Sparring

Thorne King, as one of Orion's four generals, commended great strength and respect within the criminal underworld.

Everyone in Orion has at least once witnessed Thorne performing unimaginable feats.

Born into a family of criminals, he would take part in organized crimes such as heists and robberies from a young age.

Fate played it's part in connecting Thorne with the previous head of Orion when he was eighteen, and that set his path to infamy in the criminal world, away from petty crime and onto a better life.

Ever since he was brought into Orion, he has continued to play a vital part.

It did not take long for him to become Orion's youngest and strongest general.

Twenty years, that is how long he has been a general at Orion, taking part in countless life-threatening missions not once making the people around him feel restless.

His entire life, Thorne never felt excited or anxious during a fight or altercation but a quick sparring session ignited passion within him.

He was raring to go, eagerly wanting to fight more, to test his limits.

Thorne says to Lucas and N, "You both, make sure to observe what's about to happen. After me and Hiro are done sparring it is you guy's turn."

With a big smile and fire in his eyes, Thorne looks at Hiro and says, "So then, are you ready to step into my world?" as he pulls out two wooden daggers that were sheathed at his hip.

Thorne takes two steps back and then gets ready.

He raises his left dagger to chest length and points the right dagger to Hiro's face, while tauntingly smiling.

Lucas and N both back up as well to give them space.

Hiro can not help but crack up at Thorne's blatant provocation.

He jumps up and down while shrugging his shoulders, and starts to count down from three.

"Three..... Two... One....." Says Hiro whiles jumping.

As soon as he says 'one', Hiro leaps towards Thorne to close their distance and once again catch Thorne off guard.

Hiro expected Thorne to be on guard given their last back and forth, so he wanted to overwhelm Thorne while he would backpedal to increase the distance between them.

Unexpectedly, Thorne takes a step forward to get closer to Hiro while he was in the air.

Thorne moves his wooden dagger close to Hiro's throat.

Although Thorne had told Hiro before they began that he would be using two specially made wooden daggers that were softer than average so as not to injure others during spars, in Thornes hands during a spar, his bloodlust made them feel dangerous.

Not wanting the dagger to touch his neck, Hiro decided to punch Thorne's right hand that extended the dagger.

Hiro extended his right foot forward and his left backwards to give himself a good solid landing, and he swings his torso to throw a right hook to Thorne's right hand.

Once again, Thorne reads through Hiro's moves.

Thorne moves his right hand a little backwards, causing Hiro's right hand to graze the dagger.

As soon as Hiro lands he is surprised to see that Thorne managed to keep the dagger in his right hand even after taking a full strength punch from him.

While Hiro's attention was glued to the right dagger that Thorne had made the center of attention before the spar even began, Thorne attacked Hiro with his left dagger.

One strike to Hiro's stomach and another to the side of his neck.

Thorne then speaks up, "And you're dead."

Thorne continues, "Let's talk about what you did correct and what you did wrong."

He first explains the good decisions that Hiro made, "First of all, you jumping to close the distance was a good idea. That's because there is no guarantee that the person you are fighting against isn't armed. With less distance between you, it will be more difficult for him to take his weapon out and easier for you to disarm him if he does."

"Next, you putting on the pressure was a good decision as well. Do not give your opponent time to think, but speed can be your worst enemy at times as well. Make sure that you think before doing something, there could be a chance that you fall into some trap made by your opponent."

Then Thorne explains the problems that he noticed, "That's it for the good decisions you made. Now let's move onto the bad ones."

"The first obvious one is your lack of concentration during our fight. Never get sucked into the pace of the fight, always keep a level head on you. From the start I was making the right dagger the point of focus, which caused you to forget about the left dagger."

One detail after another, Thorne tells Hiro about the mistakes that he made during their spar just now and how he could have done better.

Hiro quietly listens to Thorne's advice, mildly surprised that he was able to notice and remember all these minute details during a fight where he was going all out.

After Thorne is done giving Hiro advice, with a smile back on his face, he says, "Right then. How about round two?"

Taking two steps back and getting into the same position as before, raising his left dagger to chest length and pointing the right dagger to Hiro's face, Thorne once again starts to tauntingly smile.

Hiro this time gets into a proper karate stance.

Both legs slightly bent, with his right foot facing straight forwards towards Thorne and the back foot pointed outwards at an angle, with his right hand at stomach level and his left hand extended straight with his palm open.

They both stare at each other for a while, both grinning ear to ear, excited about fighting someone strong.

Suddenly, they both stop smiling and the fight is on.

Once again, Hiro jumps towards Thorne.

And just like last time, Thorne once again moves a step forwards and aims for Hiro's neck.

Hiro delays reacting to that till the very last second, when suddenly he uses his left arm, which was already extended, to try and catch Thorne's left wrist to disarm at least his left dagger.

Thorne is slightly caught off guard by Hiro trying to catch his wrist, since he expected Hiro to once again try and punch his hand.

Thorne slightly shifts his hand, pointing his dagger up, towards Hiro's palm while moving a step backwards.

Thorne hoped that Hiro would reflexively move his hand backward, now that it was in danger of being stabbed by his dagger.

To everyone's surprise, Hiro does not back down.

Hiro too slightly shifts his hand and goes on to grab the dagger from Thorne's right hand.

Right afterwards, Hiro lands.

Not sparing a single second, Hiro goes for a roundhouse kick.

He twists his body, quickly swinging his left leg and aiming for Thorne's neck.

Still holding onto the dagger, he pulls it backwards making sure Thorne would not be able to duck by moving backwards.

Thorne decides to let go of the right dagger to stop being pulled forward.

Thorne then puts up his left hand to defend the oncoming kick.

He sees the kick coming and adequately has it guard up on time, but it does him no good.

The kick from Hiro carried enough weight that it makes Thorne move from his place and drop the dagger in his left hand.

'This is my chance', thinks Hiro as he sees the dagger start to fall from Thorne's hand.

He throws a left hook to Thorne's jaw, hoping to knock him out.

In a clean and confident motion, Thorne moves his left hand down towards Hiro's hook to parry it while moving his right hand to catch the falling dagger.

Hiro's right punch comes in blazing, which is easily intercepted by Thorne's left hand.

Thorne pushes Hiro's punch, causing it to miss Thorne's jaw.

Right below Hiro's extended left arm, Thorne moves his left dagger towards Hiro's neck.

With a smile, once again Thorne says "and, you're dead."

Having been bested twice now, Hiro lets out a chuckle.

"Haha, you're too good, you." Says Hiro to Thorne, to which Thorne replies, "Yes but you were very close to defeating me."

After which they both once again go over the flow of events that just took place, giving their insight and opinions on it.

N is slightly surprised to see Hiro lose twice in a row.

N knew instinctively that in a fist fight, Hiro would not lose to Thorne but because Thorne had his daggers, he was exponentially more difficult for Hiro to defeat.

N had a feeling that he knew the importance of weapons in fights, but the three spars between Hiro and Thorne truly opened his eyes on their importance.

After Hiro and Thorne are done talking about their spar, they both turn towards Lucas and N and say, "It's you guy's turn now."

Lucas looks at N expecting to see the same dull expression plastered on his face but is surprised to find eyes focused on him, as if screaming to Lucas, 'Let's start right away.'

With a slight smile, Lucas thinks to himself, 'This will be interesting.'