Pieces of Mind | OPEN

    Fend had hardly taken time to herself recently. Between searching for a way to repair Palibur, dealing with the aftershock of the battle in the Plait, teaching her students and handing any other do-badders she unfortunately had a habit of stumbling across, or relaxing to recuperate from dealing with said do-badders, the masked mortal had neglected her own training for a long time. Had she even improved much since the Budokai? The tournament felt like such a long time ago now.

    Now that she finally had some peace of mind and free time, Fend decided to remedy that. The Flu'ud Waterfall was a place she'd passed by numerous times and spotted many Namekians training around. But instead of punching rocks or using logs for target practice, most of them just... sat there. Fend later learned that they were meditating, not just being lazy... To think all this time, the secret to getting stronger was just sitting around and thinking of nothing! At least, that's what Fend took away from some elderly Namekians that had tried to explain the concept to her the other day.

    So here she was, sitting cross-legged atop a fallen tree beside a small creek. All she had to do was clear her mind, or something. How hard could that be? Fend took in a deep breath and closed her eyes.

    "..."

    ...There was the sound of something dripping beside her. Maybe some dew from a leaf, or something. But it sounded like a leaky faucet, dripping in an irritatingly unrythmic fashion. Fend's ear twitched beneath her hood, trying to refocus her thoughts.

    Wait, how long would this take? Should she sit around for an hour to see results, or longer? She should have asked someone before coming out here. Fend grit her teeth, shaking her head and again trying to forcefully suppress her thoughts.

    Just stop thinking! It's not that hard! Her conscious lectured her- if she could dodge the authorities of Otherworld itself and get fourth place in the Budokai, she could damn well sit for five minutes with a clear mind. But the pesterstop drip, drip, drip of the foliage nearby made her snap three minutes in.

    "RRRRGH--!!" Fend's eyes opened and twitched as she whirled a hand around, blasting the leaf that had been plaguing her with its irritating dewdrops clean off the tree beside her. She growled to herself before realizing that wait, this was the exact opposite of meditating.

    "Gooood fucking damn it..." She cursed to herself, flopping back against the boulder with a deep, sputtering sigh. "Why is this so difficult?! This shouldn't be so difficult!" How did the Namekians make this look so easy...

Ki Masquerade is used to prevent Fend's ki from feeling like that of a Shinjin.

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Word Count: 445