Following my highly undignified defeat at the hands of Vice Admiral Tsuru and a tightly rolled-up tactical manifest, the rules of my engagement with my newly acquired little sister were strictly, formally rewritten.
I was no longer allowed to refine her kinetic chain via high-velocity arboreal pebbles.
I was no longer permitted to sit in trees during her drills to provide invisible artillery support.
Instead, Tsuru decreed that if I was going to unilaterally claim Gion as my sister, I was required to physically supervise her training.
I was assigned to the private dojo located at the rear of the Marineford officer compound.
Which brought me to my current, deeply tragic predicament.
I was standing in the exact center of the polished hardwood floor.
I was dressed in my freshly tailored grey suit, with my fedora resting on a wooden bench near the sliding paper door.
My cursed katana was locked away in its black scabbard, safely clipped to my leather belt.
In my right hand, I casually held a standard-issue wooden bokken.
Directly across from me, gripping a bamboo shinai with white-knuckled intensity, was eleven-year-old Gion.
She was glaring at me with the fierce, hyper-focused aggression of a rabid honey badger.
“Attack me,” Gion demanded, lowering her stance.
Her footwork was marginally better than it had been a week ago in the dirt courtyard, though she still heavily favored her right side.
I let out a long, exhausted sigh.
I leaned my body weight entirely onto the wooden sword, using it like a cane for an elderly man.
‘I decline,’ I stated mentally, though I kept my face entirely blank.
“I decline,” I echoed aloud, my voice a flat, deadpan drawl.
“Attacking requires forward momentum. Forward momentum is cardio. I have already walked all the way from the cafeteria to this dojo. My daily caloric expenditure has been entirely depleted.”
“You are a Marine Warrant Officer!” Gion yelled, stomping her bare foot on the hardwood floor.
The sound echoed loudly in the quiet room.
“Tsuru-san said you have to train me! You can’t just stand there and do nothing!”
‘I am a master of doing nothing,’ I thought lazily.
‘It is my primary tactical advantage.
It confuses the enemy and preserves my joints.’
“I am training you,” I argued reasonably.
“I am teaching you the invaluable, highly advanced art of patience. In a real combat scenario, the enemy will often attempt to bait you into an overextension by doing absolutely nothing. I am currently simulating an extremely boring enemy.”
“Stop treating me like a baby!” Gion growled.
She lunged forward.
She swung her bamboo sword in a wide, aggressive horizontal arc aimed squarely at my ribs.
She put every ounce of her eleven-year-old strength into the blow.
I didn’t block.
Blocking required arm strength and shoulder tension.
I simply pivoted perfectly on my left heel, rotating my torso exactly two inches backward.
The tip of her bamboo sword sliced through the empty air directly in front of my suit jacket, missing the expensive grey fabric by less than a millimeter.
Because she had put her entire body weight into the heavy swing, the lack of physical impact completely shattered her balance.
Her forward momentum carried her wildly past me.
Her feet tangled together, and she pitched dangerously toward the unyielding hardwood floor.
Before her face could make brutal contact with the wood, I lazily reached out with my left hand and grabbed the back of her white uniform collar.
I held her suspended in the air for a second.
Her arms and legs flailed indignantly like a caught fish.
“Your center of gravity is pitched forward again, Gion,” I noted analytically, gently setting her back onto her feet.
“You are currently trying to fight the floor. The floor has a flawless defensive record. It has never lost a fight. It will win every single time.”
Gion furiously swatted my hand away.
Her face burned bright red with sheer embarrassment.
She spun around, raising her bamboo sword again.
Tears of pure frustration pricked the corners of her dark eyes.
“You won’t even swing your sword! You think I’m too weak to take a hit! Just hit me! Once! I need to learn how to block!”
I stopped slouching.
The deadpan, lazy aura surrounding me instantly vanished.
It was replaced by a cold, unsettling stillness that made the air in the dojo feel twenty degrees cooler.
I looked down at the wooden sword in my hand.
Then I looked at the fierce, clumsy, incredibly fragile eleven-year-old girl standing in front of me.
“I cannot hit you, Gion,” I said quietly.
“Why not?!” she demanded, stepping forward, entirely devoid of fear.
“Because I’m a girl? Because I’m a kid?”
“No,” I replied softly.
‘How do I explain this to her?’ my brain calculated, searching desperately for a way to translate the horrific, psychopathic architecture of my mind into words a normal child could understand.
‘My physical reflexes were built in a slaughterhouse.
Every instinct, every muscle fiber, every fragmented memory I possess is explicitly designed to terminate life in the most mathematically efficient way possible.’
When I looked at an enemy, my traumatized mind automatically drew a geometric grid of vulnerabilities as a coping mechanism.
It highlighted the trachea, the femoral artery, the exact pounds per square inch required to snap a cervical spine.
But when I looked at Gion, the math completely inverted.
“My muscle memory,” I started, choosing my words with extreme, agonizing caution, “does not possess a setting for friendly sparring. If I swing this piece of wood at a pirate, I do not aim to bruise them. I aim to collapse their ribcage into their lungs.”
Gion stared at me.
Her anger faltered slightly in the face of my absolute, chilling sincerity.
“I can control the blade when it is aimed at hostiles,” I continued, gripping the wooden hilt.
“But you are not a hostile. You are…” I paused, the cold assassin in my brain violently flinching at the mere concept of the next sentence.
“…You are the asset. You are my sister.”
“So just swing lightly!” Gion insisted, though her voice lacked its previous volume.
“Just tap my shoulder! Bogard, I need to learn how to defend myself!”
I let out another heavy sigh.
‘She is far too stubborn for her own good.’
“Very well. I will attempt a low-velocity strike to your left deltoid,” I conceded flatly.
“Raise your guard.”
Gion eagerly raised her bamboo sword.
She braced her footing, her eyes locked onto my shoulders, waiting intensely for the telegraph of my movement.
I lifted the wooden sword.
I locked my wrist.
I mentally calculated a swing utilizing exactly zero point five percent of my physical strength.
It was a mere tap that wouldn’t even bruise a ripe peach.
I initiated the swing.
And my own mind instantly, violently mutinied.
Before the wooden sword could travel even three inches through the air, a deafening, psychological panic overrode every single neural pathway in my body.
The cold, detached part of my brain, the trauma-forged mechanism that turned people into meat and geometry, simply refused to apply that logic to her.
To my deeply broken subconscious, raising a weapon at Gion was synonymous with the massacre at Oakhaven.
My own central nervous system completely paralyzed my right arm.
The muscles in my shoulder locked like a rusted iron vise.
A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
My fingers went entirely numb, completely rejecting the conscious command from my brain.
The wooden sword slipped from my paralyzed grip.
It clattered harmlessly onto the hardwood floor, the sound echoing loudly in the quiet, tense dojo.
I stood there, staring blankly at my right hand.
It was trembling slightly.
My own trauma had actively warred with my conscious desire to perform a simple training swing, and the trauma had won unconditionally.
‘My brain refuses to associate her with violence.
I would sooner sever my own arm with my katana than let it strike her.’
Gion lowered her bamboo sword.
She looked at the wooden weapon on the floor, then up at my pale face.
She looked incredibly insulted.
“Why did you drop it?!” she yelled, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
“You didn’t even try!”
“I assure you, I did,” I replied.
My voice slowly returned to its deadpan flatline as the feeling crawled back into my numb fingers.
“My subconscious staged a violent mutiny. I am psychologically incapable of striking you.”
“That is the stupidest excuse I have ever heard in my entire life!” Gion groaned, rubbing her face in total frustration.
“It is not an excuse. It is a psychological safeguard,” a calm, commanding voice echoed from the open doorway.
Gion and I both turned our heads.
Vice Admiral Tsuru was standing at the entrance to the dojo.
Her arms were crossed elegantly over her pristine Marine coat.
She had been watching the entire exchange from the hallway.
Tsuru walked into the room, her footsteps completely silent on the hardwood.
She stopped between us.
She looked down at the dropped wooden sword, then up at my entirely apathetic, exhausted expression.
“Gion,” Tsuru said softly, placing a warm hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Bogard is not mocking you. You must understand what he is. He is a weapon forged in extreme trauma. A weapon does not know how to play. You do not use a loaded cannon for a pillow fight.”
Gion looked up at Tsuru, then back at me.
The anger finally melted out of her dark eyes.
It was replaced by a slow, dawning realization of just how profoundly broken her new older brother actually was.
The terrifying teenager who could split a falling mountain in half was entirely paralyzed by the thought of tapping her shoulder with a stick.
“He is your shield, Gion,” Tsuru continued, her voice gentle but firm.
“He will never be your sparring partner, because his mind will not allow him to cause you harm. Not even by accident. If you wish to learn how to fight, you will spar with the other cadets.”
“And if those cadets hit her too hard,” I interjected lazily, walking over to pick my fedora up off the bench and placing it squarely on my head, “I will ensure they experience a sudden, inexplicable drop in their structural integrity.”
Tsuru shot me a sharp warning glare, though the corners of her mouth twitched with amusement.
“You will do no such thing, Bogard. The cadets are completely off-limits to your brand of discipline.”
“I make absolutely no promises regarding localized gravitational anomalies,” I replied smoothly.
Gion looked down at the floor, processing the entire dynamic.
Slowly, a small, genuine, and highly mischievous smile spread across her face.
She picked up her bamboo sword and walked purposefully over to me.
Without any warning whatsoever, she kicked me squarely in the shin.
I didn’t flinch.
I didn’t move.
I just stared down at her.
“What was that for?” I asked flatly.
“For calling me clumsy,” Gion huffed, though her eyes were bright and happy.
“If you are really not going to hit me back, then I can just use you as a practice dummy!”
I looked at Tsuru, gesturing lazily to the violent eleven-year-old currently plotting my demise.
“Vice Admiral. The asset is actively exploiting my deep-seated psychological neuroses. I require immediate extraction.”
Tsuru simply turned around and walked out of the dojo, a soft, musical laugh escaping her lips.
“You claimed her, Bogard,” Tsuru called over her shoulder.
“She is your responsibility now. Have fun with your cardio.”
I let out a long, heavy sigh as Gion began to relentlessly poke my ribs with her bamboo stick, demanding I teach her how to block.
‘I will never hurt her,’ I thought, closing my eyes and accepting my fate as a highly lethal, completely defenseless human punching bag.
‘Even if it means I never get to take a nap again.’