Time to Go
Forty-eight hours have passed since the fight began, and Brunhilde has spent that time swinging her spear nonstop. The storm, which pelted her with bullets of water hours earlier, had eventually dissipated into rays of light, shining down and lighting up the grassy plains like a dance floor.
The Unbeatable Master, Brunhilde's adversary, is a man who's rumored to have gone his whole life without ever losing a fight. Upon hearing this, she sought him out to learn his secrets. It had taken her nearly a year to just find find him, and that was just the easy part.
When she asked for him to teach her his secrets, he had initially refused, he had told her he wasn't looking for students, and that he just wanted to be left alone. But if there was one thing Brunhilde learned growing up in the Mao Household, it was not to give up on your ambitions.
Weeks passed by, and Brunhilde never stopped asking for the Unbeatable Master to teach her. His patience, finally drawn thin, waned, so he decided to ask why a hero such as herself would go so far out of her way to seek him out.
A question to which she replied, "I seek power, power that will ensure that the next time I start a fight, it gets finished."
The Unbeatable Master found this answer unsatisfactory, hundreds sought him out in the past saying something much more lighthearted than Brunhilde's answer. Those same hundreds have ended up using that power for the wrong reasons, rather than what they had told him. With an answer such as that, she was bound to be no different, someone who will say anything to get what they want; at least that was what he had thought at first.
As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to months, Brunhilde wouldn't stop coming out to his hovel in the middle of the wide and open, grassy plains. When his patience ran thin for a second time, he asked her to explain in great detail why she needed "power". Feeling conflicted, she hesitated to tell him, it didn't take long for her to brake; after telling him a certain tale, his perspective was altered just enough to consider taking her under his wing for a trial run.
That was three years ago; since then, Brunhilde has proven herself to be a woman of her word. In the time between their sessions, she put the skills she learned to practical use in the field, defending the defenseless in surrounding villages.
The Master eventually changed Brunhilde's "trial run" into a full apprenticeship. The sessions continued from there, the two warriors would spar, honing skills in actual combat, rather than explain and execute. The Master would watch Brunhilde as she fought, spotting mistakes, seeing where she had room to improve.
Exhaustion was starting to edge into Brunhilde's conciousness, two days without sleep was starting to take its toll. Her movements were starting to slow down, and her attacks had become sloppy at best.
Taking notice, the Master reached out and grabbed the pole of her spear as it arced over his head. "I believe that's enough for now."
Brunhilde, no longer able to force herself to stand, fell to her knees, her body feeling unusually heavy, and not because she was donning a full set of steel armor.
"Please Master," wheezed the knight, trying to force herself back to her feet. "I can keep going."
"Brunhilde, your dedication is as admirable as it is self-destructive," the Master stated, bringing his hands behind his back, watching as the knight attempted push herself off the ground. "You need rest."
Brunhilde looked up at the Master, her gaze showing she had a fire in her eyes. "Please, I need to get stronger."
The Master spun on the ball of his foot, making his way back to his hovel. His home wasn't all that big, just big enough for a twin-sized bed, and a coffee table with a tea set resting on top; at the age of ninety, material possessions weren't the most important thing to him.
"I said, we're done." The senior fighter said, an assertive tone making itself known in the Master's voice. As he stepped over the threshold to his house, the door slammed behind him, the sound echoed throughout the grassy plains.
Brunhilde rolled over on to her back, staring up towards the sky, watching as the clouds rolled overhead. While she took the time to collect her breath, she tried to think about something that's been just beyond the edge of her mind.
For the past few weeks, Brunhilde had felt that she was forgetting something very important. Unfortunately, before she could attempt to figure out what it was, her lack of sleep caught up with her all at once. Her eyelids, feeling heavy, pulled themselves shut, the giant of a knight, lulled to sleep by the tranquility of her surroundings.
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Brunhilde eased her eyes open, perplexed that she wasn't looking at the sky, but instead a slanted ceiling. Instead of the hard ground, she laid upon a creaking bed, barely big enough to support her entire body as her legs hung over the foot of the bed. Her armor had even been removed and replaced with a blanket.
"Finally awake, are you?"
Brunhilde turned on the soft pillow beneath her head to see the Unbeatable Master, sitting at his coffee table, pouring himself a cup of tea.
"What happened?" The knight slowly pushed herself up, the bed's creaking resounded powerfully throughout the small cottage.
"You passed out in my front yard," the Master said, treating this like it was a regular thing, showing no interest as to why she passed out, only knowing that she had. "Afterwards, when night began to fall, I pulled you inside and placed on my bed—wasn't an easy task to perform on someone of your stature."
Brunhilde cast a look to the window behind her master, it looked like almost no time had passed since she fell asleep.
"Just how long was I asleep?"
The Master took a moment to think about the answer, finally answering with "you've been unconscious for nearly twenty hours."
Twenty hours, plus the forty-eight from the two's sparring session, means that Brunhilde has gone nearly three days with no food. Almost as if her stomach was waiting for the cue, a loud groaning sound emanated from her midriff.
Prepared for this, the Unbeatable Master reached under his coffee table, producing a nutrition bar from beneath the piece of furniture. Extending out his arm, he silently offered the knight the food bar.
Brunhilde graciously took the ration, thankful for having such a thoughtful master. She took a closer look at the wrapper, wondering about the flavor of the nutrition bar—blueberry. Unwrapping the bar, she took a bite of it, savoring the taste.
"I believe it's time we put a stop to your training," stated the master simply, saying it as if it was barely worth mentioning to the knight.
Brunhilde on the other hand, nearly choked on the nutrition bar, taken aback by the words her master just uttered. She wasn't expecting what he just spoke so suddenly, and without warning. "What?!"
"You heard me," the master said monotonously, punctuating his words by taking a sip from his tea cup. "From here on, I am no longer your master."
"You can't do this to me!" Brunhilde jumped up from her master's bed, only to be dropped to the floor by the sudden rush of blood.
"Reason one," the master began, listing off his reasonings for dropping her as his student. "You're too reckless and self-destructive, there's no point in training someone who can't grasp their limitations."
Brunhilde was barely listening, after going for almost three days with no food, the drop in her blood sugar has given her a pounding headache, drumming over the Master's words.
"Secondly, I'll admit your strong, but every time you bump up against a wall, you resort to using your legendary weapon to break those walls." The Master said, the sternness in his voice never wavering. "There's nothing wrong with that, but if you never learn to shatter those walls with your own power, you'll never truly grow."
Brunhilde pulled herself back up onto the bed, massaging her temples in an attempt to relieve the headache. "Okay, okay, I promise I'll work on those, so please don't drop me as your student."
"That's all well and good, but it doesn't stop there," the master said, rising up from behind the table, walking around it to look Brunhilde in the eye. "The third reason is that you've lost your spark."
"M-my what?" Brunhilde replied, not entirely sure she heard that right.
"When you came to my home over three years ago," the master began explaining, placing his hands behind his back once more. "You had a spark in your eye. Over the course of those four years, I've watched that spark steadily disappear."
"Okay, but why do I need a spark?"
"If you don't have that spark, it means you've forgotten why you placed yourself under my tutorage. So in turn, I'm not going to teach you until you get your spark back."
"Fine then, how do I get my spark back?" Brunhilde asked, desperate to get things back to how they were prior to this conversation.
"I'm afraid I can't help you with that, the way to find one's spark differs for each individual." The master stated in an as-a-matter-of-fact tone.
The giant of a knight threw her hands up, aggravated at the master's abundant need to be cryptic. "Well that's just peachy!"
"I can, however, give advice."
Upon hearing this, Brunhilde leaned forward, anxious to hear what he had to say.
"Often at times, when I can't find something, I often start my search at the beginning."
Brunhilde waited a few seconds, thinking there was more to it than that cryptic jumble of words. When the Master turned back to the coffee table, it became abundantly clear that there was nothing more to his "advice".
"That's it?" Brunhilde asked, stunned over the fact that she'd let herself get sucked in like that.
"That's it." The Master confirmed, filling his cup of tea back up to its brim.
Slumping over, the knight pinched the bridge of her snout, letting out a heavy sigh. "You truly are useless when it comes to being helpful."
"I pride myself on it," the Master retorted, turning Brunhilde's insult into a compliment.
Think Brun, think! The knight thought to herself. Where, or what, is my beginning?
It had to be somewhere special to her, or maybe someplace she didn't want to go back to? "Damn it." Brunhilde finally said aloud, regret filling the tone of her voice.
The Master smirked, already knowing the answer to the question he was going to ask. "Did you figure it out already?"
"I wish I hadn't."
"That's usually how it goes. You'll set out tomorrow, until then, you'll stay here and regain your strength." The Master walked towards the shoddy door of his hovel, as he opened it, it bellowed a creak as it swung on its hinges. "I'll go and retrieve some confections, you'll need something more filling than a nutrition bar."
After he crossed the threshold, the door closed behind him, leaving Brunhilde alone with her thoughts.
The location that Brunhilde was thinking of, was a place she only went to every few years just to maintain appearances. But now she has to go back willingly, and all just to find her damn spark?
I'm really going back home, huh?
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The Zephyr Locomotive was one of the world's fastest trains, renowned for its record-breaking speed. Douglas, the train's ticket-taking golden retriever, was brushing through the seats, searching for anyone or anything that was left behind. It was just ten minutes after midnight, and almost time to close the station down for the night.
As he entered the third to last car, his eyes instantly locked onto a black female cat, whose head was propped against the window of the train. Douglas approached the woman, thoughts of annoyance clouding his mind; after an entire day of dealing with difficult passengers, he was gonna have to deal with another one that missed their station.
He slowly approached the passenger, preparing himself for one of the generic responses: distraught, anger, sadness, etc.
She was dressed in a mystical looking green cape, that was fastened around her neck and shoulders with an expensive looking yellow jewel, as well as a matching green sash bound across her stomach. Douglas assumed she was some kind of cosplayer on her way to/from some kind of convention.
When he got a look at the woman's face, his annoyance took a one-eighty into worry. Her eyes were tightly shut, her jaw clenched, and parts of her body was fidgeting one after the other.
Whatever she was dreaming about, it appeared to be making her freak out. She was moaning the word "no" over and over again, as well as a couple other words that Douglas assumed were names, "Hinata" and "Violet".
He slowly reached over and gently grabbed the cat's shoulder, gingerly shaking the woman awake. "Miss, Miss, you need to wake up."
The second her eyes shot open, Ashaki bolted up-right, instinctively using her mystic arts to levitate a few inches in the air. Sweat lined her brow, she was taking deep ragged breathes, and she was examining her hands like she was expecting them to be covered in something.
"Only a nightmare," she whispered to herself, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Turning her head to look out the window, she took notice of how late it was. Turning back to the ticket taker, she asked, "what station is this?"
"W-we're at Dynamo Station, the end of the line," answered Douglas, watching the floating woman in awe as she steadily lowered herself to the ground.
"I-I see." Ashaki stepped into the aisle with Douglas, moving past him to exit the train. Ashaki scolded herself for foolishly passing out before her stop, she should've been able to stay awake for another twenty minutes, how embarrassing.
Stepping out of the train and onto the cool stone floor of the waiting platform, the freezing night air quickly embraced the mystic arts user. Before being reduced to a shivering mess, Ashaki extended the claw on her forefinger. Her claw began to glow an emerald green color, illuminating the dark station.
She began to draw an image into the air, almost as if she were writing on a piece of paper. Upon completing the image, she placed her hand on it, the glyph then dissipated into thin air. Shortly after, a feeling of warmth began to well up within her, shunning the bitter, night air.
Ashaki started to make her way towards the exit of the station, wondering if the town had a 24/7 library she could study in. A thought suddenly crossed the mystical woman's mind, she reached into her sash, looking for an item she had previously packed for the trip.
Worried that she left it on the train, Ashaki searched through the fabric's assortment of hidden pockets; when her fingers brushed the handle of the object, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Happy to know she still had it on her, she resumed where she left off, searching for somewhere to stay for the night.