Post by Celes Shindazu on Nov 19, 2023 13:43:07 GMT -5
The Twelfth Division. Serving as the Research and Development division of Soul Society, they were integral to the continued survival of Soul Society. However, even despite that, Celes was incredibly leery of them. Often deemed the home of freaks, the rumors that stained the Division's history were anything but admirable. She had heard rumors of experiments and advancements so vile that anyone with a functionally working moral compass wouldn't last long there. Hell, she had heard that certain movies were banned from their organized movie nights for invoking ideas within some of its members.
However, perhaps most ominous of all was their Captain. Aramis Tezuka. She had only fully met the man himself recently during a Captain's meeting to discuss the last great invasion by Hell. That singular interaction revealed to Celes that he was methodical. However, strangest of all was his cadence of speech and patterns. They seemed very robotic. Almost distant. It left Celes curious about Aramis, if nothing else. However, the man was shrouded in mystery. The most popular rumor about him going around, of course, was that not a single person had ever seen the Captain's Bankai. That added even further to the mystique of the man and his Division.
Despite the negative atmosphere surrounding the R&D department, their value could not be understated. They were the brains behind Soul Society's technology. Hell, just a little while ago, the Division had renewed several key defense networks to safeguard Soul Society's most restricted areas. In fact, it was this technological brilliance that brought Celes to their Barracks. She had heard of their training rooms. State-of-the-art simulation spaces that could cater to anyone's training rooms. Normally unavailable to the wider public, Celes had made an effort to talk to Aramis for access.
Despite her reservations, the Captain had been quite friendly with her, his unique speech cadence still fresh in her memory. "Request granted. Free to use. Advise technician on details for training simulation." She hadn't expected it to be so readily given, but she wasn't going to complain. After all, it offered her a unique experience. With this in mind, the Captain finally reached the foot of the Barracks. Looking around, it seemed that there was surprisingly little traffic flow. In fact, it was rather silent. It reminded the Captain of her visit to the Second Division.
Nevertheless, Celes pushed on and into the Barracks proper. Again, there weren't all too many officers roaming the halls. In fact, the barracks seemed rather sterile. "Huh... completely unlike the Tenth and Eleventh, I see. Guess everyone has their unique flair.", the Captain briefly thought to herself as she continued onward. Weaving through hallway after hallway, Celes eventually reached the training rooms. Several white glass pane doors sat opposite one another as they reached down toward the end of the hallway. Large black numbers were printed right above each door, labeling the room.
Taking a few steps forward, she noticed a little divet in the wall with a door. Approaching it, the lime-haired Shinigami was about to knock on it until the black-tinted glass lit up and revealed a woman just behind it. She gently pushed her glasses up as she stared at Celes expectantly. "Um... hello. My name i-" Swiftly, the woman cut Celes off, "Captain Shindazu, right? I've already been informed on your arrival by Captain Tezuka." Celes' eyes blinked rapidly in response. The woman was almost surgical in her remark as she cut straight to the point. "What kind of parameters were you seeking?"
Celes rubbed her shoulder briefly, caught off-guard by the woman. This must be the technician who Aramis was talking about. "Well, I've been wanting to practice my martial arts. If possible, I'd like to start with a refresher course. Something or someone to run me through forms and movements of tai chi and baguazhang." The woman on the other side of the glass simply nodded and as her hands flew across a keyboard. "I see. Give me a few moments, Captain Shindazu." Before Celes had a moment to correct her, the window went dark and Celes could only see her own reflection once more.
Needless to say, the Captain felt a little deflated. "Ugh...", she briefly thought to herself. To kill some time, Celes began to slowly pace around, occasionally leaning against the wall as she waited. First one minute. Then two. Then five. Finally, fifteen minutes passed. Celes let out a soft sigh. Eventually, she saw the light turn back on as the woman came into view. "Okay, Captain Shindazu. The simulation should be ready to go. Please enter chamber 5. If you need to modify the program, feel free to communicate with me from within the chamber." The Captain nodded and began to make her way to training room 5. Hopefully, the simulation would be worth the frustrations...
Walking up to the door, Celes briefly let her eyes skim across it. It was a translucent white pane with no handle. The Captain placed her hand against the glass and lightly tried to push it open. It didn't budge. She looked at it, confused. Soon, however, the door slid open on its own, blinding Celes with a ghostly pale light as she crossed the threshold of the chamber. As the flashbang of an entrance wore off, Celes found herself in... a sterile white room. It had almost no features besides faint black lines which seemed to segment the room into perfectly even white squares. This was certainly different from any training grounds she had used in well... her entire life!
As the girl took a few steps forward, the space before her began to shimmer for a moment. Reflexively taking a defensive stance, Celes watched with calm, and even breaths. The shimmering stopped and began taking on a form. Within a few moments, Celes would be across from an older gentleman. He wore a black rash-guard and white pants. His hair and mustache were a gleaming silver color. Celes relaxed for a brief moment and her eyes met his. "Welcome, Captain Shindazu. I am a Synthetic Autonomous Martial Arts and Unarmed Intelligence unit, or SAMURAI for short."
Needless to say, Celes was rather shocked. She briefly walked around the virtual construct. If it hadn't identified itself as some kind of artificial intelligence, not that Celes knew much about that, she would never have guessed. "So... you've been designed to teach martial arts?" The old man merely nodded his head before speaking in a calm voice, his arms crossed behind his back, "Correct. I've been programmed with knowledge of over one hundred different styles of martial arts." Celes chuckled. She had to admit that this was pretty cool.
"Great, um... I'd like to learn Tai Chi and Baguazhang." The man paused for a moment. "Understood. What difficulty of training are you seeking today?" Gently gripping her own chin, Celes pondered for a moment. She used to be incredibly proficient with Baguazhang and the soft style, Blessed Breath Contemplation. However, she had traded much of that muscle memory for the hard-style, Iron Tiger Tradition. Could she just jump back into soft-style martial arts like that? After a minute or so of contemplating, the girl sighed. "Let's start with a beginner sequence. It's been a while since I've trained in the style."
The old man nodded and took a deep breath. He shifted his weight and slid both of his feet together. Celes recognized the stance known as opening. "Assume form as demonstrated." Celes nodded and closed her eyes, sliding her feet together. She tried to relax her body, allowing her muscles to simply hang. It felt... unnatural from what she was used to now, but it was a little familiar. After all, the Iron Tiger Tradition wasn't without its own soft-style applications. Letting her arms simply hang next to her body, she took slow and measured breaths. "Transition." She watched the AI program perform a few shifts and slid into a new stance. Using her own breathing pattern, the Captain followed suit.
And so, Celes would do her best to follow through with the movements that the program went through. She felt her muscles tense at times, but it wasn't something that proper breathing and mindfulness couldn't fix. So she continued following the program through the motions. Celes clearly demonstrated her quick learning as she familiarized herself with each posture. Decades of martial arts experience, no matter the style, allowed her to more easily pick up intended movements and transitions through each unique posture. As she progressed, the girl couldn't help but find herself a little... well bored. What felt like an hour had passed and each movement was slow and deliberate. In fact, they had repeated a few forms by now already.
"Hey, are we able to move on to more advanced forms?" The program looked at her and spoke in an unfeeling tone, "Would you like to increase the difficulty of the training?" Celes blinked and chuckled, "Sure, but... can't you just bump the intensity based on my performance?" He stared at her for a moment as they finished a motion, bringing his hands down and crossing them behind his back again. "Adaptive intensity training is available. Would you like to proceed?" Celes nodded with a slight grin on her face.
With the new protocol in place, Celes could feel little differences begin to creep into the training as they progressed. Movements from the AI would become snappier. It'd leave less time in between postures. Soon, even the speed of it began to increase. Celes, however, wasn't entirely bothered by this. She was among the fastest Shinigami within the Soul Society and could handle the gradual increases in agility. The same, however, couldn't necessarily be said for her stamina. She had to admit that she had been getting more lethargic of late during high-intensity exercise. Her muscles would ache from time to time and she'd need to catch her breath more often. If she were to proceed through the more difficult stages of this training, especially if they moved on to live sparring, Celes would need to take breaks every now and then.
