William acted like he didn't hear the whispers, and Catherine's face stayed professionally neutral, but he could see that her eyes were getting a little tighter, which meant she had heard the rumors too. William turned to talk to Lia, Kaela, Ellie, and Clara, who were the only ones left in the classroom.
They had stayed behind, clearly waiting for something. "Okay, before you all start asking me questions about the assistant instructor situation, let's talk about the schedule."
"I'm going to set up private training sessions for each of you so you can work on your own problems without the whole class watching."
"Sessions just for you?" Kaela's competitive nature came out right away. "When do I get mine?"
William pulled out a schedule he had made the night before and said, "You all get them."
"But I'm also doing group sessions where you can learn by watching each other train. We will explore different approaches to problem-solving and cover various theoretical concepts."
Clara put her hand up like they were still in class. "Are these sessions only about improving individual skills, or will they also include practical use of the tactical ideas you've been teaching?"
"Both," William said. "How you deal with tactical situations is linked to your own problems."
"Clara, your sensory overload makes it hard for you to pick which targets to focus on."
"Lia, you hesitate when you need to improvise because you want everything to be perfect."
"Kaela, you are open to technical counters because you rely on overwhelming force."
"Ellie, you hold back even when you should use all your strength because you're afraid of hurting people."
He had been looking at each of them during class yesterday and the short conversations that followed, noting their weaknesses with the cold efficiency of his previous job as a combat instructor. All four girls seemed a little surprised that he had figured out what was wrong with them so quickly and accurately.
"And what about me?" Catherine asked in a low voice, and her professional mask slipped to show how vulnerable she really was. "What's wrong with me?"
William looked her straight in the eye. "Years of administrative work have made you second-guess everything and think about the political implications before you act, so you've forgotten what it's like to trust your gut."
"Your sword skills are rusty, you're not sure of yourself in battle, and you're scared of looking bad in front of students who remember when you were a respected combat instructor."
The classroom became hushed. Catherine's face went through many different emotions before settling on something between painful acceptance and grudging respect. "That's very insightful for someone who has only known me for less than twenty-four hours."
William shrugged and said, "I'm good at reading people."
"It's kinda... sort of my thing."
"So, if you want to get better instead of just staying the same, meet me at private training ground 3 at 18:00 hours."
"Catherine, get your sword. Bring whatever gear you usually use, along with an open mind and a willingness to look dumb while you learn."
"Why would we look dumb?" Ellie asked with a lot of worry.
William said, "Real training means failing over and over until you figure out what works."
"You're not really learning if you don't make mistakes. You're just reinforcing the habits you already have. And believe me, all of you need to break some undesirable habits."
Kaela smiled like this was the best news she'd heard all week. "I like this way of doing things."
"It's a lot better than the usual 'show perfect form' nonsense that other instructors push."
William said, "Perfect form is useless if you freeze up in real life."
"But we can talk about philosophy later. For now, go eat lunch or whatever you kids with money do between classes. I need to talk to my assistant teacher about some administrative things."
The four students left, but not before Kaela gave Catherine a look that was probably meant to scare her but mostly seemed aggressive curiosity. When they were alone, Catherine sat down in one of the student seats and let out a long breath.
"Teaching is already more tiring than I remembered," she said, rubbing her temples. "And we haven't even begun training for real combat yet."
William said, "Yeah, welcome to my world," as he sat on the edge of the teacher's desk.
"Each of those four will be a lot of work on their own."
"They will be a total nightmare of competitive personalities and egos that clash. And now we're adding you to the mix, which means that five different people need individual attention while also learning how to work together."
"Do you wish you hadn't hired me as an assistant?" Catherine asked again, this time with a hint of weakness in her voice.
William said honestly, "Not even a little bit."
"You're going to be very helpful with the political nonsense so I can focus on real teaching."
"And selfishly, it's much more interesting to train someone who used to be good but lost their confidence than to just polish up students who are already good."
"You have a good chance to find something you thought you'd lost forever."
William felt a little uneasy when Catherine looked at him because her expression showed too many emotions that he wasn't ready to deal with before lunch. "Thank you for not interpreting this as a joke or a demotion."
William said, "It's only a demotion if you think administration is more important than teaching."
"Which, with all due respect to administrators, I don't."
"The people who are really making the next generation of warriors are much more important than the people who are filling out forms about it."
Catherine said, "You see the world in a very direct way."
William stood up and stretched. "Yeah, I've heard that before," he said. "Most of the time, it's right before someone tries to hit me for being too honest. But that's something that William Wade will have to deal with later."
...
For the next hour, they talked about the details of the logistics. Catherine discussed the rules for conducting private training sessions, while William attempted to find ways to circumvent rules that appeared designed to make learning as difficult as possible. William had a new appreciation for how much bureaucratic nonsense Catherine had kept him from seeing without him even knowing it by the time they were done.
The rest of the day was a blur of classes, paperwork, and students sending him more and more frustrated messages about what they expected from the training session. When 18:00 hours came around, William was more than ready to do something physical instead of being buried in paperwork and political issues.
Private training ground three was one of the older places. It was in a corner of the academy where most students didn't go.
It had stone walls that had been through a lot, not many magical enhancements, and enough room for serious combat practice without worrying about breaking expensive gear. William got there fifteen minutes early to set up and saw that all five women were already there waiting for him.
"Excited, I see," William said, noticing how they had spread out across the training ground instead of staying close together. "I'm still trying to figure out how this group interacts with each other."
"I don't like wasting time," Kaela said, already in her fighting stance and ready to start throwing punches.
"I wanted to make sure I was in the best place to see everyone's techniques," Clara said as she stood by the wall with her journal open.
Ellie said, "I was worried about being late."
Lia just shrugged and put her hand on the handle of her training sword. "It seemed like the right thing to do."