Post by Zaru on Mar 3, 2018 17:07:50 GMT
Zaru's eyes were closed, but he could see everything around him.
As he focused on the Ki, the flowing energy of life around him, he could feel everything that was happening. He saw birds fluttering around the trees above his head, the odd animals of Mount Paozu grazing on the green of the grass and the hunters of the forests chasing down their prey. There was a natural order here, even if humans did their best to disrupt it. He wasn't under any delusion that nature somehow had a superior way of doing things; he was a human as well, after all. What he did know, was that nature held balance with in it. Nature was what he focused on when he needed to center his being, control his Ki. His form of martial art was based off of that same natural flow, the energy that seemed to be a part of all life, even if a majority of life was completely ignorant of it.
Maybe that was what he liked the most, even if he never cared to admit it. He liked that he knew, while others didn't. That he could manipulate Ki, have the opportunity to redeem himself. Zaru's eyes opened and he stared at the grass he sat cross-legged on. He shouldn't be dawdling like this, there was training to. There'd been much hubbub around Earth as a whole, especially in the Southern Continent. There was a great tournament happening. Part of him had wanted to put himself there, but...he hadn't been ready. He knew that he wasn't when he had listened to his own senses. He had to prepare, to train, to mentally steel himself for when the day came that he would be at that level. The level that would allow him to protect Earth, as much as just the forest.
Poachers were one thing, but the planet had been under threat before. The Changeling Empire had been a constant threat for many out beyond the skies, and now there was talk that the Saiyan King himself had touched down to fight for a wish on Namek's dragonballs. He wondered if he would perhaps go to Namek, and witness it for himself. Zaru stood up, standing in a forest clearing. His eyes closed again as he began to listen, and he seemed still and tranquil, animals moving up and grazing near him, realizing he was no threat. Suddenly, he had moved, though it seemed more like he disappeared from view entirely.
Zaru leaped from branch to branch in the forest, climbing in altitude as he moved across his pre-ordained course. He'd prepared it for himself because of how difficult he'd found it before. He placed tiny markers; little targets on the trunks of trees. He had to strike them with just enough force to produce a hole, while not damaging the tree trunk himself. As he leaped between trees, he kicked the first. Perfect. While it was only the beginning, a good start indicated what was to come up ahead. Continuing his journey, Zaru encountered his first obstacle.
As he leaped, he went over a small nest of baby birds; doing his best to avoid causing them any harm. That didn't resonate with their large, predatory mother, though. The bird began to give chase, and Zaru put it to himself as a challenge that he would get rid of it, without causing real harm. The exile began to slow, enough that the bird could reach him. As it came down, trying to slash at him with its beak, he leaped and turned in the air. His fingers caught around the beak, holding it closed as he continued to hurtle forward, the bird simply looking confused as it didn't know what was happening. Zaru threw his arm up, sending the bird up as well as he turned again, sticking his leg out into a back kick. His heel struck the second target, breaking it. Tree trunk undamaged.
He continued, the cold now biting in general as he began reaching Paozu's higher areas. The trees were a blur as his speed only picked up, rocketing past much of the greenery. Animals and small packs of hunting tribespeople looked up in confusion as something rustled the leaves of the trees, causing quite a few to fall to the ground. Some, amongst the more dangerous of them, especially those tribesmen who had the rudimentary ideas of Ki saw a bit more of the blur that passed by, believing it to be some kind of ethereal figure, perhaps a ghost of displeased ancestors that brought the wind behind them.
Zaru now leaped off snow on the branches, heading upwards as he maintained a stoic expression on his face. Some martial arts forms were more reliant on emotion, on reading the tells of an opponent or simply letting out everything you had. For him, it was different. There was a serenity about him, a calmness that enveloped whatever he did. He didn't want to cause any harm, and he didn't love violence like some. It was a necessary thing, and if done for the right reasons, was a good act at that. As he got ever closer, his eyes caught the third and fourth targets up ahead.
They were on tree trunks beside each other, and Zaru had devised a plan for how he would deal with these, in the heat of the moment. Leaping off a previous branch, he straightened out and flew through the air head first, only in a jump, holding back from using his own abiliting of flight. He opened his hands and held them out straight at each side, almost like arrowheads as they pierced the small targets, just lightly tapping the tree trunks beneath them. Pulling back his arms, Zaru was fast enough not to stop his momentum as he landed on the grass below. Now it was more of a sprint. A strange blur and odd lines began to make a mad dash through the snow, leaving barely visible footprints on the surface as he travelled up and up, heading near the peak. Snow now battered the area, rushing inbetween the maze of trees he rushed through.
And there it was. There was a small formation of rocks up ahead, and as soon as Zaru saw them, he leaped and landed on the first. He was now leaping again, his feet just lightly touching on every one of the boulders that he passed by. He was almost bouncing from one to the other, his body twisting and flipping around as he did so. He moved with a certain kind of grace and agility that he didn't really recognize, soaring through the air as he reached near the very end of the formation, and the next step in his training. On the second to last rock, Zaru landed on his feet and leaped, flipping over forward, his head now near and staring right down towards the last. As he cocked back his fist, he surged Ki throughout it, staring right down at the target that lay on the very top of the boulder below him. As his body fell, he let out a yell and thrust his fist downwards, striking into the target and the very top of the rock.
Zaru flipped up and then over again, the target behind him totally undamaged as the rock beneath it began to crack. The exile waited, letting out a deep breath as he heard the familiar sounds. He turned around and looked back, the boulder crunching as more cracks appeared before it finally broke apart, smashing into pieces aside from the sculpture that remained standing there. It was in the visage of a person, with the target appearing like it had been stuck to their forehead. The person looked like a young man, with spiky hair and one hand on his hip, the other waving at someone in the distance. As he approached, Zaru felt a bit of irritation. He'd gotten the hair wrong.
Still, it was his best time thus far, and he took the target off of the sculpture's forehead, placing it near the edge of where he stood, as though waving off of the side of the mountain down towards anyone below or in the distance. Enough planes and odd contraptions flew by here that someone had to see it eventually, after all. Zaru walked closer to the mountain's sheer face, staring up at the long climb to the peak. It seemed difficult, but he'd done it before. Never immediately after one of his courses, but...he could do it. He was confident in that. He retrieved some very tough elastic straps that stayed wrapped around a small handhold in the side of the cliff face, and turned back to the boulders he hadn't smashed into a human's shape.
Usually he only took one, but he had to keep challenging himself. This time, it was too. Strapping two relatively large boulders up and onto his back, he immediately felt the weigh push down on his shoulders and spine, trying to force him to the ground. He focused, centering himself as he let out a deep breath. He could do this. He would do this. Zaru moved to the mountain's face, staring up. First, was the sheer part of it. After that, it was easier. Handholds and footholds. This part would require a lot of concentration, and probably a lot of backache for a week or so. The Exile began to focus his Ki in his body, using it to properly tense himself and maintain an equilibrium. Once he was sure, he suddenly shot forward, his foot stepping onto the sheer face as he suddenly began moving up.
Zaru was now running in a totally vertical direction, the rocks on his back doing their best to try and rip him back down to the ground. He could feel his shoulders and back strain, his arms feeling as though they were about to get pulled out of their sockets, but he couldn't stop. He would not stop, not now. He was doing so well, and he would not accept anything but doing better all the time. Sweat ran down his brown as his face tensed, a redness flushing over his skin and his teeth gritting in intense concentration. Suddenly, he felt his foot hit a corner. He was there. He pushed upwards and forwards, stepping onto somewhere he could at least have a vertical base. His breathing was heavy as he fell to one knee, his face red and almost coated with sweat from the concentration. Staring forward, he looked at the hand and footholds that were soon to be part of today as well.
He moved to the first, the wrenching boulders still on his back as he refused to give himself time to recuperate. Zaru used the hand and footholds to begin pulling himself up, grunting coming from him as the boulders felt far heavier than before, and not just from the fact that he had doubled the weight. It was his stamina, the fatigue setting in from doing so much at once. Not only was he physically tired, but mentally he was the same. He had to keep his Ki focused, channeling through him after he had just used it to create a sculpture in one blow and do highly specific strikes. If he was ever a teacher, a sensei of any kind, he would make sure a student had to deal with this. There was no way he'd go to the grave being the only one he put this through.
As the struggle got harder, his arms heavier, he could see the peak coming closer. The very top, the point that motioned towards the sky. His breathing got more difficult as the air thinned, making it more difficult for him to properly focus the Ki around his body. In one moment, he lost a foot hold and suddenly it slipped entirely, throwing off his balance as the rocks took their opportunity, the weight pulling with all its might. He held onto his handholds for dear life, desperately trying to find the foothold. He let out a deep breath, a sigh of relief as he found it again. He was redfaced and desperate, and he felt a determination, a drive surge through him. This mountain would not defeat him. He could not afford for it to, or he would kill himself through exhaustion trying to climb it again.
Zaru's mind became a blur as his fingers seemed to grip around where the peak stood. It was an oddly rounded Mountain, but Paozu had been kind to him this time, it seemed. Zaru forced his way up, the relief shooting through his back as he got the straps and the boulders off of his back. He was on all fours, sweating and panting as he pulled himself up, shakily, to one knee, and then he stood. Cool air swept his face, parts of his robe billowing in the wind as he stared below at the view of the smaller mountains and rolling hills, the bending road that led to East and then Central City. Although he did do it for hard work more than anything...it felt good to win.
As he focused on the Ki, the flowing energy of life around him, he could feel everything that was happening. He saw birds fluttering around the trees above his head, the odd animals of Mount Paozu grazing on the green of the grass and the hunters of the forests chasing down their prey. There was a natural order here, even if humans did their best to disrupt it. He wasn't under any delusion that nature somehow had a superior way of doing things; he was a human as well, after all. What he did know, was that nature held balance with in it. Nature was what he focused on when he needed to center his being, control his Ki. His form of martial art was based off of that same natural flow, the energy that seemed to be a part of all life, even if a majority of life was completely ignorant of it.
Maybe that was what he liked the most, even if he never cared to admit it. He liked that he knew, while others didn't. That he could manipulate Ki, have the opportunity to redeem himself. Zaru's eyes opened and he stared at the grass he sat cross-legged on. He shouldn't be dawdling like this, there was training to. There'd been much hubbub around Earth as a whole, especially in the Southern Continent. There was a great tournament happening. Part of him had wanted to put himself there, but...he hadn't been ready. He knew that he wasn't when he had listened to his own senses. He had to prepare, to train, to mentally steel himself for when the day came that he would be at that level. The level that would allow him to protect Earth, as much as just the forest.
Poachers were one thing, but the planet had been under threat before. The Changeling Empire had been a constant threat for many out beyond the skies, and now there was talk that the Saiyan King himself had touched down to fight for a wish on Namek's dragonballs. He wondered if he would perhaps go to Namek, and witness it for himself. Zaru stood up, standing in a forest clearing. His eyes closed again as he began to listen, and he seemed still and tranquil, animals moving up and grazing near him, realizing he was no threat. Suddenly, he had moved, though it seemed more like he disappeared from view entirely.
Zaru leaped from branch to branch in the forest, climbing in altitude as he moved across his pre-ordained course. He'd prepared it for himself because of how difficult he'd found it before. He placed tiny markers; little targets on the trunks of trees. He had to strike them with just enough force to produce a hole, while not damaging the tree trunk himself. As he leaped between trees, he kicked the first. Perfect. While it was only the beginning, a good start indicated what was to come up ahead. Continuing his journey, Zaru encountered his first obstacle.
As he leaped, he went over a small nest of baby birds; doing his best to avoid causing them any harm. That didn't resonate with their large, predatory mother, though. The bird began to give chase, and Zaru put it to himself as a challenge that he would get rid of it, without causing real harm. The exile began to slow, enough that the bird could reach him. As it came down, trying to slash at him with its beak, he leaped and turned in the air. His fingers caught around the beak, holding it closed as he continued to hurtle forward, the bird simply looking confused as it didn't know what was happening. Zaru threw his arm up, sending the bird up as well as he turned again, sticking his leg out into a back kick. His heel struck the second target, breaking it. Tree trunk undamaged.
He continued, the cold now biting in general as he began reaching Paozu's higher areas. The trees were a blur as his speed only picked up, rocketing past much of the greenery. Animals and small packs of hunting tribespeople looked up in confusion as something rustled the leaves of the trees, causing quite a few to fall to the ground. Some, amongst the more dangerous of them, especially those tribesmen who had the rudimentary ideas of Ki saw a bit more of the blur that passed by, believing it to be some kind of ethereal figure, perhaps a ghost of displeased ancestors that brought the wind behind them.
Zaru now leaped off snow on the branches, heading upwards as he maintained a stoic expression on his face. Some martial arts forms were more reliant on emotion, on reading the tells of an opponent or simply letting out everything you had. For him, it was different. There was a serenity about him, a calmness that enveloped whatever he did. He didn't want to cause any harm, and he didn't love violence like some. It was a necessary thing, and if done for the right reasons, was a good act at that. As he got ever closer, his eyes caught the third and fourth targets up ahead.
They were on tree trunks beside each other, and Zaru had devised a plan for how he would deal with these, in the heat of the moment. Leaping off a previous branch, he straightened out and flew through the air head first, only in a jump, holding back from using his own abiliting of flight. He opened his hands and held them out straight at each side, almost like arrowheads as they pierced the small targets, just lightly tapping the tree trunks beneath them. Pulling back his arms, Zaru was fast enough not to stop his momentum as he landed on the grass below. Now it was more of a sprint. A strange blur and odd lines began to make a mad dash through the snow, leaving barely visible footprints on the surface as he travelled up and up, heading near the peak. Snow now battered the area, rushing inbetween the maze of trees he rushed through.
And there it was. There was a small formation of rocks up ahead, and as soon as Zaru saw them, he leaped and landed on the first. He was now leaping again, his feet just lightly touching on every one of the boulders that he passed by. He was almost bouncing from one to the other, his body twisting and flipping around as he did so. He moved with a certain kind of grace and agility that he didn't really recognize, soaring through the air as he reached near the very end of the formation, and the next step in his training. On the second to last rock, Zaru landed on his feet and leaped, flipping over forward, his head now near and staring right down towards the last. As he cocked back his fist, he surged Ki throughout it, staring right down at the target that lay on the very top of the boulder below him. As his body fell, he let out a yell and thrust his fist downwards, striking into the target and the very top of the rock.
Zaru flipped up and then over again, the target behind him totally undamaged as the rock beneath it began to crack. The exile waited, letting out a deep breath as he heard the familiar sounds. He turned around and looked back, the boulder crunching as more cracks appeared before it finally broke apart, smashing into pieces aside from the sculpture that remained standing there. It was in the visage of a person, with the target appearing like it had been stuck to their forehead. The person looked like a young man, with spiky hair and one hand on his hip, the other waving at someone in the distance. As he approached, Zaru felt a bit of irritation. He'd gotten the hair wrong.
Still, it was his best time thus far, and he took the target off of the sculpture's forehead, placing it near the edge of where he stood, as though waving off of the side of the mountain down towards anyone below or in the distance. Enough planes and odd contraptions flew by here that someone had to see it eventually, after all. Zaru walked closer to the mountain's sheer face, staring up at the long climb to the peak. It seemed difficult, but he'd done it before. Never immediately after one of his courses, but...he could do it. He was confident in that. He retrieved some very tough elastic straps that stayed wrapped around a small handhold in the side of the cliff face, and turned back to the boulders he hadn't smashed into a human's shape.
Usually he only took one, but he had to keep challenging himself. This time, it was too. Strapping two relatively large boulders up and onto his back, he immediately felt the weigh push down on his shoulders and spine, trying to force him to the ground. He focused, centering himself as he let out a deep breath. He could do this. He would do this. Zaru moved to the mountain's face, staring up. First, was the sheer part of it. After that, it was easier. Handholds and footholds. This part would require a lot of concentration, and probably a lot of backache for a week or so. The Exile began to focus his Ki in his body, using it to properly tense himself and maintain an equilibrium. Once he was sure, he suddenly shot forward, his foot stepping onto the sheer face as he suddenly began moving up.
Zaru was now running in a totally vertical direction, the rocks on his back doing their best to try and rip him back down to the ground. He could feel his shoulders and back strain, his arms feeling as though they were about to get pulled out of their sockets, but he couldn't stop. He would not stop, not now. He was doing so well, and he would not accept anything but doing better all the time. Sweat ran down his brown as his face tensed, a redness flushing over his skin and his teeth gritting in intense concentration. Suddenly, he felt his foot hit a corner. He was there. He pushed upwards and forwards, stepping onto somewhere he could at least have a vertical base. His breathing was heavy as he fell to one knee, his face red and almost coated with sweat from the concentration. Staring forward, he looked at the hand and footholds that were soon to be part of today as well.
He moved to the first, the wrenching boulders still on his back as he refused to give himself time to recuperate. Zaru used the hand and footholds to begin pulling himself up, grunting coming from him as the boulders felt far heavier than before, and not just from the fact that he had doubled the weight. It was his stamina, the fatigue setting in from doing so much at once. Not only was he physically tired, but mentally he was the same. He had to keep his Ki focused, channeling through him after he had just used it to create a sculpture in one blow and do highly specific strikes. If he was ever a teacher, a sensei of any kind, he would make sure a student had to deal with this. There was no way he'd go to the grave being the only one he put this through.
As the struggle got harder, his arms heavier, he could see the peak coming closer. The very top, the point that motioned towards the sky. His breathing got more difficult as the air thinned, making it more difficult for him to properly focus the Ki around his body. In one moment, he lost a foot hold and suddenly it slipped entirely, throwing off his balance as the rocks took their opportunity, the weight pulling with all its might. He held onto his handholds for dear life, desperately trying to find the foothold. He let out a deep breath, a sigh of relief as he found it again. He was redfaced and desperate, and he felt a determination, a drive surge through him. This mountain would not defeat him. He could not afford for it to, or he would kill himself through exhaustion trying to climb it again.
Zaru's mind became a blur as his fingers seemed to grip around where the peak stood. It was an oddly rounded Mountain, but Paozu had been kind to him this time, it seemed. Zaru forced his way up, the relief shooting through his back as he got the straps and the boulders off of his back. He was on all fours, sweating and panting as he pulled himself up, shakily, to one knee, and then he stood. Cool air swept his face, parts of his robe billowing in the wind as he stared below at the view of the smaller mountains and rolling hills, the bending road that led to East and then Central City. Although he did do it for hard work more than anything...it felt good to win.
