The Purest Rose – Chapter Two
"It's been an honor serving with all of you – even if you are all insane and try to get me killed on a daily basis. Keep your heads down when the artillery comes flying, boys!" –Klaus von Wolfstadt
1928
A klaxon cut through the still morning, and Klaus jerked awake, nearly falling off of his bunk in his startlement. A quick glance at his watch showed that it was 0400 and he groaned; classes didn't even start until tomorrow. He wasn't given any time to wallow in his misery; the door at the end of the open-bay barracks that served as the First Years' dormitory slammed open and instructors poured in, dressed in immaculately pressed uniforms and spit-shined boots, shouting through megaphones for the unfortunate cadets to get out of bed.
Klaus untangled himself quickly, snapping his sheets across the bed to straighten them as much as possible before standing at attention at the foot of his bunk. Other unfortunates weren't as quick to rise, or left their bedding half on the ground in their haste to get up, and they suffered plenty of verbal abuse for it. Klaus got a megaphone in his face, shouting at him to "tuck the corners of that bed in properly, what are you, a damned slob?" and the instructors continued down the line, leaving him scrambling to figure out how to make proper hospital's corners on his bed. The result wasn't as crisp as it should have been, although not as sloppily done as many of the bunks, and Klaus suspected that he'd hear about it again soon enough.
Fortunately, the instructor in charge of the assault didn't spend much more time inspecting beds, simply finishing off with insulting the Cadets' cleanliness and somehow dragging their mothers into the abuse. Then he was barking at them to change into their physical training uniforms. Klaus rushed to the wardrobe next to his bed, changing quickly while the instructors walked up and down the barracks, haranguing those who were too embarrassed to change in front of the other Cadets, and screaming at the poor souls who hadn't bothered to unpack the night prior and who had to dig for the proper uniforms. Klaus was relieved that unpacking had been his first priority, right up until an instructor zeroed in on him for his wardrobe not being "dress right dress." He spent the next several frantic minutes rearranging the wardrobe to the instructor's satisfaction, and then he almost had a panic attack when the instructor darted in and snatched up his tin full of soldiers.
"What the hell is this, Cadet? There's no food allowed in the barracks!" The instructor made to toss the heavy tin to the ground, the old painted label too worn for him to realize that it wasn't a food container, and Klaus lunged forward, horrified.
"Wait!"
The instructor stilled, and Klaus gulped, suddenly finding himself facing four very grim officers who didn't look at all pleased at having a Cadet shout at one of them.
Klaus straightened back to attention immediately, taking a deep breath. "Please don't throw them, Sir. It's not food, those were a gift from my grandfather. He used them for planning battle strategies during the Great War." The instructors all scowled at him, but the one holding the tin pried it open, eyebrows lifting when he saw the lead soldiers nestled inside. The head instructor, spotting the small gathering, paused in his harassment of the Cadets who were still struggling to get dressed and strode over, holding his hand out for the tin once he saw what was inside.
"Cadets aren't permitted personal belongings until after the first month of training. You will be issued a foot locker to keep personal effects in, should you make it that far in training. Name?"
"Cadet Klaus von Wolfstadt, Sir."
"This will be sealed, tagged with your name, and stored for you until you're permitted to keep it in your possession. Now fix the corners on that bed! My grandmother could make a bed better than you, Cadet!"
Klaus forced himself not to worry about the lead soldiers while he worked on his hospital corners; soon enough, the rest of the Cadets were finished dressing and being insulted, and the instructors ran them all out the door. He was too busy focusing on not collapsing the next few hours to worry after that.
The Cadets spent the morning being put through a nightmarish PT regimen. They started off with calisthenics to warm up; Klaus decided at count 50 that he hated jumping jacks with a passion. Overhead arm claps began to burn around 100; flutter kicks didn't take nearly that long to make him want to quit. The megaphone-enhanced screaming that erupted whenever another Cadet's muscles gave out were pretty much the only thing that made him grit his teeth and keep working. He was sure that his own muscles would stop eventually, but he wanted to make sure that he held that moment off for as long as possible. Push-ups, sit-ups, and a hellish exercise called the "plank" followed the flutter kicks, and then the instructors were yelling at them to get up and start running.
Some of the Cadets didn't see what direction the instructors were pointing in when they said to run, and they were fatigued enough that they started running whatever direction they were facing when they stood up – most of them the wrong direction. This incited another round of screamed insults and profanities – Klaus wondered if they would one day graduate to just being idiots, instead of complete idiots – and then they group was off, running across the field and straight towards a hedgerow.
Klaus stared as the thick hedge grew closer, wondering if the instructors would turn them before they reached it, and if not, whether or not his legs were too tired to carry him over. The instructor leading the run reached the hedgerow and vaulted over, answering that question. Several of the Cadets in front of Klaus didn't make it over, either, and Klaus veered wide to avoid trampling anyone. He hoped that if he couldn't make the jump either, those behind him would take the same courtesy.
He resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut when he vaulted the hedge – fortunately, because he managed to clear it, and only realized when he was lunging over that the ground on the other side was a good foot lower than the field they had jumped from. He adjusted his trajectory hastily to keep from breaking an ankle on landing and bounded after the lead instructor and other Cadets who had made the leap without mishap. He felt oddly invigorated after making the jump, and the adrenaline rushing through him managed to carry him for the first kilometer through the woods. After that, he was back to gritting his teeth and hoping that his legs didn't just give out and send him face first into a tree; he had seen a few of the other Cadets go down that way, and when he was able to hazard a quick glance around, he saw that only about half of the original group was still visible, spread out over about half of a kilometer as more began falling out.
Klaus was mildly relieved when they entered a gentle downhill section – right up until they hit the much steeper hill going up the other side. His thighs felt like jelly by the time they crested the hill, and his calves and sides were competing for which muscle group could burn the worst. He wasn't sure where they were in relation to the Academy any more either; they had taken a winding path through the woods, and although he felt like they had been swinging around to the right, he wasn't really certain. He hoped that this nightmare of a run didn't end with them having to navigate back for breakfast!
As it turned out, the run actually ended in as field on the other side of the school, criss-crossed with barbed wire and full of mud instead the thick grass present everywhere else on campus. Klaus wasn't sure whether he should be relieved or despaired at the order to low crawl from the woods to the building on the other side. On the one hand, he'd be off of his legs at last; on the other hand, his chest and arms still burned from the earlier exercises, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to stand again on the other side.
He couldn't stand, as he discovered to his embarrassment. He made it halfway up on quivering limbs before everything gave out on him, and he sat there stupefied for a minute, not entirely sure what just happened. A laughing instructor, thankfully not one with a megaphone, sauntered over and hauled him up by the armpits, steadying him to make sure he wouldn't collapse again and then almost ruining it by clapping him on the back. "Not bad for your first day, Cadet! Just wait until tomorrow's PT!" Laughing again at the morose look on Klaus' face, the instructor jogged over to join his peers. Klaus looked around, realizing that many of the instructors must still be in the woods with the Cadets who had fallen out; their numbers were almost as reduced as the Cadets' numbers were.
The head instructor was still there, megaphone in hand and looking barely winded compared to the suffering Cadets. He waited until the other instructors had managed to get the others all on their feet, then ordered them to the showers.
Klaus wasn't sure if the food they were given for breakfast actually tasted that bland, or if he just had no appetite because he was too tired. A new set of instructors prowled through the mess hall – he guessed that the others were showering and getting their own breakfast – and after witnessing a handful of other Cadets be lambasted for eating too slowly or attempting to get up without finishing, Klaus decided that he'd better choke the food down. He supposed he'd need the sustenance anyway, if tomorrow really was going to be as bad as that other instructor had indicated.
Breakfast was followed with some blessed time off. The Cadets were instructed to familiarize themselves with the grounds, socialize with each other, and "God help any of you maggots that we catch sprawled out on your bunks!"
Klaus wandered alone for a while, too tired and sore to feel like talking to anyone else right now. He wondered if the PT this morning had been a method of weeding the class out; he had seen many of the Cadet's who'd fallen out of the run at breakfast, but not any of those who had collapsed before the run started. He hoped that they wouldn't do the same thing tomorrow if that was the case; he knew that he wouldn't be able to accomplish the same workout tomorrow that he'd done today.
Luckenwalde's campus was easy to navigate once he'd drifted across it a few times. The main gate was on the southern edge of the Academy, and the red avenue ran straight north into the square of administrative buildings. The Commandant's offices and those of his primary staff members were due north; two other buildings – comprised mainly of supply offices and the medical wing – bracketed the road on the east and west. The large square between the three buildings was full of the same crushed stone that the road was made of; it was packed firmly, and Klaus wondered if they drove tanks up here for ceremonies or something. The area was certainly wide enough for it, and oddly unadorned with any fountains or statues.
Further north, on the back side of the Commandant's building, were the dormitories. There were five main buildings, divided according to year, and two mess halls – one that the First Years had eaten in that morning, and one large enough to hold the entire student body and staff. To the east and west of the main square, behind the supply and medical buildings, were classrooms. Beyond those, the fields. Klaus' class had started off in one of the western fields, run into the woods, and looped around to come back in on the same side of the school. A third field on that side of the school displayed expansive gardens. The eastern fields sported a large track, a swimming pool, and sports fields. The northern fields, beyond the dormitories, were barricaded with barbed wire and "live fire range" warnings. A guard shack at the entrance to the area was manned with a pair of infantrymen, and closer inspection revealed that the regularly-spaced guard towers were similarly occupied. Large hangars were visible through the trees, and Klaus decided that that must be where the tanks were kept. The access point was wide enough for a tank to pass through, and he hadn't seen anywhere else that they could be stored. After being calmly rebuffed by the guards when he asked to be let through, Klaus decided to return to the gardens he had seen on the eastern side of the school.
Klaus realized too late that the gardens were designed as a labyrinth, and he quickly found himself lost and frustrated. The Cadets hadn't been given a set time to return to the barracks, but after the forced breakfast he doubted they were supposed to skip lunch, and it was getting close to noon. He wandered aimlessly for a while, alternating lefts and rights, before he finally sensed the maze opening up to the left. He strode quietly into the opening, finding himself in a small courtyard with a fountain, surrounded by blossoming trees. For a moment, he was transported back in memory, recalling with startling clarity the boy he met in the Imperial gardens ten years ago. He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply to capture the scent of the flowers, and so he was startled when someone spoke.
"We've… met before, haven't we?" Klaus opened his eyes and found himself gazing down into a pair of bottomless dark eyes… that face… Klaus smiled.
A/N:
Life always sucks as a first-year anything. At least the Cadets who didn't show up early got to miss an extra morning of suffering!
We call jumping jacks "side straddle hops" in the Army, but I find that term a little silly, so I'll stick with the commonly-accepted names for most things in this story :p The plank is also often referred to as the "Chinese thinking position" – not sure why. Google it if you're not familiar with either term, and give it a shot. I've had to do it for 6 minutes straight without collapsing before – not sure how I managed, haha
Enter Taki :) I'm finding myself enjoying writing about cadet training way more than I thought I would :p In case it's not obvious, although Luckenwalde is still an "elite academy" in my story, they don't only take the best applicants from other academies like in the manga. This is more of a West Point-style academy, which takes the best applicants straight out of "high school." That means the Cadets will all be younger here than most of them are portrayed in the manga.
Please review if you enjoy the story!