AN: 11:35 PM, August 9th, 2018. Ok, lets do this! Next chapter! . . .


February 5th: Adrian

Adrian Clay Charson had been through a lot in his short life. He was the kind of person that was always searching for his next source of entertainment, weather simply admiring a piece of art, to getting into a fight with an especially difficult opponent.

Thus, when the improbable happened, he was more likely to begin thinking of a way to shift the situation into a source of entertainment than worrying over the ridiculousness of it all.

Case in point, standing one the back of his otherworldly counterpart as said counterpart did push ups is a hollow suit currently filled with liquid gallium.

"Eighty eight! Eighty nine! Come on! Just eleven more! Ninety! Come on!" he cheered on the Burnett.

Russet meanwhile, seemed to be annoyed. "I know 'pant' that 'pant' I should be used this 'pant' after Slen's 'pant' slave driving 'pant' but could 'pant' you please let me ease into this weight?!" Heavy breathing followed this question.

"Who's Slen?"

'pant'"To soon."

"What?"

'pant'"Don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Ok, your done."

"What?"

"One hundred two. One hundred three . . . "

Russet, realizing what he meant, stopped his push ups and fell to the floor, panting. "You know 'pant' it would be easier if you let me do this outside!"

"Yes, but then I'd have to explain who you are to my family, and I don't like awkward conversations. So, stay in the bunker until I can think of an excuse. They have a hard enough time believing the whole nen thing . . . "

"Yes, yes, I get it. Still annoying though."

" . . . neither of us can help speaking our mind either, huh?" he made a huffing noise in the back of his throat, signifying extremely minor amusement. "The longer I know you the less I doubt the whole dimensional counterpart thing."

Russet made the huff noise himself, before hauling himself back to his feet. "Yeah, well, you'd best get over it, because your identity crisis is not my problem."

Adrian gave Russet his best deadpan. "Do I really sound like that?"

Russet deadpanned back. "No. Your voice is far more melodious."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Of course I do, but we have the same sense of humour, are you saying you didn't see it coming?"

Ardian crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. In the end, him and Russet had a downright ridiculous amount in common. Of course, that is not to say they were identical. Over the past few days, they had discussed their lives and found that they were practically the same until the early teen phase.

During their teens, major changes happened to both of them. Russet got his first access to the internet, which was more advanced in his world due to public satellite access, and became obsessed with internet games, and spent all his spare time either playing computer or reading fantasy novels, and eventually discovered "anime".

By comparison, Adrian, thanks to the greater strength of this worlds humans, was allowed to wander free more, to the point were he could go to the town park of his own in spite of his mothers (over)protective nature, which lead to him encountering a group of nen users and an accident that caused him to awaken his own.

Most of their development from their differed, leaving Russet a far lazier, but more wise and philosophical, person than Adrian. While Adrian could honestly say he had Russet beat when it came to "book smarts", being better at both math and science, Russet was better at understanding human thought than him (which was ironic seeing as he interacted with people far less than Adrian) and thus, could better form arguments, given time.

Russet, now on his feet, began taking off his weight-suit, which even Adrian was excessively heavy for someone on russet's level, and prepared to stretch. "hey, you sure that this will work? I mean sure, it is getting results already, but back home I researched training, and it always said that weight training wasn't actually that great for fights. You know, speed times mass equals force and all that?"

"So you want to do laps instread?"

Yet another deadpan from Russet. "You know what I mean!"


February 9th: Russet

Adrian's bunker was deep. Very deep. I actually wondered were he put all the dirt for it, cause I don't seen any new hills in the immediate area. Did he use nen? The shear volume of open area is shocking, it'd be hard to realize your underground if it wasn't for the tack of windows. Honestly, he has everything from a display room to a swimming pool! Some of the rooms are plain out massive. And the largest, and most open of the area's down here, has to be the collosueam.

No, that's not spelt wrong . . . well, it is, apparently he let his sister make the sign for the room and she misspelt it on propose, it was obviously supposed to be Colosseum.

The room is a large, perfect circle about 200 feet in diameter. The floor and ceiling are both perfectly flat to the very edges, and the walls are at a perfect 90 degree angle. The distance from floor to ceiling is about twenty feet. The whole place was made out of this white, waxy plaster stuff, which has very good traction and Adrian can apparently repair easily with nen, and it is lit by roughly 63 lights set into the walls at even spacing, and one big light in the very centre.

It was in this chamber that we trained . . . if you can call it that. More like played a very one side game of ping pong. I was, of course, the ball.

'Thwack!' the sound of flash colliding with flesh echoed around the underground arena. I pulled back my arm into a defensive position as I stared down Adrian, who hadn't moved since blocking my punch, a stoic look on his face.

With a motion that seemed to be the epitome of casual attacks in spite of its speed, he blurred into motion, and struck the air were I had been just seconds before. With a sudden shift of his hips, he spun a whole circle and launched a kick at me, forcing me to cross my arms and block. Upon collision, I was sent flying backwards, bounced of the ground twice, and slammed into the wall.

I coughed twice, then crawled back to my feet, cradling the arm that had taken the blow. "You know, broken bones don't grow back much stronger. Not enough to justify breaking them as often as you do." I ground out, already used to the pain from the past few days.

"First of all, it's not broken yet, second of all, it's good practice for my enhancement! I'm still only at forty five to fifty percent efficiency for healing, even though its one of my secondary category's!" He responded, before rushing towards me again.

I managed to take a defensive stance right before he reached me, crouched down, my arms held in defence of my face like a boxer. Just in time as a punch slammed into my right arm, sending me skidding back into the wall again.

This it how my "fight" with Adrian usually go. Sloppy. I can't land a single punch, and am forced to rush him haphazardly simply to close the distance, meaning that I haven't even actually gotten a chance to improve my hand to hand. In other words, it's all reaction speed and durability training. Honestly, if he didn't use enhancement to heal my injuries at the end of each session then I swear I wouldn't be able to move afterwards.

He has helped me improve my nen control, I can now perform ren for roughly five minutes as long as I don't move to much(although my control is shaky). Of course, he won't let me use nen in combat, at all, he makes me use zetsu, and says that I should "work on my base". Not that I can't see his point, nen is a force enhancer, in needs force to enhance in the first place. Enhanced steel is better than enhanced iron and all that.

A blurring motion, and I was on my back, my legs kicked out from under me, and I was forced to role to avoid an incoming axe kick. 'Note to self: don't think about random stuff while fighting.'

"You know," Adrian spoke during pause as I got back on my feet, "whoever taught you to fight, while they did do a rather good job, they left a rather glaring flaw."

"Oh really?" I responded, eyes narrowed. Talking was the cardinal sin of combat, so if he was speaking he obviously wasn't taking me seriously . . . of course, I doubt I could hurt him if he stood still and let me hit him with a sledge hammer, so I suppose that's to be expected.

"Yes, you lack defence from attacks the come from a lower angle. You'd do fine against a boxer, but a kick-boxer? Not so much. Also, beware of" he stepped back to avoid a sudden uppercut on my part, "shorter opponents." he kicked me in the ribs, sending me flying head over heels into the wall yet again. Why do I feel like the ball in a game of squash?

I got up, and charged him again, slammed one foot into the ground at an angle, and rotated my way around him, coming up behind him with a kick aimed at his own ribs. He seemed surprised for a brief moment, I learned that trick from him, and haven't used it until now, so I guess he was caught off guard by the change in tactics.

Not that that changed anything. He blurred into a handstand and gave me an anti-manner kick course. I flew into the ceiling this time. On my return to the ground, I struggled to my feet, feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Actually, all things considered, Adrian may be able to hit that hard . . .

"Ok, that's enough for today." From were I lay on the ground, I could see as Adrian walked up to one of the walls, placed his hand on it, and with a slight flare of his aura, it opened. darn nen door . . .

With a little struggle, I rose to my feet, using the wall as a brace. "Hey." Adrian said from the door, causing me to look up at him. "We we start on weapons tomorrow." he walked down the short hall to the stairs.

I sighed. On one hand, I was better at armed combat then unarmed, but on the other hand, I don't think that will make much difference. But still, might as well give it my all . . . I haven't watered my vine in a week!


February 10th: Russet

I looked at the sword I was holding. I traced its outline with my finger, the blade long and thin, the edges razor sharp, meant for skin and cloth rather than armour. The whole thing, counting the handle, was about three feet three inched long. The handle had no decoration, being a simple black leather coated cylinder, with a ring of metal at the top and bottom. The only decoration over the entire thing was on the cap at the bottom substitution a pommel, an simple image of seven rings, six surrounding a seventh.

The whole thing was designed to fit in a cane, and I'll admit it has become my favourite weapon. The only reason I didn't bring it along for the hunters exam, is because I feared that it would be damaged. It was only recently that I noticed the nen infused into the blade. I do remember that Slen said that he made it himself, so I suppose that was his doing. Of course, I didn't bring it along for the hunter exam, I was scared I'd loose it along the way, I left it with my other stuff, under the rock.

I stared into the blade, the hamon visible along the blade edge. I sheathed the blade in it's cane-sheath, and placed it back into the cupboard Adrian gave me for storing my things.

I,of course couldn't use the sword for sparing, it could get damaged. Quite frankly, I'll only use that blade for life and death scenarios. Walking over to the door, an rather fancy redwood thing with carvings of flowers and wildlife, I turned the knob and walked out into the hall. I took a left turn, followed by a right, then another left as I came up to the weapons room, where Adrian stored all his training weapons.

Entering, I gazed along a hundred foot long chamber with seemingly every available inch covered in some form of weapon. Of course, to my own annoyance, the weapons were alphabetized, so I would have to go to the very end to find a training sword.


AN: 10:05 PM August 18th, 2018. Ok, so this is finally done, took nine days, but I finished. Next chapter will be better, I hope. This chapter's name more or less describes the way it was to write. I don't really know what else to say. Well, other than thank LordOfTee for the constructive criticism. I'll probably read my past chapters and edit them soon.

Well, until next time.