[Private] Blind to the Light

[Shinrei]

Sparking stars filled her vision, complete darkness replaced momntarily by a bright flash of pain and lingering motes of light as she crashed into the floor with a thud. The bamboo paneling softened the fall, but it was the wooden sword to teh side of her skull that caused the most damage. As she laid there, she grutned and shifted, her blindfold slipping parly off of her eyes, revealing the few students that remained in the class.

The muscular student infront of her, hefting the wooden blade over his shoulder in a smork looked down to her. "Try dodging lower or back next time." He chuckled and turned to walk off to the side of the sparring mat, casually tossing his weapon in with the others as he strode off to meet with some of his friends, leaving the girl in a semi-crumpled heap on the floor, her head still swimming in pain as her eyes struggled to focus on him.

A few minutes passed and she let out a grunt of pain as she sat up, the blindfold still covering one eye as she lolled from side to side. She hated to train while blindfolded. The instructors drilled into the students that it was important, and she agreed, but surely there had to be a better way than this? Something always threw her off, like it was harder for her than the other students, but that could be same for most of the academy work, to be honest. Now, as she sat alone in the dimly lit training hall, she wondered if, perhaps, she really was not cut out for all of this.

 

[Kyo]

"Why don't you peek? Most of the students do."

Kyo hadn't been hiding exactly but practically none of the other students had given him any mind. His bare feet made practically no sound against the mats as he made his way to his sister's side with a concerned frown on his face. "Are you okay? That lump looks rough.."

His gaze draws away from her wound and onto the pile of practice weapons. "..." He flicks his tail as he shudders before extending a hand to her.

"Still, you do better than me. I haven't ever even landed a hit on anyone..."

...Well... except for that time... But what choice did we have?

He didn't like the feeling still settling in his chest right now. When the wooden sword connected with Shinrei's head... It wasn't anger - anger he understood. Anger was normal. Anger could be maintained and trained and controlled. But as he watched the boy walk out with his friends...

Mind snapping back to the present again he did his best to maintain his soft smile.

"Maybe a little light sparring to wind down? Then we need to get the materials to fix the tear in my kimono still, if that's okay..."

 

[Shinrei]

Hearing a familiar voice, she looked over to see her brother. Did he always look so fuzzy? Shinrei pressed her eyes shut hard and reached up to pull the blindfold off her eyes. "Yeah, I... I'm good." She didn't sound very convincing, but she did manage to slowly push herself to a stand, her feet wabbling a little under her. A few moments passed as she pressed her feet down hard and tried to steady herself, the world was still wobbling around, and it was taking most of her concentration to keep from falling back onto her butt.

"The whole point is to be able to fight while you can't see. Peeking defeats the whole purpose." Kyo wasn't wrong. There was almost always a hidden undertone to lessons at the academy. If you played thing straight, you suffered. If you were clever, bent the rules and didn't get caught, then it was a breeze. Though, such was life for a shinobi. Unfortunately, Shinrei was not the type to look too far beneath the surface, which is, in part, what landed her in her remedial lessons. Shinobi are trained assassins, infiltrators, spies and more; rules were one of the things they were rarely expected to follow.

As the world finally settled around her, she took a few long deep breaths and willed herself to concentrate. As much as she often took a beating, she at least was quick to spring back, a fact that only encouraged her superiors to push her harder. "Huh?" Her eyes opened and she looked over to him, as if processing him for the first time. "Oh, your kimono. Of course. No problem. Not too light, I have to get better and soon." She looked to him with a bit of a grin look. They both had overheard their mother's talks with the administration at home, they both knew Shinrei was on thin ice. She put her blindfold back on, a dark spot of blood staining one side of it from the earlier impact, though it no longer seemed to be bleeding.

"Try to hit me again just..." she paused and grimaced, "just hand to hand for now. My head still really hurts." She tried to sound jovial, but the past week had been one of her sullen ones,, and a bit of forced mirth was the best she could muster.

 

[Kyo]

Kyo rarely, if ever, pried heavily into how his sister's training was going. As for his own? If it wasn't for the visual anomaly of his tail he isn't sure any instructor or classmate would even know his name. He was far from the bottom of the class but just as far from the top - a nice, invisible middle. In truth, it had put him on more than a few radars already: the ability to fade into the noise and draw no attention was a desired skill in and of itself. If it ever came up in conversation with his adoptive mother or sister, he would usually just offer one of his soft smiles and insist things were going rather smoothly without anything of note.

"Okay... Try not to take any of that frustration back on me, okay? I've seen the training dummy out back..."

Though... I'm not sure how much of it is her or mom... she is prone to shred the hell out of that thing when a night out doesn't go as planned...

He takes a deep breath, hopping from one foot to the other while shaking out his arms and letting his tail swish around rapidly... before he drops his right foot back with a thud against the mat. Raising his left hand forward in a blocking fist and settles his right arm across his chest - a very restrained stance.

"We both know I can't dance... Take the lead please, sis?"

He gently closes his eyes and smirks as if to punctuate the playfulness of his next words.

"I promise to probably not peek."

---

Years ago...

"I won't peek! Please! Just a quick count?" Kyo begged, tugging at the hem of his eldest sister's kimono. "Please! No one has played with me in a long while and I'm so..."

She didn't say a word as she shook him off, continuing to move towards the door.

"Please... sister... At least read me a story before you go? Anything? I haven't seen you all in so long and I appreciate the food but I..."

The door opened and closed and she was gone. Kyo stood there in his little shack alone again. He ran to the door and threw it open but she was already gone. Frantically he looked around but she was nowhere to be found.

"...Why..." Balling his small hands into fists he slammed them into the snow as he fell to his knees. "...I am not empty..."

Looking up towards the sky with the tears feeling hot and unpleasant against his cold cheeks he cried out with all that his lungs could muster in the vain hope at least one of his family might care...

"Please! Take me out of here! I'm ready to..."

---

"...ready to go when you are, sis."

 

[Shinrei]

Her lips pulled to a smirk, a small bit of genuine joy peeking through the gloomy veil. "You dance just fine. You and I both know that tail gives you an unfair advantage." She didn't know it, though t was an easy excuse to tell herself when he outmaneuvered her. Despite him being the boy, she almost always could outpower him, but frustratingly he always seemed to be one step ahead. She was too predictable or too clumsy, she had heard many things from multiple instructors, but she could not innately understand any of it. It was like they were describing a sense she didn't have, or some way of thinking that was just foreign to her. It frustrated her to no end.

Balling her hands into firm fists, she stepped back into a powerful low stance, her knees bent and position to help her move forward with violent bursts of motion. She just had to be quick enough, then they couldn't just always get out of the way. The first strike was the most important now anyway, if he dodged her and got to her side, it would be that much harder to figure out his position. At least she knew where he was right now.

With a slow deep breath, she attempted to center herself. Feel the chakra flow seamlessly through her body as she tried her best to control its rhythm. This was purely a taijustu based exercise, her forte, despite her failing, but chakra control was still important. Shinrei gripped her fist tight and kicked hard off the mat, a long powerful step that thrust her first towards his chest.

 

[Kyo]

Either she had gotten faster, or his head still hadn't returned to the present - whatever the excuse he was not out of the way in time and barely had his arms up to take the blow. Muscle ached against bone as her fist threatened to push through his arms and continue on to crush his chest. So much for 'light' sparring. She'd confirmed a hit and he knew a second one would be coming shortly behind but from which...

"Gah~!" His feet barely cleared the rapidly sweeping leg aimed to take advantage of being off balance to trip him. That was new: every time they'd spared before she favored her arms and hands. He slipped past what he assumed was her right side and tossed a jab of his own. Dead air - not even the subtle stirring of currents from when a body had just moved. A complete wiff? Was he really that turned around? He felt the slightest rise of heat in his cheeks; frustration or embarassment it was hard to tell. He adjusted and tossed another jab. Still nothing. A thud on the pad behind him confirmed his fears just quick enough to lean to a side and dodge another powerful strike from his sister but only just - her fist grazed the fabric of his uniform. Every part of him screamed to open his eyes to figure out where she was just as he felt the weight of her followup just about to connect...

Eyes open he gasped for air across the room as he watched her obliterate his water bottle with the latest strike. On the downside, he had blatantly cheated and would need a new bottle. On the upside, he'd managed a relatively smooth substitution on the fly... granted he hand landed upside down with his tail flopping into his face. In honesty he wasn't sure he could ever pull that one off again - he wasn't entirely sure how he did it this time. If an instructor walked in and demanded, he do it again he was confident he'd fail to do so. Still, watching the water of his now decimated container dampen the mats he was glad he did: that was a hell of a punch.

"...Think we can uh... stop to get me a new water bottle on the way home, too? Also, hey, great punch!"

 

[Shinrei]

Honed instincts took over as her heart pounded in her chest. Shinrei felt her fist impact something hard but with a inch of give, an arm she guessed. So, she thought, if his guard was up, then she had to go low. She used the impact of her blocked punch to quickly spin and lower her center of gravity, as her leg swept out to catch him off balance. She felt the mat shift from his sudden hop and her leg met nothing but air. Frustration pressed teeth together as her blood began to boil. It was supposed to be a light match, but he was making a fool out of her.

She kicked off the mat, leaping to the side to land a few yards away. The kunoichi landed quietly and quickly turned to face where she last was as she readied for him to follow. Shinrei tried to quell her erratic breaths, a mistake that would have met her a quick punishment from her sensei or the more experienced students. Her brother, however, didn't seem to be giving chase, unless he had some crafty trick up his sleeve. Was he not taking this seriously or was it such a simple matter to best her, that he didn't even need to put forth the effort. Her building frustration urged her to rip off the blindfold and turn this into a real contest, but she took a moment and restrained herself from such rashness that she would regret.

Instead, she spent the next two seconds trying to force herself to focus, to listen, and to feel his presence. Instructors had told her to not think of it as listening, but instead sensing. Abstracting the sound into feelings and impulses, bypassing any thought, was the line that separated life and death in a fight between skilled shinobi. So, without thought, she leapt forward towards where she felt that he would be. As she landed, she stepped into a quick jab, only meeting air yet again. Her teeth audible gritted as she turned and put all her frustration into him. Her fist met thin metal as the object she punches flew across the room, cracking against the wall with an echoing thud.

She didn't even feel the blow, despite the bruise that would darken her knuckles after such a serious blow. She was too preoccupied by the sudden disappearance of his presence, confusion as to how she could have missed when she knew he was there and the boiling blood that seemed to haze the darkness that engulfed her vision. That disharmonious mixture did not have long to steep, as he called out from across the room, his tone sounding somewhat intimated, rather than mocking.

The haze faded in an instant and she blinked her blinded eyes as if waking up from a dream. "Huh, water bottle?" She pulled her blindfold up to see the damp puddle on the ground where his bottle had crashed into the wall and bounced back onto the mat a distance away. "Oh uh, yeah, sure..." She genuinely sounded confused, the seething frustration from moments ago vanishing like it was never there. She thought back on the short match, last only a handful of seconds and tried to piece it all together; as she did, she walked over to pick up his bottle, flexing her right hand a few times to try to work the soreness out from it.

"I," she paused as she picked it up and examined the mangled thing, "I could have sworn I hit you." She heard him, she presumed, but she knew he was there. "So do you uhh... want to keep this?" She proffered it to him, though it wouldn't me much more use than a paperweight at this point.