Chapter 2

Boot Camp

The foot steps grew closer to my tent, I decided it would be a good time to get dressed. No sooner had I finished putting on my robe, had the owner of the steps entered the room. "Larent, come on, we are going to be late to start your training." I had never seen this man before, he must be from another village, it is not uncommon for people to travel to a new village when new Awakened are found. I followed the man out of the tent into the barren wasteland I called home. "How did I end up in this god forsaken hell hole?" I thought to myself as we approached the training grounds.

We approached the training grounds, I could hear the sound of men and women practicing with weapons ranging from Bokken to Naginatas. The training ground was as dismal and ugly as the village, a fence, a weapon rack, and straw targets where all that it consisted of, and everything around it was just rocks and dirt. As I made my way inside the training grounds, many heads turned. Most of these men and women had never seen an awakened before, and thought that I was something special. I loathed them, they just stared, I wanted to lash out at them, but I knew if I did I would be struck down faster then I could blink. These people expected me to be something extraordinary, it was really annoying.

The man who lead me to training grounds turned to me and said "Have you ever fought before, or had any formal training. I looked at him and nodded "I was information retrieval, I did nothing but monitor situations and take photographs, I had some combat training, but just enough so that I could get myself out of a little bit of trouble. My training focused more on stealth." I replied to the man. He handed me a wooden sword, "Here, take this Bokken, consider this your formal training, I am the master of this training grounds, my name is Celestin."