Chapter 20 - Blood, sweat and onigiri

Toshiro put away the cannon where it belonged, and went to his room to undress. While being only in his undies, someone knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Toshiro asked.

"Me." A voice responded.

It was Mio.

"Come in then."

She came in, and without the slightest feeling of shame started talking:

"I came to you to talk about yesterday."

Toshiro was putting on his khaki trousers and said:

"I'm all ears."

"I will train you to adapt to your newfound power, but it will be nothing like you have ever experienced before…"

Toshiro was buttoning his shirt and said:

"Well, I didn't exactly anticipate it will be a walk in the park… I know that there are no miraculous ways of training, maybe except some sort of divine intervention or something…"

"Good that you're aware, but that won't help a bit. Meet me at the shooting range in fifteen minutes."

"Alright, Major."

"Oh and… Congratulations…" She said a bit flustered.

"You put me up to the promotion; I should thank you more than once you know…"

"The best way for you to thank me will be training hard and killing a crapload of Neuroi!" She shouted.

"Affirmative!"

Mio left, and Toshiro started to tidy up his clothes. After he finished, he went out. On the way down, he bumped into Yoshika, and on a whim, he asked her:

"Hey, Yoshika, can I ask you a favor?"

"Oh, sure."

"If I won't get to dinner, could you get me some onigiri near the shooting range by sundown?"

"Sure, why not… But, what could make you miss dinner?"

"I don't know exactly yet, but I have a really bad feeling… But don't worry, I SHOULD be safe…"

Toshiro went to the shooting range. The day was beautiful as usual, with a small breeze and a cloudless sky. He saw through the trees, standing in the center of the clearing. As he drew closer, he saw that she had a bamboo sword. Upon closer inspection, he saw two swords.

When he finally came before Mio, she started talking:

"One of the best training exercises for both the mind and body is sword fighting; thus, we will train until sunset today. If you have at least half the potential for swordsmanship like for magic, it will be surely enough"

"Ugh… Let's start then…"

Mio threw him a bamboo sword, which Toshiro surely caught with one hand.

"Good… Your objective is to hit me once."

"Only once?"

"Only, is an understatement here. You will see what years of training are worth! Let's rumble!"

They both rushed at each other and clashed swords.

And so began a training fight that could might as well be called a clash of titans.

In the beginning, Toshiro's inexperienced moves cost him a few bruises, but minute after minute, and with each exchanged blow, he got a bit better. By sundown, both Mio and Toshiro could be seen as equal opponents, because none had the slightest advantage over the other, and both were equally tired.

"I knew it… You are a natural talent…" Mio said gasping for air.

"A talent… can only flourish under the watchful eye of a true master…" Toshiro said huffing and puffing.

They both gave themselves a minute of rest.

"But to think of it, Toshiro, you didn't score a hit on me."

"Oh right… I should probably correct that error, shouldn't I?"

"Verily, you should. Come at me with full force, with whatever latent powers you have in shop."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Sure I'm sure! These swords are only made of bamboo, what could happen except for a few bruises?"

"All right..."

Toshiro closed his eyes and focused every bit of magic in his body.

Now would be a good time to help, snake.

He suddenly felt a familiar surge of power and opened his eyes. Time almost stood still for everything besides him. He could see Mio blinking, but her eyelid was moving like it was covered in tar.

Toshiro decided to strike. To reduce the risk of piercing Mio with the blunt bamboo sword (as impossible as it seems), he decided to do a horizontal strike to the chest. He ran such speed that someone viewing his attack would only see an afterimage. The sword hit Mio with dreadful force and shattered into tiny splinters. Toshiro disabled his magic, and saw Mio flying at high speed at a tree. She hit it and moaned in pain.

"Miss Sakamoto!" A voice suddenly shouted.

Toshiro looked to the left. Yoshika was standing there, with a cloth bag full of onigiri, shocked by what she just saw.

"Shit! Mio!" He shouted and ran to Mio.

She was conscious and breathing, but had an expression as if a freight train hit her.

"Mio, are you all right?!" Toshiro asked concerned.

"Yeah… Ow… Did you have to hit me on the boobs, damn you…"

"Ugh… I didn't lie to Perrine telling here you are as hard as a rock…"

"Major!" Yoshika came running after recovering from the shock. "Toshiro! Why did you attack the Major?!" She shouted almost crying.

"Shush, Miyafuji…" Mio said. "It's my own fault for telling him to go at full force at me. I underestimated him…"

"But… but…" Yoshika didn't know what to say.

"Yoshika…" Toshiro said with a soft voice "I attacked Mio because she wanted to, not because I wanted to cause her harm, although I went a bit overboard…" He turned his head to the Major. "I'm sorry, Mio…"

"Now, now…" She started getting up. "You fulfilled your training objective for today, and that's more than enough to not be mad at you... By the way, how do you feel right now?"

"A bit tired… But nothing unusual to be honest…"

"So it worked… Through the training battle, your mind and body improved to a new level. Yesterday, you would collapse using your new found power, and today, you are only tired."

"If you think about it that way… Hey, Yoshika, how about some of those onigiri? I'm starving!"

"Pass some to me, Miyafuji. I have to grab a bite before I collapse…"

"Oh, yes, of course!" Yoshika stood up and passed the onigiri between Toshiro and Mio.

They ate in silence.

Afterwards, they all returned to the base. Toshiro went to his room, lied on the bed and took a nap.

He woke up after about two hours. It was already dark outside, and the moon was shining.

Boy am I thirsty… Time to visit the kitchen, and maybe take a bath…

He grabbed a towel, and went to the dining room. The only one inside was Mio.

When she saw him, she raised a pitcher with water and asked:

"Thirsty?"

"Great minds think alike. Yes, please." He replied.

She poured him a full glass of water, and pushed it aside. Toshiro sat at the chair closest to the glass, which was about one chair apart from Mio. He drank the water, as if he had just crossed the desert.

"Question, Toshiro: did you consider striking me a different way?"

"To be honest… Yes, yes I did. I wanted to thrust you with the tip of the sword right into the center of your chest. However, in a split second I realized that although the tip was blunt, with the force of the attack I could have pierced you whole… And seeing the result of the sideways strike I did…"

"So in the kill attempt ranking, you are leading three to one, impressive… Maybe I should relegate you to some other unit, huh?"

Toshiro gave her a look that could cut up a stone block.

"I'm kidding; I wouldn't let you go no matter what!"

"About that…" Toshiro looked down with a gloomy face.

"What, what happened?"

"Maloney made me an offer…"

"What?!" Mio shouted surprised, but surprisingly Minna was found standing in the door.

"Minna, you might want to hear this…" Toshiro said.

"Oh, you got me interested, Toshiro." She said and sat on a chair.

"So, after that whole circus with my promotion, Maloney approached me with an offer. He said to ditch you, quote, 'losers', end quote, and to join him, so he would make a war hero and stuff. I knew that it meant I would I would be his pet chimpanzee on a golden chain, so I refused. You should have seen his face when he was threatening me afterwards…"

"What did he say?" Minna asked.

"Something in the lines of 'you will all regret is' and stuff, old man's rambling."

Both Mio and Minna went silent.

"Wait, you guys are treating those threats serious?"

"I already told you the story behind Maloney, Toshiro. He would probably put a beacon on our base, so all the Neuroi in Europe know where to attack…"

"Slimy bastard… If it weren't for all the witnesses, I would probably rip his spine out…" Toshiro said with a weird glint in his eye.

"We can't afford to lose you, so put these bloody thoughts aside." Mio said.

"Right… Anyway, I want to take a bath, if you don't have anything else to discuss…"

"No, you can go, right Mio?" Minna said.

"Yeah, go…" Mio answered.

Toshiro went to the bath. The sign was covered, so he changed it and went inside.

While soaking up in the bath, he heard a faint footstep behind him.

"I know you are here…" Toshiro said with a sigh at the end.

The footsteps got louder, and soon someone went into the bath besides him.

He looked aside, but didn't find Minna there, it was Mio.

"Woah, Mio, what are you doing here in the same bath with me? And shouldn't you take a shower before?"

"Decided to do a little mixed bathing… And I'm too tired to shower."

She didn't even try to cover up her female parts, but Toshiro saw something that made him cringe: a big horizontal violet bruise, going right across her nipples

"Ouuch… Sorry again, Mio… Maybe if you ask Yoshika she will heal that…"

"A bruise like that won't hinder me, I had worse. But you could massage my back and shoulders, that hit in the tree messed them up a bit…"

"Sure, Mio."

She turned around to him, and he began to massage her shoulders.

"Ohhhh… yessss… that feels good… Maybe I should get beaten up by you more often, so I could get massages like these?"

"Ha, ha…" Toshiro said with sarcasm in his voice. "Don't joke, Mio. If that was a rock instead of a tree, you could have your spine broken, and that would be the end of your military career…"

"Don't say such things! My life and the military are one, and I don't imagine it being different!"

"Today I Learned… Mio, promise me that we will never cross swords again, especially the sharp kind…"

"Why? Are you afraid you would end up like me now?"

"No, you idiot! I could have killed you back then! Even without sharp blade, you would be on the way to the morgue! You of all people should know what I'm capable of, even with my bare hands!" He shouted in anger.

"Toshiro…" She said and turned around.

He had an angry look on his face, ready to explode every second.

Mio placed her hand on his cheek and said:

"Okay, Toshiro, I promise to be more careful when training with you… I have to confess to you… That time you attacked me on the mountain… It was the one time in my life I saw Death looking me in the eye…"

"Mio, I…" He didn't finish, because Mio placed her finger on his lips.

"Hush now, let's enjoy our bath now, we deserved it…"

"M'kay…" He mumbled.

They spent almost an hour in the bath. Afterwards they got out, and their ways parted. Toshiro went to his room, and fell asleep with a smile on his face.

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