Sora sighed in relief before he sneezed. "Phew, someone must be talking about me… has someone already discovered it was me? But I was invisible…" he thought out loud.
Right now, Sora was just chilling in the bath, washing all of the blood and sweat off.
Taking a deep breath and fully relaxing his body, Sora chuckled to himself. Beating those men to a pulp was actually quite fun, he hadn't really struggled in a fight with anyone before and this was the first time he had gone all out without using his eyes and it was also his first time fighting an adult, let alone a bar full of them.
*BANG BANG BANG!*
A loud banging came from the bathroom door as Fuko's voice came from the other side. "Come on, kid! You've been in there for ages!" Fuko whined.
Sora immediately barked back. "It hasn't even been ten minutes BY THE WAY!"
Fuko raised her voice. "You better pick up the pace before I break the door down."
Sora just sighed in disappointment and started to finish up in the bath.
…
After drying himself and getting dressed, he opened the bathroom door and…
*SMACK!*
"I know that was you! You caused the commotion in that bar!" Fuko slapped Sora and pointed an educating finger towards him.
Sora held his face just before he turned angry. "I wouldn't have needed to if you didn't let them speak about you that way. I know you know about it." He said, his voice raising to match hers.
Fuko's eyes widened in realisation as Sora just walked past her, his shoulder bumping into hers as he slammed his bedroom door shut.
She stood there still before she suddenly clenched her fists. "Stupid kid… doing all of that because of me…" she wanted to be angry at Sora for causing such a commotion, but this was the first time in her life that Sora had actually shown concern or care for her.
…
…
The next day, outside of Takeo's dojo.
Yukio shuffled uncomfortably when he saw Sora arrive, making the golden eyed boy raise an eyebrow.
"What's up with you, Yukio?" He asked, getting up close and personal with the other boy.
Yukio froze up but managed to reply. "S-sensei knows about what you did yesterday… I think he will be mad at you." He said, a little worried for Sora.
"I'm not mad. I just think he could've been a little more subtle about it, or maybe he could've used a sword. That would've been far more efficient." An old voice came from inside the dojo.
Yukio turned even more pale and Sora turned his attention to Takeo, who had been very rudely eavesdropping on them. "Oh yeah? I could've been more subtle? How about you teach me a little more, or maybe if I could teleport then I could've got the job done in an instant, old man." Sora spat back, still feeling a bit salty from Takeo's apparent favouritism of Yukio.
Takeo just sighed and opened the door. "Come in, I'll teach you how to teleport and I'll teach Yukio the next stage of swordsmanship. Then I will split your training, I will have Sora focusing on speed and Yukio will be focusing on strength and deception." He told the duo as they entered.
Yukio tilted his head and Sora just ignored them as he rushed towards the swords.
"Since Sora already has exceptional physical abilities and elusiveness even greater than my own, he will be focusing on speed due to his choice of the teleportation technique. You, Yukio… will be learning a lot from me, because you are lacking." Takeo patted Yukio's back.
The younger boy just smiled awkwardly, not sure if he should laugh or cry. Sora had learned the technique that Yukio had requested, but he wasn't allowed to learn the technique that Sora had requested? How was that fair!?
Sora walked over with a wooden Ninjato resting on his shoulder. "Alright old man, teach me some new techniques." Sora said, holding a sword for literally no reason considering he would be learning how to teleport, not use the sword.
"First, go put that sword away. You will be learning how to teleport, not any swordsmanship." Takeo ordered. Sora quickly put the sword back before rushing over. He was eager to learn how to teleport.
"Okay, soo… what do I do?" Sora asked, already getting a little impatient.
"I am going to explain and demonstrate it only once, the rest is up to you." Takeo warned.
Sora just raised an eyebrow. "Sure, I'll master it before little Yuki can move onto the next exercise."
The old man just chuckled as he explained. "Alright, to use this technique you need to fully vitalise your body by enhancing it with chakra. But this cannot be achieved with just chakra control, it requires the chakra to move in a certain way." He nodded.
Sora tilted his head. "In what way?"
Takeo smiled. "Funnily enough, when I was trying out new ways to shape my chakra… I discovered various hand gestures that moved the chakra around by itself, like training wheels." He suddenly placed his hands together, his middle and pinky fingers interlocked with his index fingers pointing up.
Sora's eyes flickered gold as he checked out how the man's chakra was moving. To Sora's confusion, it was moving in a way that he couldn't quite grasp the concept of it.
Sora then copied the hand gesture and felt his chakra moving in the same way, it was a new feeling.
The old man then continued. "Then by using this gesture, spread the chakra throughout your whole body, explosively in the legs for extremely fast movement." He said before he vanished and reappeared next to Yukio.
"Alright, that's all for now. Good luck." He told Sora as he ruffled Yukio's white hair and nodded towards the adjacent room.
"Good luck, big bro." Yukio said, awfully confident out of nowhere.
Sora just grinned. "You too, get big and strong so you can stand equal to me." He waved before getting to work.
…
…
In a dark room in the far corner of the village…
"How many have you gathered…?" A rough feminine voice came from one corner of the room.
A pair of golden eyes lit up the dark from the opposite side. "I have gathered 14 this week, we are getting closer." A deep, elderly voice said from where the golden eyes were.
"I only managed to take 8… how do you get so many?" The feminine voice asked.
A sinister chuckle came from the other person as they answered. "Well… the people trust me, all I have to do is say it was an order and they'd give it all to me with a bright smile on their face. I take it you got yours directly from the source?" His golden eyes flickered as he scanned the large amount of golden energy radiating from the items they had gathered.
The woman chuckled too. "Yes… since I've been alone recently, I've been able to grab more than usual without being caught or questioned. Our Lord won't be trapped for much longer…" her voice became deeper towards the end of the sentence, her eyes suddenly flickering between brown and gold before landing on gold.
"Great job you two… now only one piece of the puzzle remains before I can bestow my power upon you."
A very sinister voice came from the two's heads, making them get on their knees immediately.
"Our Lord… we only need 8 more… then we can start the ritual…" the two spoke in unison.
"Oh no… you need 9 more. One must be used for the next piece of the puzzle. It is only a matter of time before the plan comes together."
"Y-yes… My Lord." The woman said, her head resting on the ground as she grovelled.
…
…
Sora suddenly got a chill down his spine. "What the hell was that?" He muttered silently before getting back to his training.
He repeated the hand sign and familiarised himself with the movements of his chakra before spreading the feeling far throughout his body and especially in his legs.
He didn't use much chakra, so when he tried to move around, he didn't get very far.
He flickered about 1.5 meters to his left and exhaled. "Woah, that felt awesome, but I didn't really go far at all. Perhaps I need to use more chakra? I mean I didn't use much at all there."
He did the hand sign once more, pouring more chakra into the technique before…
*FWOOSH!*
He vanished and reappeared on the left side of the room, stopping for a moment before flickering once more to the right side of the room, reappearing before teleporting once again toward the doorway to the next room over, appearing just to open the door before flickering once more behind Yukio.
The moment he did, though…
*FWOOSH!*
Sora's eyes widened as Yukio suddenly spun around with his sword just inches away from Sora's throat.
Yukio's eyes also widened and he immediately backed up and dropped his sword, waving his hands apologetically. "B-big bro?! I-I didn't mean to…" he nearly got on his knees to beg for forgiveness but Sora just chuckled.
"Wow, those are some great reflexes you've got there little bro." Sora grinned, in a good mood.
Yukio's eyes widened at the name before a small smile appeared. "Thank you… and you managed to teleport! I knew you could do it big bro!" He grinned excitedly.
Sora grinned back before he outstretched a fist.
Yukio nearly burst into tears of joy as he returned the fist bump.
Takeo just looked at the two from the side before he sighed. He was wrong to compare Sora to his younger self, at least Sora was capable of treating people with a small amount of respect. When Takeo was younger, anyone who he didn't deem worthy didn't get an ounce of respect.
"Alright Sora, great job on learning that technique. Now, I'll let Yukio explain this new exercise to you since I don't want to explain it twice." He said, making Yukio's eye twitch a little.
"Well… you should grab a sword first." Yukio said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head.
Takeo just smiled softly. 'He really needs to get rid of this shyness… I'd love to see him be a little more confident.'
Back with a sword in hand, Sora stood ready for Yukio's explanation.
"Alright, so… what we need to do is swing the sword in an attack but stop the sword when sensei tells us to stop. I think it is to know when to stop our attack without any wasted movements." Yukio explained, getting lost in the explanation.
Sora just nodded and stood ready with his sword before looking at Takeo, waiting for him to give him the signal to start.
Takeo raised his head. "Yeah, go ahead. Start." He waved his hand.
Both Sora and Yukio started to repeatedly swing their swords, both of them weren't swinging their swords in any skilled manner though.
Actually, they were just swinging their swords as if they had never swung one before.
Takeo burst out laughing. "Okay okay. Stop. I had no idea that neither of you could use the sword even a little bit, let me teach you how to actually swing a sword first. Both of you will do different attacks."
He demonstrated a downward slash, raising the sword high and slashing it down. "This is a downward slash, Yukio you will be doing this."
Yukio immediately copied the movement, his lacking the same strength but he still did it.
Takeo nodded before looking at Sora. "Watch closely." He positioned his sword low at his waist before slashing upward. "This is a skyward slash. Sora, do this."
Sora copied the movement, his was a lot stronger than Yukio's but it was lacking the grace and precision.
"Alright, both of you do these slashes one thousand times. I'll be counting." Takeo suddenly said before leaning on the wall.
Sora froze up. "Woah woah woah there old man. Let's slow down. Don't you have a temple to guard? Or was that just a one day thing?" Sora asked, being reminded of his first time meeting Takeo.
"Hm… Tsubaki had offered to take up my shifts recently, she is the kind young woman that was guarding Lord Shuen's temple with me." Takeo answered. "So that just gives me all the more time to train you two!"
Sora just groaned before getting to work.