Bring the pain... [mirei/observer]

[Observer]

Battle... The stumbling stone of one very contradictory science called moral code. Some people glorify it, some abhor, some live for it, and for some it is a job. The way one views a fight, a battle, depends on the viewer, because there are as many opinions as there are people. And for some reason many who never experienced it feel that they have the right to have an opinion on this one.

Renee had no illusions on the subject. She viewed fighting as a way to kill people. Nothing more, non the less. Nothing glorious about it, it was not an art. She had undergone an evolution of viewpoints, it changed from viewing it as a way of life to what she considered it must be done. A job, if you will, a job she didn't like anymore, but excelled at it.

And now there was a subject of palmon. She was still a child, a little, harmless, fragile and innocent thing. Renee almost felt bad about teaching her how to hurt another, almost. She knew it had to be done. A rose had to grow thorns, lest she wanted her beautiful flower to be curb-stomped and defiled by a wicked creature. And considering that Mirei chose to stay with her, running into such a threat was a distinct possibility.

- Fighting is all about hurting people... - the renamon said, upon finally finding a nice little clearing deep in the forest, that could be used for training purposes. She wasn't here alone, the palmon was supposedly behind her, as well as golemon - a dimwitted but strong and childish digimon that boy named Ryo brought her. It would be godd for both to heed her lessons.

- For humans, 80% of them, it would be nigh impossible to seriously hurt another, even in self-defense. 15% would be able to. And only 5% would be able to kill, easily, without remorse or hesitation. I do not know the statistic for digimon, but I know I belong to the latter group, and you - to the former. If we will be able to shift you to the second one, it will be a huge progress.

[Mirei]

"Yes!"

The enthusiastic palmon answered to the renamon's explanation about how fighting means hurting other people as her large, black eyes remained focused into the silver fox because she didn't want to miss any single movement of word from her sister.

"Big sis, I want to learn how to become a strong fighter like you, teach me, teach me!"

If they were characters from a cartoon, anyone would see the palmon having a fiery aura as little flames appeared within her eyes. She was really excited about learning from Renee how to fight and remembering how her nanny rosemon sometimes shadow boxed as if reliving her days as togemon, she threw some random and poorly balances punches on the air. Funny enough she could hardly balance herself and she almost fell on the ground trying to imitate nanny Rosemon's special whirlwind upper, a movement she once mentioned using to knock out a gaogamon with mean attitude.

[Observer]

Renee only sighed. The child still viewed it as a game, she was enthusiastic even. Not understanding that this was no game, oh no, no game at all. Serious business, very serious. But maybe it would be easier for her to accept it as a game, a game where people get hurt non the less. Maybe she did not need to be entirely conscious of what she would be doing. However, everyone eventually starts understanding, and it could become a blow. No matter, first of all, her new student needed to pass her first test.

- Your claws are rather sharp... - Renee noted, kneeling down to be on the same height, and taking the plant's hand in hers. These ... claw things were indeed sharp, had a thorn-like structure, and would be useful tools in hand-to-hand combat. Renee, for instance, did not have such, but yet, she needed not to become even more dangerous than she already were...

- I want you to hit me with them, square in the chest. To draw blood. The more - the merrier... - she said. This was the first test the plant child needed to pass - test of blood, so to speak. She needed not to be afraid of it. Not her own blood, not someone else's. Renee expected some kind of shock at the proposal, yet she had the idea of how to deal with it later on. But maybe Palmon would surprise it and get it right from the first turn?

[Mirei]

"Big sis, I always take care of my claws, and they are very useful for digging and plowing the soil!"

She proudly said placing one of her large hands on her chest. A palmon's claws were the pride and joy of the species, they were very versatile tools useful in almost any situation and could even grow larger to reach far away targets. The plant digimon was happily talking about how she liked her claws when the silver renamon mentioned they were also good ... for killing.

"D-draw blood?"

Maybe she was too naive, but she never thought about her claws as weapons, and thinking better she was right: those big and sharp "fingers" of hers could slash through the flesh of other living beings as well as it does plowing through the soil. The palmon's excitement died and was replaced with hesitation as the renamon ordered her to use those claws to hurt her until she dripped blood from the injury. She couldn't decided if do it or not .... and at the end decided to do it anyway.

"H-here I go"

The palmon closed her eyes and blindly plunged her right claw in direction towards the last place where she saw the silver renamon, she was sure that big sis Renee could easily dodge it and that was the only thing that made her attempt to hurt the person she loves the most.

[Observer]

- Nnn... Well that hurt. - Renee suppressed the grunt of pain stoically, as the claws went into her body with a sound of carving through flesh. She endured it, like she always did. Never show to the enemy that you are hurt, and they will lose heart. The only thing they will see is you, bloodied, battered, but still attacking. Again, and again, and again. Relentlessly, implacably. She was bred to be a perfect warrior, to endure pain. And besides, it was just a slash. A scratch, nothing serious. Still, three deed thin gashes appeared on her chest, from right shoulder to waist.

- See? It didn't hurt you now did it? Not that hard. But if you keep up without actually looking at your opponent, he could evade or block it. Try again, and with your eye open. For symmetry. - Renee said mildly, and drew the trajectory from left shoulder to waist this time, so that gashes would intersect. If there were going to be scars left from it, she wanted them at least to look pretty.

- And do not fear. If you will be able to strike down somebody you care for without hesitation - you'll be able to strike down someone you hate a lot easier. That is the first barrier you'll have to pass in order to advance forward - the fear of hurting others. - Renee explained her idea in two short sentences. So far the palmon did great, just a little more - and she might even have some hope if somebody attacks her. If not however, she's doomed to be a defenseless burden. Renee didn't want that.

[Mirei]

"B-blood!"

She looked at her right claw and the tip of each "nail" become slightly red, that was enough to shock her and even more shocked she was when she saw how her sister's body had three thin lines within her body, each of them covered with a very small amount of coagulated blood that was already dry due how those were mere flesh wounds.

She thought that Renee would criticize her but instead she praised her. Being praised for hurting somebody was something new to the palmon and she didn't know how to react.

"O-ok"

The palmon then decided that she was overreacting, she indeed slashed the silver renamon, but the injury didn't look like it was bad, in fact it was quite small actually.

This time the palmon kept her eyes open and as instructed, slashed diagonally her sister in a way that was symmetrical with the other wound. However, that was a half-baked attack, the palmon took care to only barely scratch the skin of her sister with her claw attack as she wanted to cause as little damage as possible

[Observer]

- Ugh, no, no, no. Nobody will die from a scratch. - Renee shook her head. She made a mistake with praising the palmon's efforts too much. Sure she did good for starters, for a peace-loving digimon that is, but in order to make some serious damage it would take more than a few weak scratches. Renee needed to show her what a real wound would look like. Even if it would hurt, but wounds can heal. And lessons learned.

Without giving the her a chance to think or retaliate to her action, the fox grabbed Mirei by her hand and plunged the thorn-like claw the plant-like digimon possessed straight into her own leg, somewhere above the thigh, this time deep, deep enough for it to be considered a medium-level injury. Blood spilled over the foxe's fur in a stream, as a blood vessel was abruptly cut.

- This is how you do it, see? - Renee said, gritting her teeth, and twisted the claw within the wound, making it cut some more muscles and blood vessels. - So it will hurt more, so it will cause more damage. Leave a ripped, ugly wound. - she continued sadistically ... to herself? Finally she extracted the sharp claw from her thigh, three deep ripped gashes remaining from it, and stood up.

- Understand? Now try hitting me without holding back. But I won't stay in one place to become a static target. - Renee took several steps away from the plant, limping slightly on the damaged leg, and turned around to face the plant digimon again. her face was calm, and pain was disappearing slowly - digimon were not fragile like humans, they could take some hurting, even for educational reasons.

[Mirei]

"!!!"

The palmon could only watch with an expression of horror in her face how her sister forcefully grabbed one of Mirei's claws and plunged it into her own leg, penetrating enough flesh to reach the muscles and the pushed it down, inflicting herself a nasty wound that this time was gruesome and scary to look at.

"S-sis ..."

She was crying ... she simply couldn't believe her sister could be so ... extreme. Shaken by the unexpected twist in the events, she fell on her butt and looked with teary eyes at Renee, unable to understand why she stained the little digimon's claws with her own blood, blood that was dripping and flowing through her fingers, a vision that could be easily mistaken as the one of a murderous palmon who still had the fresh blood of her victim in her claws.

"Waaaah! .... *sob sob*"

And she remained there, crying as she couldn't deal with this horrible situation. Big sis Renee was supposed to teach the BASICS of how to fight, not to show her how to maul and mutilate an enemy. To make it worse she did it to a palmon who was only recently learning the meaning of violence and the silver renamon's super fast violent course was too much for her.

[Observer]

- Darn it... - Renee sighed out as she saw her not-so-bright idea had the opposite results - instead of understanding and trying to attack, the palmon just fell over and started crying. No no no, this was not how it was supposed to be. In her effort to "break the first barrier", Renee forgot one thing. She tried reproducing what they did to her in Hypnos for training drills, but they trained her to be an assassin, to be able to kill and destroy without a single thought. It was the only training technique she knew. But Palmon needed not to be one.

- I'm sorry Mirei... I'm sorry... I'm a horrible teacher, aren't I? - Renee said apologetically. Really, what was she thinking? The training she endured was designed to break any person and turn it into a lean mean killing machine. Mirei needed not to be that, she only needed to know to defend herself. Without killing. That should be the point. Fighting and killing were not the same thing after all.

- Can we... try again differently? Maybe on a dummy? - Renee sighed out, as she, still limping, went to drag a trunk, that was lying on the ground only for so long, and drew, well, a human print on it with some white stone she found lying nearby. Chalk maybe? After that she marked several areas with circles - the head, the chest, where the heart was, the stomach, the groin, and kneecaps. Weakpoints.

- There. Try aiming at the circled areas, as you hit the dummy, until you become more confident. And strike hard, so that your claws penetrate the wood.

[Mirei]

"*sob, sob*"

Renee said something, but Mirei couldn't hear her, she was too shocked by the horrible image of the silver renamon being sliced open by the palmon's claws. She felt really bad, that wasn't how it was meant to happen, she only wanted to learn how to fight, not to see this kind of thing...

When she calmed a little, the fox digimon had gone and returned, bringing with her a log in which she drew some circles, then told her to hit that log in the marked areas.

" *sob*, I'm trying .."

Hitting a log wasn't like hitting a living being, it was already dead wood so it was OK for the Palmon to hit it. She was still shaken for the impression and that influenced negatively in her accuracy as her claw got stuck in the log, she pierced around 1/4 of the total length of the log but failed to hit any of the circiles, and when she tried to remove her claw, she ended up rolling on her back due the excessive force used to separate it from the log. She then stand up and looked at her sister directly to the eyes, she didn't want to look at her ugly scar in the leg.

"I did it ... now can we rest? You need to cure your body, big sis ..."

She landed a good hit in the log, and that's all that she could do for today. the palmon was emotionally tired and could end up stressed by the pressure and effort, and emotionally stressed for the initial brutal training if she continued.