章節 16: Chapter XVI: Training
Sasuke's eyes winced as the sun shined through the blinds. He woke up and felt a yawn in his throat as he stared up at the ceiling. His arms were still a little sore from all the kunai and shuriken throwing he did overnight.
After putting on his costume he left his room and explored the halls. He glanced over at other students being tutored by sidekicks and thought, 'Where's the kitchen in this place?'
"Ah, Sasuke. I was about to go get you."
Sasuke turned around and his sense of smell was stimulated by the plates Edgeshot and Tenten held.
"Do you like fermented soybeans, Sasuke?" Tenten asked.
"There's no food I hate more," Sasuke grimaced.
Tenten chuckled and handed him a filled plate, "Here's the one with a rolled omelet then. It's to die for, so I'm sure you'll like it." She gave him a sly smirk and a piercing stare.
Sasuke silently accepted the plate and Edgeshot stated, "Let's make our way back to the main Dojo. There's a lot left to teach, on one hand, there's something else you've been doing wrong ever since your recommendation exam."
"That far back?"
"Yes, show me that thing you do when you're trying to go fast."
Sasuke complied and his purple energy coiled around his body. Edgeshot looked him up and down and did a 'come here' motion, as he walked into the open field behind the main dojo. "This... Speed mode let's call it. It's bad, it's very amateur. Have you ever seen Samurai or Knight armor?"
Sasuke nodded and Edgeshot waved his hands, "Their armor was magnificent in design. The armor was centered around the most important spots that were likely to be hit, while the areas like the joints and behind the legs were freed up for mobility. You should do something similar, coils are inefficient unless you're trying to jump high. Instead of spreading that energy sloppily around your body, you should focus on making dense parts of it to enhance the parts of your body most important for movement, got it?"
He put a hand under his chin, "Yeah, the most important areas for full-body movement should be: calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, lats, obliques, shoulders, and maybe some others."
His purple energy started to morph, but Edgeshot raised a hand, "Before you try that out. We should do a before and after to see just how much your speed will improve. Try running to the other side of the hundred-meter field as fast as you can. I'll time you."
"Do you have a—"
Tenten pulled out a stopwatch, and Sasuke looked at the other side of the field and got into a stance. "Alright, count me down." Sasuke began thinking, 'When I did the fifty-meter sprint at school, my time was 4.20 seconds. Which would be more or less 8.40 seconds. Even though I'm using the same thing, my time should improve regardless.'
"3... 2... 1... Go!"
Sasuke left behind a small fog of dust as he charged across the field. Tenten pressed the button, "6 seconds!"
'About what I expected.'
While he walked back to them, Edgeshot said, "Not bad, now let's see how much that time improves when you improve your speed mode."
Sasuke closed his eyes, and the coils around his body morphed into translucent plates that covered his most important muscles for movement, all connected by strings. It covered most of his legs, his hips, his lats, down his arms, and up his spine onto his neck to prevent whiplash. Sasuke got into a running stance
"3... 2... 1... Go!"
A huge cloud of smoke was kicked up, and Sasuke traveled at a speed that would be invisible to normal people. Tenten coughed and kept one eye open to know when to press the button. When she looked down at the timer her eyes widened, "1 second!"
Sasuke blinked and looked down at his feet as his mouth curled up, 'Is the difference seriously that big?! That's many times faster than what I was doing before! I could have cleared past the Sports Festival with this!'
Edgeshot clapped, "Woah, that's even better than I expected. Keep up that level of improvement and you'll be a top 5 hero easily. Ready to move on? There are a couple of other things I wanna teach you today."
"What is it, sensei?"
"Do you think you can cover things with your quirk like you do with yourself?" Edgeshot strolled into the dojo and the two of them followed after him.
"I haven't done it before but I should be able to. Why?"
"Tenten made a gift for you."
"She 'made' a gift?"
"Yeah, as the weapons expert, she's also made weapons. Open it." He held up a long enclosed box in front of Sasuke.
Sasuke opened the lid to see a black-sheathed straight sword inside. He took it out and unsheathed it. He traced his finger lightly on the edge and Tenten said, "It's a good sword. Depending on how good of a swordsman you become I might get you an even better one."
Sasuke swung it a few times and smiled, "It's been a long time since I've used a sword."
"I forged it specifically for you. It shouldn't hinder your movements at all and it'll slice through most things with ease even without you enforcing it.
'Speaking of that,' Sasuke closed his eyes and held the sword out. Purple energy emerged from his hands and slowly covered the sword like a wild flame. After a moment, the flame shrunk into a thin, dense layer of purple that coated the blade.
Tenten held her hands behind her back and had a playful smile, "Sasuke, can you hold that sword out with two hands?"
Sasuke complied, "Sure, but w—" A good swing from a sledgehammer on the blade cut Sasuke off. The contact made a loud cling, but the sledgehammer bounced off.
"Nice! Your quirk should help it from breaking, but how's the sharpness?"
Regaining his composure Sasuke replied, "I just replicated the sharpness I use for the kunai."
"That should work, but don't get too satisfied with just that. Keep improving it to get even sharper, like an obsidian knife."
Edgeshot stated, "How about a quick sword test to see how good you are with it?" He slid open a door to reveal a bunch of tameshigiri spread throughout the room. "How fast do you think you can cut all these?"
Sasuke drew the sword, "Only one way to find out." Purple energy surrounded Sasuke and he blitzed through the room at a speed faster than the untrained eye could see. Each tameshigiri could be heard hitting the floor as they were cut one by one, and it even looked like a lot were cut at the same time. Sasuke stopped at the other side of the room and sheathed the sword in his obi.
Tenten clicked the button, "Five seconds. You should be able to cut that time down by half by the end of the week."
"That was great, by the end of your training you may be better with a sword than your normal hand-to-hand combat. Although, now I want to work on your stealth. Your silent step has gotten better, I couldn't track you by the sound of your footsteps half the time."
"Thanks, I've been working on it nonstop. I just have to get my brain to do it unconsciously."
Good," Edgeshot handed Sasuke some smoke bombs and backed up, "Your job is going to be to find me and immobilize me without me finding out."
"How am I—"
"Good luck," Edgeshot threw down a smoke bomb.
Sasuke sighed and his search began.
In the underground hideout, a truck came through a secret passage and Sasori and Deidara greeted the driver. "Sasori, my man. What did you order?"
The liftgate of the truck rose and Deidara's eyes widened, "Heh, my man. Don't you think that might be overkill? Hm?"
Sasori smirked, "Not at all. He's a prodigy training with a top-five hero, having the perfect puppet is the best course of action. I think we're prepared enough now."
Back at the agency, Sasuke silently ran on top of the different roofs with his sword bound by his rope belt. He scanned the area and saw a silhouette of Edgeshot behind a sliding door. 'There you are.'
He lightly landed and approached the door; he then threw it open and held down Edgeshot with a Susanoo hand. "Got y—"
A kunai at his neck made him catch his words. "Slash, dead." The kunai was lifted and Sasuke jolted around to see Edgeshot standing. He looked back at what he thought was Edgeshot and saw it was only a scarecrow.
"Where were you?"
"I was behind you the whole time, following you. You're still looking, but not actually seeing. Especially when you thought you saw me; you became tunnel-visioned on what you thought was me. Not only that, but once you thought you caught me, you let your guard down. All it would have taken was to turn around then to see me," Edgeshot twirled around the kunai in his hand.
"Tunnel-visioned?"
"Yes, instead of just using your pupil, use your peripheral vision too. Don't just focus on the one thing you're directly looking at, you should always be observing everything your eyes perceive and act accordingly. Becoming tunnel-visioned in a fight is a sure way to lead to your death."
"... Alright, I understand."
"Good. Let's start some sword training now. There's a specific way you're gonna want to use swords since you normally wouldn't wanna kill villains. You can target their tendons and other joints; if you do that they won't be able to move anymore no matter how hard they try."
"What if you do have to kill a villain?" They side-eyed each other.
"Well, you likely won't be fighting villains strong enough that you'll have to resort to that at your age, right?"
Sasuke looked away, "Yeah..."
Edgeshot's eyes lingered on him before they returned forward. 'Tenten can take care of this.'
The rest of the day passed by without issue as Sasuke went through sword, stealth, and more throwing training.
When the sun rose the next day, it was time for field training. Sasuke fastened his obi and met Edgeshot at the entrance to his agency. "Tenten isn't coming?"
"No, at least one of us has to stay to help manage things. Put this in your ear," he handed Sasuke an earpiece.
"Is this so we can hear the police communications?"
"Huh? What are you talking about? I was just gonna put on some Taylor Swift for us."
Sasuke stared at him blinking; Edgeshot turned away from him and crossed his arms, "That was a joke. Yes, it's for police comms–Cough..." Edgeshot narrowed his eyes, then fake-coughed and turned back to him, "Also, here's a pouch to carry things in, since you can't make stuff like smoke bombs on your own. Wrap it around your leg." Edgeshot tossed him a brown pouch and Sasuke did as he was told. "Now then, let's go."
Sasuke nodded and they ran into the city. Edgeshot's lower body transformed into threads and he shrunk in Sasuke's vision as he got farther ahead. Sasuke got into his full-speed mode and jumped across buildings to catch up to him. "Do we have to go so fast? There weren't any crimes yet."
"There are always crimes going on, they just aren't always reported. You'll have to build up your endurance for future patrols, because arriving late to the scene by even a second can be the difference between life and death for someone."
Edgeshot shot down into an alleyway, and Sasuke slowed himself down to change directions and hopped down as he heard a gunshot. When he caught up he saw Edgeshot over an unconscious thug with a gun, and the man he just saved thanking him.
Edgeshot turned to him, "See? Even half a second can make all the difference. We should work on how well you can change directions to keep your speed up."
Sasuke nodded and they waited for a cop to arrive. They leaned on a wall and Edgeshot asked, "Sasuke, you don't have to tell me, but I'm curious about the extent of your training as a kid. Your parents trained you to a pretty high level considering how young you would have been, but they weren't heroes?"
Sasuke put his hands in his pockets, "No... But they trained me to the bone to become a hero from about five to nine years old. Those skills... They can't ever leave me."
Sasuke's eyes squinted at different points and Edgeshot observed him quizzically. "Well, either way, you're strong as a result. More so than any rookie I've ever taken on. You'll make it far in the hero world, Sasuke."
He put a hand on Sasuke's shoulder and a cop car arrived. "Sensei, should we get going?"
"Yeah. Let's get back on patrol."
The day ended as well as the ones before, and Sasuke was back in his room. He lay on his side with his arm propping up his head and looked out the window at the moon. 'What Tenten said a couple of nights ago... Maybe she was right... But it isn't just about me. There's a reason I can't tell my friends... It's—'
His phone vibrated and he picked it up. 'A message?' He pulled up the message and nearly dropped his phone. It read: Your pink friend is here in the city at the rust hero's agency. If you don't come to this address tonight then she's dead.
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