Charming Tails

Chapter 20 - Boot Camp (Day Four to Seven)

*Shhnnk! Shhnnk!*

As he sat on the stone seat, Rouji rubs the steel sharpener on the blade of his Katana. Every rub would be the same as before, gentle and firm.

Tatsuko approached him from behind as he walked from the back portion of the dojo.

"Trying to feel that Samurai feel in you huh? To be honest, you look cool when you do that.." he says.

Rouji looks back at him. "I have to take care of this sword."

"You don't plan on killing Katsune with that right?" he smirks.

"What? No. I'm just trying to maintain its sharpness.." he argues as he cleaned the blade.

"Today's the fourth day. I hope you mastered the wind barrier technique."

Rouji stood up and holds his sword sideways to cover his face and with a serious look in his eyes, he looked down and swings his sword upwards. A huge wall of wind, with the width of the entire field and the height of the trees around, blew away Tatsuko in an instant.

"Woah!" Tatsuko looked amazed as he got up right away.

"You think it's strong enough?" he asks with sarcasm.

"I-I think it's more than strong enough.." Tatsuko replies with a trembling tone.

*   *   *

Wearing his Kendo uniform, he stood at the field while he held a Shinai with his left hand.

"Are we going to train Kendo or something?" Tatsuko raises an eyebrow.

"Let's just train okay?" he rests the sword on his left shoulder.

Right away, Rouji opens his right hand palm and summons a wind orb over it and fuses it with the bamboo sword. The Shinai was surrounded with visible wind. In a brief moment, Tatsuko was surprised but went on to concentrate as he walked a few meters in front of Rouji.

"Rouji, you being a sword wielder is a bit hard to train since I'm a mage. That's why I'm only teaching you a few abilities that you and I could use without restrictions of weapons."

"Uh-huh." Rouji agrees.

"This day and tomorrow, I'll teach you about mobility using the wind. Applying the wind to your own advantage in mobility is very essential for wind users. You can use the wind to amplify your actions such as moving, defending, and attacking with tremendous speed."

Tatsuko casts an ability that lets the wind surround him and is invisible to the naked eye. In a blink of an eye, Tatsuko was already beside Rouji.

"W-What the?!" Rouji flails in shock.

"Creepy right? Try concentrating and read my moves." he tells him.

Rouji looks at him sharply and focused on him. This time, it wasn't just like before. Rouji can see the wind that is around Tatsuko. Tatsuko moved and he disappeared again but Rouji knew where he was right away and pointed the bamboo sword where Tatsuko was.

"You caught me there kid. Let me hear an explanation from you." he smiles as he stood at the roof of the dojo.

"I can see that you're manipulating the wind to the direction where you wanted to go. In just a second, you can change the direction of the wind as you move towards there.  This way, I can predict where you're heading to. But not just that, you can also bend the wind around you to perform your actions twice as fast." Rouji explains.

"Excellent Rouji. That's probably the best explanation I've heard so far. Hahaha." he laughs proudly.

"Though, there's one disadvantage with it. You can't put on a wind barrier because it will oppose the flow of wind around your body. Basically, your only defense is speed."