Some Well Needed Training (Kurai/Shin)

[Kato Shin]

It was as though I suddenly took a back seat to the flames within me; they struck out, meeting the others and drawing them into themselves. I spun, meeting each flame as it came to me, mind gibbering in panic as I felt them take over. When I - and they - were finished, I fell to my knees, shaking.

Godsdammit, I hated being weak, appearing weak.

"Maybe," I said, voice as shaky as I was, "some of it comes a little too naturally..."

I could feel them laughing at me. The heads of Kurai's dragons superimposed themselves on the world around me, swirling around my arms, wrapping me in their coils; I suddenly couldn't breathe, they were constricting around me. At any moment, they would begin to play me like a puppet, I could see it now...

A panic attack. I'd had them before, but not this bad - not in a long time. I wanted to say something, or to stand up and run, run where no one would have to see this, but I was frozen in the midst of it, and I could feel the flames, eating me from the inside out...

[Kurai Horo]

Dammit, it seemed Shin was going into some sort of panic attack or shock. And that was far from good given his current volatile state when it comes to his power, plus, Kurai had just pumped him full of fire.

Lifting his headband away from his Sharingan, he crouched down beside Shin and cupped the boys chin in his hand, forcing his eyes to look up towards his own. Directly into his red and black eye.

"Genjutsu; Sharingan!"

Deep within Shin's mind, Kurai forced an illusion upon him, they were both stood in Shin's forge, somewhere Kurai had guessed he would feel comfortable. Everything looked, sounded, smelt and felt like it would in reality. The only difference was that outside the forge, everything was pure, snow, white, absolute nothingness.

The downside to this was that Kurai couldn't hide his Sharingan whilst they were here, but that was fine, it was something easy to explain.

"Are you okay?" He asked Shin, his voice seeming to echo around the space.

[Kato Shin]

The forge... but how?

I looked outside - everything was white. Some kind of illusion?

Either way... the fires backed down. They knew that this was a place where I was in control, a place where I mastered them and bent them to my will. It was my safe haven, the only place where they and I could be in harmony.

My breathing slowed; the flames my mind had placed around me vanished.

"I'll... I'll be fine..."

I stood, looking around.

"...how..." But then I saw the eye, the one that he kept hidden underneath his headband. I guessed that was the source of this strange power.

[Kurai Horo]

"Thanks to this little thing, right here." Kurai responded with a smile, pointing a finger at his Sharingan and the scar running down across it.

"It grants me a whole host of different party tricks, this is just one of them, plus it increases my strength a fair bit. I could have done this without my Sharingan, but it would have drained me unnecessarily, so I thought it better to just play it safe. I could have increased this even more, but, that would have been pointless. Never use more energy than necessary."

Kurai motioned to the space around them

"Welcome to your safe haven. My genjutsu automatically tracks down where you feel most comfortable and puts us there, although, a little help on my part for knowing already makes the transition easier, I didn't know how the place looks so most of this is memory. Because I wasn't focused on what's outside the forge, well... It doesn't exist. With all of my power, I could have recreated Chalybs and most of the Ocean for you as well as a bit of Roccia. But, what's the point? Anyway, because I'm using the weaker version of my genjutsu, I haven't altered your perception of time, so however long we're in here translates to the same in the real world."

He crossed his arms against his chest, looking around at his handiwork.

"As such, we shouldn't stay here too long, we don't want the others to return to see me holding your face and staring into your eyes. People could completely misjudge that the wrong way."

[Kato Shin]

I nodded.

"I'll be alright," I said to him. "I... I'll explain once you let us out of here."

[Kurai Horo]

"Got it."

The area around them glowed in a bright white light before fading away, back into the current scene.

Kurai released his grip on Shin and standing up straight, pulled his headband back over his eye, before stretching his neck. Thankfully he was more adept at using his Sharingan than he had been back during the Lunar incident, so the drain was nowhere near as bad as it had been in the past.

"Alright." Kurai said, placing his hands in his pocket. "Say what you have to say!"

[Kato Shin]

I stood, a little shaken by the change of scenery, but i'd be a little raw for a while after the attack. I clenched my fists.

"It got control of me," I said. "That wasn't me, showing off my fancy martial arts training. I lost it, just a little bit. It always happens like that; I start to control it, but at the end of the day, it's always moving me." I gripped tighter. "And..." Saying it would be like swallowing nails. "I hate it. Because I'm afraid of it. Okay? There, I said it. Like a cowardly little kid, I'm afraid of fire, and I'm especially afraid of my fire. So... this isn't gonna work. Alright? At least not so quickly. It usually takes me a year to recover fully from losing control like I did, and it's been at most two weeks." I looked away. "I was getting better, dammit. Now... I doubt I could even work a forge without setting something on fire. Because the more afraid I get, the more likely I am to lose it..."

I closed my eyes.

"That's the story. That's the deal. That's how screwed up I am."

[Kurai Horo]

Kurai simply shrugged, as if the whole situation were nothing.

"It isn't unusual to be afraid, not at all. In a sense, fear is the ultimate sign of respect. You understand just how powerful your flames are and you fear that power, but let me tell you this. Fear is what lets it take control, or at least too much of it. There is a fine line between being scared out of respect, and being scared out of cowardice, and if you overstep that line and go into the latter? The flames will take control at the first opportunity, because they'll know you'll do nothing about it."

He closed his eye in a smile aimed towards Shin.

"And that's why we're practicing, training, to get you used to your own power, to help conquer this fear that you have. You'll soon realize that the more you use your powers? The more casual you'll be with them, the closer the bond between you becomes to the point where you'll realize, there's nothing to be afraid of, these flames aren't here to hurt you, or manipulate you, to use you as a puppet for their own gain. It's completely opposite in fact, the flames are there to do your bidding, to keep you safe."

He took his hands from his pockets and gave a small shrug, before resting his fists on his hips.

"And that's achieved through training, which is why we're here. The reason you've nearly fully recovered in two weeks is because you're working actively again. Believe me when I say that me and Vash only have your best interests at heart, we wouldn't push you to do anything that we felt could harm you, physically or mentally..."

He walked across the deck towards the Port side and rested his hand on the railing, smiling out at the side of Roccia before him.

"Which reminds me, if you'd rather keep it a secret, I can cut what you just said from my reports to Vash."

[Kato Shin]

I took in his words; they made sense, and I'd heard a variation or two on them before. The key to martial arts is being centered; fear and anger are both emotions which get in the way of mastery.

I nodded slowly.

"I... whatever you want. He seems to be in charge around here..." I sighed. "Speaking of which, where is he? He's been avoiding me like the plague - is it because of what happened?"

[Kurai Horo]

"Vash is a busy man." Kurai said with a small nod as he looked across at Shin, he was hardly going to tell him what Vash was or what the simple contact with the Lunar Spirit of Guasto could do to him, but he had to think of some logical way to explain why he was avoiding the young Knight so much.

"But he's still a man. He feels guilty for what happened, he feels like it's his fault that you blew up like that back on Chalybs, so it's not so much as he's avoiding you, it's more like he's avoiding himself." Not completely a lie, but definitely far from the truth. He needed to protect Vash's secret, and making him seem more human was obviously the best way to go about that.

[Kato Shin]

I nodded.

"There's something about him...." Then I shook my head. "I wonder if he's just as afraid of himself as I am. He sure left the room in a hurry when he lost his temper at my Dad."

THen, I sighed. "But, anyway. I..." I paused, realizing that what I was about to say was true. "I'm ready to try again. But... do you mind if I try something, first? Something that might help me get... a little more focused."

[Kurai Horo]

Kurai made a sweeping motion with his hand, clearly insisting that Shin go about whatever he needed to do.

"By all means, take your time. Just realize that you won't have such luxury during battle."

He took a few steps away, and prepared his own defense.

[Kato Shin]

"I know I won't," I told him. "But we're not in battle. And it always makes it easier when I go into it with the right mindset..."

And then I didn't say anything more. Instead, I fell into the pattern of breathing Arisawa-sensei had taught me. I bowed to an nseen oppenent, then launched fluidly into one of the drills I'd been taught. COmbat training and focus at once; that was the point of this exercise. THis was how I meditated - in the precise directions of the movements, I didn't have to worry about the flames, because every ounce of me was focused and controlled into precision, my body became a weapon and I was alone in my own head and my own heart.

I'd learned that our bodily energy exists as ki, which, when directed, could cause powerful reactions. By focusing ki into our limbs as we strike, we can deliver more powerful blows. Along with my ki came fire, but focused and controlled as it never existed naturally in me. It flowed through my body like it was my blood, conectrating at the ends of each of the strikes. I could release it, I had learned, through the strike to make it more powerful - but this was just a drill, an exercise, a kata, so I let it linger contained before directing it elsewhere.

Slowly, I felt my consciousness slip closer to that roaring inferno...

((I imagine Shin doing something similar to 1:20-1:27 here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0hR105iPk ))

[Kurai Horo]

Kurai nodded to himself as Shin went about his ritual, it seems that he was growing ever closer to the flames that burned inside of him, and that can only be described as a good thing. Even if it wasn't, it was definitely a step in the right direction for the young Lunar Knight, if he can accustom himself to the power which he controlled, then surely he could wield it effectively in combat?

Kurai raised his hands in a defensive stance, his left hand twitching slightly, prepared to rip his headband away from his eye if Shin's attacks looked to be too fast for him to track, whilst Kurai had his doubts that the boy could do this at his stage, he was never going to take chances. The warm-up excercise seemed to be doing him some good.

"Let's see if we can take this up a notch!" Kakashi held his hand out, the rasengan starting to swirl around in his palm, a small grey tornado started to form around that as he prepared the hurricane slice, admittedly, a hell of a lot weaker than one he'd use in combat, but still pretty damn tough.

[Kato Shin]

Time to turn this into a real fight; I kept my eye on Kurai, waiting for that wind magic of his to strike, preparing myself to move out of its way when it did.

There! Kurai struck forward, and I allowed myself to slide easily out of his way. Combat was something I was good at; I aimed a strike at his back, concentrating my energy but also not as much as I could have. It was only training, and I didn't want to hurt my teacher. I doubted I could, but I didn't want to worry about it, just in case.