I tentative look inside the head of everyone's soon to be favorite little sister.
Spoilers
I suck at writing things with no planning or real direction
* * *
Fighting’s hard to describe.
I mean, analyzing it is one thing, and I can analyze it all day and tell you more things about it than you knew existed. Breaking it all down is easy, you just have to look at what people are doing and figure out why they’re doing it. What it makes the other person do, and all that.
But describing it is something else entirely. I’d say it’s a fool’s errand.
Ah, I oughta move back a bit.
There we go, just flick a side kick up to cover the fadeaway…
Good. This distance feels good.
That’s probably what makes it so hard, that right there. It’s all about feeling! You can’t really describe it, it’s so full of emotion, but it’s got so little at the same time. You gotta be calm, but you gotta know when to explode.
Circling right, can’t have that. If he steps outside my lead foot, he’ll get the advantage.
Hey, are you getting smarter on me?
The correction’s simple, I’ve just gotta create a situation to stop him from moving that way. An instep on his guard works just fine. That impact felt solid enough to get him to think twice.
Although, I think that really ties it all back together. Describing something takes thinking, and how easy is it to describe something when you aren’t thinking too much? Sure, you’re being smart, but this isn’t thinking kinda smart. It’s action, reaction, and engineering your situation.
There’s a huge amount of fighting that’s mental, psychological, but let’s not get anything twisted here—fighting is all about doing, acting, and reacting. Not really thinking, you know?
And as luck has it, the poor guy in front of me thinks way too much. Credit where it’s due, that habit of overthinking’s probably also what got him to pay enough attention to try and sneak that one past me, though!
But now it’s working against him. He froze for a second, and although Mom taught me never to brag too hard, there’s some simple facts to acknowledge here.
You don’t wanna freeze up in front of me, nii-chan~!
Now, sparring is really just tapping around for the both of us. We aren’t even using that much empowerment from Aura right now, so there’s no honest danger of anything going wrong. That all said, as my duty as a responsible younger sister and martial artist senpai dictates, I do need to send nii-chan a message.
And besides, I wasn’t planning on hitting him too much harder, just a little extra heat to let him know he’s messing up…
And he also miiiight have said something dumb about the movie I had picked out to watch last night, so there was that too.
…
I’m not gonna hit that much harder, okay? Okay. It’s nii-chan, he can take it anyway! He’s good at dealing with my abuse.
Going back to “feelings”, a small part of me feels like his eye widening could have been from him picking up on that particular vibe, but it couldn’t be that when there was an alternative that made way, way more sense.
As in, the kind that leaves him shelling up behind his forearms and elbows as he desperately tries to parry, deflect, and block a flurry I put on him. We’re using small gloves for this, so it isn’t like kickboxing where he can really hide behind a whole lot of padding, so he’s already absorbing more than usual.
Leave it to me to make matters worse for him, too. I don’t make the rookie, rookie, way too rookie mistake of just trying to punch through his guard or even exclusively at his head, and if I did, I’d gladly run laps around town for it. I’ve done waaaay too much homework for that, and I’m working the whole body. His hands are earmuffs right now, and his forearms have most of his head protected, so there’s an obvious solution to my dilemma.
Punch where he doesn’t cover. That’s just simple, common-sense sounding stuff, right? Exactly. That’s fighting, that’s the kind of smartness fighting uses. You don’t have to do crazy equations or chess match type stuff.
You just feel the openings and hit ‘em, that’s all that goes through your head most of the time.
My foot leaves the ground again, albeit it’s rear one this time, and pokes into his abdomen with a front kick, lightly, loosely, but with enough snap behind it to register as a hit still. At around half-speed, I’d say.
Bit of a misnomer there, though. Sure, I’m not literally going half speed nor literally full speed, but it’s kind of a mix between half-speed and half-power?
I’m staying fast enough to use it right, but not hitting hard with it. Using control. That’s what I mean. I could crack it against him like a whip and really dig the ball into his gut and all that, but i’m not.
Again, it’s a poke. Not a stab.
We’re sparring. Just tapping around.
See what I mean yet?
That said, it does do something similar for me to what it would in a real fight. Just because nii-chan overthinks sometimes doesn’t mean he doesn’t catch on to me doing something fast. He forgets it a lot, but he’s me and Dawn-chan’s big brother.
He’s a total dummy, but he can be smart like us too.
His right hand comes down and swipes out, too late to block, but still in a decent window to catch my foot as it returns. He’s recognized I’ve added a new threat to the arsenal I’m throwing at him and he wants to make sure he won’t let me get away with it scot-free.
And he wouldn’t—
If I was slower, that is~
He does manage to grab it, but it’s already well on its way back and my toes just kinda slip out of his grip. After that I pump a little jab out and boop his nose while he tries to reset. I have to keep the pressure on him, but I’m noticing he carries that rear hand a bit lower now.
He’s waiting for me to kick again, duh. This’ll be easy.
Mama told me something about fighting once. Something that’s about as true as the sky being blue and people breathing air, even though it’s not as obvious at first as those are.
Fighting is a game.
Or, more clearly, it’s a game of lies.
And how do you win a game of lies?
I kick again, adjusting my timing and angle a little, as in by a factor of a few fractions of a degree. Near miss again on the grab. He knows it’s coming, and wants to put me on my butt for all the trouble it’s giving him with my long legs and everything.
Well, first...
He starts to circle out again, realizing I’ve slowly backed him into the cage by now. I can’t have that, so I gotta deal with it.
You gotta make them forget you’re lying.
I box him back in and check his motion to my right with a lead leg round kick, basically slapping his hasty block with the arms using my instep. I really can’t thank Mama enough for getting me into karate, because flicking my legs up this easy comes straight from all of that.
We’re back to basically square… three? I follow it up with a long right hook, almost like a close fist slap, honestly.
Keep him there a bit. Really make him not want to circle that way.
And once you’ve done that…
I slide back a half-step’s worth, side kicking again and punishing him for trying to advance with a one-two. Disguise it better, or follow me in after something big. You know this stuff too, Nii-chan!
We reset to this familiar spot. I give him a second to think. I flick my hips again, raise the rear knee…
Once they trust you…
I see his hand come down, ready to start a sequence that would send me sprawling.
I smile my signature “Gotcha!” smile.
You lie for all you’re worth.
My foot, instead of snapping forward, shoots back, and my left hand hits home in what’s called a “Superman Punch”. One of those techniques that really are unique to MMA more than anything else, and taking full advantage of the fact that I made him completely expect another kick to the gut.
It has one major disadvantage though.
SMACK!
“Wuagh?”
It left me on one foot.
His hand was dropping, though?
Even as I hit the floor on the palms of my hands to catch myself, I figured it out when I remembered how Nii-chan prefers Muay Thai.
The motion of that hand was dropping, yeah, but that was because he’d done a completely smart thing and…
H-Had he fooled me when I thought I was fooling him? Ugh! That’s so embarrassing!
What had happened was this: I mistook his hand moving down for him trying to catch my kick, when he had abandoned trying it and went for the old “Fedor vs. Cro Cop” move— kicking my other leg out from under me.
Stupid!
Idiot!
Dummy!
He totally got one up on me!
In a flash, I was back up to my feet, parrying his follow-up and sending a stern cross to the inside of it, straight for his chin.
I had to get that back. I couldn’t stand for getting outplayed at my own—
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
“TIME!”
I stopped in my tracks.
Round’s over. Right. I had about thirty seconds I was working with at the start…
Nii-chan’s sweating and staring me straight in the eye. His complexion’s kinda pale.
That’s weird. Usually you’re a little flush after sparring. We didn’t work him sick, did we?
“April-chan?”
I’m certainly kinda flush. Embarrassment, mostly. I’ve got cardio for days, so a little light exertion doesn’t really bother me any more.
“Uh, fist out of the face, please.”
I…
“S-Sorry.”
I did end up leaving it there. Whoops.
“You good?”
He asks me that after a normal session? I mean, stoicism never gonna be my thing, but...
“Yeah, just zoned out a second.”
The look on his face was similar to someone who’d just had a campaign slogan slung at them.
Stop it, before I give you a real wallop.
“April, you’re out. Zephyr, swap in.” calls the deep voice of Master Gurren, who’s been watching us all carefully. The strongest man I’ve ever known, and he looks pretty happy with how things are going.
“How do you feel, Luke?”
Nii-chan deflates sarcastically. It’s one of those things he likes to do whenever he feels like he’s putting up with something he doesn’t want to.
“Beat up, Gurren-sensei.”
His answer’s pretty frank, though, even if we all got a chuckle out of it. Sparring or not, we’ve got him in ladders today. I was the fifth person he’s sparred.
“Good luck, nii-chan!”
“I’ll need it!”
The sixth man steps in, and the trio of beeps sound again. After that cheeky comment, I’m back to watching.
* * *
“You know…”
“Hrm?”
“You’re really making progress, nii-chan.”
We were on our way home now, changed out of our gear and wraps but still in a pretty desperate need of showers. Since I ran my bike into a tree through an incident we don’t need to get into right this minute, we were both walking.
Well, except for when nii-chan stopped, like he did just then. What was with him and those weird looks today?
“...What brought this on?”
We really are like each other, because Nii-chan’s dense enough to not figure it out on his own.
I can tell he hasn't, because of that weird look of his. Like I’ve said something weird.
“I mean, when we sparred each other. You really are improving, you know?”
“Huuh…” he replied dully, looking back forward off into the distance. Every time he does that, it makes you wonder where his mind is going.
This time was no different, but luckily for me he was pretty quick in letting me in on it.
“I dunno about that… I just got beat up like usual.”
“Nii-chan…”
I felt a weary, “I’m getting tired of this” edge creep into my voice. That was fitting enough with how I was feeling.
“Could you stop that? You’re getting on my nerves.”
“...Stop what?”
I gave him my own weird look for that one. Basically a sidelong glare, but one of those annoyed are-you-serious ones. It was hard to believe that he couldn’t put this together by now…
But it was Nii-chan. After living with him for fifteen years, you understand that there are a lot of things that are hard to believe about him.
“Stop holding us both back, nii-chan.”
“Huh?”
Yep, he didn’t get it at all, and it even took him aback. I really was going to have to explain everything about martial arts to him, wasn’t I?
Well, the blind shouldn’t lead the blind, but a fool should know if another fool got fooled by him.
“You’re not giving yourself anywhere near enough credit, and it’s bouncing back onto me. I want you to stop.”
It’s best to be blunt and plain about it. There’s no more lying to him, and I don’t think I can lie with anything besides my fists anyway. As a hero in the making, I hope I’d never need to anyway. Yeah, the direct truth is the best when you’re exchanging words, especially from one fool to another.
“What do you mean by that? Even if it’s true, how does that bounce back to you, anyway?”
I sighed, feeling like I was explaining a jab to one of the kids.
Well, maybe not that simple, but it was one of those things that made perfect sense in my mind, to the point where it gets hard to remember other people may not understand it.
And it’s something you wanna describe, but need to figure out how.
“It is true. Nii-chan, what happened in the end of that last round?”
I could walk him through it, probably.
“I very distinctly remember you nearly taking my head off.”
“And before that?”
“Urm, didn’t… A superman punch, right? And I knocked you down with a lucky leg kick.”
I fought hard to keep from gritting my teeth.
“It wasn’t lucky. You caught me there, it’s that simple. How many times have you caught me by surprise before?”
“...”
I could see the gears start turning.
“...Well, that was bound to happen eventually.”
“Exactly my point.”
“Eh?”
Think, Nii-chan.
“...You’re saying that was evidence of me getting better at fighting?”
“Yeah, you’re starting to catch me off guard. And I know you were tired at this point, but did you not notice how well you were hanging in there with everyone else?”
A lot of us still have the upper hand, but he’s made everything a dogfight when it wasn’t me.
At least as far as I could tell. Maybe even with me.
And on that note:
“You’re hurting me by not giving yourself that credit and acting like you have nothing for me in there, you know.”
“...No I don’t. How? Doesn’t that make it easier for you?”
How to explain this…
It really doesn’t, Nii-chan. In fact, that act you pull, when it relates to me the way it does, it makes my life harder in a way you refuse to even imagine. And you really do refuse to do it, Mama and Dawn-chan agree.
What he’d been doing was nothing good for me. And if he kept it up, he’d hurt me harder than any punch or kick ever could.
He’d hurt my dreams, hurt my goals, hurt my progress.
He’d make an even bigger fool of me than he could make himself.
“Rousey, nii-chan.”
“Rousey… what does…”
I didn’t say anything, because I knew even he would figure this out. We’d watched that one all as a family, and Mama had even taken the time to harp on about the lesson we all should have learned from it.
Sure enough, the dawning look of getting it appeared on his face.
“But doesn’t everyone else you fight give you enough of a different look to keep that from happening?”
He made a fair point, but even so.
“It doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, Nii-chan. I came in overconfident, and overconfidence happened because of you.”
The beautiful thing about martial arts is that anything can happen. Anyone can be turned into a threat, and anyone can get caught if they don’t stay on their toes.
You can never underestimate somebody.
And even if you’d tell me I didn’t really get anything bad from it, that I didn’t come close to losing, I’d tell you you were stupid.
I underestimated him.
I’d already lost.
“So if not for your sake,” I continued, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Chin up for mine, ‘kay?”
“...”
I could read him mulling over it in the silence, and I felt kinda bad for having impulsively blamed him for me being dumb enough to believe his own opinion of himself.
We’re all our own worst critics, as Mama always says. Nii-chan, in fact, is about as big of an example as you can get of it.
Honestly, I’d been getting worried.
The little sister worrying about the big brother— isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
“Got it. I’ll trust your expertise on the matter, if you really think so.”
Atta boy.
Now then…
Back to square one!
“Of course, that just means I’m not gonna go as easy on you~”
“What?!”
“I mean, it’s progressive overload! We can’t let you get too comfortable either if you wanna get better!”
The color draining from his face was priceless.
“And one more thing. Nii-chan?” I asked, holding my bag out for him to take.
Even though I’m a hero of justice who sucks at telling lies...
“What is it?”
The bag’s weight left my hand—
And I turned tail and left him in the dust.
“First one home gets to decide dinner!”
“H-Hey! You get the hell back here!”
It’s a little sister’s job to give her big brother a hard time, after all. If he did it himself, what’d be left for me?
Really, Nii-chan.
Have some faith in me.
I’m April Schwarz, who you like to build up to be into some monster of fighting.
I can be caught.
I can be hurt.
I can be deceived.
I’m all of that, and I’m your little sister too. A human just like you are.
If I can get here, you can too. If it takes a while, fine.
But it can be done, and by the time you’re there…
Well, I’m not trying to be cocky, but I’m always confident.
Beacon’ll be a piece of cake by the time you catch up with me.
After all, I’m moving forward too! Chasing Mama's and Master's backs at full speed ahead!
Yep.
That's me, April Schwarz.
Look out, world, because I'm on my way.
"There's the house! Better hustle, Nii-chan~!"
"I oughta dump your bag, you sneaky little--"
And I'm bringing a storm with me!
Spoilers
I suck at writing things with no planning or real direction
~4 months prior to the events of Heroes of Beacon~
* * *
Fighting’s hard to describe.
I mean, analyzing it is one thing, and I can analyze it all day and tell you more things about it than you knew existed. Breaking it all down is easy, you just have to look at what people are doing and figure out why they’re doing it. What it makes the other person do, and all that.
But describing it is something else entirely. I’d say it’s a fool’s errand.
Ah, I oughta move back a bit.
There we go, just flick a side kick up to cover the fadeaway…
Good. This distance feels good.
That’s probably what makes it so hard, that right there. It’s all about feeling! You can’t really describe it, it’s so full of emotion, but it’s got so little at the same time. You gotta be calm, but you gotta know when to explode.
Circling right, can’t have that. If he steps outside my lead foot, he’ll get the advantage.
Hey, are you getting smarter on me?
The correction’s simple, I’ve just gotta create a situation to stop him from moving that way. An instep on his guard works just fine. That impact felt solid enough to get him to think twice.
Although, I think that really ties it all back together. Describing something takes thinking, and how easy is it to describe something when you aren’t thinking too much? Sure, you’re being smart, but this isn’t thinking kinda smart. It’s action, reaction, and engineering your situation.
There’s a huge amount of fighting that’s mental, psychological, but let’s not get anything twisted here—fighting is all about doing, acting, and reacting. Not really thinking, you know?
And as luck has it, the poor guy in front of me thinks way too much. Credit where it’s due, that habit of overthinking’s probably also what got him to pay enough attention to try and sneak that one past me, though!
But now it’s working against him. He froze for a second, and although Mom taught me never to brag too hard, there’s some simple facts to acknowledge here.
You don’t wanna freeze up in front of me, nii-chan~!
Now, sparring is really just tapping around for the both of us. We aren’t even using that much empowerment from Aura right now, so there’s no honest danger of anything going wrong. That all said, as my duty as a responsible younger sister and martial artist senpai dictates, I do need to send nii-chan a message.
And besides, I wasn’t planning on hitting him too much harder, just a little extra heat to let him know he’s messing up…
And he also miiiight have said something dumb about the movie I had picked out to watch last night, so there was that too.
…
I’m not gonna hit that much harder, okay? Okay. It’s nii-chan, he can take it anyway! He’s good at dealing with my abuse.
Going back to “feelings”, a small part of me feels like his eye widening could have been from him picking up on that particular vibe, but it couldn’t be that when there was an alternative that made way, way more sense.
As in, the kind that leaves him shelling up behind his forearms and elbows as he desperately tries to parry, deflect, and block a flurry I put on him. We’re using small gloves for this, so it isn’t like kickboxing where he can really hide behind a whole lot of padding, so he’s already absorbing more than usual.
Leave it to me to make matters worse for him, too. I don’t make the rookie, rookie, way too rookie mistake of just trying to punch through his guard or even exclusively at his head, and if I did, I’d gladly run laps around town for it. I’ve done waaaay too much homework for that, and I’m working the whole body. His hands are earmuffs right now, and his forearms have most of his head protected, so there’s an obvious solution to my dilemma.
Punch where he doesn’t cover. That’s just simple, common-sense sounding stuff, right? Exactly. That’s fighting, that’s the kind of smartness fighting uses. You don’t have to do crazy equations or chess match type stuff.
You just feel the openings and hit ‘em, that’s all that goes through your head most of the time.
My foot leaves the ground again, albeit it’s rear one this time, and pokes into his abdomen with a front kick, lightly, loosely, but with enough snap behind it to register as a hit still. At around half-speed, I’d say.
Bit of a misnomer there, though. Sure, I’m not literally going half speed nor literally full speed, but it’s kind of a mix between half-speed and half-power?
I’m staying fast enough to use it right, but not hitting hard with it. Using control. That’s what I mean. I could crack it against him like a whip and really dig the ball into his gut and all that, but i’m not.
Again, it’s a poke. Not a stab.
We’re sparring. Just tapping around.
See what I mean yet?
That said, it does do something similar for me to what it would in a real fight. Just because nii-chan overthinks sometimes doesn’t mean he doesn’t catch on to me doing something fast. He forgets it a lot, but he’s me and Dawn-chan’s big brother.
He’s a total dummy, but he can be smart like us too.
His right hand comes down and swipes out, too late to block, but still in a decent window to catch my foot as it returns. He’s recognized I’ve added a new threat to the arsenal I’m throwing at him and he wants to make sure he won’t let me get away with it scot-free.
And he wouldn’t—
If I was slower, that is~
He does manage to grab it, but it’s already well on its way back and my toes just kinda slip out of his grip. After that I pump a little jab out and boop his nose while he tries to reset. I have to keep the pressure on him, but I’m noticing he carries that rear hand a bit lower now.
He’s waiting for me to kick again, duh. This’ll be easy.
Mama told me something about fighting once. Something that’s about as true as the sky being blue and people breathing air, even though it’s not as obvious at first as those are.
Fighting is a game.
Or, more clearly, it’s a game of lies.
And how do you win a game of lies?
I kick again, adjusting my timing and angle a little, as in by a factor of a few fractions of a degree. Near miss again on the grab. He knows it’s coming, and wants to put me on my butt for all the trouble it’s giving him with my long legs and everything.
Well, first...
He starts to circle out again, realizing I’ve slowly backed him into the cage by now. I can’t have that, so I gotta deal with it.
You gotta make them forget you’re lying.
I box him back in and check his motion to my right with a lead leg round kick, basically slapping his hasty block with the arms using my instep. I really can’t thank Mama enough for getting me into karate, because flicking my legs up this easy comes straight from all of that.
We’re back to basically square… three? I follow it up with a long right hook, almost like a close fist slap, honestly.
Keep him there a bit. Really make him not want to circle that way.
And once you’ve done that…
I slide back a half-step’s worth, side kicking again and punishing him for trying to advance with a one-two. Disguise it better, or follow me in after something big. You know this stuff too, Nii-chan!
We reset to this familiar spot. I give him a second to think. I flick my hips again, raise the rear knee…
Once they trust you…
I see his hand come down, ready to start a sequence that would send me sprawling.
I smile my signature “Gotcha!” smile.
You lie for all you’re worth.
My foot, instead of snapping forward, shoots back, and my left hand hits home in what’s called a “Superman Punch”. One of those techniques that really are unique to MMA more than anything else, and taking full advantage of the fact that I made him completely expect another kick to the gut.
It has one major disadvantage though.
SMACK!
“Wuagh?”
It left me on one foot.
His hand was dropping, though?
Even as I hit the floor on the palms of my hands to catch myself, I figured it out when I remembered how Nii-chan prefers Muay Thai.
The motion of that hand was dropping, yeah, but that was because he’d done a completely smart thing and…
H-Had he fooled me when I thought I was fooling him? Ugh! That’s so embarrassing!
What had happened was this: I mistook his hand moving down for him trying to catch my kick, when he had abandoned trying it and went for the old “Fedor vs. Cro Cop” move— kicking my other leg out from under me.
Stupid!
Idiot!
Dummy!
He totally got one up on me!
In a flash, I was back up to my feet, parrying his follow-up and sending a stern cross to the inside of it, straight for his chin.
I had to get that back. I couldn’t stand for getting outplayed at my own—
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
“TIME!”
I stopped in my tracks.
Round’s over. Right. I had about thirty seconds I was working with at the start…
Nii-chan’s sweating and staring me straight in the eye. His complexion’s kinda pale.
That’s weird. Usually you’re a little flush after sparring. We didn’t work him sick, did we?
“April-chan?”
I’m certainly kinda flush. Embarrassment, mostly. I’ve got cardio for days, so a little light exertion doesn’t really bother me any more.
“Uh, fist out of the face, please.”
I…
“S-Sorry.”
I did end up leaving it there. Whoops.
“You good?”
He asks me that after a normal session? I mean, stoicism never gonna be my thing, but...
“Yeah, just zoned out a second.”
The look on his face was similar to someone who’d just had a campaign slogan slung at them.
Stop it, before I give you a real wallop.
“April, you’re out. Zephyr, swap in.” calls the deep voice of Master Gurren, who’s been watching us all carefully. The strongest man I’ve ever known, and he looks pretty happy with how things are going.
“How do you feel, Luke?”
Nii-chan deflates sarcastically. It’s one of those things he likes to do whenever he feels like he’s putting up with something he doesn’t want to.
“Beat up, Gurren-sensei.”
His answer’s pretty frank, though, even if we all got a chuckle out of it. Sparring or not, we’ve got him in ladders today. I was the fifth person he’s sparred.
“Good luck, nii-chan!”
“I’ll need it!”
The sixth man steps in, and the trio of beeps sound again. After that cheeky comment, I’m back to watching.
* * *
“You know…”
“Hrm?”
“You’re really making progress, nii-chan.”
We were on our way home now, changed out of our gear and wraps but still in a pretty desperate need of showers. Since I ran my bike into a tree through an incident we don’t need to get into right this minute, we were both walking.
Well, except for when nii-chan stopped, like he did just then. What was with him and those weird looks today?
“...What brought this on?”
We really are like each other, because Nii-chan’s dense enough to not figure it out on his own.
I can tell he hasn't, because of that weird look of his. Like I’ve said something weird.
“I mean, when we sparred each other. You really are improving, you know?”
“Huuh…” he replied dully, looking back forward off into the distance. Every time he does that, it makes you wonder where his mind is going.
This time was no different, but luckily for me he was pretty quick in letting me in on it.
“I dunno about that… I just got beat up like usual.”
“Nii-chan…”
I felt a weary, “I’m getting tired of this” edge creep into my voice. That was fitting enough with how I was feeling.
“Could you stop that? You’re getting on my nerves.”
“...Stop what?”
I gave him my own weird look for that one. Basically a sidelong glare, but one of those annoyed are-you-serious ones. It was hard to believe that he couldn’t put this together by now…
But it was Nii-chan. After living with him for fifteen years, you understand that there are a lot of things that are hard to believe about him.
“Stop holding us both back, nii-chan.”
“Huh?”
Yep, he didn’t get it at all, and it even took him aback. I really was going to have to explain everything about martial arts to him, wasn’t I?
Well, the blind shouldn’t lead the blind, but a fool should know if another fool got fooled by him.
“You’re not giving yourself anywhere near enough credit, and it’s bouncing back onto me. I want you to stop.”
It’s best to be blunt and plain about it. There’s no more lying to him, and I don’t think I can lie with anything besides my fists anyway. As a hero in the making, I hope I’d never need to anyway. Yeah, the direct truth is the best when you’re exchanging words, especially from one fool to another.
“What do you mean by that? Even if it’s true, how does that bounce back to you, anyway?”
I sighed, feeling like I was explaining a jab to one of the kids.
Well, maybe not that simple, but it was one of those things that made perfect sense in my mind, to the point where it gets hard to remember other people may not understand it.
And it’s something you wanna describe, but need to figure out how.
“It is true. Nii-chan, what happened in the end of that last round?”
I could walk him through it, probably.
“I very distinctly remember you nearly taking my head off.”
“And before that?”
“Urm, didn’t… A superman punch, right? And I knocked you down with a lucky leg kick.”
I fought hard to keep from gritting my teeth.
“It wasn’t lucky. You caught me there, it’s that simple. How many times have you caught me by surprise before?”
“...”
I could see the gears start turning.
“...Well, that was bound to happen eventually.”
“Exactly my point.”
“Eh?”
Think, Nii-chan.
“...You’re saying that was evidence of me getting better at fighting?”
“Yeah, you’re starting to catch me off guard. And I know you were tired at this point, but did you not notice how well you were hanging in there with everyone else?”
A lot of us still have the upper hand, but he’s made everything a dogfight when it wasn’t me.
At least as far as I could tell. Maybe even with me.
And on that note:
“You’re hurting me by not giving yourself that credit and acting like you have nothing for me in there, you know.”
“...No I don’t. How? Doesn’t that make it easier for you?”
How to explain this…
It really doesn’t, Nii-chan. In fact, that act you pull, when it relates to me the way it does, it makes my life harder in a way you refuse to even imagine. And you really do refuse to do it, Mama and Dawn-chan agree.
What he’d been doing was nothing good for me. And if he kept it up, he’d hurt me harder than any punch or kick ever could.
He’d hurt my dreams, hurt my goals, hurt my progress.
He’d make an even bigger fool of me than he could make himself.
“Rousey, nii-chan.”
“Rousey… what does…”
I didn’t say anything, because I knew even he would figure this out. We’d watched that one all as a family, and Mama had even taken the time to harp on about the lesson we all should have learned from it.
Sure enough, the dawning look of getting it appeared on his face.
“But doesn’t everyone else you fight give you enough of a different look to keep that from happening?”
He made a fair point, but even so.
“It doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, Nii-chan. I came in overconfident, and overconfidence happened because of you.”
The beautiful thing about martial arts is that anything can happen. Anyone can be turned into a threat, and anyone can get caught if they don’t stay on their toes.
You can never underestimate somebody.
And even if you’d tell me I didn’t really get anything bad from it, that I didn’t come close to losing, I’d tell you you were stupid.
I underestimated him.
I’d already lost.
“So if not for your sake,” I continued, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Chin up for mine, ‘kay?”
“...”
I could read him mulling over it in the silence, and I felt kinda bad for having impulsively blamed him for me being dumb enough to believe his own opinion of himself.
We’re all our own worst critics, as Mama always says. Nii-chan, in fact, is about as big of an example as you can get of it.
Honestly, I’d been getting worried.
The little sister worrying about the big brother— isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
“Got it. I’ll trust your expertise on the matter, if you really think so.”
Atta boy.
Now then…
Back to square one!
“Of course, that just means I’m not gonna go as easy on you~”
“What?!”
“I mean, it’s progressive overload! We can’t let you get too comfortable either if you wanna get better!”
The color draining from his face was priceless.
“And one more thing. Nii-chan?” I asked, holding my bag out for him to take.
Even though I’m a hero of justice who sucks at telling lies...
“What is it?”
The bag’s weight left my hand—
And I turned tail and left him in the dust.
“First one home gets to decide dinner!”
“H-Hey! You get the hell back here!”
It’s a little sister’s job to give her big brother a hard time, after all. If he did it himself, what’d be left for me?
Really, Nii-chan.
Have some faith in me.
I’m April Schwarz, who you like to build up to be into some monster of fighting.
I can be caught.
I can be hurt.
I can be deceived.
I’m all of that, and I’m your little sister too. A human just like you are.
If I can get here, you can too. If it takes a while, fine.
But it can be done, and by the time you’re there…
Well, I’m not trying to be cocky, but I’m always confident.
Beacon’ll be a piece of cake by the time you catch up with me.
After all, I’m moving forward too! Chasing Mama's and Master's backs at full speed ahead!
Yep.
That's me, April Schwarz.
Look out, world, because I'm on my way.
"There's the house! Better hustle, Nii-chan~!"
"I oughta dump your bag, you sneaky little--"
And I'm bringing a storm with me!
1x Thank
