Stuck in the Shallows / KH

I. Family and Friends

[ Hello, and welcome to my Kingdom Hearts story! I've been working hard on this for some time now, so please let me know if you enjoy it! Thank you! ]

What Manami liked the most about Dyme was the escape his presence provided. He didn't expect her to keep her hair pulled back or her chin held high. He liked her for who she was, which was more than she could say about anybody else in her life.

In particular, her aunt Izanami had become stricter than usual as of late. It could have been the disproportionate amount of time Manami had spent out of the house, avoiding her training, but who could blame her? She was worked to the bone on a near daily basis and was sick of it. She much preferred lounging about at Fountain Court, talking and listening to Dyme play his sitar.

There were many people who would envy a life like hers, her aunt was oft to remind her. A big home in the middle of Radiant Garden, an aunt who, although stern, cared deeply about her, and years of training with the esteemed keyblade. What more could a girl ask for, right?

Except maybe for a little bit of freedom.

Today, Izanami had been on top of her from the moment she woke up, demanding as soon as she stepped foot out of her bedroom that she gear up and meet her in the courtyard. Groaning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her knuckles, Manami begrudgingly did as she was told and slipped into a tank top, a pair of green cargo pants, and her bedraggled but trusty leather boots. She tamed her reddish-auburn curls back into a tight braid and then was off, down the marble stairs and out the back door.

"Ah, there she is. Took you long enough." Izanami was seated upon the wooden swing in the center of their courtyard, her spine as straight and sturdy as the trunk of an old oak. She held a book a few inches away from her face and, in fact, didn't even glance up as Manami approached her.

"I had to get dressed," she responded, only barely managing to suppress a roll of her eyes. "Or would you rather me have come out here in my pajamas?"

Placing her book still open to the page she was on down on the seat beside her, Izanami rose swiftly to her feet. A displeased frown was chiseled into her aging face. "I hope that attitude of yours follows you onto the battlefield."

It annoyed Manami that her aunt took these training sessions so seriously, even going so far as to refer to their posh little courtyard as a battlefield. Never in her nineteen years of life had she encountered anything warranting her use of the keyblade, and she doubted at this point that she ever would.

But she kept her mouth shut and instead just nodded her agreement. The sooner they got started, the sooner she could be off to spend time with Dyme.

"En garde." In one fluid motion, Izanami summoned her blade and drew it back like a snake preparing to strike.

Manami summoned her own keyblade, and the battle was on.

It went as their sessions had more and more lately: a fight for dominance not between master and pupil, but between those of equal abilities. And the more her aunt seemed to realize that, the angrier it made her until, by the end of the session, their combat had gone from resembling a graceful dance to a clash of senseless titans.

"Give it up, Aunt Izanami," hissed Manami from between gritted teeth, trembling as she held the older woman's keyblade back with her own.

Izanami's eyes were smoldering pyres of blue as she pushed unrelentingly back against her niece. "Surely that's not a surrender I hear, Manami?"

Fueled by her taunting, Manami at last mustered up the strength and coordination to shove Izanami away and jab her in the stomach, a symbolic indication of a session victory.