The Way of Sword [Solo/Training]

The swordsman woke up very early in the morning, it was still dark outside and no one was on the street. The cold breeze blew directly at Tenma and he quickly felt the cold spreading to his entire topless body, but he used to it as he often woke up early to train when he was at Kou. The black haired girl quickly maneuvered himself into a fighting stance, his right hand holding the sheath of the sword and his left hand preparing to pull it.  For some swordsman, maybe the sword pulling requires no technique and training, but it was wrong as it would determine how fast you could attack after you pulled your sword from the sheath.

Tenma concentrate, he needed to prepare himself, then he close his golden orb and quickly pulled the sword out. Right after he pulled the Katana, he quickly moved his Katana from upper left to lower right, sending a diagonal slash at the air. He continued to move it from upper right to diagonally lower left, then continue to practice both move until he reached 100 swings. Tenma intended to learn Kesagiri today; it was a cut that sent diagonally from upper left to lower right and vice versa. After practicing the move and made his body remembered the techniques, he moved closer to a straw doll that he prepared earlier before training and then preparing himself to use the new technique. One slash should be able to split the straw doll and Tenma was aiming at that single slash, it was made from bamboo and straws that were tied onto it so using a wrong technique would not let him cut the bamboo.  Tenma quickly set the stance and focused on the straw doll, then he used Kesagiri move to his target. When the straw doll was successfully split into two, Tenma let out a small chuckle, slightly happy that he now able to use another technique.

Word Count : 326/250

Ability Trained:

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Tenma was grateful that the moon still up on the sky as he had plenty time to train until morning, he planned to trained Kesagiri again. This time he would send out two cuts with a much faster speed from the previous one, it was not that Tenma would just upgrade and forget the previous move he learn just because this one will be much stronger, he planned to have both of the moves with him so that way he could choose what attack that he should delivered to any enemies. Wrong choose of attack move would only guide him into a pointless situation, so he preferred to control his strength and had a vast choice of techniques to be used.

The swordsman started by swinging his blade in a quicker pace, he swung his katana from upper left to the lower right and continue again from upper right to the lower left. After he reached 200 swings, he immediately approached another straw doll and prepared himself again before sending 2 cuts to the straw doll. Unfortunately, he didn’t succeed as even though the first cut managed to split the bamboo, the second cut didn’t. He began to wonder what was wrong, maybe it was his stance that was wrong, or maybe the way he gripped the Katana? Either way, he should try again until he can use the technique properly. Tenma started to grip his Katana tightly and made his hand became red, but immediately loosening his grip as he remembered that one should never gave that much pressure to both the hands and Katana as it would only lead to defeat. The swordsman slowly inhaled air then slowly exhaled it again, he prepared himself again, this time he planned to quicken the speed from the first cut into the second cut. Hoping that his plan will work, Tenma sent 2 blows to the straw dolls and he was amazed by the result. Yes he successfully did cut the straw dolls, but he was amazed by how he managed to quicken his pace and planning to try again, proofing that his success was not a mere luck.

Tenma satisfied as he managed to continuously send successful blows to 3 straw dolls, he proofed that he had learnt Kesagiri II. Tenma started to thought about the origin of the technique itself, as he remembered a story from his mentor about this wretched move. He also remember reading a book that mentioned that in fact, Kesagiri was used to send a fatal blow to the target. The user would sent a diagonal slash from upper left to lower right or upper right to lower left towards the target, it would rip of the skin of one torso and made the target lost much bloods due to the slash. He felt unfortunate as he didn't have a chance to use his technique to a real target, but then again, it would felt pointless if he just randomly attacked people out of the blue. Tenma chuckled at his dark thought, wondering if he would ever use it to a real target, at least he hoped so.

The black haired man thought maybe he should stop for today’s training but when he saw the sky, darkness was still there. Maybe I should train another move…

Word Count : 551/500

Ability Trained:

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As the moon gradually moved down, Tenma tried to remember another move that he could learn while closing his eye. He remembered all the stances and also the history about swordsmanship, but trying to find one move to learn was a bit though. Tenma opened his eye as he finally remembered something, a move that had a more gruesome history than the Kesagiri move. “Tameshigiri…” he murmured while remembering the history behind it and shuddered by his own thought to learn such a gruesome move.

Tameshigiri was considered as a move to have fun with the swords by cutting stuff up or just called as backyard cutting, but the truth was not that fun. The original target of Tameshigiri was not stuff, but it was a human body. To be specific, the executed criminals will be punished by using this move; their bodies will be cut into pieces like some kind of meat slices.

Tenma exhaled and decided to learn the Tameshigiri II, he searched for a target that he could use to practice this move and he found a ‘Goza’, single rolled tatami mat over a bamboo core that extremely close in consistency to human arm or neck. The swordsman knew how to create Goza from his mentor at Kou and he mentally thanked his master for teaching him how to make many kinds of target so he could practice any move that he wanted.  Tenma set the tatami roll vertically and gave a first try by slicing it, but he was not pleased by the result. It was successfully cut, but the cut was not neat and fine. He set another tatami roll and then tried to imagine the shape of the cut, maybe if he saw the ‘Goza’ as a human that he should kill would make him succeeded. He should prepare his spirit, determination and resolve too if he wanted to succeed.

The swordsman started to imagine the face of his family killer and sister’s abductor, filling himself with a rage but didn’t let himself got carried away by it, he transferred it to his sword, slowly increasing his need to kill. Tenma embraced the origin of Tameshigiri function to punish the criminals, yes, that was his resolution to learn this move. The black haired man lifted his sword and sent two quick slashes at the tatami roll, making it split into three pieces. He plastered a small smile as he saw the fine cut that he did and took all the bamboo pieces, cleaning the place and decided to call it a day for his training.

The sky began to lighten up and sun began to rise when Tenma finished the cleaning, he quickly got inside the house and wondering if he should sleep although he was not sleepy at all. The swordsman entered a room that has a hanging board with ‘Big Brother’ written there; he decided to look at the scrolls beside his bed to find some moves that he could learn. Lately besides of learning some swords skill, he was interested in martial arts too so maybe it was time to learn a move.

Word Count : 521/500

Ability Trained:

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Tenma took the scrolls and started to spread it, he got most of the scrolls from Kou though and surely it will teach him eastern style martial arts. He always imagined one or two moves that would give a powerful blow to the target, like the one that use palm to do the move. Tenma could already imagine how he would use the technique; it would help him to blow an attack while his Katana was not in the usable state like if he had to redirect someone’s attack with it. When the target was distracted, Tenma could send a blow to the target and deal some damage.

He saw several moves from the scroll that can be performed by hands or legs, but one of the techniques matched his imagination perfectly. The Shotei Uchi caught his attention, it literally used palm to send a blow to the target by pulling back one hand then engage the base of the palm itself to deal a powerful blow. Tenma decided to give it an innovation, instead of dealing one blow, he could just deal two.

Just when he intended to start his other training, he could feel his stomach asking him for food, Whoops… need to eat breakfast first…

The swordsman sighed and headed to the kitchen, there were not much food that can be eaten as he could see the kitchen was empty. He remembered a piece of bread that he bought yesterday, when he approached the table and took the bread, he was sad. “Hard as rock….” Tenma quickly found the way to ease his stomach by cutting the bread into 2 slices with kitchen knife, then toast it on the pan before put it aside and cracking the egg to made sunny side up. The sizzling sound from the pan and the smell made his stomach’s growl become more louder, he wished to finish cooking soon and eat it right away. Just when the egg was ready, he remembered that he had stored slices of bacon and quickly took it. After that he put the bacon on the pan, moving the pan for a while so the bacon will be ready perfectly and quickly put it on the toast, the egg was being put on the very top. The swordsman looked at the dish he made and slightly proud that he was capable to cook a little, he put it on the counter and sat before finally grabbing a knife and fork just to slice the egg alongside with the bacon and toast. The egg became a delicious sauce for the toast and it tasted good too, he was very happy to start training with a happy stomach.

The black haired man exit from the back door and he approached nearby tree, willing to practice his move there. The basic thing that he knew before using the move was to concentrate and focused his energy into his palm, if he didn’t do that, maybe his arm will be broken after doing so. This would be easy since it had similar method with swords technique; he started to clench his fist and slowly breathe in then breathes out. Tenma loosened his grip and focused his attention to the tree, he should able to left a hint of crack on the tree if he succeeded. The swordsman pulled his right hand back and quickly engaged the base of his palm in a horizontal line to the tree. He successfully left a hint of crack there but maybe if he could add some more power to the palm and blow two strikes at once, it would break the tree.

Tenma once again concentrate and focused on the tree, he transferred his power to his hand and will release it to his palm when he ready to send a blow. He pulled his hand back again while storing the power to his hand then quickly transferred the power to his palm while engaging the base of his palm to the tree, sending it a blow and used another hand to send another blow to the tree. Much to his surprise, the tree was fully cracked and will be tore down if inflicted by another blow but he didn’t do it and head back to the house.

Word Count : 714/500

Ability Trained:

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A satisfied moan escaped the black haired man as he maneuvered his body inside the bathtub and feeling the warmth of the water on his skin after soaking in. Tenma liked how the warm body eased his tiredness; he would be ready to do another set of training after taking a bath, feeling refreshed and new. He shook his head after realizing that he thought about training a lot and sighed as he became a training freak, he should do another thing today, maybe start to look for information or maybe buying supplies. I really want to train Parry though… He thought about it and quickly shook it off again, decided to go out and buying some supplies at the market.

Tenma got out from the bath tub and wore an outfit; today he won’t be wearing the armor since he just wanted to go out for a while and quickly go home. He started to think that he began to be an anti-social too. Well, he should be a very social one when he left the house to another country, right now he just wanted to be alone and train himself hard. Tenma chuckled when he hoped someone would attack him today and he could practice parry there as he already knew the theory, he was surely a strange one and he realized that too.

It was a very good day as the sun brightens the day and the wind breeze made everyone could stay against the heat, Tenma walked to the market and willing to buy some supplies, hopefully he could store some ingredients in the right place so he could make something more proper for him to eat. He brought along his Katana just in case someone really attack him, maybe he could practice all the techniques he learnt today. Tenma hummed while passing through the weapon store and entered after remembering that he had to buy some tools to clean his Katana, he always took a great care to his Katana like setting a schedule to clean it and taking care of it.

The black haired man surely bought a lot of supplies; he bought the supplies to clean his Katana, some ingredients like vegetable, fruit, bread and many other thing. Tenma hummed again after opening the wrap of candied apple and started to eat it while bringing a lot of shopping bags; he went ahead to his house. It might be his lucky day since his wish that he thought out of the blue turned out to be granted, he was confused at first and looking at the bunch of robber in disbelief. If only my true wish can be granted easily like this… He let out a small sad smile and quickly changed his expression to a cheerful one.

“Hand all your belongings!” One of the robber said to Tenma while pointing his long sword to him, but it didn’t make Tenma scared, in fact he was quite excited by the whole thing. “Hmm… I don’t want to…” Tenma said teasingly while smiling to the robber, it made the robber mad and started to attack him. He dodged the attack and carefully put all of his shopping bags under the tree so it won’t be broken in the fight, he smiled again at the robber and waiting for the robber to attack him again.

“Don’t take us lightly!” said the robber while attacking Tenma. The swordsman used the chance to actually use Parry, he redirected the long sword to the other side with his Katana and doing it over and over again until he satisfied. “Finally I managed to learn Parry, I should thank all of you.” He laughed at the robber again, this time making the robber really pissed off and all of them started to attack Tenma at the same time. Tenma felt that he should prevent himself for killing the robber as it would lead him into a troublesome situation, so he used the back of his Katana to hit the robber. As crazy and blood thirsty as he was, Tenma still had a common sense about randomly killing people even though he wanted to do it once. He took all the shopping bags, continued his humming and headed home while feeling really satisfied as a bright big smile plastered on his face.

Word Count : 725/500

Ability Trained:

[EXIT]