2 Monstrous Acheivmenys
Soon enough, four years went by. Over that time, while I'm sure they knew they probably couldn't understand them, Iehisa and Nejime would talk to them, pray to shrines with them, and announce their birth to the entirety of Satsuma.
All that time they spent their lives in peace and harmony. One thing was for sure though, was they had the family's superhuman bloodline. At just 10 months old they were walking around although a bit wobbly by the 13th month they were already trying to run.
They played around a lot and although they caused some trouble, they were fun to be around. Even the samurai liked them. At this point in their life, Takeru had already started speaking fluent Japanese and was trying to help his older brother, Toyohisa.
Although they sounded very childish because of their bodies still developing, people understood them. However they weren't allowed to leave the area of the mansion and yard. The guards were ordered to stop them if they wandered around and tried to sneak off.
Now that they were both 4 years old, they could officially start training to become samurai of Satsuma and bring great honor to the Shimazu clan.
…
—Sparring House—
"Tell me, what do you think a samurai is?" Iehisa asked the two boys that stood in front of him. To the right was his first born son, Shimazu Toyohisa. He had messy black hair and light grey eyes. He had the regular body of a 4 year old and looked childish while trying to look serious.
The boy next to him was his second born son, Shimazu Takeru. He has black hair that was as messy as his brothers and they basically looked the same beside his yellow eyes.
"A samurai is a warrior for his Lord right?" Takeru answered with a question.
"Right, but wrong. Toyohisa, what do you think?"
"I think they're warriors like Takeru said." He answered.
"I see. You're both right and wrong. The samurai are people. While they are warriors on the inside, they are people first. To be a samurai you need to be many things and you must have many qualities." He said as he started pacing back and forwarth.
"You need Honor, Respect, Integrity, Heroic Courage, Honesty & Sincerity, Duty & and Loyalty, lastly, you need Compassion. This is the Bushido Code of Virtues." He said as he looked at his boys seriously.
Behind him were seven scrolls that rolled down with all seven terms and what they meant.
"Samurai live by this code and die by this code. Are you prepared to live your life as a warrior by this code?" He asked.
""Yes Sir!!"" They said in unison.
"Good, we'll be going over these terms while conditioning your body for two months. Then we will begin your combat training. Now, Takeru, read off the expectations of Honor." Iehisa said.
"Warriors have only one judge of honor and character and this is themselves…"
For the next hour or so they had a discussion about the ways of a samurai. They were told the type of training they'd be doing and most of all that they had to be diligent. Once you start there was no going back or dropping out.
…
"Takeru, what do you think we'll learn first?" Toyohisa asked as they sat in the flower garden out back.
"Hmm, I think we'll learn how to ride a horse first. If not, it'll definitely be archery." Takeru replied in a relaxed voice.
"Aww man, I wanted to learn how to use those swords." He said as he picked up a stick and started swinging it around. It was a weak imitation of how the real samurai swung, but it was good nonetheless.
"Hmm, father never said we couldn't start conditioning early nor did he say we couldn't practice on our own." Takeru said as he leaned forward and looked at his brother.
"But we'd be going behind his back right?" Toyohisa asked.
"Nope, he didn't tell us not to, so it won't be like we're defying orders. We're just showing how much passion we have to be samurai." Takeru answered .
"Ohhhh, I see. Let's go!" Toyohisa said as they both ran off.
They ran around the side of the castle and went into the Sparring Room. This was where their father said they would be training till they were old enough to go to battles. They went over to a closet that had some training equipment for their size.
They grabbed a bokken and put the gear on as they went to the center of the room. Although they hadn't had any practice, they had been watching other samurai and could imitate what they saw.
They put the bokkens to their hips and bowed to each other before getting on guard. Toyohisa dashed forward with incredible speed for a four year old boy. His bokken over his shoulder as he arrived and swung it down on Takeru only for his strike to be blocked.
Takeru pushed Toyohisa back as he tried taking a quick swing from the right to the left. Toyohisa blocked it and dashed forward again with a smile on his face. Takeru smirked as he also ran forward and sent a downward slash at Toyohisa.
Blocking it, he spun his body to the left and tried to hit Takeru in the side, but his attack was blocked. The two jumped back and ran at each other, but just as their blades were upon each other there was a shout.
"STOP!!"
They turned and saw their father looking at them in their eyes with a serious look of his own.
"What do you two think you're doing?" He said as he slowly stepped into the room. The boys backed up as he approached.
"W-we…" Toyohisa started trembling over his words.
"We were training father." Takeru said as he looked his father in the eyes. Showing no signs of fear.
"Why?!" Iehisa asked.
"Because we want to be samurai now. No more waiting, let's just train already." Takeru said.
"Yeah, we're ready to be samurai already." Toyohisa jumped in.
"Hmm, no, but I like the sense of fearlessness. Good job on passing my test." He said as he walked off. His two sons followed him.
"What test?" Toyohisa asked.
"A test of courage. Would you be able to stand up to me if it was for something you truly wanted or believed. If so, you pass and congratulations you did. If you fail, then you wait till next year to start your training." He explained.
"Are we in trouble or can we still train on our own?" Takeru asked.
"Hmm, since it seems you have some type of sword proficiency we can start tomorrow, but don't expect it to be easy. We'll be going the full route. Meditating, physical training, kenjutsu, etc. This won't be easy. I'll ask again. Are you sure you want to be a samurai?"
""Yes!""
"Good. Then get back to what you were doing. Get some sparring in before and you'll be ready to go." He said as he walked off. Toyohisa and Takeru stopped and high-fived wach other before running off.
"Those boys will definitely be something when they're older. I wonder what schools I should send them to after they're done with my intro training?" Iehisa thought as he walked back inside the main building.
For the rest of the day the two boys went at it. Fighting and taking breaks in between before starting again. Everyone was amazed at their performance with a sword to the point Iehisa and Nejime started asking if anyone was teaching them behind his back.
They denied it, but in their head they all thought someone had to be lying. In honesty, the boys were just adapting as they fought. Although Takeru couldn't use Zoro's sword style, he would in the future. He was also still able to deflect and counter Toyohisa's attacks.
Toyohisa focused on straight forward, insta-kill, fast combat and was a natural with a sword. Takeru focused on deflection, parrying, blocking and counter attacking with one insta-kill move.
They were like two sides of the same coin.
…
(First POV)
—1 Week Later—
Our training had already begun. We meditate in the morning before working out to clear our minds for the day. After 30 minutes of that we get a staff, put two buckets of water on each side and run with them, do squats, when doing push-ups we put one on our backs and if it falls we have to start over.
After 2 hours and 30 minutes of that we move on to unarmed combat. We trained in the Bujutsu style and it was a lot like karate, judo, and aikido. We did this for 1 hour and 30 minutes since as samurai we would almost always have a weapon on us.
Next, was weapon work. This is what we spent most of our time on. 2 hours with the bokken, 2 hours with a bow and arrow, and lastly 1 hour of meditation before we could do what we wanted.
Of course we ate and took breaks but it made no difference to the workout.
Currently, I'm practicing LINE techniques.
LINE is a close quarters combat system, derived from various martial arts, used by the United States Marine Corps between 1989 and 1998, and then from 1998 through to 2007 for the US Army Special Forces. It was developed by retired combat-arms Marine Ron Donvito.
Officially, the name stands for Linear Infighting Neural Override Engagement; this is, however, a backronym coined during the project's inception.
The system was designed to be executed within specific and stringent combat-oriented conditions:
all techniques must not be vision dominant; techniques may be executed effectively in low-light conditions, or other impaired visibility conditions (i.e., smoke or gas)
extreme mental and physical fatigue
usable by the Marine/soldier while wearing full combat gear
proper execution of the techniques must cause death to the opponent
gender neutrality; must be usable by—and against—either gender
These parameters are viewed as the most likely conditions that a combat Marine or Soldier would face in close-range combat since most close combat engagements were likely to occur at night or under reduced visibility, while the Marine was fatigued and wearing his combat load, and when facing asymmetrical odds, such as a numerically superior force.
These requirements meant that many flamboyant techniques, exotic kicks, or movements requiring extraordinary feats of strength or agility were excluded from consideration under the LINE system. Techniques like classic judo "hip throw", for instance, were excluded because of the possibility of entanglement on a practitioner's war-belt.
The system's techniques were designed to be easily learned and retained through repetition. The requirement and demands that the system is drilled, repeated, and constantly revisited have led to some criticism since the primary users – military and special operations personnel – often have enormous demands upon their time, and as a consequence often lacked the ability to maintain high degrees of proficiency in the techniques.
It was built to directly kill your opponent, which makes it one of the deadliest martial arts in the world. But, because it was relatively inflexible especially for non-emergent situations such as peacekeeping operations, the US army isn't using it anymore, rather they decided to use MCMAP.
Well that's all that I remember from the internet. My memory improved tremendously as you can imagine, but it's not perfect. I do have to take a moment to connect things.
Anyways. The point is that this was made to kill. The main reason I'm working on this rather than my sword skill is because as a samurai people would expect you to have your weapon and fight with a blade.
If they saw someone like me just bodying their army and I haven't even drawn my blade yet they would truly be scared and confused. Hopefully this physiological method would help.
Either way, I plan to work to at least be able to survive the battle at Sekigahara. If I do die there, it'll be interesting to see what killed me.
