Training Drill [Closed / Kitiana]

Saizomaru lounged across a thick branch of a tree to the side of the game path, his head and shoulders leaned propped up against the tree trunk with his hands behind his head. A single leg hung from over the side, idly swaying back and forth. He peered from between the leaves of the branches above towards the skyline, watching the sun in the distance. It was a good day for training.

The sound of footsteps against the dirt patted quietly, getting louder as Kitiana approached him. The android's blue eyes shifted down, getting a quick glance of the girl from the corner of his eye. He had to turn his head to get a better look at her just to confirm it was indeed his student—her complete change of attire had made him second guess, with the only recognizable feature of her being her huge head of hair and tail that swayed behind her.

Saizomaru hummed, and then flipped sideward from the branch he was laid upon, tumbling in a corkscrew fashion before landing on his feet. "Good to see you actually came," he praised, albeit in a snarky tone. "I reckoned you would have turned tail and ran away. I'm glad you are taking this seriously. I would expect no less from my student."

His eyes scanned her from head to toe, taking in her change of attire. The colours were different, but its design was something that Saizomaru was all too familiar with. He smiled, then chuckled, before he spoke, "I must have missed some sort of fashion trend, because I'm seeing these clothes pop up more and more. Same things my master wears."

He turned away from Kitiana, his hair whipping behind him like a tugged curtain, and walked away from her down the path. "My training is not for prying eyes," he called back. "There is a clearing not too far from here. We will train there."

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

Ten minutes of walking took the two of them to a large clearing, around a thirty meter radius, approximately half a mile from the village. The area was filled with knee-length grass and surrounded by a circular tree line of thick, dense trees, shrubbery and other foliage. Anyone who wanted to sneak a peek at their training would have to get close to do so—within range of Saizomaru's senses that they could be picked out as clear as crystal.

"Looks good," Saizomaru said, "though it could do with a gardener. This grass has really gotten out of hand." He hummed as he turned towards his new apprentice, arms held across his metal chest. "The way that you punched before shows credence of your martial experience, though it is not quite there yet. However, your form is not what we will be focusing on today. I want to see your power."

He hummed as he let his arms drop to his side. He gazed at her, letting a moment of pause flitter between them. He could sense it, but he did not see it. "You have great strength, more so than about ninety-nine percent of mortals on this planet. Yet the power you put in your punch yesterday was like watching a toddler hit a punching bag."

He took three steps towards her, then stopped. He held his hands out in front of him, spaced apart, palms facing Kitiana. "I'm not sure why you did or—or perhaps cannot—tap into that power, but I will find out soon enough. Strike my palms one at a time, alternating between left and right. Use whatever power is inside you and lash out. You do not need to worry about damaging me. Do you understand?"

The android stood still as he watched for his student's movements. At first she paused. Hesitated, perhaps. He understood much from just watching her stand there in pause. He had an inkling of why she did so, though he expected to understand fully once she began.

The girl took stance. Saizomaru noted her posture, her positioning. "Oh, very nice," he praised. His eyes glared at her hands, one kept up near her head while the other remained near her torso. "Leaving no openings towards your head and body. Seems you have an instinct for this. It's not ultra-refined, but it'll do."

The first punch struck, a pounding sound ringing as flesh-covered knuckled struck synthetic muscle-laced palm. The strike was, as Saizomaru expected, weak. He looked back on when Kitiana struck the trunk of the tree yesterday, noting the equally lacklustre power behind it. He expected more.

The second fist lashed out against the other hand. Then another, and another, alternating from left to right. The android could see, sense and "feel" the speed and power that was slowly accumulating with each successful attack. Once where weak attacks led to nothing, the rise in her power, her force, began to slightly push each of Saizomaru's palms backwards with each hit.

I see it now.

Saizomaru gripped the girl's right hand with his left palm as soon as it touched the fibres. The other hand did the same with her other fist. His fingers clenched and gripped tightly around her knuckles, holding them in place. With the strength that she had right now, she had no hope of pulling them away. "You hesitate," he muttered in a low voice as she stared into her eyes. "That is your problem. Your mind, your body, they hesitate, restricting both your power and effectiveness."

He swung his hands down, pushing Kitiana's arms back to her side. He paused for a moment, eyeing up her posture, her expression, her body language. "Your think too much when you fight. When you started attacking, you kept checking your technique, your movements. A second or so that is spent second-guessing yourself is a long time for someone to exploit that gap and strike back at you. Let your body act naturally. It will develop power better that way.

He hummed, then crossed his arms across his chest once more. "Speaking of power—you have much of it. You likely sensed it at the end, did you not? But you restrict yourself. Saizomaru looked at her, his expression sober and stern. "You are uncertain. It is almost as if you… fear something—yourself, maybe."

He sighed, and let his arms relax by his sides. He gave a small shrug. "I'm not sure why you are the way you are. I'm not a fortune teller nor a psychic. But whatever you have going on with you—fear, doubts, regret, whatever—those are the things that are restricting you from tapping into your full strength."

The android took a few steps backwards. "Do you now understand why I said that you must find yourself?" he asked Kitiana. "Once you have solved your doubt, your fear, your uncertainty, then you may walk the path of the warrior. This is only just getting you packed up and ready to be on your way along this road."

He spread his legs apart, his right a shoulders width from his left in front of him. His arms stretched out, one at head height and the other in front of his torso. His hands were flat and open, the edges of them facing towards the girl. "Let's see how effective you are in an actual fight, yeah?"

Saizomaru waited. And waited. But nothing. He expected her to launch the first attack, either out of determination or out of self-fulfilment, to prove to her teacher that she was ready to get strong, to get experience, to get ready to take her first steps on that warrior's path.

But nothing. She remained in her stationary position, glaring at Saizomaru as though he were a real opponent. But he could still see it in her eyes—uncertainty. He wondered why she did not deliver the opening strike to their battle. For a moment he felt a degree of understanding, that she may be awaiting the first attack from himself so that she could deliver a pre-emptive counterattack.

What good was a wall made of paper, though?

"Do not hesitate!" the android growled. A tremendous gust of wind bellowed towards Kitiana. The android was no longer where he was, almost as if he vanished. The only trace he left was a long streak of separated grass that channelled from where he was, to directly in front of Kitiana. That was where he had reappeared, like a bolt of lightning striking from the clouds to the ground below. If she had blinked, she'd have missed it.

Saizomaru was stood sideward, legs apart, with his right arm extended outwards in an uppercut position, his fist driving into the girl's gut despite the fact that her arm was in the way. What good was keeping her body protected if her arm didn't have the strength to stop his strike? What good was a wall made of paper?

If the attack struck, it would be with more than plenty of force to send her crashing into the trees behind her. If she hadn't protected herself with the power that she had demonstrated moments before, then she would end up with a broken arm and a few cracked ribs.

Letting an opponent strike first to attack so one could retaliate with a counter offensive was a smart move, that much was true. Against an opponent who majorly outclassed you? Perhaps not so much.

Saizomaru watched as the girl rocketed away from him, smashing through the trees like a freight train until she came to a sudden stop amongst them. Inwardly he wondered if he went too far. Maybe he had broken her. But part of him expected her to get up and fight back—she had the power to do so after all. He would be sorely disappointed if this was all she had to offer.

He saw movement. It was slight, but noticeable. Kitiana slowly pried herself from being embedded into the cratered tree trunk, falling to the ground in front of it. Saizomaru stood up straight, staring at her as she began to get back to her feet. "You're still alive, at least," mused Saizomaru, almost callously so. "That's good. Wouldn't want to only have a new student for a day."

He watched, until suddenly Kitiana hurled herself at him, screaming in what sounded to be a mix of rage and determination. A single hand flung outward, clenched into a tight fist, as the girl lashed out at him. Again, quickly, effortlessly, Saizomaru grasped at her hand. It was strong, that much could be determined, but it was a far cry from her maximum. And yet still…

The android raised his other arm up to drive his fist into her gut once more, aiming to launch her skyward. But it wasn't the same as before. Much of his strength was now held back, and it was much slower, deliberately so, just to gauge how good Kitiana's reactions were. He pondered if she would be able to successfully dodge or even counter his strike, and wondered exactly what a counter from her would be. He wanted to see how diverse and adaptable she was.

The girl had vanished from Saizomaru's sight. He had expected as much, what with the purposefully slow delivery of his own attack against her. Any less would had disappointed him, and most certainly cause him to second guess anointing her as his second student. Now he was expecting some sort of counter attack as a follow up to her graceful dodge.

The android looked upwards. The girl was a fair distance from him, tens of meters above him and the ground, almost reaching the halfway point of the tallest trees around them. He had tracked her without hesitation, her overflowing power on full display to him. It would be impossible for him not to notice it.

But it was that power that gave Saizomaru pause. He could feel her dark energy wreathing and writhing about her body, seeing it almost as plain as day. He had felt something ominously similar before, once, when he was in Badman City. The person who had this familiar energy was not exactly a friend of his. The flowing streams of blackened violet that began to form around her wrist, then about her person, gave confirmation.

He began to understand truly what Kitiana was.

Without skipping a beat Saizomaru held his arms in front of his body, hunkering down, as the swirl of this dark purple, malevolence-tinged ki enveloped him into a vortex of destruction. The ground beneath him began to crack and crumble and displace itself outwards as Kitiana's attack drilled into the earth. Chunks of earth and clay crumbled to dust. The grass and flowers bellowed against the tremendous force that the girl's attack exerted before disintegrating into nothing but green and purple-singed ash.

The attack stopped, expended as it outlasted its duration. Saizomaru lowered his arms, ready to proceed the combat. But what he didn't account for was a secondary strike from his wayward student. She was already right in his face by the time he even saw her through the clouds of dust. Her fist connected with his head, smashing him down into the ground. The once circle-burnt earth under the android's feet had quickly opened up into a concaved crater as his body smashed into the earth.

Saizomaru laid there for a moment. Then another. Then another. His body did not move as he stared up at nothing but the knuckles of the girl's hand that were planted right onto the bridge of his nose and between his eyes.

Nothing but the falling of dirt and debris that played ambience for the scene could be heard.

"Not bad. I give it a seven-point-eight out of ten. Too much flashiness."

A metal hand grasped hold of Kitiana's wrist before pushing it off of his face. His hands then planted onto the rocky terrain below him, pushing the rest of his body up until he was sat up. He casually stood himself to his feet, then swept his hands over parts of his body, brushing the dirt and dust that clung to his metal casing. "Good deal of power there. You got any more of that?"

He could see it. He could see the anger in her eyes, though it was as though it was not her own. It was like she was being controlled by something ephemeral to the two of them. Whatever she was experiencing right now was not as simplistic as a teenager throwing a temper tantrum, letting their emotions control their actions. It was something much more. Much darker.

Saizomaru did nothing once Kitiana had lashed out with whatever power she had left in her. Her fist slammed into the titanium plates of his abdomen. A couple of them had slightly dented inwards from the strength of her attack. It was not as strong as her first, but it was a clear mile ahead of what she was displaying before. He had confirmed for himself that her power was genuine.

But that power was also detrimental to her. It was a double-edged sword that was afflicting her. He could sense the fluctuation of ki in her body, flickering and wavering like a candle flame in the wind. The look of pain in her face told the story of how this dark ki was afflicting her internally, causing damage to her. It was not something that Saizomaru had seen before or had read any mention of it in his books and scrolls. Whatever this was was far beyond his understanding.

The least he could do was knock her out of it.

"I think that's enough for today," he said. He held out his hand to his side, palm up. Swirling strands of incorporeal, transparent ki began to form, to coalesce, into a spherical shape in his hand no bigger than a tennis ball. He reached out and placed the orb right against her stomach, letting it press against her clothing, her body, as close as it could.

"Force palm."

Suddenly the orb exploded outwards into a thin, linear direction. While the blast had pierced through her, entering through her abdomen and exiting through the small of her back, it left no damage. No torn cloth. No scarred skin. No rent muscle. It was as though she was hit with a dense, concussive force of air.

The power behind his attack was more than enough to render her motionless, the strength of it enough to give her body system shock and leave her in an unconscious state for a few hours. If he was able to land the technique successfully, he would catch her body before it could crumple to the ground, then sling her over his shoulder.