Chapter 24 - Tune Lesson

"To be honest, I shouldn't really teach you that," Cleo said, putting a wry smile on her face.

"If for whatever reason, you can't, then you don't need to..." Tom attempted to stop the girl, only to be stopped himself when she placed her finger on his lips.

"Don't speak to me like that. I doubt you will use it to flex at the girls, so there is no need for me to worry," Cleo said with a genuine smile before her eyes suddenly turned all dark. "Right?" she asked in an intense tone.

"Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't dare to misuse great Cleo's trust," Tom raised his hands as if trying to shield himself from the girl's suspicion. 'Out of all the things, I wouldn't dare to make her my enemy,' he thought, swallowing his momentary pride.

"Good, then let's not waste any time," Cleo said with a wide smile before moving into the house. A mere moment later, she walked out of place with two antique sabers in her hands.

"Eee... What?" Noticing the peculiarity, Tom asked to clarify the situation. "What do you need those sabers for?"

"I know you are not using saber on your new character, but the principle of what I want to teach you stays the same," Cleo smiled before tossing one of the weapons to Tom.

"While I'm acting pretty cautious about it, it's not like my family came up with this technique. But that doesn't mean I will be happy if it spreads around," Cleo explained the caveat before presenting her weapon.

She held her weapon up and sideways as if she wanted to kiss the top of her blade. Then, she slashed at the air, moving her hand to a resting position.

"Normally, one would learn this trick only after getting the basics right, but given how saber is not your weapon of choice in the first place..." Cleo stopped mid-sentence before releasing a long sigh. "In your case, you can learn it right away," she said before stepping forward.

"Scoobie-doobie doo, where are you," Cleo started to mumble under her nose along with her progress. Each of her steps fell perfectly into the rhythm of the once-popular song.

The distance between the two of them wasn't that far, to begin with. Barely a few steps. Cleo only reached the second verse of her song when she swung her saber at Tom.

"Ugh," Tom moaned in pain as he raised his weapon horizontally and took the hit on his blade. However, Cleo wasn't joking with the bout, delivering the strike at its full force.

Bending under the immense force of the strike, Tom softened the pressure on his knees and turned the blade to parry the next move...

Only for Cleo's saber's side to slam him in the face.

Every single move Cleo made went according to the music she was humming. Every step, every attack, every slash, and every dodge was perfectly aligned with the rhythm.

Tom could recognize the rhythm but for some reason... Adjusting to it was not as easy as it would appear.

"First, you start by figuring your own tune. It's something you will never share with anyone," Cleo explained, changing the song she was humming to another one. This time, Tom could vaguely recognize it as an ending of one of the popular anime of recent times.

"While a single tune will suffice early on, the better you want to get, the more different tunes you need to learn to dance," Cleo added, suddenly spinning in a pirouette and landing another hit at Tom's side.

This time, her attack didn't follow her earlier tempo. Yet, knowing the principle, Tom only took a few moments to adjust to the new rhythm of the fight.

"Good," Cleo commented as soon as she noticed the improvement. "Now the important part," her lips spread out in a smile as the tip of her saber trembled. "You need to immerse yourself in tune. All the way to the point where the entire world will disappear, replaced with nothing but footholds for you to keep dancing," she informed before closing her eyes.

'Huh?' Tom took a long look at the motionless girl. 'Is she meditating... or something?' he thought, trying to figure out the motives behind the sudden change of her behavior.

And then Cleo charged forward. Her eyes lacked focus as if the world around her no longer existed. Yet, despite not paying attention to her surroundings, Cleo quickly showered Tom with a flurry of attacks, each harder to avoid than the previous one.

Clang, clang, clang. For a few moments, the sound of a weapon hitting against a weapon was the only thing Tom could hear. After that, he had no other choice but to entirely focus himself on the fight, desperately trying to ward off Cleo's attack.

But whenever Tom would reach the point of adopting Cleo's rhythm, it would abruptly change. Whenever the chance would happen, Tom would pay the price of it with pain as he could not stop the attacks falling right on the change.

"I give up!" Tom shouted when yet another attack landed on his body. He rapidly backed out a few steps in an attempt to escape Cleo's range, only to see the girl follow suit while setting another series of attacks.

Thankfully, before the two of them could come to clash once again, Cleo regained her senses and pulled her weapon back.

"What you saw right now was the tune immersion," she explained as she placed her saber on the window's sill. "Once you reach the point where you can follow the rhythm of your tune perfectly, you should be able to immerse yourself in it fully," Cleo said, gracing Tom with a gentle smile.

"To think that something like this existed," Tom replied, looking at the handle of the saber in his hand. For some reason, it felt slightly more comfortable in his hand now, even though he was still far from being efficient at using it.

"It's a technique allegedly developed way in the past by the cossacks," Cleo smiled, happily giving some backstory to the strange trick of hers. "Although I can't really imagine people learning how to fight to the rhythm of some religious psalms!" she added with a smile, proving that she could be pretty relaxed about this topic.

"Now that I think about it," Tom suddenly interrupted the girl, intentionally changing the topic. As interesting as the backstory of this technique could be, he wasn't really interested in it at all.

"You said that one should learn how to immerse himself in his song... But didn't you say that one should learn many songs to alternate them in a fight?" Tom asked the question that was puzzling him for a while already.

"Does that mean it's possible to be fully immersed and yet still be able to switch the tunes while in the focused state?"