wrote:Voyage Name: Onee-sama knows best?
Location:Lulusia, common grounds
Participant(s): Solo
Description: An npc rear admiral(the older sister trope) will find Itsumo practicing his bow and arrow to blow off some steam. As his commanding officer, she was aware of him having a devil fruit due to her tendency to micromanage her troops,but never saw him use his power until now. The resulting revelation will lead him to go on a different training regiment and new orders designed to let him make full use of his powers. From regimented patrol grunt to having the freedom to tackle issues how he sees fit.

Enemies: Mostly 1/1/1/1/1 grunts with a 3/3/3/3/1 captain who is cornered at the end of the voyage.
Goal: The results of this voyage should be Itsumo breaking out of his shell, from being an uncomfortable grunt to an independent fighter who fighter using his suna suna more liberally.

His heart raced and sweat drenched him as he tossed and turned in his bed. The scene playing itself in his mind over and over again, the moment when that monster of a pirate charged his battalion’s formation. Each thunderous stomp made him grit his teeth. The looming shadow enveloping him, the memory of his knees which felt like jelly bore into his soul. He struck his nightstand and popped up out of bed breathing as if he had ran a marathon at bootcamp. It had been a week since his first encounter with a pirate, but he still couldn’t get over how afraid he was. “An animal would have went down...there was something unnatural about that man, besides his extreme toughness”. Itsumo grinned as he got up to use the restroom. His hands planted into his sink, he stared long and hard into the mirror. “ You’re just a normal person Itsumo...how are you supposed to fight something that can fucking take a bullet and laugh it OFF”!

In a fit of rage he cocked his fist and struck his mirror. “Haha fuck, it didn’t even break”, he said as he shook his hand. As he fell to his knees, he looked at his palm to see the lingering sand in his hand. “Maybe I outta try something else”...

Routine, it had been brought back to his life for the time being. At the common grounds there was not much trouble to be had. The threat of execution was always a looming threat ever since the first attempted coup. Due to that event, the queen had cooperated more with marines and other world government entities because she presumably didn’t trust her army entirely anymore.

He sighed and joined formation like usual. Standard issue rifle in hand, he marched with his unit down as his group got weary stares. The people on this island did not hate the marines, but they weren’t particularly cooperative as well. A very independent nation that would rather let criminals run free due to their own inability to clean up, than to let the world government “sink its teeth” into their hide. Itsumo resented such comments whenever he went to eat. Not only were people on edge with their own kind, but they also looked upon marines as if they were invaders. He saw this in a panicked woman who scoop up her child with a scornful look in her eyes. “Cmon Nao, don’t mix with these dogs”, she said as the fire in her eyes burned like a raging wildfire. In the doorway, their father could be seen with a rifle of his own as she rushed into her home.

Itsumo didn’t resent these people, but he was always more weary of the populace than the criminals within. At the end of his shift late in the afternoon, he changed into civilian clothing and went over into the woods at the outskirts of town. Lately he’d find himself perched upon a boulder, overlooking the river flowing through the common grounds. A quick scan of the area revealed a multitude of trees, some grassy areas, and birds flying over head. Sand began to coalesce in his hand, slowly taking the shape of an arrow shaft. The sound of the shifting sand died down as it hardened into an ordinary looking bow.

He stood tall and began to pull back his bowstring. His breathing was steadied by years of experience and training. The bow began to creak as its curved ends expressed the stress they were under. When a chill ran down his spine. “ Who’s there”?! He turned to find squirrel scurrying about. As he relaxed his bow, he laughed out loud, before turning back to his target. The arrow he first shot, flew so fast he barely had time to register its movement before striking the tree. He gulped and lost his rhythm for a moment. “ That certainly is different than using a regular arrow”, he said laughing out loud. As another arrow coalesced in his free hand, he was trying to remember the sensation it gave him. The feeling he had as it moved through the air, twas akin to a piece of him flying faster than he could register. Again, he fire but this time concentrating on it, willing it just slightly to the left. Again, it hit with a thud, but had indeed slightly moved how he wanted. “I wonder, what if I...imagine where I want it to go”?

Word count:759

Itsumo pulled back his bowstring and imagined a zig zag pattern. The arrow started to shake in its stationary position. Curious, he let the string relax and held the arrow in his hand. Itsumo imagined it going to the left, it began to move to the left. He imagined it was moving toward the right, it began to move to the right. “Odd...it feels like an extension of myself”, he said with a sense of vexation. There was a slight shuffling to behind him again, like the slow deliberate approach of a predator. Itsumo drew his bow once more with a long creak. He sighed, before turning about face, expecting to see a monster. Or rather, what he expected was a bear or a mountain lion. What met his gaze was far more terrifying than 100 predators. His surprise made his fingers slip, sending the arrow flying toward the girl staring at him with a grimace. Itsumo felt his heart sink, creepy or not he didn’t mean to shoot at her. He closed his eyes and expected the worst. “How...am I gonna explain..this”?

Just at that moment, flames surrounded him. They were unnatural, moving as if they if had a life of their own. His first instinct was the take a leap of faith off the boulder, toward the hill leading toward the river beneath him, but that plan was foiled by flames with surrounded him in a perfect circle. “ Yes, how are you going to explain this, Itsumo, Rifleman of the 5th regiment of Lulu”? He sensed the arrow burn behind the short girl approaching him. Her blade sung a blood thirsty song, with dancing flames enveloping it. She stepped through the wall of fire as if it was nothing and grinned, “ Yo”.

“R-r-rear Admiral Tsugumi of the hellfire blade”, he said with a gulp. “Please make it quick”, he said while pointing to his jugular and heart. He stood stiff as a board saluting her, waiting his punishment, eyes tightly closed. After a few minutes he hesistantly opened his eyes to see her scowl. With a half cocked fist, she jabbed his stomach and sent him flying a few yards back. As he tumbled, he fought to catch his breath and was naturally in a combat stance by habit. “Uh uhhhh uh, sorry I didn’t mean...to”. As his mind was going blank and sweat drenched his face, he fought to stand in a erect position again. “Interesting, you’ve habituated certain habits that would let you counter at a moment’s notice. Who taught you”?

Itsumo breathed heavily two more times to catch his breath and said, “My father taught me”. She shrugged and said, “ Good, it seems like you have the basics. I won’t have to teach you how to wipe your ass either”. She walked past him and stood perched upon the boulder overlooking the valley, seemingly putting the flames out as she sheathed her sword once again. He watched in awe as there wasn’t a trail of the fire that had just enveloped the area. “Are your flames...g-ghost flames”? She spit to the side and pointed at it, “ Just shut up and stand there”.

She held her hand at her temple to survey the surroundings until she found the tree he was firing at. “Okay, your job right now is to stand in that exact spot and hit both sides of that tree without moving from there”. He blinked a few times, expecting her to grin and tell him it was a joke. “ But how can I do that Rear admiral”?

“Onee-san, you can call me Onee-san”. He fumbled and asked, “ What does that mean”? She grinned and said, “ It means you’re my bitch until you can do as I say. You’re to report here everyday and not step foot in town until you can do it”. He stood there dumbfounded and began to speak, but she cut him off with a swipe of her arm. “ Ah ah ah, not a peep from you. Just like my Kitsunebi, you can will your suna suna arrows. I expect results within the week”.

Day 1
Itsumo woke up bright and early to tackle the challenge at hand. It seemed as if his supreme commander on the island was not joking. He was turned away from the front gates with a sadistic grin. The guards who normally did not say much, rubbed his nose in dirt and gave him a couple of kicks to the ribs for their time. “ Rear admiral says we gotta crack down on bums. Lot of them coming the base recently. Have a good day”, he said with a grin. Itsumo looked around to find no such problem. He was scuffed up and dirty from the beating he just took. From a window he looked up to find her standing there with a cup of tea, waving back at him as he caught her gaze.

Not to be discouraged, he used what meager beli he had on hand to buy some supplies and a change of clothing. Now once again, perched upon the spot he was told, he decided to try a different approach. “My arrow moves wayyyy to fast to see its trajectory after firing it, but what if..”, he said looking down at the arrow seated upon his two open palms. He threw it like a spear and felt a connection to his arrow.But he could not really control it. He tried poses, tossing the arrows and saying commands, “ I command you arrow of mine, to COME BACK TO ME”! Ofcourse, it flopped to the ground and did not budge.

He stuck his hands out after a couple of dozen duds, staring intently as his arrows sticking out of the ground. “Come to me...you little”, but alas he had no luck.These arrows of sand truly felt connected to him, but he had no idea how to control them. In his hand, he could feel them move. Heck he was even able to balance one in mid air ever so slightly, maybe 1 cm from his palm. Though he could not make it move the way he wanted, nor could he do it on his left hand. He ended his first day of training frustrated and cold, as he huddled around a small fire and lied in his sleeping bag just as he had done on those hunting trips as a child. “ I’ll get it next time, just you watch, stupid commander lady”.

Day 4
The next few days he had made the discovery that all he could do was curve the arrow’s trajectory, perhaps in an arc no greater than 35 degrees. Day in and day out he was practicing using instinct rather than deliberate control. Each arrow moved so fast, that it felt like trying to keep track of a bullet. He clearly felt them travel like a tickle feeling in his gut. Trying to control the arrow gave him butterflies, a couple of times making him throw up. He didn’t let up firing arrow after arrow, watching them fly off into nowhere, or hit the ground prematurely because he turned them too hard.

An easy way to compare it is like driving and on a turnpike of a freeway. Too fast and you’ll drive right off, but too little speed and you may cause an accident. He was stuck trying to figure out how much he pulled on the arrows and how much force he should put on the bow string. “1 one thousand, 2 one thousand..3 one thousand”, was how he measured each tick on the bow string’s power. In his mind he imagined an invisible line, to guide where he wanted it to fly. At some point he became so focused that he forget to breath and didn’t notice the setting sun. The pangs in his stomach did not deter him either. Before each shot he closed his eyes, before imagining the line. “ FIRE”, he roared sending the arrow on a path so close to his desired point, that he couldnt help but roar at the sky. “ Damnit, I won’t be able to do that again, stupid fucking piece of shit arrows”!

Day 6
His fingers were bleeding and his arms felt as if they were on fire. Simply pulling back the string felt like moving the world, as his bow faltered and lungs screamed bloody murder. Yet, for one fleeting moment all faded away as he positioned his bow at a 45 degree angle, relative to the tree’s face. His pupils contracted and all he saw at that moment was the imaginary line as the arrow flew faster than he see. Itsumo could only feel it move, as it curved in mid air and cleanly buried its tip into the trunk. “Same thing...no good”.

It was at this moment he heard rustling in the nearby vicinity. He sat up expecting to see a predator, but instead it was an old man passing through. He propped himself up with a walking stick, showing off his pronounced hunchback. He approached Itsumo’s firing spot and nodded his head a few times. “ You’re so troubled young man. You must find your own flow”, he said as he stared off into the distance. Itsumo winced as he hobbled over to the elderly man who pointed toward the arrows. “You’re trying too hard to control it. Your resisting where it wants to go, that’s why it won’t work”.

Itsumo spit to the side as he began to coalesce another arrow of sand within his free hand. “ Any tips for finding this flow”? The old man shrugged, taking a single step forward and staring hard at the arrows he had previously fired. The littered the field and turned the trunk into a pincushion. “ Think like a river, let your inner strength flow in one direction, where it wants to go”. Itsumo scoffed, as he lined up to take his next shot. As the arrow began to bend and his heart began to pick up the pace, he felt his lungs strain to the max. He grit his teeth and tightened his grip on the bow until he felt as if his hands were start gushing out blood.”Shhh”, he felt a hand on his bowstring hand, push ever so slightly forward. The old man’s hands straightened his posture and his head was shifted to the left ever so slightly. “ Control your breathing, feel your own power well up inside”.

Itsumo wasn’t sure what was going on, but he trusted the old guy and spent a few minutes stabilizing his mind. His breathing began to flow with his heartbeat, and the strain of his maintaining the arrow felt empowering. He grinned and lifted his bow ever so slightly as if a feeling of power rose within him. The line was clear as day, “ Fly, fucking fly”! The arrow burst forth, flying in the arc he had imagined. It curved ever so slightly, but it missed its mark by a few feet. Itsumo threw his hands into the air cheering the seemingly abrupt victory he had over his struggles until that current point. He turned to face the old man and held his hand out saying, “ By the way I didn’t introduce myself sir. The name’s...Itsumo”, he said slacked jawed as he looked into the eyes of the man. Cataracts had left his eyes akin to pearls with pronounced varicose veins sticking out. The old man obliged his grip and said, “ You’ve a long way to go child. Where ever you end up at tomorrow, do not fret”. Itsumo steeled himself and found his composure as his grip loosened. “ Yes, sensei”!

Day 7

Itsumo and the man parted ways the night before, as he wandered off into the wilderness. Itsumo tried to insist that he at least accompany the man, but he turned and said, “ Don’t you have a task boy”? Itsumo felt the sting, but he bowed anyways and saw the stranger off as he went to make dinner. “ Hey wait a sec, he didn’t tell..ugh fuck it”.

Itsumo was up at dawn, preparing his arrows to finally conquer his task at hand. “ Onee-san is coming, better hurry up”, he said before catching himself in the act. He stopped and collected himself for a brief moment and approached the boulder’s crown once more. He failed time and time again, but with each failure he noted how much power he gave the arrow, his stance, and his focus.

“99...this’ll make 99 arrows”, he said a bit glum. His focus solely on the task at hand, that he didn’t notice his commander approaching him in plain site. She expected even just a glance, but her subordinate did not turn around. The arrow he shot flew, but it didn’t hit its mark again. “ Still feels a bit too rigid, tch, damnit”. He grabbed his hundredth arrow and closed his eyes as he pulled back his string. He imagined a raging river, thrashing about as it spilled past its boundaries. He shook his head and began to calm himself, “ Win or lose, I’ll go face that...scary...err”. He felt a sensation wash over himself, similar to the last arrow he shot with the old man. He breathed in and out with a rythm that washed over his body like a tidal wave. The river in his mind met up with him as it flowed true, even amongst the zigzags in his heart. He grit his teeth and pulled back, feeling the arrow creak again. However this time, it felt right as he let go, the blur of an arrow escaped his vision, but he felt it move. This time, the arrow dug into the tree’s side at 50 degree angle. He fell backwards, feelign the harsh sting of gravy course through his veins. His vision was spinning and his head felt it was going to come off.That’s when he saw his grinning commander, hands at her hips as she looked down on him. “Onee-sama I did it once I think”.

“ You think”? He sloppily moved his hand to his temple and said, “ Sir yes sir, I have...done it once”. She waved her hands around her nose and pinched it with her fingers saying, “ ewww you fucking smell. Go take a shower and report for duty starting tomorrow”. He weakly nodded his head as her shadow disappeared and the vast blue sky revealed itself. She had a shit eating grin, “ progress is progress I guess”.

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Itsumo came back after a day of rest with his sleeping bag slung and bow slung over his shoulder. As he approached town, he noticed the streets were a little barren to say the least. A battalion, his battalion passed him by. Sprinting through like a stampede, rifles and swords at the ready. His friend noticed him and beckoned to him, “ Trouble at the market square, let’s go”! He nodded and sprinted after them until he caught missing tooth. “ What in sam hell is going on here man”? He grimaced and said, “ the nephew of a warlord is trying to escape with a hostage. We’re trying to break through and save her.

After a few minutes they began to take cover as the sound of a gatling gun ripped through the square. Brick was ripped from its foundation as the smoke of rifle fire filled the air. On the otherside of the square, a hotshot kid dressed up in a clean uniform with a girl who was dangling like a ragdoll at his hop.” Well, can we get through man”? The pirate shook his head and fired backa the marines on the other side. “We’re about to be surrounded sir”.

Itsumo grimaced and sprint to a nearby alleyway, to find a service ladder leading to a tavern’s rooftop. He heard the hotshot say, “ Oi you marines, if you don’t want this bitch noble to die, you’ll stand the fuck down”! He said, behind a brick wall, with a speaker den den. Itsumo was around 3 stories up and could see the whole battlefield. He began to make a sand arrow when the hotshot yelled again, “ I said, stand down”! The girl had woke up from the commotion, her voice escaped through the den den who was crying now. “ please I don’t wanna die”!

Then it had a frown as he responded, “ See oi, stand down”! Itsumo seemingly aimed at nothing, with a fiery look in his eyes. A knife was pulled to the girl’s neck as the hotshot leader became desperate. “ on the count of three, she’s dead! 1….2….thr---”, was all he could say before yelling filled the square via the den den. Itsumo pulled his string again,imagined its trajectory, before eyeing his target again. The second arrow flew as he was chasing the girl with an arrow stuck in his left shoulder. A second arrow, hit his knee and sent him tumbling down. His men all panicked at that moment, but the key ones were shot down by itsumo. His alles realizing the break, began to rush them as their machine gunner writhed on the ground in agony. Itsumo however, was not aware of his surroundings anymore. Rather than run after his job was done, he was hit by an enemy sniper who fired his last shot at him before being dogpiled by marines.

Itsumo’s eyes widened, as he looked down to a fresh shade of red staining his fingers. Out of panic he fell from the roof and was most certainly headed for his demise, but at the last moment his commander flew out and caught him in her arms. “Geez kid, you’re a pain in the ass”, she said as she wiped at her uniform. “ uhh gross blood and sand mixed in it”! A pair of medics came to retrieve the injured Itsumo who had taken a bullet to the gut. “ Geez get here faster next time guys”! Her subordinates ignored her and immediately began first aid in order to stabilize him. “Tch, bastards”, she said as she stormed off, shouting orders at her other peons.

Hours later after all the commotion, in the dead of night a robed figure approached the spot where Itsumo was firing his bow. He let his hand fly across the ground and began to rub his index and thumb together. “ Sand”? He looked toward where he remembered the nephew of his boss had gone down. “This angle...is unnatural. Could it be, a devil fruit”? It was at that moment he heard someone else approach him with soft steps. “So who’re you supposed to be”?

The figure turned to see his commander and grinned, “ Aye the great HellFIRE Tsugumi, I trust the runt is doing well”? She spit to the side and said, “ Tch, tough little bastard. Took out two battalions before he was corned. He’s alright, already bitching in his cell about its amenities”. The man grinned and said, “ Ahh that’s so like the young master xin, to joke even when hes in custody. You know you’re lucky right”? A bit of fire sparked at that comment, her eyes focused and were now trained on him with an deathly scowl. “ No worries, your little pet only knocked the young master down. We’ll be retrieving him in the morn. Please try not to make a fuss about it”. The man fell backwards and disappeared into the night, leaving the rear admiral speechless at the threat.

“Fuck”.

The next morning, the mummified hotshot Xin was standing at Itsumo's bedside and looking down on him. "So yer the turd eh. I'll get you back", he said to the unconscious Itsumo. He began to walk out with a shit eating grin as the nurses trembled at the side. " Ah ah no worries, he won this round. I'll get him next time girls. Ciao".

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