A simple perusal with any elementary physics book will show that it is impossible for two people to leap, fight suspended at the top of their leap for three seconds while they fight, and then separate and fall normally. I've been doing it with my pops since I was seven.
Everyone universally agrees my pop is too stupid to know it is impossible, and he's tried to keep me that stupid too. Obviously he failed.
I've had to conceal my intelligence from him all of my life. At first it was to avoid the senseless beatings, later it was to retain any level of control of my life.
Even a science text book intended for eight year olds, if it's any good, outlines the basis for the scientific method. The Renaissance's rediscovery of the ancient Greek's method of achieving greater understanding. The use of observation, leading to hypothesis, followed by tests, and resulting in a theory.
Observation shows that the center of gravity of two martial artists through the air doesn't describe a parabola with respect to time, as it should. Could this be explained through friction? No. How about an ablative reaction force? No. Electromagnetics? No. Relativity? No. Gravitational attraction of heavenly bodies? No.
Yet my father, and through his training, myself, manage it purely by instinct.
For weeks, for months, I pondered over this problem, adding other physical impossibilities to my list of inexplicable phenomena. It wasn't until five years later that I managed to do consciously what my pop and I learned instinctively.
To date, I've never heard anyone question our ability more deeply than 'How does he do that?' to which we always answer 'Training.' I've lived among people who are believed to be intelligent, classically educated, and observant, like Nabiki Tendo, but I have yet to hear her make even the slightest inquiry as to why the laws of Newtonian physics fail to explain our fights.
Newtonian physics, after all, remained uncontested by the standard pedagogical establishments for 200 years, and reigns to this day when not discussing things that are insanely fast, ridiculously small, or passing through a variable gravitational field.
Many are the impossible things I've done, both internally and externally, which my pop ascribes to chi, the mythical energy that forms the basis for yoga, acupuncture, shiatsu, and moxibustion. This supposedly invisible energy is used to explain away such visible effects as a battle aura, as if I were posing for Kirillian photography in a high voltage electrical field.
And no one asks why when I throw 55 punches a second, my hand doesn't suffer the heat of friction, or why it doesn't produce a low note to the tune of 'A.' That isn't to say I can't make notes through punching. I find I have about an octave and a half range to human ears. But when doing that, I do feel the heat.
If I'm feeling particularly nasty I've even slowed my Amaguriken down to subsonic frequency, and used it on Ryouga's gut. He can barely feel it, but it induces intense diarrhea immediately. Ah the benefits of reading books on human physiognomy.
The failure of Newtonian physics, of course, is that it assumes that Euclidian geometries apply to events in real life. It is the same failure that is noted in relativity, but then only for situations unexperienced by humans, except through proxy, or Einstein's gedankenexperiments. Mainstream physicists have long ignored a long list of books throughout history which pointed out the bizarre behavior exhibited through the conjunction of certain angles, especially when those books proceeded to describe how by means of such calculations objects and beings could be removed or brought into our world.
It should be obvious to you at this point that the little tricks of hidden weapons and the ability to always grab a mallet when needed could hardly be beyond me. As I have intimated earlier, I had established as a working theory the kinds of geometries needed when I was thirteen. The reason I never make use of these methods is the danger inherent in them. A danger Akane, Shampoo, and especially Mousse are bound to discover. I'm surprised Mousse has lasted as long as he has. I suspect there's more to his school than I've divined which works to protect the user from attracting attention, or the school would never have survived. Still, at the rate he's going he'll never reach 21.
I wonder what Mr. Tendo would say if he knew that each time his sweet Akane clobbers me, she's holding a virtual gun to her head, and playing Russian roulette? I have done what I can to ensure the safety of supposed innocents in the house from the unexpected consequences of Akane's actions.
No one realizes that one of the reasons I keep teasing Akane is to judge whether that body is really Akane in more than name. There are far worse things that can happen to her than just dying, and as the only responsible martial artist I have to watch her.
Looking back at diaries of my father, which I've stolen from our family estate before the place was wrecked by the hormonally challenged females that call me friend and fiancee, but are in reality neither, it is readily apparent that although my father has always been stupid and proudly uneducated, there was some accident that removed all common sense and long range planning. This event obviously occurred before our training journey.
I cannot say if it is because of this event, either remembered or merely felt, that my father has avoided teaching me the finer points of esoteric subjects. It might merely be an inability to comprehend the ideas that went into such techniques that made up the Umi-sen-ken. Or it might be just such a 'training accident' that caused his slide towards mediocrity. Two things are obvious. He could never develop such a technique today, and there's a very good reason to seal several of the techniques.
I have developed a technique of my own, which I have tested when hunting game, which takes advantage of the dangers inherent in this kind of manipulation. I daren't use it except at extreme long range. At least on animals it is invariably terminal, although rarely injuring the body of the victim, which I would then have to bring down using another means. Madness, or possession by minds much more bizarre than any ghost or demon are the most common result, while banishing the target or summoning it's killer are not rare occurrences. And there was one case which I believe was a topological inversion through at least five dimensional space which I believe was due to a previously existing flaw in the area in question.
.oO0Oo.
Author's Note:
This started life as a Lovecraftian horror story. I had written up to this point, when I appended a note to the end saying: Add a horror story here but I didn't have anything to really insert. I just left it on my hard drive for a few months.