thump, thump, thump.
She missed the potato sack, her wrist deflecting off the wood with a loud crack. Her momentum carried her, throwing her into a roll as she hit the ground with another thump. She laid there for a moment, panting tirelessly as she winced from the sharp pain in her hand. She looked down slowly, her vision shaky from the heat exhaustion, seeing that he hand was now bleeding through the previously applied bandages.
These bandages were nothing new, in fact it was a rarity to find Neko without some new injury. She was pushing herself to succeed, as she has been since her acceptance into the academy. But now, things were different, her skills were better yes but her body was still struggling to keep up. She lifted her eyes to the target once again and slowly stood back to her feet, swaying gently back and forth. She swung once again, getting back into rhythm as she picked up pace.
"Come on! Harder! Faster! You can.." Crack.
She let out a whimper that grew into tears and screaming, but her hands did not stop hitting her dummy. She kept pushing herself, focusing her chakra into every strike as best she could. If she could just reenforce her joints she could make it work, it had to work.
CRACK!
Once again, her body was not receptive to the new conditioning. No matter how hard she focused on moving her chakra to the correct points of impact, it fell just short each time. Her hands were now throbbing, she was beginning to find herself slowing down as the pain was kicking in. "no no no come on!"
She stopped swinging her hands for a moment and began to wipe the sweat from her brow. The pain was becoming simply unbearable, she sat in the sand and took a few deep breaths. She had joined the academy thinking that she was going to focus on healing, but was that her purpose? Was this going to be the thing that settled her fire? She was beginning to doubt the idea that working for the hospital was what she wanted, which left her with a burning question: What will?
While the answer was certainly not going to become clear in this moment, one thing was becoming more and more obvious. Ever since that night in the orphanage, Neko was filled with a deep sort of anger and with it came a newfound drive to succeed. She had always wanted to be more, but for the first time she could taste it. She could feel herself so close to her dreams, even if they were just vague imprints of ideas at this point. It didn't matter to her, she was going to be the best she could be.
She stood and unwrapped her hands reaching for her new wraps when she paused to look at her dummy for a moment longer. The pot used as the head was catching the sun just right as to shine a reflection of Neko onto it. She saw the small trickle of red leaving her nose in the reflection, more than likely an injury from one of the many falls during this practice. Something wasn't feeling quite right about the sight though, her eyes were bloodshot and nose was bleeding from a fall in loose sand?
She looked down at her hands, they trembled constantly from a mix of exhaustion and pain, as she did a single deep crimson droplet landed in her hand. The crimson soaked into the bandages mixing with that from her knuckles.
"Is.. Why is this?"
She shook her head as if trying to suppress her own thoughts. She'd have time, but this wasn't the moment. She wrapped her hands slowly and began to wipe her face with the clean portions of the old bandages. Soon enough she was looking like herself again, though a little more battered than usual. She stood up and collected what was left of the dummy to not leave it to waste in the desert. As she cleaned the dummy she felt a sudden rush as if all of her adrenaline had faded off at once. The head rush resulted in her vision doubling, blurring, and naturally the dark spots became more frequent. She fell face first into the sand and laid there drifting into the nothingness of her unconscious mind.
The sun had mostly set by the time she had awoken, still hazy and now feeling the sting of the sunburn on top of her training injuries. She let out a muffled cough as she attempted to spit out the sand that had been piling into her mouth while she rested. "Too much.. I did too much this time.." she groaned as she sat up. Her eyes met a odd shape in the sand beside her as she moved slowly to examine it.
Brushing away the sand revealed a water skin, still cool to the touch oddly enough. Overjoyed by the prospect of water, Neko scrambled to open the top. She took a sniff and finger dab taste before deciding to take an actual drink. The refreshing water hit her with instant relief, cool and clean. She lowered it from her mouth only for a moment to check her surroundings, but all she could see was sand once more.
Neko hadn't packed water though, Neko didn't bring anything other than the scraps to make here sparring dummy. Her mind was full of questions as to where it had come from and who. Mostly because if it had been out there long, the water would have been undrinkable or even completely gone from heat. The other part that made her feel a slight unease, was that there was only a slight sand covering to the water skin, meaning it was placed there not that long ago at all, yet no one was within her eyesight.
She slowly stood and scanned the surrounding areas, she had to see something, anything. But no matter how much she tried, there was not another soul she could find. With a heavy sigh, she drank another hefty gulp of water, only pacing herself as to not become sick from it. She knew that she had pushed herself too far this time, as her body was still screaming out for her to rest.
No matter how much she wanted to keep going, there was not a chance that it was going to happen today. She was starting to think of the other academy students in this lull in her thoughts. She debated if any of them were pushing themselves like this, or if any of them would think of her as someone who would try this hard? She then thought about how she hadn't talked to any of them yet, and how it was just like before in that way.
She shook her head and began to dismantle what was left of the dummy, only saving the potatoes for obvious reasons. She then started to make her way back toward the inner village, with a sense of both worry and also excitement. On one hand someone had found her and opted to help but not take her away from her situation, on the other hand she was left in the desert to die by someone she didn't know. Either way she looked at the water skin situation it was an uncomfortable one.
She needed to focus, why was her mind bouncing like this? She kept thinking of the training, the water skin, her class, the woman from the rooftop, the chakra points, back and forth her mind blasted. She took a second and with a deep breathe centered herself once again. Her mind was simply dancing because of the heat, she thought. It would bounce back after some dinner and some rest.
As she reached the edge of the expanse she placed the potatoes down and sat on them, her body needed a break. She rubbed her hands slowly, trying to alleviate any pain she could from her screaming hands. No matter how badly she wanted to push her training, this wasn't going to be the way and she knew that. She knew that if she kept pushing herself to this point that sooner or later her body would break and then she'd lose. In this line of work she chose, losing wasn't an option after all.
"Tomorrow will be better, I swear it.." She looked up to the sky for a moment, "I will make something of myself, and I will be great."
