Die

Summer panted as she jobbed over to her scroll and turned the recording off. She marked it with the date and time before going over to Taiyang. He offered her a water bottle and she took it after putting her scroll away, draining half of it in a few seconds, sliding down the wall. “You’re pretty good, Summer, though you still need quite a bit of work.”     She made a face at the comment. “Well, it’s not my fault that the math teacher has it out for me.” Rat bastard had landed her in the infirmary and out of sparring practice for the past week and a half. Her aura regeneration and reserves were ridiculous, but it still hadn’t been able to withstand that. Thankfully, the nurse had declared her fit to return to combat yesterday. Of course, Raven ahd dragged her down to spar right away to help her brush up. Taiyang rolled his eyes but he smiled. “That’s true. Anyway, I’m guessing Raven wasn’t the biggest help yesterday?”     Summer fell silent for a moment before shaking her head. “No. I mean, yes. In her Raven way.” Raven had put the heat on and she’d had her ass handed to her on a silver platter. The brutal fight had expose where her abilities were lacking, but Raven hadn’t been able to offer any concrete pointers. It seemed combat just came naturally for the Branwen twins but neither of them could really articulate how or why to do something. “Since it seems like Qrow and Raven won’t be of much help for more formalised constructive criticism, I can help.” Summer glanced over at him, eyebrows shooting up. She’d already met his father—Yueliang—as he was their sparring instructor. It did make a level of sense he’d be more equipped to help her like this, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind. With how annoyed she’d been over being barred from the most important part of Beacon for her… Yeah, it was really no surprise. “Do you want to review the video of the spar or—” “I got it.” He smiled warmly, tapping his temple. She pushed herself to her feet and flipped Battaglia to its half staff form. Taiyang came up behind her. She felt warmth blossom in her cheeks, radiating outward. It had been one thing when Persia had done this, but it was entirely different when someone her age did. Taiyang just chuckled and put his hands over her eyes. “Right now, your primary problem is that you’re holding it too tight and not letting it move. Your reaction times and instincts are spot on which helps, but that’ll only go so far with your limited mobility right now. You need to hold it with just your thumb and forefinger to let it slide.” She gave a small nod and let him adjust her grip. It felt strange to hold the weapon so much more loosely. Persia had only had three short weeks to go over some base fundamentals. This was more advanced, so it hadn’t come up. “Good. Peersia taught you the nine fundamental strikes on a human, right?” Summer just groaned. “She spent a solid twenty minutes at the beginning of each session drilling them.” She understood they were the absolute foundation when using a lot of weapons, but it hadn’t made the tedium any less annoying. They were good and pounded into her muscle memory, though… “Glad to hear it, though I’m going to increase the difficulty in this grip.” Great, just great. Having to relearn something almost from scratch was just fantastic . But if she had to in order to graduate Beacon, she would. She took in a breath and nodded to let Taiyang know she was ready. This was going to be interesting. “This is what you’ve been doing until now, right?” She allowed him to move her hands and arms in the typical overhead swing, though her hands didn’t move. She nodded at the familiar action. It was about the only thing the nurse had allowed her to do for the past week and a half, so that’d only further reinforced it. “Just follow my lead.” She nodded again and he adjusted her grip. She felt like she was going to drop it, but with how certain he was, she had no reason to distrust him. With that done, he reset her stance and started the overhead swing again slowly. He slid her left hand to the end, followed by the right. Her eyes widened as everything clicked. “It’s like a lever!” Now it made sense how the short staff could gain more distance. She’d thought it a severe flaw of the weapon to only use a foot or so of it. Only her quick reflexes and instincts had saved her until now. She looked up at Taiyang who smiled down at her and nodded. “Exactly. You’ll be able to get a bit more distance when you use the spear form, but let’s focus on this for now. Plus, as long as your stance is good, you don’t have to put a lot of raw strength into this.” She felt a bit more warmth blossom and seem into him, but he thankfully ignored it. She just nodded and shoved it to the side. “I think I see how to apply it to all the strikes.” Taiyang’s eyebrows shot up and she smiled sheepishly. Thankfully, he backed up and she reset her stance, starting to flow from motion to motion. As she moved from the left shoulder strike to the right leg, she cracked her forehead on the ground. She felt Battaglia slip out of her grip and roll away. She closed her eyes and put a hand on her chest, struggling to find oxygen. It would pass in a few moments, so she saw no reason to panic. She sensed Taiyang next to her and he pulled her into his arms. Once again, she felt her face heat, but she coughed a moment later, glad to have her breathing back. Taiyang put a tissue under her nose and she sighed as she took over. “Are you all right?” He looked at her and she nodded. “Just got the wind knocked out of me and a bloody nose. Been through worse.” What an awful miscalculation. She’d gotten used to fighting in the way Persia had taught her, so she hadn’t thought anything of it. She’d definitely be more careful in the future. Taiyang nodded and pulled her into his lap. Her cheeks dusted pink but she closed her eyes and let herself lean against him. “Just rest until that stops bleeding.” His tone was soft and she nodded, feeling a gentle, calm warmth settle over her. “...Okay.”