First Blood (Training)

[Ketsueki Oujou]

0/10

Finally... He had graduated from the Academy. Ketsueki walked with a spring in his step, his normally somber face twisted in the semblence of a grin. The day had come when he could begin to TRULY learn the way of the sword, when he could finally learn to properly draw out the blood he loved so much. He still had the vial from his parents; he had kept it as a good luck charm. He bounced it in his palms as he strolled down to the dojo; Kiho-sensei had promised him that today she would start to teach him. He strolled along, looking neither left nor right, as his mind focused inwards on what he would learn.

Kesagiri (Diagonal Cut)
Rank: D Rank
Effect: A weak (D Rank) strike to an approaching attacker
Special: None
Drawbacks: None
Description: Commencing from a standing position, the practitioner draws and strikes an approaching attacker then quickly sheathes
Restriction: Must have a Senpai/Sensei of a Kenjutsu Dojo to learn; must have Quick Strike Training (D)

The dojo was not a pretty building, and ugly squat thing in shades of brown, with a slated, steepled roof of the same color. The only relief was the few windows spaced at intervals around the dojo. Ketsueki approached the heavy, wooden door, still in that same, ugly, brown, and strolled inside. Inside was slightly better: at least there was no more brown. Instead, tan paneling covered the walls all around, and and theres was a desk in the corner closest to the door, with another Ninja working dilligently at a stack of paperwork.
Most of the floor was covered in pads of all colors: green, black, red,
that damn brown again, even pink. on the far wall, mirrors were hung over the paneling, to be used in self correction, while on either side there were doors, leading to the male change room on the left,
and the girl's on the right.

Turning around, Kiho looked up at him; she arched an eyebrow at his face, and he quickly smoothed it to stillness. "Ahh... here comes our newest student." She threw a bundle of clothes to him: His Gi, stark black but with a pure white sash. "Quickly change into it, and get back out here." As Ketsueki walked into the changerooms, he could not stop his face from twisting back into that strange grin.

The clothes were slightly uncomfortable; he was unused to the long sleeves, and the pants were slightly tighter then he liked. "It doesn't matter," he mumbled aloud. "I'm here to learn to wield a blade, not natter on about clothes." As he left the changeroom, he remembered to still his face into a lack of expression again. Bowing his way onto the mat, he approached Kiho.

As he nearly reached her, she spun suddenly, striking out with a bokuten. A fingers width from his cheek, the wooden sword stopped: Ketsueki never even flinched. "You've tried that before on me, sensei; it won't work today either," he said in a bored-sounding voice. She grinned and said "Maybe one day i wont stop. Ever think of that?" He remained silent, and she tossed a second bokuten to him, still grinning. "For your first lesson, you will learn the Kesagiri, the diagonal cut.," she continued. "Do as I do."

She held her bokuten as if it were sheathed, down at her left hip. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Ketsueki backed up a few feet and followed suit; only one time had he stayed too close and learned how strong she really was. Suddenly her eyes flashed open, and her sword swept up first, then down, from shoulder to hip. She let loose a loud "KIYAI!" as she did so. Her sword went back to the sheathed position

"Now you try," She told him. He attempted one, and wasn't even half way through when her sword struck his shoulder, hard. "No!" She exclaimed. "Move your feet properly; your stepping out too wide and not stepping out front far enough." He included her critique in his next attempt, and was rewarded with a grunt. "Better," she said. "But not good enough. Practice it another fifty times, then get back to me. " "It's going to be a long day," Ketsueki thought, his shoulder aching painfully.

Diligently he practiced it, performing it 150 times, till he believed it was perfect. He approached Kiso again. "Sensei, I believe I have preformed it the requisite amount of times." Thats an understatment, he thought to himself. She simple said "Show me." He did so, but once again halfway through she smacked him with her bokutan, this time on the shin. "Your footwork is perfect. Your sheathing technique, however, needs improvment. Your jerking it around too much. It should be a smooth transition, like gliding on ice. Perform it 50 more times. " Finally, Ketsueki's good humour started to leave him.

[Elgar]

+10

Learned

[Ketsueki Oujou]

0/10
After mastering the Kesagiri and proving it's worth to Kiho-sensei, she told him to go and see what he could learn on his own. Ketsuegi was irritated by that, but let it pass, simple saying "Osse, Sensai," and walking away. Now a little ways down the street, Ketsuegi shook his head angrily. "If I knew how to magically know sword maneuvers, I'd have done it already." His thoughts were fuming. He looked up, and saw that he was in some sort of residential district, with children playing around and a group of movers walking away. "Hmph," he thought, and started to turn around, when something caught his eye.

A large crate was sitting in front of a house, the house that the moving people had walked away from. "Must of forgotten it, " he thought to himself. "Looks pretty heavy. Might be hard to move. " And then a thought occured to him. What if he could manage to put enough force into a sword swing to push that box? Doing so in combat would be enough to put an enemy of balance, and give him an opening to attack.

Name: Katana Senpuu (Sword Hurricane)
Rank: D
Skill: Taijutsu/Ninjutsu
Effect: Description
Special: Tiger seal
Drawback: Leaves the back open
Description: The user swipes their sword downward to the ground creating a gust of wind to push the enemy away
Limit: A sword is needed. Need wind release.

So he pulled his sword out and, feeling slightly foolish, he spun, his sword coming around in a huge arc, from his heels, all the way up above his head, and back down in front of him. The wind did shift slightly, but no way strong enough to move that box. "Damnit," he thought to himself, his bad mood returning. "I'll try to use the wind to do it.

After that thought, he sheathed his sword, and put his hands together. He gathered up his chakra into his mouth, and blew as hard as he could using his wind release. Unfortunately, this wind expanded far too much; by the time it hit the box, it was all over the place and didn't do a whole lot to move it at all. It only shifted a bit.
Now feeling like a complete idiot for even trying, Ketsueki whipped around and began to stalk off angrily, but something held him back. A thought tickled at his brain. "Why not combine them," he heard a little voice say. "Wouldn't hurt to try, right?"

Deciding to give it one more try, he pulled his sword out and held it in his hands, gathering his chakra. When he had pushed as much in as he thought he could, he spun around, the sword flashing down in an arc not as big as his first. He heard a slight whirring, then suddenly the wind smashed the front of the box, and it flew backwards, crashing through a window and exploding against the inside wall. A moment, then angry cries came, with accompanying heads being poked out of the window. Ketsueki turned and sprinted away, but he had another grin hiding behind his eyes.

[Axcel]

+4

[Ketsueki Oujou]

4/10
After managing to escape from his pursuers, Ketsueki kept jogging around for a little while, thinking. Although he had managed to send the box flying, he still wasnt sure if he could do it on demand. Standing still for five minutes charging the move during a fight, was not a good idea. So he jogged his way home and got an old training dummy; an effigy of a teacher he definetly hadn't liked; then he went into a little clear space behind his house and set it up.

The space was surrounded by other houses, the same on every side. Most windows were shuttered, to help keep out the heat at the height of day, although a few were open. Above him a large amount of laundry lines hung, making a very strange spiders web. There was no fence or anything between the houses and the space, just a few steps leading up to each door. The ground was relatively smooth and made of a tan sort of some rock or another; Ketsueki didnt know, and had never cared enough to inquire.

He practiced the attack a few more times with the long charge up time, making sure that yes, he did know how to do it properly. Afterwards, he tried a few speedier ways to speed it up. First he just dumped a load of chakra into the sword like there was no tommorow; he quickly ran out of chakra using this method and the chakra burned itself out anyway. It just burst out of the sword and created a miniature whirlwind. The damn thing pelted him with stones, so by the end all he had gotten was a fresh batch of cuts and bruises on his exposed skin.


Next he tried trying to charge up the sword gradually; he did a few warm-ups, some shadow dueling, while gradually sending chakra to his sword. This didn't work either; the sword absorrbed it easily enough, but it wouldn't store it, and it just kept fizzling out. He tried to release it, even though he thought it didnt have nearly enough power to push anything , and he was right. His target didnt even stir at all.

Sweaty and tired by this point, Ketsueki lay down on the ground and looked up at the sky past the laundry lines, while he thought about what to do."What if I... no,no,no, that wont work..." "If I were to... nah that wont work either... " He came up with many idea, but none of them seemed like they would work; they just kept going back to the basic problems of too much energy or too little. He pored over the problem, until finally, he just decided to do it the hard way.

He practiced the slow method again, but this time memorised the exact amount of chakra needed to perform the attack. After performing it, he sheathed his blade and stood for a second, the sweat dripping from his eyebrows. Suddenly he pulled the sword out, whipped it up and, at the top of the arc, placed the exact amount of chakra he had memorised into the sword, then swung it back down. Releasing the chakra as it came down, he prayed a little bit, because he had run out of other ideas. Happily, it worked; the practice target was blown away, and it had taken him only a little time to place the proper amount of chakra into the sword. "Excellent," He said aloud. "That will work nicely."

[Axcel]

Learned

[Ketsueki Oujou]

[exit]