12 Pride and Joy

After a giant lunch both Orion and Marcus nodded off for a little over an hour. When they woke up Orion was slightly surprised that his body had recovered from barely being able to walk on his own to 50% of his peak condition.

Although he was still struggling to walk it was still bearable. Despite his son's monstrous recovery Marcus still ended up carrying him so as to save time.

After travelling for 20 minutes, (what would've taken over 2 hours had Orion walked by himself) they reached the top of a cliff. The first thing Orion noticed was the horrific winds.

[I'd struggle to even move up here with out being carried away by the winds.]

Marcus smiled as he said.

"Welcome to Gale Cliff. This is the place both ours and your uncles families trained our movements for the past few generations.

You're not at a level where you can train in any movement techniques but being the wind devil fruit holder, I figured this was the perfect place for you to train your devil fruit abilities."

As he said that he lowered Orion down so he could get off.

"So your aim over the next year is to be able to counter balance the winds up here with your devil fruit so you can move around perfectly whilst up here without having to resist the winds with raw strength."

As Orion stood on the ground he realised the winds were even more powerful than he originally believed as he was immediately forced off his feet.

Seeing him fail so miserably brought a strange satisfaction to Marcus.

"Haha looks like we finally found something you can't learn immediately!"

Orion wanted to curse his father for taking so much pleasure in seeing him fail but he was too busy trying to find his footing. Every time he tries to stand, the wind pushes him right back on the ground!

"Remember, the whole point of this is to train your devil fruit not your strength."

Hearing his dad's voice a light bulb went off in Orion's.

[I'm such an idiot! When the wind pushed me to the left, I tried to lean to the right. Instead I should use my own wind to counter balance it.]

Thinking there Orion closed his eyes in an attempt to feel where the wind would come from.

[There!]

As he felt the wind rushing towards him, Orion attempted to generate winds of his own to push against the incoming wind.

[Haha it worked!]

Just as Orion felt excited by him figuring out the trick to it, a stronger wind rushed at him. Just as he was about to counter it, another wing surged forth knocking him on his arse. It was almost as if the wind was angry about being challenged so decided to actively fight back.

Seeing him fall, Marcus couldn't help but laugh at the sight.

The duo spent the next 3 hours there, both spent the majority of their time on the ground. The only difference being that where Orion was knocked over against his will, Marcus was on the ground rolling with laughter.

After 3 hours of failing miserably it was finally time to head home. Orion didn't say a word the whole way home, instead he rested on his fathers back as he pondered over what went wrong.

[How am I supposed to stay on my feet. As I'm preparing to resist one incoming wind, 3 more rush at me at the same time.]

When they arrived home Orion rushed to the bathroom to wash up before dinner. Whilst he was washing up, Marcus was being interrogated by his wife.

"Why is he walking so tenderly?"

"Because your son pushed himself till he had nothing left to give!"

Just as Mira was about to interrogate him further, he continued.

"But his talent is like nothing I've ever seen."

If there was one thing any parent enjoyed it was being told how incredible their child was and Mira was no exception.

She forgot about interrogating Marcus and allowed for him to tell her about Orion's accomplishments.

By the time he was done, Mira was smiling from ear to ear.

When Orion came out of the bathroom, the family enjoyed a nice and peaceful dinner together.

After Dinner Marcus, took Orion out to the back of the house and passed him a short wooden sword in a matching wooden sheathe.

"Now for your first lesson in swordsmanship. There are 5 foundation moves when it comes to the sword."

1. Chop (vertical swing)

2. Slash (horizontal swing)

3. Stab

4. Sword drawing

5. Block

All other techniques are just variations on these 5 moves, after truly perfecting these 6 moves, it'll allow for you to understand the sword twice as fast with half the effort."

He then began to show a perfect demonstration of each technique.

"You are to perform 100 of each stance and I'll correct you as you go."

It took another 2 hours before his final training session of the day ended and his body was terribly fatigued.

Even though his body was aching all over before he even started the swordsmanship lesson he forced himself to put the pain he was feeling to the back of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

As a result, when the lesson finally ended, the fatigue he was forcibly suppressing rushed over him in one go knocking him out.

Luckily Marcus was there to catch him before he fell. As Marcus looked at his son, he couldn't help but feel pride and joy.

[That's my son!]