He blinked.

He wants me to do—what? he thought for a few moments. The cogs were spinning in his head, and if the room could get any quieter, one would hear the click-clacking noise they were making.

“Without—?” he confirmed.

At the mention of ‘Celadon’, his eyebrows went up momentarily.

I wonder which gang it is, he pondered to himself. Well, he’d find out eventually, at any rate.

“With nobody else to spar with, difficult. Most times I spend my training where you first saw me.”

Practicing on them, you mean. They wanted to weed out the unworthy, so… he continued the sentence in his head.

Most of the time he’d spent was either down at the fighting ring sharpening his blade on…whatever it could be sharpened on, or otherwise here.

It was looking that he would most probably be the only one who specialized in a bladed weapon, that being a katana. But he didn’t pay that any mind—

“What would we be doing?”

One thousand.

After the final swing falls, he looked up at the mention of his surname.

“Yes?” he inquired, sheathing his blade before approaching the other.

“What is it?”

It was time for another hike at this strange place.

He knew that he was close to where dragons were known to make their roost, however he had yet to encounter one of them in the wild.

Maybe they really were as rare as they had been in Kanto?

But—this wasn’t Kanto.

The only option he had now was to keep looking, even if it would take forever to find one.

Weapon strapped to his back, he began his hike around the area.

It was hard locating sparring partners who used weapons like he did around here.

Most of the others he’d encountered in the training rooms dealt with hand-to-hand combat, or some variant of street fighting with knives.

So oftentimes he would be practicing alone. Never mind if he didn’t use a practice sword to do so, he preferred to have the real thing on him at all times.

Nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred ninety-nine…

Part of his exercise routine involved a thousand swings of the blade. Each and every swing had to be done with precision, otherwise it would be a waste of motion.

The first thing that got his attention was the scuffling noise not too far ahead from where he was searching. So of course, he had to check it out.

Before he approached, he summoned his Riolu from its containment unit, watching as the little one landed clumsily—out of his Pokémon this one hadn’t been with him as long as the other three yet.

“Go check that out,” he said, before waving the Riolu forward.

But the Fighting-type didn’t need to check it out as the presence literally burst out of hiding, revealing itself to be a slobbering… huh.

He hadn’t seen this Pokémon anywhere, and wondered what it was.

A quick attempt at Headbutt very nearly threw the Riolu off-balance, however the smaller fighting-type was unafraid. Taking the brunt force of the attack, it then pushed its paws out in a Counter gesture, sending it reeling.

He blinked at the reaction—how did such a simple attack cause that much damage?

Not content, the Riolu rushed forward in a one-two Force Palm strike, ensuring that it stayed down before it could get up.

“Interesting.”

An empty Pokéball then went flying towards the strange one, the Obstagoon.

---

capture attempt on Obstagoon!

“Thank you,” he replied while taking another bow.

For the consideration, he finished in his head. Because that part would have sounded incredibly cheesy. If not that, just out of context and out of place altogether.

He wondered if there was still a need to prove his physical prowess, but he’d wait on that instead if there was word.

A flick of his blade to get the rest of the blood off—he’d have to clean up much later to keep the blade spotless.

Tempted as he was to sheath his weapon, he couldn’t.

At least, not yet.

“I can learn more,” he began with a respectful bow.

How much more, though? That depended on who was doing the teaching.

“What else can you teach me?”

So grabbing that Porygon from back home was a good idea, but there was something that gnawed at him terribly.

That was:

Why didn’t he grab the Dratini as well?

For reasons, he didn’t want to draw too much suspicion to himself, so here he was, searching through the area for one.

While he knew that Dragon-types were among the hardest to find—at least in his home region of Kanto—he had no idea if he would get lucky and find what he sought out.

After all, one should never put too much emphasis on luck while searching for certain things, as that had a tendency to backfire. Pretty frequently.

“You left yourself wide open,” he muttered softly, the smirk still curling at his lips.

He knew he only had one hidden knife blade left, but he had no idea how many more he was going to have to deal with.

Of course, this was just the beginning of his real descent into Hell—

The sheath knocked the other sword away—as far away as possible—before he closed the distance in seemingly an instant.

He didn’t care which side of the sword he held was facing him, all he knew was that there was a chance opening, and soon enough he used the back of his hand to swing the blade upward into the other person’s chin, forcing his weight to take the brunt of the force as he saw blood once more.

Deeper!

A snap of the wrist later, his palm resting just so on the tip of his own blade, more blood spilled over his white clothing.

Shit.

Metal met metal, and with the force of the landing, he propelled himself downward.

Coming to a landing on the mat, he took another look.

If not from above—then from below!

This time, he would be the one to take the first step forward, holding his own blade in only one hand before crouching down and taking a surprise leap forward.

Instead of swinging the blade, he grabs his own sheath (roughly crammed on the left side of his clothing) before holding the sheath in a backhand grip, swinging it forward first.

There was also a reason why his sheath was heavier than normal—if he hit his opponent hard enough, he’d be able to catch them off-guard and disarm them with his own sword.

He had to be careful.

With the other blade drawn back, there was a split-second of second-guessing where it would go next—

It was a damned sight to see, really. The flash gave it away—but he’d moved out of range of the wide arc, literally jumping and tucking his feet up as he propelled himself into mid-air.

Now all he had to do was use the momentum and—

Swinging his own blade in an overhead position, Kenjiro unfurled to his full height before bringing the blade down on his opponent’s head.

Whether it would hit either the head or the shoulder on landing, he wouldn’t know, but for a few moments the other was bewildered—where had his opponent gone?

Don’t look up, he thought with this smirk on his face as his own steel flashed and whistled through the air.