Chapter 4: Training With Ikaruga
"Now that our warmup is over, let's see how you handle a more realistic match against me. Get into your stance!" Ikaruga says.
Kunai in my left hand and one of my swords in my right hand, I hold them in the reverse grip style and cross my arms.
Keeping my body low to the ground, I lean slightly forward.
For as much as I practiced doing this, my stance still feels off.
"Ready?" she asks.
"I'm ready," I answer, getting serious.
"Attack me then," she says.
Here… I… go!
I sprint towards her in stereotypical ninja fashion.
Swinging my kunai, she grabs me by the wrist to stop me.
"You fell for it!" I exclaim, proceeding to swing my sword.
She kicks my right hand, making me drop it.
Damn! That really stings!
"I shouldn't be able to do that. Your grip must be tight on your weapon. Fight through that pain you feel right now. How will you get out of this situation you put yourself in?" she questions.
I make the smallest amount of movement with my feet and she picks up on it.
"You won't!" she says, sweeping me off of my feet and planting her foot in my stomach.
The force of her kick sends me rolling across the ground for several feet.
Managing to recover out of the roll onto my feet, I drop to my knees, coughing and gasping for air.
"Try again," she says, throwing my sword to me with it planting into the dirt beside me.
Standing back on my feet, I place the kunai in my mouth, gripping the handle with my teeth.
Pulling the sword out of the dirt, I slide my second sword out of the sheath on my hip, dual wielding.
Focusing my mind, I create two clones of myself.
They took some of my strength but having these clones should help with using my insane agility and getting swift attacks in.
Charging at her once more with my clones following my lead, we surround her and swiftly move in a triangular formation.
"Very good, Atsuki. Utilize all of the skills you know and learned to achieve victory," she praises.
Having only two clones and myself is too risky.
She probably knows which body is actually me.
Adding three more clones to the mix, we begin to circle around her, picking up even greater speed.
Perfect!
Sending a clone to attack, she dodges its strike and thrusts her sheathed sword into its chest with exceptional ease.
As a result, it turns into a puff of smoke.
Alright, I got this!
"Tell me, Ikaruga. Do you know which one I am?" My clones and I ask cockily.
"I do. I just haven't attacked you yet because I'm entertaining this little plan of yours," she answers.
I doubt that!
"You're bluffing! We're moving too fast for your eyes to follow properly!" I say.
"Oh, so I'm bluffing? Let's raise the stakes then," she removes the sheath off of her blade and drops it on the ground.
Is that supposed to scare me?!
"Ikaaaruuugaaaa!" I shout, my duplicates and I jumping at her from all angles.
Things kick into slow motion as we swing our swords.
W-Wait!
The way she's maneuvering her sword isn't targeting my decoys!
If I commit to this attack, she's gonna stab right through me!
We stop dead in our tracks, barely inches away from killing each other.
The tip of her nodachi is aimed to disembowel me while I have five pairs of dual swords closely encircling her neck, ready to decapitate her.
Locking our furious eyes at one another, we breathe heavily.
If she didn't have Hien, I would have the upper hand in this.
She can swing that thing just as fast as I can move if not even faster than that!
"Still think I'm bluffing? Don't underestimate me just because this is training. Surely you realize that I can end your life before you can end mine in this situation so don't even try it," she warns.
Damn it.
I've got no choices then.
"As expected of you. You win, Ikaruga," I say, returning to my laid-back tone as I drop my weapons and make my clones disappear.
Man, my jaw and teeth feel weird now after having to hold onto the kunai.
"W-Wait, what?!" She says, taken aback by my forfeiting.
"I didn't really plan in advance for the predicament of you figuring me out so I give up. Simple as that honestly," I chuckle sheepishly.
"B-But it was just getting good! You can't just surrender when you can't figure a fight out! That's how you die!" She whines.
"We'll work on planning and improvising in our future sessions then. No big deal," I say.
"Katsuragi's been rubbing off onto you even moreso, hasn't she? What did I tell you about slacking off?" She asks.
"It's just training. Like I said, nothing major," I sigh.
She slaps me really hard.
"I-Ikaruga," I gasp, slowly touching my stinging left cheek.
"You may not be a part of Hanzo but I'm still to be treated as if I were your leader. Daidouji and Katsuragi can be as relaxed as they want when they train you but this is to be taken seriously when you're training with me. Understand?" She says softly yet still sternly in a motherly sort of way.
"I understand," I nod.
Little does she know that I actually do have a plan and now I've gotten her defenses down.
She didn't even notice that I'm currently holding another kunai behind my back in my right hand.
Can't take someone head on?
Use deception!
The time to strike is now!
"Surprise attack!" I exclaim, tackling Ikaruga to the ground.
As if it were a natural reflex, she immediately swings her sword so fast that I can barely lean back in time, the tip of it slicing my left cheek.
I fall back on my ass, holding my cheek.
"What the hell, Ikaruga!" I yell, wincing.
"A-Atsuki! Are you okay?" She gasps, quickly dropping her sword and coming to my aid.
"Were you trying to blind me?! My eyes would've been slashed through had I not reacted at all!" I say.
"Was that actually your plan to land a hit on me?! Don't make me think training is over and then surprise attack me! That's another way you can die!" She shouts, losing her calm composure and getting into hysterics.
"Please calm down! You're starting to make me freak out too!" I say.
She takes a deep breath and exhales, seemingly back to her normal self.
"Okay. Let me see it," she says, slowly pulling my hand away from my bleeding cheek.
Removing her white gloves, she tilts my head and carefully examines the cut.
"Thankfully, it's incredibly shallow and it will heal no problem but there's going to be a thin line-shaped scar," she informs.
"Thank God," I say, relieved.
Though shouldn't it disappear completely after a couple hours like Katsuragi said?
Maybe it's different for minor injuries.
Then again, Katsuragi continues to seemingly be the only self aware one so I'll just ask as that is also one of her helpful abilities.
"I'm really sorry about doing that," she apologizes.
"It's fine. Don't worry about it," I assure.
Getting our weapons and placing them back in their sheaths, we start making our way back to my home, seeing as it's not that far from where we train in the forest.
As we walk, I begin to feel really ill.
Oh no! I thought I could keep it down!
I drop to my hands and knees, body trembling as I try to fight it back.
"Atsuki! Something wrong?" She questions, worried.
Nope! This battle has been lost!
I violently vomit on the ground.
"I… I can't stand seeing actual blood," I explain as I breathe heavily.
All that screaming I did when I stabbed my hand that one time took my mind off of vomiting but I wasn't so lucky this time with it being a minor injury.
"But that was a few minutes ago," she says.
"I know. I was trying to not throw up then either," I say.
I make the mistake of looking back down.
"Please stand back, Ikarug-aaghh," I barf again, adding more puke to the pile.
Why couldn't the game turn it into rainbows and sparkles instead of this gross shit?
She quickly covers my eyes before I see it again and helps me stand back up.
"Let's please stop looking at it for your sake. Your actual guts will come up otherwise," she advises, getting us away from it as she wipes my mouth off with a spare napkin she had from our lunch.
"Y-Yeah. Good idea," I say, my body still wobbly as we press on to my house.
A/N: Apologies for the long wait. I got extremely caught up in focusing on chapters for my other works.