Just like the old days. [Solo]

Subject: Just like the old days. [Solo] Thu Dec 27, 2012 11:47 am

Sitting in the center of the zenjutsu training room, Kenji was on his knees. Resting his backside on his heels the sword given to him when he entered the academy rested across his lap. His left hand clutched around the top of its sheath. He was going through his routine, centering himself for what was to come. Onyx black eyes hidden but shut eyelids, as he focused himself. Normal zanjutsu classes were all well and good for someone who fought with there blades always drawn. But Kenji needed special training routines to keep his skills what his style of combat what they were and further them.

“Such are the ways of old.” He muttered to himself, as he stood. Keeping his eyes shut he could picture it all. The lines of the former ways of mass combat, generals on horseback, lines of common foot soldiers and units trained just for combat. Samurai on foot and Kenji in the center front beside his father and brother. The flash of steel as each member of the massive army drew there blades together. When Kenji raised to his feet he didn’t draw his blade, but stayed relaxed. Flashing forward, the lines of the opposing army charging for them. Now only a short ten feet away, nine, eight getting even more close.

Five feet, it was only then that Kenji took any movement. Turning the hilt just a fraction, his right hand gripping the hilt of his weapon before pulling it free. But he blurred the motion of the draw and the attack together. In his mind, he was watching at the draw attack struck and cleaved into flesh. Forced to apply his left hand to the back of the blade to apply more pressure to the cutting force in his right hand and pull it from the now dead or dyeing man. The sounds of battle filled his ears, but subtly he could hear a whisper but he couldn’t make out a word it was saying.

It had been that way for some time now, he was able to hear it but it was faint. Usually only filling his dreams with faint whispers. Sheathing his blade he leapt in the air spinning he landed. In his mind, he was getting behind an enemy. Drawing his blade once more, cleaving into the hapless idiot. If anyone were to walk in or pass the door, it would seem as if Kenji was simply going crazy or something attacking something that wasn’t even there. But there was a method to his madness; he was replaying the memory of his last battle…the way it should have turned out if he hadn’t tried to help some random soldier he never knew the name of.

Even if he hadn’t died, they were outnumbered. The simple rebellion they thought was so small turned into a massive force and the Shogun didn’t give them enough men. It didn’t take long for Kenji to come to a end for now. He sheathed his blade and took a deep breath, he didn’t know why…but he remembered it all. The sounds of mass combat, the sting of a sword as it cut into him. The feeling of a sword piercing him from behind. He raised his right hand from his swords hilt and moved it to the location the tip of the blade exited.

“Why do I still remember? When so many lose there memory after being sent here?” He asked himself, though he didn’t have the answers. He sighed and sat back down closing his eyes. How long had he been at the battle in his mind? An hour maybe two by his count, it was funny. He no longer had to feel the passing of time as a mortal did. Yet, he doubted he could master his draw style in the time allowed by a mortals.

Such a limitation, one that he was actually glad to be rid of but the beauty of life in his eyes was family…and he no longer had that. He may not have showed it, but he was sad when he came to think about it. Instead he remained calm, and cold on the outside.