The Training

It was raining.

Not a storm — just that steady, patient drizzle that soaks everything slowly and doesn't apologize for it. 

The kind of rain that turns fields soft and makes the world smell like wet wood and mud and something vaguely alive.

 Out here in the Green Break, deep enough that the Smokeline's noise didn't reach, the rain had the whole jungle to itself.

Eleo stood motionless in the field behind Master Kuma's dojo.

He was completely drenched.

 His fur clung flat against his arms and chest, ears hanging like two wet socks, rainwater tracing slow lines down his face.

 In front of him stood a wooden training dummy — blank-faced, immovable, staring back with the particular insolence of something that had never once been hit hard enough.

Eleo didn't move.

 Not yet.

His fists were clenched at his sides. His eyes were closed.

 He was listening to something the rain couldn't reach.

Up in the trees, sheltered beneath a wide leafy branch that had become her default perch on training days, Abby sat with a thick spellbook open across her knees.

 *Basic Runescript Vol. 1: Beginner-Level Boom Booms.* She turned a page without looking up. Then she glanced down at the soaked bunny standing motionless in the field below.

She watched him for a moment.

"...What is that idiot up to now," she muttered. "Standing there like a statue. A really dumb, wet statue."

Then Eleo's muscles shifted — something tightening through his whole body at once — and his eyes snapped open.

"RRRAAAHHH!!"

He launched.

 Fists slamming into the dummy in a relentless barrage, each impact throwing water from his knuckles in little sprays.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Then he stopped.

Looked at his hands.Looked at the dummy, which was exactly as fine as it had been before.

"...DANG IT!!"

He collapsed onto the grass like a folding chair that had given up its purpose, arms thrown wide, face pointed at the grey sky.

 Rain dripped steadily onto his nose, his cheeks, his closed eyes. The world was quiet except for the soft percussion of the drizzle.

For a moment — just a moment — it was almost peaceful.

 Like the rain was dissolving something heavy from behind his ribs.

Squish. Squish.

Footsteps in the wet grass. 

Abby materialized beside him, umbrella in one hand, spellbook tucked under her arm, looking down at him with the expression she reserved for situations that didn't surprise her but still made her tired.

"Eleo," she said. "What exactly are you trying to do."

"I'm trying to bring out my S-Orb power."

 He stared at the sky without moving.

 "It's not working. I've been punching for two days straight and nothing's happened."

Abby sat down beside him and hugged her knees. "Maybe try harder."

"I am trying." He threw one arm over his face. 

"I've been yelling, punching, meditating, eating spicy noodles — and nothing is happening."

"...That's not how you unlock powers."

"I was desperate."

Abby was quiet for a moment. Then, more seriously: "Once you actually leave to find the strongest man — how are you planning to find him? Nobody knows where he is. 

They say he's on some island. A dangerous one."

Eleo lifted his arm off his face. Blinked at the sky.

Then he sat bolt upright.

"OHHHHHH. So he's on an island!"

"That's — yes, that's what I just—"
He was already on his feet, dancing in the mud.

"YEH YEH YEH YEH YEH YEEEEH!!"

Abby watched him. 

Something at the corner of her mouth refused to stay flat. "He's so dumb it's almost cute."

Eleo spun around and pointed at the sky with both hands, rain still falling on his face, grinning like the storm had personally come to cheer him on.

"I'm gonna track him down! I'll smash through anything — with my SUPER ULTRA BUNNY PUNCH — defeat the strongest man alive — and become a LEGEND!!"

Abby stood, brushing mud from her cloak.

 "Right. About that." She crossed her arms. "You do know he's a top-level Fist User, Sword User, and Magic User. On top of whatever his S-Orb does."

Eleo tilted his head. "Huh? What are those?"

Abby went very still.

"...What."

"What are those things you just said."
"The— Fist User. Sword User. Magic User. You don't—" She pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose and breathed out slowly through her teeth. "You have lived here your entire life."

Eleo nodded. "Yep."

Abby facepalmed. 

The sound echoed off

 the tree trunks.

She pulled her spellbook out, flipped to a blank page she used as a scratch board, and turned it around so he could see.
"Okay. Listen. Actually listen this time."
**Fist Users.** "Martial artists. No magic, no weapons — just their body, their technique, and training so extreme their punches hit like falling stone. The best ones move faster than most people can see and hit harder than most people can survive."

**S-Orb Users.** "You sort of know this one. An S-Orb is a magical relic — when you absorb it, it permanently fuses with you and gives you a unique power based on the soul it was forged from. You don't need magic training to use one." She narrowed her eyes at him pointedly. "But you do need to actually learn to control it. Which is what you're supposed to be doing."

**Sword Users.** "Blade specialists. Some can cut lightning. Some channel their aura directly through their weapon. It's dangerous and extremely cool and you will probably never manage it."

**Magic Users.** "Spellcasters. They study Runescript, use staffs and incantations and magic circles — some are born with the gift, others spend years learning it." She closed the book. "Brainy, dangerous, and patient. The opposite of you."

Eleo stared at her for a long moment, processing.

Then he nodded. "Ohhhhh. Okay! That actually makes sense. Thanks, Abby."
She blinked. "You got all of that?"
"Yep."

"...You're sure."

"Completely."

She studied him for a suspicious moment. He looked back at her, wide-eyed and earnest and slightly rain-soaked.

She sighed. "Fine. Good."

Eleo turned back to the dummy. His jaw set. His fists came up. The rain was still falling, steady and indifferent, and he stood in it like he belonged there.

He threw another sequence of punches. Fast, clean, serious this time — every bit of focus he had pushed down his arms and into his knuckles.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

No glow. No shockwave. No power.

He grabbed both ears and screamed.

"DANG IT!!"

Abby frowned. "Are you trying to push your S-Orb through your fists?"

"YES, actually!" He spun to face her. "I can feel it — it's in there — I can feel it sitting there inside me like it's waiting — but it won't come out!"

Abby looked at him for a moment, actually thinking. Then she said: "Maybe you're too far inside your head. You're trying to force it out."

"What else am I supposed to do?!"
"Feel it. Don't chase it — meet it." She tucked her book under her arm. "The root knows, if you let it. Stop trying to make the power happen. Let yourself already have it."

Eleo stared at her. "...What does that mean."
Abby smirked. "Figure it out. That's what training's for."

He turned back to the dummy.
The rain hadn't let up. The field was a mess of shallow puddles and torn-up mud. His fur was soaked through. His arms ached. He'd been out here since before sunrise, and he'd be out here until he had something to show for it or his legs stopped working, whichever came first. It was a stubbornness that ran root-deep — the kind Gou had, the kind the whole island seemed to carry without

 ever naming it.

He breathed.
In. 

Out.

He stopped thinking about the orb. Stopped reaching for it. Just stood in the rain and let it exist — that quiet warmth low in his chest, banked like a coal that had been waiting since the day Kuma pressed it into his hands, since the day it had burned through him like a lit fuse and rearranged something fundamental.
It was there.It had always been there.
He ran.

"RAAAAHHH!!"

Full speed, ears pinned back, every muscle committed — he crossed the field in seconds and drove his fist into the dummy's face with everything he had.
The impact landed.

Then — something else landed.
A sound that wasn't just wood and bone. Something wet and sharp and completely new.

SPLAT.

Black ink exploded from his knuckles in every direction — across the dummy's face, up his own arm, splattering his cheek and chin and the tip of one ear. He stumbled back, blinking furiously, mouth open.

Up in the tree, Abby made a sound like she'd been punched in the lungs.

"PFFFT — HAHAHAHA — " She doubled over the branch. "WHAT WAS THAT?! YOU LOOK LIKE A SQUIRTED SQUID!!"
Eleo stood there. Ink dripping from his nose. From his fingers. Running down the dummy's blank wooden face like a painting that had decided to melt.
Then it hit him.

He threw both fists at the sky.
"YAHOO!! I DID IT!! I DID IT!!!"
He spun in the mud — a completely unhinged bunny victory dance that flung ink in all directions — screaming at no one and everyone:
"I GOT POWERS!! I'M NOT USELESS!! I HAVE POWERS!!!"
He slipped.

Both feet went out from under him simultaneously. He hit the mud flat on his back with a tremendous squelch.
"...Ow."

Abby pressed her forehead against the branch, shoulders shaking.
"You are," she managed, still laughing, "such an idiot." A pause. "But hey." She looked down at him, ink-spattered and flat on his back in the mud, grinning at the sky. "You've got an S-Orb ability now."
Eleo stared up at the clouds with the expression of a man who has just received confirmation that the universe is, in fact, on his side.

The rain had stopped. Not gradually — just stopped, the way it does sometimes, like a decision. What it left behind was clean air and the smell of wet leaves and the particular stillness the Green Break wore after weather, the kind that made the whole jungle feel like it was holding still on purpose.

---

Inside Abby's room above The Iron Fang, at the quiet end of the Smokeline, it was quiet.

A single candle burned on the small desk. Abby lay on her bed, a magic scroll spread across her chest, reading by the unsteady light. On the floor, wrapped in a blanket he'd somehow fashioned into a cocoon, Eleo snored softly — the heavy, honest sleep of someone who had spent every available minute punching something. Someone — Lucy, almost certainly — had left a covered bowl of carrot stew by the door for whenever he woke up hungry, the way the island fed people first and asked questions after.
Creak.

The door opened, slow and careful. Lucy leaned in — fox ears, easy smile, the unhurried manner of someone who had spent years managing this specific bar and these specific people and had found a genuine peace with both.

"Good night, sweetheart," she said softly, eyes moving to Abby first, then to the floor. "Good night, Eleo."
Abby smiled without looking up. "Night, Mom."

On the floor, one eye cracked open. "...Night, Miss Abby's Mom."
Lucy's smile widened. She pulled the door shut, slow enough that the latch barely made a sound.

Silence settled back over the room. The candle threw soft shadows across the ceiling. Outside, down along the Smokeline's waterfront, the last of the evening crowd was filtering home, welcome-smoke long since gone thin and grey over the water.

Then Eleo, very quietly, said: "I can't believe I did it."

Abby turned a page.

"I actually did it," he said. "I used my powers. Ink powers."

"Mm."
"That's so cool."

"It is kind of cool," Abby admitted.
He was quiet for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. Then: "I've already got an idea. For what I'm gonna do with them."
Abby yawned and let the scroll roll closed. 

"Tell me tomorrow."

"It's gonna be awesome though."
"I believe you. Tomorrow."

"You're gonna say it's dumb."

"Probably. Tomorrow."

A beat.

"...Okay," Eleo said. "'Night, Abby."

"Good night, Bunny Boy."

The candle guttered once, twice — then settled into darkness.
Outside, the last of the rain dripped from the eaves. The Smokeline went still. And in a small room above a bar at the edge of Pork Island, two kids slept, one already dreaming of ink and a crossing of his own.