"Again! Too slow!" Modoru yelled. Over the next week before they had started their jobs at Shibuya, Modoru had outfitted part of the mine with wooden dummies and an obstacle course for Nokosu to run. The training scheme was as follows. Run the obstacle course and upon finishing, teleport to each dummy striking at the red marker. Each dummy had a differently placed red marker, symbolizing a different type of strike: a punch, a palm strike, a sweep, and a side kick. This all needed to be done within 1 minute and 30 seconds. Nokosu for the most part had gotten down the obstacle course, and Modoru could tell he was trying hard. It was the porting to each target that slowed down Nokosu. He could not light his matches fast enough too port to each target, strike, and port again. Even though he had previously bragged about his skill in doing so, training like this was much different.
"I'm trying!" Nokosu yelled back. Nokosu had not seen this part of his friend before. As close as they had gotten, Modoru was almost a different person when he was training. This must be his military side coming out. Nokosu knew this and swore to himself not to hold it against him – as this whole thing was his idea. It was getting slightly cumbersome though. "Is it ok if I take break?"
"One more, then you can take a break. Try and light your matches on different surfaces to take advantage of your different angles of attack. If you keep going back to your hand to light your match, you're going to lose time." Modoru said.
"Ok." Nokosu took a deep breath and tried to relax. The obstacle course was easy, it was finding moments to light his matches after striking that was the hard part. He would have to be extremely creative. Focusing himself, he waited for Modoru's go ahead. Starting the timer Modoru yelled.
"…and GO!" Nokosu sprinted down the obstacle course, vaulting over and rolling under certain obstacles. Approaching the end of the course, he pre-emptively lit a match in his left hand, threw it in the air and grabbed it. Instantaneously, he ported to the first target and launched a punch. As the punch almost struck, he took out a match and lit it on the target itself. Grabbing the match, he ported just as he finished the punch. Following this set of actions, he ported to each target making good time. As he approached the target that needed a sweep, he accidentally dropped his match that he pre-emptively lit, causing him to fumble and grab a new one. Modoru blew his whistle signalling that he had taken too long. And extra 30 seconds to be exact.
"Damn…." Nokosu lamented. "I thought I had it that time."
"You almost did." Modoru said.
"This is extremely hard though. It's like I'm concentrating on two things at once. I'm lighting matches and striking my opponents at the same time." Nokosu said.
"I'm sure you'll get it. I mean you don't have another way to port, do you? And this is the only way we can for sure move quicker than the security officers at Shibuya."
"I know…..I'll try again later," Nokosu said.
"I might have an idea in regards to that," said a brunette haired girl carrying take-out from behind Modoru.
"Agatha! Thank heavens, I'm famished." Nokosu said.
"Well let's eat up!" Agatha said. The first time the three of them had eaten together, Agatha was adamant on finding out where they were from originally. Deciding to tell her the truth, both Modoru and Nokosu told their part of the story until she flat out laughed. She would not believe them and took it surprisingly well – as if they were telling a joke. It was not until they had gone out the back of Fanwan restaurant and showed her that they could teleport, that she believed them. For the most part she remained quiet, then affirming the two men's hopes, she told them it was really cool they could do that and that she would keep their secret. From then on, she had become their one and only confidant and allowed them to eat at Fanwan for free. She and Nokosu particularly grew close and as they had started dating.
As they ate now, Modoru was for once the first one to finish and went over to the training dummies to fix them up for the next round. Having had a feeling they wanted to talk alone, he took his time.
"How's the training going?" Agatha said.
"Shit. I'm too slow. If I'm not fast enough, Modoru said were going to get caught by the officers. I just can't keep my mind on two things at once, especially in something like combat." Nokosu revealed. "And Modoru is drilling me super hard. This is my first break of the day."
"Don't blame Modoru for looking out for both you. He is a soldier and you're his friend. You both need to perform at top shape for this heist to work out." Agatha lectured.
"I know. It's just hard…..and it was my idea so yeah…."Nokosu said as he looked at her admiringly. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet, I have an idea for you hun." Agatha said
"I'm all ears," Nokosu said.
"What if….what if you used wrist mounted lighters. Like that super hero…I forgot his name, but he launches stuff from his wrists. Anyway, if you could activate your flame with just a wrist action, then concentrating on teleporting and fighting would be a lot easier no?" Agatha explained. Taking a second to think, Nokosu imagined it.
"How would it look like?" Nokosu said.
"Here, let me draw it out," Agatha said as she grabbed a piece of napkin and pulled out a pen. After her drawing he could see what she was saying. The lighter itself would be attached to the part of his arm below his palm. Upon flexing his wrists outward, the lighter would turn on and a flame would be present. All Nokosu needed to do was grab the flame with his fingers and he would teleport.
"That makes so much sense….and it would be much quicker on the draw too!" Nokosu exclaimed. "Thanks a lot, you're the best."
"Glad to help hun," Agatha said as she smiled and hugged Nokosu.
"Am I interrupting?" Modoru said as he walked back to them.
"On the contrary your just in time," Nokosu said. He showed Modoru, Agatha's sketching of the wrist mounted lighter. He looked puzzled a bit, then slowly smiled as well.
"We would need to make sure it's a strong flame. Enough to trigger your porting. As well I'd suggest we put one on your other wrist too, so you can port farther if need be." Modoru said.
"Great, let's do it then." Nokosu said.