Black Veil of Naps

Okuda could hear the sounds of the man preparing the hunk of earth for...some reason. Okuda’s eyes nearly shot open when he heard the next aspect of the training. That he was going to have to mentally picture his already dead wife’s neck being just below the wick. Okuda let out a sigh as his brow creased in concentration, he began to picture Akane, his beautiful wife that he met in the days of the Meiji Era. Her slender pale neck, dusted by her black hair that was quite long, rivaling his own hair length depending on how the two wore their hair.

Okuda sighed a bit, he did not like this aspect of the training, but he had to admit to himself that he was wondering how that slab of earth would come into play for his training. Okuda then refocused his mind, pointing all of his Reiatsu to the wick of the right most candle once more. Keeping the spiritual energy in a tight stream as it flowed towards the string. He continued to focus himself tightly. He could hear Asahi’s words whispering to him, telling him to burn it all to ashes, to destroy the old man and his home.

Okuda ignored the words, he was after all trying to tame the fire within him. He then pictured an invisible sword being level with the tip of the wick. He then suddenly drew the blade of flames across the tip, making sure it was barely touching the wick this time. He figured that the reason he failed last time was because he did it so slow that the immense heat set off the oils within the wax. By drawing the blade fast, the candle – in theory – would not ignite all at once.

Okuda watched in his mind’s eye as the blade of flames cleanly went across the candle wick. He saw the candle in his mind’s eye burning brightly but still was expecting to hear an explosion. However, he did not hear any such thing nor feel any concussive force. Okuda opened his right eye slowly to see if it had somehow simply just evaporated instead from pure heat, but no his sapphire orb was met with a shock that only subsided when he had opened his left eye. The right most candle was burning brightly and the other two candles stood there solemnly.

He knew that he could extinguish the flame at this point as well, he had extinguished flames as well with his flame control, with a small exhale he managed to kill the young flame. Without waiting for much in terms of orders from Jaeden, Okuda suddenly, now knowing how much ‘strength’ to put behind drawing the sword of flames, drew the blade across each wick, the Reiatsu string splitting into three to touch each candle. As he drew the blade he made sure to angle the blade ever so slightly down so as to catch the right most candle which had shrunk due to the fact that fire melted some of the wax.

He smiled inwardly to himself before releasing his Shikai, obviously quite a bit tired at doing this. He was not used to holding his Shikai for so long. Returning to his usual sword the Shinigami fell to his knees, his face now drenched in sweat as the exhaustion hit him. Okuda looked to Jaeden and spoke with ragged breaths as he was trying to catch his stamina once more “Was...That….Good...Enough?” Okuda was barely able to speak through the breathes he was taking, trying to get as much oxygen into his lungs as he could.

Okuda slowly stood up, his body still exhausted from the effort he had put into his training thus far. Okuda yanked the tip of his Zanpakutō from the ground and slowly placed it back into his scabbard before pulling that and the Zanpakutō from his belt. He slowly sat on the ground, not above such things, and listened as the man spoke. He had placed Asahi on the ground next to him. He was praising Okuda on his efforts and his progress, stating that he was the second student that he had trained in recent months.

Okuda did not know who the other was, but he did not really care too much either. Okuda then watched as the Maid appeared with some food for the two of them. He held the bowl and its chopsticks in one hand and said a small prayer of gratitude himself. He then began to eat the food, it was good but he knew his wife’s ramen was much better...technically he himself could make a good ramen too, though his skills at cooking had long since lapsed into skills he had not used in close to five hundred years at this point.

Okuda though appreciated the food and made no complaints, after all they were taking the time to feed him and were taking the time to teach him, what kind of guest would he be if he complained at this? Free Lessons, free food, free company, good things were hard to find in all such aspects of life. He then sampled some of the broth of the ramen on its own, and it had a very delicious flavor in its own right, though he was unsure of the flavors that made it up...

Okuda listened to the man speaking, and could not help but scoff a bit when the man said that the...creature inside of him had its own unique way of showing it cared for him. He knew that was not quite the case at this point, no his Hollow only cared to listen to Asahi the spirit of Okuda’s Zanpakutō. He slowly finished his bowl and placed it down shortly after the other man had done so, he watched the maid scurry along to pick the bowl and his chopsticks up and take them away to be washed and prepared for another meal down the road of time.

“Shinda-en, my Inner Hollow, does not really ‘care’ about what happens to me. He barely listens to me at all, he speaks a lot and is actually loyal instead to Asahi, my Zanpakutō spirit. Asahi wishes not to help me be stronger...but to see the world burn thanks to his flames. If he could take my body or free himself from me, I have no doubt in my mind that he would do just that in no time at all, that he would burn me from the inside out to be freed if that was an option for him...”

Okuda knew that was a bit of a downer moment, but he wanted to make it clear to the man who was offering to help him learn how to better use his talents, where he stood with the sources of those talents. Okuda then listened to the man as he spoke once more. When Jaeden spoke and asked him about what Okuda thought was the most important part of training, it did not take him too long to formulate an answer, after all he did spend a good portion of his young life training daily.

“The most important part of training is knowing when you should push yourself and when you shouldn’t. When you should take a rest and when you should try to overcome your own limits. If you do that, you’ll know your limits better than anyone else and when it comes down to it in a fight for your life, you’ll be able to better push yourself past and obtain victory.” Okuda sat on the ground, still savoring the flavors of the food he had only just consumed, wondering if this was to be the end of the training for today...