Learning to knife things good [solo/training]

Oliver sat in the backroom of Takane's shop, listening to a lecture, sitting next to a rather rotund ninja whose shirt showed off his belly partly.  It was rather surreal, especially whenever Takane asked a question, she would throw a knife at who she wanted to answer the question.  Oliver had leapt into the marshmallow body of the portly shadow-man a couple of times to avoid a knife sent for him.  And he had to leap away from the ninja to avoid being body slammed when a knife was thrown at him.

Takane had left the room with instructions about the two of them sparring, the ninja's name being one Hiryumaru, and he was practicing the art of sai fighting.  Oliver would be practicing the hobby that Takane had always shown them, throwing knives like a madman.  He had a few ideas of what he wanted to try in mind, but his first one, Luna, was one that needed a live testing buddy to try and lodge a knife in to.

The two of them were placed on either side of the room, Oliver dressed up in his normal attire, Hiryumaru dressed up like any ninja would be, those sai held up threateningly. Oliver rolled his shoulders and from the sleeves of his jackets, fell out two knives, which he gripped against his palms, ready to throw them.  The two had an intense stare down.  He thought about what he wanted to do with his technique.

Hiryumaru was learning the basics of sai, so when he came rushing forward, and attmepted to spin those sai around and thrust the blunt ended hilts into Oliver's chest, Oliver responded by swinging both of his arms upwards, across his chest, briefly covering his vision as the knives were intended to deter the ninja.  He didn't think about the fact that Hiryumaru was a well practiced ninja, one that wasn't easily assuaged by fear.  So Oliver got punches in the gut and ribs by the blunt ends of those sai a couple of times before his training buddy leapt back to his original position, like this was some sort of game.

Okay the first attempt didn't go well, so attempt number two, as was his usual method when dealing with these easier spells, Oliver thought to try throwing one instead of two.  When Hiryumaru made sure that Oliver was okay and ready to go, Oliver gave a nod, slipping out another two knives.  Hiryumaru rushed forth, again attempting another series of gut and rib punches.  But before the rotund ninja could get close enough, Oliver swung his right arm up from his hip and over across his left shoulder, launching one of his knives in the process, targeting Hiryumaru's hand rather than the body. It was enough of a gesture to make the ninja grind to a halt, taking note of where the knife would land and go for a parry of the knife, [b]only for a second knife to be thrown by Oliver, which made Hiryumaru make a tactical retreat away fromt he scene of the fight!  At least Oliver got some experience out of it.

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It felt like it had been a while since he had been to Takane's place. And she had sent him a message, via one of her normal means of having someone throw a knife through his open window and planting a message on a bedpost. If he wanted to continue his training and not become a sorry sadsack of a knife style pincushion, he would have to return to her and get back to his damn training. She always had such a wonderful way with words. And it said that he would have to arrive at dawn of all times? What a bothersome event to have to go through just to please an old lady and show that he wasn't shirking in his task of becoming a good assassin. Though the word assassin always hit him wrong, he preferred the word Trickster.

Nevertheless, Oliver would turn in early that night, waking up the next morning, way before the sun even rose, and made his way into a new outfit for this special event. He threw on a top with a monochromatic color pattern of dark grey and white with the colors split between his stomach just under his ribs, three big white dots in the black section of his t-shirt. Over that he threw on a beige coat, long sleeves on the light tan garment. Over his legs were dark brown cloth pants, enough bagginess to feel comfortable but not be a hindrance on his movement. Of course he slipped on brown shoes as well, making sure that they were tied on properly, tucking the lace away behind the tongues of the shoes.

The next thing he did was slip on the hidden holsters that would rest on his forearms and within little sleeves carved into the backs of his shoes. In these holsters and sleeves he put a stockpile of knives that he dubbed The Satellites, special blades without a handle for easy throwing out of hidden spots to surprise people. Once he was all dressed and ready, he made sure to put Big Dipper away for safe keeping and was off onto the streets, the amber colored eyes of Oliver looking at the sky turning from a deep dark bluish-purple, to a lavender and slowly to a radiant orange as the sun rose. He hurried his way between the dark alleys of the town he was currently residing in. When he found the seedy back area where the shop was. It was hard to figure out why Takane, the same woman, managed to be in every town that he traveled to, but she was a mysterious woman in her own right. Getting his usual greeting a knife into the door frame, he saw himself to the back and found wooden dummies without arms or legs set up for him on their stands waiting for him.

Oliver set himself up in the room and took a deep breath before rolling his shoulders as he centered himself and looked around at the dummies, he had a perfect idea of what he was going to try. He was going to be trying out Phobos, a move he dubbed on his own and thought of a perfect motion for it. It was a simple concept, a wide spread knife attack that would strike multiple targets all at once, or relatively at the same time.

He made sure that they were spaced out unevenly, and looked at them while sliding his arms across his chest in an X-shape before he swung his arms out in one giant sweep, and managed to throw the knives, but only once he reached the very end of his swing, and only one came out of each sleeve. He could just do this with the knives in his hands, but it had to be a move that was done with quickness so that people wouldn't expect it.

Figuring the first failure was a fluke, Oliver sought to try it again, but prepared himself by getting his arms moving so that the knives would start to slide down his sleeve already. This too would prove ineffective. As it turned out, having all that extra weight in your clothing, waiting to come out wasn't the best thing to have. When he swung his arms in a wide arc, this time crossing them back over his chest, he only threw them out in uncoordinated clumps of metal that clanged together and came tumbling down to the floor below. He furrowed his brow and quickly swung his arms out, managing to throw single knives again.

This fashion would continue and he would take the time to recollect all of the knives while he contemplated what he was doing. The added challenge of figuring it out before the day was done was there too. Oliver sat down, crossed his legs and folded his right hand over his mouth, the side of his index finger pressed to his lips as he looked at the floor with his head askew in deep thought.

There were many possible ways to try it, but one he didn't consider was something that could be so simple? He would at least have to try it! After an hour and a half's worth of thinking, Oliver got up from his spot and tried by crossing his arms over his chest, and took a deep breath, hoping that this would work. When his eyes open and his gaze focused, he swung his arms outward, managing to slide the knives out one after another while turning his arms along the way. And out they came in one fell motion, knives that all thunked into the dummy heads and bodies of those things before they wobbled and prepared to fall over.

But he wasn't done. He wanted to try and be fancy with it! Oliver walked to the end of the room before he turned around and started into a jog toward the dummies. He stepped onto and vualted off of one spare one that was on the floor, before he swung his right arm, throwing an angular volley of knives. This spun his body about in the air before he threw another set with his left arm, and then after the next spin sought to swing a powerful one two kick combo and send more knives out. But in the end, the knives were scattered about haphazardly. At least he had an idea for a new technique to try later on another day. He felt successful in that he had the hang of how to use a simple move like this. Or was it advanced and he just felt it was simple because of how much more he was getting skilled? Whatever it was, he left and waved goodbye to Takane to return back to his room at the inn.

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How long had it been? A day? A season? No, it felt a lot more like a month to Oliver, yeah about a month in feeling compared to when he had last seen Takane.  He wasn't exactly avoiding the shriveled old crone, but he wasn't too keen on continuing down the path of becoming a contract killer.  He had the ultimatum of continuing to follow her tutelage, disappearing (and not in the just moving away and never sending a letter kind of disappearing either), or trying to fight for his freedom on the matter.

Oliver wasn't skilled enough to take on that woman and her order of fellow assassins, and breathing was such a favored hobby of his.  He just had to follow the two burly gentlemen that came to escort him through the town, into that tight alleyway where the underbelly of the village was and the den of thieves resided.  It was there he was taken to Takane's home/shop/dojo all in one, and greeted with a thrown knife across the cheek.  He didn't have anything smart to say to the woman today, and remained silent with a nervous smile on his face.

He walked off into the tatami mat room.  In there there were training dummies, standing on little poles, nothing but heads and torsos.  Seven of them stood in a line all tightly packed together, and one had a large purple X painted on its front and back, along with them on the thing's head.  That was the one he was tasked with hitting only with his knives, The Satellites, today.  It seemed easy enough to do, and with his new skill in mind, it would be too simple.  And of course it was.  The sound of gears whirring and wood moving around started to pivot the six outlying dummies around the central marked one.

Okay that was an easy thing to do, just time it right and move with the dummies right? No, Takane had thought of that.  He had to remain in his one particular spot, or a certain distance away.  Those dummies stopped and moved int he other direction now and then, seemingly at random.  Oliver rubbed the back of his neck and considered what he was gonna do about this.  Best to figure out how to get all of his knives out in a flurry targeting one area to begin with.  He walked away from the dummies, letting them have their dance to begin with and found the targets used by those with bows or bigger thrown weapons. Yeah, that'll work enough.

He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath, time to work on Deimos.  It had to be done just like Phobos, get them all ready in the sleeves and throw them at once right?"  He tried to collect them all and throw them at once, but the knives spread out too far, landing all over the target.  Well that was one down.  Moving to the next target he thought of how to do it better.  Putting a hand over his mouth in contemplation, Oliver thrust his right arm outwards, getting a number of knives into the hand before he threw them all at once.  They certainly hit their target, but there was no way he would be able to get it to work the way he wanted without having his intended target seeing him do it, and giving them a chance to avoid it.

He needed to do it all at once, and in a fluid motion without giving any hint about what he was doing.  This was another conundrum to consider.  He would sit down, legs folded, considering the different ways that he could do this.  It was a good hour and a half of deep thinking before Oliver came up with a couple of ideas, and one of them had better freaking work, he thought to himself.

When he spent that time thinking, Oliver stood up and groaned, twisting to the left and then to the right, cracking his spine audibly. As he turned around and turned back toward the target, he had made a motion with his right arm, collecting several knives into the sleeve, which as he moved back, he launched them all in a swift motion.  This would embed three knives straight into the central part of the target.  Well that was one good blow.  Time for another attempt.

This one was a lot trickier to perform, but better in the middle of a fight, he thought.  it was a large amount of arm waving, and throwing knife after knife.  But he had to move his arms in such a quick motion that it rotated the cups and pulled on the tendons in all of the uncomfortable ways.  Not used to working those muscles in such a way, Oliver grunted through it and focused on the target.  One, two, four, eight, sixteen knives, all in the dead center of the target before they started to thud into the wall behind the canvas.

Alright that was one thing taken care of.  Time to head back to the training dummies.  They were still whirring about, and he was still tasked with hitting the purple marked one.  It was trying to teach him to pick his timing and how to hit someone in a group of civilians.  Now Oliver could be dubious at times, but he was good enough to know not to throw murder sticks into a group of people!  It was simple for someone with the discerning eye of Oliver and with an eccentric manner of doing things.  One knife was thrown high up into the air, and then another was thrown in such a way that it hit the first one, and sent it falling down into the top of the purple dummy's head.

Wanting to make sure that things were done to Takane's ideas, he took the time to embed more knives into that purple dummy, making sure to get a good five of them into the central dummy utilizing his new ability.  Five knives were thrown using his flailing method, taking time with the moving civilian dummies, and making sure that the central one was the only one struck.  WHen he was done, and he had spent a good few hours there, Oliver left, shooting a look at Takane who was in her constant scowl.  He woud need to get away from this woman's clutches some day.

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