[hirana kizumi]

A HEART'S A HEAVY BURDEN

There was a certain kind of meditation to the meteor hammer’s flow that put Kizumi in a state of mental relaxation. It was physically taxing work, no doubt about it, but this kind of physicality had always been her preference: it was her bread-and-butter, the work she’d built her entire career around. It was gratifying to watch Yaki achieve a similar trancelike state of flow, getting caught up in the repetition of at all as she focused with a gluttonous fervor. When Yaki made a mistake, Kizumi corrected it. Adjusting her footstance with a tap of her toes here, quirking her elbow there, verbally affirming what she was doing well and just as kindly correcting what she was doing poorly. Effort was all that mattered when it came to the physical arts. If she was willing to put in the time and effort, she would learn to wield it well, and it was more than clear by this point that Yaki was willing to put the effort in. The rest of the afternoon progressed this way, Kizumi demonstrating and then putting Yaki through repetitive, meditative exercises to drill good form and good practice into her mind. If she slipped up or wasn’t ready for something more complicated, Kizumi would call for a break. Food, water, rest; then bring her back down to the basic routine, get her back in the comfortable routine of rotation and extension before once again scaling up the complexity. They would be truncating years of study into just a few short months, so they had no time to lose, and Kizumi was not intent on wasting even a moment of it. [exit.]

Tateyama Yakitsukeru -- 275

LAIKA OF THQ