Forgotten But Not Lost

24

The Hunter's Guild hadn't changed one bit. The sounds of wolves barking and playing about filled the air. The pure white of their coats showed their connection to the White Goddess, and they were just as playful as the Goddess they served.

The hounds swarmed around Shirou as soon as he entered the gate, either wanting pets or smelling the food he had brought with him. He was forced to wade through them on the way to the back of the building where the archery field was and where Itsukushima sat watching a girl practicing archery.
As he saw Shirou rounding the corning of the building, Itsukushima broke into a smile. "And so the prodigal son returns. Here I thought you were too good to pay me a visit."
"I've been keeping myself very busy." Shirou said guiltily rubbing the back of his neck. "But now I suddenly find myself with a lot of free time, so I thought I would come by and see if you could teach me how to spend it." He then lifted up the container full of leftovers. "I've brought food as payment for the lesson."
"Well, take a seat. It's a little early for lunch, but I won't say no." Itsukushima said, slapping at the chair next to him, then as Shirou took a seat he shouted out into the field. "Yume, come take a break! Got someone you can meet here!"
"Yes, sensei!" The girl shouted back before shouldering her bow and running out into the field to retrieve her arrows before coming over. Shirou noted that none of the arrows were actually in the target, most of them weren't anywhere close.
As the girl came closer to them, Shirou managed to get a good look at her. She looked around sixteen with reddish brown hair, just a few shades away from Shirou's own rusty red, done in two long braids over either of her shoulders. She was petite with the same body type as Rin, that is to say, substantial hips but small breasts. But the most shocking feature of her was her bright aqua eyes. They had so much life and energy in them, completely different from the frightened and confused looks that you saw in most brand-new Rookies.
"Sensei wants to introduce Yume to someone?" Yume asked cheerfully, referring to herself in third person.
"Just one of your senpais. This here is Shirou, one of the best Hunters in the city. I had the pleasure of his company a few months back when he first joined the Hunter's Guild. He's also decided to bring us something nice to eat." Itsukushima said, introducing Shirou.
Yume turned to Shirou with a huge smile on her face and gave a short bow. "Yume is happy to meet you, senpai. Yume hopes that senpai will take good care of Yume. ~Yan." She said cheerfully, ending her little display with a noise that sounded kind of like a kitten's meow.
"Um… It's nice to meet you too, Yume." Shirou responded, giving a slight nod of the head towards the energetic girl.
"She's adorable, ain't she." Itsukushima said with a smirk. "Now, what did you bring us?"
Shirou opened up his bundle and brought out the eggs, pancakes and sausages, laying them out on plates on an equipment rack. "Wow, that smells really really good." Yume said as she sniffed the air. "It makes Yume's mouth water."
"Feel free to have as much as you like." Shirou said. There had been enough for four or five people there. So long as Yume didn't turn out to be some kind of bottomless pit, there wouldn't be a problem.
"Thank you, Senpai, but first, Yume must make an offering." Yume said, picking up one of the sausages. She went over to the grass and down into a kneeling position. She was about to place the sausage on the ground and perform one of the little prayers to Eldritch that the Hunters always did, when she was mobbed by five little white wolves, each of which were trying to grab up the sausage for themselves. Yume let out a squeak of surprise as the wolves playfully wrestled around on top of her.
Itsukushima just laughed good naturedly from the sidelines. "Girl is sweet as they come."
"I suppose so." Shirou said, watching as the girl struggled to free herself from the wolf pups before changing tactics and trying to wrestle with them herself. Soon it was the wolves trying desperately to get away from her as she grinned and laughed.
"Yume hopes that Eldritch appreciates that Yume tried. Yume forgets sometimes that there are so many wolves about. Though she really loves the cute little wolfies. Yume is glad that she is going to be a Hunter and can someday get an [Animal Companion], even if Yume isn't any good with a bow." Yume said as she joined them back at the table.
"You'll improve." Itsukushima said, though Shirou didn't think he sounded all that convincing.
As they ate, Yume kept on talking about how much she loved the wolves and the other animals, and of how happy she was when she had first met Eldritch in her dreams. She couldn't decide between talking and eating and was doing both so quickly that she nearly choked twice even as Itsukushima tried to remind her to slow down and be careful.
After a few minutes of fast paced talking/eating, the girl got back up and returned to her archery practice, Shirou and Itsukushima watching her from nearby. "She's a sweet thing. She has the spirit of a good Hunter and is a natural when it comes to drawing on her own inner strength, but she just can't shoot an arrow worth a darn." Itsukushima said with a sigh. "I'm afraid I just don't know how to help her. I was hoping that practicing would fix things, but it's been three days with little results. Though she keeps on giving it her all, bless her heart."
"Is that so." Shirou said as she watched Yume practice, spotting all of the holes in her form and technique, things that wouldn't have been visible to people without his level of insight into weapons.
"So, the word around town is that you got yourself a girlfriend. A pretty Mage girl. Is that true?" Itsukushima asked, smirking at the boy.
"No. She's my leader. Not my girlfriend." Shirou said, though his eyes didn't stray from Yume as she drew her bow. Then, before Itsukushima could say anymore, Shirou got up and walked over to where Yume was standing. "You want some advice?" He offered her.
Yume looked at him with surprise before smiling. "Yes please."
"Alright, get into stance." Shirou told her and the girl did so. Shirou put a hand on her right shoulder and pulled it back ever so slightly, straightening the girl's back, as he did so, he kicked at the girl's right foot. "Move this foot back a bit and turn it to the side a little more." Yume did as he said. "Alright, now start drawing your arrow, keeping your left arm locked as you pull with the right." He placed a hand on her left arm, shifting it slightly so that her aim would be closer to the mark as the girl drew her arrow. The girl struggled a bit to keep the arrow drawn back, but still held on, waiting for instruction. "Now, when you release the arrow, don't jerk your fingers away, it will ruin your shot. You need to slowly relax your fingers until the arrow pulls itself free of your grip."
Yume nodded and did as she was told, gently relaxing the fingers of her right hand and letting the arrow fly. The arrow lodged itself in the outer ring of the target, it was only barely a hit, but it was still a hit.
Yume gave a squeal of joy and proceeded to jump up and down. "Yume did it! Yume actually hit the target!" She shouted in celebration. "Thank you so much senpai!"
"Don't celebrate yet. You can save that for after you hit the bullseye. Now, try again. Focus on your form for now and we will work on your accuracy later." Shirou told her. She nodded and got back into position. Drawing her next arrow and firing it, just barely missing the target. "That was good, but try to adjust your breathing in time with your draw…"
Itsukushima watched as Shirou instructed the girl in the art of shooting a bow and succeeded in doing in one afternoon what he had failed to make any progress in for three days. In just four hours, Yume was able to consistently hit the target, often in the inner circles.
"Kid, you are a damn miracle worker." Itsukushima whispered to Shirou as one of Yume's arrows actually hit the bullseye.
"She's working with ideal conditions right now. It won't be so easy out in the field." Shirou said as he watched her jump for joy. "But, she really has improved quite a bit."
"Not sure if you realize this, but this is around the level of skill normal Hunters have when they leave our care after the first week." Itsukushima informed him.
"Yes. I know." Shirou admitted. Learning how to shoot an arrow to the level of combat effectiveness in just one week was more difficult that just learning to swing a sword left and right, which was about as much finesse as a week one rookie Warrior could handle. Most of the time would be spent learning to draw the slight amount of energy used to perform their [Rage Cleaver] technique. Hunters had an advantage in this, in that Eldritch would help them learn to control their energy in the first few nights as they slept, leaving practice to be used to master the bow.
The problem with the Guilds' mentors system was that most instructors were natural gifted individuals who had been able to learn the techniques with ease. If they hadn't been, then they likely wouldn't have survived long enough to become mentors. However, these kinds of people aren't often very good at helping people through problems, because they have never experienced the problem themselves. Itsukushima was a good man who had really tried his best, but he wouldn't have been able to teach Yume to correct her missteps. However, Shirou had experiences from thousands of bows. He knew just about every way that an arrow could possible be shot incorrectly, even if he had never made such mistakes himself.
"Hey Yume, I think that is enough archery for now. How about we get back to your swordsmanship training." Itsukushima shouted out to the girl.
"Okay, sensei!" Yume shouted, once again running into the field to retrieve her arrows, only this time with nearly every one of them buried in the target.
"You don't have to worry. She's pretty passable with a blade, but maybe you can help her with that too." Itsukushima said with a sly smile.
"We'll see." Shirou said, wondering how good was passable.
Itsukushima didn't so much instruct Yume as he handed her a dulled machete and told her to practice the strikes he had already taught her, moving back to Shirou in order to see what the boy thought.
It was true that Yume had a lot more confidence now with a one handed sword than she had before with a bow. She could perform most of the basic strikes of the Hunter's Guild just fine. Even so, Shirou found several flaws in her movements. "When she brings around her blade, it is in too wide a pattern, and she shifts her balance too much while making her strikes." Shirou reported, after watching the girl for two minutes.
"Yeah, she wastes a little energy on that kind of thing, but considering that she is just a fresh Trainee, her abilities are still outstanding." Itsukushima said. Shirou nodded in agreement, but there was something else about how she was moving besides just the slight waste of energy. It seemed as though she was instinctively attempting to compensate for a much longer and heavier sword, one that still had a single edge. She also kept moving up her left hand to try for a two-handed strike, but the machete's length doesn't allow for that.
"Yume, come here for a second." Shirou called the girl over as he stood up himself. He reached for his black scimitar and removed it from his shoulder. "Try using this for a bit."
"Oh, alright senpai." She said, taking the much larger blade from Shirou. The scimitar was over twice the length of the machete she had just been using, and the curve of its blade and handle were much more pronounced, even if both were classified as cutlass-type weapons.
Itsukushima frowned and began to protest. "She's not going to be able to…" The man immediately stopped talking as Yume continued her practice. The awkwardness to her movements had been lessened greatly and she continued to use the larger blade with little wasted energy at all. A wide smile spread across her face as she swung the blade against and again.
"It still isn't a perfect match. Weight it too far away from the center for her, and she is struggling with the handles shape when she goes for the two-handed grip. But it is much better." Shirou said, scratching his chin. "She must have had quite a bit of sword training in her previous life with a weapon that was closer to this in dimensions and her body remembers the feel even if her mind doesn't. Which was why when you gave her a machete, she was having a hard time adjusting." Shirou quickly went through the list of blades he had in his mind, comparing each one to the girl's style. "I think that I have a weapon back in my weapons shed that might work even better."
"…You have a weapons shed?" Itsukushima said, raising an eyebrow.
"Um… yes."
Yume was practically giggling with giddiness as she swung around the blade that her senpai had give her, practicing the different forms for the Hunters' skills, only with her own little twist on them. "Yume, be careful, that is a sharpened blade! You're going to get hurt!" Her sensei scolded her.
Yume did stop and laughed apologetically. "Sorry sensei, but Yume feels like a fishy soaring through the sky." She said rubbing the back of her head with her free hand. Her heart was beating fast in her chest and she just wanted to continue.
"It's a fish swimming with the stream or a bird soaring in the sky. Don't mix them." Her sensei said with a sigh. "Just be a little more careful."
"Yume will!" Yume said, rocking a little as her excitement threatened to boil over.
"So, how do you like the sword? Anything seem off?" Her senpai asked her.
Yume shook her head, causing her twin braids to flap about widely. "No, this sword is the best." She said holding up the blade so that she could examine its pretty surface. The metal had all kinds of blended shapes and pattern in it that reminded Yume of the kind of pattern waves make as they wash up on the beach. The blade shimmered whenever she turned it in the afternoon sun, giving the girl goosebumps. The blade was just short of twice the length of the small machete she had been using up until that day, and the hilt was long enough for Yume to grab it with both her hands.
"It's called a Katana. Or at least, it was based on the Katana model, it is a little shorter than a normal Katana would be and made of a different type of steel." Her senpai explained. "The alloy is commonly called Damascus steel, which is why it has that banding pattern to it. It's a metal commonly used because of its artistic qualities, but it's still one of the best alloys around for both strength and holding an edge."
"Katana." Yume said, feeling the word sliding off her tongue. She felt like she had heard it before but wasn't sure where she had heard it. It was a word that made her feel really happy. "Yume is going to call it Kaa-tan!" Yume's sensei let out a choked snorting sound before beginning to cough uncontrollably. "Huh, does sensei not think it's a cute name?" Yume said, pouting a little at the man's reaction.
"No… no, it's cute alright. I just… wasn't prepared for that." Sensei said, pound at his chest a bit to get back control over his breathing. Yume smiled again, glad that her sensei liked the name.
"The blade suits you better, but you will need to change the Hunters' skills a little in order to make them work with the longer blade." Senpai said, pulling out his own large black sword. "Here, I'll show you how."
Just like when he had taught her the bow, her senpai started to show Yume the steps of how to use the Hunters' techniques with a longer weapon, going so far as to show her the exact angle to hold her arms and how to pace her breathing. Then he gave her a few forms to try out and talked her through those too. Everything she did felt more natural than before, like her body already new some of the steps. While her senpai showed her how to use the longer sword, her sensei watched with interest.
She hoped her sensei didn't get the wrong idea. She really enjoyed sensei teaching her, but everything senpai did and said just worked so well. Sensei had said that Senpai was one of the best Hunters in the city, and Yume could believe it. He had that same feeling of strength that Renji had, with his large shoulders and hard face, but he was actually really nice.
"You know kid, maybe I should look into having you declared a mentor for the guild." Sensei said, presumably to senpai and not Yume.
"Maybe if I ever get to the point where I am thinking about retiring." Senpai said with a small shake of the head. "A mentor needs to be on hand in case their students need help, and I am not very good at sitting still. Besides, I never learned most of the Hunter's skills. I stopped after the basic training and [Keen Senses]."
"Hmph, if you say so. Maybe once you finally settle down and have some of those kids, you'll start to see the appeal of a job that doesn't require you to leave the city much, and you could pick up the rest of the skills quick enough." Sensei replies with a shrug. "But if you insist on being such a busybody, how about you try the job out. Yume here seemed to have improved enough to be ready to start her field training. How's about you be the one to take her into the forest for the last three days and show her the ropes? You know more than enough to do that."
"Hm, I do have some time off." Senpai said, scratching his chin. He glanced over at Yume who was trying to pretend that she was still giving her sword swings her full focus. "It's your choice, Yume. If you want I can take over the rest of your training, or you can keep going with Itsukushima-sensei."
"Well…" Yume started, lowering her sword a bit and glancing at her sensei. The man gave her a wave of the hand, as if to tell her to go ahead and do it. "Senpai is really good at explaining things so that Yume can understand them. Yume would really appreciate it if Senpai would continue to teach Yume things, though Yume would understand if senpai was busy."
Her senpai gave a sort of kind of smile, one that felt like he wanted to smile, but that his body just didn't know how to do it properly. "I'd be more than happy to help you train."
Yume jumped up and down happily. "Thank you senpai! Yume will be in your care!"
"Yume, careful! The sword!" Her sensei shouted at her, worried for her safety.
"Oops, sorry ~yan." Yume said, stopping her celebration long enough to put her blade away. Her gut instinct was right all along. She could become a real Hunter.
She was one step closer to getting her own cute little wolfie.
Leaning more towards Yume's light novel persona than the anime one.