Nathaniel's description was...weird, least to say, nothing similar to what she has experienced. Even though, Chi decided to listen carefully, and not interrupt him.

As he was going, over time, she had a feeling that they were talking about two separate things. As she realized soon after, they were in fact...

"Please don't tell me that...Aiko, you little fuck..."

When Nathan hugged her, she didn't reciprocate it, she was too shocked. All the blood drained from her face.

"I preferred being devirtualized."

"I was there...right there, pretty much just next to you, and...a-and...I didn't...I-I couldn't...Im so sorry." Her voice almost gone, Chi covered her face with her hands. She was about to lose it...again...No...she musn't. This is exactly the reason why people treat her like they do...this is why they don't tell her so many things...They're getting hurt, trying to keep her "safe". She pulled her head back up, and nodded couple of times. Inhaling deeply, her breathing was uneven and discontinuous.

"I-uh...Im really glad, you told me that... Thank you." She had tears in her eyes, and her whole body was slightly trembling. "That...That means a lot to me...It really does..."

She suddenly reached for her coffee cup, still half full, and drank all of the remaining coffee at once, without moving the mug away from her mouth until she was done. She put it back at the table with a loud bang.

"And im sorry i forced you to talk about it..." If not for her tears, her face would look almost completely expressionless, as she was "staring" at the table now.

Honestly, what do you take me for?
With a move more reminiscent of fencing rather than Kendo, she moved in with a real thrust as well, the blade slightly slanted toward Nil's own thrusting arm.
***

Frenchy look notably driven, reminding Lyora of how the Nurse would act.
Is this really happening right now? What the hell did Nil say to her!?
"You plan on confessing anytime soon?"
"Con...confessing!" panicked Lyora.

Switching movements, Nil sidesteps while ducking, riding his shinai along the bottom of hers for a strike to her side and midsection, ending in a kneel as his weapon moves forward.

"You were there and didn't what? Break bones too?" Nathaniel was cleaning the utensils he had used. "You're being silly for being sad about that, there was no way anyone could have imagined that happening. The only one who should be at fault is whatever made those machines malicious." His watch ringed and he turned it off, opening the oven and grabbing the pan with the drying towel he had in his hand. However the towel wasn't thick enough and he burned the tips of his fingers. "Ow fuck!" He snatched his hand back and jumped around. "Damn it damn it damn it!" He muttered. The fact that she was blaming herself for what he had put him through had clouded his mind. He tugged on an oven mitt and pulled out the bread that he then scooped onto a cooling rack. He waited for them to cool slightly before spooning the cream onto the cinnamon buns, letting the heat melt them and glaze over the bakery treats. Once completely covered in the sticky sugar, he put it on a plate and handed it to Chi. "Here, wash away all this nastiness with a cinnamon bun and some coffee. I'll make it just the way you like it, 3/4 half n half and 1/4 coffee with some vanilla, cinnamon, sugar." He created the drink and placed it next to the treat before turning back to packaging the rest of the treats. He had baked enough to give one to Sora, Pascale, and Chubs. The biscuits were for Nil as he didn't like sweet things, and he also had one more bun for his siblings.

Ms. K brought her raised foot back instead of forward, taking a backstep instead of the forward step that would have followed a real thrust. It was a feint! Still only using a single hand she pulled the shinai down with tremendous force, pinning Nil's own blade down on the ground.

"Kiai!"
***
"You see, you were acting like this yesterday too?"
"Yesterday?"
"In Aunty's office, did she...do anything weird?"

Nil withdraws his shinai, and sighs. It looked like he wasn't going to win this in an attack or two, and certainly not with tactics. Raising his weapon, he takes up the first stance, Ipponme, and decides that he'd just have to risk a continuous barrage between the two of them, until an opening presented itself. If it were an exchange of attacks and blocks, maybe, just maybe, Ms. K would get careless enough to have an opening appear. He was determined to land at least one blow, though. He needed to get stronger, and he needed her help to do that. If he couldn't do at least this much, how would he be able to help everyone in Lyoko? What if next time there was an attack on the school, he was just as useless? Stepping forward, he engages her with a surprising amount of passion.

"You don't understand it's just..." Chi sighed "Whatever...we're all fine now, and all I should worry about, is keeping it that way..." She wiped off her tears, with her hand.

She wasn't sure, if now she felt better, or worse. Probably a little bit of both...

When given the cinnamon roll, she nodded as a sign of appreciation, and started to nibble on it. "This is good." She muttered quietly.

For this whole time, Aiko was sitting on the desk, making absolutely no noise what so ever.

Effortlessly, Ms. K parried his blows countering and striking every blow between them. Nil's passion didn't wane though. He kept trying and trying, desperate and determined, to get a single hit in. This was a passion she didn't expect to see in her disciple. Pulling her sword, back she spun around and with her left hand smaked the shinai out of his hand, grabbing it by the "blade" so that it wouldn't fly off.

"Alright...you win Nil."

Nil pants, but the gleam in his eye doesn't vanish. He nods to her with a bow. "Thank you for being my partner, sensei." Despite his elation, there was still a lump in his stomach. Whether it was from the massive gap in their skill, the realization of his own inadequacy, or the fact that he was relying on her when he also had to bring up some issues with her sister, or even a combination of all of them, he simply knew that he couldn't fully appreciate the moment. Still, it didn't stop him from bringing his head back up and turning to the rest of the club. "I hope all of you polish your own skills. You'll never reach Ms. K's level if you slack off."

Nathaniel sighed, he must've messed up somewhere but he has no idea where. This may be why I'm gay. He thought musingly. "Well let's go take these treats to the others. Let's see... Pascale, Sora, and Chubs." He counted off three bags, "This one is for Nil, and one for Isaiah and Belle. Alright I have them all." He placed half of them by Chi, "Hey can you hold some so that we don't squish them please?"

>Login

Having walked away from the others almost immediately, Sora had lost his interest in talking to the rest of them for the time being. After all, he figured he was simply just one of the bodies used in the virtual world to accomplish their apparent "missions", which he figured weren't stopping anytime soon. The main bit bothering him being his constant failures in the world so far, something he wasn't particularly proud of... not that he would be anyway. The short club meeting was especially helpful, giving him some time to do some "unique practice" he had planned for himself a few days prior.

Grabbing his duffle bag, staff, and skateboard from his locker, Sora made his way outside. Placing his skateboard on the ground, he stared at it for a moment in silence. For some reason he never used it an awful lot, despite how he was pretty darn good at it. The stimulation from the activity was never really worth it to him. Kicking it up with his right foot, he leaned back slightly and kicked with his left as his right landed back on the ground. Skate bouncing back and forth twice, it started to fall towards the ground upside-down. Leaning forward suddenly and nudging it with his right foot, he flipped it mid-air, allowing it a solid landing upright on the pavement. Content his reaction time wasn't quite as rusty as he thought, he jumped on the board and pushed forward.

Continuing onward to the park, Sora went a far ways into the more forested area until he found a relatively flat and deserted clearing. Figuring he was in a spot remote enough to avoid critical onlookers, he placed his duffle bag against a nearby tree as he slowed down to a stop. Pulling out his practice stick, he balanced it in his right hand, jumping up from his skateboard while at the same time spinning it about horizontally with his left foot. Landing back on the skateboard without much difficulty despite the weight of the staff in his right hand, which he offset with a lean to the left with his body, he started to ride around the clearing in repeated large circles. As he sped up, he crouched down slightly and grabbed the staff in both hands. With a quick jerk of his left wrist, he let go with his right and allowed the quarterstaff to fly upwards slightly. Quickly jumping up from his skateboard after a few seconds of preparation, he went into a forward-faced back flip and reached out to grab the now falling staff in front of his face. While he grabbed the grip mid-air, it didn't take long for Sora to realize that his body wasn't quite used to the exercise yet. Falling just a bit too slow to land back on the still-moving skateboard, he barely caught himself feet first on the ground, stumbling over in a roll to avoid hurting his legs in the process.

Rubbing his head as he got up from the ground somewhat slowly, Sora looked down at the staff still held in both hands in front of his vision.

Still rusty I guess. If I hadn't rolled... the staff would've hit me in the face, no doubt about it. I need to work harder on the movements...

While he would otherwise be disappointed from the failed attempt, Sora only felt a false emptiness in his mind as he reviewed what he did wrong in his thoughts. Running over to his skateboard ahead before it rolled out of the clearing, he tried the same exercise about a dozen more times. After some more repeated failures and near-successes, he finally got it on his 13th attempt. Flipping over mid-air, he twisted his body slightly to the right, correcting his favored weight side as he grabbed the staff and descended. The hard part was landing on the skateboard itself. Not only did he have to do the action with near-perfect balance, he also couldn't apply too much pressure to the body of the skateboard itself. Feet thrust down towards the board, he expected yet another failure. Closing his eyes, he prepared to roll to the side again. Suddenly feeling his feet land on something other than the dirt and grass, Sora blinked in astonishment as he stared down at his feet set in the correct position. Quickly bending down to suppress his short fall, leaned forward as he skidded to a stop next to a nearby tree. Getting off the skateboard and throwing his staff off to the side, he collapsed against the wooden trunk. Breathing heavily, he rested for the time being.

Nailed it...

Ms. K sighed and brushed a strand of hair back into her ponytail, she hadn't sweat at all. Returning a bow, she made her way to the back of the room and called up the next to club members.
Nito ryu, huh...sounds like fun.
Although, she was once again unfocused, she seemed to be smiling this time.

"Ah...Nurse you mean..."
"Who else would I be talking about Lyora?" pondered Frenchy earnestly.
"Well, she didn't seem all that different, just her usual...stuff."

"Right then, she seems different is all...She's already left and is being subbed with Mr.Styles and she's not answering her phone. I'm really worried."
[date:3/30|time: Wednesday Afterschool[END]| weather: cloudy|events: n/a]

"Sure. Lead the way" She picked up the bags, and followed Nathaniel.

Aiko landed on the top of the stack, still unusually quiet.

Nil sits across from Ms. K. "Thank you for agreeing to teach me the 10th Kata in Nito Ryu," he starts, "but there's more I wanted to talk to you about than just that. It's about... well, I apologize for being so personal, but why is Nurse how she is? Yesterday, I arrived with a fellow student who was seriously sick, and even though she helped her, she had me strip her, and then injected me with something without my consent and waved it off. Then she made some... well, inappropriate remarks when said student woke up the next morning. You may know this already, but I'm not exactly a lady's man, so even though I tried to keep my cool, this kind of thing really bothered me. Then there was her being here yesterday for club... what happened? Why did you need to miss the day, and why was she asking those bizarre questions? At least some of them she should've already known."

Fully rested, Sora pulled his feet forward and flipped himself up, kicking up his skateboard before landing on it with a renewed energy in his muscles. Pushing forward off the tree, he made his way out of the park and towards the kendo club.

It would take a while to get there, even on a skateboard, so Sora occupied himself with simply coming up with a more complicated exercise for himself to do next time he found time to practice alone. However, what he really needed at the time was to get some feedback from others on his progress. Kendo club, of all places, was absolutely perfect for those intentions as far as he was concerned.