Assertiveness Training

Only two days had passed since Kyra managed to stumble her way into Errings Rising. The place was hospitable enough, the presence of maids bringing a strange air of familiarity to her. Of course, these maids were more hospitable than the ones Kyra had back in her old life. Those maids looked on her with scorn, that she was not able to use magic. Now she could, and Errings Rising was kind enough. Whether it was to use her as so many had in the past, she did not know, so she kept confined in her room, only leaving to eat in the grand mess hall.

Unfortunately for her, she chose to leave at the wrong time. Jen, one of the blondes who had helped acquaint Kyra with the guild, had bumped into her, quite literally. Kyra, of course, apologized profusely for the collision, causing Jen to say something, though Kyra was too downtrodden and ready to return to her room without a meal to hear. After that, Kyra was practically dragged to somewhere in the guild premises, though she did not exactly catch where this place was. She did not even know how long the journey was, her terrified eyes clenched shut as she expected to die. Now that she was free to walk on her own, she looked around. It was cold enough to still be Mt. Hakobe, yet this castle was not the one she had resided in the past few days.

”W-why did you b-bring me out here? Th-that’s a l-lot of hassle for s-someone as worthless as m-me...” She sighed, taking a few steps forwards. ”Th-the architecture here is...s-strange. I-it looks like r-ruins, b-but unused r-ruins, l-like they were built to be r-ruins...” She dipped her head down. ”S-sorry, y-you don’t need my input. Y-you know more th-than I do...”

She turned to face the blond, and something felt strange. She was terrified, without a doubt, but there was something else other than that fear. She was scared, yet she felt as if Jen would not hurt her. No, rather, it almost felt like Jen would be willing to... protect Kyra? It clearly was just the inner thoughts of someone who was so scared of anything and everything else that she wanted at least some respite from it. ”Y-yeah. T-that can’t be right. S-she’s pr-probably j-just taking me out...” her voice trailed to nothingness. ...like the trash I am... she finished internally. She was fully prepared for what was about to happen. She had close her eyes, ready for the moment her life would be snuffed out. She would die with a whimper, just as she lived. She did not like it, but it was what was about to happen. She was ready for something that would not happen.

Kyra was surprised when, instead of a finishing blow to her, Jen offered items for training. "K-Knock you down?" she cried. "B-but, I-I could n-never! I-I mean, wh-what i-if you slip a-and fall and h-hurt yourself? O-or I g-get hurt! I-I don't want you to get in trouble!" Sadly for her, Kyra had the feeling that when Jen said that they would be there until she succeeded, so there was little other option for Kyra than to follow. She hesitantly put the mouthguard in and even more awkwardly strapped the headgear into place, though it was still slightly askew. A trickle of thought came into her mind of using her bone gauntlets as opposed to the boxing gloves, but she could never bring herself to disregard the order.

The floor shifted into that of a boxing ring, startling Kyra and causing her to try to duck into her sweater, failing due to the bulk of the headgear. Kyra was not unfamiliar with these sorts of establishments. One of her elder sisters enjoyed the sport and herself used boxing magic. Kyra, as with everything, was dragged along to see the success of her elder siblings, often receiving disappointed glares from her father. She sighed heavily, wondering how she got herself into this mess. However, she was in this mess, and she wanted out. She slowly looked up and, when she saw what she did, her head quickly retreated once more, hoping that the headgear hid her blush.

Just as Jen said, Kyra needed to keep her head up, but doing so was difficult. The headgear was a strange weight foreign to the sheltered woman, but more difficult to her was trying to focus on the combat at hand with Jen... how she was. She was so underdressed for the weather, yet... why did Kyra not care? In fact, while she often desired others to be warm, she mentally seemed to encourage this underdressedness. She had not noticed it, or perhaps forgot about it due to the strain that her head now felt from the hair drag, but Jen was... remarkably attractive wearing what she was. Yes, Kyra was scared. But... maybe it was worth it? The tank top Jen wore tightly fit her and the short shorts were-

Kyra felt herself lose focus. She must have been trying to distract herself with... well, anything. She wanted to not think about this whole ordeal, so she must have been just trying to focus on something else. Yes, that had to have been it! She just wanted to escape from this whole thing, so she was trying to focus on the incredibly gorgeous woman in front of her and-

Without realizing, she had thrown a punch. Well, to call it a punch would be generous. She had probably merely waved her arm weakly at Jen, hitting against something soft. Kyra refocused on the world to see that her gloved hand had been placed onto Jen's chest and was now dumbly sitting there, unmoving from its new squishy home.

"AaahhHH!" Kyra screamed, scrambling backwards slightly. "S-sorry! I-I didn't... I was just... I mean... S-sorry! I didn't do that well a-at this whole 'k-knocking you u-' OVER. K-knocking you o-over thing! S-sorry, I'm j-just causing hassle..."

She dipped her head down, wishing that the headgear was small enough to fit snugly into Kyra's sweater. Instead, she merely craned her head down towards the mat below as her arms limply laid at her side, in what most would consider a poor position to be in during a boxing match.

Kyra was still looking down when she was blasted with a strong strike to the stomach, sending her off her feet for a moment before crashing to the ground. It hurt. A lot. She coughed, seeing a small spray of blood on the ground. She gave a slight shriek when seeing it. She did not know why, to be honest. Unfortunately, she was accustomed to the sight of blood. Just...not her own blood.

She slowly rose to her feet as Jen spoke of not quitting. "I-I'm tired of quitting!" she "roared." She got up and charged again, hoping to get out of this mess. Now there was not only the pain of being forced to be here, but she was also now the physical pain of being beaten down. She rushed forwards, again having a weak punch bounce harmlessly off of Jen's chest and again having her knocked down by the stronger blond. She tried this a few more times, constantly getting up to deliver a weak punch to the blond's chest and getting knocked down in return.

After six attempts at the same thing, she remained laying on the ground, her entire torso in pain. She was ready to give up. Jen was going to force her into listening to everything she-

A voice rang in her head. It asked her if she was giving up so easily. She wanted to, she truly did, but her body began moving on her own. She slowly got up, tossing aside the headgear and mouthguard and even the gloves. Her heated was dipped in defeat. Her body was telling her to give up, she thought. Then, she began to rip off her sweater. She tossed it to the outside of the arena, shivering at the cold her now barely-dressed torso endured. "I-I don't want to give up any more!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice finally registering loud enough to be considered an actual shout, if only barely. She flared out her arms as her wrists and hands became enveloped in black bones.

She rushed at Jen once more, prepared to strike with her bone gauntlets. However, as she came nearer, the confidence in her vanished, and her swing was weaker than the rest, entirely missing this time. She once more was smacked down to the ground, where she continued to lay. Of course she could not win. Jen was so much more than her in every way. She could not hope to win. She lay there, not willing to get up as she waited and dreaded another lecture from Jen.

An inkling in the back of Kyra's mind had made her hope that Jen would forget about her. She was an attractive woman, no doubt, but this whole "training" thing made her uncomfortable. She did not like all of this hard work and difficulty, nor did she like the other... methods Jen had to keep Kyra's training intact. Kyra just wanted to hide away from it. This "living in the mountains" thing was appealing enough, but all the strange folk around were less appealing. She had only caught glimpses of most of them, but from what she could see they were strange enough. Maids? In a mountaintop castle? Kyra enjoyed the castle aesthetic, but everything else was so strange. She sighed, curling up in her bed as the hours ticked by. She had already taken care of all the flowers in her room, the refreshing scent wafting into her nose. She had not yet been at the castle long enough for her personal vegetable garden to grow, but she knew that once they had grown, she would be safe and sound to stay in her room and out of everyone's way forever.

Well, that was her hope, at least, until the door to her room quite literally burst open, sending Kyra scrambling and screaming as the succubus that had taken the cannibal under her wing crashing through and once more grabbed Kyra by the hair, who kicked and screamed for the briefest of moments before resigning herself to her fate of yet another session of torturous training. She helped transport herself in no way at all, letting the much stronger trainer do all of the work in transporting Kyra to the ruins. She had not even noticed the previous time, but Kyra was slowly but surely becoming more cognizant of her surroundings, to the point where now she did not even feel any bit of cold as the snow accumulated in her hair, forming somewhat of a helmet of white crystals. Even if her tattoo marking her as a member of Errings Rising left her immune to the effects of the cold, she still felt relief at wearing her sweater. It simply made her feel warmer, especially when looking in comparison to Jen's still minimal clothing.

The duo were still a ways away from the ruin when Kyra finally had the audacity to speak up to her captor. "U-Um... J-Jen? I-It m-might not mean anything, b-but b-back in my r-room, I m-made you a sweater. I-I had some spare threads f-from t-the village from when I was m-making my way up here, s-so... i-if you take it, w-will you n-not do t-those t-things again? P-please?" Despite the pleading in her voice, Kyra refused to look at her captor, merely looking down at her feet, dragged along in the snow to lead others to the path where they might find her eventual corpse.