[Fixer+ | Draft] Chapter 222 - Limitations (Patreon)

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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!

Welcome to the draft release of Chapter 222 - Limitations for y'all.

As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.

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Limitations exist for everything...

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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/

I hope you will enjoy it!

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Here is the link to the chapter:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBj3lo0CD-jphIHB0T8WOnxsUcxZllyhnf1AWE6o4kI/edit?usp=sharing

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Chapter 222 - Limitations

“Now, obviously,” Miss K said nonchalantly, pulling the shinai off my throat and giving it a lazy little twirl, “that little party trick won’t work on any higher-skilled opponents. Which is exactly why I said what I said earlier: Disarms of that caliber are not a reliable way out of harm’s way when weapons enter the picture—they’re a luxury, reserved for when the gap between you and the other party is already practically insurmountable.”

She stepped back and into a more relaxed stance—which honestly surprised me as even being possible, given that she’d already looked extremely relaxed to begin with—while I quietly massaged my aching wrists.

“There are a million and one different martial arts out there. A fair good number of them cover weapons in depth or even focus entirely on them. Some of them will look you dead in the eye and claim they’ll teach you how to win against weapon-wielders, entirely unarmed. And I’ll ask you to trust the actual Grandmaster of Martial Arts in the room with you when she tells you: There is no such thing as ‘winning’ an unarmed fight against a weapon.” 

She started counting off on her fingers, shinai tucked under her right arm. “You can get lucky. You can outskill your opponent—see: Me with Sera just now. You can even, in some rare cases, overpower them outright, if you’ve got the right augments keeping you safe through the attempt. The most reliable method involves equipment, which can allow you to take some of the damage for you. The common thread here, ultimately, is that it is never the technique itself beating the weapon. You always require something extra. Luck, a skill-gap, chrome, armor—something. Technique alone loses that fight every single time—and I consider severe injury even if you kill your opponent as a loss here. Any martial arts school telling you otherwise is selling you a very fancy way to die at the best of times.”

She then flipped the shinai around and handed it back to me, hilt-first.

I took it on reflex—and started to turn back toward the rest of the crew on the mat, only for her to give me a small, flat hand signal: Stay. 

‘…Huh? We’re not done yet…?’

She didn’t elaborate. 

Instead, she clasped her hands loosely behind her back and started walking in a slow, paced circle around me, like a professor orbiting a confused-girl-holding-a-shinai shaped lectern.

“Now, you might feel a bit disheartened, hearing that the martial arts I’m teaching you won’t actually let you outright win most of the fights you’ll run into out there in the real world,” she continued. “Which is understandable… But do remember, that this is precisely why my curriculum contains a very, very in-depth weapons breakdown—because the goal, my dearest pupils, is to drag every single one of you so far above the average Scav or Ganger that taking the weapon out of their hands is even simpler for you than what I just did to our dear Sera earlier.” 

The circle brought her around in front of me at which point she shot me a playful wink that I chose—with great dignity mind you—not to react to by having my Edge take care of any errant surprise emotions. 

“Before we get anywhere near that point, however, we’ll also cover a whole host of other disarming techniques. Those are what will even the playing field between you and the armed blanks of this world. Because, frankly speaking, the very moment the weapon is out of the equation, everything you’ve learned in this dojo becomes fully and unequivocally your advantage against practically any opponent. There will be very few, if any, Scavs or Gangers out there that can hold a candle in terms of martial arts prowess than what I am teaching you. Every bruise-filled hour on these mats, every bloody drill and every day spent working through the shards I hand out to all of you—all of that is waiting on the other side of a singular successful disarm.”

She came to a stop directly in front of me once again, and then let her gaze drop, pointedly, to the shinai in my hand.

“Speaking of equipment—since it made the list of ‘something extras’ earlier—it is imperative that you understand the true importance of a proper getup. The right equipment can level the playing field between you and an enemy instantly, without even really requiring a disarm in the first place. Let’s do a case study.” She tapped the wooden blade with one finger. “Assume this were a basic katana. Baseline steel, factory-sharpened edge, nothing fancy done to it whatsoever. As a piece of equipment, it’d generally be rated Tier 0—a term I’m certain all of you have heard at least a few times before.”

Everyone nodded assent to that. Tiers were ubiquitous in Neo Avalis—so thoroughly woven into daily life that you’d be hard-pressed to shop anywhere beyond baseline clothing boutiques or simple supermarkets without running into them on every second equipment tag. 

“Good. Now, as a weapon, that Tier 0 blade performs at Pseudo-Tier 1—and is usually tagged as such in stores. You will be hard-pressed to find a weapon that’ll be tagged as a true Tier 0. This is because weapons, as a baseline, always punch above their true-rated Tier against armor. Which, in simple terms, means that a weapon relatively easily beats any equipment of its own equivalent Tier, and practically ignores anything rated below it.” 

She gestured broadly at the four of us with a loose sweep of her hand. “Example: Say you’re wearing a full suit of Tier 0 equipment—like your gi you’re wearing right now. That katana goes through all of it, and you, in a single swing. The cloth may as well not exist or simply be air. Now if I put you in a Pseudo-Tier 1 gi instead, the blade will very likely get caught up in the weave, or stop shortly after cutting you lightly. So, as a rule of thumb: It generally takes two or more strikes to get through armor of equivalent effective Tier.”

She started pacing around me again, now seemingly fully warming into the whole lecture.

“If we’re talking genuine up-tiering—say your opponent is wearing a true Tier 1 gi against your Tier 0 steel? Now your blade needs an order of magnitude more hits to do anything meaningful to them. You go from two-plus strikes to somewhere around five-plus. Mind you, this is to the exact same area. Push even further—say, Pseudo-Tier 2, what is also sometimes called Tier 1.5, or Dragons forbid actual Tier 2—and quite frankly, you’d have better odds giving up on trying to cut them entirely and rather using the hilt of the blade as a blunt-force instrument to try and deal damage through the material that way instead. 

“Getting an edge through gear like that means you’re likely looking at several hundred strikes, to the same exact spot over and over again, while also somehow keeping your blade sharp the entire way through. Oh, and before anyone takes that example as gospel here: Most higher-Tier equipment also comes with exceptional blunt-force protection as well, so the hammering approach also doesn’t work. But I’m sure you get the idea.”

I found myself nodding along, ever so slightly, before catching myself.

This was exactly how I knew it worked from the game. The mechanics were so intact, actually—down to the exact strike-count rules of thumb the wiki had tabulated for min-maxers—that I was a bit taken aback by how precisely Miss K had just listed them. 

‘Like she was quoting the wiki almost verbatim…’

It was also exactly the reason why buying good armor from Misha had sat at the very top of my priority list in this second life so far—and would continue to be sitting there basically indefinitely. Armor was the single most important investment I could make toward staying alive, which… Sounded rather obvious when said out loud, but only became truly understandable once you properly knew and understood the importance of the Tier system. 

That bomber jacket I’d gotten from Misha all those weeks ago had paid for itself many times over by now—in the foyer alone, where it had eaten an entire volley of shots meant for my fleshy innards, was a prime example. The raw arithmetic of the Tiers had saved my life several times already—and Jade’s too, actually, back when I had saved her from the corpo-hired Gangers who had almost shot us in the escape.

“So,” Miss K concluded, rocking back playfully on her heels, “the attentive and savvy among you will have already worked out what all of this means for the disarming conversation from earlier, I’d imagine...”

Tom’s hand was up before she’d fully finished the sentence.

She nodded at him.

“It fundamentally changes what such an attempt costs us, Ma’am,” he said, in that ever-measured, deliberate way of his. “If our equipment matches their weapon’s effective Tier—or hopefully even sits above it—then taking one hit stops being potentially lethal. It’s more of an investment, in a way, at that point. With the right equipment, we can deliberately “take” that first hit, to close the distance and attempt the disarm. And, of course, once the weapon’s gone, it’s an unarmed fight against people with no formal training—” 

He glanced briefly toward the rest of us. “—which is a fight we win, ten out of ten times.”

Miss K nodded at that, visibly pleased. “Precisely. Very well deduced, Tom.”

She then took a step toward me. “Now, in order to continue with the weapons portion of our training, we’ll need to understand weapons a lot more intimately. I want every one of you to become a downright expert on every close-quarters weapon in existence—so that when a Scav or Ganger pulls one on you, you know exactly what to expect. What its range is. Where the dangerous parts sit—cutting edges, points, blunt-force surfaces, the works. How it can move, how it can’t, and what, exactly, its limitations are—because there are always limitations—and so forth.”

She raised a finger.

“This part, by the way, is one of the most important things I am likely to ever teach you, so let me reiterate it properly: Every weapon in existence has a limitation. Many have several. Those limitations are your way in, whether armed yourself or not—they are how you take control of a fight against an opponent wielding said weapon. For a spear, it’s that the dangerous part is primarily the pointy end of the long stick. For a blade, it’s that many are single-edged—the back of that blade is incapable of truly threatening you. For a heavy pipe, it’s that blunt force requires momentum, so gluing yourself to the enemy and denying them room for wide swings shuts the weapon down entirely.”

She then pointed at the shinai in my hand once more and said, “So, tell me, Sera: What are the limitations of a katana? Like the one you’re wielding right now, assuming it was actual steel—I don’t wanna hear about how bamboo makes for a terrible cutting instrument.”

The question hit me with quite a bit more weight than Miss K had likely intended—or, actually, knowing her and considering the amount of side-eyes she’d been giving me ever since she’d thrown the shinai at me… With exactly as much weight as she had intended. 

The honest answer was that I knew plenty. 

[{Anima Razor}]’s sword-portion, especially after the most recent downloads, had come bundled with a substantial working knowledge of swords as a weapon class as a whole, and I could feel that entire knowledge download sitting practically right behind my teeth, ready to jump out. 

But I was still trying to keep my sword knowledge somewhat low-key in this room—the sudden throw-catch earlier had already leaked more than I’d wanted, honestly—and every answer I gave would be a data point I didn’t necessarily want to give up for free to the three very perceptive people in the crew behind me... 

‘So… What’s the right play here, then? In-depth enough to not look like I’m hiding much, but dumb enough to not confirm that there was much to hide in the first place…?’

I decided to split the difference and went with the cop-out: The obvious answers.

“Well, firstly… like Miss K said just now—a lot of them are single-edged,” I offered, turning the shinai over in my hand as if it was a real sword and I was examining it for the right answers. 

“So the back of the blade isn’t really a threat you have to worry about too much. And… a sword needs a lot more freedom of movement than a knife or bare hands do, right? It’s long. And there’s longer versions too, no doubt. They can get stuck in all kinds of ways, or even bite into walls, ceilings or the floor, depending on what everything’s made of—the blade and environment alike. Tight spaces would be a major problem there, I’d say.”

I left it at that and glanced up—straight into Miss K’s eyes, which were already waiting for mine… There was a dangerous, knowing spark in them. 

The sight sent a shiver straight down my spine before she’d even said a single word.

“A good rundown, Sera,” she complimented smoothly, the spark tucking itself away behind her usual, easy smile. “Anyone else? Any additions?”

Surprisingly, neither Tom nor Kenzie had anything, but Jin’s hand came up, instead.

“The grip, Master,” he offered with a respectful bow. “A katana of that length and heft would require both hands to deliver its full effect. So the wielder is left with hands for grappling, shoving or the like. If you manage to control what they do with their weapon, you control both of their arms at once.”

Miss K’s face lit up with genuine, undisguised delight—which sent a pang of envy through me. “Excellent, Jin. That one’s something very few people would think about, if it hadn’t ever been pointed out to them. And it’s a real limitation too, that many katana-wielders have to actively learn to get around, usually via superior footwork, kicks or learning how to change grips on the fly.”

Jin absorbed the praise with a stiff nod and the slight straightening of his spine.

‘The Jin-equivalent of breaking out in jubilations,’ I noted quietly.

“Since we’re already building a nice little list, I’ll add a few more as well,” Miss K continued, starting to count off on her fingers, “Reach, for one. While primarily an upside, no doubt, it does also create its own limitation, as every centimeter of advantage directly inverts into a liability the moment you manage to get inside your opponent's space.

She added a second finger to the count, ”The blade’s cutting power varies wildly along its length, as a result of leverage.”

Then another, “Initially drawing the weapon takes time you can exploit, as do recoveries after every swing, even if the timeframe can be kept rather short by well-trained users.”

And another, “The curvature of the blade helps some motions, yet actively works against others.”

Finally, she filled the full hand and raised it high above herself, “And, of course—one of my absolute personal favorites to exploit, really—the wielder’s own fear of damaging their sometimes very expensive blade! It fundamentally changes how they fight you with it. You’d be truly appalled at how politely some people swing their swords when they’re still paying it off, ha!”

She added even more miniscule entries that I’d never even considered before, right after.

“Some guard designs will even interfere with wrist rotation in particular grip configurations,” she added as casual as the rest. “Niche and rather rarely the case, for sure, but it’s definitely come up before.”

It was a limitation so miniscule in detail that even [{Anima Razor}] wasn’t aware of it—at least not at its current Level of 3. The gap between a low-level System download and several decades of lived Grandmaster experience was definitely still there.

‘Unsurprisingly, really,’ I quietly had to admit. ‘Would be truly insane if a low-level Skill could somehow beat a Grandmaster in anything. Though… I say that, when [Elemental Balance] exists…’

Miss K then took another step toward me—right up to the shinai and close enough that its tip nearly touched her—and addressed the class without taking her eyes off me.

“Our dearest Sera is now going to show us a variety of sword stances, so pay close attention. She’ll explain what each one is primarily used for and what its main downsides are as she does so. I’ll fill in the blanks where necessary.”

I stared at her as my eyes went wide.

‘I—what?! I never agreed to—’

Before I could even so much as fully form any sort of protest, much less utter it aloud, Miss K had already leaned in, closing the final distance between us in one smooth motion. 

Her mouth came up dangerously close to my ear, and her voice dropped to a whisper pitched for an audience of one, as she said, “I’ve been extremely lenient about you holding back so much during my sessions so far. It was exclusively because it only ever affected your own growth rate, primarily. Your Credits, your right to waste them.” 

The congenial warmth in her voice didn’t change at all, which somehow made the words hit even harder, making me freeze up entirely. 

“But I will not be allowing you to sandbag through this weapons section, Sera. This part of the curriculum directly concerns the survival of the rest of this class—as well as your own, if we’re being entirely honest with each other for once here. I have not the faintest idea why you’re trying so hard—and badly, I might add—to hide that you have any experience with swords… That’s generally your business, sure, but it ends now regardless. I will not have your misplaced, false modesty endanger the lives of my students.”

My blood ran cold.

Miss K stepped smoothly past me as if she hadn’t said a single word, circled around behind me, and then said, “Now, if you would be so kind, Sera…”

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