[18] Prodigy
In no time at all, Makoto had led Katori to the bamboo grove where he usually trained.
Katori tilted her head back, gazing up at the Sekkiseki monolith towering over ten meters high. Her small mouth parted slightly, a bewildered look settling across her face.
She glanced at Makoto, then back at the stone, and after a long pause, managed to choke out, "Yours… it's a bit too big, isn't it?"
Makoto had half-expected this reaction from her expression alone, but hearing it aloud still sent a pang of deflation through him.
"As I thought!"
"Even you can't handle it, Katori."
He slumped forward, forehead kissing the ground.
Seeing his wilted state, Katori waved her hands in a flurry, hastily clarifying, "No, no, no, I didn't mean I can't do it!"
"It's just…"
Her words trailed off as she cast a cautious glance at Makoto, her eyes subtly tracing his 'meager' reiryoku reserves. Her gaze carried a delicate, veiled helplessness she couldn't quite voice.
Though her emotional finesse wasn't top-tier, Katori knew blurting out something as tactless as 'You're too weak to pull this off' would be a step too far.
In the end, she settled for a hesitant, "…Makoto-kun, you'll need a few more years of effort… probably?"
"I see."
Makoto wasn't blindsided by this. Even Yamamoto had called it a long grind, where was Katori supposed to conjure an instant fix?
With a resigned sigh, he relented. "Fine, I'll start training then. Could you step aside?"
"W-Wait, hold on!!"
Sensing her expulsion looming, Katori scrambled for a lifeline, blurting, "Oh! Right! I know what Gramps's trying to teach you! It's a super powerful technique called Ikkotsu! And I know it too. Should I… show you?"
Makoto paused mid-motion as he fastened his cuffs, turning to her with a puzzled frown. "Ikkotsu? Isn't this about tempering my willpower?"
"Exactly!" Katori exhaled in relief as he finally listened, seizing her chance. "It's an advanced Hakuda Gramps created. The key lies in fusing your spiritual body with your will! So it doubles as willpower training. Even an average Shinigami, once they grasp it, can temper their spirit through relentless forging and unleash a strike stronger than a Zanpakutō's edge. Gramps must've set you on the Sekkiseki to teach you this!"
Makoto's eyes sparked with realization. "I get it now."
He knew this Ikkotsu technique all too well.
In the anime series, Captain-Commander Yamamoto had used it, bare fists alone, to obliterate Wonderweiss, a modified Arrancar rivaling the Espada.
No wonder he'd struggled to master it all this time.
Even with his current reiatsu rivaling a lieutenant of the future Gotei 13, a Hakuda technique like Ikkotsu wasn't meant for someone of his caliber to touch.
"So, what do you say?"
Seeing a glimmer of hope, Katori edged closer, tugging his sleeve with a timid tilt of her head. "I might not teach it perfectly, but… it's worth a few chapters, right?"
Only when books were at stake did Katori shed her meekness, bold enough to bargain.
"Deal!"
"Five chapters then!"
"And if you can teach me, I'll give you three a day!"
Makoto didn't overthink it, what if he actually pulled it off?
"Really!" Katori's eyes widened with glee, her grip tightening on his sleeve. "Makoto-kun! You've got to try hard then!"
"Hey! Hey! The sleeve, it's gonna rip! This is my only outfit!"
"Ah! Sorry, sorry!"
Katori's grin stretched ear-to-ear, her apologies bubbling out without a trace of her usual trepidation.
Then she stepped into the clearing, settling into a Hakuda stance, orthodox, fists poised.
At first glance, the girl standing there with her eyes closed, her perilous curves barely veiled by loose robes looked ordinary and harmless.
But when Katori's eyes snapped open, a razor-sharp aura surged forth, slicing through Makoto's wandering notions like a blade through mist.
Her stare was earnest, unwavering.
Simultaneously, her body thrummed with burgeoning reiatsu, her bones, muscles, and sinews aligning in Makoto's vision like a crossbow primed to fire.
As she drew her fist back, the tension built, step by step, stretching to its breaking point.
Until, at the peak of her swelling reiatsu…
"Ikkotsu!"
A clear shout rang out as her seemingly delicate fist launched. Power surged from the earth, coursing through her legs and waist, a torrent of reiatsu cascading up her spine to her shoulder and elbow. Her robes billowed wildly, her braid whipping behind her, until that inevitable release point arrived.
From stance to strike, the motion flickered in Makoto's eyes like a film missing frames, abrupt, seamless.
The next instant...
Boom!
A cataclysmic burst of reiatsu erupted from her fist's tip, the air swelling into a circular shockwave of pure white, rippling outward like a sonic boom. The deafening roar was a grenade at point-blank or a supersonic jet grazing past.
A ferocious wind scoured the surroundings, a dozen-grade tempest born in a blink, while the colossal force carved a vacuum tunnel ahead, plowing a trench dozens of meters long into the earth.
Tons upon tons of earth vanished in an instant, dissolving into a vast plume of dust that surged skyward, boundless and wild.
Everything in the path of that fist, stones, trees, soil, green bamboo, even a pond, was pulverized into oblivion, leaving behind a barren clearing.
Makoto stood transfixed, gaping at the scene.
Shock gripped him at the sheer might of the blow, but also because…
[Bond Event: There Must Be My Master]
[Your bond level with Katori has increased ↑]
[Reward: Reiatsu Rank +2]
[Acquired Bond Trait: There Must Be My Master]
[Reiatsu: Sixth-Class - Mid → Fifth-Class - Lower]
[Bond Trait - There Must Be My Master: With mutual consent, you have a chance to acquire desired knowledge, skills, or intel from Katori in exchange for information she requests.]
[Note: "Since you've promised to be a plagiarism, no slacking on updates!" - Batsu'unsai Katori's (fake)]
The moment Makoto glimpsed the message, a fierce compression gripped his reiatsu.
It was as if, in a blink, his spirit vaulted from one plane to another.
An indescribable emptiness hollowed him out, yet paradoxically, power surged within, his skin, muscles, and bones hardening with newfound density.
But it didn't end there.
[Notification: Bond Trait - There Must Be My Master - Activated]
[Detected Fist Technique Trait: Ikkotsu]
[Learning in progress…]
[Learning failed]
[Would you like to spend 1 Talent Point to forcibly acquire it?]
[YES|NO]
Makoto's lips twitched upward at the first line, only to droop at the failure notice.
Then the final prompt jolted him alive.
Hold on!
Talent Points could be used like this?!
His eyes locked onto the lone Talent Point lingering on his panel, the sole survivor of his journey thus far. He didn't even pause to think.
Fuck it!
What effort diary? Scrap that!
Makoto's rise to this moment wasn't grit, it was pure, unadulterated genius!
System! Add the point!
[1 Talent Point consumed]
[Forcibly acquired Hakuda Trait: Ikkotsu]
[Fist: Tier-5 (31/100) - [Ikkotsu] ↑]
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
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