Blue sky above them.
Wide.
The clouds white and soft against it.
The sun throwing its light down through the gaps in the canopy.
Cutting through in long bright columns.
Finding the jungle floor beneath.
The green around them alive with it.
Catching the light and throwing it back a different color.
Something deeper.
Something that moved when the wind moved.
---
Chi-Long stood between them.
Hands folded behind her back.
Her eyes moving once across both of them.
---
"Attack."
---
They came from two different sides.
Ha Joon from the left.
Eun Byol from the right.
Both of them moving fast.
The way they'd been drilled to move.
Forward.
Committed.
Like loaded rounds leaving a barrel.
No hesitation.
---
Chi-Long took small steps.
Back.
Then sideways.
Her feet finding the ground without looking at it.
Her eyes on both of them at once.
Reading angles.
Reading timing.
Not rushing anything.
---
Ha Joon came in with a right kick.
Powerful.
Full rotation behind it.
---
Chi-Long moved out of its path.
Just enough.
The kick continued through the space where she'd been.
Found Eun Byol instead.
Connected with her side.
The impact sending her stumbling back.
Her feet working to find themselves beneath her again.
---
Before Ha Joon could reset—
Chi-Long's right hand moved.
Caught his leg.
The same leg that had just kicked.
Still extended.
Still committed.
---
Ha Joon left the ground.
Spinning slowly in the air.
The sky rotating above him.
Blue and white and green all at once.
---
Then her fist found his stomach.
Not slow.
Precise.
The impact drove the air out of him completely.
Changed his trajectory.
Sent him in a different direction than gravity intended.
---
He hit the ground.
Bounced once.
Twice.
Rolled.
Came to rest face down in the dirt.
---
Chi-Long stood at the center of them.
Where she had always been standing.
As if she hadn't moved at all.
---
They got up.
Both of them.
Eun Byol first.
Ha Joon a moment behind.
Dirt on his face.
His stomach still processing what had happened to it.
---
They moved toward her again.
---
"Watch your enemy."
Her voice even.
Moving through the space between them the same way everything else moved here.
Without urgency.
"Remember where you are."
---
Her foot moved.
A small motion.
Found a rock in the dirt.
Kicked it upward.
---
It hit Ha Joon across the face.
Sharp.
Immediate.
His head snapping sideways from something he hadn't seen coming.
---
"Your environment is your greatest asset."
She looked at him.
"If you know where to look."
---
In that fraction of a second—
Eun Byol moved.
Low.
Quiet.
Finding the angle Chi-Long had given her attention away from.
Her fist coming forward.
---
Chi-Long caught it.
Without looking.
Her hand closing around Eun Byol's fist the way a door closes.
Complete.
Final.
---
She used the momentum.
All of it.
Turned it outward.
Sent Eun Byol up and sideways through the air.
---
Toward Ha Joon.
---
They collided.
Both of them going down together.
A tangle of limbs and dirt and the specific sound of two people hitting the ground at the same time.
---
Chi-Long didn't stop speaking.
Her voice continuing above them.
Unhurried.
As if the collision was simply what came next.
---
"Draw more power to your core."
A pause.
"But remember — the energy must not leak out of your body."
Another pause.
"You must contain it."
---
She looked at them on the ground.
---
"By doing that — and only by doing that — you increase."
Her eyes moving between them.
"Your speed."
A breath.
"Your strength."
Another.
"Your ability."
She let that land.
"Even your body's natural healing."
---
She said nothing else.
Just stood there.
In the center of the clearing.
The sun coming down through the canopy above her.
The jungle moving in the wind around her.
Waiting for them to get up.