entrancelogs | Chihiro's Training Montage

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Chihiro's Training Montage

Who: Chihiro Fujisaki, seperately with Dean Winchester, D'Artagnan, and Shannon Beiste - possibly others; I'm open to other characters dropping in the threads, so long as everyone else is!
Where: Various locations
When: At various points within the week
Rating: PG, PG-13 at most.
Summary: Through the course of her personal mission to become stronger, Chihiro seeks the help of various residents who had offered to help her.

They're probably busy. I don't want to be a bother. Maybe it's hopeless, I shouldn't waste their time.

These thoughts and more had often swirled in Chihiro Fujisaki's head whenever she thought back to all of the people who offered to train her to defend herself and strengthen her body. Weighing in at less than 100 pounds and standing less than five feet tall didn't leave Chihiro with a lot of room to grow, and it was often easier to simply look at herself for a few good seconds and give up.

As the mansion's cruel tricks chipped away at her, however, her behavior began to change. Rather than being discouraged, Chihiro found her resolve. She could either give up, or bite the bullet and strengthen herself - and she had too many good friends counting on her to stand up for herself to take the easy way out any longer.

"...Alter Ego... if anyone asks for me for the next few hours... tell them I'm not available. I'll be back, all right?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's true that he's kept the firmness toned down around her, but this? This is a serious matter, and she's gotta know just exactly how serious. She's a smart girl, though, so it doesn't take much before he's convinced that she's treating it with the right amount of levity.

He glances down at the earmuff and nods.

"You get used to it, but the acoustics in here? Tend to make it a little worse. Not to mention I don't want you scaring yourself into a bad shot."

They'll shove 'em on just as soon as he gets done being a walking, talking instructional video. He holds up a recangle, hollow but for the bullets carefully lined into it. "This is your magazine. It holds the bullets. What you're gonna wanna do is slide it into the chamber until it locks into place- like so."

He slides it in smoothly, there's a soft click as it sets.

He titls the gun to one side so she can see the top. "Holds one in the chamber, too, so always pull back and check to see if there's a live round before you pull the trigger. Just in case."

The top slides back to reveal the shiny, golden glint of metal. "And this? Is the safety. Gun doesn't fire when the safety's on. Safety's off, you're good to go. Any questions so far?"

Chihiro watches attentively as Dean goes through the motions, explaining how the gun works. She seems to absorb the information fairly well, despite her nervousness - she may not be very physical, but systemic things like the mechanical workings of the pistol and the safety precautions needed when using it are easy for her to make sense of.

"Hm... well... I've never fired a gun before, so... what's the recoil like? My arms aren't very strong, and I don't weigh very much... so I want to know what to expect..."

She's a smart girl, he figured she'd pick up the theoretical side with relative ease. The actual physical application, though? That's another matter entirely.

"Good question." He nods approvingly, shifts to show her a padded grip along the stock of the gun. "I'm not gonna lie to you, there is gonna be some, but it's not gonna be harsh. It's less than a nine millimeter pistol, and this grip's made of a gel that reduces it as much as possible, but you gotta make sure you're ready for the abrupt jerk. Keep your grip firm and your shoulders pointed. It's one of the smallest practical guns on the market, so someone your size ought to be able to handle it."

A beat.

"...Usually. We'll see how it goes, and if you can't take it, we'll try adjusting your stance a couple different ways, alright?"

One of the smallest practical guns on the market; perfect for one of the smallest people in Wonderland, to be sure.

"All right. My stance... I'm not really sure what the proper way to fire a gun is... you have to hold it with both hands, right?" It seems like an obvious question, but for someone who's seen guns used primarily in movies, where they are often dual-wielded or even held sideways, it might not be so clear.

"And... should I stand a certain way, maybe...?"

"Both hands, yeah. Just... ignore everything you ever saw on TV. Here- lemme show you." He presses the gun into her hands, adjusts the grip gently but professionally until she's holding it correctly. "Finger off the trigger until you're planning on shooting. Accidents happen, and accidents are never just accidents with a weapon."

He pulls back a second to look at her from a bit more distance.

"Alright, strengthen your stance. Try and put your feet about shoulder length apart, and raise your arms so that your writing hand's predominant. Lemme see what we got."

Chihiro nervously bites her lip as Dean's hands briefly overtake hers - they were strong hands, clearly at home grasped around a handgun, or clenched in a fist whilst speeding on its way toward the unwary jaw of some foe - a stark comparison to her own hands, with slender fingers more suited to the home row of a keyboard. That is, a small keyboard.

By the time Dean steps back, Chihiro's settled into something resembling a stance - her feet apart at shoulder-length, as they should be, but with the knees buckled inward slightly. She holds the gun out in front of her, not pointing it at anything in particular - her aim trends downward, as if she were actually struggling with the weight of it. Her finger, as instructed, is off the trigger.

"I'll try to be careful... is... is this good enough?"

He doesn't worry much, her hands may be small but her heart and brain are huge. He's got a best friend back home named Charlie, she's a hacker and a nerd and she's all things awesome in the world. She can shoot a gun better than half the damn population, and it's got nothing to do with the size of her hands.

He presses his lips together to hide a grimace at her stance. It's not... terrible, but it's definitely a beginner's stance. Not a lot of natural skill there, but that's alright. He's got faith in her, she'll pick it up. A hand passes over his mouth.

"It's... close." Is about the best he can say, and he reaches forward again to lift the gun higher. "Keep it pointed at the target, even if you're not shooting just yet. You don't want that thing going off anywhere but where you're pointing."

He steps back to circle her, shakes his head a little. "Bend your knees a little. Not a lot, just enough that when you pull the trigger, you ain't gonna be thrown backwards by any little recoil."

"Oh! Right..." She does what she's told, bending her knees and adjusting her aim. "If... if I'm too stiff, I won't be able to absorb the impact, right...? That makes sense..."

She raises her arms, trying to focus more on where the gun is pointed - and quickly spots the sights built into the handgun. Closing one eye, she lowers her head, trying to figure out how they align with little success. She clearly loses focus on maintaining her stance, hunched over in concentration, her mouth widening into her cheek.

His lips twitch in amusement and he nods. "Bingo."

He's got to shake his head a little at her concentration, at the way it takes over her posture. He's been a dad before, twice if you count the way he half-raised Sam, and it's not surprising that something about this whole exercise is tugging those protective feelings up something fierce.

After a second of watching her struggle, he ducks down to adjust her grip again. He raises it up more eye-level, until her shoulders are pointed out straight and long and sturdy. "Getting closer, keep your stance strong while you aim, try and keep it in focus."

The earmuffs get plucked up from the table. "On my signal, I want you to fire three rounds back to back into the target's chest, okay?"

And with those last words of advice, he settles the earmuffs on her head.

Chihiro lets out a little gasp when Dean's instructions snap her out of her brief fascination with the sights of the handgun. "Ah! I-I'm sorry..." She responds to his instructions, tightening up her stance, bringing the gun back up to eye level, and holding the position once Dean steps away. "On... on your signal... three rounds... in... into th-the target's..." When the earmuffs slide over her ears, she can't help but let out a small noise of surprise, but she quickly regains her focus.

She swallows nervously. "Into the chest..."

Her focus drifts away from the firearm in her hands and comes to rest on the human-shaped target some yards away, the concentric ovals clearly guiding one's aim toward the target's 'vital areas'.

"Three rounds," she says again, almost a whisper. The sound of her own heartbeat throbs in her ears as she awaits Dean's signal.

He shifts back to give her room, shoves his own set of earmuffs on his head. He's used to the sound of gunfire, but he's not used to the acoustics of this room, not familiar with how strong they are just yet, and to blow out an eardrum with sheer stupidity? Not exactly how he wants to spend his night.

He gives her a long moment to get herself together, to take in the sight of the target, to contemplate her shot, and after a long, tense beat of focus and heartbeats and stalling, he finally, gives her the go-ahead wave.

The first shot is at least in the vicinity of the chest area, hitting the target somewhere around the shoulder - the second shot is off the target completely, a few feet to the side of it.

The third shot doesn't come; by the time Chihiro should be firing the third round, countless shots are already going off in her mind, each one accompanied by the sickening, dull cracking sound of a bone breaking. Once she sees the first hole appear in the target, dozens more appear, countless wounds opening up as thin spears emerge from the target's body.

The episode is over as soon as it begins. Chihiro finds herself on her knees, clutching the handgun with her fingers off the trigger. The cold beads of sweat appearing on her face are broken by silent streams of tears, cascading down her face of their own accord as she draws quick, panicked breaths.

"I-I-I... I'm s-sorry... I... I'll... I'll t-try again..."

The first shot is actually pretty freaking good, and he perks up, proud and pleased and fully expecting that second one to be even closer to target. Accuracy usually increases with each subsequent shot in a three-round section, but that second one veers off to the right and sends mortar dusting out of the wall. It takes him nearly a second to realize the third shot isn't coming, and by that time she's falling to her knees.

"Jeez-" The syllable of surprise is out of his mouth before he can help it and he drops down to try and keep her from cracking her head on the damn floor or something. His headset gets tugged off with one hand, the other firmly supporting her shoulder.

As soon as they hit the floor, he tugs the gun gently from her hand and sets it on the counter above them. No accidental shootings on his watch.

"No, no, hey, hang on, you okay? Take a deep breath."

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." It takes quite a while before she can do anything but repeat these words over and over. She runs a hand through her hair, trying to figure out what just happened. A hallucination? It was more like a memory - a very vivid memory, but only a memory.

Something about the way the shooting range is set up, about the sound of the gunshot, about her overactive imagination placing a real person in the place of the target - the conditions brought the memory of those few days at Hope's Peak Academy back to the front of her mind. She didn't have to imagine what the moment of a person's death is like; it may have been months ago, but that's not the kind of thing that one ever forgets about.

"I'm so sorry, Dean... I'm... I'm s-so weak..." Her breathing begins to slow down, as she regains enough composure to start wiping the tears from her eyes. "Killing someone... taking a life, even in self defense... I don't think I could ever..."

His lips pressed together in muted concern, and he glances between her and the target again. There's a neat hole in the chest of the paper, and it isn't hard to imagine a live person standing in that place. It's not hard to imagine the way blood would ooze from the wound and that look of shock a person always has when they realize they've been shot in the chest. The thing is, though, he's seen it. A hundred times, a thousand. He looks back at her, brow knitting a little.

Because something about the way she's acting makes him think maybe...

Maybe she has, too. He shakes his head slowly. "Nah, come on. We're done. We'll figure out something else. Plan B, huh?"

He pushes upright, tugs her up gently with him by a hand on her arm. As much as he thought she'd benefit from weapons training, maybe that just isn't the right way. No, with a reaction like this...

He'll come up with something better. He will. Just not right now. "Come on. Let's go get something to eat."

Hanging her head, Chihiro stands up, the weight of her shame crushing her from all sides. She was so sure that she'd put her time at Hope's Peak Academy behind her, and yet for such a thing to happen once she finally had an opportunity to get stronger - her disappointment with herself is immeasurable.

Grabbing Dean's sleeve, she sidles up to him, prepared to go wherever he takes her, and begins with a litany of apologies. "I'm so sorry for wasting your time, Dean..." She fights back her tears, avoiding eye contact with him; surely he's disappointed in her, after all, and the last thing she wants to see is the look of disappointment he doubtless wore. "I... I'm just... I'm too weak of a person... I'm weak... fundamentally weak... weak beyond weakness..."

He stops their walk right there at the edge of the doorway, turns to wrap a firm hand around either one of her shoulders. He hunches down a little, dropping so they can be a little more eye-level, and hits her with a serious look.

"Hey, don't say that. You are not weak. Killing a person doesn't make you strong, Chi, it just doesn't, just like not killing a person doesn't make you weak. There's a hell of alot more to power than the ability to take a life."

He turns again, guiding her forward with a gentle hand on her back. "We'll figure something else out. I got a few ideas. In the meantime, I got a cheeseburger recipe that'll knock your socks off."

"Cheeseburger recipe... that sounds nice..." His speech seems to have calmed her down somewhat. She dries her eyes, following behind him, wrapped up in her own thoughts.

"Dean... did I ever tell you about where I came from...?" Chihiro's circumstances before arriving at Wonderland has never been a common topic of conversation - even her conversations with Kirigiri have revolved primarily around their current situation. "I think... what I went through, there... that's what made me..." She trails off, knowing that Dean wouldn't appreciate her finishing that sentence with the word "fail", but finding herself unable to say something different.

He glances down at her as they go, steering her gently through the hallways so she can focus on composing herself. Their gait is slow, more of an amble than a walk.

"What're you talking about? I thought you came from, like, high school?"

Unless high schools are like secret code in her world for the Hunger Games or some shit.

"It was a high school... and really, that's how it was supposed to be... but I think the school was taken over by someone else... once we got there, there were no faculty or other students but our class... and we were trapped inside." It was so long ago, by this point, but for some reason the memory is especially vivid.

"The person or organization that trapped us communicated to us through a robot made out of a stuffed toy... it looked like a half-black, half-white teddy bear. Through this machine, he told us that we were going to have to live trapped in that school forever, unless..."

She swallows nervously, her throat going a little dry. "Unless we 'graduated'... and the only way to graduate was to... was to kill one of the other students, without getting caught."

At some point during her explanation, his footsteps falter and then slow to a complete stop so he can stare at her. Something incredulous and horrified and downright affronted spreads across his face and for a long moment he can't even manage words.

Until it finally sinks in completely and he chokes out a dark, pissed off "What the hell?"

"I wish I understood why they were doing this to us, but... whenever anyone asked what his motive was, the bear just replied that the only reason was 'despair'..."

She sniffles a little bit, but keeps her composure and continues on. "At first, it seemed like there was no way anyone would actually do it... but after showing us videos of our families in danger, as motivation... there was a murder. My classmates found 'Super High School Level Idol' Sayaka Maizono dead in one of the bathrooms..."

Beginning to shake a little, she continues her story, balling up her fists. "I couldn't bear to go see for myself. After that, we were all called into the gymnasium, and told that it was up to us to find out who the culprit was - and if we didn't identify the culprit, everyone but them would be killed. One of the other students, 'Super High School Level Fashion Girl' Junko Enoshima... at that point, she attacked the bear, and in response was... was killed, by countless spears, right in front of my eyes..."

Recalling such traumatic memories and recounting them in detail is difficult for her, but she seems to be determined to power through it. "So, we had a trial... taking all the evidence into account, we discover that Maizono-san was the first to try to murder another student, and we was killed in self defense, by 'Super High School Level Baseball Player' Leon Kuwata... we decided by vote, and when we identified him as the culprit... despite the circumstances, he was... executed, while we all watched..."

She stands in silence for a moment, trembling, the color drained from her face. "It... wasn't long after that, when I was brought here..."

Everything she's seen, everything she's been through... She's so goddamn innocent, she's so... She's so Chihiro, and it stabs through him, fills him up with a kind of righteous anger. Because there's nothing he can do about it, is there? All that shit, all that death and distruction and torture to an innocent goddamn little girl is exactly the kind of thing he would put a stop to.

And if she ever gets sent back, if she ever goes home, she's going to be thrown right back into the thick of it. A muscle in his jaw twitches, but even so, he pulls her forward into a tight hug.

"C'mere." He mutters it, because at first, that's all he can say. That's not all he wants to say, but some of the threats he's got aren't for her ears. "We'll figure it out, alright? There's gotta be some way, some... some kinda loophole... When we get outta here, I'm gonna make sure you don't go back to that, you understand? We'll... figure it out."

It's an empty promise, it's got to be, because he doesn't have any sort of control over who stays and who goes, but he can damn well try.

Chihiro momentarily seizes up when Dean wraps his arms around her, but it isn't long before the surprise wears off and she's able to relax. It takes her some time, but eventually her arms find their way around him in turn, and she rests her head against his chest, hiding her face from him so that she can take a moment to cry without feeling self-conscious.

"Thank you, but... everyone there... my classmates... I want to go back and help them all escape, too. I don't know if I'll make it out, but... if there's anything I can do to help them escape before it happens... I want to do it. That's... that's the kind of person I want to be."

It he feels the way her shoulders shake, feels the dampness working it's way into his shirt, he has the good grace not to mention it or acknowledge it.

After a moment he pulls away, lifts a thumb to wipe away a few tear tracks from her eyes, and shoots her a soft, reassuring smile. "Sounds an awful lot like something a strong person would say, Chi."

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