rakuen | Training

Entry tags:

Training

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.

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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.

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?

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.

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.

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?"

"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!

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.

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.

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.

"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!"

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?"

"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!

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."

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?"

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?"

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.

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.

"A..."

A humanoid war machine. Okay. Mei tried to imagine this. Picture a person. Metal? Alright, she pictured Alphonse's armor, only giant. Alphonse's armor as a giant with a gun. More than one gun. Many guns. So, a giant suit of armor with guns sticking out all over the place, stomping around a city.

With that image in her head, the look of horror is the only thing she can react with. "Whaaaat?! What country even has anything like that?! The worst I saw in Amestris were those armored things with cannons!"

Suzaku's smile faded completely at her words. His grip on the stick tightened and he looked at the ground. "I don't have a..." and then he stopped, because this little girl couldn't be more than thirteen and she did not deserve for him to pour his sorrows out at either.

She liked trees; well that was a simple enough answer. He concentrated on that, and not on what she had said before, about...

"Suspicious people huh? Am I one of those?" He guessed he was, he was in this clearing waving a stick about. That made him sort of suspicious he guessed.

While Huashi briefly frowned at Suzaku as he started and then trailed off, she let that go, and when he identified himself as a possible "suspicious person", she laughed.

"Of course you are! All adult humans are suspicious! Though you smell nice," Huashi said with a smile, because she saw nothing wrong in reassuring him with this; he was clearly not evil, nor a demon (she'd only seen one so far that might be), so while he still merited suspicion, she could be nice.

Suzaku blinked again, feeling bad that he had scared Mei. "Mei? What's wrong?" Had she somehow forgotten knightmares? Was that why she was so frightened? "Britannia has them, terrorists use them also and so does the Chinese Federation." Armored things with canons, did she mean like a tank?

Wait... Amestris... Maybe she wasn't from the Chinese Federation after all. But he had never heard of Amestris, it must have been taken by Britannia long before they took Japan. Maybe there was no fighting there, maybe Britannia had subdued it long ago, maybe they had no need to send Knightmares there.

"I'm sorry Mei, I don't even know where Amestris is... what Area is it?" He felt awful for asking the last bit, after all he should know... he should know just not what number Britannia had dubbed the area with but he should have heard of the country itself, before it was taken.

"Huashi!"

Speaking of reasons for suspicion, a grubby eight-year-old had just stumbled through the trees to Huashi's guardpost, and stopped to catch his breath below her branch. "I didn't find Ichi yet. Where d'y-" he stopped as he noticed the man standing in front of them. He recognised him, vaguely, from the lobby and from mealtimes, but that wasn't cause for him to be any less wary. The guy was a Player. "Why's he here?"

The horror soon passed. Those things, wherever they were, at least weren't part of the conflict in Amestris. Of course, it doesn't help that the horror goes to more confused staring. Where and where? Who?

The girl folded her arms and looked down, going over all the maps she had looked at before setting out on her trip, long before she had been kidnapped to this place. "...um... hm... no. Those aren't even..."

Mei looked up again. "Suzaku! Are you making places up?!" She couldn't fathom why he might do that, but she had to ask. "There's nowhere called Britannia or some Federation or anything like that! Amestris is across the desert from Xing!"

"Kotarou!" Aw, he hadn't? That was no good. If he didn't find her, Huashi was sure he would worry all through the day, and people who did that got cranky.

"Oh, he's trying to think and train and the same time, but it's not working," Huashi said brightly, but had already changed to a more ready position. She was sure of her ability to defend herself (or her ability to run away) if Suzaku proved to not be as nice as he seemed, but with Kotarou here...

Frowning, she hoped hSuzaku hadn't paid any attention to where Kotarou had come from; Kotarou had obviously gone looking for her where they stayed for now first, and if Suzaku noticed the direction, he'd be able to find their hideout.

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.

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