'Maybe I should try it with the kusarigama. But how? It's a lot harder to remember how I moved it when I heard that melody. Maybe I should start with some basics.'
He got into a basic stance and threw his kusarigama around like a flail.
'That... doesn't feel right. Maybe I could try and act like I'm fighting something..?'
He pretended that a ghast stood in front of him, and performed what he would normally do. It went a little better than before, but there was one problem. The ghast was imaginary, so the kusarigama hit nothing.
The lack of response, the lack of impact, it threw off all of his momentum. There was no real way to train with the weapon in the way he wanted. When he first learned it he mostly spared with Bene. If he didn't do that he would practise throwing it and engaging against a dummy.
So to have nothing there was undesirable. But there wasn't much of an alternative. So he worked with the hand he'd been given. Instead of practising how to strike with the kusarigama, he trained how to move with the kusarigama. Not in the sense of grappling or swinging between rooftops, but rather how he should move while wielding the chain-sickle.
So he tried to swing the kusarigama around him while he practised his footwork. He constantly messed up at first. He tangled the chain around part of himself, tripped himself, cut himself, and even hit the weight on the bridge of his nose.
Eventually, however, he got into a stable rhythm. It took him an hour or two to achieve that, but it was only the beginning. Once he got into the rhythm once more, he slowed it down, bit by bit. This time it was vastly different and difficult than with the tachi.
With the tachi, he would slow down his strike and focus on how the energy flowed through his body. But since the kusarigama isn't a solid object, slowing down ruined the rhythm he spent so much time constructing.
But he managed, every millisecond he slowed his pace he would increase the force he exerted on the chain by just a little. He hoped that this would counteract the chain falling limp due to gravity and a general lack of momentum.
At first, it worked, but then it didn't. There was a point that, no matter how much he tried, he could go no slower. But the point was not to become a snail, no it was to slow down his movements so that each part could be analyzed and broken down. Then he could understand how his body moved and felt. If he knew that, he could speed it all up and move with much more efficiency.
All he needed was to slow down as much as he could, much like he did a few days prior. That, he had achieved. Now he worked through the painstaking process of focusing on the flow of energy through his muscles.
"What... are you doing?"
He opened his eyes and glanced at Oak, but he did not stop what he was doing. He was in too deep to restart again.
"Training."
"You look like you're dancing with your shadow. How exactly is anything you're doing training?"
"I'm trying to break down my movements and understand how energy flows through me while I do it."
"...Okay..?"
Lukas sighed, disrupting his body slightly as it adjusted his posture.
"If I do that, I can speed up all of my movements and fight while using far less energy. I'm training to fight for longer in a sense. I have other reasons... but I don't think you would understand."
"But why not just do normal endurance training?"
"Again, I have other reasons, and I value those a little higher than trying to improve my endurance."
"Okay. Skyla's going east of Mistfell today. She agreed with you and let me stay here for the day."
"That's good."
Silence surrounded them as the seconds ticked by. Lukas was too focused on himself to notice it. But Oak grew more agitated and anxious with each passing moment.
"Well... I'm going to go do something else. I'll be in the station if you need me."
"Okay, have fun."
With that, Oak was gone. Lukas returned to his training, he knew he was close to something. He had to be. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach that breakthrough he desired. He did, however, gain the endurance and precision he wanted from his training.
It wasn't to the same level of control he had with the tachi, but it was something. So he kept at it and tried to experiment with this new found understanding.