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The night is young though you'd never be able to tell since the canopy above now blocks out all light. Had it not been for a shinigami having come early to the area to place torches it would be nigh impossible to navigate even for those with perfect eyesite. Off in the distance you can hear the cascading of water from a nearby waterfall.

(holy crap I completely forgot about this......)

Yamoto smiled as he watched Lerato spectacle. "You always had a thing for using kido in an odd fashion, but this session isn't about kido now is it." The captain held in his right a rather large bag that seemed to be rather heavy. He let go of the bag and it crashed to the ground causing the earth to cave in. The bag opened up by itself to reveal what was inside, two rather small ankle weights, one for each leg. "As you can see these are not ordinary training weight. They were designed by squad 12 a few years back specifically for shunpo training for the sole reason that they weigh about 500 pounds each." The captain laughed as he picked up one of the bracelets in his hands like it was nothing. "I didn't believe it when I was taught shunpo, but boy did these little bastards get me, I couldn't move for hours." There is also another purpose for these bracelets, they are designed to injects small amounts of reiatsu that was absorbed by someone into one muscles periodically. Normally concentration of reiatsu in a muscle area would cause strengthening for a moment and would fade rather fast, as is the case with one of my defensive techniques, but periodic injection of reiatsu into muscle that is naturally building upon itself will cause to muscle strength to nearly increase at 10 times the rates then with normal training, and it will last until you meet you end."

"Now you must be wondering why the build up of muscle is needed. Well it is quite simple you see shunpo is basically a super human form of skipping. You find a way to get from point a to point b in the least amount of stride possible. Now we do this by focusing reiatsu in our legs and then bursting the reiatsu down and out while we begin a step causing us to move at superhuman speeds. In a way you could say it is a really fast jump, but that is a horrible analogy. Now muscle strength is need because of the rapid build up and release of reiatsu, it can cause legs muscle to weaken and eventually deteriorate due to sheer stress of the muscle. That is why your frist part of shunpo training is to put on the weights and walk to where I am standing." The captain appeared 10 yards away from Lerato with a rather sinister smile on his face. "Begin"

(5 post)

Another grunt, another step. Slowly, but surely, the man was making his way towards his trainer. 'How in the hell do they expect people to do this...' He attempted to think the words aloud, but the only noise audible was a guttural moaning. With every step he took the craters formed underfoot grew by a micro-inch. The vice captain could have sworn that the muscles in his legs were being torn from his bones, only to be stitched back together moments later. The sweat was already starting to form on his brow. 'Maybe if I told him that my musculature was fine he'd let me skip this. Maybe I'd get out of the torture at letting him laugh at my expense.' Even as the thought entered his mind he knew it was wrong. More than likely he'd receive a firm smack to the back of the head for even asking. Then a feeling unlike any other he had ever felt before rolled through his quads, making his knees buckle and his calves lock up. Lerato bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed, but not a single sound escaped. 'I'll be damned if I let him hear me complain...'

His mind slowed; vision becoming blurry as he looked around to see what was happening. 'The hell?' Time had seemed to slow down for the shinigami, a warm glow coming from just below his neck line. 'What's going on.' He tried to speak once more, but this time found his mouth too dry to form the words. Before him appeared a semi translucent image; a man standing roughly six foot with deep creases around the tips of his mouth. He had the same tan complexion as Lerato, with the glacier eyes to match. "Get up, son." The elderly man's face was soft, caring. "Calm on, it'll get easier, I promise. Do you remember when I taught you how to ride you're bike?" Lerato remembered indeed. The first handful of times he actually ended up with his face in the dirt. Before he could acknowledge his dad, however, the man spoke, "Remember, nothing in this world is impossible. Just painful." It was almost as if the man laughed to signal his departure.

Open. Close. He blinked and all seemed back to normal. The pain, though still present, was back to being bearable. Looking down he smiled to himself. He could feel a concentrated shot of reiatsu surge through the musculature of his legs. Suddenly the weight didn't seem to want to break his ankles, but instead just bruise them. It was easier to lift his foot from the earth. With a soft sigh he remembered just what pure joy felt like. 'I'll never take running for granted again...' He murmured to himself. His movement was slow, a mere solemn trudge compared to his usual graceful steps.

[2/5. Total distance traveled: 1 yard.]

"This is pointless." He carped. No matter the time he spent thinking about how this would improve his shunpo, he could only find the flaws in his current goal. He could feel that somewhere in the back of his mind he was still moving off of instinct, thoughts still clouded by the alcohol he had been given a few days prior by his current trainer. The night was growing in age, the darkness starting to seep in through the canopy above to devour what little light was provided by the torches. 'How long have I been at this?' He asked himself, inhaling deeply to fill his lungs with the evenings crisp air. Then an all too familiar scent filled his nose. Burnt leaves and spice. "What is this, the three ghosts of Christmas?" Unbeknownst to him the illusions he was suffering from were caused by a combination of an alcohol induced haze, exhaustion, and his body trying to adapt to the constant influx of foreign reiatsu. Looking around he searched for the source of the enticing, but fear inspiring, scent. 'Where in the bloody hell is he...'

"Oi, Lerato!" His captain's voice cut through the silence as easily as a hot knife through warm butter. The Red Man had appeared beside him, arms crossed. "If yer jus' gonna mope around 'bout how you can't do it yet, quit wastin' my time an' get outa here." The vice captain opened his mouth to explain himself but was cut off by the man's exit, "Come back when yer gonna have yer head an' heart in it." Lerato watched as his Captain slowly faded into the scenery. 'If my heart wasn't in it I wouldn't still be here, now would I?' He couldn't help but roll his eyes and shake his head.

A few more steps and he'd be half way to his goal. He had started off at little more then a crawl had progressed to his everyday saunter. The weights on his ankles proved to be little more then an annoyance now. Lerato winced as yet another injection of exotic spiritual energy coursed through his system setting his calved aflame. Grinding his teeth together the man did everything in his power to keep quiet until the pain had subsided. 'I swear... once this training is done I'm going to sock him...' He grumbled, glaring at Yamoto. 'Conveniently leaving out all this s**t... If people knew what they had to go through to train for shunpo I doubt anyone would want it.'

[4/5. Total Distance Covered: 5 yards. Short. Couldn't think of anything else.]

Yamoto was surprised and a little perplexed. "You're still feeling the effects of that? That is quite interesting because normally the effects only last around an hour and it has been a while since you drank the sake." Yamoto mind wondered for a moment. Maybe I just gotten so used to it that the effects don't hit me anymore, but still... The captain's mind suddenly shot back to reality as he saw Lerato infront of him. "We'll congratulations you just completed strength training that would normally take twenty years of exercise to do." The captain smiled as snapped his fingers and the weight automatically detached themselves from Lerato's ankles. "Now it times for the real training to begin." Yamoto laughed as he walked another ten yards from Lerato. "As you know the basic of shunpo is getting from point A to point B is the least amount of steps. This means that we can travel a large distance in a great deal of less time. Now the way we do this is by focusing our reiatsu into our legs and the releasing it in a down and out motion while we take a step in a direction. Like so." The captain appeared beside Lerato in a flash. "I'm sorry if that wasn't a good demostration, but that is the slowest I can go. Now it is your turn first I want you to get feel of how much reiatsu you will need in your legs to be able to even pull of shunpo then I want you to try to get from where we are to where I was a second ago in a single step."

(15 posts)

Another flicker of light illuminated the dimly lit area, casting a blue shadow over the surround terrain before new color faded to grey, the light slowly extinguishing itself until all that was left was the light from the near by torches. Exhaling, he bent at the waist, allowing the weight of his upper body to stretch the musculature of his calves and forced his back to re-align itself in a series of loud pops and sickening snaps. He inhaled as he stood, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the new alignment of his spine. Popping up on his heels he slowly slid towards the ground, his legs jutting out to their respective sides until he had performed a perfect side split. 'Engross yourself in the power. Let it swell inside you until it boils over.' The young shinigami mentally instructed himself, drawing his focus within. 'Concentrate, force energy to obey you. Shape it. Mold it.' In a slow, precise movement he pointed his left arm towards the north, pushed the energy through his core, and pointed his right towards the south; repeating the movements every breathing cycle.

The longer he sat there, eyes closed in his peaceful state, the more reiatsu seemed to layer itself around him. The sound that came from him was reminiscent of both a static charge and the soft crackling of a warm fire. From afar he would appear as nothing more than a sapphire-hued light. 'Draw in your strength. Learn to control it as you've done so many times before.' The longer he stayed there, sitting in the state of forced peace the brighter he began to glow. Seconds turned into minutes, a light breeze blowing his hair into a mess as he sat. Then, as if for no reason, the color started to drain from his face, down his shoulders until it had settled just above his waist. The artificial aurora created by his reiatsu cast shadows across his face, forming a strong contrast between where his skin was touched by the light, and where it had been engulfed in darkness. Inhale. Exhale. The cycle repeated itself once again and again until the brilliant azure glow was forced into the soles of his feet.

[2/15. Edited and Pretty-fied.]

Lerato took off his jacket, throwing it to the side. Recently it had started to feel abrasive against his skin. "Time to get a new one I guess." He remarked walking to the creek just a few yards to his right. The gentle crashing of water filled his ears; the crisp, fresh scent of the water lifting his spirits. "Cleanse the soul. Wash the senses and let yourself become pure." As he spoke the shinigami lifted his right leg and, reaching back with his right arm, arched his back into a familiar yoga pose. "Allow your soul to calm. Stretch your consciousness out to the surroundings and feel the life beside you." His words came from him as if he were in a trance, chest raising and falling in regular intervals. His eyes glossed over as he lost himself in the training. After dropping his arms he allowed his right to grab his calf, his left keeping him firmly rooted to the slick rock that Lerato had chosen as his perch. Once he had finished transitioning into the standing splits he remained motionless.

From his spot, no more than three yards away, Yamoto would have a clear view of Lerato's descent into what could only be called controlled madness as he practiced his reiatsu control. As Lerato inhaled he called upon the warmth he had felt no more then two minutes prior, drawing the same energy around his feet in little more than an instant. "Break the shackles of what you think is right and wrong, distance yourself from all previous ideas. Separate the warmth you feel, isolate it until you can draw upon it with ease." The warmth covered his feet, the bright blue glow slowly fading to life until it could have been used as a flashlight. The creek below made a small attempt to climb the rock, but his reiatsu only had the strength to pull the moving water up an inch or so. 'You're determined, aren't you Lerato? I've never seen you so intent on something before... why does this mean so much to you?' Her voice was soft, an oddity for the Queen. 'I need speed. If I'm too slow to catch my opponent, then everything before this will have been for naught. Training with you, learning kidou, none of it will mean s**t if I can't keep up with them. I told you when we first met why I wanted to fight. I wanted revenge. Now I want a way to take that revenge.'

[Post: 4/15]