Becoming an Elite!

Being considered part of the saiyans army elite really got Natto’s spirits up. Last night he was summoned to the throne room along with the top notch of the saiyan army. To be part of that select group only confirmed that his recent dedication to his training was really making a difference and he got even more motivated if that was even possible!

He couldn’t sleep therefore he decided to go for an evening intense training session. Natto didn’t even bothered putting on his battle suit and left his dormitory with nothing but his underwear. His tail was hanging loose for a change as he felt the wind blowing through his body, in an almost completely free state. He didn’t even took his scouter with him this time as he wanted to feel completely alone.

First of all he flew through the skies of Vegeta, manifesting his ghostly-white ki aura around his body, to protect him from the intense wind generated by his huge speed. That was the first part of his evening training: flying as fast as he could across the planet, to try and improve his speed and endurance. It may seem like a light training, but flying all around the planet on his maximum speed, without slowing down for even a second was no easy task, especially after more than one lap.

The first lap was piece of cake and he actually enjoyed the view of his planet. It was very different from the history books which described Vegeta as a badland for most of its territory. The saiyans really did a great job taking care of the planet ”A way better job than that of those damn tuffles.” he thought proud of his own race. The second and third laps were easy indeed, but he started to break a sweat that would run down his temples. This time he was more concentrated on the beautiful cities and ruins of the planet that held its history and blood of the brave saiyans who fought for their own freedom from slavery.

”Maybe slavery isn’t all that wrong… Well… If you are strong and worthy you will be able to break free from slavery and achieve greatness… But even though, the strong has the right to rule the weak, but they also have the duty of protecting them… As we do for the most part.” he concluded, thinking about the still imperfect but far superior than other races saiyan imperial system.

After the fifth lap Natto felt his body asking for a slower pace. That’s when the real training begins, as he had to keep on pushing forward to avoid slowing down without notice. This kind of training wasn’t only physical, it was also a deep and complicated mental training, where the young saiyan had do fight against his body self-preservation instincts that comes crawling stealthily through his brains. His brows furrowed as he had to seek his inner strength and kept on pushing forward.

Every lap at his full speed took him 25 minutes which was a very good mark. He was quite impressed with his new power level and the marvels he could do with that. A great smile appeared on his face only to fade always almost immediately as he remembered the power levels of the other saiyan elites that he met on the throne room. He was but a fly compared to them, being one of the weaker saiyans of the summoned elite, which made him sigh irritated, gathering even more will power to continue his training.

On the eight lap his body started to feel all sore, as he kept pushing his ki to propel his body flying with the same speed as best as he could. However, as he kept going he slowly began to lose speed. It was little by little, but still a loss in performance, which made him feel a bit angry with himself. ”Is this my limit?! Hell no! I’ll overcome this! I will achieve 10 laps and after that continue to the other part of my training session! Come body, don’t let me down, alright?!” he motivated himself as he continued to fly across the planet. This lap took him about 30 minutes.

Finally, on the start of the ninth lap his body finally gave in to his tiredness and slowed down quite a bit but he was determined to reach his goal of 10 laps. It was going to be very difficult to achieve the 10 laps, but he wasn’t going to give up on that. After about 40 minutes he finished the last but one lap, sweating intensely. His heart was accelerated and his breath was puffy, but he had just started the last lap and he was not known to easily give up on his goals.

When he saw the end of the imaginary line on the last lap, he gathered all his remaining strength and accelerated back to his top speed, finishing the last lap in 65 minutes. Immediately after crossing the finishing line of his imagination, his aura vanished and he started flying slowly towards some forest near the Capital, where he would continue his training. He was panting intensely and his body was all covered in sweat.

To say that he landed on the ground is a kindness as it was more like tumbling on the ground, breaking a couple trees on his way, where he stayed for a while. His training session up to now had a little more than 5 hours and he was really exhausted. He decided to catch his breath and recover his stamina for about half an hour before starting over his training session.

As he closed his eyes he relaxed with the sound of the waterfall and surrounding wildlife that gave off a really peaceful aura, allowing him to forget about his tiredness as it washed it away. But even this peaceful place couldn’t make his mind relax completely as he was still thinking about his goals. His restless mind compelled him to open his eyes. ”Such strong power levels… I didn’t even imagine that there were such strong saiyans… I mean, of course there would be, but… You know… To actually see them face to face… I definitely need to get stronger… Otherwise I will never achieve anything.” he sighed, remembering about the times his weakness cost him greatly, such as the time his lack of control of his Great Ape form resulted in the obliteration of all sentient life in Felucia.

That thought took always any ease of mind he had and his eyes filled with tears, that soon began to slide down his cheeks. – If I were stronger… - he muttered. ”I could have had control of my transformation…” he complemented his reasoning with his mind. But he hated crying and shortly after he wiped the tears with his arm and got up. The next thought that came to his mind were the death of his parents and their platoon to that unknown treat. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, feeling really angry with himself.

– Overcome all of your limits, Natto! – he shout to himself as he immediately pulled out his whole power out of the core of his being, manifesting it as his ghostly-white aura all around his body. A few stones and leaves started floating around him and the ground cracked a bit. He screamed as he reached the peak of his power with a burst of ki all around him, breaking the stones and destroying the leaves. His eyes remained closed as he pictured a shadow in front of him. That shadow took the form of himself.

That was his true and only obstacle to surpass: himself. That’s what great warriors do, they surpass themselves every single day. ”Today and every day after I shall overcome my yesterday self!” he decided with a strong will. ”I shall accept no less than that!”. With that in mind, he dashed forward, with his other self as a target and threw a strong punch that was easily evaded with a back step from Shadow Natto. – Is that all you’ve got? – the shadow grinned, making Natto angry. – That’s nothing! – he shouted as he attacked again. Punch after punch were easily evaded by the shadow as it wasn’t even trying hard to do it which only frustrated the young saiyan even further, making him angrier and angrier. He started attacking with all his speed. Punches, elbow, kicks and knee shots, all missing the target as the shadow seemed to just slide to the side on the exact moment.

Tired of that, Natto somersaulted backwards and flew a few feet away, charging his energy as he brought his arms to the side of his body. Instantly after he threw both his hands charged with blue energy forward, one after the other, as he rapidly fired ki blasts toward the shadow. As a response, the shadow would vanish before every single hit, smiling with an arrogant look on its face. Natto attacked with all his speed, using his anger as fuel, but after a while, he was exhausted.

His technic, the Continuous Energy Bullet was handy but had its tools, as it was almost a desperate move, motivated by frustration or rage that drained quite a lot of his ki. His eyes widened as he saw that he just wasted his energy for nothing, as he completely failed in damaging that shadow. He could not understand why, as that shadow was on his imagination. Maybe it was the result of his own recent frustration and failures that was starting to carve deeply on his subconscious.

– Fool! You always miss the point. Anger is a good trigger for getting stronger but you cannot always count on that! If you want to be a warrior you have to learn to keep your cool and wait for the right moment! – the shadow said, hitting him like a wrecking ball.

All that was true and deep inside his knew as, otherwise, his shadow wouldn’t be able to say it, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much to hear. He had been quite blindfolded and deaf to his own flaws only looking to the top of the stairs but ignoring all the steps that came before it. Some sort of shame filled his heart as he realized it and he landed back on the ground sighing deeply. ”I can’t be a trainwreck… I have to concentrate and focus my rage if I want it to become a weapon I can use… I can’t act like a uncontrolled beast otherwise my regular self will be no different than a weak version of an uncontrolled Great Ape.” his heart started to beat in a more normal pace as he achieved some inner serenity. ”To achieve full control of one’s self is the key to improvement… It’s time to become an adult… I’m no longer a child, I’m a saiyan elite recognized by the Queen herself! I will not embarrass my deceased parents, or my race… And I will not be ashamed of myself anymore!” getting his resolve ready, he stared at the shadow from his own mind and concentrating all his power, he dashed towards it again.

This time he was focused like never before. First he threw a straight punch to its face, which was dodged but not so easily. The shadow was no longer smiling, giving place to a worried expression as the other blow came across its face, almost hitting it. After that there was an opening which he seized by landing a strong knee to the shadows chin, leaving it open to another blow. Natto turned his hips striking a roundhouse kick with the power of the rotation of all his body, which made the shadow vanish in an instant.

That was a better way to fight: using the anger as motivation to release adrenaline through the body, enhancing the battle senses, but focusing the mind to be able to read the situation and react a proper and effective way. Wasting energy out of desperation was supposed to be a last resort in a life or death situation when ran out of option, not something to do at the start of a fight.

With that in mind, he closed his eyes again, ignoring everything around him. Soon the sound of the waterfall and the wildlife that dwelled on that forest faded away and there was only emptiness as he started to replicate the movements of his own fighting style learned at Felucia and further developed by his father, Douchi, and with the training sessions with his elder brother, Miso.

Within every blow threw to the air, he would picture a situation where he had to concentrate on the moment, waiting for the imaginary foe to lower his guard and defeat him with a single lethal blow of his fist or foot. Immediately after defeating a foe, another would appear and he would repeat. Nothing but perfect blows would land, and the opening was there every time only for a split of a second. Seizing opportunities was one of the fundamental principles of martial arts, and to be considered a martial artist, one must dominate the concepts of readiness and control of space.

The enemy should do only what you intend them to do. A experienced fighter must induce his foe to act in a determined way without him realizing that he is doing your bidding. The mastery of that meant the mastery of fighting itself and Natto still had a long road to follow, but he was definitely improving. It was about time to kill the child and let the man live.

After replicating all his basic attacks and technics of his own fighting style there was only one part of his training left: strength training. He already worked on his endurance and stamina, and with his technic and mind, but without a strong body, all of that would be flawed.

He immediately fell to the floor in and assumed a prone position with his chest down and back up, with both his fists touching the ground. Natto lifted himself up using his arms, starting his push-ups session. It was the first time he was doing push-ups at a regular gravity after he started using the gravity chamber and it felt extremely easy. He smirked and, as he was getting stronger, he decided to break his limits.

Natto started by doing 3000 push-ups with both fists to the ground, followed by another 3000 with each fist, doing a total of 9000 push-ups with his fists which were followed by another set of both arms push-ups, but now using his finger tips to do it. It was harder, but he still managed to do another 2000 with both arms, followed by another set of 2000 with each arm, achieving an incredible mark of 6000 push-ups with his fingertips. After that he raised his body doing a handstand, with his head right between his arms, continuing the push-up session in that stance with a set of 1500 with both arms, followed by another equal set with each arm, achieving a total of almost 20.000 push-ups. After that his arms and chest were burning like crazy, almost like they would rip apart at any moment, but he wasn’t gonna stop.

– Wow… That took its tools on my body! But I gotta even that amount on the crunches… That’s gonna be tough! Hahaha! – he laughed a little, as he walked to a tree.
Natto took a trunk out of a tree, breaking both sides of it and walked to a very strong looking tree on the area, holding the trunk over his shoulder.

He jumped; holding himself with his knee bent on the branch of the tree and started the crunch session straight way, being upside down. His arms were holding the trunk over his head, and he started curling his body while touching the trunk on his knees. He head to gather all his remaining strength to finish the 20.000 crunches session in one piece and after that his body was overloaded with all that training and about to collapse. And it did. He felt his consciousness fading away and fell from the tree, hitting his head on the trunk he was holding and his world went black.

When he finally woke up, his eyes slowly opened and regained focus as he saw the rays of the sun that came through the leaves, painting the wonderful canvas of the morning. He smiled slightly as he grimaced with the pain in his body. The young saiyan tried to sit down as he woke up, but his abs where hurting like crazy and he felt back to the ground, touching his stomach in pain. ”Goddammit!” he growled, breathing deeplu after that. He had to take it easy as his body was sore from his hair to toe. Slowly Natto manage to actually sit down, sighing, feeling a lot of pain all over his body, especially at his stomach.”Another day going to the medical machine… I’m gonna be poor in no time if I keep going like that! Hahaha! But I’ll be a happy strong beggar at least!! Hahaha!” he laughed with his own thoughts as he started flying back, slowly.

Flying back could be considered some sort of training too since his body was still exhausted from his long training session and had almost no energy left. He couldn’t even use his ki to effectively fly fast or even manifest his ki aura, but at least he could sort of fly/float back to Cacumber Capital. As soon as he reached the edge of the city he landed and continued his path to the medical district by foot. At least Natto found the medical chamber to be rather pleasant and refreshing as he was becoming quite intimate with the machine.

His mind made him remember of the gravity chamber and he smirked as he pictured a training session with an even stronger gravity. He couldn’t wait for it, but his body complained as he almost fell to the floor and he accepted the fact that this dreamed training session would have to wait a little bit.