Chapter 101: Friendly

"...Zenith, you’re being way too hard on her. You should take it easier, otherwise she’s gonna end up hating you." Maya approaches as she speaks in that irritating tone, challenging my authority.

"Hard? I’m just helping her get stronger, like she asked." I say to her while watching Rouge doing push-ups with three tons of wood on her back — wood I forced her to get by punching trees until they fell, then tying it all together and putting it on her back.

"Besides, it’s only four days. Two have already passed, so I’m giving her a crash course. She’s strong. If she wants to get stronger, she’ll need intense training. This weight will help boost her physical capabilities."

"She almost broke her fingers because you wouldn’t let her raise her defense." Maya says, watching Rouge curiously as she sweats heavily, struggling to keep her pace.

At first she was managing to endure it, but I ordered her to stop using her powers, which made the weight excessive.

"I can carry twenty tons without using any physical enhancement, and I can carry eighty if I push myself. Even Nadir, a commander with no prosthetics at all, can carry fifty tons on his own without a problem, and if he pushes himself he can manage even more." The Chips and Cores already elevate overall physical capacity, so she’ll be fine.

"Yeah, yeah, but you’re being unfair to the girl... hey, rookie, you wanna see Zenith get her ass kicked?" Maya crouches down next to Rouge, who looks at her with her wolf ears drooping.

"W-Who are you..." Rouge asks through gritted teeth from the strain.

"I’m the current Top 1, the strongest Kaira there is!! And if you want, I can show you Zenith losing. It’ll be a good chance for you to rest." Maya tries to undermine my authority even further just out of pure arrogance.

"..." Rouge looks at me and I give a nod confirming what Maya said.

"I... want to see..." Maya removes the pile of trees from Rouge’s back without any trouble and helps her up.

"You hear that, Zenith? How about a little duel between us?"

"...Fine by me..." This could be good for Rouge to see what a fight between two veterans looks like, though the difference is I’m not going to win no matter what.

"We won’t use powers. It wouldn’t be fair to me when I’m far more limited than you." I say to her in a serious tone. Maya has the lowest physical cost for using her powers — it’s almost complete cheating.

"Of course, Zenith! I was actually getting antsy for something interesting. Besides, my fists alone are enough." Rouge walks over to a chair and sits down to rest while drinking a bottle of water.

"...Zenith, let’s make this quick, alright? I’ll start attacking you in ten seconds..." She goes completely silent, staring at me, while Rouge seems focused on it.

When ten seconds pass, by pure reflex I quickly turn to the side, defending against a punch. I spin my body, kicking behind me where Maya already is, and she catches my kick.

’What absurd speed...’ She tries to spin me, but I thrust my tail toward her face. She leans completely backward, dodging and touching the ground with her hands. She uses that position to attack, spinning with a double flying kick at me.

I jump back and do a 180-degree spin with a punch that grazes Maya’s face — she’s already appeared behind me again. Fortunately, I know Maya is someone who takes full advantage of her speed to attack from behind.

After all, she normally never really needs to fight hand-to-hand, so she has this more passive, almost cowardly fighting style.

"Not bad." She grabs me by the waist and throws me upward, but my tail wraps around her hand and pulls me back down. I land a kick to her face, shoving her backward and catching her off guard.

’My tail has gained much freer movement without all the spinal ligament sections having to respond... the Cube sped up the response time considerably...’

"..." She stumbles slightly, touching her face where blood trickles down.

"Tsk..."

"Don’t underestimate me so much, Maya. Obviously if you used your powers you could have ended the fight the moment you got close to me, but without powers? I have the advantage here." She spits to the side, blood splattering on the ground.

"That was a good kick. I think it chipped my tooth a little." She touches her lip with her finger, lifting it and showing the bleeding tooth. Even so, her pain tolerance is another absurd thing.

"..." She lunges in a quick rush, sweeping my legs and actually managing to take me off the ground. She grabs my leg and swings me toward the floor. I use my tail to touch the ground first and roll to minimize the impact.

"Urgh!!" She lands a hook to my chin, taking advantage of the fact that I had to use my tail to roll on the ground. I taste blood on my tongue as I’m pushed back.

"You really are as monstrous as I remembered." I mutter to her, and she smiles. Even though she almost never engages in physical combat, her combat is still exceptional.

’Being talented at everything really is enviable...’

"You know how it is, right? Relying only on power is foolish." I take the initiative, advancing on her with a punch, taking advantage of having more explosive force per strike. She leans to the right, using her elbow to redirect my arm.

She tilts slightly, spinning backward and delivering a high kick to my chest, pushing me back by creating a forced opening. Fortunately, I managed to move my tail to the kick’s impact zone, defending against the worst of the damage.

’That was dangerous... it would have broken my ribcage...’ I can see she got angry about the kick to her face, since she didn’t hold back at all on that kick.

"..." I glance at Rouge, who looks impressed, since this is far more balanced than when she fought against me.

"I think I’ll show off a little for the audience." She comes at me head-on, which is completely against her fighting style. She throws a powerful punch, and to defend I punch her punch.

She repeats this in a barrage of powerful punches, and I can only defend by throwing punches as well, since taking one of those directly would be dangerous even for me.

The exchange of blows starts creating small air explosions, cracking the ground around us. She keeps increasing the force and speed of her strikes.

’What strength...’ If these were my old prosthetics, they would have started cracking around the knuckle area, but this Cube is highly resistant and can hold up well. I think I’m starting to like having these new prosthetics, even with the risk of this Cube deciding to leave my body.

"..." Maya seems confused that we’re evenly matched, and she even looks frustrated with the stalemate. She tries to land a knee strike and I throw a knee as well, defending.

"..." She gives me a dangerous look, which makes me retreat and kick the ground toward her, stopping her from making an advance.

"Let’s stop here." I say, pulling back, realizing this has gone beyond a mere training session. She seems offended that we tied and was actually about to start fighting to kill — and I don’t see myself winning against her. At most, I’d last an hour if I didn’t slip up for a single moment and she didn’t use her powers.

"Tsk, seriously? Backing off now that things are heating up? You see, rookie, your teacher’s a coward. When she starts losing, she retreats." Maya looks at Rouge, who at this point couldn’t even follow the fight anymore.

’...You bitch...’ She makes it seem like I retreated just to avoid losing and tarnishing my image, when she knows perfectly well I only pulled back because she’s taking this way too seriously.

"Maya..." I give her a warning look.

"...Okay, sorry for overdoing it. After all, you’re getting old." She insults me while snapping her fingers. She molds the earth into a platform and starts flying away from us.

"...That was incredible..." Rouge says, fascinated, though I can see her interest is more in Maya than in me.

"That was dangerous. That’s exactly the kind of person you shouldn’t aspire to be. Maya was about to try to kill me once she got more frustrated — someone with a short fuse who can’t accept not being above someone else." We were just evenly matched.

If I had been winning, she would have started trying to kill me and wouldn’t have stopped the fight just because I backed off until she proved she was stronger.

"Why? She was incredible!! And look, she doesn’t even seem to have the physique for combat like yours!! And she was winning! You’re the one who backed off!! That’s really unfair. I didn’t back off from you when I was losing."

’Winning? What an exaggeration...’

"Incredible, sure, but being incredible doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want... now get back to training. She should come back in an hour once she’s cooled off."

’Damn Maya, now because of her everything I’ve been trying to teach Rouge got thrown out the window...’ I can see from Rouge’s eyes that everything I taught was deconstructed by watching that fight, since she was more inspired by Maya.

And I know Maya did it on purpose. She knew this would happen. I just wonder if it was pure boredom or if she just wanted to screw me over out of pettiness.

’I spent two days trying to teach this girl, and in five minutes that idiot destroyed all my work...’ Rouge returns to position to do push-ups with the weight while I grab my phone to check if Nadir has messaged me yet.