Yugen didn't like this new training.

Mori had just about given up on his usual try hard physical training and decided to give something else a try. It was.. different. It was what he called, "meditation." Basically it involved him sitting down, closing his eyes and daydreaming about random shit, or something like that.... He didn't really get how this was supposed to help him but Yūgen could always appreciate the down time. While it lasted. Yūgen had to explain to Mori that he had another conflict that day. His grandfather simply nodded before returning to his meditation. "Leave when you need to." Was all he said.

After about another thirty minutes of "meditating", Yūgen left the house and headed down to the shop district. A certain dread hanging about him as he thought about what special kind of hell this pervy shop keeper was going to put him through. They mentioned before that he used it for, less scientific activities. It was easy to put two and two together, and the revelation of what he meant made him want to rush home and bathe in boiling water.

Yūgen looked in front of him with disparity and exhaustion. This unassuming wooden house/shop/laboratory was going to be the death of him. The door read closed, with a sticky note on the side in barely legible handwriting, "Except for special appointments". Not ominous at all. Enthusiasm-lessly Yūgen pushed the door open and was greeted with a close up of raven hair and pale skin. A black umbrella leaning over the strange blacksmith's shoulder.

"Finally! I was wondering if you'd actually come. Good thing you did too, I was about to send Shouto to hunt you down." They said, welcoming him inside.

The interior was a typical ninja tool set up of aisles and wall decorations, lined up with all sorts of weaponry. All the nessecary things a ninja needed, like kunai and shuriken made an obvious appearance, though in some shelves the more personal oddities of the store owner’s own making were on display. Yugen thought it odd how they seemed to weaponize every day house hold items but he didn’t question it. The raven haired blacksmith would take them around back the clerk counter and down the stairs leading to his personal laboratory. At the bottom they made him cover his ears as he inputted the verbal code and pressed in the number code. After what seemed like three hours, the duo would enter the laboratory.

Last time he was here he didn’t have the state of mind to look around him ironically, but now that he was taking his time he could fully appreciate, just how freaking weird it is. Half built mechainical horses, something that looked like a Merry Go Round(?). The weird sign next to it saying, “Merry Go Round(?)”. Yugen was so confused about what he was actually supposed to be looking at that he started walking towards it. Two steps in and a sharp metallic tap on his shoulder brought his attention back. “Yeah… That’s the eighteen plus section, might wanna stay away from there.” Kisei shrugged, leading both of them to the back of the room to where Yugen was first caught by the umbrella man himself. It was now much more square than what what he remembered though, it was the same size as the semi-dome he first entered but different. In front of the two of them a strange door with a weird angelic something on it. It looked a bit of a person, or ghost maybe, with two wings to its side. He didn’t get too see much more before Kisei pressed a hand on his forehead, “Wait.”, and he proceeded to enter more code into the machine. A few quick strokes on the touch pad and the ‘door’ opened. A circular panel holding the picture sliding down, splitting the giant cube in two before a small door shaped space divided itself into existence. The mastermind behind the weird cube entered first, Yugen not too far off behind him.

Giving him a shock Kisei, screamed out into the vast empty cube. “Code: Delta! Rune namefile Kisei: Yugen diagonostics! Execute!” Yugen gave him a hard punch to the back of the head, although he was the person hurting with that hit. “Damnit! Don’t go screaming out of nowhere for nothing! Creep!” The white haired ninja cursed. All the raven haired on did was turn around with the most confused look on his face, “Dude, I’ve had harder hits from academy students than that.” Prompting another hit to the blacksmith’s  temple, and another bruise on Yugen’s hand to take care of. Suddenly then, the door space closed up behind them, leaving the two in complete darkness for a moment before dozens of flashes of blue and gray light popped out of the black space around them. Inside those flashes of light were dozens of variations of ones and zeros. Blinking out just as they appeared. The flashes grew brighter and larger, almost like they were dabbing color into the empty darkness around them, growing, like a painting, and drawing out a miraculous scene. In no time at all they were in the middle of a flowery meadow, a warm mid day sun eveloping them in its summer glow. A warm breeze blew by the two of them, and the umbrella man sighed for some reason.

“Alright, sit down, I’ll be explaining the test we’re going to do.” Yugen gave him a middle finger and a ‘screw off’ before lying down on the grass.

His ‘test supervisor’ explained. “Before you start on a real hard and gritty examination process you need to establish a couple of things first. One: An average. That is going to serve as a base line for our future experiments. Two: Maximum and minimum input values. Similar to the first requirement we all need to get an idea of your overall capabilities. Now from the notes you’ve sent me-”

“I didn’t send you any fucking notes-?!”

“From what your physical therapist has told me-”

“How did you get that?! That is suppose to be confidential information-!”

“From stalking you day and night for the last week-” Kisei shrugged, waiting for another interruption. “I’ve already gotten a good idea of what you’re physically capable of. Though running a minimum and then a maximum test will skew the results, we’ll be starting with “maximum” first.” The blacksmith reached outward with his empty hand and from nothing grabbed a giant pinwheel. Yugen rolled backwards into position. He isn’t actually going to-. The pinwheel blades started spinning, deadly-ly. Fuck. This wasn't just fan-freaking-tastic.


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