The frequent dueling sessions continued in the club. Over time, Kai managed to reclaim some of her honor as the second-strongest duelist. She turned her matchup against Nia into a 4-6, skirting the 5-5 ratio.
Nonetheless, it remained a losing matchup. And, unlike Lars, Kai didn't have any concentration issues to blame for her losses.
If anything, it could be said that Kai's forte was her ability to focus on the opponent's patterns and figure them out to a T. As such, it would've made sense for this matchup to go in her favor. Yet, it didn't.
Therefore, unlike with Lars's obvious mistakes, it was much harder to pinpoint what exactly Kai did wrong. All in all, she did a good job keeping tabs on the elusive opponent and deflecting surprise attacks. And yet, she still failed to win most of the time.
The way Yuel saw it, there was a lack of "gusto" in Kai's plays when she fought against Nia. Even though she did most things "right", she never pressed her advantage as strongly as she normally would've. As a result, she let a lot of good opportunities slip away.
Alas, the culprit herself denied all allegations. "No, I'm not taking it easy on her," Kai insisted for the hundredth time. "It's just hard to secure the win against her, that's all."
"Well, Lars doesn't seem to have that problem," Yuel argued.
"Indeed, indeed." Vincent nodded. "You only find it difficult to secure victory because your Softhearted tendencies get in the way."
"I agree," Yuel said. "Even when you gain the upper hand for a while, you don't press that advantage as hard as you would against Lars, for example. You just let Nia recover and get back into the game."
"Indeed! Your real nemesis is not Vanishing herself, but rather your Softhearted Amazon trait!"
"I-WILL-MURDER-YOU-BOTH!" Kai waved an angry fist. "Do you guys have nothing better to do than spout nonsense in front of me all day? Shoo, shoo!"
Kai continued bashing her head against this challenge while rejecting the criticism. Not a single part of her was "softhearted" and she was going to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt!
And, this approach was slowly but surely bringing her closer to turning the matchup into a 5-5, but for all the wrong reasons.
"C'mon, one more!" Kai insisted. "This time, I'll whoop you!"
"Gufu…" Nia slid under the table in exhaustion. "Mommy, pick me up. I'm scared."
"You're not running away!" Kai asserted. "I almost had you this time, so I'm winning the next one!"
"Somebody, please, release me from this hell…"
As their practice went on, Kai naturally became more aggressive and competitive after every defeat. Most likely, at some point, the salt made her stop seeing Nia as a "female opponent". Instead, she started treating Nia as a "rival".
I suspected that might happen. Yuel sighed. She's slowly overcoming the problem through repetition. But, this is something she can only do with Nia. She won't get to practice this many times against any other opponent from the region.
So, when Kai runs into a different female player, she'll most likely revert back to being the Softhearted Amazon all over again. So, while this training method was a nice experiment, it outlived its usefulness. Kai had to expand her horizons.
But, we don't have another female player in the club to pit against her. Yuel thought. Although, what about players outside the club? Kai actually brought up that idea before.
"I'll go and challenge each and every one of them!" Kai proclaimed boldly during the last review meeting. Of course, it was a heat-of-the-moment threat. She didn't follow up on it in practice, but the idea was out there.
The problem is, we don't have any close relationships with the other clubs, so we can't ask any of them for help. Yuel frowned. Though, maybe we could at least request a team vs. team online match? That's an option, but it sounds like an entire operation.
It would have been ideal if Yuel or Kai could simply contact other female players from the region and invite them to a few online duels. Alas, Yuel didn't have many contacts outside the Classmancers club in the first place, so that was impossible.
Well, there's technically one contact that fits the bill, but... Yuel frowned as he looked at his phone. Will she really cooperate...?