Training with the Seeker

Sora looked at the boy with a somewhat irritated look. She hated these types of people, they were usually unconfident because of lack of power or experience. But Sora wasn't going to judge Jiro by just how he acted. Sora grinned.

"Alright kid, from now on, you call me Master, Shishou, Sifu or Sensei" Sora ordered "Understood?"

Tokunaga returned to Sora's side. He was slightly stained from the blood of the witches.

"Sora I'm back" Tokunaga said cheerfully

"So Tokunaga, what is the condition of those girls?" Sora asked

"It is as you thought Sora"

"I thought so" Sora said pensively, then returned her attention to Jiro "Now, this is Tokunaga"

"Pleasure to meet you kid" Tokunaga saluted "And welcome to hell"

Jiro saw Sora look at him with an irritated look, he didn't know why she looked irritated but he smiled back at her to try to get a good impression. Jiro thought that she was a good person since she helped him out while he was getting attacked by the witches.

He Heard Sora order him to call her Master, Shishou, Sifu or Sensei "Yes erm... Sensei." He said with a smile on his face. He wasn't sure which one to go with so he just picked the last one.

Jiro saw the plush toy come back and say something to Sora, he then heard Sora introduce the plush toy as Tokunaga. "Hello, my name is Jiro. It is a pleasure to meet you." Jiro said politely to Tokunaga. He was a bit curious on how the plush toy could talk and move but didn't think about it for long.

When Jiro heard Tokunaga say the world hell he was a bit confused, thanks to stories that his parents told him he knew what hell was but didn't understand why Tokunaga said it.

Jiro then looked at Sore "So what should I do first Sensei?" he asked while still smiling. He was eager to start his training so he could get strong and help people more "I hope that I won't disappoint you." he said while still smiling.

Sora smiled a little when he asked her what to do next. She nodded to Tokunaga, who nodded back. Tokunaga grabbed Jiro from behind and carried him through the HQ. They reached the entrance of HQ. Sora pulled out her horn, then blew a note through it. A large pirate ship came flying down, Liliane came down to greet them.

"Hey Sora, twice you called me within a week, you starting to warm up to me?"

"Shut up Liliane" Sora said irrated "This is my new disciple, Jiro"

"Oh, what a cute little boy" Liliane cooed

"Is everyone at the site?"

"Yup, just like you requested"

"Good"

Sora sent a hand signal to Tokunaga, who walked onto the ship. The took off on the moment Sora took her spot next to the mast. Tokunaga put down Jiro, letting the young man have some space.

"We are going to a training ground" Sora said "I hope you don't have any regrets"

The ship came upon a mountain with a large valley underneath, it was surrounded by a thick forest similar to the Forest of Annuo. The valley had a river flowing from a waterfall, along with a small lake and marsh. There was a large cottage there, with a giant stone garden with boulders instead of rocks, as well as an entire training course for excersise. The entire place was made to train and teach warriors.

"This is the training grounds, you will stay here from now on, until you either find a way to leave or I allow you to" Sora explained "Now to begin training"

She moved behind Jiro and called Tokunaga to her side. Then placing both hands on his shoulders.

"Lesson one, Survival Instinct" Sora said as she pushed him off the ship. "Come on Tokunaga"

Sora jumped off the ship with Tokunaga not that far behind. Though Sora was afraid of heights, she had to show her disciple to face fears. She had Tokunaga go under her and they both landed with no injuries.

(+85 mana)

Jiro looked down from the ship and saw how high up the ship was, he was a bit scared and walked back a bit. He then saw Sora and Tokunaga and stopped, he didn't want to look scared while he was around since Sora agreed to train him.

He then heard Sora say that this was his new training ground and that the only way he could leave was to either find a way to leave or Sora allowed him to. He was nervous since he wasn't sure what kind of training he was going to go through but he wanted to get stronger and thought Sora could do this.

Jiro didn't notice that Sora moved behind him until she said lesson one. Jiro was pushed off the ship and while he was falling down he also saw Sora and Tokunaga Jump off as well. Jiro was more afraid for Sora at first, thinking if she landed okay or not but he then thought that Sora would be able to handle the fall and started thinking what he could do.

He looked down and then remembered what he usually would do. At first he wasn't thinking straight since he was suddenly pushed off the ship and scared but he came to his senses soon after. He waited a bit until he got further to the ground and then duplicated his bag to make a small parachute. He knew that if he did it while he was still high up he would make Sora wait and since she was taking the time to train him, he didn't want to do that.

He then landed on the ground luckily close to where Sora was, after he landed the extra bags disappeared. He took a closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he then opened his eyes and looked at Sora who was with Tokunaga. His heart was still beating but he knew that the training had just begun.

"Good, if you couldn't survive that, I would have used your body to feed my next disciple" Sora said bluntly

Sora moved over to the small hut next to the cottage, it was completely run down and looked like a 5 year old made it.

"This is where you will sleep, I will call you into the cottage from time to time for meals, but other than that, you will sleep and live here until I see fit, let's hope you stay alive"

Sora walked over into the cottage, closing the door behind her to let her disciple soak in the info. The others were waiting inside, sitting at the table.

"So who gets to go first?" Patricia asked

"Honestly, I think me and Tokunaga should start him off, then we will get to you guys" Sora replied

"Seems fair" Vari agreed "He is Sora's apprentice after all"

"Let's have some fun" The entire group grinned evily

Jiro listened to Sora say that she was glad that he survived and that she would have used his body to feed her next disciple. The thought gave Jiro a chill down his spine, he began to think what his food would be like but he put the last comment aside as a joke.

He then looked at the hut and listened to Sora as she told him that he would be living there. He smiled nervously but decided to look on the bright side that he was going to get trained and might not be weak anymore.

Jiro stepped into the hut and then laid down on the floor "This is going to be very hard but I can't give up, I will get stronger and be able to help everyone... And I might even be able to get strong enough to punish that witch too." Jiro said to himself.

He then felt him self going to sleep and as his eyes were slowly closing a monstrous voice in his head started talking "That's it, just a bit closer." he then opened his eyes fully noticing that he was falling asleep. "YOU DAMN SON OF A BITCH, GO TO SLEE-" The voice was shouting but it was so quiet that Jiro couldn't make it out and it slowly disappeared. Jiro was confused as he wasn't tired and only laid to rest a bit but the suddenly felt very tired, he then rubbed his eyes and got back up.

Sora came to Jiro's hut at first light. The boy seemed to have some sort of sleeping disorder. Sora didn't like this, because if the boy didn't sleep or rest at least, he wouldn't survive a day of her training. Sora came towards Jiro and held out a small talisman, it was a normal sized talisman with the word "Dream" written on it.

"I can see you have some sleeping problem with something non scientific, but I can't have you not sleeping, otherwise you won't last one session with me" Sora explained "I want you to eat this talisman, it is covered with a special substance called lyrium, it is in small doses otherwise you will get addicted, I want you to take a bit of this everyday, it will allow you to sleep no matter what, but you will lose all of your magical abilities, which is not required for the first part of training"

Sora walked away from the hut and walked back to the cottage.

"You won't have any training today until your body health meets my requirements" Sora said before she went inside.

Jiro listened as Sora explained the talisman and smiled, he was glad that he would be able to get a good night sleep. "Thank you Sensei." he said and then looked at the talisman, he then started to get tired again and hear voices in his head but they were to quiet to hear. Before he fell asleep he ate the talisman and went to go to sleep.

After a while he was still awake since he had grown to be scared of going to sleep but his eyes got heavy and sleep slowly overwhelmed him. A monsterous voice stared talking in his sleep "I am FED UP with these people getting in my way, I haven't had this much trouble with those DIGUSTING creatures for hundreds of years. Hehe you think you can stop me with tablets, THINK AGAIN, this isn't the first time people have use items to try to get rid of me BUT I AM THE NIGHTMARE DEVOURER, THE ONE WHO HAS ATE OVER A THOUSAND NIGHTMARES. Not even those dream tribe people could get rid of me and some disgusting little BITCH will never be able to do anything to me."

Jiro's dream started to turn crimson red as faint screams could be heard "Such a disgusting weak creature this human is. If I used all my power he would probably die. And that would waste all that delicious nightmare. Just wait till I get the chance, YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS."

Jiro turned as he slept, he was having a nightmare but it wasn't as bad as the others and by comparison, was a nice dream.

Sora landed back onto the training grounds with a massive crater under her and Tokunaga. She looked around to see if anything changed, nothing much it seemed. She walked over to Jiro's hut and summoned a splashing of water inside of the hut.

"Time to get up Jiro! You have had enough rest now!" Sora yelled "Now I want you to run the entire perimeter of the training grounds 10 times, if you are unable to do that you will have no breakfast and will have to run another 20"

The training ground was around 3 acres, possibly 129,000 square feet.

(Mana+Health Recharge)

Jiro rolled from his side on to his back while sleeping, he looked quite peaceful then all off a sudden he was drenched in water. He woke up and was told to run the entire perimeter of the training grounds 10 times, he was confused since he only just woke up but didn't have much time to think.

He got up and started running and then remembered that he was training with Sora. He continued to run but was a bit sluggish since he had only just woke up. He was surprised that Sora told him to run so much since he had only just started training but didn't question her since he thought that she knew best.

After a while of running Jiro started to get tired, he was an average if not below average athlete but he kept running for a while. He then got too tired and stopped to take a little rest, he then thought that if this was what she did first thing in the morning then what would she do afterwards, the thought sent a chill down his spine.

(health and mana full)

"Alright, since you took a break you have to fight with Tokunaga here" Sora announced "Get ready, he won't go easy on you, oh and your powers still won't come back to you, so good luck"

Sora ended her sentence with a smile while Tokunaga charged straight for Jiro letting down a giant arm straight for Jiro's head.

"Everytime you take a break, you have to survive fighting Tokunaga for 30 seconds, doesn't sound too bad does it?"

Jiro looked towards Sora "W-what?" he knew what she was saying but also knew how strong he was and that Tokunaga was way out of his league. He then started to reach for his bag but then was reminded by Sora that his powers won't work.

He saw Tokunaga charge and he felt like his heart jumped through his chest from fear. He just barely dodged to the side out of reaction alone, as Tokunaga's arm came down Jiro felt a wave go past him which made him realise how strong Tokunaga really was.

Jiro started running since he knew he didn't stand a chance, he was set on avoiding Tokunaga for the thirty seconds. He was already tired from running so much but the fear seemed to keep him move What kind of attack was that? he thought to him self as he continued running away.

Sora smiled slightly as Jiro was being chased by Tokunaga, she was enjoying this. She ran up to Tokunaga to tell him that time was up and he had to stand down. Tokunaga backed off but kept a vigil stance, waiting for the next time he stopped.

"Now you know that you can take breaks but you have to pay the price"

"Aren't you being a little too harsh on him?" Vari asked Sora from behind

"Nope, my training was worse, plus he is too weak for someone with his type of power, I foresee him to be extremely powerful in the future"

Jiro continued to run, he was very tired but pushed himself to go further out of fear since he knew that he would have to face Tokunaga. A lot of times he nearly fell over from exhaustion but he knew the consequences and forced himself to keep going.

After Jiro found that he had ran around the training ground the fifth time though it seemed to take forever and he had been on the verge of collapsing for a long time. He started to believe that he could do it though he was breathing too heavy to smile about it.

He then realised that the reason that he hadn't collapsed was that he had been resisting sleep for such a long time that every time things started to go dark he could resist it and keep running. Jiro thought about and knew that because he got a good sleep he was doing much better then he thought he could.

As he continued to run he suddenly felt some kind of force that almost put him straight asleep but luckily Jiro managed to hold on. Darn I was close, if I'm too rough then the pipsqueak would probably die. Jiro heard a voice in his head. He wondered what it was but kept running, he wasn't sure what it was but he thought the training was more important.

"Damn, the kid is still going" Sasha whistled while watching Jiro run "I thought he would have collapsed after the first roundtrip"

"I concur, I too thought that"

"Enough you guys just go over there and do something, I want to see how long he lasts, then I will choose the level of difficulty"

Sora continued to watch Jiro run, after about the eigth run around she thought that it was enough.

"Tokunaga, finish it up" Tokunaga nodded and immediatly burst towards Jiro, not holding back this time he appeared behind Jiro and swung his arm to the back of Jiro's neck.

Jiro had been running for a long while but refused to let exhaustion take over though weirdly enough he was exhausted but wasn't sleepy at all and felt like he could stay awake for days easily. I'm hungry Jiro thought he heard another voice in his head but ignored it and kept running.

... THAT'S IT, I'M EATING AND I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT DMAGAES YOU A monstrous voice shouted in Jiro's head causing him to have A small headache. He was then hit by a wave of sleepiness but unlike last time it didn't go away. As Tokunaga charged Jiro fell asleep only just avoiding the swing of Tokunaga, he then opened his eyes to nothing but red, the red being his own blood.

"FINALY I GET TO EAT" The nightmare monster as he stood on a mounting as Jiro was penetrated by many spikes. Suddenly demons started attacking Jiro's friends and family, he pulled himself of the spike and ran to his family and but a demon with Tokunaga's face held him back. "Let go. Where are my powers? I need my powers." Jiro said in a panic as he saw his friends be tortured by the demons "No. I should be able to use my powers since this is a dream. This is a dream." the spikes that penetrated Jiro then penetrated the demon holding him.

He then woke up from his sleep which he had been in for less then an hour, wounds appeared all over Jiro's body. He then stood up "This is a dream." he said as he raised his head and saw Tokunaga "How dare you hurt my friends and family." he then started raising his hand "Now I'll show you." his hand stopped and the palm faced Tokunaga "Jiro's Nightmare."

The place was suddenly red with Jiro's blood with sharpened bones sticking out, then he raised his hand towards the sky "Jiro's Rain." he blasted duplicated blood in the sky witch then came down looking like red rain. "Die" Jiro said as sharpened bone suddenly appeared right above Tokunaga.

(- 100 health - 150 mana)

Tokunaga was punctured by the spears, the spear above him went right through his head. Tokunaga was forced by the blow and pinned to the ground, but then he began to laugh.

"Hehehehehehehe!!! Nice try kid, but so long as I got a body and Sora is still all nice and cozy I can still fight, I'm a plushie after all, don't got a brain"

Tokunaga rose from the ground and pulled out the spear. He raised his fist towards Jiro's face, but was stopped by Sora.

"No Tokunaga, I will take care of my pupil myself, let's see if this one will be able to defeat the master"

Sora stood forward as Tokunaga stood back, she looked at Jiro with cold eyes.

"Let's do this, I won't hold back on you"

"O' brewing storm let loose, Tempest"

A large tornado appeared between Sora and Jiro, ready to pull him and strike him with lightning.

(Mana- 52)

Jiro looked towards Sora "You will pay for harming my family." he said without only a slight amount of anger. He then looked at the tornado that was summoned and felt it suck him in, he tried to keep himself on the ground but failed and got sucked into the tornado.

While in the tornado he duplicated many more bones and continued to duplicate them and when they approached him he made them disappear. With so many bones flying around they interrupted the lightning though sometimes the bones would catch him lightly.

While in the tornado he made large tree's made out of bone which couldn't support them self and he made them at an angle so they would fall in Sora's direction. He then followed put be making more sharpened bones above Sora.

(- 25 health - 60 mana)

Sora summoned a shield in order to block the spears. However, one had caught her in the leg pinning it to the ground and forcing her to sit down and scream in pain. She created a barrier and condenced it to overlap her personal shield. She pulled out the spear and healed it. She jumped back and analyzed the situation.

Jiro didn't use these types of abilities before, looks like I have no choice, I will stop him.

"Eat it Dhaos Laser!!" Sora yelled as she fired a barrage of elemental bolts and then fired four powerful elemental lasers.


(Health - 30 Mana -120 Health +10)

"Nowhere is safe in my nightmare."Jiro said as geysers of blood shot from the blood on the floor towards at Sora which contained more bones. He did this at the same time Sora attacked leaving the attack still approaching him.

He then held his hands out and it seemed as he stopped the attack but he was actually duplicating bones at an extremely fast pace so that when the bones broke he duplicated more right afterwards. Though he was holding the lasers off, some where still getting through to him.

(- 90 mana - 50 health)

Sora's barrier held off the attack now that is was compacted. She was sent flying impact and brute force. Sora knew something was obviously wrong with Jiro, probably from the reason for his lack of sleep, but she was going to show him that she is far worse than anything he will ever dream of. She prepared her go to spell combo in this situation, but she started off with a more simple spell.

"Awake o' unmerciful and unnamed queen of thorns, Ivy Rush" Several large thorned vines surrounded and wrapped around Jiro. Sora closed her eyes and breathed out as she prepared her final spell.

"I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, command thee, who opens the gates of hell. Come forth, divine lightning"

Sora's hourglass incantation structure formed as Sora opened her eyes, looked at Jiro and smiled. "This ends now... INDIGNATION!!!"

The clouds formed as a massive strike of black and white lightning came down from the sky and struck at Jiro.

(Mana - 266 Health -10 Mana +70)

Jiro looked at the vines as they wrapped around him without emotion in his eyes, he then made sharpened bones above him to cut the vines and the ones heading towards him he made disappear. He seemed to ignore the pain of the thorns that stuck in him even though they were causing more wounds.

He then heard Sora chanting again but he was too preoccupied with the vines and continued the cut them off him. He then noticed something and looked up, he realised what was happening and made lots of bones above him but the lightning broke them like toothpicks and proceeded to strike Jiro.

Jiro fell on the floor motionless as the blood and bones all disappeared, he was still alive but now that all the duplicated blood was gone the wounds caused by the fight were easily seem. Not only were the wounds from the fight visible but also there were more wounds that were caused by the nightmare monster, they were more then usual since he had been held back for so long.

( - 400 health - 40 mana)

"It is done" Sora announced, she walked over to Jiro's body, looking at all the wounds "Guess I went a little too hard on you eh?"

Vari came running out and immediately came to heal their wounds. Vari looked at Sora with worried eyes, "You went overboard, he also pushed himself too hard"

"Sorry" Sora replied shyly

"We'll take him to the cottage" Sasha said as he and Creed came outside

Sora watched as her friends take Jiro into the cottage, she followed and sat by Jiro's bed while he recovered.

(Mana +15)

Jiro was having a nightmare once again, luckily thanks to the nightmare monster eating so much before, Jiro wasn't having such a bad nightmare and wasn't getting hurt much by it. Some minor wounds appeared on Jiro but nothing compared to the wounds he felt before.

He opened his eyes and saw Sora sitting by the bed "S-sensei?" Jiro said as he sat up. He then squinted in pain "Ow ow ow. What happened? Why does my body hurt so much?" he asked. he couldn't remember much after he collapsed and it just felt like he had a bad dream except from the pain he was feeling.

(Health full + 200 mana from rest - 10 health from nightmare monster)