave violently on his back.

Noticing this, he threw both of them away and jumped back, removing his cloak.

"Uwah!" they exclaimed in surprise, grunting as they hit the grass.

"They've improved quite a lot," Grisia thought to himself. "Previously, they could only hold their ki aura for around eighteen minutes. Now they could go for up to forty-five minutes. That's nearly an hour, which entails that their physical stamina and ki handling has gone up as well..."

"Earth: Pebbleweight," he uttered, using chakra to create a medium-sized rock to use as a paperweight for his cloak on the ground.

"Oh, shit..." Kairo uttered with a worried smile.

"This may not be good," Aisia added.

"Don't worry, I only removed my cloak to make it easier to move around. I'm not getting serious or anything," in spite of what he said, he cracked his neck and hopped around while waving his hands with his fingers splayed.

"Aisia," Kairo turned to her with a knowing look while Grisia was warming up.

"Yeah," she replied with a nod, vanishing her ki to focus on using chakra techniques. "Ember: Wisps!"

She stretched out her arms and aimed her palms at Grisia.

Grisia stretched out his hand in return, expecting to block the incoming combustion with his hand.

Ember: Wisps was a low-level fire chakra technique that combusts one's target. He could easily pat it out with his hand, his skin was tough enough that it would not leave a mark even if a huge flame were to engulf him.

As he heard the noise of flames appearing, he was surprised to see balls of flames surrounding him instead.

When he looked back in front of him, he only saw Aisia maintaining the technique. Kairo was nowhere to be found.

He looked around and within a second, he saw a shadow in between him and Aisia. He looked up and saw Kairo cloaked in ki, falling from the sky with a massive punch aimed at him.

"So these flames are a distraction, or rather, a cage," Grisia thought to himself. "Either I have to touch them to escape or be hit with Kairo's attack. Either way, the longer I hesitate, the more the latter will happen," the edges of his lips slightly curved upward, almost proud of their ingenuity. "A simple yet effective combination, that is, if they weren't facing me."

As he spun around, he wiped away Aisia's flames with his bare hand, tumbling to the side to evade Kairo's assault from above. Kairo couldn't change his trajectory, and so, his fist met with the ground where Grisia was supposed to be, shattering the area around it and deforming the land.

"Great opener. I rate it a six out of ten. If it was an average adventurer, they wouldn't have escaped unscathed from Sia's trap. If they were slow, they would have definitely been knocked out by Kairo, or worse, had their skull split open."

"HA!" they shouted with vigor, acknowledging his feedback.

"Though, your aim is to achieve a rating of ten out of ten. Until then, your teamwork needs more work. But I am genuinely surprised by your first try."

The two of them both gave a wide, pleased grin as they thought back to one of the times they spent training without Grisia's supervision...

"Sooner or later, Grisia's going to test our teamwork," Kairo started. "It's only natural. On the battlefield, it'll be rare for us to be on our own. After all, we're going to be training together for a long time, so let's test out some two-man attack combinations."

"But Grisia's both a fortress and its cannons!" Aisia grumbled. "How are two kids even supposed to measure up to that?"

"Well, as we are now, it's definitely impossible. But little by little, we'll punch our way through the first walls!... punching... punching, huh? I've already got an idea, Aisia!" he smiled.

"Oh?" as she listened to Kairo's initial plans, her curious stare began to turn into a devious grin. 

Returning to the present...

The two of them went back to their fighting stance, waiting for any movements from Grisia.

"Sia's got the techniques that give them more options," Grisia muttered under his breath. "And Kairo possesses the wits to see and implement those options. Preparation, huh."

He was expecting them to simply throw flashy attacks one after another without any coordination, but it seemed that they'd prepared accordingly with what they had in the time that he was gone.

"Is that all you've got?" he taunted the two of them.

They both rushed him with their ki aura intact once again. It was a continuous flurry of punches and kicks full of youthful vigor, but Grisia was managing them just fine without having to use his own ki or any other powers for that matter.

Since it was still early in the morning, Grisia accidentally let out a yawn, fanning his open mouth with one of his hands while under attack.

The two noticed this with an audible confusion.

"Oh," he flinched. "I swear, it's not that your attacks bore me, It was cold and it's still morning," he tried to assure the two, but Kairo wasn't taking it.

With a final right elbow from Kairo and a left kick from Aisia, which Grisia easily blocked with his hands, the two of them distanced themselves from Grisia by dashing backwards several times.

"He's not even taking us seriously by a fraction!" Kairo whispered to her with reproach.

"The hell's a fraction?" Aisia commented.

"Damn! Fine! Aisia, let's test out that thing."

"What?! Already? Are you sure you can do it now?"

"It's not a matter of if I can do it, let's try. It's just training anyway. And he told us to give it our all, right?"

"Let's do it then!"

The two of them jumped away from each other, making it slightly more difficult for Grisia to keep an eye on both of them at the same time.

As Kairo ran to the side, Aisia stopped using her ki and uttered, "Fire: Will of the Wisps!" aiming at Grisia once again.

Fire: Will of the Wisps was a greater version of Ember: Wisps. Ordinarily, it was used to light something on fire from farther away. Using it at around the same distance as she did earlier with Ember: Wisps made the surrounding balls of flames larger both in size and number in comparison.

Grisia began to analyze their attack, "It takes a lot of chakra to maintain these flames in the air without a flammable object to burn. They desperately wish for me to stay in one place, but for what reason? It matters not, they won't be able to hold me for long. On the other hand, Kairo..."

Kairo used ki to grant him enough speed to appear behind Grisia. Grisia turned around and prepared himself to take Kairo's hit. But he wondered how Kairo was going to hit him with all these flames still hovering around him.

That was when Kairo smirked.

Then he realized it. They did say it was something new, but so far, it was essentially the same pattern of attacks, unless...

It was a mistake on his part to turn around for Kairo and disregard Aisia. When he looked back, she was already rushing him while cloaked in ki with a big smack prepared.

Since she was using ki, the balls of flames were fading away, making way for her.

"Quite an expensive feint, but admirable..." he said.

Before her punch could reach him, he smacked her wrist to the side and redirected her entire blow, her fist piercing a hole in the ground.

"... but not enough to reach me."

"It wasn't supposed to," she replied with a devious grin on her face and a stifled chuckle.

"Inferno: Flame Resurgence!"

"Oh, f—" before Grisia could finish his expression, a concentrated blaze of crimson and dark fire engulfed him and scorched the area around where he stood, creating a sort of whistling sound from the sheer pressure of its continuous release.