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nKai didn’t care that the two boys were bickering, as long as they were working hard, they could do whatever they wanted. Meanwhile, he had come over to Marie to give her special training. She had never been much of a fighter, so doing the same as the boys wouldn’t help her enough.

nWhen she had come to him with her request, Kai had been reluctant. In the past, he had always been there to take care of any problems she might have had. However, there hadn’t been much he could argue, once Marie had confessed that she was worried that she might get kidnapped again.

nComing towards her, Kai opened a small little suitcase and inside there were two small four inch knives.

n“Wait, you want me to use these? How did you even manage to get your hands on weapons?!” Marie exclaimed back, a little shocked, and even pushed the box back. She slightly regretted her actions, because it was obvious that the high schooler must have jumped through some hoops to acquire them.

n“Yes, I want you to use them.” Kai answered, his tone revealed that he was slightly annoyed at her action. He was sure that if anyone understood what he was proposing, it should have been her.

n“You want to fight like the others, right? Let’s not kid ourselves, we both know that you’re no fighter, Marie. You neither have the body to compete with those around our age, much less adult men, nor do you have the experience or skills to make up for such a deficit.

n“There are only two ways for you to make up for the difference in a short period of time. Either you use weapons… or you become an Altered. The latter option is pretty much impossible for us, so we can only go with the former. Trust me, there are psychos out there that will use weapons against you without giving it a second thought. We’re talking about your life here. Don’t think about some stupid pride of using wepons is wrong. Don’t die because of that.”

nMarie looked at the two weapons again, and this time she took them out from the box and held them in her hands. It felt natural to hold them by the handle, like she had been doing, similar to how one would use them in the kitchen.

nWhen looking at the weapon she could see it wasn’t like a kitchen knife as there was a guard stopping one’s hands going onto the bladed part, but it wasn’t like a dagger as the end was rounded off and not pointed.

n“It’s not pride.” Marie finally replied, looking into Kai’s eyes. “I just don’t want to kill anyone. I know what you’re saying, and maybe one day if it’s their life against mine I will fight to the death, but these weapons could kill someone if I used them.”

nKai then went over and grabbed both the knives from Marie and stood a distance away from her, so she wouldn’t get hurt. He then held the two knives in a combat potion, so the blade part was sticking out from the back of the hand rather than through his thumb like a pair of daggers.

nHe looked like one of those secret agents that would fight in the jungle that she had seen on TV.

n“You don’t have to use the weapons to kill. You will be using them to cut, not to stab.” Kai explained. He started to move about, with the blades, spinning his body as if he was going up against an opponent. As Marie carefully watched Kai, it looked like he was shadow fighting against more than just a single opponent.

nKai’s display was so impressive that Innu and Austin couldn’t help but stop their warm-up to observe him. He was smooth and quick, most of all, he was confident as well. In the end, the demonstration was over, and the two boys felt motivated to work even harder.

n“Stabbing an opponent, you risk losing your weapon. You might be unable to pull it out from their body, or worse, they might use it against you. Either scenario, it gives them a chance to retaliate. Using it the way I’ve shown is far better for you, especially given your current strength.”

nMarie, taking the blades back, nodded. Kai went on to slowly show her the movements one by one, making sure to explain in great detail what the best thing to do was. He even had a pair of fake wooden blades as well.

nThe two of them would go through situations, and he would do his best to explain to her from the beginning. Of course, Marie was finding it difficult, but she had never expected things to be easy, aware that it would take time.

nAfter an hour and a half passed the group decided to take a break, all but Kai huffing and panting, meeting up in the middle. Marie had prepared some food for them all. Sandwiches she and her mother had made, and the group were happily digging into them.

nIt was quite silent between everyone, and all of them had questions they wanted to ask. After seeing what Kai did, the two boys were interested in knowing more about who he was. That wasn’t the only thing. They were also more interested in learning what exactly Gary was since their vice-leader seemed to somewhat know, but due to no one speaking, they just continued to eat until Marie eventually broke the silence.

n“You really like it up here, don’t you, Kai? We could have trained somewhere else, but this is still your favourite spot.” She smiled.

n“‘My’ spot.” Kai chuckled at the comment. “Well, I guess it is ‘mine’ now… but I used to come up here in the past and there would always be someone else up here looking out at the field, I wonder where that person is now.”

nThe others looked at each other strangely as he was reminiscing, but in the end, Austin was the first to speak up, unable to hold it in any more.

n“Kai, I want to know more about who you are. I think after all we’ve been through, we deserve to know!”

n*****

nTop 10 in golden tickets = 5 chapter mass release

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