Getting to the field, I see nine square rings; each five by five meters. Students are practicing in all of them, either wielding wooden swords or using only their fists and feet. I set my bags down at the edge of the field and head over to the rings.
I see that one of the rings has a guy by his self so I head over to him. I ask him when I get close enough, "Hey dude, what are we doing out here? And what's with the field squares?"
He doesn't move at my question so I get closer and ask him again, "Hey, why are we out here? What do we do out here?"
Again no response. Okay, I'll leave you be. Turning around to leave, the dude suddenly appears in front of me. Instantly I stop moving forward and involuntarily take a step back
How did he get there so fast? Did he teleport? That's not a thing though, how did he get there so fast?
I pulled from my thoughts when he tosses something to me. Grabbing it, I see it's a saber like bastard sword. Holding it, I ask, "Are we going to practice?"
He gives a nod of affirmation so I get into formation. We stand six feet apart, blades nearly touching. He makes the first move, thrusting his blade forward. I deflect it to the side and lever my blade into a slash from the right side.
He recovers from the thrust by bringing his guard high yet blade low, Ochs stance, blocking my strike. He to levers his blade just overhead. I fail to deflect, block, or dodge in time so it connects with my neck. I lost the spar in three moves.
Now that we've stopped moving and that I'm close to him, I can see he has gray eyes and toned muscles. God damn he looks good even in our school uniform.
We set back into position and spar again. This time I strike first with an overhead Oberhau slash. He blocks it by moving his blade up and then guiding mine to a side of him. Now with my blade out of the way, he thrusts his into my chest. I lost this round with only two moves.
We continue our sparing until the instructor arrives, resulting in me getting soaked by sweat. He only seems warmed up by the end of it, but a slight smile does break his lips.
When the Instructor arrives, my partner bows to me and before I can in turn, he turns around and heads off to the line of students in front of the Instructor.
I too join the line, curious as to what its for. My curiosity is fulfilled when the Instructor starts calling out names. I don't care for most of them aside when he calls out, "Joon Woo!" and my sparring partner raises his hand. So that's his name.
Looking around, I see that everyone had changed into something suited for moving in. Along with that, the instructor had a box behind him that seems to have a sword sticking out from it.
I raise my hand when called upon and thus starts the lesson. Our Instructor puts down his clipboard and starts speaking, "My name is Mr. Kim and I shall be your Martial Arts Instructor. Seeing as how you're in all here, that means that none of you have any mana worth writing home about. What you don't know though, is what exactly this class entails. As I said, this is a Martial Arts Class, in it you shall learn how to wield a weapon, and how to manipulate Gi."
With that being said, Instructor Kim grabs a practice sword from the box behind him and holds it high. "This is a sword, something most of you newbies haven't seen." some of the students shift from his words, due to irritation or embarrassment, I can't tell, "Now something that none of you have actually seen is a weapon infused with Gi."
With those words, his practice sword starts emitting a grayish flame. It flickers and dances along the blade's edge where it seems to be mainly concentrated.
"This is an intermediate Gi skill, the infusing of materials and weapons with Gi." The flame like energy recedes from the blade and enters Instructor Kim's hand. "What we will learn first is how to actually use a sword before even thinking about Gi. I want you all to grab a partner and spar until I blow my whistle, that'll be cue to line up here again. I'll be walking around giving pointers to those that need it. Dismissed"
Everyone went and grabbed their partners from earlier. I looked for Joon Woo and was met with a surprise when he tapped my shoulder from behind. He had already grabbed his own practice sword the Bastard Saber for me. "Thank you." I say while grabbing the Saber from him. We headed on back to the ring we were using earlier.
For nearly the rest of the period we sparred with Joon Woo providing small demonstrations of how to do some movements better. At the beginning of class I lost in two to three moves, now I'm only losing three to five. Near the end of the period, Instructor Kim blew his whistle and signaled everyone to line up again.
When we did so, he dove into an assessment of us, "You're all terrible, minus Joon Woo. It's an embarrassment that any of you are in class, but don't worry. By the end of this year you're all be worthy fighters, able to at least take out at least a frog devil before you croak. Next class I'll teach about Gi so study up before them. Class dismissed."
And thus ended my first Martial Arts Class, and my hope that this was still Earth.