Practice on your own

Naomi would crash onto her knees once again. That was the eleventh time she had fallen off her board in the last thirty minutes. She had started off fine, but had only been getting worse over time. That was to be expected though. Up until recently, she had only been training her speed and stirring this thing without falling over. Now she was trying to train herself how to jump. Jump. Of all things to teach herself, she had to pick jumping. She was impressed that she hadn’t broken a bone yet. It couldn’t be helped though. She needed to get better at this, and soon. She knew she wasn’t the best, but she wasn’t the worst. She just had to use what she had been taught to do it on her own. She would get up, but not back on her board. Instead, she would go to lean against her house. She let out a deep sigh. How had she gotten herself into this? Oh yeah. She had somehow angered Yatagarasu and was now stuck training herself. At least he had taught her the basics before he decided to call her a freak and effectively get rid of her. Just remembering that made her blood boil. Not enough to anger her completely, but not so little she was just going to sit by and do nothing.

She looked back down at her board and smirked. She was going to show that boy just what she was capable of. She would go back up to her board and get on. She could do this. All she had to do was block out the rest of the world and focus on the job at hand. She would close her eyes so she could concentrate on what she was supposed to do. She had watched that video fifty times over. She had read all the explanations for how this worked. Now all she had to do was copy what she saw. She leaned down and grabbed the front end of her board. She just had to jump and manage to land back on the board. Why was this so hard? This should have been easier than the other way, which she still hand to get to. She would lift the front of her board and lift her feet off, and… fall flat on her face, again. She’d lean back and rub her cheek. She wanted to swear at the sky, but she wasn’t one to swear in public.

It was time she wrapped this up. She stood up and grabbed the board with a sigh. She was having more trouble with this than she should have been. Oh well. Even if she was having trouble with that jumping trick, she had worked on her ability to control her stirring. That, and she managed to get a little faster. If she put in a little more time, she could get even better. This was going to go swimmingly. A smile crossed her face at the thought.

Mikhail walked through the neighborhood humming to himself, "This is what I get for forgetting to recharge my music player" he thought to himself thinking about his dead device. "At least I got the night off work and plan to make some kickass dinner" he smiled thinking about the fresh products he had in a plastic bag.

He stopped hearing a loud thud sound and stopped to listen for a moment, "Must of been a garbage can falling over" he thought taking another step before hearing the sound again but it sounded more like a crash. "That sounded like a scooter or even a skateboard!" he thought running to where he heard the sound and ran around the corner, "You alright?!" he asked and stopped dead in his tracks seeing Naomi, "You!" he was surprised to see Naomi again already. "The hell are you doing?" he asked before he noticed the skateboard, "Oh, so was that you making all that noise?" he asked putting his free hand into his pocket.