The school's final bell of the day rang, and students, without wasting a single breath, swarmed out of the school building.
With quick steps, Neal walked ahead of the students and quickly left the school through the front gates.
But, at that moment, he saw a familiar figure leaning against the wall, looking like he had waited for a while.
Kiernan asked and turned to look at Neal.
Neal replied with enthusiasm, and with great excitement, he told him how it went down, and he himself couldn't even believe that he managed to do it.
Walking beside him, Kiernan listened closely while occasionally nodding his head.
"You should've seen his face! It was priceless."
Neal said with a grin.
"Now all you need is to learn how to fight."
Kiernan said with a chuckle.
"Yeah… And how am I supposed to do that? I am going to fight him in five days."
He was well aware that people wouldn't be able to learn martial arts in merely five days. He would be very lucky to even learn any of the basics.
With the orange sky stretching across the landscape of Sirkus City, the branches of the enormous Redwood tree swayed recklessly in the heavy wind and kept dropping the red leaves down to the ground.
After a quite long walk, Kiernan and Neal arrived at the street corner of Incense and Power Street, which had some street performers entertaining a small crowd.
However, they didn't come here for the street performers but instead arrived in front of a dilapidated boxing gym that had its windows boarded.
Neal's brows furrowed.
"When I was touring the city, I found this place. It is not being used by anyone anymore, but I found some equipment inside, so this will have to do."
"No one has to know. If we go through the front door, we'll be noticed, but I found another entrance at the back. Follow me."
Kiernan looked around, making sure that no one was looking, and then hopped over the fence, landing gracefully on the other side.
Neal took his backpack from his back, tossed it over the fence, and then climbed it himself, landing on the other side next to Kiernan.
Since the front entrance was chained up, they used the side alleyway to go to the back, and its door was already broken off its hinges.
"Yeah. When I came to check this place, I had to forcefully enter through the back."
Kiernan said, stepped through the broken door, and after a short walk through the dark hallway, they arrived at the room they were going to train in.
It was dusty with the mats smelling like mold and mildew, but there was a small boxing ring in the center of it all with some punching bags dangling from the ceiling.
"It's pretty crude, but I think it has some charm to it…"
Neal said while looking around the walls that had dusty framed photographs scattered around.
"What happened to this place? Those glass cases by the door have trophies, and I doubt the owner would just leave all this behind…"
Neal said as he saw some trophies, won by the former boxing gym's best fighters, collecting dust.
"I have no idea, but this place hasn't been used for a long while. Maybe the owner died or something, and there was no one left to succeed him."
Kiernan said, then walked to the punching bags, giving one a light tap and watching the dust cloud rise.
Neal walked over to him.
"Go get the cleaning supplies. This place could use a good scrubbing."
"Is that really necessary? We're only planning to use this place for a couple of days."
Sharply, Kiernan turned to him and said with a serious tone.
"We're not going to train amidst dust and cobwebs. It's disgusting. Excessive amounts of dust can harm you."
Hearing Kiernan's serious words, Neal understood the severity of the situation and quickly headed to get the cleaning supplies.
For the next hours till the sky turned dark, they spent it all cleaning the dilapidated boxing gym, making sure to clean every nook and cranny.
Kiernan noticed a wooden pillar, which was holding up the ceiling, and saw its cracks were getting larger.
It wouldn't be able to hold up the ceiling much longer.
Luckily, a few buildings away, there was a steelworks shop, and after purchasing a few items, he reinforced the pillar with steel beams to prevent it from collapsing.
Neal put the floor-scrubbing brush away and stretched his back that was now aching from the strain of hours of cleaning.
"It looks like we're done."
Kiernan tossed the hammer back to the toolbox and looked around the boxing gym with all its dust and cobwebs eliminated.
It still looked quite crude, but it was much better than only hours ago.
"It's getting quite late, so I am heading out. Are we meeting here tomorrow for the first day of training?"
"What do you mean you are heading out? We can't waste a single day, so we're starting the training now."
"But it is late. My father will start worrying about where I am."
Neal said with concern.
"Just send a text message to your father that you're going to sleep over at your friend's place tonight."
"I… don't think my father will buy it. I haven't ever been on any sleepover before, and I don't even have any friends. If he asks which friend, what am I going to say?"
"Just say it's me. I doubt he knows every kid in your school."
Neal pulled out his phone and sent a text to his friend, but it didn't take a while for his father to respond.
"Yep… he asked which friend. W-what is your name?"
With a nod, Neal texted back his friend's name and waited for a response. After a while, his father responded with a simple "Alright."
"Whew… Looks like it worked."
Neal sighed with relief and engraved Kiernan's name inside his mind.