towerofanimus | 004... steel and wind, sweat and blood

Characters: Cloud Strife and YOU
Setting: Floor 25
Format: Starting prose but will match
Summary: Cloud had been ~~conned~~ talked into giving sword lessons to those interested in it. So anyone wanna try lifting the FHS?
Warnings: some violence? some sword swinging? some cookies? maybe not the cookies...

He didn't expect so much space on this floor. He probably didn't look properly at it before, especially when he had other concerns on his mind, but now, standing in a ring made by his swords, Cloud stood and looked at the sky. Maybe it was all faked, maybe the grass and the trees and the water was all just part of his imagination, but so far it was a good feeling.

Shaking out of his daydream, Cloud pulled the First Ken from the ground and swung the main blade around a few times. Sparky - and it was odd to call Reno that but how else were the two Renos going to be told apart? - suggested that he showed some people how to fight. While Cloud had tried to give lessons to Denzel and Marlene, they seemed more taken with Tifa's style then his. He wasn't sure how to even start, so while he waited, Cloud decided to go through a few basic forms.

Simple moves, meant to develop strength in the arms and back and give the wielder a better understanding of the weight and momentum of a sword. Cloud breathed deep, cutting the air and staying within the circle of his swords.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cloud looked up from his apple and nodded in greeting. "Thanks."

This was pretty surreal in a way; practicing out in the open. Usually he would go into the ruins of Midgar, using the crumbling buildings and the hidden monster dens as his training ground. But here, people came to this open area for their own reasons. He wondered what they thought of the crazy kid and his huge swords.

"Are you used to working with swords?"

Frankly, this is pretty tame. She's seen and has knowledge of some pretty crazy sword-wielders; just in the previous War alone there had been an Archer who used his vast treasury of swords as projectiles. So his group of blades didn't faze her at all.

"Indeed I am." She says with a smile. She held out a hand, a simple knight's sword materializing in it.

"I don't have the lifetime of training like some do, but I've become quite decent at swordplay."

Somewhat of an understatement, considering her sub-class of Saber.

He probably would be surprised to hear that someone else was a bit weird when it came to swords. As it was, he had heard all the jokes concerning his six-in-one sword and the massive amount of care he put into it.

"I'm still learning too," he said, nodding at the appearance of her sword. "That's an interesting trick."

"You think so?"

Between the Servants back home and interesting people she had run into here, she's sort of... momentarily forgotten that not everyone is used to seeing abilities like hers.

"It's certainly nothing special. A different method of unsheathing a sword, I suppose you could say."

"I know only one person in my world that can do that," he replied, glancing around at the swords he had. "I sometimes wished I could do it myself if only to save my back."

"It certainly would be a valuable skill, considering the size and number of your blades." She eyes the collection. Some of them look pretty strange, needless to say...

"But how do you carry all of them? Is it not inconvenient?"

He laughed quietly and glanced at the swords. They were of strange sizes and shapes, some like the hollow blade and the saw blades definitely being very odd for sword shapes. When the sword's concept was explained to him, Cloud had even thought it was going to be weird, but now, he was confident that the smith was a genius.

"Well, the harness I wear can fit them all comfortably, even when they're locked together."

"Locked together?" Yep, her interest is piqued now. She sounds quite interested! "Do you mean to say they all combine into one?

Cloud nodded. Instead of explaining it to her, he decided to just show her, snapping the six swords together to make one rather large weapon that looked like someone took a butcher's knife and grew it big enough for a giant. But despite it bulk and obvious weight, Cloud still held it easily in one hand.

"It was designed to match my fighting style and my strength. It's a Buster class sword still, just modified for a SOLDIER."

Huh. Now that's definitely something she's never seen before.

"Fascinating. I assume this 'soldier' you speak of is no normal troop?"

"SOLDIER are the elite forces of ShinRa Electric Company. Genetically enhanced fighters created just for them."

He wasn't one, not really. Despite that, Cloud still had the skills and speed of one.

"An... electric company?" She looks confused at that. "A company such as that needs its own military?"

The places the people here talk about just keep getting stranger and stranger...

"Well... It's almost like a government the way it ran everything on Gaia."

It might have sounded weird, but it was the only thing that Cloud knew that had been a governing body. Sure the little towns and villages had city councils or mayors or even kings. But in the end, ShinRa took over all of that.

"SOLDIERs were made to protect the people and the interests of ShinRa."

004... steel and wind, sweat and blood

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