Repeat
verb. to recite from memory
She is training this morning.
Strike once, strike twice, strike thrice, finish up and reform.
It was with this formation that she defeated him, no, destroyed him, so many years ago. She relives that moment every minute of every day, that split-second in which his eyes connected with hers as she hurled him away. He flew backwards and off the edge of the cliff onto the sharp rocks below. The land they had fought on had, once upon a time ago, been the bed of the biggest waterfall in Fire Country. Six generations before theirs however, it had dried up for reasons unknown (some said it was because of the massive battle between the Shodaime Hokage and the Nidaime Mizukage over the territory of where Konoha stood today) and was now a barren wasteland ending in a cliff that plummeted one-hundred and eighty feet to the now dried-up riverbed where the thousands of gallons of water traveled on its way past Konoha to the eastern sea.
It was impossible for him to survive the fall, unprotected and in such a weakened state as he was in. She knew fully that he could have prevented the attack by side-stepping three inches and then catching her in the chest with his arm, shocking her heart into stopping for a few moments and ensuring him the victory. But he didn't and instead, allowed her to make contact and in doing so, deliver the killing blow.
It had all been a test. She had done it to save him from the pain he was enduring because no matter how much he had changed, how he was…not himself any longer, his soul still remained within him, his soul begging for deliverance, and it was his soul that she loved. He had done it to see if she could truly kill her heart and kill him because now, she was the only thing standing in his way from complete and utter destruction. And in killing him, she was killing him. He knew she would not have done it and hated her weakness. She knew she would and she hated her weakness.
And every morning that she could not forgive herself, she performed that same formation until her knuckles ached and her head was sent reeling. It was her punishment to herself for doing the right thing and not being selfish enough.
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