trans_9 | Katana Training [Closed]

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Katana Training [Closed]

Nanashi had found an abandoned house in the depths of the city. It had taken a little while to find just the right kind of floor plan. The first room was a normal entrance hall of a house, with a flight of stairs leading up to a loft. The loft was closed off, with doors leading to several different bedrooms. There were three doors on the first floor. The doors to the left and right lead to a kitchen and dining room, and a bathroom respectively. The third door was directly opposite the entrance, and led to what was once some sort of family room, but the only evidence of that now is a left over fireplace and mantle.

All of the other furniture in the room had been dragged out to the neighboring alleyway, though she was considering bringing back in the couches and leaving them in the entrance hall, along with perhaps a table and some chairs. But for now the entrance room remained empty as it had been when she found it. She was busy in the family room, glaring at the hardwood floor. Sure, she had learned swordplay on stone, but her body was far more resilient than a normal human’s body. As she understood, humans usually either trained on grass and dirt, or on some sort of mat that had some give to it. Hardwood floors did not fulfill that requirement.

Well, they could make due this first day. With any luck she would be able to borrow mats for tomorrow. Maybe she could incorporate their pick-up into the children’s training. She remembered her old teacher making her do ridiculous meaningless tasks until she learned discipline. With any luck, Ed and Katara, since she knows that they already have been training, would not need to learn that lesson, and they would be able to move on quickly.

Well, with no mats, and her sword and cleaning materials already out, all she had to do now was to wait for Katara who would be in trouble if she did not arrive early as she had promised. A mysterious long box wrapped in blue cloth and tied with a ribbon of a lighter shade sat on the mantle of the fireplace in the room.

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Nanashi leaned back to avoid the punch, and noticing the shifting leg, she stepped back so that when he went to kick her she could drop and take out his leg.

She rather hoped that he could recover from that. She would be rather disappointed if it ended that quick.

Deciding that he would follow through, Ed did indeed kick, but his arm shot back immediately, preparing to hand-flip in case she did decide to take out his leg in the ensuring attack sequence. Normally this would be followed by a blow from his metal arm, but it wasn't available at the moment.

Nanashi's smile widened as she saw the arm. So he wasn't going to make it so easy. Good. If he lost that fast he would have to come for extra training sessions, and she was already requesting them to attend daily.

Sweeping out Ed's leg, she used the momentum to aim a tiger tail kick behind her directly at where Ed's chest should be if he caught himself on his arm.

Like with Katara she was moving much slower than her full speed and pulling back her attacks. She was actually hyper-sensitive to the fragility of the humans and the hardness of the floor. Last thing she needed was for either of them to be out of commission.

Ed saw the kick and swore mentally. Damnit, he needed his other arm for this!

Shooting out his arm to intercept it, he used the momentum of the kick to propel himself backwards and he skidded in a half-crouch, his arm dragging along like a pair of claws.

Barely coming to a stop, he charged in again, leaping and swinging his flesh and blood leg at her shoulder.

Nanashi let out a laugh as she blocked the leg with the backs of her arms, then letting her back arm side over, putting him into an ankle lock. Normally she would take out his leg and while in the air get he leg over his to put him in a leg-lock, but she did not want to slam him into the floor.

Instead she pulled his leg toward her to knock him off balance as she threw several quick punches at him, pulling them so that they would hit him just hard enough for him to be sure that she had hit him.

Ed took the impacts and smirked as he used the last as leverage to pry his leg out, sweeping his metal leg to impact on her shin. The impacts were hard, but definitely not as hard as teacher was.

"That all you got sensei? That was a love tap!" exclaimed Ed with a grin.

The metal leg definitely hit harder than the normal one, but her leg did not give way to it's force. Instead she used it as a chance to step into his defence zone.

So, Ed wanted her to hit harder? "Very well." Nanashi did an open palm attack, clearing Ed's arm away with one hand and hitting him square in the stomach with the other hand. This time she kept less of her strength back, hitting him with more force than any human could. However, she was careful to hit as he breathed out- so he would not get the air knocked out of him- on a spot on this stomach that was the least likely to result in injury.

WHAM. She hit like a truck that was for sure and he flew backwards, barely righting himself. To his credit, he didn't cough but he grinned. "Pretty good. NOW you're hitting like teacher! C'MON!"

And he lunged again, performing a literal triple axel in the air as he swung his metal leg downwards in a powerful kick.

Nanashi stepped to the side. Really? Showing off was one thing, but he was practically screaming what he was planning on doing. She struck at him with a back fist with the same amount of force as she kicked with.

She'd admit, she was impressed that Ed smiled in reaction to her strikes. Unfortunately for Ed that meant that she would be aiming for weak points now. Fortunately she was still holding back.

It remained to be seen if her ability to lecture while fighting at this rate was fortunate or unfortunate. "Now, Ed, do not make your intentions so obvious. I am reading you as easily as a book. Remember how Katara got behind me?"

"I remember," said Ed as he impacted and bounced back as he pushed off with his arm. "But that means I'm just showing off!"

And he swung in with his arm, aiming low to the stomach.

Nanashi cleared his arm so that it would cross his body and then smacked Ed hard across the back of the head. Harder than she had been hitting before.

"Do not just show off! It will get you killed. If you must show off, be effective!"

Displaying the concept Nanashi moved full speed, becoming practically invisable to the normal eye, but she briefly paused at random points as she zig-zaged towards Ed, but did not paused as she moved behind him and kicked at his side. "More like this."

Tch. Stupid vampire stuff.

Ed caught the kick and it felt hard to do so. But he smirked. "I'm also a master of pissing people off!"

And he roundhouse kicked out at Nanashi with his metal leg.

Nanashi blocked the leg, twisting her hip underneath his leg and swung her leg into an outside crescent kick so that her leg landed hard across Ed's back. By holding his leg still, she threw his centre of gravity way off with her kick, knocking him to the ground.

She landed on top of him, knee in his back, and his leg bent in an odd position. "If you had been a real opponent, this leg would be destroyed, but I do not wish to prolong your training any more."

Even with this said, Nanashi held him there, waiting for him to admit defeat as Katara had. She viewed the ability to know when you are defeated to be a good quality. It saved lives.

"If I were a real opponent, I would have transmuted your blood to boil you inside out by now or used a few dozen spikes to turn this place into a pincushion," retorted Ed snarkily as he relented. "As it stands, I'm an invalid."

A slightly cranky invalid but an invalid all the better. "I give. There was no way in hell I could have beaten you right now."

Nanashi ruffled his hair. "I am not assessing your alchemy. I am assessing your martial abilities. I believe if anything this was a more fair assessment of your base ability, since this is the state you would be in if you were unable to perform alchemy."

She finally let him go, "And you ought to learn some humility as well. It may save your life. Your Alchemy is a powerful skill, but you must learn to fight without it. There are situations where you may not be able to use it, or that you have nothing left you can transmute." She stood and put out a hand for Ed.

"Now, Katara, Ed, what did you both learn from these battles? Anything? Because I certainly learned a lot."

"How to get my ass kicked and needing to polish a little more," replied Ed smartly. "But other than that, it's a lot of fun fighting with one arm."

Grief, but that answer reminded her of Aang at the North Pole whenever he was goofing off at Master Pakku's. She was really glad that Aang had eventually gotten really good at bending despite his lack of seriousness at times. Still, Ed was still spirited and still had a pretty good skill.

"For starters, the whole point of taking these lessons is to fight with our hands: they're the first tools we have even before we have a blade on our hands. You fought in exactly the same way, but using your body and what it could do to show us what happens when our opponent is faster and more familiar with our weaknesses. With both of us, you used our body and our inability to counteract your speed against us. Also, while our fighting styles are pretty different, we lost anyway. Ed and I are both skilled, but with any first student, its important to know when to end the battle and admit defeat."

Edited 2010-07-13 04:21 (UTC)

Nanashi bit her tongue to control her anger over Ed's response.

Katara's answer, on the other hand, made her beam. "That is the sort of answer I expect to hear! You missed that I was trying to show you to rely on offence as well as defence. You must also learn to fight even when your best assets have been taken from you. For you Katara, that is your water."

"As for you, Edward," Nanashi turned on him. She had not forgotten his remark. She walked up to him, her heels clicking with her anger. Nanashi smacked him hard enough across the face to knock him down. "Are you here to learn, Edward? Or are you here to be a jester? You may start taking this seriously, or you may leave."

Ed merely raised an eyebrow as he was knocked to his knees but got up immediately. "You know, if you wanted me to be serious, you could just have asked."

"But yes, I'll take it seriously. What, I'm teaching you alchemy so I may as well follow through with this."

Well that part Katara had noticed, using offense and defense. She hadn't thought she needed to say something that she figured was obvious. Then again, Ed might have missed that, so she would probably have to say exactly what she saw.

Not that what Ed was doing was constructive. "Whatever you're teaching her later isn't important now, Ed. I'm sure you're funny, and we probably don't have to be serious all the time, but this is our first day. It's good to absorb everything we're being taught first."

She wasn't trying to scold Ed OR score brownie points: the joking wasn't important, and the smacking seemed extreme. She was here to learn, not to joke or worry about extreme discipline.

Nanashi was used to being extreme. The only way she had been able to get people to look at her was by ripping down a door and killing no less than twenty vampires in a night.

"Thank you for your input Katara," Nanashi said bitterly and dismissively. Nanashi honestly did prefer her students to be serious the majority of the time, and the first few days were not among the days where she would allow it. "If the only reason you are here is because you believe that it is 'equivalent exchange' and you lack true desire to learn than I will not teach you."

"Hey I never do things halfway. You want me to smarten up, fine I will." said Ed. "But when we're on my time, I expect the same discipline. If you'll have it at least."

It was meeting her halfway. Ed was never good with authority.

Katara had to fight to not roll her eyes. Seriously, she really liked the sparring, but was definitely not into the sniping between teacher and student. It was far too immature for someone wanting to learn to have to tolerate. She sighed, her thumb and pointer finger pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Is there anything else we have to learn today, teacher?" Katara asked, trying her best not to look annoyed. "If not, when will we meet again?"

"If I expect it from you then know I am willing to give it," she said with an authority that said the subject was closed.

Nanashi turned to Katara with a sigh and a smile, glad for the re-direction. "I had initially intended on a practice of stances, however I believe that we will wait until Ed's arm is fixed to truly begin. However, I would appreciate it if you both could aid me in some of the chores around here that I have left to do, since I do intend on this house being able to serve as a place you may rest at over-night if our training goes late."