Sage in training
Chapter 4
It was a quiet relaxing evening and Issei was meditating in his usual training place, the small clearing in the forest.
It was not that hard to meditate but today Issei was lost in thoughts and memories of the past few months.
He guess that he was feeling a bit nostalgic today as he seem to have passed the time reminiscing or as a certain one masked Cyclops would say, 'lost in the way of life'.
He was remembering the hectic past five months that were a rollercoaster of a ride, even if it was just about meeting some new friends and getting to know them.
It was crazy, it was fun and it was just plain madness the meeting were and utterly ridiculous and improbable the circumstances surrounding them. And all this led to him meeting and gaining new friends.
The first of the lot, his new friends, was his classmate Shimura Katase, a girl with a pink hair that had a light reddish hue and was prodigy of the sword, heiress of the Shimura Clan and their martial arts and their numerous sword styles and holder nicknamed 'Sword Princess of the Shimura clan'.
He had met her at the begging of the year but had only begun to talk to her after the summer break and soon became her friend.
The reason for this was that during at that time before summer he was always with Iri and did not pay her much attention. After his friend had left he had gotten the book and was busy training in the sage arts and other assorted training.
It was during his sage training, when he had begun practicing the martial arts in the book that he had noticed Katase again.
He had often gone to the local gyms and dojo to get a gist of how he should train alongside the instructions in the book that he had noticed her. It was just her doing some katas that he had seen her and not paid much attention other than that she was his classmate. Then in his later visits he saw her trouncing some of the older senior students.
She got hurt a lot during the fights but she always seem to bounce back and win her matches. For Issei it was quite inspiring as even though he had learnt that girls weren't weak or helpless and could be strong in their own right. He had yet to see a valid example and Katase was the first girl that he had seen that display such strength.
His visit to the dojo was quite prominent and he was soon seen as a regular member even though he did not join the dojo or practiced kenjutsu or kendo. He was often seen helping around before he left to continue his own training.
With this he would often cheer the students and help them in some small ways life giving first aid, helping cleaning the dojo or other small chores around the dojo.
Even so, he had not much interaction with Katase though he would often cheer her in her practice matches and spars and help her sometimes. Being an heiress from an important clan also made her pay not much attention to him.
Instead Issei would often talk to the instructors and senior students, while Katase would practice and attend the regular lessons only interacting during the matches and spars, while ignoring each other at class.
This was somewhat of a routine for the two of them just some occasional gestures but no conversations, but doing so both of them learnt more about each other than simple words would done. It seemed that action really spoke louder than words.
Issei still didn't consider Katase his friend nor did Katase considered Issei as her friend; though to the onlookers they were seen as friends and maybe a bit more. Just ask the one of the instructors.
Then summer came and Issei went on the trip with his parents.
When the summer break ended and he came back he was quite surprised when Katase greeted him and inquired where he went for the break. It was the first proper conversation that he had with her that did not start or end with just 'hello'.
He was bit taken back with that but then he started chatting with her about his break and the trip. It was quite fun talking to her and he really enjoyed seeing her smile and talk. It was just like the time he spent with Iri.
Then during the conversation he casually remarked that he had successfully learnt the chestnut fist from Ranma ½, and was on his way to learning the breaking point technique.
Katase was bit skeptical at that but believed him when he performed the chestnut fist, even if it was 5 punches per sec for 3 seconds, compared to the 100 punches per sec of the manga. He then carelessly commented that Katase could not do what had done while forgetting about her stubborn competitive pride.
After that it somehow led to him taunting her a bit while gloating about his skills, which led to Katase making a bet that if she could copy and recreated some sword style Issei had to do what she had to say. They even managed to rope in Mr. Yusuke, one of the kendo instructor of the dojo, and asked him in helping in the demonstration, which he agreed quite readily after seeing Issei in action. Issei to help Katase get a start gave her the Samurai X manga as it had some of the best and incredible yet believable sword styles.
After being absent for three days Katase came to class ragged and tired, yet prime and proper, how she does it Issei still didn't know, and told Issei to met him at the dojo after school.
It was then at the dojo that Katase surprise everyone even Issei when she performed the techniques of the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, a sword style that even modern day historians and swordsmen often comments that this would be one of the strongest sword style in existence if it was real and replicable, which till now was not.
Katase performed the Ryūtsuisen, Ryūshōsen, Ryūkansen and the Kuzuryūsen in near perfect form, though there were some differences due to her height and build, it was no doubt that Katase had replicated a really dangerous sword style making her a dangerous opponent and that was not considering any of her family styles either. Ten year old and Katase had become one of the most dangerous swordswoman Issei had ever known and probably even the world.
Everyone present there were shocked at seeing Katase performing the techniques even Mr. Yusuke who had agreed to be Katase's opponent for the demonstration was shocked especially when Katase performed the Kuzuryūsen, even if the techniques had some small variations but not much that one would notice.
All present there were awestruck after the last technique was performed by Katase and even when all knew her reputation as an upcoming kendo prodigy. She had seemingly destroyed any misconceptions and doubts about her abilities in the art of the sword and about the strength of the Shimura family. Some even gave her the nickname of Sword Princess and from what Issei heard made the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū a valid sword style with Katase Shimura as its sole practitioner, just like the previous day when Issei had performed the chestnut fist and seemingly became the sole practitioner of the Anything Goes Martial Arts even if it was an Amazon technique, though he was now trying to make the frog fist a valid martial arts now.
All this happened because of a small quarrel between two 10 year old kids. Some people really take things a tad too far.
Her performance though was incredible and Issei had not sense her using even a bit of ki or any other type of energy. It was pure physical skill and technique, not ki chakra or anything, it was all her. With grace and finesse like the ones in the manga and anime, she was fast and precise with strength to back it up. Issei could perform them but that was only with ki and chakra added to the mix and even then he could not reach the level of grace that Katase showed truly Issei was outclassed by her in pure swordsmanship.
Later after the demonstration Katase came to fulfill her part of the bet and as per the bet Issei agreed to give her some sword techniques that he had learn through the book. It was at that time that she almost collapsed. With no one around as everyone dispersed after the demonstration Issei decided to carry her home which he found was 13 kilometers from the school.
She was tired and had not fainted yet but was close enough and with no one around to help Issei carried her to her home which was not that difficult as it sounded with a bit of ki and chakra. On the way Katase regained enough energy to talk though before that Issei was the one doing all the talking.
They talk about a lot of things, of their quarrel and mangas, kenjutsu, kendo martial arts, school and friends, which Issei found they both, had none or ones they could truly call friends. It was, he didn't know familiar and saddening at the same time kind of sobering. She due to her status as a rich heir to an old samurai family as well as her prodigy status, while for Issei it was due to his otaku status that he gained during his training in Senjutsu over the past months that had led to us having almost no one they could truly call friends.
Talking and walking, they both learned a lot about each other and when Issei commented about her being almost like Sakura Haruno from Naruto that was when he found out how scary she could get. It seems she does not like being compared to a fangirl though Issei was referring to the Shipudden version not the first one.
Upon reaching her house which was an old mansion and an estate Issei randomly asked how she even got to school on time. To which she replied that she walked and sometimes run all the way to school, which kind of explains her incredible speed and endurance needed for the Hiten.
During the following days Issei and Katase almost hanged around each other and were near inseparable with Issei helping Katase learn the sword techniques and with her school work and Katase helping Issei with his martial arts training. Not that Issei needed her help due to the book but having someone to practice with really improved his styles, which was one of the reasons Issei was going to use the location spell. In a short time they spent with each other they had somehow become best friends.
A month later after the incident almost everyone in town knew of the blooming friendship between Issei and Katase, though it was mostly them coming up with new techniques to beat each other.
During that time both saw an incredible increase in their skills.
Katase during that month somehow learned how to use all the techniques of the Hiten-Mitsurugi-ryū and even replicated an impossible technique 'The Hiten–Tsubame Gaeshi' form Fate Stay/Night and vowed to recreate the Dark Slayer Style form the DMC series. Katase with the help of Issei made incredible progress with her family style which were already considered deadly in their own right and even improved and added new techniques to them.
Issei was really scared of Katase due to her almost unnatural progress and he knew then that prodigies and geniuses when meet hard work result in broken characters, with Katase being a great example as she was a really hard worker on top of being a prodigy.
Issei also during the month was able to enter the phantom subspace and even managed to interact with the real word from there even though due to the time differences he naturally moved faster. This greatly help Issei as he was able to really train extended hours, even days in short time. Hell, he even spent four months in the phantom subspace and was only gone for nine hours.
Issei really did not get the time conversion of the phantom subspace as the book stated it was only 25 times faster so he should not have been able to spend months in it and only result in a few hours loss. Issei also found that the phantom space was an exact copy of the real world with all the exact details and items but devoid of life and that any items that were destroyed in the phantom subspace were not destroyed in the real world. It was a really great training technique which he abused the hell out of it to catch up with Katase, even though Katase later ended up learning it and also abused it as much as he did.
Issei also noted that in the phantom subspace somehow he somehow age very slowly and even seemed to not grow like he normally did in the real world. After some experimentation he found out that the phantom subspace somehow reset his body to the time he entered the phantom subspace after exiting it but still mysteriously kept all the results of the training done in the subspace.
He though it was quite convenient and felt like it was suppose to belong in some manga where the protagonist gets this technique to do some dire last minute training, seriously though it was quite an unfair technique.
Issei during this was able to improve his sensory techniques and was able to increase the chestnut fist to a respectable 90 punches per second with a total duration of 45 second max unlike the 1000 punches per sec of the original technique he still had a long way to go for it.
Issei even learn a lot of other techniques and skills and improve his already existing ones. Like the Breaking Point technique from Ranma ½ which he learned after Katase had shown him the Hiten-Tsubame Gaeshi, with which he sometimes went on a demolition spree in the phantom subspace.
He was also able to really improve his medical knowledge using the phantom subspace, he even learn some swordsmanship, spear-wielding, archery and other assorted weapon training though he was nowhere near proficient in these areas but it was still something he tried to improve upon.
Using the phantom subspace Issei was also able to freely use his ki and chakra techniques and made great progress in them along with increasing his reserves, he was also able to briefly use his psi part of chakra for a while and had to really focus on it to use it again, after which he started training them.
His psi powers were the typical telepathy and telekinesis but he also seemed to have some other psi powers. One was teleportation, which meant that he could teleport himself to different locations. He also found that he could teleport objects around himself even other people and animals even it was in an limited range which seemed to grow with practice.
His next psi ability was magnetic manipulation which he did not use much as it reminded him of the character Magneto but then thought to practice it after finding out exactly what that guy was able to do with it. it was then Issei was introduced to the marvel and dc comics which surprising were fun to read after learning how to read English and it also resulted in him doing remarkably well in English class.
His other psi abilities also included electricity manipulation and boy did he have fun with it. Issei while researching about this ability came across the A certain magical index and A certain scientific Railgun series which not only became one of his favorite series but also drew a lot of ideas from it.
He was greatly inspired by the two teleporters in the series Musujime Awaki and Shirai Kuroka not to mention Misaka Mikoto, whose abilities were similar to his. Issei wanted to surpass the Railgun ability of Misaka as it was an incredible ability and even tried hacking using electricity manipulation though he was quite unsuccessful in it. Issei also made a note on recreating the various abilities that were based on lightning or electricity using either his psi powers or chakra and ki. It was a very slow process though as there were tons of them.
Even though his psi abilities were useful Issei did not train them much except for his teleportation and magnetic manipulation. This was because Issei focused mainly on his Senjutsu training and the location spell for which he was preparing and Issei decided that only after he had used the location spell he would really start training his psi abilities, not that he wasn't already training them but not to the extent of his other abilities.
As for the level of his psi abilities he could safely read the minds of over 10 people simultaneously and not feel like his head would explode and was even able to engage them in a conversation without them knowing about it, with his sage training he had already gained quite some powerful mental barriers which were boosted with his telepathy but till he find another telepath he was unsure of their overall strength.
For telekinesis he was able to lift a large boulder the size of a car and move it at a high speed but other than that and moving other smaller objects, the standard push and pull, he was not able to practice this ability much.
For his electricity manipulation he was able to generate quite some power but since he didn't have the necessary tools with him, he was unable to measure the generated voltage and overall power. He was quite sure it was powerful though but he may be overestimating it.
Issei while not able to properly control and generate electricity and shoot lightning was able to use electromagnetism to control metal and when used with his magnetic manipulation was able to boost his control a lot.
Speaking of his magnetic manipulation, Issei had trained this psi ability the most second only to his teleportation ability and was at the level where he could life and crush large metal towers to a football size scraps and when he used it along with his electromagnetism from his electricity manipulation he was able to reduce them to much smaller pieces. He still was not a the level of Magneto as that guy could do what Issei could do with a thought while Issei had to really concentrate on what he had to do.
His most practiced and well refined psi ability was his teleportation skill. Issei for this ability was able to really increase his range of teleportation in hundreds of kilometers with his max range was unknown to him and was able to even teleport thing in his sight to other locations and he once even teleported the Tokyo tower to another city. Good thing he did it while he was in the phantom subspace or else that would have been international news.
He really had fun with his teleportation skill but he preferred walking and running to teleporting. He would admit it was fun to scare people into thinking he was a ninja when he teleported and scared them.
Issei also found that when his psi and ki abilities increased in power and control, his chakra also increased in potency and power and likewise when his chakra increased in control and reserves his Ki and psi abilities also did the same.
After one month since the bet against Katase, Issei had spent almost one and a half years of time in the phantom subspace and yes he was counting how much time he spent in it. Issei had done a lot of things and was finally, finally able to complete his preparations for the location spell, with some training done for good measure.
Issei had set up the spell in his usual training ground in the real world instead of the phantom subspace to avoid any interference and started it.
It first seemed like nothing happened but then Issei soon found himself drifting, he didn't know if it was his mind or his body that was drifting, all he knew was that he was drifting, drifting along with the spell as it search for the best possible candidate for being a sage.
He found himself seeing different locations that went like a blur, yet seemed crystal clear to him.
After sometime he found something, an image of a young girl whose hair was white as snow like had a certain metallic glow like silver, her frame delicate and small, her clothes were but mere rags that were torn and could barely be considered clean. Overall she looked like someone from the streets, starved and poor and yet she was in a castle where she stood like a beacon to his senses.
Issei knew then and there that he had found a fellow sage or at least one that had immense potential to become one.
So when she asked the simple question "Who are you?" in the true spirit of his Idol Sage Issei greeted her.
"From the Northern winds to the Southern Seas, my name shall echo far and wide, for I am the second coming of the Gallant Sage, searching for my fellow sages and learning the forbidden arts, I am Issei Hyoudou a Sage in training traveling the world, and you young lady have been chosen to wield power eternal and become a sage of the world."
Hah that was the most perfect introduction he had given, with his cloak blowing with the wind and his staff in hand giving him a firm support Issei thought he surely must have made a great impact on the girl as she stood there silent and staring at him. She must be at awe at his entrance.
"You're weird."
OK maybe not so much, better luck next time.
AN: Well sorry for the late update and this was due to many reason like writers block, real life computer crashing down and many more. Reasons aside this was also not one my better chapter so far and well since I'm not much of an expert at writing dialogues, There were not much i could do.
Though what i could do was what i did and many might find it surprising or maybe not so much.
Now many might say that I'm making Issei a bit to op in here and also very early on, well yes I'll admit it maybe so, but there are reasons for it or maybe not I'll have to get back on that.
Still the next few chapter will be publish quickly so be on the look out for it. Till then See ya.