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 Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 3:01 pm
Here, in the outskirts of Squad Ten's grounds, is an area conquered by foliage and shrubbery. The many exposed branches and boulders forming the area make it ideal for Shunpo training. The day outside is bright and beautiful, with the Seireitei boasting its usual, beautiful blue sky. Here, the Tenth Division Captain Hinata Kazuki, and Thirteenth Division Vice Captain Alder Xenoforth will train in the ways of Shunpo.
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:07 pm
Hinata had scarcely set foot outside her office when she realised she had forgotten her Zanpaktou. Minutes later, she had just about passed the 10th Division barracks when she had to turn back again to retrieve some paperwork she was supposed to have dropped off this morning. After doing this, she remembered that the Shunpo training that she had arranged with Alder was not in the 13th Division, but in her own.
She put it down as a force of habit, but wondered briefly whether she was going mad with all the paperwork.
"You'd have expected them to choose a Captain whose mental stability didn't deteriorate at the mere thought of paperwork," Harikaze goaded in her mind. Hinata, now regretting ever having taken her Zanpaktou with her, just couldn't muster the energy to visit her office a third time.
Upon reaching the designated location, the Captain saw that Alder had not yet arrived. She squinted up past the trees and into the clear sky. Wincing at the blinding sunlight, she laid under the shadow of a tree, observing the shifting clouds above.
...Wow, it was quiet.
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:12 pm
Alder, having used Bakudo Number Twenty Six to make himself appear invisible, tapped Hinata on the left shoulder out of the blue, hopefully surprising her. "Ah....It's been too long, Captain Kazuki~" He said, teasing her new rank a bit. "I remember when you taught me Shikai...honestly, I never thought a power I'd gained before that was so cool. Yet, here I am now, learning one of the most sought after techniques in the Seireitei. Things change quite a bit, don't they?" The Vice Captain quickly snapped from his reminiscing, and merely chuckled when he noticed the area around them. It was-obviously-a great place to train this technique; it had arches, hills, large branches, and many boulders that one could aim their step to. "The sooner we get started, the sooner you can get back to being a Captain." Joking, of course. "Is Harikaze still giving you as much trouble as she used to?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:44 pm
Hinata was mildly surprised at Alder's sudden appearance. Though she had sensed his reiatsu a split second before, she had definitely not expected him to materialise out of thin air like that. Sometimes, she guessed, it paid to be good at Kido.
"Ugh. It's kinda depressing when you realise your subordinates know more Kido than you do..." she commented, "and even more depressing when Harikaze's grinding it in your face. Hey, long time no see, Alder-san, or should I say, fukutaicho!" she goaded in a good-natured manner, and pointed to the shiny new Vice-Captain's badge on his arm. "I heard that you were promoted, congratulations! I had a feeling Mock-Taicho would pull that one. Now..."
The Captain moved from under the tree so she had more space to demonstrate, before turning back to face Alder.
"Shunpo. It's all about concentration and reiatsu control - once you've got those right, you just have to focus on aiming. How's yours?"
Raising a hand, she flicked the sleeve of her Haori back. In an instant, a large, green-white ball of reiryoku formed, hovering an inch above her outstretched palm.
"Let's start with some simple exercises. If you would form a ball like this in your palm, then transfer it to your finger." As she said this, she demonstrated that by shifting the point at which the reiatsu was focused on, she could shift where the ball was. "The smaller the point of focus, the harder it should be to maintain. Of course, some people naturally have a talent for small details like this; others however..." she recalled her classmates in the Shinigami Academy exploding their balls of reiatsu as soon as they were formed.
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Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:21 pm
"I take it reiatsu control has never been your strong suit?" Alder asked with a chuckle, noting at her odd sort of reminiscing right as she mentioned control, and observation to fine detail. For the Vice Captain, the sphere he made was a beautiful, rich purple and white. Without difficulty, the sphere shifted to his pointer fingertip; doing this was nothing compared to the high level kidou he'd just recently learned. "You know....I could teach you kidou sometime, if you want to learn." Some could've taken this the wrong way, seeing as how it was a Vice Captain offering a Captain help. However, with Alder, this wasn't the case; he loved helping others in terms of training. "By the way, I can handle the Kidou training in my squad, if you're getting overwhelmed. After I learn Shunpo from you, I'll be able to act almost completely like a captain. Ever since I was mysteriously promoted, it's been my goal to learn as much as I can. This way, I can be the well-rounded teacher for them, and make sure that they learn everything they want to. Then, my Captain won't be stressed out during his return from Earth with all the training requests and other jobs he'd have to do." Though he'd only been doing it for a short while, Alder was truly proving that he could handle the responsibilities of a Vice Captain. It demonstrated vigor, persistence, and determination to become the best he possibly could be. "Yeah...I'm not too excited about my hand to hand combat training, though; I hear Captain Katsurou really knows how to kick some a**."
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:58 am
"Actually, I've never been bad at reiatsu control. I've been able to detect reishi and suppress my reiatsu from the day I was born... so I have no idea why I suck at Kido so much. And I can't correct my technique if I don't know what I'm doing wrong in the first place," Hinata mused. "Oh, and thanks for the offer, but I have some training scheduled already." Chuckling, she commented: "You guys are brave people, offering to teach me Kido. The first spell I used accidentally set my Sensei's hair on fire."
She gave a fleeting smile, then with a flick of her wrist, morphed the ball of reiatsu into a bird in flight, then the snarling head of a tiger.
"I can only do this because I had so much spare time as a child. Everyone in the house was always too busy to pay any attention to me, so I amused myself by making reiatsu-demons and scaring the maids." Hinata paused as Alder expressed his apprehension in going to Hakuda training. "I've never sparred him myself, though I hear he knows about ten thousand different martial arts, and Shunko. Good luck," she said with a rather morbid glint in her eye.
“Okay, back to Shunpo. The trick is to focus exactly the right amount of reiatsu around your feet, then concentrate on aiming. Depending on how much you use, you can go further, faster or both. I’ve always found that the more concentrated you focus your reiatsu, the faster you will move, though everybody is different and you might find a better way. Then you just have to concentrate on aiming. For example.”
The Captain used flash-step to land herself atop a boulder just behind Alder. “Now, you try.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 1:06 pm
"I see...." Alder murmured as he studied Hinata's movements very precisely. He'd learned to do this after training in Kidou with Yamato, where it was entirely necessary to study the flow of Reiatsu in the teacher's visible spectrum of energy. At first, Alder tried to focus pads of Reiatsu on the bottom of his feet. He then attempted to run to initiate it, but only found himself running more quickly than usual. Obviously, he hadn't used enough Reiatsu, or the Vice Captain would've ended up in an entirely different part of the area. At first, it seemed that the training was going smoothly; by adding in fraction by fraction of reiatsu, he could determine exactly how much he needed to initiate the technique. It was proving to be a lot more difficult than any Kidou he'd ever tried to learn, and, for some reason, it wasn't frustrating to him. It was a new experience for Alder, and he felt that it wasn't such a big deal if he couldn't pick it up right away, or if the tactics used to perform it evaded him for an extended period of time. "Alright.....let's try this again." the Vice Captain muttered to himself.
This time, success was minimal; he did vanish, but he only appeared about three feet away from where he'd been, and certainly not on top of the boulder where Hinata was. "Well....it wasn't good...but it wasn't terrible!" He joked lightly before continuing his devoted training. Quite obviously, the training would begin to take its toll on the Vice Captain. Soon, he would begin to feel a drain in his reiatsu supplies, most definitely from the extended practice of this technique. For a short half an hour or so, he sat down and rested his eyes; he'd fallen asleep. However, unlike most Shinigami, if there was something he'd need to train for, his abnormally vocal Zanpakuto spirit would pipe in and wake him up abruptly. 'Hey stupid....in the middle of Shunpo Training!' With Oujou's firm reminder of where he was, Alder woke up quickly and resumed his training. For the most part, he could Shunpo about five feet by now, and, honestly, wasn't making as much progress as he would've liked to. However, what he didn't realize was, for his rank, he was progressing with the speed technique at an abnormal rate; he was learning it even more quickly than Hinata had.
The Vice Captain, now traveling about six feet per Shunpo, was focusing more on distance than aim. As he put reiatsu into his feet, fraction by fraction, he moved further inch by inch, slowly but surely fine tuning the use of the move. At one point, he placed a lot of reiatsu into the Shunpo, and found himself a long ways away from Hinata. Now, he truly put himself to the test; he could see her, but could he Shunpo JUUUST right, and land on the rock right next to her? Only time would tell. Attempting to find a middle ground, he used a Shunpo again at about half as much energy, and landed about halfway. So that was the trick! Forming a small sort of graph in his head, he made a sort of formula for how much reiatsu equated to how much distance and speed. He would keep this formula in his head, and use it for Shunpo rather effectively. Now, what he needed to work on was most definitely his aim, for it was seriously lacking.
(I don't know how much I can do in one go, so I'll stop here for now.)
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 2:29 pm
Hinata started when Harikaze laughed unexpectedly in her head. Tapping the hilt of her Zanpaktou, she carried on observing Alder's movements while also focusing on her Zanpaktou spirit's annoying chuckling, wondering what she had done that was so amusing now.
"What was that? You made me jump," she said indignantly, as she watched her trainee progress at a surprising speed, from a foot to six feet in just over half an hour. He was potential Captain material, that one.
"Can't you hear it? It's rather amusing: 'Hey stupid... in the middle of Shunpo Training!'"
"Sounds like you. What am I supposed to be hearing anyway?" she replied dully.
"His Zanpaktou spirit, idiot. What else could I be hearing?" At this, Hinata blinked and became completely distracted with the new information, forgetting about Alder momentarily.
"What, you- is it normal to be able to hear other people's inner thoughts?" She could sense the deepening frown on Harikaze's face.
"I've always been able to, so why shouldn't it be?"
"You never told me!" spluttered the Captain. She could not believe that her Zanpaktou spirit had been hiding something like this for over eight years. Then again, Harikaze had assumed that it was normal...
But it can't be. What sort of psychic power must she have? I've never met anybody who could listen to other Shinigamis' conversations with their Zanpaktou before... Remembering that she was in the middle of a training session, she decided to drop the issue for now.
"Slow down, Alder! You'll exhaust yourself at this rate," Hinata said, hopping from the boulder and lightly touching down beside him. "You're going even faster than I was when I learned Shunpo."
She recalled perfecting her technique in under an hour and a half; and being so utterly drained by the end of it that she had fallen asleep on the spot, waking up with a violent cold.
"You've gotten the idea. Now, aiming is probably more difficult - it depends on your own accuracy on judging distances. I stupidly decided to challenge myself by landing on the topmost branch of a tree. I made it, but the branch snapped and I fell anyway," she laughed, then pointed to a wide, flat rock about five feet away. "See if you can land on that first. It's best to progress instead of throwing yourself in the deep end."
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:11 pm
"You see....by the little bit of tinkering I've done, I believe I've figured out how much reiatsu it takes to travel certain distances....." After a long, drawn out explanation from the Shinigami about how much reiatsu takes you how far, he obeyed what she said, and focused on the flat rock five feet away. Using the method he'd created, he judged an approximate distance of five feet. Very quickly, he was standing in the dead center of the rock, fully aware that he had just traveled more quickly than the normal eye could see. Hinata would pick up on something else as well; in that instant, he'd traveled more quickly than the average Shunpo. Of ALL the things Alder found himself adept at; reiatsu control, swordsmanship, and Kidou, the one thing he EXCELLED at was speed techniques and their use. He would find himself a near natural at Shunpo once he learned to use it. He attempted to rapidly use the same amount of reiatsu, and move in a five square foot triangle; he was flawless. All that really remained was mid and long range Shunpo. Of course, every training he'd done for Reiatsu control, every training he'd performed for Shikai, every battle....every one of them would define his skill in this moment. Sure, he could use a ton of Kidou. Sure, he could fight very well with a blade, but the day would come when he had the potential to be the second or third fastest Shinigami in Soul Society. Speed was his true talent.
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Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 2:52 pm
While Alder was busy refining his technique, Hinata was flash-stepping around the area and counting tree stumps. While this may have appeared strange to a casual observer, a number of calculations were running in her head at the same time: distance it would take to sufficiently tire someone out; the distance between each marker; the time she took to reach the end at what she expected to be a Vice-Captain's Shunpo pace. She was setting a race course to test Alder's abilities. Normally, she would have deemed it too soon to stretch a person this far; however, in Alder's case, she was sure that he could achieve it if he tried hard enough.
Hinata's belief was only strengthened, when, after a quarter of an hour or so, she appeared back where he was training, and saw that he was evidently a natural. It seemed that, just like her, speed was his strength, and very soon he would be fighting to outstrip the Captains of the Gotei 13.
"Alder-fukutaicho! Hey, stop, stop. I think that's about as far as you can push yourself... at least, by yourself." She gave a mischievous grin, beckoning him towards where she was standing - at the base of a large pine tree. "Okay. You see that tall rock sticking out over there? That's your finish line," she said, gesturing towards a large, pointed rock at the top of the hill. "You know what's coming, don't you? You're going to race me to the top using Shunpo. Every tree stump you see, you have to land on. There aren't that many, but they make a clear line upwards," she continued.
Sensing the shock that Alder was no doubt feeling at this sudden challenge by a Captain, Hinata chuckled.
"Hey, it's all right, I'm not going to go at full speed, or you'll probably die! I've been measuring your progress you know - even if it looks like I'm just lazing around while you're training hard. Your fastest speed... I'll go a bit faster than that. If you really push yourself... well, let's see who touches the rock first. Up for the challenge?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:41 pm
Alder, in a spree of wanting to flaunt his stuff, vanished with a Shunpo, and appeared directly behind Hinata. "You're. ON." He whispered into her ear. However, it was purely fortune that had granted him the ability to Shunpo behind the captain; she was within his range of how far he could move, now about ten or fifteen feet with perfect accuracy. "I'll move as soon as you do." He challenged; he wasn't shocked at Hinata's challenge, as he'd seen it coming from a mile away. It was obvious that a captain should challenge their subordinates to make them better, to strengthen their abilities as a Shinigami even further than they believed them to go. Had she not offered this challenge, sure, Alder would've eventually perfected Shunpo, but this gave him a sort of catalyst to push himself. Obviously, when this little "Race" was done, Alder would most likely have mastery over his Shunpo, and be able to use it in battle, due to the need for concentration while moving from stump to stump, and the drive to outspeed the captain.
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 1:31 pm
Grinning at Alder's new determination, Hinata gave no warning before disappearing in the twinkling of an eye. The guy had more guts than she had vouched for - the last time she had proposed a competition with one of her underlings, the terrified Shinigami had run away at a speed almost akin to Shunpo. She had no doubt that Alder could beat her at the speed she was going at now; however, endurance was another thing altogether. She had counted exactly fifty stumps from where they started up the hill - would he be able to keep it up for that long? More importantly, would he be able to concentrate on calculating distance and landing under pressure and exhaustion combined?
"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." Alder showed no sign of relenting, so she carried on at her steady pace.
"You do know," Harikaze cut in, "that if he collapses or dies, you'll be the one getting the paperwork?"
"Tch. He won't collapse, and he certainly won't die. I have complete confidence that he will achieve what he aims to achieve. That is all," the Captain said simply, and Harikaze retreated without a further comment.
Odd. Where did she go? Hinata wondered. It was not like Harikaze to back off an argument.
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 1:36 pm
Alder, however, was only a stump behind the captain; since the stumps were so close together, it didn't take as much concentration as it would've to Shunpo from stump to stump. "You-know-Captain..." He said between Shunpo. The Vice Captain was gradually getting faster, finding time to fine tune the concentration of his steps even while doing the strenuous mental exercise of flashing from stump to stump accurately. Alder could concentrate so well because of the focus needed to use his Shikai with the skill he did; manipulating six spears with expert precision at the same time took a lot of brain power, and doing what he was doing now didn't take as much as that, making this a simple task. "Eventually-you'll-have-to-speed-up." He said with a laugh. At this point, he was beginning to pass her up at the speed they were both going. Now twenty eight stumps into the race, Alder was only slightly ahead of Hinata. Even at the Captain's level, Alder could still keep a better-than-average pace, even though he was so new to the move.
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:03 pm
"Che. As if I didn't know that already," Hinata gave a fleeting smile before throwing a bit more reiatsu into the mix. In a blur even to Alder's eyes, she vanished and reappeared a few stumps ahead, having used a Shunpo speed just under what would normally be expected of a Captain. Turning back to Alder while flash-stepping backwards, she waved in his direction.
"Impressive. I gather your Shikai has helped your brain training," she referred to the fact that, when she had first taught Alder Shikai, he could only use two or three spears at a time; however, before long, he could control all six. "It took me half a year just to gain control of all the thousands of crystals I produced every time I released my Shikai. It was such a pain in the neck."
Now at her fortieth stump, Hinata considered how similar they were. They were both speed people; they both had Zanpaktou which seemed to live to give them grief. To top it off, they were both fast learners and had considerable brainpower as well as skill in combat. To be frank, if she ever suddenly and unexpectedly died, Alder would be one of the top on her list to replace her. She chuckled at her own morbid thoughts. Her Zanpaktou was really beginning to rub off on her.
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:08 pm
Alder, not caring about his safety for the moment, threw in about three times as much reiatsu as he'd been using to move about ten or fifteen feet. As he moved at a significantly faster speed with his Shunpo, he placed a tiny bit of his reiatsu as a marker where he wanted to land-at about the fourty-fourth stump. The only reason he was able to mark points with reiatsu outside his body was because he had trained in Bakudo number seventy nine, which was primarily based on creating nine points of focused Reiatsu to bind the opponent, so creating one and homing in on it was simple. Very quickly, however, the Vice Captain found that it was unnecessary; he could track his movements without using a Reiatsu pinpoint, even when traveling so quickly and with so much reiatsu. He appeared at the forty fourth stump, and began to shunpo more rapidly to the rock, now skipping two stumps at a time with ease, traveling nearly twenty feet per shunpo without difficulty. Alder was now mid Shunpo from the fiftieth stump to the rock, and he appeared to be ahead of the captain, having most likely surprised her with his sudden leap of about sixteen stumps. Hinata was correct about Alder, but with one exception; Alder could perform Kidou. What the Vice Captain would realize is that his flaw would be hand to hand combat. Sure, he could do flips and fight decently with his feet, but when it came down to fighting without a blade against an armed or unarmed opponent, the Vice Captain would find himself at a heavy disadvantage; Reiatsu and swordmanship were his pros, and hand to hand was his con.
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