Aurora Over a Dead World

"...Are you ready?" I ask Rouge, who’s put on training gear suited for protection, along with four small metal circles that fit onto her arms and ankles to measure various things in her body.

"You can start whenever you want, if you’re ready," I tell her with a sigh. Expensive equipment isn’t going to help her. I’ve used this same equipment before and tossed it aside a month later.

They do help show a lot of relevant data, but none of it actually helps you improve. What’s the point of knowing the speed and force behind a single strike at one instant? Those numbers change constantly based on a bunch of factors — even the wind current alters that data.

That’s not to say the data is false, just that we aren’t machines capable of performing the exact same attack with no variation between one and the next. And throwing the exact same attack over and over makes you predictable.

"Then I’ll start..." She forms a small sphere of compressed air beneath her legs and launches herself at me with a powerful burst. She throws several punches that I block, then sends a kick toward the side of my stomach.

My tail grabs her while I seize her throat and slam her against the ground. She grabs my hand, but since it’s a prosthetic, her grip does nothing — and if I wanted to, I could crush her throat.

"You lost that one and you know it, so you can let go now."

"..." She bites her lips as I throw her away. She spins in the air, using the wind as a stabilizer, then lands on the ground sliding smoothly across the dirt.

’At least her use of the air around her is decent... though a bit poor. She only uses it for movement...’

"How did you do that?"

"Your attacks are way too predictable."

"B-But you taught me that! It’s just combat—"

"Combat followed to the letter. If I know the next move, why should I worry? You don’t need to stay so locked into a mold like that. Be creative."

"..."

"Improvise, understand? Adapt the strike when it’s necessary. If you’d turned that kick upward, I would’ve used my other hand to catch it and throw you — which would’ve let you keep fighting."

"..." She forms a powerful wave of air at her back and hurls herself at me, and when she gets close, she uses another wave of air to change direction. She spins completely, trying to land a downward kick on my head.

I dodge slightly to the right, grabbing her leg and driving a kick into her stomach, which stops her movement for a moment.

"That’s a little better." I release her, letting her fall headfirst onto the ground while she reflexively moves her hands to her stomach.

"...!" She quickly gets up and puts distance between us, kicking the earth with a burst of wind that raises a curtain of debris toward me. I hear the sound of her moving and reflexively grab her leg before it hits my face, without even seeing the attack.

"You use your legs too much. That’s fine if you think you have more power with them, but with attacks this predictable, your leg could easily be broken by someone stronger, and you’d be left incapacitated." I spin her body and slam her back against the ground. I hear her low groan of pain as I slam her against the ground again.

"Th-That doesn’t make sense! B-Before the fight felt more fair..." She’s talking about when all of them were able to face me together.

"It felt more fair because I was going easy on you all. But now I’m showing you the difference between someone who knows how to fight and a novice who depends on her power to attack. This is the only way for you to get stronger."

"You’re slow, predictable, and worst of all, you don’t have enough physical strength to fight me. Although that part is pretty situational — almost no one matches me physically. It’s one of the advantages of having prosthetics. They’re far stronger than flesh and muscle."

"But speed is something you lack here, and you have to stop being so predictable." When I say that, she grits her teeth at me.

"You talk like you fight completely differently from me." I realize that because we use similar strikes, a much simpler fighting style without many feints or ’unique’ moves, she thinks we’re alike.

"...Hmm... I think I know how to show you exactly what I meant, and the immense difference between how I fight and how you fight." I take her hand, looking at the small control panel.

I adjust the system so it ’registers’ attacks even if they don’t necessarily hit her. Meaning if I point my finger at her like a gun and ’shoot’ and she doesn’t dodge, the system counts it.

"Let’s see how many wounds I can land on you in one minute, how about that?"

"..."

"You just need to dodge. You don’t need to attack. You can even try to run far away from me. That’s pretty advantageous for you, don’t you think?" When I say that, her ears perk up, alert.

"Fine."

"Then let’s start in... three... two... one... now." When I begin, she leaps backward, but I make a knife-throwing motion at her head. She barely notices it, but she would’ve been hit if it were a real knife.

I rush at her, much faster than she is, and land a kick to her hips. She blocks it, but with my other hand I make a stabbing motion toward her head. If I’d had a knife, she’d be dead.

She tries to spin me, but I use a leverage move and throw her to the ground, then make motions like I’m shooting at her body. She shudders, able to feel the intent as if it were real.

"!!!" Before she can recover, I step on her tail, which makes her let out a little yelp, and ’shoot’ at her head again. She spins on the ground trying to sweep my legs, but I do a light hop.

And when she tries to use the fact that I’m in the air to strike, I make my tail touch the ground and spin my body, landing a violent kick to her face that throws her to the ground again.

’She lunges desperately at anything she thinks is an opening...’

During the several seconds that follow, it’s practically the same thing. She gets hit and just keeps getting hit. The gap in experience is monstrous. She can even react, but she can’t deal with my absolute unpredictability.

"..." When the whistle sounds, I leap backward, distancing myself from her while she’s panting and groaning in pain from the kicks and punches she took.

"Nexus, how many fatal attacks did she receive from knives and gunshots?" I wonder how many there were. I really put in effort to land as many as possible, to crush Rouge’s ego and make her realize that fighting properly is very different from fighting like an amateur like her.

"[142]"

"W-What! That’s impossible for it to have happened in just one minute!!" she says, her tone full of disbelief.

"A pistol holds twenty-four rounds. It’s not as impossible as it sounds, especially since vector weapons don’t use ammunition — they use vector energy, so they can fire nonstop until they overload or run out of charge."

"...Nexus, how many potentially lethal physical blows did she receive?"

"[23]" Those were kicks and punches that could have killed her if I hadn’t held back.

"That’s a lie — you’re both tricking me! You think I’d die from a punch or a kick?!" she asks with a nearly desperate look on her face. I step closer and touch my closed fist to her chest.

"Rouge, do you know the difference between resistance to a strike and resistance to its impact? In terms of resistance, if I punched you with all my strength, it would break some of your bones, but it wouldn’t go through your body if you blocked it."

"But if I punch you right... here" — I press my fist lightly against her chest, near the center — "I’d crush your heart. The impact would destroy it. That’s death. And when I land a kick... here" — I touch her face where she took most of the kicks — "I could break your neck easily. Even if you can increase your body’s resistance and reduce damage, that doesn’t prevent a twist. Why do you think I only attacked those areas? They’re the most efficient places to kill a Kaira while ignoring your defense..."

She bites her lips.

"That’s a lie—" I punch her in the chest. For a moment, she staggers backward, then starts coughing almost uncontrollably for a few seconds. She puts her hand to her mouth, seeing blood coming out.

"Urgh..."

"That’s a very controlled punch, don’t worry. As a Kaira, one day of rest should help you a lot. But if I wanted to kill you, it would be easy. I’m not lying about anything I said."

"If you think it’s a lie, then ignore it... but when you fight monsters in the future, improvising will be important, and focusing on killing as fast as possible too."

"Your kicks are... pathetic. Not once did you aim for a vital area. It’s a waste of energy. If you’re going to fight an enemy, fight to kill — unless you’re ordered to capture them." She touches the ground, breathing with difficulty.

"Collapsing the lungs and heart with an impact isn’t hard, and defending those areas is extremely complicated."

"I hope you take this lesson seriously. I’ll give you an hour to rest, and then we can get back to training."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!