Martial Arts

The next morning after the discovery of where and who I am, which was supposed to be filled with satisfaction and planning, became hell, for some reason, mom became a drill sergeant and so began my actual training, so, no more games.

Mom is an advanced jujitsu grandmaster in other words she is pretty much at the top of the food chain here, with only two people above her, dad and the guy he fought at the ending of the manga, all the others are at her level or below her.

My parents are OP, anyway, after explaining that I am at the bottom of the barrel, being a Low-Class Disciple, and what that entails, mainly that I am her disciple and she will begin teaching me her style.

The Kushinada style, not an original name, but what can I say, it was created by grandma and passed to mom.

From what she explained this style is perfect for a 4-year-old, it focuses on using absolutely zero strength and 100% skill, the advantages of learning this so young are overwhelming.

An adult, even with no martial arts training has a level of strength that would make learning this style a nightmare, first he would have to learn to control his strength, like trying to hit a sandcastle with all your strength and not allow a single grain to fall, that difficult.

Even with my age advantage and the talent I wished for, this style is hard, while an original, it still follows the rules of jujitsu, yielding to an opponent's force rather than trying to oppose force with force.

I`m getting ahead of myself.

The first 3 months were hell, flexibility, a word I did not knew in my past life, was drilled into my mind with dynamite. I know jujitsu means the art of flexibility, I did not know a human being could bend that way without breaking, let us leave it at that.

Mom did explain why I needed this training, martial arts that focus on throws and grabs, tend to be taught with experience, someone does it to you, repeatedly, then you learn how to get out of it or avoid it, then you learn how to do it, usually is a mix of all of the above, but in my case, it followed that order.

Some of the things mom did to me in the second year, had I not had the flexibility needed, most of my bones would be broken, and my joints dislocated.

Happy thoughts.

The next six months were fun, if not a little tedious, standing that is what I did for six months learn how to stand, the novels lied to me, the training montages always were punching and throwing and kicking, but noooo, in jujitsu you need to learn how to stand.

If your center of gravity is a smidge off, that punch that is coming to your face and you try to redirect to a throw will only end in two results, getting punched in the face or getting crushed by your opponent, literally, he will fall on top of you instead of getting thrown.

The fun part was balance. You need to master your center of gravity in any position or circumstance imaginable, so I did a great deal of slacklining, that is pretty much where the fun ends.

By the end of the standing and balancing exercises, I could probably fall asleep, in a rope, upside-down, in the middle of a tornado and still not fall.

Now came the throwing.

I did not throw anything or anyone, more like I got thrown, a lot.

This served two things, one adjusting your center on the fly, and second, learning how to land.

At first, I always got thrown, and landed face-first into the ground, with the grace of a rock.

Slowly but surely, the throws started to decrease, and mom needed more skill to throw me, she made sure I did not grow complacent, by showing me, that is she was using 1% skill before, 2% got my ass thrown like Team Rocket.

._._._._._._._._.

"Yes! I did it." Giddiness was all I felt, I lasted a round against mom without being thrown.

"Yes sweetie, I saw, I was here" A small smile on her face and an eye roll later.

I pouted.

She narrows her eyes.

I pout harder.

She mutters something along the lines of cute sons and their adorableness or something.

I win.

Aghh "Fine, what do you want?"

With a smug smirk on my face I answer.

"Can we go out mom? We´ve been in the house all my life." I ask a little expectantly.

We never go outside, I don´t get why, but we could start having trips soon, I hope.

As soon as I ask her, her demeanor changes, she has a sad look in her eyes, and her eyes avoid mine.

"Sorry love, we cannot go outside for the moment, but I promise you soon, okay" I hear some guilt in her voice, so my only assumption is that it is not that she does not want to go out but that we can´t for some reason. Hmm, food for thought.

"Then can you ask dad if he can come to visit us" Have not seen him since my fourth birthday, and I`m nearing my sixth.

"That I can do" She sits and pats the floor in front of her, signaling for me to sit.

Nice, at least I can meet dad, I wonder how is he, did his wife died yet, I remember Saiga´s mom was supposed to die when he was quite young, I`ll try to cheer dad up when I see him.

I wonder if could train me, he did train Saiga in his style, and from what I know he really never trained anyone except a select few.

I sit in front of mom.

"Congratulations Azuma, you performed better than I could have thought these few years," She tells me with pride.

"Thanks, mom" I answer with an equal amount of pride.

"Now, it`s time we start on more advanced training, okay, so let me ask you, do you know what ki is?"

That's a difficult question, the word gets thrown around in a lot of media, but it never is actually explained in detail, thank god I asked for talent in understanding abstract concepts, such as this one.

I shake my head.

"It`s okay, ki is a broad topic, that has caused a lot of debate between martial artists, the answer is internal or life energy, more than that we don`t really know."

That simplifies things, internal energy, or energy from within, it makes sense, as usually, media differentiate from both, internal and external energies.

Maybe the energy from the soul? Alexia did mention that keeping large amounts of souls needs large amounts of energy, so one could theorize that the energy used for soul keeping, is used as a container that prevents the soul´s energy from dissipating. She also mentioned most souls used to dissipate, maybe that´s why.

If ki is simply soul energy it also explains why is so commonly used in media, different names, different uses, but in the end the distinction between internal and external energy is common.

Should probably keep the thought in mind, it would probably help me in my journey.

A soft slap in my head breaks my train of thought, I see mom with an angry look on her face looking at me.

"Sorry mom, got lost in my head."

"I noticed."

A few seconds pass and she simply shakes her head.

"As I was saying, ki is internal energy, and we divided into two types, Sei ki, and Dou ki, the main difference between the two are intention and application." She patiently explains.

"Okay, so we have Dou ki and Sei ki, but what are intention and application?" I have a few theories but better let mom explain.

"You see intention is the personality of the fighter, Sei users tend to be calm and clear-headed in fights. Fighting not with power or anger, but with talent, skills, and wit."

"So, you are a Sei user right mom."

"Correct, Dou users tend to be aggressive and emotional during fights, using their anger to exceed their limits. But let me clarify, Dou and Sei ki are not mutually exclusive, one can master both, but their personality will have a stronger connection with one or the other."

"And application?" I ask.

"Better show you dear." She gets up and walks towards the garden, I follow her.

She approaches a rock, about one meter tall and 2 meters long, should weigh around 300 kg.

"This is Sei application," She says and throws the rock 20 to 30 meters into the air, as the rock falls it did not break.

"As you see it can still cause damage or kill your opponent, but the application is more skillful and less direct, while this is Dou ki, watch" She punches the rock, creating a loud sound and pretty much destroying it to pieces.

"Dou ki is explosive in nature, as you can see."

I just stand there absent-mindedly nodding my head, Kenichi is quite the normal world, no supernatural beings, magic, or crazy technology, but seeing mom, a petite youthful woman, breaking a big ass rock with her fist like glass was a wake-up call that as normal as my life is, the people here are anything but.