Life was pretty much the same in the days following the weigh-ins at the Kazumi dojo, they fell into something of a routine. At first they continued to drill Kit on his footwork, but after another day they moved on to drills to help with his mobility skipping rope and a swerve ball. He began doing striking sessions with Hitomi and Kisara and then grappling sessions with Daisuke and Renka.
During the striking sessions they taught him punches and punching techniques not used by traditional boxers, things he would usually not use but could be adapted should the situation call for it. They also began sparring practice with Kisara focusing mainly on boxing and upper body attacks. Then came practice focusing on his lower body. Kicks were much more difficult for him to predict, there were more angles they could come from. Sparring with Kisara became much more demanding when it came to kicking, Hitomi explained that she used Savate and Tae Kwon Do moves together to make her feet dangerous. During one match Hitomi had been forced to intervene for Kit when Kisara had tricked him, she used a whip kick in a straight-up motion, Kit had just managed to slip to the side of the kick, but when her foot was fully extended up Kisara reversed the motion, going for an axe kick to his collar bone. Hitomi had caught her by the calf about half an inch before she connected... this was the same kick she’d used against Renka in their last two semi-final bouts, and in fact the same trap as the previous match, it had broken her sister’s collarbone two years running, and ultimately been the reason Renka had had to surrender before the finals.
Grappling training was different, it was more about how to avoid getting taken down, how to stay on his feet and keep his distance enough to give himself room to evade grappling unless he had to, he was taught how to fight using grappling, and also how to continue as a striker while grappling, but he wasn’t very good once he got into a clinch, and was in a LOT of trouble if he was taken down. Not to be outdone, Renka almost broke his elbow when he refused to tap out to an armbar, they hadn’t taught him the proper way to combat an armbar yet, so Kit struggled to his feet and then landed two heavy blows to Renka’s jaw, but she was tenacious with her hold, when it looked bad Daisuke finally came over and lifted her off the ground by her shoulders and dropped her to the floor. Kit caught on instantly and used his free arm and locked it around his trapped wrist, he heaved upward with all his strength and when she was a few inches off the ground he slammed her head to the mat hard. Renka was dazed by the blow and her body released the hold.
It was through these experiences that Kit realized it had been some time since the girls had practiced with anybody of their own level of fighter, and obviously it didn’t occur to them that Kit was NOT their level yet. Perrin explained that for the girls fighting was always the same as real sparring, they had to give their best to have any chance of defeating the masters, and of course they saw sparring with each other as another competition.
Around the time he began working on his mobility they also had him begin training with weights, both lifting and by adding small weights to his arms and legs during his time with the bags. A week after the meetings the girls took him on his first official morning run. They still had to help him from time to time, especially since their runs were made to be difficult for them, and Kit was still much newer to it than they were, for instance they had to help him with most of the vertical wall runs. Kit could get an average of 10 feet on his runs, but Renka and Kisara averaged about 13, and Kisara demonstrated that running full speed she could just reach the top of a 16’ wall because of her extra leg strength. When they came to tall walls they would both make the climb and then hold at the top to hang themselves over, they would allow Kit one attempt and if he failed then on his second attempt they would catch his hands at his peak.
Toward the end of the first run they had a surprise for Kit, Perrin had instructed them to add at least one special challenge to the end of each of their runs. They jumped the fence into an impound lot, Kit was starting to slow down. “You might want to kick it into high gear soon,” Kisara tried to warn him as Kit started to lag behind.
“Why?” Kit asked as he panted.
“They’ll be here soon,” Renka answered him.
“Who?” Kit said as he tried to put on an extra burst of speed.
“You’ll see,” Kisara answered as she started running. The sisters had maybe a 100 ft. lead on Kit when the challenge arrived. Kit was in the middle of vaulting off the roof of the car when he heard something fall off one of the piles behind him.
“DOGS!” Kit screamed as he saw four Doberman Pinschers chasing after them at full speed.
“Just keep running,” Renka tried to encourage him as she and her sister started to speed away as fast as they could.
“There’s no way that even YOU can run faster than dogs,” Kit said as the chasers started to close in on him. He began sprinting as fast as he could and the dogs were still catching him.
“We don’t have to outrun the dogs, usually we just dodge them, but today we just have to outrun you,” Kisara called back to him. One of the dogs leapt for Kit’s neck, he ducked under it, but the motion caused him to stumble, luckily he managed to put one of his hands on the ground and push off to keep from falling. At this point they began vaulting and sliding over the cars whenever they could in an attempt to slow the dogs down. One latched on to Kit’s forearm, but almost immediately he balled up his fist and slammed it into the dog’s shoulder without losing a step. The dog yelped as it let go.
The dogs had been chasing them for about a hundred yards, often coming close to getting Kit and even the girls as they ran, but Renka and Kisara seemed to know when the dogs were going to strike and deftly evaded them. Kit on the other hand had three or four bites by the time they reached the ending fence, and they seemed to be sticking to him. The girls were up and over in one go, waiting at the top in case Kit needed them. This time he managed to clasp the top with his own hands and was over in one attempt.
When he put his feet on the ground Kit was panting so hard he started to cough. He slumped to the ground with his back to the chainlink fence. “I’ve never run so hard for so long in my life,” Kit told them through fits of coughing.
“We have some other challenges, but this one is the lightest, we’ll try to run this course until you get caught up with us,” Renka explained.
“Dogs... everyday?”Kit asked them suddenly.
“You’ll learn to get faster quick this way,” Kisara laughed as they stood up and headed home.
“You’ve had your rabies shots right? We probably should have asked that before Kisara,” Renka commented.
“Before what?” Kit asked with a confused look on his face.
“Before we did this,” Kisara smirked as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small aerosol can. “Bacon grease, we coated your clothes in it while you were in the shower,” Kisara laughed hysterically. Renka looked like she wanted to smile but she was holding herself back.
“That’s why they kept focusing on me?” Kit asked after a while.
“It’s easier to outrun you than to outrun them,” Kisara shrugged.
“Very funny, I’m bleeding all over thanks to that,” Kit pointed out.
“They would have bitten you either way, this way they just focused on you a little more than usual,” Renka pointed out.
“You knew?” Kit asked Renka, the surprise was heavy in his voice.
“Of course she knew... it was her idea,” Kisara told him.
“We’ll get you patched up back at the dojo,” Renka said quickly as a change of subject.
