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UNFINISHED YURI-KAZU TRAINING FIC WHATEVER
I will finish this someday. In the meantime it's not prettily written enough for me to care anymore. :(
**
"I'm not telling you how to hold it."
"Uh," says Kazu, because it's hot and nothing else's coming to mind. Sweat slicks his throat, elbow and arm and ribs along the wielding side. He ditched his hat and rolled up his sleeves an hour ago--dunked his head in the pond and feels, still, like he's caught in a fever. Restless, he rolls his shoulders, rubs his soles into the dirt and straightens, all while keeping an eye on the guy leaning on a wooden pole. "Then what're you trying to do?"
Yuri flicks his hair back and laughs. He doesn't even look like he's sweating, which is the unfair cherry on the whole training sundae, and for a moment Kazu has a crazed impulse to ask if he's keeping his clothes air-conditioned because that's kind of how it's looking to him. Yuri Lowell, a shade of long hair and offhand confidence, who is clearly cheating reality somehow by the slant of his grin. "Now where's the fun in a lesson," he says, "with all the answers handed to you?"
Sunlight's boiling Yuri's voice in his ears. 'Fun' doesn't even sound like a word anymore. "I dunno," Kazu says, "actually knowing?" But he mutters it under his breath and crooks his wrist. Steel snaps up before him at once, a solid line to drive the world in two. The sword pulls at his hold constantly, always sinking and ungraceful, nothing like a real weapon he could get somebody with except by accident. He thinks that he'd almost rather have a baseball bat, a sure weight whose swing he'd understand.
Almost.
He doesn't need the stitch between Yuri's brows to tell him that he's tensed up too much again. Kazu shifts his weight that little bit more; his fingers slacken just a fraction as he stretches his arm. He knows when he gets it--the steel settles, warm against his palm, solid under fingertips.
Yuri swings. The pole thunks against the flat of the blade and Kazu stops at once, conscious of the width of his step, the bend to his wrist. The sword's weight is tugging again--like jerking out of a run too early, all momentum lost. He lifts his head, and Yuri shrugs at him. "Not like that," he says. "If I hit that at an angle, I'd sprain your wrist without even trying. Don't hurt yourself for me."
Kazu resists the urge to stiffen his own shoulders, because that's about eighteen steps backwards he doesn't need. "I got it half an hour ago," he says, just to test his ground.
"Completely," Yuri agrees.
"And--"
"And then you lost it. Can't take a fluke."
Which gets to Kazu on a whole new level, because it's not like he remembers what he was doing then--hell, it's not like he gets what he's really doing now. 'Figure out what works for you' only sounds good up until the point where it turns into a session of shuffling feet around while the teacher absently pokes new holes in the ground with his training instrument. He makes a motion to swipe at his hat, gives up halfway when he remembers that he isn't even wearing it. "Yeah, thanks," he says, to sky and skull and Yuri Lowell. The last one only laughs at him.
"Hey, you're not balancing blastia formulas here. Don't get hung up on perfecting it. Just get out of your own head a little."
All incredibly soothing and vague advice, none of which seems likely to stick to the hilt in his hand. Kazu looks at it, the clean separating line, its tip inches from trailing dust. The bright danger of its arc in a fight. "Hey," he says, "Yuri?"
Yuri cocks his head, and maybe he sees it coming a couple moments before after all, because his hand's too quick to flash up and out, pole snapping to meet the swordstroke halfway. The sound it makes as the strike lands is hollow. Pretty anticlimactic, but Kazu presses his shoulder into the angle anyway, fingers digging in--and it clicks in an instant, hits him in a clear flash how bad that move is, but the thought comes too late. Yuri's wrist twitches aside in a movement that doesn't look remotely complicated, but which has Kazu suddenly tripping in a different direction with nothing underneath his blade, and by the time he's heeled the dirt and turned, the pole's already smacked into the backs of his knees.
He doesn't actually fall, but it's a close and embarrassing call.
"Buck up," Yuri says from behind him. Kazu wheels, and the guy's already got the pole swung up against his shoulder, looking like the move hadn't cost him anything. "At least you didn't drop the sword."
He scrubs at his head. "Yeah, I just dropped the rest of me. I dunno if that's an improvement!"
This earns an eye-roll, but Yuri's smiling too. "Trust me a little, will you? I know what you're doing. C'mon," he adds, as Kazu stills. "Let's try that again."
They go through it five more times in total, two of them so embarrassingly clumsy that even Kazu feels the wrongness of his grip in the moments before he brings the blade down. He figures it out about midway through the third: the drop of the shoulder, to step and turn with the sword, how to move the blade like a slightly unnatural extension of his arm. That almost slices through the pole from the force of his sudden push. By the fifth, the movement's settled into his bones; when he steps forward, he takes in sharp strides, carries through the advance and deliberately turns to hit the pole with the flat of the blade.
In the dirt, Yuri's feet grind down to keep his place. Kazu's glance jerks up and Yuri's grin widens.
"Hey," he says. "Now we're getting somewhere."
And then he actually attacks.
**
"I'm not telling you how to hold it."
"Uh," says Kazu, because it's hot and nothing else's coming to mind. Sweat slicks his throat, elbow and arm and ribs along the wielding side. He ditched his hat and rolled up his sleeves an hour ago--dunked his head in the pond and feels, still, like he's caught in a fever. Restless, he rolls his shoulders, rubs his soles into the dirt and straightens, all while keeping an eye on the guy leaning on a wooden pole. "Then what're you trying to do?"
Yuri flicks his hair back and laughs. He doesn't even look like he's sweating, which is the unfair cherry on the whole training sundae, and for a moment Kazu has a crazed impulse to ask if he's keeping his clothes air-conditioned because that's kind of how it's looking to him. Yuri Lowell, a shade of long hair and offhand confidence, who is clearly cheating reality somehow by the slant of his grin. "Now where's the fun in a lesson," he says, "with all the answers handed to you?"
Sunlight's boiling Yuri's voice in his ears. 'Fun' doesn't even sound like a word anymore. "I dunno," Kazu says, "actually knowing?" But he mutters it under his breath and crooks his wrist. Steel snaps up before him at once, a solid line to drive the world in two. The sword pulls at his hold constantly, always sinking and ungraceful, nothing like a real weapon he could get somebody with except by accident. He thinks that he'd almost rather have a baseball bat, a sure weight whose swing he'd understand.
Almost.
He doesn't need the stitch between Yuri's brows to tell him that he's tensed up too much again. Kazu shifts his weight that little bit more; his fingers slacken just a fraction as he stretches his arm. He knows when he gets it--the steel settles, warm against his palm, solid under fingertips.
Yuri swings. The pole thunks against the flat of the blade and Kazu stops at once, conscious of the width of his step, the bend to his wrist. The sword's weight is tugging again--like jerking out of a run too early, all momentum lost. He lifts his head, and Yuri shrugs at him. "Not like that," he says. "If I hit that at an angle, I'd sprain your wrist without even trying. Don't hurt yourself for me."
Kazu resists the urge to stiffen his own shoulders, because that's about eighteen steps backwards he doesn't need. "I got it half an hour ago," he says, just to test his ground.
"Completely," Yuri agrees.
"And--"
"And then you lost it. Can't take a fluke."
Which gets to Kazu on a whole new level, because it's not like he remembers what he was doing then--hell, it's not like he gets what he's really doing now. 'Figure out what works for you' only sounds good up until the point where it turns into a session of shuffling feet around while the teacher absently pokes new holes in the ground with his training instrument. He makes a motion to swipe at his hat, gives up halfway when he remembers that he isn't even wearing it. "Yeah, thanks," he says, to sky and skull and Yuri Lowell. The last one only laughs at him.
"Hey, you're not balancing blastia formulas here. Don't get hung up on perfecting it. Just get out of your own head a little."
All incredibly soothing and vague advice, none of which seems likely to stick to the hilt in his hand. Kazu looks at it, the clean separating line, its tip inches from trailing dust. The bright danger of its arc in a fight. "Hey," he says, "Yuri?"
Yuri cocks his head, and maybe he sees it coming a couple moments before after all, because his hand's too quick to flash up and out, pole snapping to meet the swordstroke halfway. The sound it makes as the strike lands is hollow. Pretty anticlimactic, but Kazu presses his shoulder into the angle anyway, fingers digging in--and it clicks in an instant, hits him in a clear flash how bad that move is, but the thought comes too late. Yuri's wrist twitches aside in a movement that doesn't look remotely complicated, but which has Kazu suddenly tripping in a different direction with nothing underneath his blade, and by the time he's heeled the dirt and turned, the pole's already smacked into the backs of his knees.
He doesn't actually fall, but it's a close and embarrassing call.
"Buck up," Yuri says from behind him. Kazu wheels, and the guy's already got the pole swung up against his shoulder, looking like the move hadn't cost him anything. "At least you didn't drop the sword."
He scrubs at his head. "Yeah, I just dropped the rest of me. I dunno if that's an improvement!"
This earns an eye-roll, but Yuri's smiling too. "Trust me a little, will you? I know what you're doing. C'mon," he adds, as Kazu stills. "Let's try that again."
They go through it five more times in total, two of them so embarrassingly clumsy that even Kazu feels the wrongness of his grip in the moments before he brings the blade down. He figures it out about midway through the third: the drop of the shoulder, to step and turn with the sword, how to move the blade like a slightly unnatural extension of his arm. That almost slices through the pole from the force of his sudden push. By the fifth, the movement's settled into his bones; when he steps forward, he takes in sharp strides, carries through the advance and deliberately turns to hit the pole with the flat of the blade.
In the dirt, Yuri's feet grind down to keep his place. Kazu's glance jerks up and Yuri's grin widens.
"Hey," he says. "Now we're getting somewhere."
And then he actually attacks.