Chapter 7
"Preparations (Part 2)"
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Village of Patch, 12 days until Yang and Blake's departure
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"DAMMIT!"

Yang did her best to try to ignore the odd sensation, as she rubbed the bruised knuckles of her flesh and blood hand, with the cold metal of her artificial one. It hadn't even been ten minutes since the warmup had ended, yet she had already been disarmed three times. Meanwhile, Taiyang was absent-mindedly twirling an eskrima stick in his right hand, while tapping the other against his leg. Seeing this, Yang frowned as she picked up her dropped weapons. "Somehow, I get the feeling you aren't taking me seriously" she said to her father. Suppressing a chuckle, Taiyang replied, "Well, you haven't touched these things in about three or four years. If our roles were reversed, would you?"

As much as she didn't like to admit it, Yang knew her father had a point. Tai was a master of various martial arts. He had attempted to convince Yang at a young age to not settle on a single fighting style. Tai wanted to teach her everything he knew, and their original training reflected that. However, as soon as Yang had seen Shot Gauntlets for the first time, Tai knew it was a battle he wouldn't win. Yang wanted to stick with just hand to hand techniques. She had the mindset and drive to progress at unheard of rates, but her stubbornness in regards to training with actual weapons led to her skill with them deteriorating. She did retain the basic knowledge, but plenty of work would be required to get her proficient once more. Despite her attempts to not give in to rage, Yang was upset and angry at herself. Blind rage was what cost her most in her very brief encounter with Adam. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the outcome could have been different somehow if she had managed to keep a clear head.

No. Don't think like that Yang. Don't dwell on the past.

That seemed to be the recurring theme as of late. Even when she was young, her uncle impressed upon her to not let the past control the future in a way that would harm her. Her father had a similar conversation during their first post recovery sparring session. Hell, even Junior of all people had said something along those lines. Dwelling on the past was something she had done too much of recently, and it was something she couldn't do anymore. The past was static, something that couldn't be changed. For every small change and what-if, there were countless variables that could not be accounted for. If events had been different enough, then Adam could have simply killed her and Blake on the spot. Right now, the best thing she could do was learn from her mistakes and attempt to not make the same ones again later.

Taking up a fighting stance once more, Yang made the first move. However, even to a casual observer, it was clear that anger guided her strikes. She came in with a high, overhead strike with her right hand. With almost no effort on his part, Tai brought his left hand and stick in front of his face to block the blow. Yang wasn't going to give her father a chance to follow up. She put her weight into her first strike to force Tai to hold his block, then she swung her other weapon around up high. Tai frowned at the movement, noting how sloppy it was. He had more than enough room to duck under the blow. As he did so, he dropped his guard as he pivoted on his right foot and spun around. Yang was still putting most of her own weight on her right side. Her father's movement forced her off balance and caused her to stumble forward. Meanwhile, as Tai finished spinning around he aimed a strike at the back of one of Yang's knees. Since this was just training, the blow was far from hard or damaging, but it was enough to make the young woman's left leg buckle. Before she could attempt to get back to her feet, Tai lightly tapped both sides of her head with his eskrima sticks.

"And with that, your leg is broken and your skull has been fractured in two places. If you somehow managed to live, you'll be walking with a limp and having a liquid diet. Oh, and there's the possibility of drooling while attempting to remember your name."

Yang sighed as she got to her feet and looked at Tai. It was clear at this point that a ton of work would be needed. Plus, there was the fact that when it came to fighting at least, she was still letting anger control her actions in battle. It was hard for Yang to not give in since her Semblance was partly powered by that emotion. However, she was going to need to learn control, otherwise she'd be prone to repeating her mistakes.

Meanwhile, Tai had set his weapons down near a cooler. Pulling out a couple of bottles of water, he tossed one to his daughter. "Take five minutes. When we get started again, we're back to basics. Despite your insistence, you're not quite ready for disarming drills yet." Yang wanted to protest, but she knew he was right. She was the type of person who wanted to jump right into things. It was quickly becoming clear that she'd need to take it a bit slower. Holding her bottle in her left hand, she attempted to open it, but instead of twisting the cap off she ripped it off instead. Groaning, she let out another sigh as she drank from the extra-large opening she created.

This was going to be a long week.