|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:09 pm
Jakku, the captain of the Tenth Squad, had a training appointment with the vice-captain from the First Squad. While normally it wasn’t unusual for someone to train someone else from another squad, there was something ironic about being trained by a person who he technically outranked. While part of it was a subconscious embarrassment he would not recognize, much less admit, another part was questioning why this vice-captain wasn’t a captain instead. It just appeared inefficient to him. On the other hand, he supposed it was possible that the vice-captain was simply knowledgeable in kido and shunpo while not being as powerful in other fields. Yeah, that would likely explain it. The hierarchy wouldn’t make much sense otherwise if Vice-Captains were superior to Captains.
Another possibility was that the man didn’t want to be a captain. While before Jakku would question who would turn down what was essentially a position of great power gained through merit, he understood the intricacy and the difficulties of being a Captain better now, and it hadn’t even been that long ago since he was instated. Still, while they would never admit it, Jakku had a feeling he had practically been begged to be Captain. He cleared his mind. While his thoughts were distracting him from the passage of time, they were not bringing him to any solid conclusion. He couldn’t know unless he directly asked the man and the chances of him doing so were quite low anyways. The vice-captain might even take offense. Rather than continue on his train of thought, Jakku decided to survey his surroundings again.
The meeting point was a at a dry, wide canyon with two sheer cliffs of rock, a hundred meters or so in height, that were approximately thirty meters apart. A third wall of rock at the very end of the kilometer long ravine created a dead end. With the sheltered nature of the canyon, Jakku could understand why it was a good training area. The place was big enough to practice high powered techniques safely and if he missed or miss fired, then the worse that could happen was a rock slide, which was unlikely to pose a major threat anyways. Remaining standing, he continued to wait for his mentor to arrive.
Training order
EnkosenHyapporankanSajo SabakuTsuzuri RaidenOkasenSokatsuiHaienTenranRaikohoShunpo
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 3:27 am
[This training session takes place after Lerato's encounter with Tsubame and as such is wearing his new apparel.]
"I'm starting to understand what the Red Man is always going on about." He mumbled as he looked out at the expanse before him. Of course his recent charge had to pick an out of the way canyon in the most arid part of the Soul Society. "You'd think a captain would know better than this." With a humph and a bit more grumbling the vice captain made his way between the two massive walls of stone, a sense of mild claustrophobia settling over him. 'I swear I'm going to pop him a good one after we're out of this damn place...' In the distance he could make out a small blemish in the surrounding rock, a smudge of black against the deep reds, purples, and tans of the canyon. "You have to be nuts havin' me come all the way out here..." He raised his voice to make sure the newly appointed captain could hear him clearly. A few minutes passed in silence before Lerato reached the man, a rather disgruntled look on his face. "What type of captain are you? Couldn't we have done all this bullshit in your squad?" Lerato nagged the burly looking man without fear of reprimand, tossing a vest at the man's feet. "Put that on. You'll need to get used to the weight before we start your shunpo training or you're likely to end up sucking wind." Without any more preamble the vice captain yanked on a chain that he had been dragging, pulled up two wooden dummies, and used shunpo to place them at the end of the massive ravine.
"So," he started, looking the man up and down with a skeptical look, "you're the new captain, are you? Let me be the first to congratulate you, Captain Kokurongai. It isn't often that someone is pulled from the living world to fill a captaincy; you must be very proud of yourself." The lieutenant walked around the stocky man a few times to appraise him, glacier blue eyes doing their best to bore a hole through any veils he might have thrown up. "I'm not going to lie to you Capt'n, being stuck with me as a trainer isn't always the most enjoyable experience, especially since you've been a ranked shinigami for quite some time. I can be an a**, and I won't take your s**t just because of your rank. That privilege is saved for three people and they hold it only because they could chew me up and spit me out before I could so much as bat an eyelash, got it? Be that as it may, I try my best to be respectful, if not always polite. I'm your teacher for the day but that doesn't mean I need you blowing smoke up my a**. As long as you understand those few things we should get along just fine." His voice had taken on a sense of distance as he spoke, reiatsu spiking at random intervals. Running a gloved hand through the mane of wild platinum blonde hair the young man picked up where he had left off, “Right then, I guess we should get started with the training, yeah? I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck in this desolate stretch of land any more than I do.”
“The first spell I’ll teach you is Enkosen. I understand it’s a lower level spell, but it comes in handy when your in a pinch, trust me. The concept behind Enkosen -as with all bakudou- is centered around defense. Instead of openly attacking your opponent you are working to either defend yourself, or to immobilize your attacker. This spell does the first of those two in a very quick, very efficient shield formed out of your reiatsu.” Lerato took a second for the information to sink in. There were quite a few people who would have just as soon skipped over any bakudou to learn the more destructive spells, but the key to winning a battle wasn’t just to throw a lot of punches, it was also being able to stop yourself from getting hit since everyone, whether they liked to admit it or not, had an Achilles heel of some sort. “What I want you to do is focus your reiatsu in front of you. Imagine a circular wall formed completely out of your own spiritual energy and use your will power to bring that energy to life. Then when your ready, call out the identification of the spell to help the kidou solidify. I’ll demonstrate.” Though the kidou was simple enough he could have done it without a second thought the lieutenant slowed his progress to show very clearly each step from conjuring his electric blue reiatsu, to forming the energy into a yellow disk in front of his out raised hand, and finally solidifying it with a soft spoken, “Bakudou #39, Enkosen.”
A slight breeze blew within the gorge causing Lerato’s vest-like kosode to billow around him gently; the gruesome purple scars standing in astonishing contrast to his olive hued skin. He was thankful that Tsubame had constructed the items for him. Finally he appeared as a vice captain should; traditional -if slightly modified- garb as well as a badge of his division and rank sitting proudly around his left arm. “Alright, go ahead and try it.” A small smile touched his lips as a thought passed through his head. ‘I might as well. We have to see just how strong of a captain he’ll become…’
[1 or 2 posts.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:19 pm
Ah, there his mentor was, the Greek looking man that came in complaining about the location. Jakku did have to admit this wasn’t exactly the most… accessible place he could have been trained in, but he actually had to restrain the urge to snort and giggle when Lerato mentioned his squad. He had not actually gotten to know the previous captain at all, but what he did know was that the two locations in his squad for this type of training was in that self-regenerating, mobile forest that sought to trap those who wandered in and a mountain where the peak had been smashed into a crater. He still thought this place was great for the training he had to undergo though, despite Lerato’s complaints. Next time though, Jakku supposed he would have to keep in mind that his trainers would not appreciate hiking out into the wild. Minor details like that tended to matter.
Jakku bent down and lifted the heavy vest with both arms. The thing actually was quite heavy; if he had to estimate a value he’d place it between 800 and 1000 lbs. It wasn’t an impossible load for Jakku, but it certainly would weigh down the already slow and bulky Captain. Mentally shrugging, he slipped the heavy vest over his haori and, as the weight came crashing down on his shoulders. Jakku paused for a moment as he tried to adjust to the weight of the vest. He wasn’t even sure what materials the vest was made out of, lead was too light for it. No, now wasn’t the time for speculation about the nature of such trivial things, he actually had to get ready to train.
Lerato was quite a character. He seemed as though he had arrived with certain expectations of Jakku. Well, Jakku supposed that a small part of him was rather proud with his Captaincy status. After all, only thirteen of all the Shinigamis in Soul Society could ever attain that rank at a given time. It sounded like Lerato expected Jakku to pull rank on him during training. Well, he should not have a reason to worry. It was still painfully obvious to Jakku that he was being instructed by a vice-captain. Well, that was likely the reason why it was extremely rare for somebody to be pulled from Earth to fill a captaincy. It was making him wonder at how and why he became a captain, but that was likely just paranoia speaking. Not that he would ignore said paranoia. In the meantime, he decided to just take Lerato in stride. It didn’t look like the vice-captain expected any sort of response from Jakku, Which was fortunate because he wasn’t going to get a verbal one at any rate.
Desolate stretch of land? I rather enjoy it here. Jakku indulged in his ironic thinking as he listened to Lerato begin his explanation of Bakudo #39: Enkosen. All he had to do was form a circular wall in front of him and call out its name. He watched intently as Lerato performed it slower than usual. Taking note of the initial opening, Jakku decided to go about it methodically. Raising his right arm, Jakku started small and created a smaller spinning circle the size of his palm. Right away, he threw on two large fan blade-like manifestations that began to spin quickly. While that made it look like the actual technique, Jakku continued to add fan-blades to the spinning circle until it created a larger one.
” Bakudo #39: Enkosen.” Jakku intoned, solidifying and strengthening the technique into a passable shield. It was not a difficult task to accomplish, likely the reason why it was not a too high-level technique. A light whirring sound could be heard emitting from the high-speed rotation of the shield.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 2:13 am
"Not one for talk, huh? I guess I should have figured as much..." He snorted and took a second to look over the man's shield. "Not bad. Of course it's a bit hard to screw up, isn't it?" He grinned, walked a few feet away, raised his index and middle finger to the center of the shielding kidou, and smiled. "Let's just see if you're able to maintain it, alright?" Without any hesitation the vice captain channeled the same energy that had just produced his own bakudou and shifted it into a more destructive force, "Hadou #4, Byakurai." A soft crackle of blue energy rolled down Lerato's arm, raising the hair, and discharged in a brilliant display of pale blue electricity; stronger than it should have been, even for his rank. The spell ended as quickly as it had started. The point wasn't to electrocute the poor fellow, it was to see if his kidou could withstand a sudden impact and as far as the lieutenant could tell it held up just fine. "Very good. I guess being in the world of the living hasn't made you as weak as I thought." He laughed, walking back to the man. "So tell me about yourself Captain Kokurongai. What made you decide to spend so much time on Earth?"
The lieutenant of the first division started to walk towards the dead end where he had placed the wooden dummies a few minutes prior, stopping only when he realized he didn't hear the soft tap tap of a second set of feet falling onto the parched ground. "Well," he started, looking lazily over his shoulder, "are you coming are not? I can guarantee you that you'll have difficulty hitting the mark from all the way back here. You should loosen up. You're home, Capt'n. None of us are going to try and hurt you. Zaine, erm... Captain Tsukioma, might invite you to a drink so watch out. You may not have to worry about getting attacked, but he can be a bit of a klutz at times." He laughed and shoved his hands into his pockets. His current charge was definitely one of the more quiet people he had ever been tasked with instructing which he found as much a blessing as a curse. These training sessions were some of the few times he was actually granted leeway in getting to know some of his fellow shinigami, sorting them out into those who would be of use to him in the future and those who obviously would hinder him.
“The next kidou I’m going to teach you is Hyapporankan. Normally I would only teach this to you if you had demonstrated a masterful knowledge of the key concepts of the spell, one you would have to had learned for Tsuriboshi, but as a Captain I’m going to place a certain amount of trust in you to grasp the idea rather quickly. For this spell you will essentially be harnessing your inner power to summon forth a rod of energy with the intent to disable your opponents movements. Once you have the initial rod you will find your opponent, aim, throw, and then split the single rod a hundred times thus giving you a hundred rods. Concentration is the key here. Anyone can summon a rod of energy but only someone with a strong mind can split that rod the necessary amount of times and still keep the integrity of the spell. If you break concentration the rods can break, allow for movement, or disappear completely. Observe. Bakudou # 62, Hyapporankan.” With a small flash and a surge of reiatsu a four foot rod appeared in Lerato’s hand. A hitched step and a skip later and the rod was sailing through the air with pin point precision. Another flash and the rod split, multiplied, and split again until there were a hundred identical batons of white energy which drove themselves several inches into the wooden dummies and the rock surrounding them.
“Go ahead and give it a try, I’ll stand back here and watch. It may take a few times to get the feel of splitting your concentration so many times so by all means take your time. I’m in no hurry.” He said as he flashed the man a toothy grin. Bending at the knees the vice captain took up a position a few feet away, resting on his haunches without much care, though his eyes stayed locked on the new captain of the tenth division. Just what did everyone see in him that made the upper echelon bring him back to the Sereitei. According to his records there wasn’t anything that was overly exciting about the man, but then again there was a rather sizable gap in the information provided by the public records. ‘Just what is he about….’
[One post]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:52 am
The bolt of pale lightning that struck his shield was admittedly impressive. The Enkosen, of course, held steady yet Jakku could feel the rotation falter for a brief millisecond. The Byakurai that the vice-captain had fired was much more powerful than the misleading “#4” would suggest, even taking in account the man’s high officer rank. His adeptness was clearly why he, rather than the fifth squad captain, was instructing Jakku. After affirming its stability, Jakku dispelled the shield and began to mull over a way to answer Lerato’s question regarding his elongated stay in the World of the Living. The vice-captain’s previous comment about his silence made him feel guilty about it for some reason, as though he was supposed to talk more. Jakku knew he wouldn’t though. He was unsure what quality it was of him, but he could tell the world’s funniest joke and no one would laugh. He also couldn’t talk much about himself because there was not much to say in the first place. At least not much to say with the fabricated events of his records forcing him to carefully watch what he said. It was simply much easier to be anti-social.
”Hah.”
Jakku took a second to try to decipher whether or not Lerato was asking in a joking fashion or a serious fashion. Afterwards, he needed to decide how he himself would respond to the man’s question. He did not want to come off as rude or arrogant by maintaining his silence. A joking response was likely to be taken seriously and the true reason was not something you just shared with others without a second thought. There was no way for him to simply come out and say other people who were no longer around needed large parts of their group to go into hiding to cool suspicions. Jakku ended up in the Human World as a result and their last lingering influences lead to his very long stay. After about four seconds of serious internal thought, the masterful, articulate response Jakku came up with was ”Hah.” Almost immediately he felt awkward at having spoken out, especially late enough that the person he was speaking too had already begun the other side of the canyon to that training dummy he brought along and set up when he arrived. All this, of course, was kept carefully hidden under Jakku’s well-tailored facial and body language.
And now he had to catch up to the vice-captain who was waiting on him. Again, he debated the merits of walking over calmly and coolly, like a captain was supposed to, or sprinting down to catch up faster and to use his training time more efficiently. He decided to go for the latter. Jakku took two running steps forward and was immediately reminded of that heavy-a** vest he was wearing. Now he was seeing the motivation to learn shunpo faster. He was going to be training with the cumbersome vest on until he finished the kido training, it’d be in his best interest to finish up as soon as possible. Running down the canyon at a shadow of his former already unimpressive speed, his every step created small localized tremors. Soon enough, he reached Lerato and fell back into a regular walking pace. While his footsteps still echoed rather loudly, they weren’t ground shaking anymore. The vice-captain was talking to him again about being home and to loosen up. Jakku stopped himself from frowning. That vice-captain seemed rather perceptive. Jakku also didn’t drink alcohol if he could help it either. He didn’t bring it up though and merely nodded in response to the vice-captain. After all, drinking was considered “manly”, wasn’t it? He irrationally felt that mentioning that fact would lower his image in the vice-captain’s eyes, although rationally he doubted the man honestly cared.
Now he watched as the vice-captain executed Bakudo #62: Hyapporankan. The complexity of the kido had gone up rather quickly. Jakku watched carefully as the first rod split into multiple rods as the process repeated. The technique appeared simple in concept yet complex in practice. As the vice-captain moved aside, Jakku moved into place and formed the initial rod in his hand. ”Bakudo #62: Hyapporankan.” He intoned as he threw the rod that would split into a hundred like a javelin towards the dummy and willed it to split. The initial split formed six other rods right away and stopped. Seven rods crashed in and around the dummy, a pathetic showing after the vice-captain’s one-hundred. Jakku’s mind initially began to panic. When all was said and done, he wasn’t used to failure. How ridiculous did he just appear to the trainer whom he outranked? This kido business wasn’t really his forte after all. Then he calmed his racing mind down. The vice-captain had told him to try as many times as he needed. This probably happened to most people on their first attempt. Most likely, he needed to concentrate more.
After two seconds of pondering what he might be doing wrong and what to change, he tackled the issue in a different method. First, he slowly backpedaled a few more steps, increasing the distance from the dummy. ”Bakudo #62: Hyapporankan.” The rod of energy formed again and was whipped at the dummy. After the initial split into seven, Jakku began to quickly micro-manage the other rods. One of the rods split again into seven. He moved on to another rod and split that one too, and then another. Getting the hang of it, he split two rods at once and finished with the last two at the same time. With forty-nine rods speeding towards the target, Jakku tried to split as many into two as possible to get the hang of splitting multiple rods at once. While a hundred rods didn’t hit the target and the far canyon wall, it was a clear improvement from his first attempt. Feeling more confident about his improvement, he tried a third time and managed to execute each of his steps successfully. His fourth attempt was simply to prove he could pull off the technique now. Now sure he understood and could pull off a Hyapporankan without too much issue, he turned towards Lerato and waited for the next technique.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:09 pm
[I apologize in advance for the shortness of this post.]
"It's not really that impressive Captain Kokurongai. When you take into consideration my proficiency with kidou, my ranked seat and my affinity for electric based kidou you'll realize that the spell I just used was fairly weak by my standards." Normally the lieutenant wouldn't have resorted to such methods of reading people but with the captain saying so little in their interaction Lerato was almost forced to reading the man's reiatsu. "I understand that you aren't a very social person, Capt'n, but sooner or later you'll have to learn to open up. We're partners now after all. You aren't in some remote location in the world of the living, going about your day in relative solitude. Here, you'll have to learn how carry on a conversation with those around you, whether they're of the same rank like your fellow captains, or an underling such as myself." Lerato spoke from the side of the canyon where he had taken up a resting spot, watching as the captain attempted the kidou a handful of times. Finally splitting the rod into the proper amount the vice captain pushed himself up and strode over. "Don't worry too much about the difficulty. It'll get easier with time and practice. To be honest, I would have been rather surprised if you had gotten it on the first go; even skilled kidou users can have problems splitting their concentration into so many different points."
"The next kidou you will learn is reminiscent of Hainawa in that it is used to bind the targets upper body to their chest using a dense rope of spiritual energy. According to kidou books no one should be able to escape it with physical strength alone but I wouldn't take everything you read to heart. When those books were written they were made under the assumption that kidou spells would only be used on hollow and moderate level shinigami in the case of a rebellion, they were never intended for use against a high tier class fighter such as a captain, vaizard, or arrancar so watch your back if you come up against one, alright? It'll always give your opponent pause, but I can't guarantee that they'll remain constrained forever." Taking a few steps from the leader of the tenth squad, Lerato lifted a single hand, focused his reiatsu into his palm, and closed his hand into a fist. "Like Hainawa, you must focus the energy into a rope with the intention of binding your opponent. When this is done, and the incantation is said, the effects will become apparent. Bakudou #63, Sajo Sabaku." At the far end of the canyon a deep thud sounded as the thick rope of energy slammed into the second wooden dummy.
"Simple really. Just make sure that you put enough energy into the spell to keep it from destabilizing. After this we'll start our work on hadou spells. I promise you those will be a great deal more entertaining than our current work. There just isn't anything quite like the smell of scorched earth." He laughed, dismissed the spell, and walked back to his prior perch. "Shouldn't take you as long to get this one down. The concept is fairly simple."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
