Omake:
Kaoru Training: Creating A Training Regime
Kaoru is nervous, but mostly excited about Mami giving her Elite training this month. Mami had asked her to meet at the old Mitakihara junkyard, and to bring a notebook and pencil. Entering the junkyard, Kaoru sees Mami waving her over, and they go further into the junkyard together.
Mami goes straight to business, "Today will be mostly developing a plan for your training, but I wanted to bring you here so we could try a few things out as we are making plans." As they arrive at a small clearing in the piles of junk, Mami looks around nostalgically. "I did most of my training here when I was developing my muskets," Mami comments.
Mami turns around to face Kaoru, "Now, first of all, we need to talk about powers and list the various elements of your magic."
"Uhh... music?" Kaoru answers Mami's implied question.
"Yes music," Mami agrees, "or more generally sound, but I meant a bit more then that. Take my magic for example, I guess everyone knows my wish." Kaoru nods in agreement as Mami sits on an old refrigerator leaning on it's side. "But it's not just the wording of the wish, it's the thoughts and intents - which is why instead of my wish magic being primarily healing, I got ribbons."
Kaoru's confusion must show on her face because Mami elaborates. "I was focused on the things I still had to do in life, and friends I didn't want to leave behind, so my magic was about 'ties that bind' as Kyubey puts it. Another effect, though I haven't figured out how, is that I use magic at a slower rate then other girls." Kaoru nods again, she and the other girls always knew there was something special about Mami. "I also have some healing ability, though not the same level as Yuma, or even Sayaka." Kaoru is a little surprised by this, she didn't know Mami had healing magic.
Mami brushes one of her locks of hair back over her shoulder. "The reason I'm bringing this up as that we need to identify what your abilities are so we can then build on them." Kaoru nods again. This is starting to feel like class, Kaoru thinks. Kaoru likes this much better then the beatings approach to training. Kaoru finds a broken chair to sit down on. Maybe she should start taking notes?
Mami waits to see if Kaoru has anything to say. Seeing Kaoru stay silent Mami goes on, "As you said, music. Music is the core of your powers. What is music though?" Kaoru raises her eyebrows questioningly. Mami hopes she's doing this right, it's been a long time since she trained Kyouko, and Kaoru is much more quiet and attentive then Kyouko was. Mami reflects that she ought to prefer that, but instead she's feeling a bit unsure as to whether Kaoru is following.
Mami continues her explanation, "Music is caused by sound waves, so it's probable you have some wave manipulation ability." Mami again waits for Kaoru to say something, but again she is just listening attentively, with her notebook open and taking notes. "You might be able to manipulate other waves too, like light waves."
"Or water?" Kaoru interjects. Mami closes her eyes. There's that Sailor Mercury obsession again, Mami thinks.
Opening her eyes, Mami responds, "Possibly, although that won't be generating water, just manipulating it." At Kaoru's crestfallen look, Mami continues "More immediately you might be able to manipulate the air, or create pressure using sound waves." Mami looks at Kaoru appraisingly, "I suspect that's what you are doing when you fire a bolt from your harp."
"Maybe..." Kaoru thinks back on her abilities, "I think you're right."
"Let's find out for sure," Mami says, instructing Kaoru to transform and fire off a bolt at a nearby old car. While Kaoru does this Mami watches and listens intently while holding her Soul Gem out towards Kaoru and sensing the magic around her. Afterwards Mami nods, "I could sense some magic focused on the string you were plucking and then going outward in what felt like waves compressed on top of each other. It's a little similar to how I compressed my ribbons together to make steel for my muskets." Mami opens her own notebook and makes some notes while Kaoru shifts nervously.
"Now try singing," instructs Mami. Kaoru does so, while Mami again listens with her Soul Gem. They go through a few other abilities Kaoru has, like playing a chord on her harp like she does to suppress demons during hunting. Mami talks as she makes notes, "I really do think this is it, I can sense magic coming out from you in waves. It's probably in the sound waves you are making." Karou nods as Mami continues, "When you played that chord the magic moved out in waves and then seemed to settle like a blanket on everything."
Kaoru agrees, "I really could feel something like that, and my magic does seem to move in waves. I can tell, now that I'm paying attention."
Mami nods approvingly, "Good." Mami raises an eyebrow, "Aren't you going to write that down?" Abashed Kaoru hurries to write down her discoveries. Mami decides she could get used to this kind of student. "You'll need to study wave physics. I'll get you some textbooks. Preferably college level. How's your math?" Mami continues to speak as Kaoru takes notes.
Kaoru looks up at Mami's question, "Uh... I used to be really good at math. It was my best subject." Kaoru blushes, "Um, I'm not doing as well as I used to though." Kaoru's eyes shift downward, "Not as much time to study." Her eyes come back up, "Math is still my best subject though."
Mami nods, "Well you'll need to study some more now. I know music uses math too, so it's important for you." Mami looks back down at her notebook, "Now it's obvious that you have a second ability focused around emotions." Mami looks back up at Kaoru, "You weren't just wishing for perfect pitch, you were thinking about changing your father's feelings for you and your mom, right?"
Kauro blushes, "Well... yeah."
Mami thinks while tapping her pencil against her chin. "I'm not really an expert on emotional magic. Kyouko has some skill around that but she never uses it. Doesn't like it." Mami frowns, "I guess I'll see if I can get Taura to come out here for a few hours to look at you. Figure out how that part of your magic works." Mami bends over her notebook to make some more notes. For a few seconds the only sound is the scribbling of two pencils in two notebooks, both Kaoru and Mami bent over their notebooks intently.
Finishing, Mami moves on, "Now that we understand your powers better, let's talk a bit more about what you learned from Sayaka." Kaoru explains that Sayaka can summon these magical platforms that are made from sound that support her weight. Sayaka can also make them give her a short speed boost or jump boost, but Kaoru hasn't gotten that to work yet. She just uses them to be able to get higher above the battlefield when hunting, and avoid being surrounded.
Mami nods again while taking notes, "I'll have to talk to Sayaka and get her out here for a day so we can understand what she's doing better. Since you were able to learn some of her abilities, perhaps we can adapt some more." Mami looks up, "That was good initiative to learn those." Kaoru blushes at the praise, but her face falls at Mami's next words. "Now lets talk about your weaknesses."
Mami continues on, "You're a long range fighter, and can't keep up in a close in fight. I understand, I'm the same way, but my ribbons help me keep enemies out of range. However, I've also learned to use my muskets as clubs to clear close in enemies." Kaoru nods, her face lifting, this wasn't as bad as she'd feared. "You're also just not tough enough, but we'll handle that later." Kaoru's face falls again at this assessment.
Mami begins ticking off fingers, "Now what you need is greater mobility: We'll get Sayaka's help with that. Improving your crowd control: If we could get that to work on non-demons that would be pretty useful. I wonder if it's related to your emotion control?" Mami pauses to write something in her notebook before returning to counting fingers again. "You'll want a close range effect, a clearing move." Mami pauses in her list again and looks at Kaoru, "Let's try that. Imagine a burst of sound around you pushing everything away."
Kaoru tries to force a burst of sound around her, but can't get anything to happen. Mami just listens with her Soul Gem and takes notes. Sweat starts to appear on Kaoru's forehead from the effort and Mami stops her to return to listing things she needs to learn. "We'll keep working on that," Mami assures her. "Another weakness is that you are dependent on your harp for your offense. That's actually one of the advantages of my ribbons over my muskets, I can summon and use them quickly." Mami pauses to think for a few minutes, "Since it's sound based, you should be able to create a bolt of magic using another way to create sound. Maybe your voice?"
At Mami's urging Kaoru begins singing at one of the old junk cars. Kaoru feels like idiot. Trying to direct her voice in a beam at the car is not really working. Nor is summoning a bolt of magic like she does with harp. Growing frustrated Kaoru becomes more and more irritated. She likes the idea of this, but she hates not succeeding. Mami calms her down for a bit, and then directs her to try again, this time specifically targeting the passenger window of the car. After another 30 minutes, when Kaoru is about to give up, a large spiderweb of cracks appear in the window. Excited Kaoru tries to do it again with the drivers side window but can't get it to happen again.
Mami isn't worried about that though. "You did it once, you'll do it again. Now the one other thing I think we could work on would be controlling light waves, but that's probably a long way away. Let's try it for a bit though and see if you can do anything with it." Mami suggests trying to bend light around a towering pile of junk. Mami walks behind it and asks Kaoru to tell her how many fingers she is holding up. Kaoru tries for over an hour, but isn't able to get anything to happen. Nor does she feel any magic in what she's doing. Even Mami showing her how she folds her ribbons into each other when creating her muskets doesn't help. Truthfully it's all Kaoru can do to sense the magic using her Soul Gem.
Mami decides to call an end to that experiment. "Well, maybe we'll come back to that one later." Kaoru just nods gratefully. "We've have some good ideas now." Mami looks up at the sky, "Looks like we have a couple more hours of light, let's have you alternate between the sound burst idea and the voice bolt practice. Say 30 minutes on each before switching?"
Mami crushes Kaoru's hope that the frustrating practice was at an end, but Kaoru just nods, and begins stubbornly practicing at making a burst of sound appear around her. Kaoru can feel something happening with her magic, but it feels blocked, like there's no where for it to go. When she mentions it to Mami, Mami just nods and writes it down in her notebook, motioning Kaoru to do the same. While Kaoru finds the slow process frustrating, she definitely prefers it to the training from hell with Kyouko.
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Well there is the first one. I thought it was fun trying to build up exactly how Kaoru's magic works, and how it's related to her wish. I'll have more actual training antics in the future omakes in this series, but I figured the planning came first. I think I'll be able to get the rest done in 2 more omakes. Although this one ended up larger then I expected.
I found myself thinking how different training Kyouko must have been like, so I hope I hinted at that in the story.
