Private Strike First Strike Hard

[Okuma Milogen]

Location: Mud Duck, Hyperspace
Tag: Braze

BZZZ

The device sounded before the Kage quickly pulled his leg up before snapping it out against a wooden target. Each move has two attacks, one where his foot connects with the center target before rapidly pulling back and extending back out higher towards the lower face or neck.

BZZZ

He did it again, the buzzer sounding off at slightly different intervals to add some measure of unpredictability.

BZZZ

Again. Everytime it was followed up by a duo of quick impacts to the target. The soul of his foot grew sore from the constant kicking. He was pushing himself to build up his body once more. Having lost enough weight to lose much of his competitive edge as a fighter. Having learned a fair bit about himself, his power and limitations during his last fight. But more importantly the consequences and fallout of tapping into the potential of his augments.

Now he found himself aboard a strange ship in the company of even stranger individuals. People he didn’t trust and still filled with many questions. Chief among them was why was he still with Braze. He had horribly jeopardized his mission by going to Verida as he did. There was no reason for the young Echani to keep him around and yet he tended to rather than left behind to self destruct from exhaustion.

BZZZ

Once the first kick connected with the wooden target there was a sudden crack that formed across its main body. Okuma reacted quickly enough to pull his leg back and not follow through with the drill. He tilted his head slightly before letting out a sigh and lowering his leg back down into a normal stance.​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Okuma Milogen

The sound of slow, deliberate clapping broke the hush behind Okuma. Just a few languid strikes of palm against palm, carrying that ambiguous quality,half admiration, half mockery.

When he turned, Braze was there, though moments ago he hadn't been.

"You're getting stronger," Braze remarked softly, his voice lowered to match the dimness of the training room, words threading through the low light like smoke.

He stepped closer, his tone tempered with caution and familiarity. "But you should let your body rest a little more. Push too far, and you'll do more harm than good." The words carried the weight of experience, wrapped in gentle warning shaped by scars unseen.

​

 

[Okuma Milogen]

Location: Mud Duck, Hyperspace
Tag: Braze

Glancing back, Okuma didn’t seem all that alarmed or startled by Braze’s appearance. His eyes only narrowed some from the clapping. “Yeah, sorry about your dummy… I can handle a bit of light training.” To Okuma this wasn’t much, a simple routine more so to hone his reactions than to really push his body.

The Kage was someone who had come to prefer keeping everyone else around him at arms length. But right now he felt he should ask the young Jedi why he’d been looked after earlier. He was hesitant however.

“I’m sure you know all sorts of styles and forms huh? Echani are like that, at least every one that I’ve come across.” Okuma said, changing where his mind was. “Fighting becomes so personal and expressionistic. Were you trained that way?” He asked, curious on how much Echani heritage meant to Braze. Using martial arts as a way to break the ice.​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Okuma Milogen

​

Braze's voice carried a soft sense of amusement as he stepped into the room, jade-green eyes sweeping over Okuma's form.
"Ah… the merciless bounty hunter can show remorse for his actions. There may yet be hope for you, Boss."

He began to circle slowly, almost predatory as if testing Okuma's balance without even lifting a blade.

"You are correct," Braze admitted softly. "I am practiced in several martial forms." His tone grew lighter, though his gaze stayed watchful. "Care for a bout? To feel how it is to wield your saber again?"

The offer was genuine. Truth be told, Braze had always loved sparring. In his youth he'd chased it endlessly, forever challenging the older Padawans, craving the contest of blades above all else. Even now, that hunger had never fully left him. "Perhaps it will even tell me who you studied under?"

 

[Okuma Milogen]

Location: Mud Duck, Hyperspace
Tag: Braze

The Kage cyclops shot Braze a quick glare before over their comment about showing remorse. Before forming a gentle smirk. His brow raised some as he listened to Braze’s question. It still felt unfamiliar to have his saber addressed as his. No longer referred to as confiscated property of the order.

“Who I studied under? You wanna read me like an open book don’t you. You really are your father’s son.” Okuma said without thinking. It also made the Kage think back to his old mentor. A veteran Jedi sentinel who saw promise in the former child soldier.

“I’m not opposed to the idea.” Okuma’s tone was still soft. Not a gram of eagerness more than necessary. He brought his hand to his belt, where there was a simple buckled hoster where he kept his saber’s hilt. Once unlatched and opened he pulled it free. Looking down at it with his golden gaze he activated the familiar weapon.

Suddenly Okuma’s features were being washed with the brilliant blue glow of his saber. Nothing about it was remarkable beyond the fact that it was his. Okuma had constructed the saber to be worked, not decorated and prized like some art piece. Designed with utility in mind like certain other Jedi that the echani would know.

“It’s been a while, my old style is gonna need some readjustment.” He stated, doubting his ability to fully carry the tradition of Ataru.​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Okuma Milogen

Braze drew his blade with a calm, motion as the weapon came alive in a pale blue hue. The crystal's steady hum vibrated low through the chamber. He set the dial to a non-lethal training mode, the edge no more dangerous than a stinging welt if struck.

"So you knew my father, then…" he mused aloud, his voice even but carrying a note of curiosity. His eyes didn't leave Okuma's face as he spoke, searching, weighing, listening as much to the silences as to any words that might follow.

Braze didn't bother with a blindfold or ceremonial formality. Instead, he gave a slow flourish of the blade, half for balance, half for show, before bringing it forward in a clean, disciplined check. His stance was light on the balls of his feet, blade angled with precision, not aggression. The motion wasn't meant to wound but to press, to test, to see where Okuma's guard would rise and how quickly.

"I keep having visions of him when I rest," he said quietly, tone almost contemplative as the pale light bled across his features. Then he stepped in, blade poised, ready to measure Okuma's response.

 

[Okuma Milogen]

Location: Mud Duck, Hyperspace
Tag: Braze

Okuma would also lower the power of his weapon like Braze. The brilliant blue glow of his weapon became dimmer as it did. “I did yes, we were both Jedi aspirants.” He watched as Braze flourished and initiated.

The Kage would bring his blade to Ecahni’s. His eye narrowed some for a moment before his face formed a gentle smirk. The signature flourish and one handed stance was telling. “Visions? The Force may be trying to nudge you in a certain direction. What are the visions like?” He asked. All the while Okuma’s own movements and reactions to Braze’s prodding seemed slow. Still managing to keep up thanks to the ingrained familiarity of his old weapon and the unfelt connection he still had with the crystal within it.

“You’re partial to Makashi aren’t you? I’m glad now that I never came after you with a blade. But it can also explain how I managed to best you with a short burst from a blaster.”​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Okuma Milogen

Truth be told, Braze's approach was gentle, almost the way he might guide a young student through practice. He tried different angles, probing Okuma's guard as they moved, before shifting into more advanced patterns that pressed his footwork and tested his response time.

"Lately I've had strange visions," he said, his tone casual, as though discussing weather rather than war. "I see an image, blurred, half-hidden, like someone trapped on the far side of a broken mirror. It isn't me, though at first it feels like it should be. He wears a mask across his eyes and claws at the glass, trying to get through. But nothing I do helps. The harder I strike, the more the glass splinters… until it always ends with my death."

He left it there, choosing not to speak further of saber technique, letting his motions and the rhythm of their duel carry the rest of what he meant.

​

 

[Okuma Milogen]

Location: Mud Duck, Hyperspace
Tag: Braze

“That’s certainly cryptic…” Okuma stated at the same time as casually batting away Braze’s own saber. He was a man that understood that these kinds of things happen for a reason. That the Force didn’t really facilitate coincidences like that.

“Sounds to me like a warning, and one that you should take seriously. Whatever the meaning it seems the outcome is rather dire. One where you could lose your life, or yourself. Whatever the case may be, try not to do it before our time together is over.” Okuma said callously, giving Braze permission to die on his own time if he so chooses. The Kage had seemed more interested in what the end result was of the vision rather than the rest of it.

For a moment Okuma’s and Braze’s blades collided into a bind. During which he spoke. “I once had a vision too that I still remember. Where the split shadow of a man flanked me on either side. Each half spoke independently, making promises or pleas. It stop after I left the order and surrendered my saber…” Okuma explained, opening up some of his own experience.​

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Okuma Milogen

​

Braze shifted the blade seeking leverage to turn the bind in to a disarm with a small shove.

"Sounds awful. " Braze stated simply. "What kind of promises or pleas?" Braze asked.