AN: Anastasia returns. Chapter 3. This one was actually quite nice to rewrite. This scene was originally just the first section of what should have been chapter 4 but I messed up the order by revealing too much when I wrote the next present day chapter. So I'll see what I can do about that one.

I rewrote this purely because the writing could have been better and I didn't like the way I'd written Anastasia. She came across a little too wily for my liking. I can now see her transitioning into Kratos more easily. Although there will be points where she's OOC. A lot happens to her before she turns out like that.

NOTE: This is important! Chapters 1-3 have been edited and/or rewritten because it was just so slow. As of 18/01/12. Details of the plot and characterisations have changed.

Disclaimer: I don't own ToS, just this warped version of its backstory.

A bead of sweat rolled down Yuan's forehead, dripping from the tip of his nose into his dishevelled hair as he panted. The muscles in his shoulders, arms and back twinged as he raised the training weapon. His arms trembled with the effort of swinging the sword down, his grip painfully tight as raw hands locked in place to hold it. Yet still it escaped him with a clatter that rung in his ears.

He'd chosen to practise this particular move because physics dictated that the weight of the weapon would lend the power to the strike that Yuan's own strength couldn't give. Gravity would move the weapon for him, easing the pain of his tortured muscles. But equally, it was this weight being taken by the forces of gravity and velocity that made it impossible for Yuan to maintain his grip on it at the end of the manoeuvre. Either he let it slip through his fingers, or the momentum pulled him down with his weapon.

With a growl of frustration, Yuan retrieved his nemesis, ignoring the stinging sensation of the hilt touching the sore skin of his palms. From the position of the moon, it had long since turned midnight and he had arrived in the stone square promptly at half past nine. He would be lying if he claimed to have enough progress to face Minamoti in the morning. He only hoped he could figure out what he was doing wrong before the grace period he'd been given was over.

"Why can't I do this?" He demanded of the air around him.

"That's simple," it answered back.

Yuan instantly turned in the direction of the sound. Instinctively, he drew the sword around with him. As before, the momentum ripped it from his hands. It smashed against the stone seating at a black clad figure's feet with a crash that resounded through the square.

As she had jumped backwards, the hood of her cloak had fallen again. Her auburn hair was garnet under the moonlight but her shadowed face was undoubtedly the same.

"Anastasia."

She didn't acknowledge him but neither did she replace the hood as she had in the corridor or the Hall. Instead, she picked her way lithely down the tiers of stone seats.

"Or should that be Lady Anastasia?" he corrected.

She paused at this, seeming to flinch beneath the folds of her black cloak. Then she lifted her face, banishing the shadows that had obscured her reaction and told him in a clipped voice, "Anastasia is fine."

When she reached the square itself, she stopped and studied him. There was something deeply serious in her eyes and it made his weary body tense with unease. It was like she was testing him but she already knew the result. She met his eyes deliberately, drawing him into her calculating stare, only for those eyes to slide to the side of his head to where his hair hung.

He got the disturbing impression that it wasn't his hair that she was interested in. It took all of his willpower not to reach up and feel for the pointed tips of his ears poking through their blue prison bars.

"Why are you here?" He asked bluntly. "And what do you want?"

"There is nothing I desire that you could give me if I asked," she replied, equally bluntly. "I am here because watching you abuse your weapon from my balcony grows tiresome. I want to know how long Keru gave you."

"Keru?" Yuan questioned, a frown forming on his face.

"Keru Minamoti is your Swordmaster. I know he granted you this evening session," she responded, folding her arms across her chest and fixing him with hard stare like she could use it to spy the answer through his skull.

He responded with an equally calculating gaze. How could she know one but not the other? More to the point, why was she even here? What could she possibly hope to gain from meeting him at Stadium Square on her own anyway? She wasn't supposed to be here; he could tell that simply from her attire. If this was a permitted activity, her finery would be plain to see, not hidden beneath a cloak of the same grade a commoner would wear.

This gave him leverage. If Minamoti was in the wrong in allowing him to train like this, if she was trying to expose him with this information, then she could end up being exposed in turn. It was evident that she hadn't been given permission to be in the Hall that day either. He wondered just how many more of her indiscretions he could uncover.

For now though, he had nothing to lose in telling her.

"A week."

She nodded thoughtfully. "This is the first day."

He responded in the same way and her mouth widened in a slight smile.

"Then we still have time," she concluded, turning back to the seating and starting to ascend the way she came.

Yuan followed. "Wait, what? Why are you – what do you mean 'we still have time'?"

She stopped suddenly and turned back to him, raising her palm to him, her smile wider now. "I mean as I said. There is still time to save you."

With that, she left Yuan to stare with wide eyes at her retreating back. "To... save me?"

"Since you accepted Keru's offer of extra time, I assumed you wish to continue to study under our military. Correct me if I am mistaken."

She was poised above the training weapon now, looking up at him sharply. When he did nothing but shake his head to clear his senses, she turned her attention to it. Without pause, she bent down, wrapped both her hands around the long hilt and picked it up in one smooth move.

Yuan couldn't even control his mind enough to stare properly. He blinked rapidly but the image remained. The auburn haired woman moved awkwardly with the broadsword, one of her hands fitted to the hilt, the other just beneath it. Its size and shape was cumbersome to her in her long cloak, but of its great weight, she showed few signs of strain.

"Y-you!" he managed to gasp. "How?"

"I am surprised you've yet to figure it out yourself." She stopped on the step above him, holding out the weapon by the blade for him to take. He merely stared at it.

"Take it," she commanded.

He obeyed with an audible grunt as its great weight was transferred to him. Her long fingers slid down to the tip of the wooden blade but she did not relinquish her grip. He shot her a questioning gaze: did she want him to take the sword or not?

"Hold it there," she said. "Now what do you feel?"

The questioning glance intensified. "Like I could really do with a coffee."

A soft sound like the beginning of a laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it, the corners of her lips tugging at a smile. "No," she chastised lightly, amusement still softening her face. "Focus on the weapon. More specifically, the distribution of weight between us."

Yuan's eyebrows journeyed downwards but he did as she said. The way that each of them held it made it appear as though the blade grew lighter the further from the hilt it was, but he had already studied that when he'd been practising holding it in various combat positions and he was quite sure that this wasn't the case. Or at least, he knew that the difference between the hilt and point in weight couldn't be as much as it currently appeared. Which meant that either she had to be much stronger than she appeared or he was much weaker than he thought he was.

"I would say it's lighter at your end," he reported simply. "But there's no way it can be as light as it looks."

"Is there?" She had raised one eyebrow to ask this of him and now she was sliding her hands back up the blade. She paused with her left hand a few inches from his. "What do you feel now?"

He glanced between their hands, hers smaller yet steadier than his, and finally at the space between. Despite her hands moving closer to the heavier end of the weapon, despite the fact that she now had to be supporting most of its weight, it didn't look as though she was carrying any more weight than she had been when all she was holding had been the tip.

Had it been an ordinary plank of wood, the part in his hands should have felt lighter as she took some of the load from him but it didn't. It felt just as heavy in his hands as it had before.

"Your end is still lighter. Mine is just as heavy." He paused, glancing up at her. She nodded encouragingly. "But that isn't possible. You've taken the weight. It should be lighter. More to the point, just how are you holding that up so easily? I mean, no offense, lady, but you're hardly soldier material."

Her gaze sharpened dangerously. Yuan took in a breath to apologise, wondering just who Anastasia was. The Queen's niece or not, there were too many mysteries coiled around her for the truth to simply be Eytan's story. How could she hope to instruct him with the weapons anyway if all she was was a gentlewoman?

She cut his apology short before he had even started to form the words. "Keru will have told you that these weapons are enchanted."

"He said they were enchanted to be denser than the wood would indicate. And that they were supposed to be weighted slightly different each session to force us to focus on our balance," he recounted. "He said they were enchanted specifically for soldiers. That would mean... You're not a man. So it doesn't work on you?"

She was frowning now. "No," she said simply. "It works on me as it works on any other human."

"Then how..." he trailed off, exhausting multiple theories in the silence that overcame them.

At first, she made no attempt to fill it but as it stretched on, she added, "The enchantment performs the same task for any being with mana actually."

"Any being with mana..." Yuan muttered. The thought struck him like the weapon that caused it. "So, to a being with no mana, it would be no denser and therefore no heavier than the wood it seems to be?"

"Exactly."

"Then..." He didn't want to say it, not in front of her, a human and of noble class no less. But then, from her sincere eyes, the pointed look earlier and the way she had guided this discovery, she already knew. The thought froze his heart, the blood it pumped chilling through his body. He barely breathed his conclusion: "The more mana a person has, the heavier the weapon will be in their hands."

"An untrained elf would be unable to lift it," she finished. "You understand now."

She removed her hands from the weapon completely. Yuan let it clatter to the ground. He fixed it with a look of contempt before lifting his head to meet Anastasia's serious eyes.

"You shouldn't give me that look. If I meant you harm, half-elf, I would have left you to your own attempts," she stated in a low voice. "You have been given a chance. It is more than many get. Please do not squander it."

She gave him a long look. Clouded by the moonlight, he thought he could see sadness tinting their garnet depths, but her eyelids fluttered closed briefly and the moment was gone.

Still something compelled him to say it; "Why have you told me this?"

"Told you?" she questioned. "You worked it out for yourself. Now you know what function the enchantment has, you can think about how best to bypass it. I think we both have seen enough now to know that even the most persistent training with the weapon will never be enough. It isn't the weapon that must be dealt with but the magic behind it."

Yuan retrieved the sword, turning it carefully in his hands with a slow sigh.

"That is enough for tonight," she decided, replacing her hood. "You will be of no use if you do not sleep. I will assume that you will be here again tomorrow night."

"You assume right," he replied as she passed him on her way down the steps. "Thank you."

She paused at the bottom, turning back to him. His keen vision picked up a grim smile highlighted by the moon. "You may thank me by using tonight well and figuring out what you need to do."

"I will," he promised her quietly, determination giving a new strength to his weary limbs. She did not turn again. He did not know if she had had heard.

AN: Okay, so that's the end of this chapter. Technically, this is actually half the chapter... But I thought it would be better to split it instead of ramble on for another 3,000 words. Plus, I'm considering placing in the next present day chapter between the two halves to start getting Anastasia/Kratos' point of view coming through instead of narrating through Yuan all the time. But we'll see if it fits or not later.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and read this fic. Any more feedback would be much appreciated.

~ThePurpleRose