The Soulless One
By: The Dragon Mistress
The training room was a rather dismal place. Along the back wall there was racks of swords and other weapons that Sen had never seen before. The walls were stone, like her room, but these walls were cut in straight lines, not the jagged rocks of her quarters. The roof was flat too, not filled with stalactites. Next to the rack of weapons was a bin filled with the wooden practice weapons (Not nearly as good of quality as the real weapons). Several of the practice weapons were chipped, battered and very old, giving the appearance that most of the people who used this room were masters and didn't use practice weapons. Jaken was coming from another secret passageway, holding a practice sword.
Jaken handed her the sword he had been carrying. It was one of the slightly dented practice swords it had a few chips in it and the point was practically flat. The handle was a simple brown leather wrapping that smelled a bit and didn't keep her hands from blistering. She had found out yesterday when she came back from training (Not that she minded much because she didn't feel the blisters as a regular person wood). However it did allow for a firm grip (which was all she really cared about). Yesterday all Jaken had managed to teach her was her feet position. She had started with what she had seen in the movies with keeping your feet planted and having a cocky stance. Jaken did not like this at all, and with a few sharp nudges with the staff (forgetting that she didn't feel the nudges like a normal student would) he drilled her into the correct stance.
She was to keep her feet shoulder width apart and to be on the balls of her feet. Sen had a bit of trouble mastering this however because she felt like she was wearing one of those fancy super model's high heels. Finally she had gotten that part of the stance right, that day she learned the position of her hands, knees, and almost everything else.
Now she was going to learn how to use the sword, or at least some of the starting drills, to master the sword took a bit longer than a day. Carefully she positioned herself according to yesterday's instructions. Feet apart, hands at the ready, knees bent…. Gripping the sword with two hands she watched Jaken for his approval. Grudgingly he shook his fat toady head in what resembled a nod, it had taken him a few weeks to learn the position she got in a day. Raising his staff Jaken rushed at her, swinging the two-headed staff expertly. Completely taken by surprise Sen was knocked flying, hitting the back of the room with a thump. Sen slowly fell to the ground. Jumping up (for the pain of nearly cracking her head wasn't there so she reacted quicker than she usually would) she resumed her starting stance.
After forming the starting position she watched her teacher warily, looking for sudden moves to give her a chance to guess his next move. Abruptly Jaken nodded his warty head, pleased that his student learned to watch the opponent for movement, not where they held their sword (or staff in this case). However, Sen had displeased him because she had reacted so slowly to his beginning attack (she hadn't even put up the sword for defense!).
"You must block me when I come at you." Jaken once again charged at Sen, but this time she was ready and put the sword at a horizontal angle to slow his oncoming charge. As soon as Jaken impacted, Sen could feel her arms bend. Jaken had been coming on with too much force for her arms to stop. Once again Sen was thrown back onto the rock wall. This time instead of jumping up and resuming her stance she fell unconscious, and remained slumped at the base of the wall.
Glaring angrily at his rather disappointing student Jaken waited for her to get up. Lord Sesshoumaru had been quit certain that this one human child would master her weapons without to much difficulty, yet she hadn't been as promising as he might have hoped. She had showed more skill than a regular human, but she still seemed to have some difficulties that he hadn't expected. At this rate Sen would never get to the chi any time soon. That was okay with him because he felt that the less humans who knew chi the better.
The pathetic human girl still lay slumped at the base of the wall. She hadn't moved at all. The girl was lucky that Lord Sesshoumaru had chosen her to carry out his wishes, yet she seemed resentful. Lord Sesshoumaru didn't seem to mind all that much, he had even replaced the filthy clothes the girl had worn when Sesshoumaru had brought her here with new purple garments. The clothes weren't anything extraordinary, yet to see Lord Sesshoumaru paying this much attention to anything meant it must mean a great deal.
Impatient Jaken turned to leave, but stopped, wondering if Sen could obey when she was unconscious. An evil smirk lit Jaken's face and he ordered Sen to do a hundred blocks, with the correct block position. Disappointed Jaken watched Sen's prone form continue to stay slumped at the bottom of the rock wall. Annoyed Jaken turned and left, leaving Sen alone till she recovered.
When Sen slowly came to consciousness, she had no memory of what Jaken had ordered, but she picked up her practice sword, holding it loosely in one hand, intending to put it in the storage room at the other side of the room. When Sen struggled to open the storage bin, because her arms were still weak from Jaken bashing them, she accidentally knocked one of the training books from a shelf nearby. Turning Sen picked up the worn leather book and absent-mindedly flipped through a few of the old dusty pages. Looking closely at one of the thin pages Sen saw the defensive move she had just attempted to do. Realizing what she had done wrong, Sen put the book down and decided to try a few.
Standing in position, Sen brought her sword up to the correct blocking position, this time using the correct hand position. Then, reforming the starting position Sen tried the block again. After a few more times Sen decided to finish cleaning up and go back to her cave room. As Sen tried to break out of the series of blocks she found that she couldn't. Her body was stuck doing the block over and over again. Startled Sen tried to pull away, but she couldn't, she was stuck fast. Deciding that it must stop sometime, Sen chose to wait it out.
The practice never seemed to stop, over and over again she blocked. Her already exhausted body needed to stop. Eventually it quite on her and collapsed into a heap, leaving Sen blissfully unconscious. When Sen finally came awake she once more started blocking. On the point of collapsing once again, she finally stopped. Exhausted Sen dragged herself to the sword bin and dropped her sword in. Careful not to look at any of the sword techniques Sen put the book away in its proper place.
Finally falling onto her pile of straw, Sen fell sound asleep. That is till, an angry sword teacher woke her up the next morning.