damned_institute | Dayshift 42: Morning

Senna stepped off the bus to wind blowing through the clothes she was given. A sad face at one of the nurses allowed her a long red scarf as well, and once she had draped it around her neck and let it hang down her back, she had trotted off.

The park she had saw last time seemed a good place to be on the look-out for the chicks from last night. It was close to the buses, and a big enough place that if they remembered that they had a race date, it would suit its purpose. The girl ran to a place in the middle of the field and waited there, shifting her weight from side to side. After a while, this wasn't enough, and Senna traded back and forth between jogging in place and acrobatics--the easy flips and cartwheels keeping her warm.

Her mind had changed in the night before. She had gotten a taste of what leadership entailed, and she wasn't sure she had rose to the occasion or not. She knew she had tried her best, and had been willing to give as much as she had, but it hadn't been enough. She knew this. Hokuto, at least, had gotten hurt, and in the end, they still hadn't explored more than the schoolhouse. They really needed a different approach with that place.

She went back and forth internally, body going through the motions and reflexes of her movements.

[for... Falis, Hokuto, Meche, and Soma?--and down to here]

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"I'll get some." 622 looked up at one of the nearby trees, looking for likely candidates. There were some, but all of the branches were above his head. Well, that wasn't really a problem.

He gave himself a little bit of a run-up to get a foot a good way up the trunk, grabbing a branch above his head and lifting himself up onto it. It held his weight with only a little trouble, so that was promising. He reached up to one of the apparently dead branches he'd been looking at, snapping it off with a quiet grunt and dropping it to the ground. "You can join in if you want," he called down to Armand. "It won't be any trouble." Another branch snapped off, dropped next to the first.

Chise stood in awe as TK-622 literally ran up the tree, amazed by his athletic abilities. There was no way she could've done that by herself. She gave the nurses a nervous glance before she picked up the fallen branch. A couple of small branches were still attached to the main body. They needed to be removed, otherwise they'll get caught in her loose clothing. Laying the branch on the ground, she attempted to rip off the extra branches with difficulty.

"I think I will, if you don't mind. Promise not to laugh at me, please." His plea was for both of them, but he didn't quite need their promises either. He didn't mind amusing TK, not that much, and he doubted this girl, Chise, would be spiteful.

He went to the other fallen branch and started removing the smaller branches.

"Do we need three of these?"

"There's no reason to laugh at anyone. This is important, after all. If you don't train, you'll never get better." He climbed up a little further to reach another dead branch, snapping it off and making sure to drop it out of the way of the others, before grasping the branch he was standing on, swinging down to hang from it and then dropping to the ground. He could have just jumped, but that would have just been showing off.

He started stripping off the small branches from his own and snapping off the tip. "I think it's best if we start with blocks and sidestepping. It might not do as much to bring down something, but it'll keep you in one piece." And that would be quite the relief for him.

Chise wasn't the type to laugh at someone's mistakes or screw-ups, usually she was the one who messes-up while those around did the laughing. Speaking of screw-ups, she was removing the last branch(which required all of her strength to rip out) when it finally gave way, causing Chise to hit herself in the face with the branch(how this was possible, nobody knew).

Owww....so this is how it feels to be punched in the face.

Wiping her tears away she stood in front of TK-622, awaiting his instructions. "I-I'm ready when you are." Learning how to block and side-step should be easy enough, right?

When his branch was clear, he stepped up beside Chise. He had a feeling he was going to be more awkward than normal. The coat the nurses gave him was both longer than the one he was used to and heavier. He held his like he would hold his sword.

"I am ready as well."

Well, this had a potential to go absolutely terribly, but he'd do his best to keep things under control. "Right. The first thing you need to make sure to protect is your head." He held his branch up at an angle for a head block, demonstrating the proper form.

"You always want to deflect blows away at an angle, rather than trying to just absorb all of the energy of a strike with your block. So the best block compromises between redirection of the blow and how much you can protect." Maybe if he talked this through with them, it might help. This wasn't how he'd normally train people at all.

"Try doing the block, and I'll correct you if it's needed."

"Like this?" Chise tried to copy TK-622's posture. Her branch was a few angles off. The first set of instructions didn't seem too hard...for now. Back when she first entered the military the basic training lessons appeared to be easy, but that was a mistake. Being the slowest and clumsiest girl in gym, the basic lessons increased her faillage by ten fold.

Armand also copied the block. He understood the idea that strength wouldn't absorb all of a blow, but he didn't get the physics that the angles would help. He'd grown a little used to the size and weight of his sword, though he hadn't done anything with it here, and the branch was awkwardly not quite the same. But he tried, because he wanted to be a good partner and please his friend.

TK looked over the other two's form, nodding. "That's good. But it would be best if it was like this..." He moved in to gently adjust Chise's block, then did the same to Armand's. "If you want to, just try practicing that motion. Knowing how to do it is all well and good, but if you have to think about it too much during a fight, it will just slow you down." That was what intensive training was for. It was too bad he couldn't actually do that here.

Dayshift 42: Morning - Magus Park

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