You're Pulling That Face, In My Space (short story)
Title: You're Pulling That Face, In My Space
Author: Yukito
Yukito paced slowly around the tall tree where he had propped up his training dummy. Calling the lumpy pillow-like thing he'd created a training dummy was generous in the extreme, but he'd tried. Every time he's found a scrap clothing while hunting, it had gone into a sack until he'd had enough of them to clumsily tie them together and make them all look vaguely.. monster-like. Now his creation frumpily sat there mocking him. He didn't know why he'd felt the need to draw a smiley face on it, but he had no intention of letting it surviving this encounter.
It had seen too much.
With a quick glance around at his surroundings, Yukito pulled his warsword and drew a deep breath. He held it for a few heartbeats, and then slowly let it go and counted the seconds in slow measure. He let his hands rest on the crossguard of the sword, allowing its tip to gently sink into the grassy soil between his planted feet. As his chin sank down to his chest, the sunlight slanting from above danced across the gleaming eahnor blade, and the gold of his hair.
When his shoulders relaxed, Yukito effortlessly hoisted his sword, sliding one hand forward along the hilt. Lowering his arms, he braced himself into a guarded stance and raised his blade defensively. The tip of one ear twitched slightly as a rabbit shuffled near, but it scurried away when he shifted his stance and struck his training dummy.
After a few practice strikes, Yukito dipped his warsword until the tip almost brushed the ground near his feet, and then began a series of quick attacks. When he remained relatively stationary, he did well, but moving very much had him grumbling in frustration before long. His fighting style focused on using his blade to keep the enemy at a distance, disarm them if possible, and perform disabling strikes. Thus, the tip of his blade carved, stabbed, and brutally hacked at the training dummy until mismatched, and shockingly unappealing, bits of clothing spilled from its sides.
By no means were his movements wholly polished, nor was his speed perfect. From time to time he tripped and stumbled as he tried to get his footing just right. The final time Yukito tripped, he fell and got his feet wound up in an ugly beaded puce scarf that had treacherously threaded its way out of his training dummy. Barely managing not to gut himself on his own blade as he wildly flailed and went down, Yukito turned to glare at the hacked up training dummy where it lay slumped against the tree.
It gazed back at him with its knotted scarf guts wrapped around his ankle, mockery and hatred in its crudely drawn on eyes... No. It was no training dummy. It was a lopsided PILLOW. A lopsided pillow with a vile and sadistic squiggly line of a grin. One that NEVER should have been created.
It had seen too much.
It KNEW too much.
It had to die.
Sometime later:
A thick plume of smoke rises above the Vornavian Coast.
When he was thinking back on the incident more rationally, Yukito figured that it would be best to focus more on the fact that he had trained that day, and less on the training dummy homicide when he spoke to Guarrin.
"Argument" - Robots in Disguise