Sharpened Flame

The forest seemed to be as quiet as it usually is. Yoma happened to be here once before to learn to use his fireballs. It did happen to cause a issue with a certain quincy at the time but it also sparked some interesting conversation which helped to give yoma a better understanding of himself.Yoma decided to come down here to improve himself as h e recently joined squad 6 but really did not want to bug them to help him improve. He decided that if he could increase his abilities with his swordplay he might be able to change the outcome of future battles. Currently he relied on his abilities more then his own Zanpakutō. This causes a major flaw with Yoma if he is unable to use his abilities then he will have fight with his weak swordsmanship.

Yoma was focusing on cutting up trees to practice his swordsmanship but things weren't going so well. He keep performing a horizontal strike downward with his left hand to all the trees and just kept repeating the same action over and over. It was getting repetitive and old nothing was getting accomplished. The trees had a light cut going through them all the way down but the tree was still standing proud as day as they were teasing yoma. They gave a feeling of loss to yoma. He had failed to defeat trees.

"Man this is annoying training on my own this time was a horrible idea. I knew i should have asked for help. Well i got to do something i just been performing vertical strike repeatedly maybe if i try striking from different directions and strike one after another that could help. Would that really help me to improve and are these trees something i should be using to train against?

Yoma pondered about what could be his future choice of action. he wanted to improve but he knew he couldn't do things alone anymore. The shinigami Jessy he had met before told him that he cant be doing things alone anymore that the help of others will help him to improve. He knew this was correct he already struggled on his own he just didn't want to be a bother on others because of his own weakness and faults.

Andrew had been going through the forest again to see if he could be able to forage for any kinds of mushrooms when felt the reiatsu of a shinigami nearby. He had wondered if there was a good chance that the shinigami would try to attack him but he decided to see what would happen. He had been getting lucky with other encounters so perhaps this encounter will not end badly. The vizard had been walking casually, watching the shinigami trying to cut through trees and failing at it. If anything he watched curiously, wondering if the shinigami wouldn't mind taking some advice.

The vizard took his zanpaktou out, and instead of trying to attack the shinigami he turned to face the tree that the shinigami had been going after. He smiled, performing a series of slashes to not cut the tree down but showing consistency and accuracy in his attacks before looking to the shinigami again. "Looks like you can use a little bit of help. Perhaps I can be of assistance. I might be good with Kidō but I have been around blades for a while." Even though they were not swords, Andrew spent plenty of time in the Rukongai with knives and learning how to cut things properly. He then turned to look at the tree as he spoke. "Are you trying to go through the tree or are you trying to perform something more technical?"

Andrew listened to Yoma's problem as he nodded his head. Turning to look at the tree again, he then started to speak. "It's nice to meet you Yoma. My name is Andrew Takahashi. One thing I learned all too well is that being in combat is way different from having to solo training let alone when you perform training with a friend or comrade. When you are training or sparring you control all of the variables and there are very little room for error. On the other hand, when you are in the battle I always go back to this human named Murphy: what ever can go wrong will. So the best way at least in my mind if you wondering what to expect is to always expect the unexpected. If you can be able to adapt to your enemy's movements and how they fight, you can increase your chances of survival and in time be able to turn it into victory."

Andrew then looked at Yoma's zanpaktou before looking to his own as well. He did have a question and it seemed like as good of a time as any to ask. "Out of curiosity, how good is your relationship with your zanpaktou spirit?" He remembered back with Yumi and how she had problems with her zanpaktou in the past, and if there was no connection then the chances of winning start to decrease quickly. He then turned to look at his own weapon as he spoke. "I can safely say at first my connection was a little tricky. My spirit didn't talk to me at first. I think it wanted to see if I can figure things out before letting me in on the secret that it was actually an elemental type zanpaktou.

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"Well the first thing you should be is discouraged. I can still remember how hard I had to work with connecting with my zanpaktou."

As he said that he looked down at his zanpaktou, clearly showing a look of nostalgia in his eyes as he thought about his time all of the way back at the academy. He remembered seeing his zanpaktou spirit for the first time and how it seemed to be only a pink sphere with eyes and no mouth floating in literally nothing. "I must have been through hundreds of name combinations but still I was unable to get anything right. But then I did something pretty random: I started to talk about cooking. That was when my zanpaktou started to respond to me. The more I talked about food and cooking, the more it reacted before I figured that it wanted me to find the solution myself. After that I found the name I was looking for: Tetsu Itamae."

He then looked back at Yoma as he spoke with a cheerful tone. "Our zanpaktou are not only just extensions of our abilities but also of our minds and hearts. For instance..." as he unsheathed his weapon, he then spoke in a clear voice,"Cook, Tetsu Itamae." Steam poured out of his blade, making the sword change from the form of a chef knife into the appearance of a santoku knife. "Like you I am a fire elemental, but it's not like a regular fire elemental." As he spoke something started to slowly fill up the scalloped grooves of his blade. "My abilities are based on my abilities being set in the realm of cooking. My fire comes from this: doragon koumi. It's a spice that is very effective at giving burns to my opponents if there is any skin exposed. It's especially useful if I luck out and I get it into their eyes or in the mouths. So what to ask yourself is this: what is your blade trying to show you? What is it trying to share to establish the connection?"

Andrew listened to Yoma intently as he watched him create his flames. It was clear that he had been trying to figure out how Yoma's zanpaktou worked out. His dark brown eyes seemed to be almost without emotion, allowing the gears in his head turn slowly as if he was trying to figure out what the problem was. He watched as he tried to slash the air to create a spark from his blade to enable the flames. He then looked at his blade as he spoke. "Okay, first thing about fire that much like water it can be manipulated but if you get careless it can turn against you. I can you from personal experience from both as a chef and as a shinigami that I had at many times burnt myself on fire." He then began to wonder if Yoma was able to see into his weapon's inner world before speaking once again. "But what is clear is that your zanpaktou is trying to get your attention and if it cannot talk to you normally then it will find a way to reach you. If you think about it, why did the temperature of your zanpaktou increase? Why do your fireballs burn the way they do? There had to be some kind of trigger or experience that you both had. If you can figure that out perhaps we can be able to go from there."

"That I can't really give a straight answer. From what I had heard between your zanpaktou and comparing it to my zanpaktou, to use a quote that the humans had been known to use: your results may vary."

Andrew had sat down as well, his released blade resting in his lap as he maintained a contemplative state. He seemed to be trying to figure not just how to break the silence between Yoma and his sword but also trying to figure out if there was a way by how his demeanor could play into the situation. It was obvious that there was agitation, but that is when it hit him. Both he and Yoma were fire elementals at the very core and the first thing about fire is that it wasn't exactly the easiest thing to control. At first things might go off without a hitch but there was a considerable fine line between control a fire and having it spread out of control taking out things that were not supposed to be taken out. There was a clear light in his eyes as he spoke to Yoma, an idea had sparked in the gears inside of his head as he spoke to him. "Okay, this is going to be a little bit weird but instead of thinking of ways to bring it out why not just let it go? It seems that you are trying to force the flames inside to come out. Go back to when you were fighting and the heat came to you almost as if it was second nature. Use that memory to move in sync with your sword."