Training

[swordofzero]

Characters: Suzaku and whoever
Format: prose
This log is: open
Location: In a clearing in the woods
Summary: Suzaku freaks out a little about forgetting Japanese/the system deciding his language is english and translating everything into english for him (he hasn't decided which it is yet) and goes through sword training with a stick
Warnings: None

Training had always made Suzaku feel a little calmer and so it had been a coping mechanism since he was very young. So it was really no surprise that the moment maths class was over he had made his way into the woods, as far away as any gatherings of people and found a suibtable stick to fill in for a sword. His uniform was a little awkward to train in but it was the only thing he owned here apart from his Knight uniform and he did not want to wear that.

Especially not at the moment. As he started going through the farmilliar sword forms that Toudou had taught him he tried to keep his mind blank and to think of only the movements. But his mind was still spinning. He had forgotten Japanese, or the system (whatever the system was and however it even worked, he hadn't worked that out yet) had decided to translate everything to English for him. As of yet he hadn't decided what would be worse.

No he wasn't meant to be thinking! His movements which had ceased a little started up again and he did his best to keep his mind clear. How did the system work? Had they just decided on English because he was Lelouch's knight, or did the system scan your brain and work out... no that was a stupid thought. Systems couldn't scan your brain. Suzaku was being stupid and he knew it. "Concentrate," he muttered and went back to the sword forms.

Comments

[monkeystail]

Suzaku might not have been aware of it, but he was being observed. Very closely. Random person wandering in the forest which she and Kotarou had 'claimed' for their own had to be scrutinized, after all.

Especially someone who was obviously doing martial training. That was grounds for immediate suspicion. Though he smelled completely human.

After a good while, Huashi was starting to get annoyed. Either he could train all proper-like, or he could do his thinking (preferably not here!).

"You're not gonna get anything done like that!" Huashi finally accused from her spot lying stretched out on a tree branch, scrounged apple in one hand and tail dangling down.

[swordofzero]

At the voice Suzaku looked up angrily, wondering who was watching him and annoyed that they would complain about him. But then he caught sight of them and his expression softened as he realised it was a little girl sat up a tree.

"Really?" His eyes were still annoyed but not with the girl, with the whole world really. "And how would you do it?"

It was only after he spoke that he noticed that the girl had a tail... but no, that didn't even make any sense. He must be imagining things, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

[monkeystail]

"Well," Huashi said with a definitive 'aren't-grown-up-stupid' tone to her voice, "You either think, or train!" Obviously. It was apparently not harder than that, in Huashi's opinion.

Then, apparently she decided to amend herself as she thoughtfully tilted her head.
"Though daddy says it helps him think when he trains, but you don't seem to be able to decide what you're gonna do, or keep both up." And, well, while she was hardly unused to griveous wounds, she didn't want to chance Kotarou coming by if the man managed to stab himself or something. Even if it was just a stick.

Sticks could hurt you!

[swordofzero]

Suzaku blinked, it sounded like something Toudou would say, but coming back from the little girl; who still had a tail, it sounded strange. He kept quiet though as she continued speaking in a matter of fact tone. She was right, and it was a little scary how well she had read him.

"Well I would like to only do one, but it is hard to stop thinking, miss." She still had a tail, but it had to be a branch or something that just looked like a tail from where he was standing.

[monkeystail]

As if unconciously being out to disprove Suzaku's conclusion that the tail wasn't a tail, Huashi got up from lying down, curled the tail around the branch, and leaned forward, stretching her arms out and balancing like that, diagonally out from the branch.

"Maybe you should run around!" Huashi smiled brightly and nodded. "My thoughts all disappear when I'm running. Or you sit down and think of whatever you're thinking of!" Huashi paused and briefly tapped a finger against her chin.

"Wujing says he likes to talk to people to get his thoughts in order, but I don't see how that would help. They're your thoughts, right?" Sometimes, even the adults she had come to like and trust were very strange.

[swordofzero]

It was a tail. Suzaku blinked trying to make sense of that. But he couldn't, people didn't have tails... What was this place! Suzaku's mind really couldn't cope with this much information but the soldier in him forced him to at least try and adapt.

So he went with the only thing he could cope with, that was ignoring the fact the girl had a tail and continuing with their conversation.

Run around? Well he guessed that might work, but that had been the idea with the sword forms, do something to take his mind off. He shrugged. "You're right they are my thoughts, other people wouldn't like to know them. But I don't want to be thinking them, that's why I was training" he looked up at her.

"What's your name, miss?"

[monkeystail]

"Huashi!" she smiled brightly and suddenly unlocked her knees, swinging around the branch and grabbing it by her hands to get around on top of it again. Settling down, Huashi dangled her feet.

Then she frowned and shook her head.

"Don't you have people who want to know what you think?" Huashi rolled her eyes in exasperation, because didn't family always want to know what you thought? Her mother was always so worried that loong period of time daddy had been imprisoned...

Oh right... weren't you supposed to ask people their name, when they asked for yours?
"Ohh, what's your name?"
See, she remembered!

[swordofzero]

Nice to meet you, Miss Huashi," Suzaku watched as she swung round the branch and smiled slightly, a smile that instantaneously faded at her words. It wasn't exactly that he didn't have anyone who would want to know his thoughts. Euphemia would he thought, but he did not want to bother her with his thoughts.

"They shouldn't have to deal with my thoughts," he gave a sad smile and then a slightly larger smile. "I am Suzaku," he looked up again, "What are you doing up there?"

[monkeystail]

Shaking her head rather vigorously, Huashi frowned down at Suzaku.

"Isn't that what family is for? Sharing what you don't want to, so they can make it all right?" It was slightly simplistic, yes, but Huashi had never had to deal with a family who didn't care. In fact, they all cared very much, her mother and the other kids and all the rest.

What was she doing up here? What was she not doing up here!
"I like trees! And I need to keep an eye out for suspicious people," Huashi said with a nod, though she didn't mention Kotarou; if she did, that would make the point moot in keeping an eye out, now wouldn't it? It was, after all, for him that she was keeping watch.

[idkmybffxiao]

It looked like Suzaku had a stalker today.

Mei had spotted him sulking off to the woods and, seeing the opportunity to spy on another Player, she couldn't pass up following after. She lurked from behind one tree to another until he finally picked a clearing to practice in. From that point, she had just stuck it out behind the last tree she had hidden behind. The tiny girl is still there, peeking out from behind the tree trunk. She wouldn't be too hard to spot, so long as the person looking took heights into consideration. That school uniform stuck out like a sore thumb in a forest.

"...nnnn, he really is a knight. He's going to know how to use all the weapons."

Mei chewed on a knuckle, putting on her super serious deep thought look. Hrmmm. How could she challenge someone who actually had a clue and win?

[swordofzero]

Suzaku spotted her, mainly because he looked down to the ground in yet another fit of misery as his brain made him think instead of being calm and allowing him to fight.

"Hello Mei!" He didn't quite smile but his tone was friendly.

[idkmybffxiao]

Eek! Spotted! Mei stood very still for a few seconds, not unlike a rabbit still deciding whether to run or not. Then she relaxed and hopped out from behind the tree. It was just Suzaku, after all. He was one of Gino's friends!

"Hi! Are you training?" She already knew he was, but it was a good question to open with. "I guess a knight would know a lot about fighting, huh?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded slowly, "Yes I'm training," he said politely. He nodded at her second question also even though a lot of fighting that he did as a knight was in a Knightmare frame and not with a sword. "Do you know how to fight, miss Mei?"

She shouldn't know how to fight, she was ten but when had the world ever cared about age. After all Suzaku had been this girl's age when he had killed his father...

No he did not want to think about that, he looked back to Mei and hoped she would speak to stop himself thinking.

[idkmybffxiao]

"I do!" It wasn't something Mei thought was strange to know. She wasn't just any kid, she was royalty, and being able to defend herself was something that she had been told she had to know for as long as she could remember. "But I did not get a chance to learn a lot about swords before having to leave..."

Mei walked into the clearing, her step having its usual cheerful spring.

"Do knights only use swords? They always have a sword or a lance in the stories I've read!"

[swordofzero]

He'd thought so, something about her was too confident for her to be without any fighting ability in this school that forced them to fight. He paused at her question about knights, she was from the Chinese Federation so he would have thought she would have known more about knights than the fact they used swords. But maybe she had been sheltered from the world, even if she had been taught how to fight.

"Well Knights mainly fight in Knightmare frames and those sometimes have swords or lances but also guns. When we are not in Knightmare frames we fight with swords, or halberds or guns."

[idkmybffxiao]

Mei knew what swords, halberds, and guns were, but the part about 'Knightmare frames' drew an uncertain stare. She knew about all sorts of weapons, but no one had ever mentioned those.

"Um. Suzaku. What is a Knightmare frame?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku blinked. She couldn't be that sheltered... But he had just met a girl with a tail so he was willing to believe anything was possible.

"A Knightmare frame is a humonoid metal war machine, they are about six times bigger than you and have weapons like guns and slash harkens." He looked at her to check she understood.

[queenscheckmate]

Kallen happened to be walking around on campus when she caught something off in the distance. Natural instinct told her to check it out, so she did. Slowly she approached and saw a familiar face. There was something about Suzaku that she felt... was off. She remembered that she killed him. She knew it was because of the war, but... It wasn't until that dinner party the other night that she had gotten the first chance to question it.

There was something missing.

She made herself visible to him, not exactly sure how to start a conversation with someone you've killed in your world.

[swordofzero]

One form after another, thoughts filled his mind and he tried to push them all away. He didn't want to think, he didn't want to figure out whether he had forgotten his native language or if whatever this system was had decided English was his language. But his mind wouldn't let him not think.

Then he saw her. Guren's pilot, the girl whose name he still couldn't remember. They had been to Lelouch's dinner and her name must have been said a thousand times but he still couldn't remember it.

"Did you want something?" His tone was dark, was she going to fight him? He couldn't remember the last time they had been together and not tried to kill each other. Well he could remember, it wasn't a taken memory. But it was so long ago.

[queenscheckmate]

Blue eyes cast themselves on him, looking somewhere between disapproval and less than predatory. "Something caught my eye, so I came over to look. I just happened to find you here. Is that a problem?" Malice. There should have been malice in her voice, but there was none.

[swordofzero]

Suzaku looked at her warily, she didn't seem like she was going to attack, but at the same time he was not going to put the stick down. "No... No problem," he shook his head and feeling very uncomfertable he went back to the sword forms.

[queenscheckmate]

"This is probably uncomfortable for you as it is for me." She shrugged. "I get that... but for Lelouch's sake... we should probably get along."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku raised an eyebrow; of all the people he had expected to call a truce Kallen was the last on his mind. What had happened? He wasn't sure what she meant about Lelouch, after all she was a Black Knight, she was against Lelouch. But still, whatever her motives were she seemed to want to help Lelouch now, and that was fine with Suzaku. He would watch her carefully though, in case this was a trick. Maybe it was just being in this place, after all they would have to work together in order to get out.

So, for the first time in their lives, they were on the same side. He had never disliked Kallen as a person, when they had gone to school together they had got on well. He even agreed with her cause, it was just her methods and the fact she sided with Zero, Zero who had killed Euphemia.

But Euphemia was here, and Zero wasn't so...

"Alright." He nodded politely looking decidedly uncomfortable.

[queenscheckmate]

"A lot has happened and none of us... really discussed what we knew. I know Lelouch wanted all of us to get together... like we all used to be. But--" That nagging feeling in the back of Kallen's mind... something was just all types of wrong with this conversation. "But... if he's been given a second chance, then I should give you one too."

What about this conversation was wrong? Kallen couldn't pinpoint it for the life of her and it was seriously disturbing. And the part about her killing Suzaku, she left that out. Somehow, if he remembered that it happened, he wouldn't be reacting to her the way he was.

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded though he wasn't completely sure what Kallen was talking about. He also wasn't sure what she meant by second chance, but maybe she meant Lelouch wasn't acting like the power mad, mass murdering Emperor that he was at home. Zero Requiem, a word that still brought fuzziness as if he were missing something, was on hold until they got out of here.

"Alright," he said looking away again. He was prepared to have a truce but it felt awkward and he wasn't too sure what to say. "It's difficult, that no one remembers the same things..." He wasn't even sure if he was talking to her, or just to himself.