The Holodeck had been designed into a serene Japanese shrine, styled after the Kozan-Ji temple in Kyoto. Moss covered stones lead between large stone pillars to a red and white pagoda. In the center courtyard, dressed in a black hakama and white martial arts Gi, Otr’Iq Mirai was parcticing his Mok’bara forms. He glided between the movements, allowing his mind to clear into a meditative state, focusing solely upon the kata itself, snapping from slow and steady deflections to fast strikes as the kata required.

He envisioned the opponents the kata was set to confront. Blocking a strike from an assailant to his front, he redirected and threw him to the floor before lashing out with a back kick to another assailant behind him. He then absorbed the punch from an enemy to his right and redirected the energy into a throw before pivoting behind to catch an attackers Bat’Leth and redirect the blade to his enemies throat.

With his assailants defeated in his mind, Mirai sat seiza, his feet under his thighs and sitting on his heels, hands on his knees, calming his breathing. There were practitioners of Mok’bara, and other martial arts, that would use the holodeck to create holographic assailants to match the kata, to give the kata more realism, but Mirai was more traditional. He saw the point of the kata not as a battle between an actual opponent, but a battle within the mind over oneself. The opponents he defeated were versions of him. Through their death and defeat, Mirai grew, like a phoenix from the ashes.

He opened his eyes and picked up his Bat’leth from where it rested on it’s stand nearby and began to move through the forms when someone entered holodeck.

Lt.JG Otr’Iq Mirai, Tactical