The Start To Training Begins With A Good Beating

TIME SKIP 2 WEEKS~

As the sun rises in the east, a boys eyes flutter open. It took him some while to take in his surroundings as he looked around. He looked around until his eyes fell on a barrel of water set in a corner. He sat up with a jerk and weakly walked to the barrel finding a glass on it and started drinking the water stored.

When he had his fill, he walked back to the bed and fell on his butt. Sitting on the bed, he remembers why he was in such a condition.

'All it took was one scratch? Is that all my power amounts too? Was grandpa really serious and not exaggerating when he spoke of those pirates and marines? Of their power and the incredible things, they can do? Are there really people capable of destroying islands with a punch??? Am I really weak eno-'

WHAAAAAAAAM!

"You overconfident piece of shit! What gave you the confidence to even head that deep in the woods?" Sara kicked the door open and yelled rather loudly.

"Huh!?" that was all he could answer.

"You think you're some strong shit? Was it the weak hunts you did that gave you that idea or what? What gave you the idea that you were even close to the strength of the beasts that live deeper in the forest? Answer me!!!!!"

"I do-don't k-kn-kno-know…" was all he could say embarrassed as he was hearing all this.

"You know what? You think you're strong? Prove it!!"

"Prove i-it! How am I supposed to prove that? Fight you or something?!"

"That's exactly how you'll do it. Hit me!" seeing him hesitating made her angrier than she was already. She took a hold of his arm and dragged him through the village to where the tree line started. "Hit me!!!" Looking at him still hesitate made her get angrier to the point she hit the edge.

Soon she was pushed of the edge and she moved. That was all he saw until he saw her suddenly flying back while standing still.

'Huh! That doesn't make sense.'

It hit him that it wasn't her that was flying rather it was him. Then the pain made itself known. His stomach was on fire. He landed dragging a trench in the ground with his body. He slowly stood up, wincing as he put his right hand on his stomach. He looked up to her spitting some blood that came up to the side.

Before he could even begin to move, she moved.

And suddenly his body was burning. Something hit his stomach, then his ribs, the other side too, his arm, both legs, and finally his wound. He fell on his knees with a silent scream. His eyes wide while he spat blood trying hard not to fall over. His wound reopened, blood slowly flowing out. He tried to stand back up and even more pain surfaced.

"Wh-Why are you hitting me?" he stuttered out in a weak voice.

"Because you need to learn." She said in a stern voice. "You think yourself stranger than you are. You think others weaker than they are. You're both over-estimating yourself and under-estimating others. I told you to hit me. You stood there looking at me, hesitating. Why?"

"I-I…"

"Because you thought you could hurt me. As you are you wouldn't even be able to touch me."

"Huh? Wh-"

"Take him back to the clinic Cassy. Let him think over this."

He blacked out as soon as her attention was off of him falling on his front.

It took him a month to heal. He tried to talk to Sara multiple times but she brushed him off. While Cassy talked to him, it was nothing like before. He wanted to talk to Cassy like he used to but when he tried, she would act a little more snappishly and her gaze contained anger and sadness especially when looking at him.

He wanted to ask Sara to help grow strong but as his attempts failed, their numbers fell too. They went from trying multiple times a day to once in a few days in barely 3 weeks. By the 4th week, he had given up on asking for help from her.

Throughout the month, every night he would dream. Each night the dream from before returned but with people missing, losing one each day. With each loss the laughter dimmed until he was left all alone with no laughter and happiness. He woke up remembering the feeling of loss that permeated his body which increased day by day.

After a month such as this, the barely 13-year-old boy just wanted things to go back to how they were. The next morning when Cassy came, he didn't look in her eyes knowing of the sadness hidden in them that would make him flinch every time he gazed at them. He went in the dogeza in front of her startling her.

"PLEASE HELP ME!!" he said not raising his head.

She was startled but looked at him curiously.

"I can't go on like this. I want to be friends with you again. I don't want to be alone like the last month. I will never again brush off your concerns again. Just please help me. I don't want to stay like this. I want to be able to defeat that tiger and this time with you. Please help me get stronger."

She looked at him with wide eyes. 'Finally! Aunt Sara said he would have to come to me. This way he learns to lean on others when needed and I get to help him too. Good thing, Aunt Sara told me all that is needed to train to get stronger over time.'

She became excited and when she spoke, he could hear excitement in her voice given his head was still on the ground while he stayed in the dogeza.

"Finally! Let's go! I've been waiting for you to say that. Let's go!"

He barely had time to look up when he was suddenly yanked by the arm and pulled all the way to the same clearing where Sara beat him up.

"Now," she said, "I've asked Aunt Sara and she gave me all the answers we'll need to get stronger."

"Wait! She told you how to get stronger?"

"Yup! C'mon now let's start!" she started to jog away from him.

He stood there on a daze for a few seconds wondering why Cassy wanted to get stronger before seeing her going to far away and ran to catch up.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

Thus, started what would overtime become their daily run till they lived on the island.

Upon questioning her, she revealed all she learned from Sara on the topic of getting stronger. How jogging and in a little while full on sprinting serve as warm-ups and exercise all on their own. How the following exercises such as push-ups and pull-ups would help increase upper-body strength, how squats and lunges help increase lower-body strength. She explained how stretches will help flexibility. How all the running and swimming would help stamina. Sprinting would even help increase speed above all else that it would do. Then she started speaking of fighting, how we gotta be used to punching and kicking hard surfaces to not be seriously hurt if we miss our shot in a fight and end up hitting something around us.

This conversation somehow distracted them long enough to have run an hour and a half and when they stopped, they were panting like crazy. Upon recovery, she began showing Cliff what to do because he was totally clueless on what the exercises were.

…

…

…

Around sunset, both Cliff and Cassy were stumbling back to the village sore as hell, having to lean on each other to remain standing.

"Why the hell do these exercises have so fancy names? You ask her that?"

"Yeah, I did! She said she didn't know those names either! She said these names are used in Karate Island."

"How does she even know what they call them in Karate Island?"

"Dunno! Didn't ask!"

"Huh! Why didn't you?" he asked in indignation.

"I was too busy writing notes on what she was telling me!" she said.

"Notes." he deadpanned. "You were writing notes?"

"Hey! Who else was gonna tell you?"

"Fine! But seriously notes?!"

"That reminds me, we gotta start learning how fight other people. She said something about sparring."

"Lemme guess. Karate Island Special Name?"

"Yup! Any way we gotta learn how to fight by fighting each other!"

"What? Fighting each oth…"

They walked off to the village leaving the clearing behind. In the clearing a figure appeared. As one would get closer, they would realize it to be of Sara's.

"Your son did good today, Captain. And that girl wasn't too bad either. She would make a perfect first mate. Wonder what you would think of that Captain Jun?"