"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 like that. I doubt you will use it to flex at the girls, so there is no need for 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 montary pride.
"Good, then let's not waste any ti," Cleo said with a wide smile before moving into the house. A re mont 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 sa," Cleo smiled before tossing one of the weapons to Tom.
"While I'm acting pretty cautious about it, it's not like my family ca up with this technique. But that doesn't an 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 imnse 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 so reason... Adjusting to it was not as easy as it would appear.
"First, you start by figuring your own tune. It's sothing you will never share with anyone," Cleo explained, changing the song she was humming to another one. This ti, Tom could vaguely recognize it as an ending of one of the popular ani of recent tis.
"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 ti, her attack didn't follow her earlier tempo. Yet, knowing the principle, Tom only took a few monts to adjust to the new rhythm of the fight.
"Good," Cleo comnted as soon as she noticed the improvent. "Now the important part," her lips spread out in a smile as the tip of her saber trembled. "You need to imrse 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 inford before closing her eyes.
'Huh?' Tom took a long look at the motionless girl. 'Is she ditating... or sothing?' 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 monts, 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 co to clash once again, Cleo regained her senses and pulled her weapon back.
"What you saw right now was the tune imrsion," 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 imrse yourself in it fully," Cleo said, gracing Tom with a gentle smile.
"To think that sothing like this existed," Tom replied, looking at the handle of the saber in his hand. For so 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 so backstory to the strange trick of hers. "Although I can't really imagine people learning how to fight to the rhythm of so 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 imrse 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 an it's possible to be fully imrsed and yet still be able to switch the tunes while in the focused state?"
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