The Start of Something...

Age : 29 Posts : 87

Kirikagure no Sato sat slumbering and silent as the earliest traces of dawn began to bathe the quietened sea with its eerie reddish, smouldering radiance. It was a picturesque sight to behold: though there was no one around to appreciate it, the village was still and there was no movement to be seen by even the sharpest of eyes, no movement save a single silhouette steadily rising and falling at the summit of the hill that rose above the village. Ichiro, wanting to train in peace, had made his sway to the top of the hill and was now letting out a heavy breath as his chest brushed the soft earth for the one hundredth time in two minutes and his arms swelled as he pushed himself upwards for the hundredth and first. He bit his lip against the strain, there were still ninety nine pushes left before he would allow himself to stand up and begin his training in earnest, and for the past fifteen it had been near torture. A minute and a half later his shoulders rose from the ground for the final time that morning and he straightened himself up with a slight heaviness in his breath and a dogged concentration in his eyes. A wooden pole had been erected at summit of the hill and to this Ichiro had tied a series of padding with a length of rope, turning the post into a provisional training dummy, rough but more than enough to suit it purpose. After all its sole purpose was to be beaten and abused for the duration of the morning. Ichiro emptied a small bottle of water into his already thirsty mouth before placing it at the base of the post and raised his hands, fists clenched, and let out a long breath, this would not be a short session.

At closer inspection the training dummy was not as simple as it originally appeared, Ichiro had been taught how to construct them whilst he was stilled being trained by his clan: the head was placed on a sort of hinge that meant that when it was hit it would fall back and tied to the top of the head was a short length of rope, the other end of this rope was fastened to a piece of metre long wood which at been attached to the dummy’s side, when the head fell back it would tug on the rope and the wood would be pulled round, hitting Ichiro if he happened to be standing close enough to the front of the dummy. Altering the placement of his feet he lashed out with considerable force, sending the head rocking loudly on its hinges and brining the wood round with a surprising amount of speed and precision. Ichiro darted backwards but he wasn’t quite fast enough and the wood caught him painfully on the side of his stomach, causing him to clench his teeth in pain. Not willing to let a small injury stop him he repeated the process and again he was not fast enough, this time almost crying out as the wood crashed against him in the precise same place as before. Again he repeated his assault, but his time he was quicker the wood missed him, albeit by such a small distance that he could feel the wind against his belly, but still the practice was beginning to pay off.

It was another half an hour before Ichiro could confidently and consistently avoid the wood each time and another half an hour after that before his kicks were enough to almost splinter the post as they connected with the padding. Satisfied with his results this far he modified his improvised dummy, adding a similar mechanism to the one that was on the head to a loose pad at the bottom and adding another piece of wood above the first, at roughly shoulder height. Now, when he kicked the bottom pad the top piece of wood would whip out and, if he was unable to dodge in time, hit him painfully on the shoulder. The idea was to kick the pad and then dip under the wood before repeating his original punching technique and finish a metre away from the dummy, though it would take a fair amount of time and a fair amount of bruises before he would be able to perfect it.

It was mid-morning and the time when most of the village would be rising when a thoroughly tired and battered Ichiro deconstructed his dummy and sat down to rest a while. After hours of training he had managed complete his sequence without being hit and after repeating it to ensure that his technique was as near perfect as it was going to get he had removed the wood and spent another hour beating the dummy to practice the speed, strength and timing of his blows until he was confident that he would be able to use them well in a proper battle… but that was behind him now, proved by the slight ache in his muscles as he shouldered his equipment and made his way down the hill to the waking village.

Word Count: 864

Trained...

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