Pain Begets Growth (TRAINING)

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Trubbishguy
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Pain Begets Growth (TRAINING)

Post by Trubbishguy » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:38 pm

TREE PUNCH


(2109/2000. +2 Endurance)

Hiroki knew that in order to take out the Suisen, he would need to be better. Not just stronger, or faster, or smarter, but better in every sense of the word. It was why he was currently kicking at a tree. He wouldn’t stop until he couldn’t stop. It was childish in some ways, and there were definitely more effective ways to train. Those ways weren’t necessarily available to him right now. He may need to refine the techniques later, but the important part was that he could go the distance and continue to fight.

His prior ideas on hand-to-hand combat was to not be involved with it at all. If someone got too close, he would just choke them out with spore clouds. While that was surely still his preferred route of attack, he couldn’t help it that there would surely be moments where he couldn’t escape. And in close quarters, he needed to be capable of holding his own. Which was why, even as the bark had been scraping him, he kept on. Pain begets growth. Exhaustion formed experience.

Sweat rolled down from his brows. It had only been a minute, if that. Pathetic. How could he expect to take down an entire crime family, filled with people who were trained fighters, if he couldn’t stand to be active for a minute? What was he expecting to do?

No, don’t be harsh on yourself. Plants cannot grow if they’re so focused on the weeds. Politely pluck them away, and focus on the plant.

His mother’s words rang through his mind. He took a moment to stop and wipe away as much sweat the back of his hand could in one go. Then after a deep, slightly rejuvenating breath, he continued on. Punch after punch, kick after kick, blow after blow, he continued punching at the tree which hadn’t moved by a single hit. Why would it? It was strong, sturdy, still. One day, maybe the Kinoko could reach the level of the tree. As he kept on, he was able to distract himself (though also at the cost of ferocity in the strikes) with thinking of the nature around him. It was valuable, and the gift of his people was nothing more than being blessed with a different connection to it. The Great Goddess had gifted the clan with bodies capable of growing fungi effectively on their body, and merging with them. He turned his head slightly in the middle of a kick to stare at his own shoulder, the stalks swaying as his momentum shakes him. He should be thankful for the responsibility given to him by divinity.

However, when he was in moods like this, the only thing it did was remind him that the responsibility took something away from him.

That wasn’t the right way to think about it at all. He knew that. So he took the emotional response and tried ‘channeling’ it, which was a better way to phrase dumbing it down to the pure urge to break things, and only acting on that. It was a sort of fuel that he could use. His body may have been cut up, but he could keep going. Pain begets growth. He repeated it as a mantra while he swung strikes that any trained eye would laugh at. They were sloppy, and he was doing more harm to his body than good because of them. But learning to endure pain was a lesson all of its own that he was picking up today. An enemy with an agenda could do much, much worse than a tree. If he couldn’t take a few scrapes, what would happen when someone struck him for real? He had sparred with a few of the fighters of the Kinoko, but he hadn’t had any actual encounters with people who would hurt him. He needed to feel physical pain, as unpleasant as it was, because it made him stronger.

Unfortunately, his adrenaline ran out in a flash. Without warning, his body ached from the exhaustion. He needed oxygen, and water, and his legs started to shake. Poor Hiroki found himself leaning against the very tree he was hitting just a moment ago, using it to keep himself up. He couldn’t stop though, even as the scrapes began to somehow burn more than they did before. He pushed off of the tree, wobbling as he began to strike again. Each blow took far more out of him than it did the tree, but he kept on, enduring through the pain and the exhaustion. He could take it. Well, to phrase it better, he needed to take it. If he couldn’t take it, he was going to anyway and suffer the consequences. He tried repeating the three word phrase over, but he had to focus on staying up. He kept his ground, even though doing so made him lightheaded. That was fine. He would be done soon. Just not now.

He didn’t come into it with a goal in mind. Just to push himself. He knew that he wouldn’t understand what that was until he was doing it.

Well, here it was. And it smacked him across the face harder than he ever could have imagined.

He stood against it though, and he continued his assault on the piece of nature after wiping away more sweat from his face. He shouldn’t have done it though, as the splinters in his hand stung worse than the salty droplets were annoying him.

He swung, and where before each swing took much out of him, now it seemed to increase tenfold. Whereas before it felt as though small pieces were falling out of him with each hit, now each attack was taking out chunks, as though his arm were glass and he was smashing it against the wood.

Yet he kept on. He kept on until it all broke. Hiroki threw one final punch, and as he put all of the remaining life he had into it, he fell with it. He stumbled into the tree once more, this time without the strength to properly pull himself up. Of course, he attempted to go further, hitting it with his arms wrapped around it in the strangest, most aggressive type of hug. It didn’t last long. The Shroom-Boy slumped to the bottom, and stayed there observing himself. His chest was on fire, and each breath was agonizing, as if there weren’t enough air to breathe. There was a loud thumping in his chest that vibrated his whole body, and it felt as though he shook with his heartbeat. As he looked back to the fungi on his shoulder, he discovered that his eyes were playing tricks on him, his normal perception replaced with a dizzier one.

But, that was why he was doing this. So that way this didn’t happen in the heat of battle.

He knew that a plant couldn’t grow overnight (aside from some notable exceptions, of course) and decided to call it a night. After resting for a bit, he pulled himself together enough to go back inside, drink and douse himself in water, and pass out.

Tomorrow would be no different, though.





After resting and a hearty breakfast, he was back at it.

Pain begets growth.

He stared down the tree.

Hiroki had decided not to open all of his old wounds by approaching his training the same way as yesterday. Instead, he came up with the brilliant strategy of just… charging into the tree.

Again, he was not trying to increase his combat skills, he just wanted to exhaust himself and learn to fight pain. Any method that was causing him to sweat would get him to do that, whether it was failing to string efficient combos of strikes or just running into a tree, he would pursue in the hopes that at the end of it all he would be a more resilient man.

The Kinoko stared longer than he should have before beginning his training. It was a daunting concept; just charging in and tackling something that he knew didn’t move. It was, in a sense, no different than what he had done yesterday. Thus, Hiroki forced himself forward, ramming his left shoulder into the rough bark. Immediately he stopped and grimaced at the agony, but it quickly dampened. As soon as it did, he was back at it. Hiroki took a few steps back, then dove into the tree once more. It stood, unwavering as the boy launched his body into it. This time, he was quicker to repeat the process, but it hurt more as he did so. Pain begets growth, he repeated as he stood back up and charged again.

Over and over again, he flung himself into the tree in a variety of ways. He made sure not to put the focus on any one spot, as he knew that if anything had become too sore, he may have given up as soon as he hit a certain threshold. There would be a point in time where he would push his pain limit, but he needed to be out of gas before that happened. He trudged his way through the odd training practice, with time slipping out of his mind as enough sweat to start rivers seemingly fell from his brows. His body was no longer just covered in cuts and scrapes, but now bruises had been coloring him with deep purples and blues.

Still, he hurled his body at the tree, hoping that he could earn its sturdiness in return.

While it very easily could have been the rush of exercise that led him to believe it, Hiroki began to notice it working already. If that wasn’t the case, then he was at least more resilient than he had ever given himself credit for. He was bearing the pain more well than he had ever hoped too, and much better than yesterday’s. Of course, yesterday he was only striking with his limbs, and now he had a much bigger target to spread the torture across. Regardless, though he was approaching a point of exhaustion soon, he knew that he had lasted far longer than he had yesterday. He was beginning to endure, or at least realize just how much he could in the first place. It was fascinating, and hopeful.

Also, it was painful. As his mind began to wander and focus on what he would be able to do and who he could transform into with more of this nonsensical masochism. As he did, cracks began to form in his tolerance.

Focus.

It was hard though to focus on slamming oneself into a wall of wood. He took a moment to breathe. As he had been training all day, he had constant little breaks to inhale and readjust himself as he pushed himself off of the tree and stepped back, but now as he began feeling fires in his chest and abdomen that were similar to yesterday’s, he stopped to gather himself.

Pain begets growth.

He forced it through his own teeth, saying it aloud in an attempt to speak the motivation to force on into existence. It didn’t work.

He did it again.

Then again.

He continued saying it, getting louder and louder before he was finally able to push himself on. The Kinoko would have to fix that… he couldn’t shout himself back to pushing on in the middle of a fight… but that was an issue for later. The Shroom-Boy ran again at the tree and crashed into it. Then he backed up and repeated it. And again. And again. He did it with fire, both in a metaphorical sense as the energy burned him to push for growth, and in a physical sense as his body was aching and felt as though he were lit aflame. That didn’t matter to him. He kept on, pushing on. His body collided with the tree again.

And again.

And again.

This was a second wind for sure, and he wasn’t sure how long it would last. That didn’t matter. He would force himself to keep moving, to keep sweating, to keep hurting, until he couldn’t anymore. He needed to keep going. There was so much at stake, and it relied on him enduring. Every moment he could push on, he grew.

Hiroki continued, and he fought and fought and fought until he collapsed at the ground of the tree. This time, there was no more fight left in him. He’d had a good day.

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