Capitolo Secondo: Ambizione (7)
Another day passed by, but the reason why I decided to allow more rest was tied to Kate’s conditions. The woman might have recovered physically, but her sleep-deprived mind and her sense of perspective had yet to leave the unflattering captivity she had to endure. I wasn’t sure if torture was employed just after her capture, and I was unwilling to trust the words of a shinobi, a man that lived by deception and that used it as a mean to expand his agenda.
This choice seemed to yield a vastly positive outcome as the blonde behaved more actively and didn’t seem to have any issues engaging in complex conversations and brief moments of training. In fact, as the morning of the day started, she decided to check on me and Bhediya as we engaged in our old routine of training with each other. There should have been Jojo too, but since he was in England at the moment, it was just me, the werewolf and… a curious Bloody Valentine paying attention to the sparring session.
The boy was interested in Hamon and, being put back in a serious contemplation on the matter, I couldn’t help but see it now as a necessity for him to develop. With Vins around, I expected for creatures weak to the Ripple to stalk our steps and the boy was going to do very little with just the Spin. No, he needed to learn, train and develop in a proper Hamon User.
Activating his power through the Forced Ripple Breathing, the young man proved to have an impressive potential that had to be nurtured cautiously but steadily. He just needed some discipline, an ounce of guidance, and he was going to take good initiatives on his own. Meditation and playing around with small-scale Ripple was a necessity to build up a clear understanding of how to normalize one’s breathing without having them go to swim.
With the conditions we were working on, I couldn’t have him rely on what I used together with Jonathan and Bhediya to develop their own understanding of how the breathing was supposed to be controlled. And as he trained close to the sparring ground, I began making some serious gains on the struggling opponent I was dealing with. It was a simple rule that I couldn’t use my Stand during training sessions, but that didn’t mean I was neglecting my other abilities. Not at all.
In fact, despite the young man being much faster than a normal hamon user, I was still able to keep up with him thanks to Hamon-enchanted bubbles. The trick was to make sure those hardened the moment someone or something touched them, creating sudden obstacles that stopped speed specialists before they had the chance of overwhelming me with that kind of trick. The reason why this tactic couldn’t have been used against the Vampire Ninja was tied to the fact the man had been targeting me with a long-range projectile, and he was far from my reach of extending the bubbles without him noticing.
But with Bhediya? The werewolf was indeed struggling to get a clear hit on me, and I was having plenty of opportunities to punish his unwillingness to learn that he couldn’t just break through the hardened bubbles. Not when he didn’t know when and where to strike. It was shaping to be a victory for me, just like usual.
But then something strange happened.
A blink, I barely registered that something had struck my face. A punch or… something of the same intensity. I was still pushed back by that hit despite the lack of power in it and… I saw Bhediya grinning like a moron for a while as I finally realized that something was peeking by his shoulders. At first I couldn’t recognize its form but… but I quickly noticed that it was a Stand. It had a massive form that seemed a mixture of a wolf standing on four claws, its frame was human-like, but its legs and arms just looked more animalistic than the rest. A Stand that I had seen before and- Soon it turned in a blur.
Absurd speed, animal-like features, and it was literally dodging the tight scheme of bubbles I had just finished laying out. There was no doubt, I was fighting ｢Wildhearts｣ and… that put me in a minor disadvantage. If normally this Stand was used by the protagonist of 7th Stand User, this one was actually controlled by a speed-specialist. And the Speed Stat for the Normal user was… a solid A.
Right now, considering the fact ｢ACT 2｣ was having trouble tracking down the fast mutt-like Stand, I could barely hold a defensive stance against my insanely-fast attacker. The only positive thing was that the attacks weren’t strong enough to feel threatening. I knew he wasn’t holding back much, and I could remember that this very Stand wasn’t meant to be a heavy-hitter.
｢Wildhearts｣ eventually returned back to Bhediya’s side, giving me the chance of commenting on this intriguing discovery. “A very impressive surprise. I have to say… that was a cheeky move from you. I remember we had a ‘No Stand’ rule during our sparring.”
“I wanted to prank you. I hope you weren’t frightened too much,” The young man commented smugly. “｢Wildhearts｣ can be tremendously fast.”
I snorted. “Oh really? Then I guess I should be shaking in my boots right now.”
“You...” He paused, a frown adorning his face. “What?”
“You see, Bhediya. It’s an impressive discovery. I can already say that you have managed to reach a brilliant step… but your Stand is far from invincible as I shall soon prove you.”
Before he could say anything more about it, I decided to employ a safe ‘Plan B’ that I had elaborated for speedsters like my current opponent. Throwing a small stone up by a couple of meters above my head, I used ｢ACT 2｣ to freeze it up mid air and… I jumped up and stood onto it.
Bhediya looked at my current disposition, his frown deepening as he just couldn’t understand why this was meant to change anything about my current issues. Yet, as he seemed ready to point this out, I decided to speak up once more.
“You will find out that your speed will hardly matter for the time I’m in this very ‘high ground’.”
Ah, if only people could realize what I was referencing to with those words. A pity, the situation could only be understood through logical manners alone then.
“You- Are you seriously underestimating my Stand’s Speed?”
“Not what I’ve said,” I replied calmly, noticing how irked he looked at the fact he thought I had said that. “Only that your speed will not have relevance until I reach back to common ground with you.”
I was quite sure that Bhediya was just too annoyed to realize what I was doing, else I would have had some serious problem already. The rock wasn’t the only shaky grounds I was standing on, since the best way to counter this counter was to break the rock itself.
But why focus on the insignificant pebble, when his target was me?
So I braced myself as I saw ｢Wildhearts｣ rushing to attack me. It jumped, expecting to keep the same velocity it had while running around but… it forgot that air itself created attrition which lessened its pace to a point where I could predict and intercept its assault.
I believe only when ｢ACT 2｣’s first punch struck ｢Wildhearts｣’s face that the werewolf finally realized the big mistake he had made. Exposed before my Stand, I decided to spare a careful beating, one that was mostly meant to put him out of commission rather than hurt him beyond needed. And so I quickly disposed of the Stand, leaving Bhediya fairly bruised and unable to stand up from his crouching position on his own. I had to help him to sit where Bloody had been looking at us, and before I knew it, I turned to see Kate watching while leaning by one of the trees.
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“Would you like to try your luck?”
A little bit of challenge. I half-expected her to back down from it as it was given to her without much of a hint of seriousness. But much to my surprise, she agreed to the offer. I was surprised for a while, but I accepted for it to be just a spar limited to close encounter fighting. I was already stressing my body after that spar with Bhediya, and I wasn’t planning to hurt myself because I wanted to flaunt anything to anyone.
The very moment we took our positions and Zephy was set to the role of the referee for this simple match, I knew that this was going to be an eye-opening experience. And I was confirmed this expectation right as I quickly found out that she was no rookie when it came to throwing punches and kicks. There was a heavy reference to karate in her form, but I could see some moves that just seemed different to it. I was almost quick to assume it was Chinese Kempo or even Bajiquan, but I doubted that it was something the young woman was really interested into. Both fighting styles, albeit effective, were still fairly brutal and vicious. The Bajiquan itself was known to have killed many, which is why modern time had the practice either forbidden or severely regulated to avoid deadly injuries from occurring.
“Your form is impressive,” Kate commented quietly, and I nodded.
“Yours is precise and carries an interesting finesse. I can see you aren’t just a sword-wielder.”
“My father taught me that a sword is but only a tool. And the greatest weapon still resides in all of us. Our body is the edge, our mind is the metal,” She explained with a small smile. I could tell that she remembered those lessons fondly, and I saw her stance growing more confident and gaining a brief advantage as she managed to deliver a sudden punch onto my cheek.
“If I may add to this wise thought,” I muttered while recoiling from that unexpected blow. “I believe heart is the endurance of the metal, and the sharpness of the edge.”
The blonde nodded in agreement at this addition, but we soon engaged in another skirmish of blows that saw only a few insignificant hits passing through our respective defenses. I had to admit that, for the first time in a long while, I was having some trouble in a close encounter fight. Muddiburi had been relentless in teaching me all he could about his fighting style, and I refined it myself to be more flexible and precise thanks to my more balanced frame. The Tibetan monk was more of a heavy-hitter, while I was a perfect mix of speed, power, precision and endurance.
And even then, with the thought I could win a serious fight with my own teacher, Kate was giving me a serious challenge that I hadn’t been subjected to for many years now. She was relentless, stubborn and rather creative whenever I managed to get the upper hand one or two times. Her counters took me by surprise as I was delivered two non-negligible jabs near my chin and a little before my throat. I’ve heard of plenty of unpleasant effects of hits that tried to disable people and… I wasn’t really in the mood to be subjected to that kind of defeat.
Our spar was fairly intense despite the fact there was never an escalation from both sides. We exchanged blows, but the two of us wouldn’t dare anything too bold on the ground that the other could have returned the punishment in fullest. We were so much invested into it that at least an hour went into this maddening stalemate.
And… then we had to stop. It wasn’t anything about whether we were hurt too much or anything. The issue was tied to the fact we had burned out our stamina. It’s difficult to explain but… Kate and I just couldn’t go any further without some sloppy mistakes happening on both sides. And we were both more than happy to end that brawl in a spar.
She said something about me not being at peak performance, and that it was a decisive factor that needed to be accounted for. I conceded to this, telling her that I would have waited for a second spar between us. We both left that battle with a small smile and the promise of having a serious one the next time we were able to spar properly.
As we were done with this, Robert came by and announced that we were all ready to finally leave and that our transport train was ready to go. After picking up anything within that small area of nature we had used to train, we proceeded to make our way to the railway station where we had set up our way to cross the country and reach where Vins was hiding and plotting against us.
And boy, I could already feel the chills at what kind of enemies we were going to find along the way.
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Now that we were all ready to leave, it was time to bring up another reason why I decided to take another day before having us all leave for our next stop during our grand trip to reach Vins and stop her from… doing what she was trying to do. I had yet to fully understand what reasons were urging her to attack me since I was literally preventing her son’s death by not being directly involved with her family, and I could tell some of that hatred she still harbored for me was actually aimed at my name rather than to who I was.
Nonetheless, we had a trip to make and a lot of stops to go through before finding out what the woman was planning to do with Santana and why she was trying to find him of all people. Maybe there was something I just wasn’t seeing yet- something that could expand on why she was going for the weakest Pillar Men when there were three Aztec Gods in Rome.
Maybe it was because she wanted to solve things quickly and she didn’t care if the tool she was going to use was strong enough on his own. Santana was still an unpredictable opponent if faced during a specific time when there was no natural sunlight to rely on. He was intelligent and still capable of making the most trouble if not handled the very moment he was cornered by everyone. A small concession to recoil and react would be considered a death sentence, especially if he began playing a lot with his capacity to infiltrate other’s bodies.
Still, our voyage wasn’t one that was going to happen through a normal train. After what had happened previously in our trip to reach New York, I decided to play things smartly and buy a small-sized train that was meant to act as our transportation vehicle to tour the country, while also housing a couple of men and women from Made in Heaven that were meant to be working in the States branch. With the chances of us meeting possible issues along the way, most of the group was made by doctors and engineers which were going to offer us the means to prevent anything to stop us from reaching where the lone Pillar Man’s resting grounds were.
The price wasn’t as small as I would have hoped for, but since we were going for a lengthy and deadly adventure, I doubted money was going to be that much of a problem to get through with this very situation.
There were seven wagons, with the closest one of the driving posts being the storage room where the coal and other fuel was stored. Then there was the proper storage room packed with food, resources that could be employed in case of need and other objects that might or be useful to us when we were going to face any danger along the path.
Then there was the research and study area where I would have a formal briefing with the workers aboard the train, a restaurant section that was going to be shared between us and the other workers that was going to be the place where the food was going to be prepared and served at the same time. There wasn’t enough space to have a kitchen and dining room separated so… we had to work with that.
Finally the three remaining wagons were meant to be used as sleeping quarters. One for men, one for women, and… the last one for the group I was working closely with. There was a little bit of an issue since I had tried to get the space meant to be used by Kate covered so the young woman would have had enough privacy to not be bothered by the restrictive circumstance we were handling… but she actually seemed fine about sharing the room with the rest without major covers as she believed that we were all not going to do anything to her and… then there was Zephy. Other than being a judge of characters, the talking creature was also incredibly skilled in protecting and attacking when needed.
It was a good deterrent- not the ultimate one, but still decent enough to prevent Kate from receiving bad surprises anytime soon. And with that in mind, I decided to try and ease some of that awkwardness that came after her trusting answer by bringing up what was going to be the first of many steps to reach our final destination.
Our next stop was going to be Washington D.C., the Capital of the United States and where I wanted for Bloody to see what kind of atmosphere existed in the political core of his nation. It was there where I needed him to understand the basics of the society within it, and perhaps crack a little on his hopefulness over the ‘respectful and formal’ nature of the city. Albeit those terms were fairly correct to the public’s eyes, even now disappointing spectacles of corruption and neglect were unfolding to those that had enough wealth and influence to catch on what goes on inside the houses of the most important figures of this time and age.
It was going to be tough to have him understand the important bits of trying to not get too deep in the political swamp that existed in that city, and to be careful who to trust in case he really wanted to run for politics. People here were known to have low morals when it came to getting influence, votes, and support in reaching high jobs within the White House. Especially now that the 1884 Elections are coming close to fully developing.
I hadn’t given a proper look on the political landscape of this specific year, but I remembered that the candidates for the election were going to be either Grover Cleveland for the Democrat Party or James Blaine from the Republican Party. Historically it was Cleveland that won those elections, but I was sure that with Senator Philips’ death either of these two parties was going to get the advantage in this scenario and… it could make for an interesting spectacle for Bloody to learn and make his first steps in understanding US Politics.
With the train starting its journey for us to trail along the coast line and then go for all the way to the West, we soon found ourselves resting by the restaurant area as we had just finished eating the second meal of the day. There was no clear recipe for us all, and we were allowed to prepare our favorite dishes if there were the proper ingredients to do so. But what really made the moment quite interesting for us all was when we all began discussing curious topics… that eventually saw me getting interrogated by the new members of my squad.
“Did you really create this company you own, Made in Heaven, at Fourteen?” Kate inquired, taking a sip from her glass of water.
I nodded slowly. “There are some… awkward circumstances behind it, but yes, that is still true.”
“But wasn’t that… difficult?” The young Valentine inquired, pressing some more on this very topic. “I’ve read grandfather’s paperwork, and even if it was just mere accounting for the family, it all felt so complicated and overly… detailed.”
“Oh, it was quite daunting when I first handled the company since we had yet to set up a focus, a main theme to start working on and develop in London,” I replied with a nod. “I had to decentralize bits of my role as the leader to make sure other trustworthy individuals with decent to excellent capacity in dealing with this kind of burden. I might be capable of handling the papers, but I wasn’t exactly planning to take on the massive thing that is the administration of an organization that reached so far from the very beginning. A single person, no matter how dedicated to the job, shouldn’t be left alone with this hefty task.”
“And I was among those that was first blessed with that sudden shift of paper,” Speedwagon commented, pausing from the quiet discussion he was sharing with Derek. Both men seemed to have struck a unique sense of kinship ever since they met each other. Both were stubbornly loyal to a good cause, and they both had a fond love for alcohol. With Speedwagon favoring wine while the cowboy preferring Whisky. “But to be honest, it all worked well for all of us.”
“Do tell, I’ve heard that you got quite the group back in London,” Derek continued, looking particularly interested in the topic.
“We are all close. We have been around each other for years now and trust is now a common thing for us to expect and give to each other,” Robert confessed without hesitation.
“And I’ve also heard that Mr. Dio also has a fine gal waiting for him back home,” The man finally said, revealing his intentions. “He told us just a little bit about her, but I feel like there are some details he willingly left out about the young miss. Anything ya willing to spare, new friend?”
Speedwagon spared me a quick look and I knew he was still going to speak regardless of how I felt about this sudden focus since… there wasn’t much really that I wanted to hide away. Sure, I wasn’t particularly happy about the fact there was going to be a minor chance of Jack being mentioned but… it’s been a long time now. I can handle hearing him just once as an unimportant character.
“You have a… fiance?” Kate inquired. “I would have never thought someone as young as you is already engaged with someone. Arranged or-”
“We both decided to start the relationship. Then my father gave his support and we made it official.”
She nodded, clearly fascinated by this point. I saw Zephy frowning at the two of us, but he then shrugged as the focus took us back to Derek and his queries.
“So, how did the lady end up catching the young man’s eyes?”
That was actually one of the questions that Bloody first asked back when Hannah was first mentioned. I tried to brush it over as us ending up meeting after a particularly unpleasant situation that saw us bond together… but now Robert was keen to offer some more details to it. And so everyone listened to pretty much the humble beginning of the ‘confident warrior’ that I was.
I remained quiet for the most part, leaving the fellow blond to speak up as much as he could without going too far in some situations. The rest of the group seemed satisfied enough with how much was being revealed and I contemplated if this was actually ever going to become a trouble. The fact that I sound so ‘flawless’ at times that people just can’t imagine anything too humble out of my beginnings.
I was still flawed by all accounts, and I believed perfection a horrid objective to follow on the basis that it means I will eventually have to reach my roof- the end of my potential. I licked more the idea that there was no limit if I tried hard enough and explored all possibilities I could work on at the moment.
The road to Washington was, much to my surprise, devoid of trouble, giving us the chance of enjoying the first few hours on the train to set up our schedule for the time being. But, despite the pleasant trip to the capital, I knew deep down, that something was about to come at us and… it was going to be a troublesome element for sure.