Nikoda stood in front of tall set of stone stairs, staring up at the seemingly endless height of the stairs. His Kidou teacher had sent him to a ‘private tutor’ due to his talent in Kidou and his high intelligence marks on his academy entrance placement. When he had asked his teacher, Snape-Sensei, if this was standard procedure the teacher replied that only one other person had undergone the training. Nikoda began his long trek up the stairs as he continued thinking. He wondered what his new teacher, or as he liked to be called ‘master’ looked like. Oh, Snape had warned him about not referring to this new instructor as Master, and that this tutor probably hated the fact that Nikoda was Japanese and young.

Nikoda reached the first of three platforms and already he was beginning to sweat profusely, he guessed there was a hundred or more stairs between the ground and the resting platform. He could barely make out the tip of the shrine that his Master was in charge of until he reached the third platform and became level with it. The sun beat down on his skin like a fire, and his beads of sweat stung at his eyes as they poured down into his retinas. He never wanted to walk up those stairs again but something in the back of his mind told him he would probably be seeing a lot more of them by the look of the old, forest engulfed shrine.

He walked toward the entirely white shrine and found an old man sitting just outside of the door on a small fountain seal. The man had a white beard that came down to his stomach, long white hair, and a thick white moustache; and he was sitting in lotus position seeming to meditate.

“Hello, Master.” Nikoda said nonchalantly, not really caring if the man heard him or not.

“Don’t be so formal with me, you little cockroach.” The old man spat and then added, “You will call me Master Pai Mei.”

“But-“

“You will not speak unless spoken to. And stop speaking in Japanese, I HATE you arrogant Jap bastards
and your childish language. Do you speak Cantonese?”

“No, Master Pai Mei.” Nikoda admitted, a little aggravated that the man had picked one of the rare languages Nikoda didn’t know.

“Well, I guess I will have to yell, point and then beat you with a stick until you understand. You little cockroach dog. Do you even know any martial arts?” Pai Mei opened his eyes, and his stare seemed to pierce right through Nikoda as if he were looking right through him.

“I am adept in Kendo, Aikido, Judo, and the art of Jujutsu.” Nikoda tried to make his voice not sound like he was bragging.

“Art? Where is the art in laying on someone and dry humping them until they submit to you. Your art is only suited for Japanese fat heads!” Pai Mei’s voice sharpened and became louder. Nikoda couldn’t help but show his sudden discontent at being scolded by the Ancient Priest.

“Your anger amuses me. Do you think you are my match?” Pai Mei’s eyebrows rose, awaiting an answer.

“I wouldn’t know that unless I crossed swords with you.” Nikoda responded bitterly.

“Spoken like a retarded jap-o. I’m tired of looking at your ugly face, go over there to that weapon rack and remove one of the swords.”

Nikoda marched over to the weapon racked, that was filled with every type of martial asian weapon imaginable. He found a decent looking katana and placed his hand on it, about ready to draw it from the rack until his eyes traveled down from his hand to his waist. He remembered that he had just been assigned a zanpakutou, a soul that was supposed to meld with his. He knew the only way something as time consuming as soul matching would happen is if he started using his zanpakutou now. He had disobeyed his Master but Pai Mei didn’t seem to mind, in fact he smiled. Pai Mei also rose from his sitting position and pulled a white Chinese broadsword from the fountain seal which Nikoda hadn’t noticed.

“Let us see how good you really are; if you land even one blow I will bow before you and call you master.”

Nikoda wanted those words to become even a little real but he knew from the way they were arranged that they would never come true-he knew instantly that they spelled disaster for him. What bit of anger he felt towards the old timer drove him to attack first. He began drawing his zanpakutou, forgetting his prideful loathing of drawing it, and moved forward against Pai Mei. He noted that they were both on the stone path that lead to the ungodly stairs and connected to the shrine and then he swung. Just as the sword was about to exit the sheath and launch forth to attack, Nikoda immediately redirected his momentum and spun around. Once his back was to his opponent for a second, the sword exited the sheath the shining alloy of his blade catching the rays of the sun like a mirror which he noted could be used as a weapon later. Once he completed the spin, he thrust the sword ahead with the power and acceleration of his new momentum. The hilt felt like the perfect weight in his hands, it was light weight put it didn’t feel weak. The Reverse Draw technique! There was no way his opponent would see that coming.

As Nikoda’s sword was halfway through the thrusting motion, he noticed that Pai Mei’s sword was under his sword right before the beginning of the hook on Nikoda’s blade. Pai Mei’s white sword smacked Nikoda’s up, throwing off the trajectory and making Nikoda lose his one handed grip. The sword was effectively flung into the air, curved downward and then sunk into one of the trees of the surrounding forest. Pai Mei kicked him in the knee, making Nikoda kneel and then whacked him hard over the head with the flat side of his white sword. Nikoda grabbed his head, half reaching for the pain and half protecting his head.

Pai Mei scolded him, “You really are stupid aren’t you, Cockroach Dog. Do you really think such a technique would work on me, especially being performed by someone as amateurish as you!? First off, when you spun as slow as you did I could have killed you 10 times! Second, you are using a katana which is a two handed sword-and you expected to cut me! Phef, Nonsense. And third, you analyzed your sword quite quickly maybe even without noticing it but had it occurred to you that you would needed to know about my sword? You know nothing about broadswords. Now get your crap Jap blade.”

Nikoda obeyed his Master’s command, and heard his annoying voice over his shoulder say, “This was a test to see how much you really know about sword fight. You know absolutely nothing, your real training starts tomorrow. Cockroach Dog”

Nikoda thought he was going to rip the old man’s head off or at least die trying if he called Nikoda that name again. He wasn’t much for emotions and their bending of logic but he was really beginning to hate thst old senile jackass. But then again, this man could talk s*** and back it up! It had taken the man one strike to completely nullify Nikoda’s attack and he had been able to examine his technique at the same time. Nikoda knew his professor had picked the right tutor; Nikoda needed this kind of power. With that kind of strength he could do experiments all day long and there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do about it.

Wow... your teacher really hates the Japanese...

+2.5 to Fighting

(OOC: Yeah, he is a bitter old Chinese man.)

Nikoda rose with the sun the next day, it was his first day of official training with Pai Mei. He dressed quickly in a simply grey robe and meet Pai Mei in the back of the shrine by a thick plate of layered sheet metal held up from the ground by a pole. The metal was layered so many times it was 12 inches thick, Nikoda couldn’t think of one think involving the plate that he would enjoy. Pai Mei was also carrying a second metal post identical to the one in the ground, he slammed in into the ground and it stuck immediately.

“Now little Cockroach Dog, I want you to cut through this Metal Wall.” Pai Mei explained. That’s not too bad, Nikoda thought to himself, I just have to make a few calculations. He clenched his teeth at the horrible nickname and decided to let it slide, it was early in the morning and maybe the old fart hadn’t taken his medicine yet.

But Pai Mei added, “From one foot away exactly.” Nikoda frowned, that definitely threw a wrench into his calculations and made the task more difficult.

“How-“ Nikoda began to protest but Pai Mei interrupted him.

“Shut your mouth, open your eyes and ready your sword. What will do if your enemy engages you from such a short distance with sword or with hand to hand? Will you curl up into a ball and die or will you put your sword through their head!?” Pai Mei drew his pure white sword from a colorless sheath that Nikoda hadn’t noticed until that moment. Was this man’s reiatsu really that powerful that the fact that he had a sword paled in comparison? Thought Nikoda. As Pai Mei drew his sword from a foot away from the metal wall, his motions were lost to the very speed that sent them forward. After Pai Mei drew his sword, Nikoda saw it punctured the wall like it was wood and then the blade returned to the sheath. He saw nothing else, unable to catch even a glimpse of technique or wrist movement. Nikoda’s jaw dropped, he had never seen such a display of spirit power mixed with swordsmanship.

“Stop catching flies, lunch isn’t until noon, Cockroach Dog. Now get to it!” The man stroked his beard and then stormed off in the direction of the shrine. Nikoda took his stance near the metal wall and began eyeing it. He decided to try drawing his sword and which ways he could actually managed to draw it with the wall so close to his hilt. A regular straight draw was out of the question, he tried and the wall blocked his hilt only after the sword was released a few inches. He decided from the distance he had just calculated that the easiest way was to draw the sword at an angle, arching the sword at an angle that it would be drawn right above the short metal wall. He did just that and prepared to strike the wall. He lifted the sword above the metal wall and then struck down as hard as he could, hoping that he would at least make a cut in the metal. Ding! The recoil from the sword hitting the metal shot up Nikoda’s arms and he felt like dropping his sword but he didn’t want to give the old turd the satisfaction of seeing him fail.

He didn’t want to wear his arms out so Nikoda switched strategies against the wall. He poured his spiritual energy into his sword; the reflective blade seemed to give off even more light. He struck the wall again, and the blow seemed more solid able to hold up to the thickness of the metal, however; Nikoda’s hand suffered that time. He could see that just from two strikes, his hands were already beginning to form calluses. Nikoda took a swing at the metal wall again and again, each time trying something new in its own rite until his hands were raw. That’s when Pai Mei returned, stood behind him and watched with viciously scrutinizing eyes. Nikoda noticed that the old man was carrying a wooden walking stick and started devising jokes to make about it when he heard his Master's voice.

“No wonder you don’t know anything, you give up before you even start…Cockroach Dog.”

That was the last straw for Nikoda, he was tired, his arms hurt, his hands were bleeding, and being called that name made him want to end that old man. He turned towards Pai Mei, his sword in hand and Pai Mei laughed at him also as if he was a cockroach. Nikoda charged at his master, swinging from the side so that if Pai Mei blocked with the wooden stick it would be chopped in half. Pai Mei stepped into the attack and before the sword could gain too much momentum, he blocked it from traveling with his forearm. Nikoda almost dropped his sword in amazement, this man had blocked his zanpakutou with his forearm like was a toy sword. Pai Mei grabbed his fingers, twisted his main sword arm and used an aikido wrist lock to pin Nikoda to the ground. He stepped on Nikoda’s zanpakutou with his foot as he twisted its owner’s arm almost to the point of breaking. Nikoda grunted, willing his arm not to break and wondering a little if that was the only thing keeping it from breaking at the moment.

Pai Mei spoke to him with thick sarcasm, “You Japs are only good for making rice and blowing yourselves up as kamikaze! Maybe sword fighting in on an entirely too high echelon for you. At least you have guts now, and you aren't a cockroach anymore. Do you want me to break this pathetic thing you call an arm?”

“NO!” Nikoda pleaded for the first time in his life. The pain just keep increasing the longer Pai Mei held the wrist lock at an angle that twisted Nikoda’s shoulder. He was beginning to think that this pain was worst than if his arm were to actually break. The pain shoot up his arm and into his brain, impairing his ability to think giving him no chance of every escaping.

“This arm belongs to me; I will decide what happens to it!” Pai Mei teased, twisted it one good time to see if Nikoda would cry out and then released it. Nikoda fell forward and cradled his throbbing arm. Pai Mei simply kicked the zanpakutou to his apprentice and ordered him to get back to work.

“Now that that arm belongs to me, I will need it stronger.”

He watched and waited for Nikoda to grab his zanpakutou and rise which he did. Nikoda shook his arm out, hoping that it would alleviate some of the pain and then begun striking the metal wall again. Shortly after he took a brief rest finding that his arm was completely numb from all the stress if had been through that day. WHACK! Pai Mei laid into Nikoda’s head with the wooden staff, Nikoda grabbed his head again and was about to speak but he swiftly decided against such action and returned to hitting the metal wall. Man, this is going to be a long day, Nikoda thought to himself. Slowly but surely his hands became battle ready, his arms formed muscle that he needed to swing his sword with strength and he swore his palms and his zanpakutou’s hilt fused on some molecular level.

+2 fighting
(sorry for the wait)

(OOC: Thank you. No worries, its my understanding that it was Himawari's B-day. If you see this, Happy Birthday Hima!!!)