Note!: Seung Mi Na and Seung Han Myong are not my characters, they respectfully belong to Namco. I wish they belonged to me, but that's another matter entirely...
Prologue
The sound of a blunted wood connecting heavily with flesh echoed through the ring. A soft whimper followed the harsh corrective administrations, the cry falling silent to mingle with the packed dirt that mocking bruised the fallen student more so.
"Pitiful child. Get up and do it again. Only right this time," boomed Seung Han Myong as he lowered the practice weapon from its raised disciplinary position. Defiantly, Seung's daughter held her eyes on his as she wobbly rose from her sprawl, rubbing the rapidly reddening streak across her cheek. With a swallow, Mi Na turned her attention to the straw-stuffed dummy swinging listlessly in front of her.
Patches of light streaming through the cracks in the shed's walls told her morning had come and soon her father's students would arrive. She would be shunted aside to doing menial chores, while the others would have all her father's good-temper, nice words and kind teachings, leaving nothing in place of that good for her. Her lips tightening into a purse line, she would show them and him how much better she was. Her screaming muscles obeyed her orders to attack the troublesome pells. High, high, high, reversal, sweep low. With gritted teeth and shallow pants, she waited for the corrective slap while wiping the sweat stinging her eyes with a ragged sleeve.
From the shadows of the early morning gloom, she couldn't see the expression on her teacher's face. A fiercely prideful grin that danced in his eyes as he observed the daughter that was a natural fighter, one of his own brood. He paused for the moment to collect his emotions before he spoke.
"Is that all you've got? Pfft. You truly are a girl, for no male would attack with such a sloppy guard..." As Mi Na's father rambled on his tirade of her mistakes, she stiffened with a resolve Seung noted immediately. Yes, she would do well.
Prologue
The sound of a blunted wood connecting heavily with flesh echoed through the ring. A soft whimper followed the harsh corrective administrations, the cry falling silent to mingle with the packed dirt that mocking bruised the fallen student more so.
"Pitiful child. Get up and do it again. Only right this time," boomed Seung Han Myong as he lowered the practice weapon from its raised disciplinary position. Defiantly, Seung's daughter held her eyes on his as she wobbly rose from her sprawl, rubbing the rapidly reddening streak across her cheek. With a swallow, Mi Na turned her attention to the straw-stuffed dummy swinging listlessly in front of her.
Patches of light streaming through the cracks in the shed's walls told her morning had come and soon her father's students would arrive. She would be shunted aside to doing menial chores, while the others would have all her father's good-temper, nice words and kind teachings, leaving nothing in place of that good for her. Her lips tightening into a purse line, she would show them and him how much better she was. Her screaming muscles obeyed her orders to attack the troublesome pells. High, high, high, reversal, sweep low. With gritted teeth and shallow pants, she waited for the corrective slap while wiping the sweat stinging her eyes with a ragged sleeve.
From the shadows of the early morning gloom, she couldn't see the expression on her teacher's face. A fiercely prideful grin that danced in his eyes as he observed the daughter that was a natural fighter, one of his own brood. He paused for the moment to collect his emotions before he spoke.
"Is that all you've got? Pfft. You truly are a girl, for no male would attack with such a sloppy guard..." As Mi Na's father rambled on his tirade of her mistakes, she stiffened with a resolve Seung noted immediately. Yes, she would do well.