Leon knew he couldn't underestimate Lily. The exceed could go toe to toe with a Dragon Slayer and had years of experience fighting wizards under his belt.
But he didn't know the difference between them would be so massive.
Before he could even close the distance, Lily had already made his move. One moment, Lily's hands were on top of the sword's pommel, and in the next, the sword's tip was a foot away from his torso.
Leon's body moved before his brain caught up, his instincts yanking him sideways as the edge of the blade carved through the air where his torso had been a half-second prior.
He barely landed before the sword reversed. A horizontal sweep, low and fast, aimed at his ribs. Leon dropped his weight and ducked under it, feeling the displaced air tug at his hair.
He's swinging that thing way too fast!
The Musica Sword should have been unwieldy. It was a slab of iron wider than Leon's shoulders. But Lily wielded it the way a fencer wielded a rapier, each swing flowing into the next without a pause or wasted motion. His swings weren't telegraphed and lacked windup.
He tried to close the gap. A quick step forward, angling to get inside the arc of the swing where the sword's length became a liability.
Lily's wrist turned. The blade shrank by a third in an instant, the Musica Sword's size-shifting property cutting the recovery window in half. What had been a committed two-handed swing became a tight, one-armed thrust aimed dead center at Leon's sternum.
Leon twisted, the tip grazing his shirt and slicing a clean line through the fabric. The cold kiss of steel pushed against his skin, but it made no real cut.
Lily was pulling his strikes.
The moment I step in, he adjusts the sword's length to match. I can't get inside his range if the range keeps changing.
Leon backed off, but Lily didn't pursue. The exceed reset his stance, sword held diagonally across his body, and waited.
"You're thinking too much," Lily said, his eyes locked onto Leon's. "And moving too little."
Leon circled right. His eyes tracked the sword's angle, the placement of Lily's feet, the slight forward lean of his weight. He feinted left, then lunged right, trying to force Lily to commit to a swing he could slip past.
Lily didn't bite. He shifted his rear foot a quarter-turn and brought the sword down in a compact vertical chop that cut off Leon's angle of approach entirely. Leon pulled back, the edge whistling past his chin.
Damn it. He read the feint before I finished it.
He tried twice more with variations.
A stutter-step to draw a reaction, then an explosive burst forward. An angled approach that used shuffling footwork to create a blind spot on Lily's left side. Each time, Lily adjusted with minimum effort, repositioning the sword or pivoting his stance to close the opening before Leon could exploit it.
Leon was burning energy and getting nowhere.
Fine. If raw speed alone won't close the gap, I'll add more power.
Reinforcement surged through his body, the familiar sensation of heat saturating his limbs the most.
Kicking off the ground, Leon rushed to the side. He pivoted, cutting towards Lily's left, the Reinforcement in his legs generating force pure muscle alone couldn't produce.
The sword came down, but Leon didn't try to dodge this time. He redirected instead, slapping the flat of the blade with a reinforced palm, forcing it aside. The impact jarred his wrist, but it created an opening, and he stepped in.
Lily's elbow came around like a piston and caught him in the chest.
Leon skidded back, his shoes squealing against the mat. The hit hadn't been full power, but it cracked through his Reinforcement like a hammer through thin glass.
"Better," Lily said. "You used your energy to change your approach. But you committed to the opening without accounting for my off-hand. A sword is a tool. The wielder still has a body."
Leon rubbed his sternum with a grimace and reset his stance.
Can't say he's wrong. I tunnel visioned on the blade too hard. Forgot about everything attached to it.
The next exchange lasted longer. Leon circled, probing with quick advances that tested Lily's pattern of response. He stopped trying to brute-force his way inside and started analysing instead.
Lily's recovery arc on a horizontal swing took his blade to the same area almost every time. His right foot shifted before a thrust, a tiny forward adjustment that preceded the lunge by roughly a fraction of a second. When Leon came from the left, Lily favored a diagonal parry that left his lower body slightly exposed for the half-second it took to reset.
Patterns appeared. Faint ones, buried under layers of experience and skill, but patterns nonetheless.
Martial Foresight woke up a minute in.
It bled into his perception gradually, a faint overlay that he had to strain to notice at first. Ghostly impressions of Lily's next position flickered at the edges of his vision, semi-transparent afterimages of where the sword would likely be in the next half-second.
They weren't reliable. Half of them dissolved before he could act on them and the other half were inaccurate to varying extents. But the ones that held gave him just enough warning to adjust mid-step instead of mid-recovery.
Lily swung and the foresight flickered.
Diagonal follow-up, high to low, left shoulder.
Leon slipped the first strike and was already leaning away from the second before it started. He ducked a horizontal sweep that would have taken his head off, stepped inside the sword's arc for the first time in the fight, and threw a right cross at Lily's ribs.
A ghostly outline of Lily's next move appeared, faint but readable. The exceed was going to pull the sword back into a close guard. If Leon timed his next strike to land before the guard settled, he had a clean shot at the exposed left side.
Leon loaded his weight onto his leading foot. His left hand chambered, a sharp jab aimed at the gap between Lily's arm and his torso. The angle was tight, the timing was right, and every instinct he had said now.
His fist shot forward.
Lily let go of the sword.
The Musica Sword dropped.
It was as if this was his plan the entire time. Lily's now-empty hand caught Leon's wrist.
Leon's eyes widened.
Lily pivoted, pulling Leon's captured arm across his own body, killing all the momentum behind the punch and converting it into rotational force. His other hand caught Leon's shoulder, and before Leon could plant his feet, his world flipped.
The exceed threw him just as the weapon hit the mat with a heavy thud.
Leon hit the far wall back-first. The impact cracked the reinforced panelling, and the air left his lungs in a single, violent burst. He slid to the floor, gasping, his Reinforcement flickering as the shock rattled his focus.
What the hell was that?
"You anticipated correctly," Lily said, standing in the center of the gym with the Musica Sword at his feet. He hadn't picked it back up. His arms hung loose at his sides, his posture relaxed and open. "Your prediction of my guard recovery was accurate. The timing of your strike was sound. But you made two errors."
Leon pulled himself upright, one hand braced against the wall. His back throbbed like a bitch.
"First," Lily continued, "you assumed I was bound to my weapon. A swordsman who cannot fight without his sword is not a swordsman. He is simply a man holding a blade. The moment you saw an opening that only existed because of the sword's position, you should have asked yourself what would happen if the sword was no longer a factor."
Leon straightened. His breathing was leveling out. "And the second?"
"You entered a range where your reach advantage disappeared and you had no plan for what to do if your strike missed. You had one attack prepared. When it failed, you had nothing behind it. A fighter with only one move in a combination is a fighter waiting to be countered. In a true battle, that one counter could cost you your life."
Lily flexed his hands. His claws extended and retracted once, a quiet hint of what he could have done instead of throwing Leon into a wall.
"Again," he said. "No sword this time."
Leon rolled his shoulders. The cracks in the wall behind him were a good four inches deep.
Hand to hand is where my training should apply best. I need to get my act together.
Taking a deep breath, he settled into a stance that blended his boxing guard with a lower center of gravity borrowed from wrestling. Hands up, chin tucked, weight distributed evenly across both feet.
Lily moved first.
The exceed crossed the distance between them in two strides. His first strike was a straight right aimed at Leon's jaw, thrown with mechanical precision.
Leon slipped under it. His head moved left, the fist passing over his right shoulder, and he countered with a sharp hook to Lily's body.
Lily caught it on his forearm. The block was clean, absorbing the force with a slight give in the elbow that redirected the impact rather than absorbing it. His knee came up in the same motion, targeting Leon's midsection.
Leon checked the knee with his hip, a Muay Thai defense. The impact hurt. Lily's knee was like a battering ram, but the check kept it from landing will full force. Leon fired back with a quick jab aimed at Lily's chin to create distance.
Lily parried it with an open palm. His fingers closed around Leon's fist and pulled for a fraction of a second, enough to knock Leon a half-step off balance, and fired a short elbow at his temple.
Leon ducked. The elbow grazed the top of his head instead of connecting clean. He dropped his level and shot for Lily's waist, a wrestling-style double-leg that he'd watched dozens of times in footage but never tried against a live opponent.
The moment his arms wrapped around Lily's midsection, he understood the problem.
The exceed didn't budge. Leon's legs drove forward, his muscles firing at close to their maximum output, but Lily was as immovable as a mountain. Seven feet of muscle with a center of gravity planted like a hooked nail.
Lily looked down at him. "Interesting choice."
His arms locked around Leon's torso. The squeeze was measured but firm, compressing his ribs to the edge of discomfort. Leon felt himself rise.
Not good.
He abandoned the takedown attempt before Lily could suplex him into the mat. He released the clinch and posted his hands against Lily's hips, pushing off to create separation. As he disengaged, he snapped a Taekwondo-style push kick into Lily's stomach. The distance it created was barely four feet, but it was enough to reset.
"You're hesitating after every exchange," Lily said, advancing steadily. "You throw one or two strikes, then retreat to assess. In a real fight, the enemy across from you will not give you that time."
Leon reviewed his previous moves in his mind, finding no error in Lily's assessment.
I'm fighting like I'm still watching footage, analyzing between every sequence. Time to fix that.
Leon exhaled and rushed forward.
He threw a jab, but he didn't do it to land a hit. He wanted to occupy Lily's guard.
When the exceed swatted it aside, Leon was already turning with the blow, his rear foot rotating to load his hips for a roundhouse aimed at Lily's lead thigh. The kick connected with a satisfying crack, the torque of his standing foot transferring his full body weight through the shin.
Lily's leg shifted from the impact but he didn't stumble. His hand dropped to catch the next kick before Leon could throw it.
But Leon wasn't throwing another kick. The roundhouse had been the setup. As Lily's hand dropped low, Leon stepped into the opening and drove a short uppercut into the exceed's solar plexus.
The hit landed clean.
Leon felt the impact reverberate through his knuckles, dense muscle compressing under the force. Lily grunted, a sound of genuine surprise more than pain.
[Feat Achieved! Landed a clean strike on a far superior opponent through deception in combat. Reward: 100 GP]
Leon pressed forward.
Left hook, targeting the body. Right cross, targeting the jaw. A two-punch combination thrown tight, elbows close, no wasted motion.
Lily blocked the hook on his forearm. The cross slipped past his guard and grazed his chin. It was the first clean strike Leon had landed above the shoulders.
I hit him.
The thought lasted a quarter of a second. That was how long it took for Lily to retaliate.
The exceed stepped into Leon's space, eliminating the striking distance entirely and entering a range where Leon's boxing was too tight to generate power. Lily's forearm pressed against Leon's collarbone, pinning his shoulder back and killing his ability to rotate. His other hand gripped Leon's lead arm at the elbow and wrenched it downward, hyper-extending the joint just enough to send a jolt of pain through the ligaments.
Leon's left side went dead for a half-second. He couldn't punch, couldn't rotate, couldn't generate force from anything below his trapped shoulder.
Lily's knee drove into his thigh, turning it into a dead leg that buckled Leon's stance and dropped his hips by a few inches. From the compromised position, Lily hooked a foot behind Leon's ankle and swept.
Leon hit the mat hard. He tried to roll, but Lily was already on top of him, one knee on his chest, one hand pressing his wrist to the floor. The exceed's weight settled over him like a slab of metal.
"When you landed the uppercut," Lily said, his voice perfectly even, "you had two options. Press forward as you did or immediately change your angle to avoid the counter. You chose to press forward because the strikes were working. But working and winning are different things. A wounded animal is most dangerous in the moments after you hurt it. Never immediately assume a successful hit means you have gained the advantage."
Leon stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard. Lily released the pin and stood.
"Your roundhouse-to-uppercut sequence was effective," Lily continued, offering no hand to help him up. "The feint worked because you committed to the kick first. I believed the follow-up would be another kick. When it wasn't, my guard was mispositioned. Remember that. Feints only work when the initial action is real enough to demand a genuine response."
Leon pushed himself to his feet. His thigh was throbbing where Lily's leg had landed, his left elbow ached, and his ego had a fracture running clean through the middle of it.
But his Martial Foresight was sharper now than it had been five minutes ago. The ghostly outlines were more consistent, holding their shape for a full half-second instead of dissolving on contact. He was starting to read Lily's hips, the way the exceed loaded weight onto his lead foot before any forward pressure, the micro-rotation of his torso that preceded an elbow or a knee.
I won't be able to overpower him. That's not going to change anytime soon. His body is stronger, his base is heavier, and he's been fighting things far more powerful than me for years.But he's teaching me the answers while he's beating me. I'd be impressed if I wasn't the one taking the beating.
Feints that commit. Angle changes after successful hits. Using an opponent's forward pressure against them instead of matching it. Each learned lesson had been engraved in his mind and body.
"Again?" Leon asked, wanting more.
He could feel himself improving with every exchange. Stopping so soon was the last thing on his mind.
Lily's tail flicked. "Again."
Leon came in low this time. He closed the distance with a long, lunging jab that he had no intention of landing. Lily deflected it with a parry and countered with a straight right. But Leon had already pivoted off his lead foot, circling to Lily's left, away from the power hand.
He threw a low kick at the back of Lily's knee. Not hard enough to buckle it, but enough to force a weight adjustment. Lily's stance widened for a fraction of a second as he compensated.
Leon shot in once more. He wrapped an arm around Lily's lead leg and posted his shoulder against the exceed's hip, driving forward with his legs while pulling the captured limb off-center.
Lily was heavier, but physics didn't care about muscle mass when the lever was positioned correctly.
Leon's angle forced Lily to choose between maintaining balance and freeing his leg. He chose to free his leg, pulling it back with raw strength, but the motion created space that Leon exploited.
He ducked under Lily's reaching arm, hooked his hand behind the exceed's neck, and pulled down. A Muay Thai clinch, his forearms framing Lily's head, his hips pressed close to deny the exceed room to swing.
From clinch range, Leon drove two flying knees into Lily's midsection to compensate for the height difference. The impacts were dampened by the exceed's layered muscle, but they landed.
Lily's response was immediate, breaking the clinch by driving both arms upward through the gap between Leon's elbows and popping the grip apart. Before Leon could reset, Lily snapped a headbutt forward.
The Foresight flickered a warning. Leon jerked his head to the side. The headbutt still clipped his cheekbone and sent a white flash across his vision, but it wasn't the clean hit Lily had aimed for.
Leon stumbled back, vision swimming. He blinked twice, refocused, and raised his guard in time to catch a palm strike on his forearms. The force pushed him back another foot, but he kept his feet.
"Better," Lily said. And this time, there was weight behind the word. "You used my strength against me to enter a range where strength mattered less than positioning. And you read the headbutt."
He paused.
"Not well enough, mind you. But at least you read it."
They went at it for another thirty minutes.
Leon lost everyround. But the losses changed shape as the session wore on.
The first exchanges had been one-sided, Lily controlling pace, distance, and initiative while Leon scrambled to react. By the middle of the session, Leon was lasting longer between resets. He started landing a strike for every four or five of Lily's instead of one for every ten.
His Foresight sharpened in real-time, the ghostly outlines stabilizing until he could reliably predict the opening move of each exchange, even if he couldn't always act on the prediction fast enough.
Throughout the spar, Leon discovered things about his own fighting that no amount of video study could have revealed.
His jab was too linear. Lily caught onto its timing after the third exchange and began parrying it with baffling ease. Leon had to start mixing in off-angle jabs, thrown from a different shoulder position, to keep the parry from becoming automatic.
His wrestling initiations telegraphed through his hips. Every time he dropped his level for a shot, his hips dipped first, giving Lily a half-second warning. Leon started disguising the level change by throwing a high strike first, forcing Lily's guard up before he dropped.
His kicks were his strongest tool in combination, but he threw them too infrequently. The roundhouse-to-uppercut sequence that had landed clean the first time worked because it was unexpected. When Leon tried to replicate it, Lily was ready.
So, he inverted it. A feinted punch followed by a kick, then a real punch behind the kick. The variation landed only that one time as Lily shut it down the next attempt.
By the end, Leon's shirt was soaked through and his arms felt like they were filled with sand. His left eye was swelling where the headbutt had clipped him, his ribs ached from three separate body shots he hadn't blocked in time, and both thighs were mottled with bruises that were already darkening.
Lily didn't even look the least bit tired.
And I thought my stamina was insane.
"Enough," the exceed said.
Leon dropped his guard. His arms fell to his sides, his chest heaving. He bent forward, hands on his knees, and focused on not collapsing.
[Feat Achieved! Martial Foresight has improved through live combat against a superior opponent. Foresight accuracy and activation speed have increased. Reward: 75 GP]
He couldn't even find the energy to be happy about that.
Lily crossed the gym and picked up the Musica Sword. He sheathed it on his back, the blade shrinking to its resting size with a metallic hiss. When he turned back to Leon, the the exceed's eyes had softened.
"You have outstanding talent," Lily said. "The Kure bloodline you possess and your Foresight combined with the Brand of Tzeentch has turned you into a combat prodigy unlike any I've seen, and your instincts are better than I expected. I'm also glad you understand how to use leverage. That will matter more than raw power against opponents who outclass you physically."
"But?" Leon managed between breaths.
"But you fight in sequences and combinations you've memorized from watching others. When a sequence works, you press forward. When it fails, you retreat and reassess. That gap between failure and adaptation is where you'll die in a real fight."
Leon straightened, still breathing hard.
"Always remember this: a fight is a conversation," Lily continued. "Every strike you throw is a sentence. Every response your opponent gives you is information. The fighters who survive are the ones who listen and act accordingly. You caught me with the roundhouse feint because you listened to what I was telling you and used it against me. You survived the headbutt because your Foresight told you what was coming and you trusted it. Those are the moments you should build on."
He stepped closer, his red eyes holding Leon's with a quiet intensity.
"There are only so many ways a body can move after committing to a strike. A punch pulls the shoulder forward. A kick shifts the stance. A clinch locks both fighters in place. If you learn to read those commitments and stay one step ahead, there will be few opponents you cannot defeat, regardless of whether they're stronger than you."
He gestured at Leon's stance. "That's not all. Drop all unnecessary movements. Every twitch that doesn't serve a purpose is energy wasted and a signal given. Your guard resets too wide after combinations. Tighten it. Your lead foot shifts outward after kicks. Correct it." He crossed his arms. "Small inefficiencies like these compounds in longer fights, and the opponents you'll face in this world will not give you the grace to be wasteful."
Leon nodded. His mind was already sorting the feedback, cataloguing each correction alongside the muscle memory of the exchanges that had produced them.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.
Lily's tail resumed its slow, measured sway. "Every day until I say otherwise."
"Looking forward to it," Leon lied. Partially.
Lily's whiskers twitched. Leon had a feeling Lily saw through the lie and chose not to comment on it.
That somehow felt worse than if he did say something.