"Now," said Renji standing in front of him. "This may not be what they taught you in the academy, but those assholes at the institute only fight with their swords or that damn kido bullshit. I'm gonna teach ya how ta fight like a street rat."
"Um... why?"
"Well, first thing I learned as a street kid was that the whole damn world was bigger than I was--"
"You were a street kid?" the boy said, looking amazed again. Renji gave him a blank, flat look.
"You can't tell?" he asked. Renji felt that the odd look he gave the kid was perfectly justified, seeing as Renji was covered in tatoos and had that hardened, mean-eyed look about him.
"How'd you make it outta med school?" he wondered. "Anyway, that don' matter. First thing you gotta know in order to defend yerself is how to use yer environment ta yer advantage. Look around you..."
They were in a mostly bare practice ring with loose dirt flooring to help cushion the impact of a fall, there was a set of three pull-up bars nearby a bench for sit ups, a weapons rack with one rack-pole hanging off it and a sword practice dummy.
"Do you see anything that you could use to your advantage if someone comes after you?"
"No," he said after a pause. "There's nothing here that isn't bolted down."
"There's where yer wrong," Renji replied. "That push up pole could help you block or evade blows if yer unarmed. The loose pole on that rack could be used as a tripping bar if he's running full tilt. The loose dirt beneath your feet--"
Renji took a few quick steps, skidded down, scooped up and handful and cast it at one of the push up bars at man-height.
"Can easily be used to blind an opponent and help you escape."
"Won't that just make him angry?" the boy pointed out. "A lot of these guys can develop long-running vendettas if they have nothing else to do. One of my friends in Ward Three had to avoid a guy for a whole year because every time the man saw him he'd try to attack him. Eventually he forgot what it was that made him angry but..."
"Hmm, I see yer point," Renji frowned.
It had happened to him and some of his mates a time or two also, when he'd been growing up. Thugs rarely ever forgot a vendetta either, especially if it gave them something to do, chasing down weaklings was always fun fer a power rush for that sort of thug.
"Well it looks like just avoidance tactics won't work. What you have to do is be able to hurt 'em enough to make 'em respect you."
"I'm a healer--"
"Yeah yeah, I didn't say do permanent damage," Renji dismissed. "I just meant that you should hurt 'em just enough to show 'em yer not gonna take their bullying lying down and they'll think twice the next time about whether yer an easy target fer kickin' around."
The boy looked at him with one of those creepy looks healers sometimes gave him, like they were looking more *into* him and seeing things Renji didn't know if he wanted people seeing.
"Why are you doing this... really?" the boy asked him, giving him one of those Old Soul, creepy, Healer-looks. Renji tried not to look embarrassed and stammered a bit before sighing and answering him straight.
"A buddy o' mine, one of the boys who kinda followed me an' Rukia around--"
"Rukia and you knew each other when you were--?!"
"Shaddap," Renji snapped. "And don't talk about it to anyone, you'll bring her rep down."
The boy seemed to frown a little at that and look a little sharply at Renji. Again, renji had the odd feeling that he'd just revealed something more about himself than he'd intended but damned if he knew what it was.
"Anyways," Renji coughed in embarrassment for letting it slip. "An old friend of mine was sort of our group mascot, real cute little kid. He sorta looked up to me like I was his older brother or somethin' so I useta kinda, y'know, look out for him. He didn't learn to defend himself the way the other kids did an' I didn't teach 'im 'cause I thought that I'd be around to protect him. I mean, he was in my gang and that was what we did, we looked out fer each other. One night we were out getting some food and he crossed the path of one of the meaner thugs in the district, all he did was pull his usual begging trick with the wide eyes and puppy face thing. I guess the thug didn't like it, or was too drunk, cause he used his cane to knock him into the wall, 'cept that he musta hit 'im too hard 'cause Haru never got up from it."
"Ohh" the boy looked sickened. "That's-- that's awful."
"Shit like that happens a lot in that place," Renji said with a shrug. "I shoulda taught him how to roll with a hit and how to avoid taking a hit in a vital spot same as the others 'cause I really suck at protecting people. Besides, when I was in Eleventh the guys used to pick on you poor bastards and I laughed along with everyone else because it was kinda funny at the time. I didn't really agree with it, but I didn't stop it either. I know what it's like to be the poor dog on the bottom of the heap. You need to show 'em you've got bite or you'll be down there forever."
Gratifyingly, the boy looked at Renji like he simply couldn't believe that Renji might ever have known what it was like to be weak or helpless.
"So let's get started then," Renji said.
"Uh, right," the boy said. Renji gave up and said
"It's a courtesy among fighters of quality for the assholes to exchange names before beating the crap out of one another."
The kid gulped.
"I keep wantin' to say your name is somethin' like Hamtaro, but I know that's not it. What's yer name kid?"
"Hanatarou," he said shyly extending his hand. "Hanatarou Yamada."
"Renji Abarai, Sixth Squad Lieutenant," he said, crushing the boys small hand in the grip of his much larger one.
"Let's get down to business then."
"But... I only barely passed my sword exams in the Academy, I think the teacher just took pity on me and got tired of yelling at me so he passed me just to get me out of his class."
"Nah, yer not gonna need yer sword for this. Wimpy Zanpaktou like that'd just get in the way anyway," Renji dismissed. "You're gonna fight with your hands."
"But I--" he looked at his tiny fists.
"Jus' shaddap an' listen."
The boy shut up.
"Yer a real tiny little twerp," Renji said, sizing him up. "But like I said, that don't mean shit. One of the best fighters I know is no bigger than you are and she can take a poor bastard down so hard he don't get up right away. 'Course, she grew up that way too. First thing you gotta realize, is that size, especially in an attacker, is not always an advantage."
He looked frankly very surprised.
"Nobody ever tell you any of this before?" Renji asked, surprised at his surprise.
"No," Hanatarou said honestly.
"Hn, what're they teaching in the Academy these days?" he mused to himself and shrugged continuing with the lesson.
"Alright, here it is. I've noticed that thugs like that guy from earlier like to attack from behind or the side by running up on a kid an bowling him over like a charging rhinoceros. No finesse, just sheer power."
"For those guys it's usually more than enough. Rhinoceroses trample guys like me, you know?"
"Well it's actually lucky for you that they attack you that way. Moves like that are the easiest for shrimps like you to counter," Renji replied. "Because yer a tiny twerp, ya got a lower center o' gravity than them, and you can use their own force against them easier. Yer a Healer, so yer not so much about the attacking; this way, ya don' hafta."
"Oh?" Yamada said, seemed quite intrigued by that.
"Yeah, see... when he comes at you all you hafta do is plant yer feet..."
Renji took up a stance classic to most forms of martial fighting, Yamada was even familiar with it.
"But then ya sink yer weight like this and you can do a couple of things. You can round yer back and push up catching him in the side then ya pivot like this and shove, adding your force to his own puts him off balance and he'll fall forward." Renji demonstrated the maneuver.
"That looks hard..." Hanatarou said dubiously.
"No it's really easy, watch."
Renji ran through it a few times, even having Hanatarou rush at him like the toughs were wont to do from time to time to demonstrate.
"Another good one if someone comes at you from the front is this one. Sink your weight again like this, step in like this, with your right hand knock his arms to one side and with your left catch him by the jaw and push forward and up. Then take your hindward foot and quickly move in and place it around his own on the left. Hit the back of his knee with your foot and he'll go down for certain. See, you've used his own forward momentum to clothesline him. His feet are going one way and his head'll be going another."
"Looks really complicated."
"It's really only three steps, watch..." Renji demonstrated again.
"And the best thing about this maneuver," he said after the third demonstration. "Is that you can easily deal more damage if you want to, instead of catching his chin go for his throat if ya wanna put the hurt on 'im. Or, once he's down you can incapacitate him by retaining one of those hands you knocked aside and... well, probably easier if I show ya--"
Renji showed him various ways to twist wrists, hands and fingers. Yamada stopped him after the third one once he figured something out for himself apparently.
"Oh! I see, yeah well actually that way works, but if you want to bind up a person's arm to keep it from moving, Mister Abarai, there are several points along the arm and shoulder that can temporarily remove feeling, we use them when we heal people. And if you do this--"
Yamada hooked his fingers around the meat of his thumb and pushed his fingers back into his writs in one easy twist which was a new manuver on Renji.
"I knew a guy who was weeks in physical threapy after having gotten his wrist twisted up like this," Yamada in formed him, smiling shyly.
Renji grinned and ruffled the hair of his unexpectedly star pupil.
"Now yer gettin' it!" he said proudly. "It's all about using the body's own weak spots and vital areas against him."
"I'd never really thought about it, Healers usually go out of their way to ease pain not the other way around. It's the fighters job to cause pain and our job to ease it. This sort of thing... it kinda goes against the grain Mister Abarai. I mean the part where I'm just using my opponents own moves against him, that's not so bad but..."
"Look. I know these guys, I know how they think, and nuthin' else is gonna get through to 'em. If yer not strong enough to take respect from 'em by force then you don't deserve it, that's just the way the world works fer them. If you can put enough of the hurt on 'em to make 'em think twice then yer someone worthy of consideration as a peer, if yer not able to do that then they can do whaever the hell they want."
"But that makes no sense, you should grant every person respect as a thinking being!" Yamada protested immediately.
"And it's that very same naivete that makes all the other kids wanna beat the crap outta ya kid," Renji said cheerfully.
"Here's another way to use yer opponents force against him," Renji continued. "If he rushes at you from behind and grabs you around the neck, grab the arm around yer throat and sink yer weight before he can drag you off balance, you gotta keep yer feet on the ground. Now sink yer wieght and bend forward, now step back and bring yer backward foot around between his legs , now round yer back as you push forward and heave downward."
Renji walked him through the steps then played the attacker. Yamada panicked and apologized profusely when he did it right and Renji went flying over his back, landing on the ground and rolling to distribute the force.
"Ya got it!" Renji congratulated him lying down looking up at him. "Now, if you really wanna take him out, hit 'im in the chest with a chi dispersal burst. You Fourth Squad kids are good with Chi right? One solid knock in the chest with a concentrated blast'll take him out of the fight. A chi attack to the back on the first manuver I showed you works well too."
"But that's--!"
"Look, I'm just givin' ya somethin' ta think about, ya never know when you'll need it. You got guts an' smarts, use 'em," Renji replied.
Renji kept him running through the manuvers he'd taught him for a while and wished he'd had another person with him. It was easier to demonstrate the different kinds of throws with a teaching partner. The holds weren't so hard, and Yamada seemed to know more of them by simple healing training than Renji knew by experience. After a while Yamada looked at the sun and his eyes widened.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Mister Abarai, I have to leave or I'm going to be late for my next duty shift, I pulled evening in the clinic today."
"Don't let me keep ya, kid," Renji said. "Just practice some of those maneuvers I taught ya--"
"Do you know any others?" he asked eagrely.
"Sure lots," Renji said before he thought about it.
"Do you think, if it's not too much trouble, you could teach me some more?"
Renji thought about it for a minute, he had a lot of Lieutenant duties, but he could make some time in late afternoon for it. It never hurt to be in good with a Healer after all, and he did sort of owe the kid his life (even through he doubted the little shrimp would see it that way).
"Sure," Renji said. "An' ya know what, it'd be easier for me to teach you if you had a shrimp about your size to practice on, that way I can stand back and correct you and my body won't keep trying to move on its own to counter. Fighter's instincts y'know. Ask one of yer friends to come along an' help you drill."
"Sure, thanks again."
And he did that bowing thing, this time Renji seemed to have earned three of them. He rolled his eyes.
"Tch! Stop that. Now git outta here."
With a friendly nod at the little guy, Renji sauntered off back to Sixth and all the paperwork his boss probably had waiting for him.
I know, it reads like a self-defense pamphlet, but the next chapter gets better. Please leave a reveiw behind (sadly, I didn't get any for the opening chapter, was it really that bad?).
Also, as a shameless plug, I'm posting up another Bleach fic, this one a nice, romantic little renkia that takes place in the time between when Rukia stays behind after the execution arc and when she meets back up with Ichigo later on.
"Stray Dog Strut" Lieutenant Renji Abarai had planned on ignoring the aspects of his new position that gave him entree into the social functions of the Seireitei nobility but Momo Hinamori, so fragile from her recent betrayal by her beloved former Captain, needed his support to put herself back out there, so it was Renji And Kira into the fray. Rukia Kuchiki had never been the outgoing sort, and that was especially true when it came to the social functions of nobility. She very much was not looking forward to her own re-emergence back into the spotlight of the nobility, especially after she had recently managed to bring a great deal of embarrassment to her adopted family's name... but go she would, because to do anything less would not uphold the Kuchiki honor. The glittering lights of the aristocratic social scene was a whole different world from the one they'd both grown up in, so it shouldn't be possible that a stray dog would be able to fit in with the pedigreed ones as easily as Renji managed it, but his presence in her world might just give her what she needed to be able to face the world without apologizing for it.