An ordinary school day was coming to an end. We walked out the gates, and I kept trying to find the words to start a conversation. Leon looked even gloomier than he had in the morning.

  "Listen, Leon," I began carefully, "what did you and Rabuki... fight about? You're completely spaced out."

  I pulled out my phone to call a taxi. Trudging halfway across the city on the subway to Nihoro's training ground didn't appeal to me—my new ambitions demanded comfort. I confidently tapped the "Business Class" icon, but the screen immediately flashed red, and the order was canceled.

  [ERROR. INAPPROPRIATE FARE SELECTED. ECONOMY ORDERED. WHITE "MATIZ".]

  "Damn it, Yanu!" I hissed under my breath. "Do I have the right to ride just once without the smell of cheap air freshener?!"

  "Arkgrim... are you okay?" Leon stopped and looked at me suspiciously. "You're talking to yourself. And arguing so fiercely, as if there's an invisible opponent there."

  "Oh... that," I adjusted the earbud. "That's my home assistant. Artificial intelligence. She lives in my apartment and seems to think she's my mother."

  "An AI?" Leon raised an eyebrow. "A real one? Like in the movies about the future? Let me talk to it."

  I reluctantly handed him the phone.

  "Just be careful, she bites. Metaphorically."

  Leon brought the device to his face.

  "Hello," he said with curiosity.

  "Hello, user Leon," Yanu's voice changed instantly. It was now an emphatically mechanical, emotionless "robotic" voice that exuded sterility. "I am the household systems control interface. How may I be of service?"

  "Wow..." Leon exhaled. "And what can you do?"

  And while the taxi dragged its way toward us through traffic jams, Yanu began a long and tedious tale about her functions, listing everything from controlling the temperature in the refrigerator to analyzing the composition of the dust under the couch. Leon listened to her with his mouth open, asking questions, while Yanu simultaneously—through my earbud—burst into mocking laughter right into my brain:

  'Look, Squirt, your friend is so naive! He actually believes I'm just a calculator with a microphone! Oh, I can't take it, ask him if he wants to know the freshness index of his socks!'

  "Alright, Leon, that's enough," I took the phone back as a battered car rolled up to the curb. "This is a bad influence on you. You're starting to believe in the uprising of the machines."

  "This is amazing!" Leon got into the car, still under the impression. "Arkgrim, where did you get such technology? That must cost insane money. And the clothes on you..." he looked over my new jacket and pants. "You look like you were promoted straight to regional director at 'MacDuck'."

  "Not really," I smirked. The thought of explaining the inheritance, thirty million, and legal intricacies to him caused a bout of laziness in me. It would take an eternity. "Oh, you know... just found a bag of money on the street. Laying right in a puddle."

  Leon looked at me like I was insane.

  "Arkgrim, are you serious?"

  "Absolutely. Walking along, saw a bag, picked it up. Ordinary survivor's luck," I yawned. "Anyway, Leon, why are you asking so many questions? You better get ready, Nihoro is about to beat the remnants of that curiosity out of you."

  The car started moving. Leon fell silent, looking out the window, while Yanu continued to comment in my ear:

  'A bag in a puddle? Seriously? Your level of lying is even lower than your tips at the diner. But you know... I like it. It's so you.'

  I closed my eyes, ignoring her.

  We pulled up to the Nihoro family's training center. The huge automatic doors parted with a heavy hum, revealing a view of a training ground packed with equipment that ordinary school kids could only dream of.

  Rabuki was in the center of the hall. She was just finishing a series of strikes on a high-tech dummy. Seeing us, she stopped, wiping sweat from her forehead, and her gaze immediately locked onto me.

  "Oh, so you finally showed up, Squirt," she smirked, resting her hands on her hips. "And here I thought you'd completely rotted away in your diner among the deep fryers and dirty trays."

  I lazily shoved my hands into the pockets of my new jacket and cast an appraising look over her. I don't know what came over me—maybe it was Yanu goading me in the earbud, or maybe I was just in a combative mood.

  "And I see you haven't gotten any stronger, Rabuki," I drawled, walking past the exercise machines. "The movements are the same, the wind-up is the same. What, hit a 'plateau'?"

  She froze, and her smile instantly extinguished.

  "What did you say?" her voice became dangerously quiet.

  "Well, I heard that most Kaiju exterminators hit a 'ceiling' sooner or later," I continued, ignoring how Leon started frantically waving his arms behind my back, urging me to shut up. "And no matter how much they train, you can't jump higher than your head. Looks like this is your limit, Nihoro. Will you ever grow out of this level?"

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  It suddenly became very hot in the hall. I literally felt with my skin how the air around Rabuki began to vibrate with rage. Her eyes flared with such angry fire that for a second it seemed to me as if I was standing not before a girl, but an awakened volcano.

  I didn't expect my words to hit the target so accurately. I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind, but judging by her reaction, I had laid bare her deepest fear.

  "Looks like I'm on a roll today..." I muttered, adjusting my earbud.

  'Target hit, Squirt,' Yanu whispered in my ear. 'Subject's aggression level: critical. I recommend you start running right now if you don't want to test the durability of your new pants.'

  Rabuki moved slowly toward me, and her every step echoed loudly in the silence of the hall. Leon backed away toward the exit, while I remained standing, feeling a strange, almost forgotten gambling calmness waking up inside me. It seems today's training session is going to be much more interesting than I planned.

  She slowly closed the distance, and suddenly a smile blossomed on her lips—cold and sharp as a scalpel. She placed a hand on my shoulder. Her fingers dug into the fabric of my new jacket, and I felt how she began to squeeze the bone with serious force.

  "Listen, Squirt," she hissed, continuing to smile, "go put on some gloves. Since when is beating up a fourteen-year-old considered a heroic deed? Move it. Gloves."

  I just chuckled, freed my shoulder, and lazily ambled over to the rack. Pulling on the heavy leather gloves, I stood in the center of the ring. Leon froze by the ropes in the role of referee, shifting his frightened gaze from me to Rabuki.

  "One... two... three... Fight!" Leon yelled.

  Nihoro launched from her spot like a compressed spring. A series of strikes rained down on me, but I merely shifted slightly to the sides, letting the fists fly millimeters from my face.

  "Bwa-ha-ha!" I continued to grin, dodging another jab. "You don't even control your own anger, Rabuki. You're trying to smear me, but because of your rage, you're swinging at empty air. Where is your vaunted self-control?"

  It worked. She abruptly froze, took a deep breath, and her gaze changed. The rage was replaced by icy calculation. Now she wasn't just swinging her arms—she began calculating my next step.

  "Listen," I adjusted the earbud, in which Yanu was already fully commenting on her stance. "Are we fighting by boxing rules, kickboxing, or all at once?"

  "Use whatever you want," she cut me off, getting into a classic stance. "I will hold back within the framework of boxing. That will be enough for me."

  "Well, suit yourself..."

  She went on the attack again. I waited for the moment when she shifted her weight, and simply stepped on the toe of her boot, simultaneously shoving her shoulder. Rabuki swayed, almost falling on her back.

  "HEY!" she wanted to yell, but immediately bit her tongue, regaining her balance.

  She dashed forward, trying to execute a grapple, but I intercepted her arm, yanked it toward me, and when she completely lost her balance, gave her a slight nudge with my elbow.

  "What's wrong, Rabuki?" I yawned, looking down at her. "You're awfully weak. Without your vaunted bio-suit, you can't even take down a fourteen-year-old kid?"

  She threw a sharp, insidious uppercut. I let her arm extend to its limit, after which I simply stepped into her "dead zone" and pressed a finger against her heel, causing her foot to slip.

  "You play too cleanly, Nihoro," I shook my head. "Do you even understand that a Kaiju won't wait for the bell? It won't follow the rules. Why did you stop? Hit me. Come on! Don't stop!"

  I saw her next punch flying straight for my jaw. I could have dodged—my body had already begun the motion, but suddenly a sharp, nasty beep from the bracelet sounded in my ear.

  [WARNING. FORCED STABILIZATION.]

  An electric shock dug into my wrist, paralyzing my muscles for a second. I didn't have time to dodge. Rabuki's punch landed on my cheekbone. The pain was trivial, but I decided that was enough of this circus for today. I theatrically flopped onto my back, sprawling out on the mats.

  "Again!" Rabuki stood over me, her chest heaving heavily. "Get up, Arkgrim! We need to go again! I almost caught the rhythm!"

  I lay there, staring at the high ceiling of the gym, and felt Yanu grumbling in my ear.

  "Nope," I replied lazily. "You're not interesting."

  I turned my head and looked straight into her eyes. There was no fire of victory in them anymore. She hadn't wanted to defeat me—she wanted to prove something to herself, but instead felt only emptiness.

  "You are boring, Rabuki," I cut her off, rising onto my elbows. "Your movements, your thoughts... you read like an open book with too large a font. You've trained too much with humans, you're used to their patterns. To me, you are just a slow set of instructions from a textbook."

  The light in her eyes finally went out. She slowly lowered her hands, and I saw her shoulders slump. I had delivered a blow far more painful than any fist—I had stripped her of the meaning of this training session.

  "Let's go, Leon," I started taking off the gloves. "It's gotten too stuffy in here from other people's ambitions."

  "No, Arkgrim," Leon's voice sounded unusually hoarse and firm. "Now you will face me. Get up!"

  I froze, wiping sweat from my forehead, and stared at my friend.

  "What do you mean? Do I look like a walking punching bag to you? One takes her anger out on me, the second decides to boost his self-esteem?"

  "Please, Arkgrim... Face me," Leon looked at me as if his life depended on it.

  I sighed, slowly rising from the mats. An insolent smirk spread across my lips on its own. Well, if Leon himself is begging me to teach him a lesson... who am I to refuse?

  "Alright, alright, since you are begging SO much," I dramatically rolled my shoulders. "Do you guys not feel sorry for me at all? I'm only fourteen, and you're already, like, a zillion years old. Where is your conscience, 'heroes'?"

  Rabuki, standing at the edge of the ring, cast a heavy glance at us.

  "One... two... three... Fight!"

  Leon dashed forward. He was faster than Rabuki, he was focused, but... to me, he was still moving through thick jelly. I lazily tilted my head, letting his fist pass a centimeter from my ear.

  "What are you doing, Leon?" I continued to mock him, dancing in place. "Open your eyes. Look at my center of gravity. Don't see it? Right now I shifted it to my front foot. See? And right now I'm pretending I'm going to shift it, but I actually shifted it to the front."

  "I know!" Leon yelled, trying to catch me on the counter-movement and throwing a series of punches.

  I merely chuckled. Waited for him to put his weight into the next swing, and simply pressed the toe of my boot onto his foot, simultaneously hooking his glove with mine and pulling down. Leon stumbled and almost plowed the mats with his nose.

  "A pitiful sight," I crossed my arms over my chest, watching him try to catch his breath. "What are you even doing here? Every day you train until you sweat blood, bio-suits, diets, exercise machines... And what's the point? Look at me, I don't train at all. I fry patties and sleep through classes. But I beat you both without even breaking a sweat."

  Leon, infuriated by my words, lunged at me again. But I was completely sick of it. I didn't bother dodging. Instead, I simply jumped up, grabbed the top rope, and gracefully vaulting over it, landed outside the ring.

  I sat down on a chair like I owned the place and began pulling off the gloves.

  "I'm bored with you, Leon. Too predictable. You both try too hard to be 'fighters,' but you forget to simply... feel."

  I turned to Rabuki, who was looking at me like I was an alien who had just eaten her breakfast. I smiled broadly, ignoring the heavy atmosphere in the hall.

  "Listen, tell me something else instead. Rabuki," I expressively patted my empty stomach, "are you going to feed me? I'm owed at least lunch in a decent place for a masterclass like that."