Time went by in the following days as Lila was being supervised more often to prevent her from sneaking out again. Now that it had reached day four of training, Haruaki had told Lila the day before that they were changing what unarmed techniques she was learning. Today would be the start of learning offensive techniques instead of the evasive and defensive techniques of Tails of the Fox style.

  “Now my oh-so-troublesome disciple, you will spend today and tomorrow learning Kitsune no Tsume, or Fox’s Claw. What kind of techniques do you think Kitsune no Tsume uses?” Haruaki asked this to see how much Lila could learn from insight alone. And possibly to gloat when she is wrong, though he would never admit it.

  “Do all kitsune have claws like me?” Lila panted as she had just finished this morning's workout.

  “Naturally. Why would you… Right. You’re a hybrid. Kitsune do indeed have claws and I see where you are going with this. While these techniques were originally made to maximize those natural weapons to their fullest, some of us sought to refine them.

  The Kitsune no Tsume techniques of today focus on speed and precision. They were further enhanced by taking in techniques from martial arts like Karate and Wing Chun. Thanks to learning from those styles of fighting Kitsune no Tsume went from simply using claws as efficiently as possible into a set of techniques that helps you focus in on the enemy's vital points with claw-like hand formations.

  Though having actual claws do help make those hand formations rather nasty to deal with.”

  When Haruaki was done with his explanation, he noticed that he had lost Lila’s attention who was now staring off into the distance.

  “OK, get up little princess, let's start with practicing the various hand strikes and stances.”

  Haruaki had indeed started off small by showing her the different hand strikes and how to use them. During this Haruaki told her that she could mix things up by using the claws from her feet to attack, even if it wasn’t part of Fox’s Claw.

  This news actually distracted Lila for a bit as she messed with bringing out and retracting the claws on her toes over and over. Haruaki had to do everything but begged her to stop so they could continue the training.

  Once he got her attention back on track, he helped her channel more speed and power into her strikes. He saw that Lila was having the issue of striking only with her arm and not channeling the power from her entire body to get full power.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  When he felt that she had a strong enough grasp he switched to light sparring so she could get some practice in hitting the vital points on a moving target. He treated it as a light-hearted game of tag. For the most part this type of training produced the best results with Lila, given her current aggressive behavior.

  While she did get some good hits in with Haruaki lowering his [Agility] attribute to match Lila’s, the effects weren’t great since he left his [Vitality] attribute alone.

  Haruaki didn’t know how to feel as he watched Lila. While she was disciplined in the weirdest ways. She was also diligent and extremely hard-working. So much so that she wouldn’t let her body give in despite her cursing. The problem was that she had no real talent for martial arts.

  Talent or not it was his duty to train her so that she would survive her time in Gehena and Tuatha. Only then could she return, if she chose to.

  He hoped that she would choose to return and not just for his Lady Kon’s sake. He was enjoying having a student. Through the hundreds of thousands of years, he has been alive he only took on a handful of disciples. The reason is that he found most people to be dull and lacking. It’s why he joined the Kyubi clan after Tamamo no Mae was overthrown the second time. He was bored and found the Kyubi clan to be entertaining.

  Now that he was forced to teach Lila, he can say without a doubt that while she was lacking, she was not dull in the slightest.

  ‘Perhaps she will follow me in the path of a mage.’ Haruaki ended up laughing at the thought of his hellion of a disciple/princess being a mage on his level and hoped for everyone's sake she didn’t. He feared she would live by the time-old human tradition of [Fireball] the problems away.

  “Hey Haru. What happens if I fight an opponent that doesn’t have a weakness for me to exploit to get the upper hand?”

  Haruaki was surprised that she would ask this question.

  “Well in such situations you must either flee or create a weakness for you to exploit, either by chipping away at said foe in the same space or by using your terrain to your advantage. Tactics are everything in such situations… Where is this coming from?”

  “Just curious.”

  He had no way of knowing that she still played what happened to Pops on the TV in her mind over and over again. If she wanted to free him, she would need to be strong enough to fight W.I.Z.A.R.D. as an organization which is equivalent to going against the UGC. They were her only lead at the moment.

  The fact that she blamed herself for what happened to Pops, the feeling of being abandoned at that moment, was the only bit of trauma that her name being ripped away was left.

  Now that Austin was dead, she just needed to save him. She believed that would make her inner world right again. Until then she would put on a happy smile and convince everyone that she was okay.

  ‘A small price to pay. Wasn’t it?’ Her thoughts wandered a bit. It’s hard to rationalize something to yourself when the beliefs you once followed are now a mere afterthought as the identity they were ingrained in, was no longer in her body.

  “Just curious was all.”

  “In that case, we should get back to training little princess.”