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[Matsuko]

It feels different this time.

Her hands thud into a bag likely heavier than she is, over and over and over. Machine-like, no love and no spirit. The same as she's ever hit the bag. She can feel the bruises forming around her knuckles same as they ever do. The bag barely moves. The bag always barely moves. All the same, but with every aspect taken into account, it's still somehow different.

It shouldn't be different, says her internal voice, as she steps back from the bag. Is it the time of year? No, the internal shakes in disagreement. Her head tilts, assessing the bag. Maybe it's the quiet of the village, with the tournament drawing away faculty, alumni, and student alike. Maybe it's just part of the life. Her academic kin, they're changing too, aren't they? They must feel like things are changing too. If you could... if you could reach out and ask them... if you could connect with even one of them, Matsuko.

Her hand reels in reverse, fingers clenching as they are drawn back by the yanking, dominating force of her elbow. It's like a bow being readied for the arrow. Pure potential energy, hanging in the air for a second, until it shifts; her whole body shifts with it, forward, hurtling behind the punch.

The bag only moves perhaps an inch or two beyond its usual stance. The change would be imperceptible to anyone with higher standards or slower eyes. To Matsuko even, it's nothing to be proud of. It's pathetic, even. All this time and she's just finding the energy and freedom to learn her physical self.

But it tells her what she needs to know; there's a degree of strength to aim at for her success. There's a goal forming.
Her eyes, heavy and gold, narrow.

One day, she'll blow this goddamn thing off the chain it hangs from.


WC: 316

 

[Matsuko]

Not my fault, not my fault, her thoughts boil over. The screen slams open at the behest of the littlest, thinnest hands.

At any other hour of the day, Matsuko would've got hard glares and arching eyebrows for her entrance into the gym. Children aren't renowned for the focus, after all. A sound as loud as that of the thin wooden frame clacking against itself? Even the most composed child would've felt that itch in the back of their hand, the urge to look around and see what idiot is making a ruckus. Wouldn't that be just like you? To piss your peers off immediately after pissing your caretaker off? One right after another, like dominoes. At any other hour of the day, that would've been another nail in her social coffin. But, thankfully, warm bowls of rice and noodles and broth and protein have called her classmates to chairs scattered throughout Kumogakure. Nothing empties out the school like mealtime. And dinner, of course, usually means most won't be returning for the day. Usually, that's what it means for Matsuko, too.

Usually.

It wasn't her fault that the last person who did the dishes put them on the highest shelf. Matsuko had no choice but to climb up on the counter in order to fetch two bowls from a grand total of four-or-so plates. The broth had been simmering just fine; salt and pork woke her taste-buds just fine, but with the addition of the garlic cloves she had bought and then added, it was shaping up to be a good one. She'd been a little excited. Making dinner on her own was the norm, because Rin always arrived too late to cook, but making a good, tasty dinner? Well, Matsuko still had to figure out how to do that regularly. Maybe she was distracted. Maybe that's why her head hit the underside of the cabinet on the way up. In a matter of seconds, punctuated by porcelain shattering, four-or-so plates became three-or-so plates.

"Matsuko, wh--goddammit. Really? Ugh. I'm already tight this month on money. Just go down tomorrow, get a new one. You'll have to pay for it."

But it wasn't her fault, she'd mumbled. Rin didn't care. Broken is broken as broken is and who did what won't change what was did. And, for some reason, perhaps because Rin had been the one to put the dishes up that far, perhaps because she was hungry and tried to do something good, perhaps this and that and whatnot, Matsuko simply clenched her fists, turned around, and strode out of their little shack.

"What are you...?" Rin had called out after her. "Whatever. Go, then. Just be back by midnight."

And that'd just made her disappear faster into the night. Storming her way down through the village, expression like a concentrated force of nature. Storming to the academy, into the studio, and down the hall.

Where she was standing now.

Trembling, rather. Just "standing", in a state like this, how would that even be possible? With her nerves on fire, her thoughts fluttering? Might as well have tried summoning lightning from the sky; she had the same odds of success there. But moving, walking, that had got the energy out. That got the fury out. That's what she needed, that's why she come down here. To move. Her eyes fell on a bag.

Go, then. Go, go, go, go, go, gogogo. GO.

Compelled, Matsuko moves. An electric reaction sends her leaping, like a jolt to the back of her heels. Hurling herself over mats, weights. stairs. Forget summoning lightning. She was the lightning.

Her body slows before the bag. Not completely. Just enough to reel back, size it up. Her hands, still fists since she left, rise as if on strings. They strike. A strike like last week, like it's got some blood running through it. The bag sighs indifferently, firmly in place. Unimpressed. She hits again.

Matsuko hits. Matsuko hits again. Her fists are brown smears in the air, sweat trickles into her clothes. How long does she go at it, watching it stand up to her blows? It could've been minutes or hours. Time means nothing. She never wants to go back. She wants to make it swing. She wants to see it--

It smacks into the wall of the sad little corner it occupies. Yes. Matsuko smiles at the bag. Then she smiles at three bags. There weren't three bags before. It's okay, she'll get them too.

She falls face first into the bag.

--

When Matsuko comes to, it's accompanied by a puddle of drool and a foot poking at her stomach. Another student, wanting to use the bag. Evidently, someone had had the same idea as her. When she sits up, her face comes away with a thin strand of saliva between it and the ground. The student glares.

She smiles sheepishly.

Really should've grabbed some food on the way here, the sensible part of her, freed from rage, chides its owner as the academy fades into the distance.


WC: 844

 

[Matsuko]

With an elastic, disapproving snap, and a resultant thud, her body flings itself downward from the uneven bars and onto the mat, face down.

Matsuko ain't much of a gymnast, but at least she can find her way around the bars better than the punching bags. And today, that was an assigned focus; examine your strengths, develop them, as they will be the only thing that'll potentially keep you alive against skilled opponents. That felt like a task enough. Sitting there, rooting around in her brain case, just to write down a few things she thought were acceptable. Some of those--my second strength is looking out for my teammates!--had no real method of practice yet, and weren't specifically combat, which was just the way she (read: her overbearing caretaker) liked it. They won't notice you if you lay low, she'd said. And yet, with the slightest, devious spark of hope and schadenfreude, when Matsuko got her very first mission all she could think was: you're wrong. One day, like it or not, they will notice me. And when that day came, she would have to be prepared.

So, on her little slip of paper, she had written down: my third strength is that I'm flexible and fast.

And she was! Well. She was fast. Flexible... getting there. I mean, looking at her, long of finger and bony and whatnot, she very well could be flexible. She could already do successive backflips, that was something. Everyone else also could... but. It was just a start! For her, it had to be just a start. This one was important. Even if she couldn't fight well, she could get away. Even if teammates didn't look out for her, she could do this for herself.

Matsuko crawled back up from the mat after her... seventh, yeah, her seventh fall. She could feel all seven at the back of her skull. The bowl of powder sat on a small, wooden podium, ready for her hand to dip in and strike contrast against its stark whiteness. The chalk illuminated her dark hands, and the collection of bruises and calloused they had taken on in their activities.

Turning away, walking, and turning again, she eyes the set of bars. A single breath fills her little lungs.

And as she would in five minute intervals for the next hour, she leapt and launched her body off the springboard.

WC: 400