When their instructor had finally instructed them to stop, Ryoku took a minute to catch his breath. He took a couple of sips of his water and continued to catch his breath as he followed the Sennin in stretch. When they were finished with the stretch, he shook out his arms and legs as he listened to his teacher’s new set of instructions.
Ryoku couldn’t help but let his excitement slowly take him over. The class got better and better with every new phase. Now he got to test his accuracy against Kenshin-sama’s speed. He wouldn’t go all out but it was still a big deal. He obviously wasn’t going to make it easy for them, so Ryoku was excited about it. His first real test.
With his Kenshin clone in front of him, Ryoku readied himself. “Kenshin-sama,” Ryoku said, just audibly above a whisper as he tried to contain him excitement, smile slowing spreading across his face. He dropped into the stance his teacher had just taught him minutes before and said, “I’m ready.”
The Kenshin clone gave Ryoku a quick nod, and Ryoku immediately dashed forward with his sword and started with a downward swing, attempting to come down on his sensei’s shoulder. As expected, the clone quickly sidestepped the attack. Ryoku followed up with a move inspired by combo performed by his more experienced classmate. He stepped forward and attempted to immediately follow up the first attack with a horizontal slash of his wooden sword. Unsurprisingly the clone dodged this attack as well, simply by stepping backwards. The clone’s movement seemed effortless, but Ryoku did not expect to land a hit right away. His main goal at first was getting a sense of how quickly the clone was moving.
He thought about going in and swinging rapidly in an attempt to wear the Sennin down, but he would no doubt wear himself down first so that plan was out. There was no way he could hit the Sennin with his own speed, so the only way was to predict his movements. The problem with that was that Ryoku had no battle experience to base his predictions on. Everything he guessed would be based on assumptions. However, one thing he knew for certain was that it was incredibly difficult to dodge while not touching the ground. If he could get the Sennin to leap off of the ground, since he was avoiding offense altogether, Ryoku could capitalize on such movements.
Ryoku finally finished the stroke of his last attack after thinking through his next movement. Then he launched himself at the clone again, hopefully before he recovered fully from the last movement, but it was clear that he had already fully replanted his footing. Just before reaching the clone, Ryoku dropped down and attempted to sweep kick. The clone quickly stepped back on his back foot, stepping over Ryoku’s leg. Ryoku, without slowing down his spinning motion from the kick, attempted to swing at the planted foot with his bokken. The clone leapt over the attack, just as Ryoku had hoped. Ryoku couldn’t help but smirk as he spun around one more time and brought his bokken up vertically at the clone. The clone, almost effortlessly, reoriented his body midair to avoid the swing. It was both graceful and impressive.
Ryoku was now in a position where he could not reorient his body quick enough for an attack and he was wide open for a counter. If the Sennin was fighting back, Ryoku would have lost. Ryoku had already learned so much. It was then that he realized that he wasn’t focusing enough on the form that Kenshin-sama had shown him.
Ryoku quickly reset his stance and looked the clone in the eyes. He had the same cool look that Kenshin-sama always had. Ryoku took a deep breath and focused on his stance. “’You should be able to hit them,’ huh?” Ryoku muttered under his breath, still smiling widely. “Looks like I have a long way to go.” Then he reengaged on his instructor. He wasn’t going to give up that easily.
After several minutes of failed attempts at hitting his instructor, Ryoku didn’t let himself become frustrated. He knew that he was learning just by being in the situation. However, that didn’t mean that he would allow himself to finish this training without landing something. Ryoku had a plan for a last ditch attempt to hit his teacher. Of course it would never work in a live battle, but he would take advantage of the class conditions to get a point.
Ryoku lunged his body at the clone, right shoulder first, sword low and to the left, ready to be swung left-hand dominant. As he had gotten extremely close to the clone, an attack that was extremely easy to counter in a real battle, the clone was forced to leap backward quickly.
That was the instant.
Ryoku quickly flung the bokken forward at the Sennin and it hurled towards him, spinning wildly like a sideways windmill. This was obviously not a valid strategy in a real battle, but Ryoku fell desperate. The moment was now out of Ryoku’s hands so he watched it unfold, heart pounding against his chest and sweat streaming down his face.
The clone’s toes were barely touching the ground when the moment for him to dodge came. Would he take the hit or would he catch it? Either way, Ryoku saw it as a point. He watched the clone closely and then it happened.
The clone pulled his feet backward so that his knees slammed to the ground and he brought his head backwards to the ground and dodged the sword like he was playing a game of limbo.
Ryoku stared in disbelief. “He’s having way too much fun with this,” he said with an awkwardly uncomfortable chuckle.
Then time was up.
The whole situation made Ryoku dizzy. He just wasn’t quick enough to hit the Sennin. Ryoku dropped down onto his butt and tried to fathom what had just happened. It was almost comical, but not surprising.
WC: 1015/2460