Art of the Sword [SOLO]

Rai Vertigo sat down on a stone on an unnamed island. In his hands he held a sword. The same sword he kept with him when he first met Sato and became a part of the Gravity pirates. Unfortunately for the past week things had begun to get quite stale. So Rai decided that it was about time for him to teach himself some new techniques. It would be nothing new, it was just him chaining a bunch of random movements together to form a sort of combo. This would be his technique.

Holding the sword in his hands he began to swing it around. For the most part it seemed like he was randomly swinging but in actuality he was trying to adjust himself to the sword. Though he had carried the weapon within his umbrella, he rarely used it for fighting purposes. Instead he tended to use his devil fruit power to overwhelm his opponent. Yet something within Rai told him that he would need more than just raw power in order to become the pirate he wanted to be. So for now he was just swinging in order to adjust to using the unnamed sword. Rai didn't expect much from the training session, but who knows? Maybe Rai will develop an art from his training.

Bringing the sword up he began to wonder how exactly was he going to do it. Swinging wildly was merely going to tire Rai out like it would any other person. Rai had a feeling that if he was going to get any stronger so that he could set out for the grand line he was going to need some precision and control. Lifting the blade higher into the air he swung it downward with all his strength. Before the blade would finish arcing through the air, Rai attempted to stop his swing mid-arch. Unfortunately the first law of motion was a bit to strong for Rai to overpower and the blade flew from his hands into a nearby tree.

Rai cursed. That didn't seem like the best way to start out. Walking towards the tree Rai would make his way towards the tree to retrieve his blade and start over once again. As he did so he began to have flashbacks of training with his father.

--Flashback--
Rai stood at the training area awaiting his Father to show up. Rai stood in the training ground. Sighing once again he had to make sure he was alone. No sensei, no annoying teammates, and most importantly... no animals. Some reason the animals had been out of their homes and been following Rai almost everywhere he went. Even to the bathroom and that was really weird. The wind blew across the training field as Rai began to come up with a stance. It wasn't anything special but it was something considering Rai was learning on his own and not with a sensei. As far as he was concerned, she wouldn't have been much help anyway. She meant well but his research told him that she would be ill-suited to a student with his.... difficulties.

Sighing Rai began to kick at the wooden dummies. The sound of his leg colliding with the wood at the steady pace was soothing, but only to Rai. The bushes behind him rustled. Rai didn't notice it at first but once he felt something bore into his back he turned around. There he saw his Father, he was twice the size of a Rai and one could say twice as strong.

“Finally, what took you so long?”

“Wanted to see if you were still were on your game, alright you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready to learn something new? this is called the awakening mind technique”

“How do I-”

Rai didn’t have a chance to really ask because his Father had already begun to move. The Vertigo family had didn’t have a set way of teaching things everything was learned through battle. Nothing was Rai was lifted his arms to guard against his Father but he would have none of that. His Father would lunged for Rai’s ankle. His long fingers would curl around Rai’s ankle as he lifted him by his ankle and threw the younger Vertigo. Rai would fly into a tree before molding his Energy so that he could pull his sword from its sheath. His Father was faster at moving though. He would pull out his whip. First he would disarm Rai by pulling out the blade out of Rai’s hand before Rai could use it.

Rai cursed as he winced from the sword being pulled out of his hand. Rai knew that his Father was faster and stronger than him due to their difference in rank. Rai needed to find a way to beat him.

Rai’s Father didn’t let up, he began to use the whip to cut at Rai’s skin. Rai cringed as each strike would pierce and cut up his skin. The pain was almost unbearable, especially when it wasn’t stopping and the pain had no intervals of rest. Each cut was replaced with a new one. Rai tried to grab the whip, but the whip was moving so fast when he caught it, it just cut his hand. Rai tried everything in the book to stop the whip. He tried grabbing it multiple times, he tried using his Hasshoken to reinforce his hand to withstand the cuts. Nothing worked he just sat there taking the whip. His Father just looked at him. His face was filled with disappointment. His little Father could grasp a technique as easy as this. Sighing he stated,

“I guess you can’t learn this technique. Such a waste of my time. Sad even a yuki family member would be able to learn an easy technique as this, hard to imagine you’re even a Vertigo.”

His words stung. Not only because he was a Vertigo, but because someone who came from a family that was ninjutsu based could learn a technique he was apparently having trouble with. Not only that his Father even said Rai wasn’t even worth the time… It stung. Rai had stopped moving taking the continuous punishment from his Father. It hurt, but not as much as his Fathers words. Rai tried to find the will to get up, to fight back, but it was in vain. Every time he got up he was knocked down. he wouldn’t get a chance to get up. The Vertigo weren’t that kind.

Rai tried to circulate and gather as much energy together. If he was going to keep up with his Father he needed to be able to keep up with his Father’s movements. At the moment he couldn’t keep up with his Fathers movement. As he felt his Eeergy reach his head he found that it was being blocked by something. Was this a gate? Rai didn’t have time to figure out exactly what it was or what it did. At this point it was life and death, it wasn’t uncommon for Vertigo’s to accidentally kill someone in the midst of battle. Pushing all the Energy he could through that small blockade, Rai found his mind open and his body began to vibrate. The whip seemed to move in slow motion and Rai found himself able to avoid it, moving his head he swiftly avoided the whip. Seeing his little Father dodge the one whip, The older Vertigo drew his other spine whip and began to use both of them in tandem to cut down Rai.

Unfortunately at this point Rai had already gotten up and begun moving. In a moments notice he was already at his Father. Bringing his fist upward and moving in a spiralling motion he gave his Father an uppercut. Instinctively his Father’s bone armor popped out. Rai didn’t stop though. And it was too slow Rai’s fist had smashed into his Father’s jaw before he could even realize what had happened. Rai’s Father didn’t go flying, nor did he get knocked out. He merely looked at Rai after moving his head back into place, the impact did cause him to look upwards. He smiled at him and kicked Rai in the chest. Sending Rai back into the tree. He lifted both whips and said, “Again.”

Rai smiled. He must have figured it out, or at least come close. Pushing off with his right foot he began to head toward his Father.

Hours passed and Rai had made good headway into controlling his strength, though he found that his sword was slightly chipped from all the times it flew into a tree. Rai cursed. This meant he would need to find himself a new blade. Rai thought about enlisting the help of a nearby sword smith. Yet he didn't have the coin at the moment. It was sad, Rai was hoping that he would be able to have a sword worthy of the tengu.

Rai made no attempts to end his training there though. Instead he began to target a nearby tree. Seeing how well he could control his blade he planned on using it for some hedge work. He lifted himself into the sky and began cutting at the weaker branches of the tree. His goal was to cut off as close to the stronger branches as possible without damaging the main branches.

Suffice to say the task wasn't completed perfectly. In fact Rai felt that the task had fallen short of his expectations. Sighing Rai continued to work on the task in order to work on his control. Once he had cut off the branches he felt as though he had wasted energy. He couldn't feel himself getting any better. He decided it would be best for him to end here.

He would have had he not thought of trying out one more thing. Rai wondered what would happen if he combined Hassoken with his fighting style. Without another word he began to vibrate his arm which in turn caused the sword to vibrate. Rai placed his other arm on his sword wielding forearm to control the frequency. Rai turned his attention to a fallen tree. Rai planned to swing his sword into the tree in order to see what exactly would happen next.

Swinging his blade with the gusto he brought his blade down onto the tree bark. The Blade began to move through the wood as though it was butter. Rai felt that he needed little strength behind his swing rather the sword's frequency matched the wood. Rai would have been ecstatic to see his blade go all the way through the wood but mid-way through Rai lost control. His blade shattered as Rai had vibrated the blade much faster than it should have.

Luckily Rai was unharmed but he felt that he should find a more durable sword before practicing such a technique. If Rai was unlucky the shards could have pierced him and nearly killed him. Throwing the broken sword away Rai began to make his way towards the nearby town. He was going to need a new sword if he was planning to set sail once again.

-EXIT-
Word Count: 1845