[Seaside] Dancing on the Sea

[Mizushin Junzo]

TS: 3rd Cycle of Ponutis, Era II of the Celestine Mandate, Era XIV Post-Fractum

The sea was naturally comforting to Junzo. The breeze and the scent of it, even when there was a overtone of the habitation of civilization, was enough to bring him to memories of his childhood. The thelyri wondered if his actions here, to rehabilitate the docks, could make one that was relatively clean of the garbage that cities were wont to produce. There would have to be methods for cleaning up what mess there was, and a reason to do so.

But today's event was for something else besides those plans. He was here to give the young nobleman he was training another taste of fighting, perhaps something that would help him refine his style. He would fight here, on the confines of a swaying ship. A grin flickered over Junzo's face as he stood up carefully on the boat he'd managed to hire for the day.

[Arken Lancaster]

To say that this cycle had been the most exhausting experience Arken has gone through his entire life would be an understatement in the extreme. His teacher had proven to be a most effective mentor but had he not been as physically fit as he was, the young noble doubted that he could have kept up with this brutal curriculum.

Then again, Mizushin had always made his exercises fun. As far as he was concerned he would push himself to the limits, he had plenty of time to rest when he was dead. Right now this training was far more important than rest.

"It's unusually cold for spring, don't you think so master Mizushin?" he asked the thelyri who appeared perfectly at ease where he stood.

[Mizushin Junzo]

"Spring? Hah." The thelyri laughed, a smile on his lips. "Hardly!" And to him it was hardly cold at all, used to plunging to the depths of the ocean, where the cold was far greater than this, or the harsher wilderness of Arium. Now that had sorely tested his endurance, but he'd always touched base with Nexus Prime when things got too tough back then. Junzo seemed to be quite at home on the water, mostly because it had been his home for most of his life.

"But we're not here to just chill you up." The boat swayed from side to side slightly, the motions of the waves. "We're here to hammer more stuff into that frame of yours, steady your legs and the like." He shook his head, "this will be different from the streambed, oh yes, quite different. So, Arken, let's try a few basic drills shall we?" Somehow the sea-elf had managed to get their practice dummy on the ship and weighted it down enough.

Off to the stern, a bored looking 'captain' watched the two, most likely just keeping his head down for the good crown that he'd been paid for.

[Arken Lancaster]

Arken nodded in assent and promptly unsheathed his rapier bringing blade point hanging in front of the training dummy. However, the difficult part was in maintaining his balance, he could stand but moving was difficult.

Shrugging off his hesitation, he began attacking the dummy outright. To no surprise the first thrust was sent off course by the rolling waves, the nobleman decided to keep his feet spread apart, as much as possible he needed to increase his stability, true it would be all the more difficult to move from one spot in his current stance, but he couldn't attempt anything more complicated until he had mastered the basics. That was the core philosophy to his training after all.

The next attempt at an attack was rewarded with some measure of success. He rapier had struck the dummy at the chest, but not as close to the heart as he had initially expected.

Maybe if I time it...

Closing his eyes he tried getting a feel of the sway of the boat, true there was no staple intervals to when the waves would hit but he figured if he could attack and time it as the waves tossed him forward he would increase momentum and striking power.

He moved again, right foot forward, his right arm snapping in a downwards slash that exploded into a simple forward thrust and indeed he had hit his mark. Although the power had somewhat sent him off balance, he knew that had it been a battle that would've been the end of things.

[Mizushin Junzo]

The timing of the strikes was indeed the key, the shifting of one's weight accordingly and the ability to use the swaying boat's deck to launch one's attacks. It was a complicated thing perhaps if one tried to analyze all the factors that varied here, but the body was an amazing thing that could adjust to it all and train to it, if one could put his mind to it. Not that it was an easy task to do, as Arken was discovering.

Even as his strikes against the dummy were executed, he found that his strikes were as off target almost as often as they were on target. Getting the motion of the waves was one thing, but there was always variation and changes from the currents and tides that would throw his aim off. But it was a start nonetheless, and it would allow him to deal with moving targets, small targets, better.

The thelyri began to call out targets for Arken to strike, similar to before. Targets in succession, to get him even more pressured to this sort of thing. "Liver! Eye! Lung!" Junzo barked out quickly, and continued that for a short while longer, after while he'd give the young noble a bit of a break.

[Arken Lancaster]

It was basic training all over again. Arken moved forward one foot forward, his blade flickering towards the designated targets with a flick of the wrist and then a single fluid thrust to drive it forward. He had succeeded hitting the targets Mizushin had given him by some measure of accuracy, though his blows were still far from perfect.

Still he was starting to enjoy this, ever so slowly he was picking up the beat, the rhythm and he was learning how to adapt to the subtle shifts in the movements of the waist. He started moving faster, determined to at least become adequately proficient before the brightening was over.

It was during a particularly large wave that sent him off balance that he noticed something about the training however. He wasn't even moving, true this was training, but in a real battle he couldn't possibly just stay in one place.

Resuming his attacks, Arken began implementing some variations to his attack, his feet shifting a little to the right or left in an effort to emulate a somewhat dodging motion that a pugilist had demonstrated for him once.