Chapter 225: Seeds for the Future
[December 9th DxD/August 1st DBT]
"Teeyah! Hyat! Hyaaa-!"
"You're fast..." remarked Vahn, weaving between a series of three sharp, sweeping kicks launched at his face by Miu, who, as usual, wore a purple bodysuit that left very little to the imagination. She had requested a spar when he dropped by to see how the Sisters' training was going, but even with his parameters restricted to match her own, her attacks felt painfully slow.
"I'm not finished...!" exclaimed Miu, stepping forward, twisting her body, and springing off her left foot while tucking in her arms and contracting her body to accelerate into an aerial, cartwheeling heel strike. Vahn was tempted to let the attack land against his guard, but since Miu might view that as him disrespecting her, he slid into her blind spot, ending up behind her as her heel cut through where his head had been a moment prior.
Demonstrating the skills and intuition she had honed over a lifetime of martial training, Miu, after noticing Vahn had vanished, moved with the momentum of her attack, contracting her body and rolling forward across the ground before springing up, flipping through the air, and landing in a ready stance with her posture low, her left hand and foot forward, and her right fist tucked near her waist.
Raising his own fists in a loose boxing pose, Vahn waited for the exact moment when Miu tensed her body to charge forward before doing the same. She quickly anchored her right foot and attempted to knee him in the ribs, but he intercepted her knee with his right palm while thrusting his left hand past the left side of her head, his forearm grazing her very voluminous breasts as he attempted to knock her off balance. Instead, she used the leverage of his block to twist her upper body deliberately before striking at his abdomen with her right hand, hardened by her Chi, functioning like the tip of a spear.
'The best defense is a good offense...' noted Vahn, intercepting Miu's knife hand by raising his left knee, causing her to bend her arm, switching to a sharp elbow strike as she simultaneously swept her left leg and foot back, giving her the leverage necessary to knock him off balance, forcing him to catch himself by quickly stepping back with his left foot.
Taking advantage of the fleeting gap she had created, Miu dropped low, maintaining four points of contact with the ground and compressing her body like a spring, giving the impression she was going to launch a knee strike or something similar. Instead, the moment Vahn raised his guard in preparation for an attack to his upper body, she quickly spun around, her right foot shooting out in an attempt to sweep his right foot or potentially smash his ankle.
Shifting his weight onto his right foot, Vahn thoroughly grounded it, a jolt of pain shooting up his leg as Miu simultaneously clenched her teeth, the result of similar pain radiating through her foot. Despite this, she reversed direction, taking advantage of her already compressed position to launch a spinning, double-fisted strike at his face and diaphragm.
'This is surprisingly fun...albeit frustrating...' thought Vahn, smiling as he deflected Miu's tiny but powerful fists away from his body by sweeping his hands in opposite directions. She seemingly predicted this, shooting out her left foot to catch and anchor herself, but before she could launch another attack, Vahn sliced his hands toward her neck, the knuckle of his left pinky touching the right side of her larynx and his right resting against the left side of her nape, both vital spots.
Realizing she had been defeated, Miu, who had briefly turned statuesque, exhaled loudly from her nose before fixing her posture, standing upright with her guard lowered and a broad smile blossoming across her face as she combed the fingers of her right hand through her hair and remarked, "I had heard that you hadn't received any formal training, but your combat instincts and natural talent are incredible..."