THE SEVENTH MASQUERADE CHAP. 2 [FEAT. YAMATO]

“I watched you during your fight with Alexendre.” Yamato started, “Your footwork and your speed was excellent.” He took easy steps towards the struggling lieutenant, and pushed him onto his back with a simple touch of the palm. “But they weren’t an art form.” The veteran tethered his hands behind his back, watching apathetically as the groaning male below him growled and grunted in a pile of sweat simply to get back to feet. “You treat the blade like an extension of your will.” He continued, “But you do not treat your body and mind the same. You treat yourself like a tool, and you don’t realize that you; yourself could be an manifestation of your own will.”

The words battered into the groaning lieutenant’s membrane like a vague bat. He understood the elder’s definition of his swordplay all too well, but the rest was almost too much of a cryptic maze for him to decrypt. I treat my body like a tool? What? Eye closed as pain nearly breached his unfathomable threshold, he repeated his same drawn-out struggle to reach to his feet, forced to listen to the other man preach. “I’ve noticed you and your Zanpakutō are closer than anything I’ve ever seen.” Yamato said, throwing his three blades into the furthest reaches of the chamber. You can tell that from one look? “Work with your mind as well as you would work with your blades.”

Yamato took slow, meaningful strides towards the lieutenant, and sensed his physique evolve from a sprawl into a weak stand. A palm stretched outward and tendered touched upon shaking chest of the student, words expelling from the parting lips of the blind teacher, “Breathe anew.” A sluggish second passed until Ashton followed his instructions, adopting a deep inhale into his poor stance. I can’t breathe normally without Kenketsusha. A static shock jolted from the elder’s palm, and sent a stasis of electrical agony through the redhead’s body. “Do not attempt to ignore the pain.” Yamato started, “This is the battlefield; center yourself in the pain and understand your own wavelengths.”

In spite of the pain rupturing any chance at movement, the blind male’s words did not fall on deaf ears. Ashton’s eyelids dimmed as he for once, not bypassed the pain; but felt it in its entirety. He was so used to acting as a soul of two, that he had forgotten that he was a sapient of his right, and his teacher’s words spoke directly to the warrior in his heart. While contempt sloped down the lieutenant’s lips, moans of muffled pain drifted out, and a torrent of uninterrupted thoughts flew in.

I know the battlefield.

There was understanding in strife.
I am the pain.

There was freedom in the pain.

I am the eye of my own body.

And there would be growth in remembrance.

Ashton’s eyes opened as the shocking pain steadily dissipated, his eyes widened to notice that his internal organs weren’t harmed, though heavy with wisdom. Finally, he understood, and he couldn’t compose a set of words to describe the knowledge that had always lurked in the bowels of his mind. His arms fell to his sides, his postured returned to the norm under the gravity with a few cracks of the neck, and with a large exhale he centered himself in the madness. Yamato nodded, and disappeared from eye sight with a flash he was surprised to read.

CODED BY ELECTRIC OF GS

By the time the lieutenant’s footwear tapped the ground, the veteran’s vague words before the harpoons started shooting made sense. This wasn’t a type of training that focused on practice, it was merely understanding and expanding one’s limits without the need of constant concentration—it was all instinct, and that was something the Ashton knew all too well. But the time to devise the unnecessary details was a luxury he didn’t have.

Strands of wine-colored hair tangoed in wind with a sluggish cartwheel, the steel of two bolts smashing together and splintering on the ground. He landed with a palm faced on the ground with blood and sweat twirling before him. A howl of pain, and more prominently surprise echoed the chamber as a bolt sunk into the redhead’s buttocks. He sprawled face-first onto the floor, keeping his scrunched eyes open in the case of more bolts as a dextral hand reached backwards to pluck an unwanted projectile. He managed to get onto his knees in the coming milliseconds, and forced himself to roll over to evade a harpoon from powering into the back of his head, abusing the movement to meet a gasping stand.

Concentrate, focus, calm yourself—left…right.

Ashton’s eyes swirled about mechanically, his neck torqueing to the left as he leapt upward and allowed another two bolts to collide with one another. He saw, he understood, and he would proudly sin to say he loved it all. His head twitched left, twitched right, twitched upward—thoughts swam as eyelids closed.

Twelve o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock, nine o’clock, two at two o’clock—no five at—no!

He felt like a sack of honey as a swarm of harpoons from nearly every direction crept to impale his body at impeccable speeds. His body scrunched in midair, and all of the bolts connected to their eye—and Ashton wasn’t it. The projectiles fell to the ground as the redheaded officer materialized on the ground, his eyes closed while his mind scanned the area.

These harpoons aren’t firing from multiple directions, or multiple turrets; they’re all twisting from the same direction to confuse me.

Amber optics unveiled upward at the pale roofing, his body disappearing in an exquisite flash step to allow three bolt to crash into each other. His mind was in such a systematic whirlpool that he didn’t take the chance to notice his body was capable of performing any type of high-speed movement within this gravity zone. But there was one thing he did notice, and it sent a jolt of elation through his strengthening anatomy; spawning from none other than the excitement of knowledge and growth.

“I understand it.” Ashton’s form transformed into a series of distorted whizzes, a multitude of bolts connecting with one another by deed of his steady developments. The projectiles fired and fired to no end, their speed increased and nearly kept up with blurred strands of maroon. He stopped in the very center of the room, stepping in a pile of his recently spilled blood and halted his movements for a single second. And not a blink before the horde of arrows impaled him through every angle; the lieutenant disappeared through an upward flash and caused a piled mess on the ground.

His floating form materialized at the very top of what seemed to be the boundless white jail, leaving multiple bolts that failed to meet their mark falling to the ground. By his next heartbeat an entire army of harpoons were twirling from the left and right, curving the second they all hit the ground and flooded upwards in Ashton’s direction. His optics widened in amazement, his body stilled with a large gulp tumbling down his throat. Eyelids closed over jewels, and left a mind to do all the visualizing needed.

He felt time slowing within the clutches of his membrane as an endless army of bolting steel grazed off strands of blood-colored hair, a tip of a harpoons a mere centimeter from piercing through closed eyes. A powerful grunt exploded from the curling lips of the lieutenant, and in he was nothing but a distorted blur in the next second. His body whizzed beyond eyesight through every gap of the harpoons, a soft shredding coming onto his shoulders and sides, but his speed proved triumphant.

As did his perception.

Blood rapped onto the floor, tapping against the footwear of the near breathless student as golden eyes opened to cast their vision over the shoulder. The three hundred bolts that jetted for him disappeared into the depths of the ceiling white, and a small explosion convulsed the ground as shrapnel and debris cascaded around him. A prolonged chuckle invaded the sound waves, inaudible footwear pattering behind him. His teacher stood with hands behind his back, the imprint of a smile behind his mask.

“You are impressive.”

CODED BY ELECTRIC OF GS