Skill Training: Patterns[Open]

"Go faster!" Kirkka yells as she ducks under the blade, her staff seperating into two segments. Her hands on each segment already, she slams the short one to the ground, causing ice to erupt out of the ground in front of her, heading towards Mao. The ice threatens to trap him, but otherwise doesn't appear to be an actual attack. As the ice travels, Kirkka rolls backward several feet and is up and back into a defensive stance, but this time with a four foot staff in her right hand, and a two foot staff in her left.

Mao jumped back and to the side. He just barely escaped the wave of ice that had been coming towards him. I can't anymore...sadly.. He looked towards Kirkka and saw that she had split her weapon. He retracted in his right blade and waited for it to click in before flipping over the dagger. Approaching Kirkka, he threw the knife at her head before firing the blade at her legs. If/when Mao gets in range, he will/would also swing his the left blade at Kirkka.

Mao attempted to jump out of the way, but his legs seemed to lag on him, and, as he was jumping out, the flame blast clipped the bottom half of his legs. He felt more energy leave him as he fell flat onto the ground. His legs felt warm, but were otherwise fine. Mao, however, wasn't really. As he lay there, he brought up his left hand and tapped on the ground twice.

Spotting Mao's tapping, she stands down, walks over to him and offers him a hand up. She holds her fully assembled staff in her other hand, out of the way to appear less aggressive. "You need more combat training. What school did you go to before coming here..?" Her tone is a little disappointed, but she quickly changes that on the second sentence, smiling lightly while waiting for Mao to take her hand.

Mao took the hand and stood himself up, but he was a tad wobbly. He tried to shake it off as best he could, but it didn't help as much as he had hoped. "Eh, I'm more of a specialist in hand-to-hand combat. Every other one of my areas are rather...lackluster admittedly". He sighed. "I came from Signal. That's where these things came from". Mao brought up a loosened blade and dangled it around harmlessly.

"Hm. Even so, you need to be able to defend yourself in situations. And from what I can see, that isn't the case. You should speak with your Aura professor about it. A weak Aura means you likely won't last long. They'll probably have something to say that can help you. Training and using my Aura a lot is how I got strong with it, but also studying. I spent my days in school learning everything I could about Aura and Dust. Even if you are a close quarters specialist, you can't expect to dodge everything." She keeps her arm on him, helping him stand and maintain balance as she speaks. Her voice is that of concern for Mao, as without an Aura to protect you, the body won't last very long at all in a fight.

"If I'm fast enough I can totally dodge everything!" Mao smiled. He was half-joking, half-serious. Of course, she is right. I can't keep trying to dodge things forever. He sighed. "So I still have a long way go, eh?" He kind of kicked the dirt a little. "Well, at least I have quite a bit of time to train!" Mao smiled again realizing he was the youngest person here. Plenty of time still...hopefully.

"By the way, thanks for this. It helped a lot."

She smiles back at his optimism. Right attitude, at long as he puts that energy into training. "Right! No problem, I do what I can to help. Unless I don't want to. But I enjoy seeing new students' combat styles. I spend a decent amount of time here so I can watch people as they..."Her voice turns more bitter at this point, with her smile fading some."... come in here and destroy everything, then leave so someone else can clean it up. I hate that. Gah..." She mumbles a few other things, likely relating to having to clean up after other people.

So it was her that put up the sign! Mao flash backed to the garden. A chill ran up his spine. She seems quite serious about this. Kirkka was mumbling things about having to clean up after people constantly. "Uh, Kirkka? Yoohoo." He waved his hand in front of her face trying to snap her out of it. He wasn't exactly doing it for her, though. Mao was doing it more for himself and his safety.

Kirkka moves her head back as Mao waves his hand right in her face. Blinking a few times, she looks at Mao and smiles before speaking, "Sorry, I started rambling. My bad." She speaks apologetically. Brain. You suck. I want to focus on this conversation for once and you're making it really difficult. She thinks for a moment, before speaking to Mao again. "Are you well? You look quite tired, but otherwise uninjured today. I shall let you return to your room and rest. Remember, train hard. You have the will for it, so just make sure you do it."

"No problem!" Mao waved his hands around. "I should be fine". He took a few steps forwards to be sure. He felt like he had been standing for several hours on end. Well, I should have enough to keep myself on my feet. He turned around and gave Kirkka a thumbs up. "I'll do my best! One day...," Mao thought for a moment, "I'll end up being as strong as my father. Even stronger even."

"I'll be off now. Thanks for everything!" Mao bowed his head before leaving the arena.

Walking into the nearly empty arena, Krystal looks around and notices Kirkka sweeping the floor. "I assume the arena is currently off limits since your cleaning it?" she asks her, noting marks on the ground from the dust just recently used.

Kirkka turns her head to look at Krystal, but continues sweeping, somewhat idly now. "The arena never closes! I was just sweeping up a bit after making use of it. A ... difficult concept, for many around here." She sweeps for a few more seconds, then stops and moves more off to the side and out of the way of anyone wishing to make use of anything.

Krystal nods and pulls out her swords while moving over to the dummies. "Well I guess I'll just go through the routine then." And with that she methodically cuts up the first dummy with a quick barrage of strikes that she has practiced for the majority of her training.

Pad walks in, too intent he was on training that he walked past kirkka and accidentally bumped into crystal.

"Oh, sorry there"pad said, startled from his thinking.