Bounty Hunters - Shokin Kasegi

Forest Haven Arc: Chapter 123

==Ice, Fire and Lightning==

On the next day, training progresses smoothly. Atsume has meditation training to find a way to activate her Koa for the first time.

Her sensei is an impatient, young gorilla girl who shouts at her: “Come on! Are you even trying to find the Koa within you? Look at the core if you don’t have a heart!”

Atsume shouts back: “How am I supposed to concentrate if you keep shouting at me?! Meditation needs silence!”

Erika enters her new laboratory and gets super excited: “Wooow! So, this is my workspace for the next few days? This is some seriously good shit!”

The elder explains: “Don’t lose yourself in here. Six days are not a lot of time when it comes to research.”

Erika gives a thumbs up with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen: “Oh don’t you worry! That’s enough if you bring me food and coffee!”

The elder is overwhelmed and asks: “What’s coffee?”

Meanwhile, Ketsuki has been brought into the snow of the peaks and just stands there, freezing because he only wears his shorts.

His sensei is a gorilla with very thick fur and asks: “You okay? Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to start with clothes off.”

Ketsuki replies: “N- no. Th- th- this is o- okay. I’m gonna w- warm up s- soon.”

“I hope so. You look like you really have some fire power! Ahahahaha!”, his sensei jokes around and notices, “Oh… you’re too cold to laugh at jokes. Ha!”, but he is still proud of his ambiguous jokes.

“Okay!”, he starts his lesson, “Today I’m gonna show you how to channel Koa and maybe even a bit more!”

Ketsuki replies: “K- k- ‘kay…”

“Well, for the start, I want you to show me those flames. Can you bring ‘em out?”

Ketsuki ignites his arms without a second thought and notices: “Mmmh… this is a nice warmth.”

His sensei replies: “Good! I really didn’t expect any less from you since your friends told me you’re an absolute pro with your forbidden Koa.”, he turns to some trees and continues, “Next, please show me all your fire power at once. Don’t hold back.”

Ketsuki concentrates and after a few seconds, his arms shoot out fire into every direction. He then steps back and prepares a big punch into the air. With a flawless, martial arts master-like motion and a lot of fire surrounding his entire body, he punches into the air and releases a gigantic wave of fire that reaches and melts snow off of trees, tens of meters away.

The sensei nods and replies: “Good! That was a perfect punching technique! You also know that Koa is a teamwork between your muscles and your imagination. The problem is your output. It may look cool but the attacks are more effective the more you concentrate all that output into one spot.”

Ketsuki nods because he actually understood and his sensei proclaims: “Well, now you know what we’re training today!”

Back in the village, behind the dojo, Raiden is back for his next lesson. He meditatively sits on a rock as Kenjaru appears out of his shadow.

“So? You understood the theory lesson?”

Raiden replies: “Yeah. But shouldn’t we train our raw power?”

Kenjaru explains: “That’s not why you’re here. We cover the theory with you and help you find new ways to fight, new moves and understand your powers on a deeper level. That Koa awareness I talked about works wonders and the raw power training is your business.”

Raiden hesitates a bit but then brings it up: “I want to learn the ‘Thunder Dragon Style’.”

Kenjaru is a bit confused at first so Raiden explains: “My move set is inspired by animals. The list is tiger, rabbit, snake, horse, monkey, goat, buffalo, dog, pig and at last… dragon. I’ve learned quite a few of them over my years of traveling through the galaxy and even invented some moves myself but I’ve yet to find out what makes the ‘Thunder Dragon Style’ so much stronger than the others. Nobody ever was able to teach me any moves.”

Kenjaru gets serious: “I know why.”, Raiden looks at him with big eyes, “Because it’s been forbidden after the Rampage of ‘Raisan the Taranis’. He almost brought down the entire Space Force by himself, 58 years ago.”

Raiden raises an eyebrow: “Is there any literature on this guy?”

Kenjaru replies: “I can’t hand it out to you with good conscience. I know you’ll try to train that stuff but the only one in the galaxy who’s legally allowed to use that fighting style is Dragon King Yamada Dragonclaw.”

“Noooooo!! But I wanted to read it so bad!! Fuuuuuuck! What am I gonna do now?!!”, Raiden rolls around on the floor while crying.

Kenjaru sighs: “I can at least teach you things about the monkey style if you want.”

Raiden appears in front of Kenjaru without a tear left in his eyes and says: “What are we waiting for then?”

Kenjaru gets startled and asks: “How did you get here so fast?”

Back on the mountain, in the evening, where Ketsuki is training to concentrate his fire output by punching into the air, Horuteph stops by and shouts: “Oooooi! Ketsuki! I heard you’re up here! I’ve come for our promised battle!”

Ketsuki stops and his sensei asks: “You promised each other a fight?”

Ketsuki explains: “Yeah, with the rule that we only use swords. I’m outside of the village so I’m gonna use my threads.”

Shitsuke barges in, sitting on a branch of a nearby tree: “Can I watch you guys? I wanna know how well your new friend can fight.”

Horuteph warns: “But don’t get too close. We’re both strong and my sword will unfold its true potential in this fight!”

Ketsuki tilts his head and honestly asks: “Really?”

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The training seems to be going well for everyone! And Ketsuki and Horuteph are going to have a sparring! I'm so excited to see the winner of their battle!