Flat-Brim Samurai Chapter 19
THUMP… THUMP… THUMP… A month elapsed since his major fight and Cias was training his attacks to be perfect, taking the time between every one of his strikes to evaluate and adjust how he should hit next. "The grip needs to be a little wider… I need to loosen up more on the wind up.. tense up on the strike a little more" he told himself. He went until his body was giving out and then went some more. Practicing his moves and training his strength was all that he could think about. His golden aura was shining brighter and it was much denser than the time he had fought his foe. But no matter how much he trained he was still having nightmares of the incident. Waking up screaming most nights further motivated him to train intensely. He realized that the only way to overcome this fear was to face it head value and defeat the fear itself. He envisioned the moves that it did and shadowboxed his perception of it. He never thought he was good enough but was getting stronger with each passing day.
"NOT ENOUGH!!!" he pushed through a push up with a few rocks on his back screaming. His arms felt like they were about to break and after a few more reps fractured his bones, repaired them and continued to push through the pain. "IGNORE IT!!!" he said to himself, and when he finally got to his targeted number ,"2…50". He had been incorporating weighted things on himself to increase the load and power himself up. The problem was, how to get all of this stuff to stand still above him. Well… for that he taught himself a new technique that was extremely versatile and powerful, Art: Ki Telekinesis. How did he figure this out? You say… WELL, He wanted to workout with weight and he couldn't find a way to apply it to himself so he went experimenting. Trying to strap it onto his back didn't work because the shape of the rocks were too weird to strap with ropes. Plain putting them on his back needed flexibility a body like his couldn't do. So he went thinking and saw videos of people in the past moving things with their Ki without touching them and it was called telekinesis.
He started on small things like rocks and at first he did all sorts of silly things to do the technique. Eventually, he learned the trick, It was to use one's ki or to use the atmosphere's ki in order to pick something up. Although using the atmospheres ki was like using the technique for free it did have its limits to how heavy something you could pick up was. And when it came to using your own ki, it used your ki reserves but the only limit to how heavy something you could pick up was only the strength of yourself. But this was actually a blessing in disguise, this would mean he'd be able to train his ki at the same time that he would train his physical body.
Cias even when looking at his new (more muscular) stronger self said ,"It's not enough" and it was almost never enough for him. He was anxious, terrified and angry. He felt like crying to himself, the PTSD was still hitting him like a truck. (What am I thinking) he thought to himself (I'm getting all worked up for nothing, I can't do anything because I'm not fighting it now, I've got to remember what Hiroto said and think about my actions, not about the outcome for it only breeds more defeat and loss) ,"THANK YOU MASTER!!!" he shouted to the wind.
Wind flew through his hair, clothes and home as he looked into the distance. He looked at his hands, all callused up, scratched and scarred up. He felt that through his heart of hearts, he did all that he could to prepare for the next fight with the giant mantis. He sensed its movements and it would make its presence known that next morning. Cias's heart started beating hard as he entered his bed. The nightmares stopped for just that night as he went to bed. In his sleep, he dreamed of the coming day and the fight that would shake the very ground beneath them.