Follow me on my path to the heights...

[joinmyreunion]

Magic training was going better than reading, so far. Even had told him that was only because magic training had tangible results, whereas reading wasn't something that you couldn't do and then suddenly could. Kadaj had lost his temper with a book, once, shoving it away as if it had personally insulted him and telling Even he was just incapable and this was stupid.

Even had been calmer about it than Kadaj had expected, but he also hadn't let him give up. Instead Even had taken him to what he now thought of as the magic training room and let him work on his base level spells. Wind was still giving him trouble, but his ice spells had come along well, and his earth and fire spells had actually become pretty good. The good thing about training with magic was that it forced Kadaj to get a grip on his temper; when he was tired or frustrated his casting became weak and sloppy, like his chakra control, so he'd had to learn to regain that focus when he'd lost it.

Then Even had asked him to explain what it was that he was finding difficult about the specific part he was trying to read, and 'I don't know' and 'It's just stupid' wasn't an acceptable answer. Following the words with his finger hadn't helped, so Even had covered up everything except the line he was trying to read with blank paper, and that had made it easier for Kadaj to focus on the words he needed to read.

He'd tried to refrain from losing his temper since, but Kadaj got the feeling that Even had figured out how to tell he was getting frustrated before he got to the point of taking it out on the book. Reading was now bookended with magic practice, and broken with it if needed.

Kadaj still wouldn't say the reading was going well. He still had to read aloud, tracing his finger along words, or covering up the rest of the page if he was really struggling, but it was more than he could do before. He just didn't like that he was still struggling along like that, rather than sitting back, holding a book in his lap, and reading in silence. He might never be able to do that, and he'd have to come to terms with that.

They'd stopped reading for today, thankfully. Kadaj was open with his relief about that. He'd gone to Even for his help, but he found reading practice more exhausting than magic practice, and infinitely more frustrating. It was only the fact that he'd gone to Even for help that kept him coming back. They'd put the books away, and then gone to the magic training room, which had been warded and protected so that the rest of the Palace wouldn't be able to tell what was going on in there, in addition to the protections Even had put in place in the rest of his lab.

Kadaj stood in the usual place, one hand resting on Souba, and glad of the change of scenery. He was hoping to start moving on to the next level spells, now that he had the first level ones down for, well, almost all of the elements.

Comments

[thechillyacademic]

In Even's opinion, Kadaj had been making leaps and bounds when it came to his study of magic. Considering that when he started he had almost viewed himself as magically untalented, his improvement had been good. He still suffered when his concentration waned, but Even was sure that, when Kadaj's chakra control stopped being so directly linked to his moods and more like second nature, he would have an easier time of it.

His reading wasn't quite progressing as well, but he was still making improvements. His frustration was something of a limiting factor, but switching between magic and reading did seem to take the edge off his anger.

The day's reading had been wrapped up and Even had a different type of test for Kadaj today. He stood in front of him, a few feet beyond the reach of his sword, and crossed his arms.

"You've been improving consistently with elemental magic," he said, sounding pleased about that. "Now, before we go into the higher levels, I would like to put a suggestion to you, if I may..?"

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj did not respond to this with enthusiastic agreement. Even was a good teacher, certainly the best one Kadaj had ever had, but something about said teacher wanting to put a suggestion to him made him very wary. It was the sort of thing you heard before something like 'spar me', or 'now try it blindfolded', or, since this was magic practice, 'do a few shadow clones and then try casting'. Kadaj got the sneaking suspicion Even was about to issue some form of test.

"Depends what it is," he said, looking at Even with the same expression he wore when Tayuya was suggesting they try something in sparring. What followed was usually a handicap.

[thechillyacademic]

Even looked at him and smiled. It wasn't a particularly nice smile, but it wasn't something that put you in mind of a baritine croc, either. There was a calculating edge to his expression, a shrewd look in his narrowed green eyes, and it didn't leave when he spoke.

"I'm going to cast something on you," he said, evenly. "Nothing dangerous," he added, quickly, before Kadaj got worried, "just an experiment. When I have done that, I'd like you to activate your Bankai, nothing else."

[joinmyreunion]

This only served to make Kadaj warier, and he frowned, weighing up his options. He trusted Even, which was a strange thing to realise, because he didn't just trust him with sensitive information he might not know how to make use of, but he trusted him, right now, not to slam him with a crippling ice spell when they were somewhere no one would ever know about it until it was too late. He'd just developed an intense dislike of being a participant in some mad scientist's experiments.

"All right," he said, still wary, and slowly drawing Souba. He had plenty of reasons to hide his bankai, even from Even, but it was common knowledge what it looked like, and Even had already witnessed Geostigma. Kadaj just had to trust that whatever this was going to be was magic based, and not some attempt to see what his bankai was made of. Somehow, that didn't quite seem Even's style.

[thechillyacademic]

"Good," he said.

Calmly, he raised one hand and, with a flick of the wrist, cast a wordless, nameless spell on Kadaj. The visible Chakra told him that the spell had hit, but he knew that already. Magic was Even's speciality and playing tactically came naturally to him. He gave his student a smile and, with a palm-up gesture, invited him to use his Bankai, as agreed.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj narrowed one eye. He wasn't sure if Even had used silent magic to show off, or just so that Kadaj didn't know in advance what he'd cast on him.

He was about to find out, either way.

He held Souba in front of himself in both hands and gathered his chakra. "--!" Nothing came out, and he scowled. Even had used Silence on him, then. He'd never been silenced before; no one had needed to bother.

The problem was, he realised, he couldn't activate bankai without saying it, either. He tried again anyway, keeping his chakra gathered and trying to do it by talking directly to Souba instead.

When she clearly wasn't having any of that he dropped his shoulders, and gave Even a flat look. He'd made his point.

This was a frightening problem he hadn't considered.

[thechillyacademic]

Even gave a nod in response to Kadaj's obviously wordless, flat look and raised the hand again, this time casting Dispel to free Kadaj from the effects of the status affliction.

"Thank you," he said, appreciating that Kadaj hadn't taken his request as an assassination attempt. "You see why I wanted to do that?"

[joinmyreunion]

That magic lesson had gone less well. Silent casting was hard, and the only thing Kadaj had managed at all was a small, very small by his normal standards, approximation of the Quake spell. The only reason he'd managed to do even that was because it was his natural element, and he'd become adept enough with it to use his raw chakra to manipulate it.

Getting the form of the actual spell, even that one, had been tricky, and he hadn't quite managed it. What he'd come out with, in the end, had vaguely resembled the spell's shape barely enough to do something, but it hadn't been good enough to consider a pass. He'd had absolutely zero luck with every other element, too, and Aero spells were still eluding him even with the words.

He'd been the one to ask if they could stop for the day, not because he was getting frustrated, and losing his control, but because he was developing a pounding headache that was making it hard to concentrate. When it came to the task at hand, he told Even, he'd been offered the chance to use a quick fix to get his bankai, at the cost of it's potential power, and he'd chosen the slow route to do it properly. He didn't view this as any different; he could not bother learning it, of course, but it would leave him with a weakness. If it took time to learn how to negate that weakness, then so be it.

He took some painkillers before he went to find the rest of them. They probably wondered where he was disappearing to so much, but none of them had asked him, yet. So much of his absence from the group could be explained as him working with Souba, of course, but there were limits.

They were in the sunhouse, as usual. The gardens were growing chill, but the sunhouse stayed warm like a greenhouse, and it was unofficially their territory. One day he'd find Grimmjow rubbing his face on it, he thought.

Tayuya was already there, practicing the Jyllandi swear words she'd asked Apache to teach her because you could never know enough profanity, and Yylfordt had his nose in a book Kadaj couldn't decipher just by looking at it. Occasionally, he scribbled in it.

"You know," Kadaj said, "half this clan would want to murder you if they saw you doing that, and your boss would tell them to get in line."

[cierva]

Apache was wearing a pleased expression at Tayuya's progress with her favourite curse words. Hardly anybody on mainland Spira used Jyllandi and, if she was being completely truthful, many people on Jylland were starting to use lowerworld Spiran in place of their native language.

In a generation or two she thought it was likely that Jyllandi would be spoken only by purists, or 'at home' by children who spoke it with their families but conversed in Common with their schoolfriends. It was depressing.

"See, they're easy enough," she said, grinning.

[jawmask]

Grimmjow looked up at Kadaj's return and then glanced over at Yylfordt. Scribbling in books was a dangerous game in the palace, but only really if they didn't belong to you. Half of the books in the palace's library were archaic relics of a bygone age, so they had value, but the ones you picked up at any modern bookstore were easy to replace and perfect for scrawling in.

"It's only really that creepy Ienzo kid and Aizen that'd flip their shit," he said. "And what's Ienzo gonna do to him? Alchemy at him?"

Grimmjow didn't put much stock in the Alchemy class, as a general rule. It had limited application, practitioners were vanishingly rare and only a small number were battle-ready. He doubted that the Ryoka kid was one of 'em.

"Where've you been, anyway? I looked for you in the training room, but only Nnoitra was there."

[palehornedprince]

"It's my book," Yylfordt replied, without taking his eyes off the page he was scribbling on. "Not that they'd read this kind of thing anyway."

He turned it around to show Kadaj, holding the page open where he was. One page was a mechanical diagram with each part arrowed and noted, and the other was an explanation of those notes. This was the bit he was scribbling around, with multiple arrows from one paragraph to the next, and tiny scrawling text filling what had been white space.

Yylfordt didn't have the materials to build a new engine from scratch for the hell of it, here, so scribbling in service manuals was the closest he could get to it. It was a hobby.

He turned the book back around, finishing another note.

[soundfivebitch]

"Wcie-tusgit sysgmosgih," Tayuya repeated, slowly, saying every syllable with care. "My accent needs some serious fucking work," she said.

It was a weird collection of sounds, but Jyllandi had a good, angry feel to it when shouted that Tayuya could appreciate. "Good language for swearing in, though," she said, giving Apache a smirk.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj hesitated before he admitted to Grimmjow, "Different kind of training."

The kind that left him exhausted for reasons that weren't just physical exertion, he thought. He walked in properly and sat down near Grimmjow before he said, quietly enough that his voice wouldn't carry out of the room, "I've always struggled with magic, so I've been," he trailed off, frowning before he plowed on, "taking lessons."

And today had been hard, and frightening at the same time. It hadn't even occurred to him that he could be so vulnerable, still.

[cierva]

"It's pretty good, yeah," Apache agreed, grinning.

There was something strangely guttural about some aspects of Jyllandi, while other parts were more delicate sounding, and nearly musical. It was probably a result of it being mixed with Krakish way back. To Apache Krakish sounded a lot like somebody chewing on a mouthful of grit.

"Being able to call certain people a aiccyz-neuhit wosgdeht is always a bonus," she told her, not losing the grin even a tiny bit.

[jawmask]

Grimmjow's brow furrowed as Kadaj sat down close to him and made damn sure that he wasn't going to be overheard. He looked as serious as he sounded and the tone of his voice was much lower and more secretive than Grimmjow was used to hearing from him.

"Seriously?" He asked. He knew Kadaj wasn't much good at magic, but it wasn't that unusual. He could only do a bit himself and other people, Nnoitra in particular, made no secret of his lack of talent on the subject. Still, admitting this was a step that Kadaj had been apparently reluctant to take before. "Kuja teachin' you?"

[soundfivebitch]

Tayuya furrowed her brow and translated what Apache had said. Wosg was fuck, she'd learned that one quickly, it was ed...

She snorted once she'd got it. "Yeah, I can think of a few uses for that one," she said. She managed to refrain from glancing at Yylfordt. "Wosgdeht," she repeated, saying it a few more times until she was happy she could say it without having to think about the syllables, "wosgdeht, wosgdeht, wosgdeht." She grinned at Apache, "You know, I can see the appeal of swearing at someone in a language they don't understand."

Yylfordt was sat there, nose in his book, completely oblivious.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj shook his head, perhaps a little too quickly. "Not Kuja," he said. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to explain how he could hold a lot of affection for someone he couldn't trust. "Even," he said, glancing at Grimmjow. "That Ryoka," he added, unnecessarily. "He's building a lab at the far end of the Palace, and he's warded it so we can practice without drawing attention." Which was, really, extremely thoughtful of him. True, he probably didn't want the rest of the Palace to know what he got up to down there, either, but he'd only put those measures in place since Kadaj had asked for help.

"Want to know what we found out today?" He asked, looking at Grimmjow, his voice dropping quieter. "One silence spell," he said, holding up a finger as demonstration, "and my bankai, and all my shikai abilities are disabled." He frowned again. "He's gonna help me work around it."

[cierva]

"It's better when you're doin' it than them," she said, but agreed nonetheless. "Most people drop the 't' at the end of that word," she told Tayuya, grinning. "It's not to be said in polite company anyway, so dropping letters isn't so much of a problem."

[jawmask]

Grimmjow scowled when he said that it was the Ryoka doing it. Sure, Grimmjow accepted that his quarrel was with the Berserker, not him, but he had been an associate of the berserker and he was still pretty sure that he'd only barely joined the Clan willingly. He was prepared not to start a fight with him because of an ex-ally, but he wasn't sure he'd go far enough to trust him, especially not in a warded area of the Palace.

When Kadaj spoke again, however, he listened.

"What, with an amulet, or something?" He didn't address the part where Even was the one helping because the fact that he was going to help Kadaj work around such a crippling weakness was enough to stun him out of it.

[declaregamuza]

They were running low on tea again. That meant that Nel was due another supply run. She left the Palace at least once a week to do a food shop, a journey that was costing steadily more as the population of the Palace slowly increased. Tea was especially in demand when there was Aizen, Ulquiorra, herself, L, Ienzo, and Even that basically ran on it. Smaller trips into Dalmascan towns happened regularly, for things like the newspaper, and fresh milk, but Nel preferred to get the less immediate items from further afield.

Currently, she was sat in the kitchen, herself with a fresh cup of tea, and a pad and pen while she made a shopping list, and Even for company. Nel liked Even, and he was significantly more agreeable company than some of the kitchen's other regulars.

"Any special requests?" She asked Even, with a bright smile, as she jotted down 'wine' on her list. The best part about being the one that did the supply shopping was that you got to treat yourself, and Nel took full advantage of that. "And no, I can't drop Szayel down the Ridorana Cataract on my way, I've already asked permission to do that once."

He'd been in, earlier, lurking as he liked to when he had nothing better to do with his time. Fortunately, the back door had been kept shut with the chill of encroaching winter felt in the gardens, and a change such as shutting the back door had attracted the more curious of Wonderweiss's Dreamhares. Nel had opened the door to go and fetch some laundry in and been greeted with what even she had to admit was a slightly off-putting crowd of wiggling fluff. Szayel, who disliked the Dreamhares enough to be called frightened of them, had witnessed this and subsequently made his excuses. He hadn't come back.

[thechillyacademic]

Even looked up, a thoughtful expression on his face.

On the one hand, he wanted to think of edible items he was rather craving, but on the other, his thoughts were filled with a map of what he knew Spira looked like and he couldn't imagine where Nel would be going shopping that would have the Ridorana Cataract en route. Unless she shopped somewhere on Jylland.

He shook it off, putting it down to a figure of speech. Sadly, it would have been nice to have a chance of dropping him off somewhere unpleasant. Especially a big hole in the ocean. He didn't feel as badly about Szayel as many did, but he was still slightly irritating.

"Some biscuits might be nice," he said, smiling a little. He considered what else he'd want, but came up largely empty. "Instant food," he added, after a moment' thought. "The sort you add hot water to. I could use some for my lab."

[declaregamuza]

Nel looked at Even as if he'd just asked her to buy him something made of silicon named 'The Jackhammer', batteries, and a big tub of lubricant.

"And here I thought you were halfway classy," she said, frowning at her list and hesitating. "I can make you real food and bring it to you, you know? You don't have to live like Yylfordt and Grimmjow would if no one cooked for them."

She could picture it. They'd live on cup noodles and Bhujerban takeaways. Vegetables would only factor if they were wilted and standing feeble guard between bread and a burger.

[thechillyacademic]

"Oh, no," he said, shaking his head and waving a hand. "I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience to you. Sometimes I just forget to come out and it would be easier if I had something there, should that happen."

He gave a smile, looking halfway apologetic.

"It isn't an immediate concern," he added. "I don't tend to spend so much time in my lab that I get distracted just yet and won't until I procure the equipment I need, but nevertheless it is something that will keep and that I could use in the future."

[declaregamuza]

Nel murmured, and threw Even an amused look. "Yet," she quoted, before shaking her head with a smile. It wasn't a contingency plan she approved of for Even's nutritional needs. It wasn't a contingency plan she approved for anyone. "Friends don't let friends eat cup noodles, Even," she told him.

He spent enough time in his labs already anyway. They weren't finished and he still spent hours down there each day, presumably working on things. He'd sealed a lot of it up, she'd noticed; whatever he was intending on doing down there, he didn't want the rest of Khamja poking into it. Maybe that was why he wanted food he could store down there, rather than being interrupted with a delivery.

"How far off finishing it all are you, anyway?" She asked, changing the subject away from how he intended to maintain his figure.

[thechillyacademic]

"Ahh," he thought about it and heaved a small sigh. "Quite a way."

He shook his head, thinking about how far he still needed to go to make it suitable for use as a proper laboratory, rather than being one in name and future reputation only. They all knew he was a scientist, so it was hardly a difficult or strange conclusion to draw, but at the moment his 'laboratory' was little more than an office and two warded, spacious rooms all joined at a hallway.

"There's still rather a lot of equipment and furniture I need to somehow get my hands on," he admitted. "It's rather slow going on account of not being able to shop for it. Catalogues aren't really available, so it's difficult to even order it in and obviously I'm virtually a prisoner here, so it's not as if I can pop out and have a look."