Yugai continued to tremble while his left hand was clutched around the pencil as if it was his own life. Hakuro now watched intently with eyes of judgment. A thought crept upon him that he cursed at internally for not realising sooner, but it was just a suspicion and nothing more. At least, until Raimon pushed the boy and his cat even further.

“Did you not find it odd that his attacks with his left hand were far more precise? I bet you thought it was simply the lack of depth perception and field of view that made his right-handed blows so clumsy. I don’t blame you, I bet everyone else thought the same.” Raimon stared at the shaking grip. “He’s a southpaw. The kid is left-handed and you told him to fight with his right, and this reaction full of panic? That’s... “

Yugai slammed his right fist into the table and with pain in his voice whispered. “Stop. Shut up.” He bit his lip and looked down at the paper with a forlorn expression, but despite the protest, Raimon would not stop. “His reaction gives it away way too easily, someone forced him to use his right for a lot of, if not for everything then most certainly for writing. Someone who was rather strict, rough, and punished disobedience with pain.”

Hakuro bared his fangs, but he aimed them at himself rather than anyone else in the room. He didn’t think he’d make such a mistake. In truth, it wasn’t that big a deal, but he was still frustrated with his own lack of perception. A human had bested him in that faculty this time, and he swore he’d not make the same type of mistake again. “...I’ve spent too long looking for a Disciple. The outlandish one was right. I was far too picky. My senses have dulled. I need to sharpen them again.”

Yugai was completely still and silent now. It looked like he could simply be pushed to the floor with a feather. He could shatter with a single word. Raimon placed his right hand on the right shoulder of the boy and lowered his head to speak. “I know that feeling quite well. My left hand got beat sore and red by huge metre stick rulers. Man, nuns are supposed to be loving and understanding but stupid superstitions…”

Raimon took Yugai’s left hand with both of his and forced the pencil to drop. He lifted the arm up to the light, there was no resistance. “It’s not an unmanly thing, or a demonic thing, it’s totally normal and totally human, let go of their idiocy.” Yugai had no response to the declaration that swam around his ears. The boxer sighed as he knew the younger man was somewhere deep in his mind. He would need a shock to jolt him out of the abyss filled pit. Luckily, Raimon knew how to do exactly that.

Crack!

Yugai fell to the floor face first, his entire body in shock from a sudden impact. Hakuro’s jaw was wide open. He had leapt off his Disciple’s shoulder onto a nearby coffee table just in time. Raimon was dumbfounded. Kyouma had hit the new recruit with a lightning-fast headbutt before Raimon had any chance to do anything at all. There was silence as the group all recovered from the spontaneous assault.

“The… hell are you…?” The words slithered out of Yugai’s fallen form. Kyouma glowered at the man who was laid out on the cold white floor. “I’m hitting you. I thought that was obvious, mate.” Positivity was radiating from the scientist punk along with a vicious mocking aura.

Yugai gritted his teeth as rage filled his veins, he pushed up with both arms and stood again, his eye focused with laser point precision on the perpetrator of the surprise attack. “Bastard! Why the hell…!” A fierce and swift thrust from a left fist! Slap! Met with an open palm from Kyouma’s armoured right hand, which after the initial impact, curled downwards and held Yugai’s fist with such strength that, try as he might, the one-eyed man could not pull it away.

“Grrr….aaaa….ooaarrgghhh!” Yugai pushed forward with his entire body mass, using his legs to build momentum, turning his hips to add additional torque to his movement. Without thinking he gathered up what Ki and Mana he had and tried to propel further with enormous weight. His body had become as heavy, hard, and dense as steel and yet despite this internal change, it was just as natural as his normal unenhanced flesh to him. He had become a massive truck of power.

But Kyouma did not budge an inch. He sneered at the man trying his best to push him over.

“Is that all you got? I’m more than just disappointed. This is pathetic. Where is your fire! Show me you’re a real man!” Kyouma tightened his fingers around Yugai’s fist and a surge of electrical energy jolted into Yugai.

“Khhhh…! Ghahh…!” Yugai endured. He pressed forward with even more determination. His body churned out even more Ki and Mana than before and burned it at an incredible rate to fuel his obsession with finishing this halted attack. Kyouma cackled with madness as he watched a futile effort to resist him, it was the voice of a man who was so confident in his dominance that the world was tiny before him. “Mwahahahahaha!” A king among demons.

Kyouma then started to run his mouth. “What? Really? I know you’re a beginner but you’re this untalented? Give up. Not at fighting, not at being a host, no, you’re so weak I think it’d be easier if you gave up on life. Besides, you could have hit me with your right this entire time. Yet you’re insisting on finishing with your left. What is this? It’s completely stupid, inconsistent… you’re just a mess of emotions. A broken pile of pieces that only resembles a person. Sigh, and I thought you’d be more interesting than this.”

That was the final straw. The tiger snapped.

“Mystic Art: Tiger Sting!”

A wet sound bounced off the walls of the room. Then a slow but continuous dripping. Kyouma smiled slightly and Raimon coughed uncomfortably. Hakuro glared at the pair with silent but great interest. Kyouma pulled his hand away. Blood poured out from the centre of his palm in a steady trickle. His ceramic gloves had been pierced and his flesh below had been stabbed. Yugai’s left fist had a long sharp spike protruding from the knuckle of his middle finger. It was coated in fresh scarlet liquid. Kyouma grabbed a tissue from a box on a desk and started cleaning his wound.

“You’re willing to fight people who look down on you like your life depended on it at the flip of a switch. So fight the past with just the same amount of fury. It’ll make you a lot healthier, mentally and physically. Don’t think. Feel. Feel the way your heart wants and follow it.” The professor had engineered the situation without even trying.

Yugai could only feel shame from this emotional manipulation, but it also cleared his head of doubt. He was able to finally confront his issues directly. Every wound of his past had been set free to rampage, but every avenue to the future had also opened. It was time for him to grow. He sat down on a nearby black cushion chair and let his thoughts rampage and figure themselves out.

Kyouma winced a bit as he pulled open a drawer and revealed a spray can the size of a can of soda that had a green medical cross on it. He took off the cap, pressed down on the top and coated his right palm with white particles. Before everyone’s eyes, the wound closed and the bleeding stopped within just a few seconds. “Gadget R78: FA Spray. It can heal most wounds almost instantaneously! One can of it costs about 600,000 yen!” Kyouma had returned to being completely chipper as he threw a sales pitch to all who would listen.

“Okay, Raimon, I leave the next inspiration speech to you, champ!” Kyouma sat back down on his spinning chair and from a different drawer pulled out a lollipop. The wrapper said cherry flavour, and he unwrapped it and sucked on it with a look of glee. The sugar within it fed his body and mind with joy. He spun a full 360 degrees in a circle on his chair with the widest grin on his face. Like a child that was promised a new toy if they behaved and kept silent in the movie theatre. Hakuro scowled a little but it was mostly directed at himself.

Raimon cleared his throat as he walked over to the man with a muddled mind, sitting and brooding in his own sweat, fears, and dreams. He lowered and knelt to make sure their eyes met directly. The humanity in the look that Raimon gave him was enough to rag him out of his mental mire. “Oh.” Yugai dismissed the spike from his hand and it evaporated into the air. “...Sorry. I… looking out for me, telling me to be… me, right? That’s… I’ll try.” A weak mumble of apology and a thick but small brush of frustration.

The bigger man tried to find it. The words that can save the soul before him. He had been told the right things once too. This wasn’t the type of problem that is fixed just by saying the right thing, it’s about building trust and confidence brick by brick, but you need to make sure each and every part of the foundation you place gels together to form something strong. Starting something new was always the hardest.

“Hey. Don’t let it get you too down. I used to be as hopeless as you. Then I became a world champion. I live a good life now even after I retired. I’m happy with who I am and the life I’ve built. It wasn’t and isn’t ever easy. That’s life. I’m sure you know that. Anyone can turn their lives around. Even you, and everyone else who has made a mess of things.” The small speech made a small nod from the head of the weakened young man. Raimon withheld a sigh. This would take a bit more pushing.

“I got the worst grades in class, all the time, every time, without fail.” Raimon took the seat next to the fallen. “I got into fights all the time too. I got smacked by a giant metre ruler stick by the nuns of the orphanage so many times for so many reasons. Some earned, some not so much.” Raimon had seen the hosts do this many times. Opening a piece of your heart leaves the other party vulnerable, not in a mean way, but emotionally accepting.

“Back then, I was a terrible tyke. I never could feel happy doing just about anything. Nothing made me happy except when I beat people down with my fists. I… couldn’t understand how other people felt. The closest I ever could get was in the rush of adrenaline when I fought. So I fought every chance I got.”

A flicker of movement in the brooding one. Good, it was working. “Back then, I was abnormal. Everyone said as much. The nuns, the other orphans, kids at school, people in the street. I only ever seemed happy at the peak of violence. I was also as you know left-handed. Bad luck also seemed to follow me like a plague. I was pretty much designated as some sort of diablo. If something bad happened, it was blamed on me. It was incredibly unfair. So, I just started beating on people more. To feel better, because it was the only thing that worked.”

Yugai looked away as his face contorted into a pained expression. He felt ashamed. His thoughts as the story unfolded were that he was jealous. He was jealous that the man who was sitting by his side and suffered greatly was able to find solace and happiness in violence. In comparison, he had shut himself off emotionally to find a fake peace. He knew that this was a story of struggle but he found himself envious of the struggle itself. He had little to no experience of such a thing. His entire life he had surrendered and lived life like a waking dream.

Raimon and Kyouma both understood. Yugai had started waking up from that coffin of apathy.

It was one step at a time but it was something. It was an emotion and experience most of the people at this club understood well. The need to reinvent yourself. The pain that one takes to get there. They had no cruelty for people finding their feet. Only compassion, despite their free and combative natures. Raimon continued to unveil the yarn of his life.

“I was saved. I was a bit lucky after a long time of suffering. I met someone who was willing to support and have faith in me. Showed me how to fight and the value of working hard. I looked up to her as if she was my mother. If you ever hear me saying Dios Mio, I’m evoking her and not the virgin. Heh.” A crystal clear smile of fondness found itself on his lips. He was always able to smile when he thought of her. “She didn’t become my anchor. She simply taught me to love myself. It was hard. You spend so much time filled with hate and then you have to switch it all in the opposite direction, but man is it worth it.”

Yugai turned back to look at the smile on the champion. “Living is filled with so much beauty. That’s why you’re alive right here, right now, right?” The soft smile and relaxed green eyes sent a breeze of calm forward. Yugai’s heart trembled. Could he smile like that too? If he worked hard at it, would he also be at peace like the man before him? Would he find his own way of living if he fought onwards and let himself both enjoy and suffer the tides of life?

“I’ll give you something to look forward to.” Raimon stood up and grabbed the left wrist of Yugai and rose it to the lights above. “I promised, didn’t I? Let me make it absolutely clear. This left hand will be what you’ll use to beat Kentarou. It’ll take him down for the count, no, it’ll knock him out cold. I said two weeks and I meant it. You’ll beat him with this. It is and never was a curse. It’s a gift of love from God above. I am no liar. I swear by my mother. Know this is the greatest vow I can make to you.”

Yugai tightened his left hand into a fist. It felt good. The roughness and the sensation of his own muscles tensing reminded him of his very real existence… the fist was bathed in light. He believed in the words of a self-made man that declared he would aid him. That was all it took.

A single shred of genuine support from another living being. It was something he had been starved for. Somebody, anybody, just saying something as simple as “you can do it” or “I believe in you” can make the weight of a chained heart fall as light as a feather. He could cry, but he did his best to hold it in.

“I’ll help you out too!” The professor decided now was the best moment to leap back into the conversation. “So, let’s do some magical and mental training! I have hundreds of experiments for you to undertake!” His eyes beamed like lightning while his voice rang out like thunder.

However, a thought invaded Yugai’s mind at that moment as he stared at Raimon and he couldn’t hold it in and the words fell out of his lips. “Wait… when we… at the stairs… you boxed orthodox.”

Raimon turned his head away. “Ah. I mean… my mare, she uh… didn’t realise I was left-handed for a long time. I got used to boxing that way for a while, and then I later learned how to fight as a southpaw… sorry. Just like Kentarou, I was holding way back. I was… mostly just playing around. Forgive my disrespect.”

A childish pouting expression worked its way across Yugai but there was also something else. The long road ahead of him was made abundantly clear now… and he felt excitement as he was getting ready to embark on a terrifying and wondrous adventure. He had two worlds to live in now. He would take the reins of his life into his own hands and never let them go again.

Determination had been unlocked. A spirit to thrive.