The beginning to a short vacation

[It's me, I'm back! Unfortunately, when I was ready to start again, my family took my mac away. Saying I needed to rest since I was in the hospital. They were right; honestly, and everything got worse after the last post and update. It's pretty hard to type since I can't feel my fingertips besides pins and needles, but I want to continue the story, so I will type slowly from now on. I lost my vision and hearing in my left eye and ear, so that kind of sucks... like a lot... but it's whatever. I wasn't satisfied with this scene, so I rewrote it like four times, and it just got messy between my soggy brain and the rewrites.]

Six months had passed in the blink of an eye for the siblings. Getting along with Ray and going to school had been the most relaxing time for them since that was pretty much all they did. Taking care of Ray was easy for them, considering they did most of the chores in their previous life anyway. As for school, well, they had their schooling from their past life as well.

The only other thing that went on outside of school was Aki practicing the sword and teaching Aiki as well. The process of Aiki finding out about the boon was actually a funny one. It had started about two months after they had gotten the apartment. Aki had forgotten to mention his second boon to his sister because he was caught up in reviewing the movements in his head constantly while waiting for Ray to bring him the two wooden swords she promised. When he did mention it to her, finally, she flipped out on him. Beating him up or attempting to for holding out on her and demanding he teaches her.

Now he was teaching her after school every day in the playground and park next to the church they learned at. It was the safest place since it was patroled by both Night City PD, security forces, and church members along with Corpo security that wanted to keep the area as a whole more exclusive.

Practice over the last four months had helped him tremendously. Helping him realize the initial movements for Niten Ichi-Ryu's forms, which had two forms really. The first was for when you had a single sword and was both rigid and smooth and had to do with maintaining an upright position as much as possible. If you had to be agile, it was only as necessary. At the same time, the second form was for a longer and shorter sword or two long swords and had more sweeping, spinning movements, along with scrambling and rolling and being agile from the start. Its focus was going with the flow and moving with the way the swords want, so they cut with max efficiency.

But honestly, the best thing about her memories, Musashi's, was how amazingly polished her basics were. This is what drove her to the top and then beyond, and past Zero, past Root.

Her understanding of the concept is what allowed her to attain the heights no one else did, she pathed away for me, and now I need to capitalize on her memory and experience. Obviously, there was a lot more to her memories; it also showed her training and battles. So Aki knew how she arrived at the levels she did, but he also knew that he would have to reach a level of competency with the basics before he would be able to unlock the other memories.

For instance, the memories of the feeling of achieving emptiness, the ultimate mental state for a swordsman, would help guide Aki to it. Or the memories of using the heavenly eye were part of her swordsmanship and were how she achieved her desired effects, and while Aki had no mystical eyes, the feeling and experience would help replicate a similar effect. And besides, he might have mystical eyes in the future, he thought.

Thinking of the various other skills and going over the forms in his head Aki took a short break as he watched his sister go through the forms for 'Two Hands' where she was using a practice Bokken made for their size and a wooden wakizashi. Seeing the determination on her face as she went as slow as possible to drive the muscle memory home, Aki felt his own muscle twitch just thinking about the stances.

In the four months, Aki had pushed himself and his sister hard. And then some after getting a glimpse of his looks and a comment about being kidnapped by slavers for some old dudes. Mori had mentioned that she would make him look better, but he hadn't realized better meant looking better than Siegfried. There was better looking, and then there was way too good looking, and he was definitely the latter, or so Aki thought. Unfortunately, the girls around him agreed, and he was even allowed to cut his hair without permission, but luckily they had let him trim it up a little bit, so it didn't hang all the way down to his lower back and instead just past his shoulder blades.

Watching Aiki finish up her last movement before she started wiping the sweat off her face, Aki stood up and also started getting ready to head back to the apartment. It was almost time for them to begin cooking dinner; otherwise, Ray would be cranky.

With a short jog back to the building and up the stairs, they were walking the last flight to cool down and catch their breath. When they were at their front door had arrived, Aki had a feeling something was different.

Pulling the glass knife, which was apparently an old tanto called a monoknife made from crystal, from his back pocket and holding it in his left while keeping his bokken in his right, he let the retinal scanner open the door. The silence felt heavier than normal. You could even feel the artificial taste to it.

Aki motioned for his sister to hang back a few steps, reaching in through the doorway to the right with his bokken; he flicked on the light switch to turn on the lights. Scanning the room with a narrow-angle, he didn't see anything weird right away, so he hesitantly advanced through the doorway.

Barely making his way past the frame, he felt the air stir to his left, and along with the wind came a sharp whistling noise. Out the corner of his eye, he made out a pipe swinging for his head, so he bent his knees just enough that the pipe went over his head and landed on the door frame.

*BAM*

Having watched Musashi train every night for six months, what Aki didn't know is those movements had been slowly creating muscle memory in his sleep till they became instinct. So on top of his training with his sister, he was further training at night.

With his knees slightly bent, Aki spun to the left, towards whoever had swung the pipe at him. His spin took him into a lower stance as he brought his broken around into the attacker's left knee. *CRACK* Not stopping his movement, though, Aki continued his spin, so his foot slammed into the man's other knee, bringing him down to Aki's height where the Monoknife cut through the man's elbow. *shnik*

Grabbing his arm, the attacker started to scream out in agony before Aki stopped his spin and jabbed him in the temple with the tip of the Bokken. Dropping to the ground like a bag of potatoes, the attacker's half-arm slowly dripped black oil onto the floor.

"MOTHER FUCKER!" Someone yelled from the left on the opposite side of the door. Looking over his left shoulder, he spotted another man.

Doing a short hop to gather some momentum, he slid, and he passed by that man's leg and cut the back of his knee with his Monoknife, planting his lead foot down the moment he made it past the invader, he rose with a spin. Slamming his rising Bokken in the hand that held some kind of pistol, the pistol went spinning in the air. Unfortunately, the man just ignored the pain in that hand as he reached for the airborne gun with his good hand with an unnatural agility.

Grimacing the man's gun constantly moved towards Aki's body, trying to get a clear shot. Aki saw this while in motion and continued his spin but going back down and cutting at the same spot on his leg again with his Tanto.

*Snick*

"FU-"

Before he could even say anything as he tumbled over due to his leg being cut through, Aki reversed his movement direction with a roll. He was brought out of his roll near where the man's head had landed after he fell on his back. Seeing a gun pointed his way, he rolled past the top of the man's head and slid his Tanto over the attacker's throat mid-roll.

Gurgling sounds came as the man tried to aim the gun again until Aki's Bokken smacked into it again, somehow it angled down from the strike, and the man shot himself in the head.

*BJING*

Blood splattered on the floor and Aki's feet. Looking thoroughly, disgusted and green, Aki picked up the pistol and handed it to his sister.

"Hide behind the kitchen counter; use that if you need to." He said to her, Aiki stared at him in worry. Hopping past the puddle of blood, she hid behind the counter while Aki started towards Ray's side of the apartment. It was a tense few minutes as Aki combed through the apartment and checked behind every door in increasingly cautious ways.

Goings so far as to check under the beds and finding a few... strange toys under Ray's.

Coming out of Ray's room with a blush on his face, he hurried to check their room and noted that it also was clear. The problem now was what to do about the bodies? Was he going to get in trouble for this? Many thoughts of trouble were bouncing around Aki's skull as he walked over to his sister. He hadn't gotten used to how they handled justice in Night City in twenty seventy-seven, where the citizens kept the law more than the police did, and the cops broke it more often than the civilians did.

Standing by Aiki, he stared at the two bodies before pulling out his phone to call Ray. It had just started ringing before the ringing was cut short, and a large amount of fog suddenly rushed out the siblings from all sides, engulfing them.

When the fog finally dissipated, the only thing that was left was Aki's cellphone...