Supervillain Idol System: My Sidekick Is A Yandere-Chapter 498: Path Chosen (Part 3)

Redstar began circling him the way someone inspected equipment—eyes steady, movements slow enough to read every shape under the skin.

She didn't linger long.

Just a pass around his back, another around his right side, then she stopped near his left leg and placed a hand under her chin.

"I think the best place to start," she said, "is your legs."

Don followed her gaze downward, then looked back up—only to find her crouched near his thigh.

She didn't ask. She pressed two fingers to his thigh first—then moved to his calf, giving it a firm pat.

"I noticed you prefer using your hands instead of your legs," she said, still hunched near him. "This is no good. Legs hold more power than fists."

She straightened, stepping in front of him again.

"More than that—if you limit how you fight, anyone skilled will use it against you."

Her hand returned to her hip.

"At your baseline, you should at least be able to exert the full power of each limb. Left or right. If one does more work than the other, you'll lean into habits you can't break later. When that happens, everything you do becomes predictable. You'll telegraph weight shifts without meaning to. You'll commit to angles you can't follow through on because you're relying on the stronger side. And you will get punished for it."

Don didn't argue.

She wasn't wrong.

He simply hadn't thought this far ahead. He'd been pushing to get stronger—faster—more capable in a fight. But the structural side of it? The balance of power between limbs? He had ignored that.

Redstar tilted her head.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," Don said. "I follow."

"Good."

She stepped back, rolling her wrist.

"Increase gravity steadily. Lower temperature as well every few intervals."

A tone pinged from the ceiling—and the room shifted.

The pull on Don's body deepened slightly, enough to drag a faint ache through his thighs. The colder air brushed across his skin like running water.

Redstar crossed her arms.

"Your warm-up," she said. "You'll start with jumps—a thousand of them. Controlled on the way up, controlled on the way down. After that, you'll do high kicks, five hundred each leg. Then mid kicks, five hundred each leg. Then low kicks, another five hundred each leg. After that—squats. A thousand."

Don's eyelid twitched before he could stop it.

She wasn't done.

"When you finish the warm-up," she continued, "we will spar. We only stop when you can throw up to one hundred consecutive left and right kicks with the same power. And keep in mind, I will also be fighting back."

Don exhaled once through his nose, rolling his shoulders as beastshift activated. His muscles tightened under the altered conditions, breath deepening.

Redstar stepped back a few paces.

"Stretch. Then begin."

Don followed her orders exactly.

He stretched everything—hamstrings, quads, calves—then moved into the first jump.

The increased gravity made the landing heavier—and by the four hundredth jump, he felt the slow burn building up the sides of his legs.

By seven hundred, his form wavered. His left foot landed too early, and his knee drifted inward.

Redstar's voice cut in.

"Stop. Reset. You landed wrong."

Don grit his teeth and started at one again.

The second attempt was cleaner. By eight hundred, his breathing had deepened. By eight one thousand, sweat traced down the side of his ribs, and the cold air no longer felt cold at all.

"Next," Redstar said. "High kicks."

He lifted his right leg first—whoosh~—but the gravity dragged it down faster than he planned. The two hundrenth kick already had his hip stiffening.

And once he finally finished… Left leg next.

By the four hundredth kick, his foot swung too low.

Redstar snapped her fingers. "Again."

Don restarted without arguing.

His thighs shook on the last two, but he kept them high enough for her nod of approval.

Mid-level kicks were worse.

The height wasn't a problem—maintaining the same angle through all five hundred was.

His balance wobbled on the two hundredth and seventy two right-leg kick; the fou hundredth and forty came out weaker; and five hundred dropped too soon.

Redstar stepped in before he reset, pressing her thumb into the side of his hip.

"Your hinge is wrong," she said. She stepped closer—close enough that her body met his side as she reached behind him to adjust the line of his lower back. "You're rotating from here, not from the hip joint. That kills your power."

Her chest brushed his arm, knee bumping his calf as she corrected his stance—not flirting, not flustered, just focused.

She tapped her fingers once against his hip.

"Start again."

Low kicks burned the worst.

He could feel the fatigue settling deep now—a dull ache spreading slow across each muscle.

His legs trembled from strain by the three hundredth total kick.

He failed twice.

He restarted twice.

Squats nearly crushed him.

He made it to seven hundred and eighty eight before his thighs buckled and he dropped too low—knees drifting forward, back folding slightly.

Redstar's voice hit immediately.

"No. Reset."

He dragged himself upright again, heart pounding, muscles already twitching under the load.

He started over.

Two hundred more.

Five hundred more after that.

Every rep sent a shot of fire through his legs, but he kept going.

He didn't lack stamina.

Or strength.

Or breath.

He only needed willpower to keep moving—and he had enough of that.

By the end, his legs felt like they were swelling under the increased weight of the room. Every muscle in them twitched, burning with effort, but he didn't stop until she said—

"Good. Again from the top."

His eye twitched.

But he reset anyway.

This time, she moved behind him during the kicks, placing her palms on either side of his ribcage to keep him from twisting.

Her chest pressed lightly into his back as she leaned forward to align his center of mass with his stance. Her fingers guided his abdomen inward, then downward.

"You're throwing from the wrong place," she said into his shoulder. "Your leg isn't the issue. Your center is."

She stepped back.

"Start again."

Don inhaled sharply, sweat dripping from his chin to the mat—tap~.

Then he kicked.

———

Don's warmup dragged on far longer than he ever wanted it to.

By the end of it, every part of him begged for rest.

The pain itself faded quickly—his recovery always kicked in fast—but the moment he moved, even slightly, the ache flared again like something striking nerves with a hammer.

He stood with both hands braced on his hips, head angled down. His breath wasn't ragged, but the heaviness in his body felt like it had been poured into his muscles and left to settle.

The ground reflected that.

A thin frost crawled across most of the training cell—an uneven sheet of icy film stretching from wall to wall, shimmering faintly under the ceiling lights.

It spidered outward in lines where his feet had landed thousands of times, with the prints deep enough to show how hard each strike hit the floor.

But under him?

Bare.

The heat rolling off his body had kept a small circle warm, almost steaming.

It created a strange contrast—his patch of bare ground surrounded by frost and the scattered footprints belonging to both him and Redstar.

Redstar stood directly in front of him, arms crossed, not giving him even a second to exist without scrutiny.

Her eyes weren't merely watching him breathe. She was tracking the way each muscle along his abdomen drew tight, how his quads twitched, how his back kept fighting to hold him upright.

Her voice came in with no sympathy.

"You're out of shape," she said flatly. "If a few thousand kicks and jumps have you bending like this, then you've let yourself slack."

Don raised his head a little, still breathing steady but letting the sweat drip off his jaw.

She stepped closer, not enough to help, just enough to make sure her words landed.

"Your recovery is fast," she continued, "but the moment that dull ache hits you again, your stance collapses. You're not directing the strain. It's spilling everywhere. That means you're wasting power. And if you waste power in a fight, someone will put you on the floor."

She didn't raise her tone. Didn't soften it either.

"And before you complain—yes. We will be doing these warmups every time before we train."

Don's spine tensed, just slightly.

She noticed, of course.

Redstar turned as she spoke again.

"Now, if you're done catching your breath," she said, walking away from him, "let us spar. One hundred consecutive kicks. Any height. But at least twenty at each."

She created distance as she walked—slow, unhurried steps across the frost-lined floor. Don lifted his head at the same moment and found his eyes dragged toward her from behind.

Her shorts clung to her frame, tight enough to frame the curve of her hips and the heavy shape of her ass.

She had the body of someone whose training never stopped, and her walk made it even clearer. He allowed himself a single, quick look.

Then wiped the sweat from his chest and ribs.

He finally understood the point of the temperature drop.

The cold made his limbs stiff, reducing fluidity.

Momentum and body heat helped combat it—but the moment he stopped moving, the cold took back ground fast.

Already he felt it creeping up his arms and across his back, biting at him now that he wasn't generating his own warmth.

Redstar stopped several feet away. She lifted her arms above her head in a long stretch, then bent sideways, then forward. All clean movements that carried no strain at all.

"Tell me," she said without looking back, "when you're ready to begin."