Chapter 7: Training with Urahara, Part 1
Seiken awoke to the light of the new morning. He was well rested, and ready to start training. He changed into a pack of extra clothes that Kisuke had given him yesterday and proceeded out of the tent. Everyone was already up and eating breakfast. Seiken took a bowl of cereal and thought about everyone that had been sucked into the portal. Mai, Rei, Kai. I wonder where they are. What happened to them? How did we get sucked into a giant mystical rift that sent us all into different anime?Why? Sei decided to stop thinking about it and focus on the training kisuke would have them do. He pondered it as he finished off his bowl of cereal and washed it out in the basin.
Once everyone was finished, Kisuke stood and said, "The real training begins today. We have to fight off arrancar, which are Hollows with powers that resemble those of a Soul Reaper's. Therefore we will train in fighting Soul Reapers. We will split into pairs and spar lightly. Evaluate each other's skills and point out their flaws. After that you work on the flaws your partner pointed out alone. Then I have a surprise for Kazuma, Sentaro, and Seiken." he grinned menacingly at the last part, sending a shiver down the three's spines. He called out the names and split them into groups.
Seiken was grouped with Ichigo. Kisuke said to start sparring while he walked around with Ururu, who hadn't been paired into a group; evaluating the fights. Seiken kept a safe distance between hi and Ichigo's zanpakuto. He used his push and pull attacks to keep him at bay, only using Sky once when Ichigo had gotten through his defense.
"Why don't you fight me with that sword you have?" Ichigo said, angry that he couldn't get close to Seiken.
"Defense. I can't beat you at close range because of your zanpakuto. So I have to get you from far away, which is easy to do with my marbles. Now, let's get on with this. Cherry Blossom Barrage!" Sei unleashed a full powered Cherry Blossom attack at Ichigo. Cherry Blossom Barrage was the predecessor of Cherry Blossom Rain. It was a similar attack, except that the marbles went straight forward instead of going down.
One of the marbles hit the ground early, kicking up dust. Sei readied Sky, preparing for Ichigo to jump out of the dust in a surprise attack. "Moon Sky-Piercing Fang!" A blast of energy burst from the cloud, clearing away the dust. Ichigo had been hit a couple of times before being able to pull off his attack. The energy swept towards Seiken, who barely had any time to use Sky and Push to make a small barrier. The attack still swept past his barrier and sent him flying.
Seiken arose quickly to defend himself, but Ichigo already had his zanpakuto against Seiken's neck. "You lose." At that moment Kisuke called them all back to the campfire so that they could present their evaluations to one another. They all sat in a circle. The order they decided upon was to just go around the circle. After Kisuke picked a random starting person and a direction, Seiken realized he was last. He listened to everyone's evaluations as he prepared his own about Ichigo, who was sitting next to him.
It was finally Ichigo's turn to evaluate. "Seiken is strong, but he can only fight long-range. He barely ever picked up his sword, and only used his commands and marbles. He also underestimated me and assumed that I didn't have any long range attacks, leading to his defeat." Ichigo was proud that he defeated Seiken after the hard time everyone had given him about their first fight.
Kisuke nodded and had a look of deep thought on his face, then looked at Seiken. "And what do you have to say about Ichigo, Seiken?"
Seiken said the speech he had been preparing. "Ichigo is strong and does have long-range and short range powers, but his zanpakuto is his only weapon. He doesn't have Kido, either. If he was seperated from his zanpakuto somehow, he would be defenseless and easily overpowered."
Kisuke got the same look in his face and then said "Okay, now we got that out of the way, go practice on what your partner pointed out about yourself. Seiken, Kazuma, stay here." Everyone went to their respective training areas and got to work. Kisuke motioned for Kazuma to practice while he talked to Seiken.
"Seiken, show me that Extend move you used yesterday." Kisuke said.
"Okay, but it uses a lot of energy." He pulled Sky out and held him in front of him. "Extend!" Sky's blade shot out as it had did yesterday. He quickly retracted it; the longer he extended something the more ki it used.
"Hmm.. Explain how it works." Kisuke said.
"It's hard to explain, but it has to do with Push and Pull. You Push certain parts and Pull others, causing it to stretch, not just fly out of your hands. After you master it you can assign a name to it and that causes the ability to activate. So instead of activating a Push and a Pull command to use Extend, I just say Extend and it does the Pushing and Pulling for me. However, it still uses the same energy as using Push and Pull together would, so it's only good for speed. That's how more techniques are created." Seiken said, trying to reagain his ki while talking.
"Is it possible to use multiple Extends at the same time?" Kisuke asked, an idea coming to him.
"The hermit who taught me could do it, but I doubt I could do more than three at a time myself. I'd run out of ki for a moment after that." Seiken said, wondering what the point to all this was.
"Three's all you need. Take out one of your marbles." Seiken did as he said and took one out. "Now, use Extend on it, up and down." Seiken did as he said and stretched the marble into the shape of a long needle. "Now use Extene back and forwards." Seken did as he said, even though the ki loss was gaining on him from the first extend. The once marble now resembled a slim four-sided shuriken. "Now, use Extend side to side." Seiken did as he said, overcoming the ki loss just by his will to figure out what Kisuke was up to. the marble now looked like six needles all sticking out from one tiny ball in the center. "Before we move on I need to know something. Can your ki work on a molecular level?"
"Yeah, but it'd take a while to refine the control over it."
"Okay, now I want you to work ki in between the molecules of the marbles and force them outwards from where they are." Kisuke said.
Seiken only had a little bit of ki left, but he was determined to understand what Kisuke was trying to get him to do. He pushed even more of his ki into the marbles and watched as the effects showed on the surface of it. It started from the tiny center of th once-marble and worked its way into the needles sticking out. they became larger, until it almost became a giant marble, about the size of a baseball. then Seiken released it, as he had no more ki. It returned into a normal marble again in Seiken's hands.
"I need you too work on producing more ki to use. For now, go back to your tent and restfor now, I'll call you later." Kisuke said, but Seiken wasn't listening; he was already asleep.
---
Seiken woke up somewhat refreshed. It was dusk and everyone was outside eating dinner. He had slept the whole afternoon away. After he ate Kisuke directed them to where they had left the bikes. "We're going to sled back to the slope. You three are going to have to fight each other again like you did last time. The rest of us are going to watch."
So they set out to the slope. They had to walk up steps to get back to the top. They didn't talk much, all of them were drained from their training. Even when they sledded nothing much happened, just a Push or Shockwave here and there. Kazuma didn't even use any Kido. Sentaro pulled ahead at the last second and won, although no one really cared.
When they got to the bottom Kon commented, "Well, that was boring."
Sentaro turned to him. "Well, you try taking ten hits from Chad then taking on two other guys in a sledding-competition."
"Touche."
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Been lazy recently. Was going to name this chap 7, part 1, but decided against it. it would be confusing later. Sorry this was short.
Stats before chapter 7
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I'm proud of my 38 hits.
Next Time: The training continues with some real action. Next Time on Animic, Bleach saga.
