Time to Prepare (HBTC, Carmine and Ryota)

[Deleted]

Carmine stood just inside the entrance to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. He blinked, stunned by what he was faced with. His scanners were all over the place, unsure of what to make of the ambience of the place - time worked wrong here, that much was certain.

He and the Captain had stopped at the Lookout with the intention of claiming the gifts that Kami had promised them in hopes that the gifts would be of some use to them in their coming conquering of the Demon Realm. When Kami promised them time to train in a very special chamber, Carmine had been more than just a little wary.

But now he knew that it was worth their time coming in. A place like this, training for a day would yield far different results.

"I think we should take a little time to get ourselves acclimated, and warm up individually. Then we can show each other a few things."

[Geurin]

Kami had granted them access to his Time Chamber, however he had not explained much about the mysterious tomb. Those inside would have no idea that time was moving normally outside, He only told them that he would lock the chamber from the other side, so that they would be unable to leave until their training was complete.

For those inside this could mean waiting for months, or up to a year. For those outside it would be no longer than a day. This was to test how much the Galleon trusted the guardian, but also to give them the benefit of a powerful training tool.

[Deleted]

Ryota hadn't been entirely sure what to expect when they had gone to Kami asking about the gift he had mentioned, luckily though Kami had in fact had a 'training' gift in mind for them however much to Ryotas surprise(and relief) it was not access to some sort of gravity chamber but rather access to a very different training room. Tenshu had been strangely tight lipped about the capabilities of the room wanting t to be a surprise. Had it not been for Carmine being interested in the room RYota would have likely chosen another time to use it.

But here they were, Tenshu had said that the room would be locked until there training was 'complete' which had once again made him slightly nervous as he didn't want his training time dictated by anyone but himself but decided to play along as when in doubt he could just blow the door off it's hinges.

"Works for me, the room feels like it's got some gravity to it so that should definitely make things interesting. Whenever you're ready just give me a shout." Ryota said as he strolled out of the room itself and into the empty space that made up the chamber. Raising an eyebrow slightly Ryota made an attempt at sensing any nearby power levels but much to his surprise he could sense none. Not Kami's students, not the Guardian himself, and more normally not Carmine.

It appeared that they were cut off from the rest of the universe, and considering the size of the room there was likely some magic involved in the process. Ryota could only hope that this hadn't been some sort of trap as if mysticism was involved there was a good chance that blowing the hinges off the door would do absolute dick when it came to getting them out of here.

[Deleted]

"I can't be sure, but I think we'll be in here longer than we expect. I think a bit of warmup is in order. A spar as well. If we have time I'd like to trade some secrets - I like the look of that Arc Slice of yours, and I can definitely show you a few moves you don't know."

He patted his friend on the back and dropped to the ground, doing pushups in his incredibly heavy armor. He'd started to get used to the restrictive qualities of the armor, but it was still an incredible hindrance to his power and speed. If he couldn't train himself to bear such a weight with ease, he'd never fight his true strength. As it was, he'd quickly become overshadowed by Earth's other warriors.

"I don't know how you train when you're alone, but a bit of introspection is good before a fight."

[Deleted]

"Ironically it's actually rather rare that I do any real 'solo' training, most of my time spent training is either with you, Keyra, or Marcus. The few times that I do work by myself I'm usually working on some new technique so perhaps I'll give that a try along with your suggestion." Ryota said with a grin. "As for trading some knowledge, I guess ill just have to see what you've got to offer, cant jsut be giving away my techniques for nothing." Ryota said with a laugh, in truth he didn't actually care what he 'got' from Carmine he'd be glad to teach the man how to preform the Arc Slice but poking a bit of fun at the idea that Carmine might not have anything 'worth it' was too good a chance to pass up.

Taking to the... 'sky' Ryota flew a bit away from the room and from Carmine though he made sure to stay at least relatively close to Carmine partially so that they could continue conversation while training but also because Ryota wasn't exactly sure how large this place was and didn't much want to get lost in it. Sure he had his rifts but there was no guarantee that they would work here especially considering that this room was likely mystical in nature. Once Ryota found a 'good' spot he would touch down and toss his coat off to the side.

Now came the annoying part, deciding what to work on. He always had a few ideas for new techniques running through his mind but picking which one would be 'worth it' to work on at the moment was always a pain in the ass. Placing his hand on his sword Ryota shrugged deciding to limit his choices to sword based techniques, it would be interesting to see how his compared to the techniques Carmine knew from his dojo and likewise he generally had a fairly easy time when it came to working on sword techniques. Running through his ideas Ryota finally decided on one that he liked the best, a variation on the Arc Slice. Smirking to himself Ryota drew his sword and began doing a bit of practice with it swiping at the air at some invisible opponent.

[Deleted]

"Solo training is good for the soul."

He laughed to himself, pushing himself into a handstand and doing pushups from that position.

"Strange to hear a robot talking about the soul, but it's true. Time alone is time spent with your inner voice. If you allow it to speak, you can converse with it. If you can come to an agreement with it, great things are possible."

He took one hand from the ground and continued his exercises.

"And I'm sure you'll be interested in some of the moves I've got to offer you."

With that, he bent and dropped gracefully back to his feet, and used the momentum to execute a series of backflips, the last of which he rotated in order to turn around and face behind him, while drawing his sword. To the untrained or unattentive eye, the sword would have come out of nowhere, going from scabbard to hand in such a flurry of motion was another of Carmine's favorite distractive techniques.

He noticed Ryota training his own sword technique, and with a smirk, decided to mimic his movements. At first it was halting, but soon it came fairly easily. Ryota knew how to use his blade to its greatest effect, and Carmine was no stranger to different sword techniques. This made it a little easier to predict some of the moves Ryota would make when not under an actual barrage of said attacks.

[Deleted]

As Ryota took swipes at the air he noticed that Carmine seemed to be mimicing him, at first he hadn't really noticed it as Carmine had been doing his own training as well but then he'd noticed that the android was watching him and his moves had seemed quite familiar. Smirking to himself Ryota decided to step things up just to see if Carmine would try and rise to the challenge. Ryota stabbed sliced and slashed at the air significantly faster than he had been slowly beginning to place an imagined opponent up against himself in order to help with being a bit more creative with his attacks.

The imaginary opponent took the form of the person Ryota most imagined himself fighting when he did this sort of thing, one of the few people he'd ever had a really good sword fight with in his life, the Galleon's previous Captain and his mentor. While Ryota was far beyond the level he'd been at the last time he'd faced the man without counting the battle he'd had with his memories of the man. Ryota's memories of the man being the toughest man he'd ever been in the presence of kept the imagined version at easily the same skill level as Ryota.

As Ryota 'fought' he remembered the original reason he'd begun his workout with his sword, the fact that he'd been planning to create a new technique. Grinning to himself Ryota decided to try and just keep up his workout while working on the technique. Continuing to attack his imagined opponent Ryota began channeling his energy into his blade as if he were about to create an Arc Slice. However rather than launching the technique Ryota simply kept pumping more energy into the blade, as per normal when Ryota began firing up his arc slice the blade began to glow emitting an aura just like it's wielder.

Ryota gritted his teeth as he worked to sustain the energy within the blade, it was one thing to just channel it through the blade and launch it that took little effort once he'd gotten it down, but now he was keeping part of his energy constantly sustained outside of his body, granted the sword was probably the easiest thing he could choose to do so with considering it was more or less apart of him but even still he was finding the task rather difficult and until he could hold the energy properly he had no intention of taking the technique to the next step.

[Deleted]

Carmine smirked as Ryota did his best to throw him off his mimicking game. For a moment, he started to fall behind, lagging behind the Captain by a few fractions of a second, then a full second. He set his jaw and watched more carefully. Ryota began to charge his blade, and Carmine realized the man was creating a new technique.

There was a technique to be built here as well, and now was the perfect time for the idea that Carmine had - he would need a living subject.

First, however, he would need to examine Ryota's energy flow. The best start there would be to find the man's center - something he was familiar with. He breathed deep, stilling his mind and body, halting his momentum as he followed the man's energy deep into his body.

As he spotted Ryota's center, he gave his blade an idle spin, the bells jingling triumphantly.

[Deleted]

When Ryota had begun working on his new technique he'd stopped paying nearly as much attention to Carmine as he had been, while it was interesting to watch the android mimic his style he knew he needed to keep his concentration on the technique as he was rather certain that if he wasn't careful the results would be rather dangerous. While practicing the arc slice after having gotten the basic idea down he'd accidentally caused several explosions simply due to over charging the technique and releasing it 'wrong'.

As Ryota continued to swing and swipe at the air hec cut off the flow of energy to the sword as he felt that he'd pumped enough energy into the blade for what he needed to do and was confident in how well he was keeping it from dispersing. Now that step one was complete it was time to move onto step two, slowing down his attacks Ryota began to focus on the energy inside the blade, despite the close proximity the energy still felt incredibly distant due to how unfamiliar Ryota was with manipulating his Ki once a direct connection between it and himself was it was severed. After a few moment Ryota could feel the ki slowly beginning to focus, it was slower and far more difficult but speed and ease would simply have to come with time.

Now that he was able to manipulate the separated Ki Ryota began the far mroe difficult process of shaping it to what he really wanted it to be, at the moment the energy within the blade was little more than a swirling mass of power that was doing little more than making the blade look like it had an aura of his own. As Ryota continued to attack the air the energy in and around the blade began to reshape creating a second layer around the blade. Ryota smirked at his handiwork and once again intensified his attacks while doing his best to keep the energy focused and to continue to reshape the energy in order to make it 'prefect' the aim of the technique itself was simple to make the sword itself even more powerful by enhancing it with his own ki. The second advantage to the technique would be that he could then launch a 'surprise' Arc Slice as the blade would already have the energy needed to preform the technique.

[Deleted]

Carmine watched carefully as Ryota worked on his new technique. He took note of the flow of the demon's energy - how much of it went to the arms, the legs, and into his sword. He noted how hot the energy burned, indicating the power and stress of the technique.

And he started to understand what Ryota was doing and how he was doing it. He began to mimic the man again - his stance, his energy output, even his facial expression for a bit of good fun.