'Bang!'
A loud voice was heard when I sent my right fist into the chin of the big boy.
He was knocked out immediately as his knees gave in and stopped supporting him. He fell and kneeled down, and then dropped to the ground face first. One of them down, two more to go now.
"Wha-?! "
"She knocked out Keith with just a punch?! Surround her, Jennifer! Keep swinging and don't let her get a chance to fight back!"
Richard and the other boy immediately rushed at me. Right now, both of these two is physically stronger than me, if I were to be grabbed by either one of them then it'll really be dangerous.
Remembering dad's training, my best option now is to step backwards and then carefully watch these two before I attack. My trained footwork allows me to back step and dodge away from approaching attackers, and that's what I'm planning to do.
The two immediately rushed after me with the other boy in front and Richard behind, while I'm still standing still waiting for them to get in range.
The boy started winding up his hand to prepare for a slow punch. He's an amateur, no doubt, since there's only one word to describe his moves.
"Too slow!"
I stepped backwards and dodged his first swing. However, he didn't give up and followed up with another swing. This time he's a bit more close so I can't dodged backwards. Instead, I ducked the punch and sent him a light punch to the nose to make him flinch and stop. This punch is called a jab in boxing.
However, he didn't flinch at the strike, let alone stop his attack. He continued swinging and this time I dodged backwards and then jabbed at his eyes.
This action of dodging and counter attacking at the same time is called a 'Defensive Offense' and dad has taught me to instinctively use this. Of course, the attack usually isn't powerful so don't expect to score a kill with it.
The jab at his eye made him closed his eyes and made him swing his next punch wildly.
"Useless!" I yelled out naturally because of how stupid his move is. Him closing his eyes meant that I could instead side step and flank to his side without him realising it.
I side stepped his punch and threw a knee kick to his stomach which was strong enough to actually stop him. But it wasn't strong enough to disable him from the fight.
However, I suddenly felt a sharp pain to my right jaw. It seems that as I was busy with this guy, Richard had flanked to my right instead and then hit me from my blind spot, so much for yelling useless at him, I got caught just like him!
I turned towards him and instinctively blocked the next punch to my face using my hands. However, this punch was actually a jab, and it was just a distraction for an uppercut.
He threw the uppercut and it tagged me on my chin. I could feel a sharp pain on my teeth and my jaw, and the force alone made my consciousness dazed for a split second before recovering.
I turned my attention back to Richard and started to block his attack. This time, the other boy and Richard is right in front of me, so I had to deal with them both at the same time.
Richard swung with some good strikes, he must have been trained before, but his techniques is still no match for my boxing techniques that I learned back on earth. The other boy also recovered from the knee kick and started swinging alongside Richard.
With my newly learned ability to deflect, I deflected away quite a few punches and dodged the ones that I missed. However, slowly but surely I'm losing grounds because my posture is getting weaker and weaker, and more punches are tagging me through my defenses.
I kept dodging backwards but I was close to being backed into a wall. However, I have a plan that can turn the tide of the fight.
"She's close to being backed into a wall, keep pushing her!"
As I approached the wall, I immediately jumped backwards and landed the back of my body and my feet on the wall.
"What the hell?!"
It seems that my actions surprised the other boy. And then before I could fall to the ground, with my leg pushing the wall, I jumped at the other kid since he's weaker. Then, I threw a front kick using my left leg, and with my falling momentum I connected the kick to his face before I continued falling and landed on the ground. I scratched my knees on the floor as I landed, since I was wearing a skirt, but that couldn't stop me.
The boy dropped to the ground and never stood back up, so he's KO'ed. It's 1 on 1 now.
"Why won't you just surrender?!" Richard yelled out in frustration, seeing two of his lackeys being beaten by me.
"I have done nothing to cross you! But all you ever do is just act like a jerk! And after all that talk of me not wanting to make you lose face, you went and hurt my friend! This is the reason I will never surrender to you, not when you will just go hurt someone else!"
"That's because you overshadowed me! You are only acting so humble because you want to please others! It makes me more and more frustrated that people are drawn to you like a magnet, it makes me want to rip off your mask and expose your real self that's toxic and evil! But why then?! Why are you such a nice person to me?!"
"You are just jealous of me because you suck at making friends!"
"You don't know me!" Richard yelled again as he rushed forward again and threw some more punches at me.
I'd want to counter attack but dad also taught me that against decently skilled opponents, the trick to rush them with aggression will fail because you will instead be countered if they predicted it. If I had swung a stronger punch blindly at him he'd counter it.
Instead, I dodged by back stepping and deflected his punches with my open palm. I defended against this flurry of punches and threw some jabs at him as counters.
As he miss more and more attacks and gets tagged by my jabs repeatedly, his posture are also getting weaker and weaker along side his power, since the weaker your posture is the less power you can put behind an attack.
When someone's posture is weak and they attack blindly, you'd be able to parry them. I bet he doesn't even know of this concept.
He threw a powerful straight punch at me. And then, with my entire body weight behind, I swung my right hand in an arc which successfully parried his punch.
In a smooth motion following the parry, I threw my left straight right into his exposed cheek.
'Bang!' It connected cleanly, but he still wasn't knocked out. Shortly after eating that punch he backed off since he's dazed, but he recovered shortly after as he put up his hands again covering his chin in a guard position.
I could've continued on and finish him off for good, I've turned the tide of the fight with a well timed parry. But, I decided against that since beating him up is useless right now, if I fell for my own impulses of wanting to beat the shit out of him I won't be able to talk him out of this.
Why? Because just from our little argument in the middle of the fight I learned that he was jealous of me. And people are jealous for a reason, which means he is in need of help. My desire to help him far overcame my desire to hurt him.
"You don't have to do this, Richard! It's still not too late to apologize now! "
"Apologize my ass...! " He sounded tired, unlike me who could still go for round 2.
"I can help you, Richard. There must be a reason you are jealous of me, you can even be able to be like me if you just don't act like a huge asshole everytime we meet!"
"Shut up...! I don't need your help!"
"I just want you to know that people here are kinder than you think, but if you want to stay miserable like you are now, then fine, continue to be a scumbag like you are now."
"What did you call me?! "
He rushes forward blindly again, and as he approached me he threw a jab at my eyes which I deflected with my hand.
However, I knew that he is skilled, he wouldn't just jab blindly at me. And then I noticed that he is stepping his lead leg forward and twisting his right side towards me. I have seen this a lot back on my kick boxing matches on earth, it's a high kick coming from my blindside!
I ducked my head and the kick barely scratches my hair.
"Wha-?!"
Following up with that I threw a strong body shot at his exposed ribs.
"Gah!" He exhaled in pain as I hit his ribs.
The punch threw him off balance and he dropped to the ground. I almost laughed out since his pose after falling on the ground looked too similar to Yamcha's death pose from Dragonball.
(The entire fight lasted about 3 minutes in real time)
The fight ended with my victory against 3 boys bigger than me. And this is an emotional fight as well, because Richard lashed out at me with his jealousy and anger, and I took those emotions and even repelled him. I had won.
I sat down on the ground, and panted because I was exhausted from all the fighting.
"You... you are pretty good at fighting... instead of using it to hurt others why don't you use it to protect others instead...?"
Being tired, I said that to Richard while panting. I know that he's still conscious, that's why I talked to him.
"...It's kill or be killed..."
"That's what people say to themselves when they are too afraid to face consequences of their own actions... I know that because I've been there and done that. And honestly, I don't blame you much for it... "
"You have... been like me?..."
"Yea... but that was a long time ago now. "
"... can I really be like you if I tried?"
"...hard to say. But I'm sure that other people will also see your effort and acknowledge your change if you actually tried. "
"...."
I inspected my body. My chin and jaw was swelling from taking punches and also being tagged by punches that I failed to deflect or dodge.
And then my forearms are terribly bruised from blocking all those punches. My wrist is extremely sore from receiving all the force from my punches. My knuckles, especially my left hand's, is bruised and has cuts on it from the friction of the punches. I was lucky I didn't even break my hands, since it's not uncommon to get a boxer's fracture in a brawl fight like this.
And my knees has nasty cuts from my landing on the ground after the wall jump. Since I am still wearing a skirt there's nothing to protect my legs from scratches.
Thankfully, my school uniform isn't torn up so there's no need to buy a new one or expose my skin to other people. Well, if it is torn up then I'll just make Richard strip and give me his uniform instead, or have him pay for the damages since he should be quite rich.
"What's going on here?! Kyrielle!" A familiar adult's voice was heard from the corner, it was Zodd. It seems that Gerdur has finally found a teacher, after the fight has long ended already.
Richard sat up again after taking a minute of rest and recovered from that body shot TKO.
"Yeah I know, I'm just too tired to explain everything so how about you ask that guy over there. But before you do that could you use healing magic on Mike who are down as well? He just there further down the alley. "
"Kyrielle... Richard! I'm going to skin you alive for what you did here!"
Zodd ran further back and inspected the casualties. He healed Mike, and only Mike, because these 3 deserved a beating. As for me, because of the 'no-excuses' policy he also refused to heal me.
"Sensei... could you heal me as well? "
"No... You are a direct participant in this fight, so you are at fault here as well. I know you most likely was right here, but it's my job. "
"Yeah, I get it. "
"Right..."
"Kyrielle! " Gerd finally came here.
"Took you long enough. "
"I went to find the teachers but I had to explain everything. But Kyrielle! You are fine?! You have a lot of wounds on your body! "
"I'm fine actually, these are just scratches, no big deal. "
"Richard you! "
She went forward to Richard, who was being interrogated by Zodd and then she slapped him.
"You took this too far! "
"Gerdur, stop it. " Zodd warned her.
"...Yes, I'm sorry. "
Richard didn't say anything even after he took the slap to his face. I guess he is just too tired to care.
And so, we went to the Medical room, where a nurse healed us all. They let Mike rest there for a while since he took the most damage.
After that, all four of us were called to the discipline room where we had to explain everything to the discipline teacher. After getting yelled at for a while, the principal also dropped by.
"So... what exactly happened?" He asked us nicely. I decided to answer him.
"Richard and his duo ganged up on Mike, and then they tried to do the same to me. I won. "
"I see... Boy, why did you attack her? "
"I... I was jealous of her, and I didn't even realise that I was wrong. "
"Hmm. At least you are honest. Mr Gordon, just give them the usual treatment, the apology letters"
"Alright. Each of you listen! I want you to write an essay, a letter of apology and send it to me by tomorrow, or else I'll call your parents! I hope you all have learned your lessons! "
"Yes sir... " (4x)
"Alright, you lot are dismissed!"
"Before you go, I just want to add something. You can settle your differences with magic duels." Principal Jack stopped us as we were about to leave.
What are you implying, you sly old man?
So, we went back to class. After school, I walked back home in my uniform that was dirtied. Mom took notice of that and asked me about it, to which I told her the entire story.
"You should've just run away and waited for the teacher to come... but you didn't do anything wrong this time. "
"...Thanks mom. "
"Nee-chan, are you fine?"
"Yes I am, I had healing magic casted on me so I'm fine. Thank you for your concern Marie." I said that as I patted her head.
"Mmm. "
The next day, I skipped school to take a rest at home after what had happened. I also wrote my apology letter. Well, he did said to give him the letter today, but I didn't care.
And then the day after that, I went to school again. On the way I met Gerd. We usually go to school separately but occasionally we will meet each other on the way, and then we will head to school together.
"Hello Kyrie. "
"Hello Gerd. "
"Are you okay? Did you take a good rest yesterday?"
"Yea I did. It was a nice rest, after what had happened. "
"I see, thankfully you are okay. I was worried about you since you didn't come to school yesterday. "
"Well I should've told you before hand but yes, I took a good rest and now I'm fine, back to the Kyrielle that you know."
"Mmm. Glad to hear that. "
We arrived at school and then entered our class, where we saw Mike.
"Yo Mike. Are you alright now?"
"Yea I'm okay, thank you for the concern.... "
"So, what exactly happened anyway?"
"Well... I was doing my work in the teacher's office and then after finishing, I headed to the boy's restroom. I met those three there and they told me something that I just couldn't accept. "
"What did they said to you? "
"That you are a fraud, that you are hiding behind a mask because you are too afraid to be thrown away, and that you are evil underneath that mask. Just things that Richard told you when you two fought. "
"I see... "
"He's just too frustrating, so I swung at him first and then they wiped the floor with my butt haha."
"Mike... Thank you for your attempt to defend me, even though you failed and obviously you are at fault since you swung first... "
"Ouch, you could've held back your words you know? So when are you gonna teach me swordsmanship anyway? Since you single handedly whooped those 3 butts, you must be good right? Besides, you even gave me that wooden sword. "
"Ah... I completely forgotten about that promise haha... Well, how about every weekend you come to the park and train with me? "
"Hmm. Sounds nice. "
The class's door opened, and this time it's the trio that I beaten who entered. The two who was knocked out looked kind of wary of me, but I guess that's the natural response after being beaten up by a girl smaller than you.
Come to think of it, didn't dad say something about how in this world size don't matter a lot once you get good at martial arts? I wondered if that's true in this case here, that I'm actually not physically weaker than these boys despite the size difference.
No wait, that's not true. During the Truce Festival last year those maids who held me down were stronger than me. I'm not physically stronger than these lot, I'm just more skillful.
"Kyrielle Buffet. "
While I was busy with my thoughts, Richard walked towards me and talked to me.
"...What is it?"
"I challenge you to a magic duel! The winner will become the stronger person in this class! Since I can't win against you physically, that means I'll just have to beat you with magic in a honorable duel!"
...What? Does this guy know that I can do magic that far out ranks his?
"What??!" "He's challenging the Vice monitor!" "A duel?" The entire class starts gossiping.
"What are you demanding Richard?! Isn't a 3on1 enough to show you that you are not as good as you think? Show some shame! " Mike snapped at him and yelled back.
"I'm not talking to you! I won't argue with you this time, Michael, because you have already proven me wrong, and I admit it.... But! This is not a matter about who's wrong or right, it's about our pride, and this is between us! So, don't interfere! "
"Kyrie... just turn him down. He's dangerous, you know that. " Gerdur tries to talk me out of it. She do know me well don't she?
At first I'm planning to just reject the challenge, but then again I remembered what I said to him.
('I'm sure that other people will also see your effort and acknowledge your change if you actually tried.')
This is him demonstrating his resolve. And it'd be rude to not to accept his challenge, because like he said, this is just between us.
"Fine. I'll accept your duel, on one condition. "
"What is it?"
"If you lose, you will stop your delinquent behavior. "
(Chapter 27 end)