Kyūsho-Jutsu (Solo)

After two days of recovery in the squad 4 barracks, Bishamon had been given permission to leave, which was a relief, Bishamon hated the smell and depression, surrounding hospitals, it always made him feel worse than he was, even being healed, to the best of the squad 4 members abilities, a sword through the gut, was going to leave him feeling a bit shaky for a couple of weeks, but this allowed him some recovery time, so he didn’t have to do any pointless missions for a while, but this didn’t make him feel much happier, he had less enthusiasm than usual, and his usual calm, emotionless attitude, changed, to one of despair, and frustration; frustration, that he was too weak to stop Takeshi, and Minori. So he decided to take a walk to clear his head, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, so a he went to the district of Rukongai, maybe not the greatest of choices, but he was in a bad mood, so his decisions weren’t the best they could’ve been.

As he walked down the crowded streets of Rukongai, the sun beamed down on him, he whipped his head clear of the sweat, usually this wouldn’t be an issue, with the large hat he wore, but in his rush out of the hospital, he forgot it, and he didn’t want to turn back and get it, “maybe a drink will make me feel better” he muttered. He eyed up a bar on the corner of the street, so he thought that one would be as good as any, and entered it, as soon as he entered, he got a foul look from nearly everyone in there, 10 men, 3 woman, and 2 children, the woman and children wouldn’t do anything, but the men, might be an annoyance, Bishamon took a seat on an empty bar stool, “a large sake please” the barman approached Bishamon, he did seem a bit scared of the shinigami, “erm, right away” the man then let out a gasp, two huge men, where standing behind Bishamon, they seemed heavily muscled, and they had a face, only a mother could love, “shinigami, I suggest you leave” the man placed his huge hand, on Bishamon’s shoulder, hoping to intimidate him, Bishamon sighed, “I’m in a really bad mood, get off...now” a few droplets of sweat started forming on the man’s forehead, he probably would of let go, if it weren’t for his fellow thugs watching, it was clear that the man, had no intention of letting go of him, ordinarily Bishamon would of just left, and that would be that, but he wasn’t in the best of moods, so he slowly stood up, and turned around, crouched down, and punched the man in the gut, with thunderous force, that was one down, he saw the other man, throw a large fist aimed for the side of Bishamon’s head, but with a deft flick of his wrist, he was able to push it off to the side, and then Bishamon took a step in, and planted his elbow in the man’s stomach, and that’s another one down, he spun around, and saw the other men all stand up ready for a fight, all of them, as tall, if not taller than the other two, “damn, what the hell are they feeding you guys?” The men didn’t see the funny side and all charged at once, ducking and swaying, it was easy dodging all of them, a roundhouse kick, and a few punches, took out three of them, an uppercut, and a takedown, was all it took to finish the others off, now only one stood, Bishamon didn’t want to waste anymore time, so he charged at the man, throwing a powerful right, but the man slipped it to the right, and before Bishamon’s arm could retract, the man brought his elbow down, and his knee up at the same time, a move that could easily snap a man’s arm in two, this man was far more skilled than the others, he was a lot smaller, about the same size as Bishamon, he looked about sixty, and he had no hair on his head to speak of, but he had a small, white goatee, Bishamon shunpo’d back to avoid the attack, he never thought he would have to use shunpo in a situation like this, but he didn’t want his arm to broke in two, the man slowly approached Bishamon, he then threw a right; it was lightening fast, Bishamon could only block, the punch wasn’t just fast, it was incredibly powerful as well, strong enough, for him to be pushed back by it, Bishamon then tried a roundhouse kick to the head, but the man ducked and the preformed a spin kick, knocking Bishamon off his feet, the man stood over Bishamon, and then extended his hand, offering to help him up.

Bishamon was surprised that the man didn’t attack him, whilst he lay there, but he wasn’t complaining, and he accepted the man’s hand, and then got to his feet, “my name is, Kentarō, sorry about that, I just wanted to see your strength. You have potential, but, you your movements are sloppy and predictable.” The man then turned around, and left, Bishamon stood there for a moment, and then ran after the old man, “hey! Wait up!” the old man stopped, and a small smile appeared on his face, as he saw Bishamon catch up to him, “hey old man, I was wondering, since you where so strong, maybe you could teach me a thing or two.” This was unusual off Bishamon, but due to recent events, his mind set was somewhat different, the old man laughed, and patted his head, “haha, no” the old man then continued to walk, Bishamon stopped, and was speechless, he was sure that the man would, why else would he go through all that trouble before, but it couldn’t be helped, Bishamon turned around, and then slowly walked off, until he heard the cackle of the old man, behind him, “you idiot, I was just kidding, I would be more than happy to teach you a little bit” Bishamon didn’t find it funny, but he was happy that the man had agreed to train him. He approached the man, and they both began walking. After some small talk, and introductions, they came across a rundown dojo, the windows were smashed in, and the door was a couple of planks of wood, it seemed every building in Rukongai was like this, so it wasn’t all that surprising, but once they got inside it was well kept; a large open space, wooden flooring, with a few pillars on each side, to hold up the roof. The man took off his shoes, so Bishamon thought it would be best if he did so, they made their way to the centre of the room, “alright, I can’t teach you anything about zanjutsu, but I can try and teach you hakudo” said the elderly man, Bishamon then laid down his two blades, and then nodded, the man then got into a low stance, with his hands extended outwards, “ok, well first i need to see you fight, I presume you were holding back in the bar earlier, but now go all out ok?” stated the old man, with a slight chuckle, “heh, fine” Bishamon said, as he dashed towards him, he threw two jabs, which were avoided, and then he tried a right straight, but the man ducked under it, and then jumped back, this was strange, why didn’t he attack, the man then preformed a roundhouse kick, to Bishamon’s right side of his head, he saw it coming however, he tried to raise his arm to block it, but it wouldn’t move “what the...” the man’s foot connected, and Bishamon flew off, rolling along the ground, something was wrong with his arm, it wouldn’t move, he heard the old man laugh, “i bet your wondering, what happened to your arm right? Well you see when I ducked your punch, i quickly attacked one of your pressure points on your arm, just enough to paralyze it for a few second, now get up, and try again” the man said as he got into his low stance again.

What a frightful way to fight, Bishamon finally got control in his arm again, and then charged, as Bishamon got close to the man, he performed a forward roll, and as he finished, he sprung up, leading with his right palm, the old man, stepped back, the force of the attack, would of surely smashed the man’s jaw to pieces if it connected, but the man was able to dodge, Bishamon was now basically floating in front of the man, “you know there are 11 pressure points on the torso” the old man stated calmly as his index and middle finger came together, as he launched his right hand forward, aiming for the centre of his chest, Bishamon quickly raised his knee, but he only managed to knock it up slightly, as the man’s fingers hit his chest, it felt like a steel pipe, one hell of a strong attack, luckily it didn’t hit the pressure point, Bishamon then tried a kick at the man’s ribs, but the old man, caught his leg, and then began his sharp pokes at Bishamon’s legs, he gritted his teeth in pain, and as soon as the man let go, Bishamon staggered back, his leg was shaky, and then it collapsed under him, “damn it” he was now on one knee, quickly he looked up to see where the man was, but he was already to the side of him, Bishamon’s head turned to see the man to the side of him, and then looked forward again, as Kentarō brought his fist round, the punch was strong enough to completely flatten Bishamon, after about 10 seconds lay on the floor in a daze, Bishamon slowly got to his feet, his leg was a bit slow to react, but the feeling was back in it, Bishamon looked up at the man, to his disappointment, the fight was over, he couldn’t land a single blow on him, but that just meant, he would have to train more, and this man would be great training him.

Kentarō took a seat on the ground, and Bishamon joined him, the man crossed his arms “this is how i see it. When you fight, you use your instinct and reflexes to fight, so your movements are hard to predict, but because you’re constantly making your body, do these, let’s say, spontaneous movements your leaving yourself open, after every attack, even if is for a second, you are leaving yourself open, and this could be fatal against a skilled opponent, so for that reason, i can’t really pin a style on you, but that’s not a bad thing, this makes you incredibly awkward to fight, and the way you fight, allows you to put tremendous force behind your attacks, so even if you hit someone a couple of times, that might be enough to win a fight” Bishamon was amazed that the man had figured all that out, just from that, the old man then laughed, “you are certainly an odd one. Hmm, okay meet me here tomorrow on the break of dawn, the training will begin then!” The break of dawn was not Bishamon’s ideal time, but he couldn’t complain, “Alright, thanks” Bishamon gave a nod to the man, picked up his blades, put his shoes on, and then left the dojo, going back to his barracks, to get an early night sleep.

Next Day

As was instructed by the man, Bishamon arrived at the dojo on the break of dawn, still half asleep he entered the place, and there was the old man, sitting in the middle of the empty area, drinking, what looked like tea, “ah good you came, sit down and have some tea” the old man said with a smile, Bishamon wasn’t the biggest fan of tea, but he didn’t mind it, so he sat down, and also began drinking, the old man smiled as Bishamon began drinking, “okay, this is what I’ve got in mind, I’m going to teach you, my fighting style, kyūsho-jutsu, there isn’t anything else I can teach you with your other style, but this way, you’ll have two styles, which is a hell of a lot better than one, you have my word on that” Bishamon finished the rest of his drink, and then looked at the man, “yeah, I’m up for that, but what do I need to do? It seems pretty complex” the man chuckled, the technique was pretty complex, but then again, most are, so that didn’t bother the man, “well first of all I need you to learn about this style, so...” the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a scroll, and then lay it out in front of them, it was a picture, of the human body, with lines coming out of varies points, in the diagrams, “okay there are 385 pressure points in the body, which leaves you spoilt for choice really” the old man laughed at his statement, “but despite what some people may say, there is no point on the body, that with a simple touch, could kill a man. Okay I want you to take that home tonight, and learn every single point on the body, but for now, I need you to learn some other stuff, so follow me” the man stood up and began to walk out an exit to the back of the room, Bishamon picked up the scroll, and swiftly followed the man out of the dojo, learning all those pressure points, is going to be a pain in the ass, but if he could learn them, it would give him a great advantage in hand to hand combat, but the man wanted to do something, what was it, the only way to find out was to follow him, they came to a small garden, it wasn’t too great on the eyes, all of the grass was overgrown and dead, there was as many weeds as there where blades of grass, in the centre of the garden, the old man sat, with a bucket of water in front of him, “okay, this is what i want you to do, simply hold your fingers out straight, and thrust your hands in the bucket, for two hours” the man plunged his hand in the water, for an example, seemed simple enough, but why, “okay, but why?” the old man laughed once again, it appeared the old man laughed at everything, annoying to some, but Bishamon didn’t mind, the old man stood up, “this will strengthen your fingers, it wouldn’t be good if your fingers broke every time you used this style, now if you’ll excuse me i have to do some things, i will be back in two hours” Bishamon gave the man a nod to see him off and then sat down by the bucket, “this should be easy.”

Without thinking too much more about it; although, there wasn’t much thinking required, so he just done it, as the old man did, he simply plunged his hand in, and out, in and out, in and out, “this seems easy, easy enough to do for two hours, but this is really boring” he muttered as he continued, with his tedious task, after a minute or two, his fingers began burning slightly, it even hurt “tsk, well, no pain, no gain” which was true in this case, but regardless he continued, the pain was almost unbearable after just ten minutes, not even a quarter of the way through yet, and he already knew he couldn’t do this for two hours, after about twenty minutes, every finger on each hand, cramped up, he pulled them out instantly, and started stretching them, squeezing them, anything to get rid of the pain, “damn it, there’s no way I can do this for two hours” he glanced down at his fingers, they where all pruned up, and visibly throbbing, he then heard a familiar laugh, the old man was standing at the other side of the garden “24 minutes and 38 seconds, frankly I’m impressed, i thought you would only last ten minutes, at best” Bishamon gave the old man a foul look “you were watching me this whole time!?” the old man laughed, now it was beginning to annoy him, “two hours would be impossible, even I could only do it for 40 minutes, I just wanted to see your limit, okay from now on I want you to do that every night, for twenty minutes go it?” Bishamon sighed; doing that for twenty minutes every night, is going to hurt like hell, couldn’t move his fingers now, there was no way he could grip a sword right now, “right now go cool off, let’s say, ten mile jog" Bishamon hated jogging, but this was training, and he couldn’t move his fingers, so jogging was all he could do, with a quick stretch of his legs, he was off.

About an hour past, and Bishamon was just getting to the close of his jog, he didn’t appreciate jogging all too much, and to make matters worse, it was another hot day, although he wasn’t too tired after it, the amount of sweat he was exuding, would make people think different. When the jog was finished, he caught his breath, and then began trying to move his fingers, they had some movement in them, but he still couldn’t clench his fist, they felt as if, they would fall off, if he did so. When Bishamon entered the dojo once again, he half expected the man to end the training session for the day, but, it wasn’t to be, as the man told him to stand in the centre of the room; he reluctantly did as the man said, and was now in the centre of the room, waiting for the old man’s next move, the man slowly approached him, and then patted him on the shoulder, “you’ve got potential kid, now learn those pressure points, and do those exercises, and come back here in a week, I realise you have a job to do as a shinigami, so if you can’t make that, just tell me, and we will go and have some sake or something, next time, I’ll teach you this technique, when you fingers strengthen, and you learn those pressure points, go it?” Bishamon smiled, “will do” they both shook hands, which hurt Bishamon’s fingers, as the old man, did have a firm handshake, after that Bishamon left, does this mean I have to call the guy master now? Damn, that’s going to inflate his ego.