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Chapter 9: Light (Part 1)
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The air was warm on my skin.
"I don't think it's about the body, anymore…" I was thinking out loud. My voice sounded rough, like dust was caught in my throat. I hadn't spoken very often, those past few months. "I think it's more of a mindset. -Or maybe some kind of mental energy. One whole… thing."
Nina was the exception to my self-imposed exile. And sometimes, my parents, but I usually didn't see them during the day. My time was devoured by training.
The girl stood across from me, a somewhat cross-eyed expression on her face. She was fourteen, then, and didn't look much like a child anymore. One more year and she would be considered a full adult by the people of this world.
"But doesn't it get stronger, the more you train your body?" She asked.
"Yeah… but that's only the first step. I think."
We were in the empty forest clearing that I had spent most of the past years within. It was more of a home to me than my own house, by then.
That strange vision I had received- the meeting with that self-proclaimed god- had lit something under me at the end of the last summer. I didn't think too deeply about my lifestyle, but I knew there was something more to my drive, my motivation. It probably wasn't normal to be so devoted to something.
Whatever the case, there wasn't much in my life besides my training, and I hadn't been given any reason to change that.
"You ready to go again?" I asked her, looking over with a half-smile. We had been sparring back and forth the whole day, but we'd gotten stronger over the years. It took a lot to tire us out for good.
She nodded. She knew just as well as I, talking about it would do nothing. If we wanted to understand the strange art of Battle Aura, we would need to feel it firsthand. We both knew we were on the cusp of something important.
Both of us had been Advanced rank for a while, around two years for me and a few months more for her. In our spars, though, I could consistently outdo her.
The four-year gap between us had finally been overcome.
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
A burst of snow on the ground, and then she was in front of me.
Her wooden blade flashed for my head, but it was blocked. My sword came up, pushing her away with a crack that echoed in the clearing.
She moved from another direction, stepping with the momentum gained in an instant, attacking two more times in quick succession. Again, I blocked both. I did so without moving anything but my sword. My eyes followed her, despite her best attempts at breaking line of sight.
The air shifted again. Again, the sword came for me. This time I let myself take a step back, and she only cut air. I saw the realization in her eyes- she had overstepped.
Just an inch, but I took the opening.
It was like my body jumped with electricity, energy racing up from my toes, crackling in my blood. I stabbed forward, following her. She jumped away, desperate to break out of range.
My legs bent, and the light of the world around me dimmed to nothing. The sound of the summer wind faded away. I let that sense of electricity, that energy in my limbs, become my sole focus. I breathed in.
The air between me and Nina, at that moment, broke wide open.
I was on her. My Longsword of Silence about to crash into her skull; I saw the moment she registered it, the moment she jammed her blade in-between herself and my sword. She went flying, her body rolling in the snow dust that filled the clearing.
She was soon back on her feet, but I saw by the scowl on her face that I had gotten her good. I pursued.
My legs twinged. I wouldn't be able to do something like that again in the next few seconds- if I was a hair less focused, I would have been yelling at myself for not taking her down with that strike. I should have been able to do it; the Sword God Style is at its best on the offense, and she was not trained to block that kind of blow.
She managed it anyway, and now the duel looked a lot less sure.
The two blades clacked together three more times, a cluster of strikes that sent shivers racing through my whitened knuckles.
I caught glimpses of her face between our swords, her victorious smile curling upwards. She thought she had me.
My legs wavered. The swords, clashing together, pushed to my chest. I took one more step back.
The difference between me at that moment, and me from a year before, was clearest right there. I hadn't grown leaps and bounds in terms of skill, or in terms of cleverness. But the one thing that changed, and the one thing that truly mattered, was my speed.
I had finally started to grow into my body- my Aura.
She stepped forward, trying to break into my guard. I pushed back with everything I had. She gasped at my sudden strength and the two swords flew apart.
An opening, between us. Our blades were equally far away, our eyes locked together. We were both off balance from the clash. It didn't matter- both of us could easily recover.
We both swung.
I was faster.
Nina hit the ground with a groan, her sword flying up out of her hands. A breath exploded from my chest, and I fell with her, gasping for air. Her sword had barely missed me, in that last race. Nina wasn't a pushover. Not at all.
-But I had won. This time, she was the one on the ground, a bruise swelling on the side of her head.
She scowled as she looked up at me, clothes damp from rolling in the snow.
"Damn it! I almost had you!"
I laughed. It felt good.
. . . . . . . .
The sun had fallen behind the mountains on the western horizon a long time before I finally headed home. My eyes were on the night sky above me, the countless stars blazing over the world.
That beautiful sight was a nice distraction. A good way to focus on something other than the pain wracking my body, the countless bruises crisscrossing over my skin, and the exhaustion that had settled in. A full day of training, from before sun-up to past sun-down, was nothing to joke about. I always dreaded that weary walk back.
A mile or two of snow-covered hills separated my training spot and the village, where I had nothing to do but stumble home and think about the day. What I could have done better in the duels; spots in my technique I could improve. There was always so much to work towards, so many mistakes to identify.
Nina had left shortly after that last spar of ours, hours before. She limped off with a muttered 'goodbye' and nothing else, disappearing over the hills, but I wasn't worried. She was always annoyed after not getting a win of her own. I knew she wouldn't take it to heart.
She was strong, really. None of her friends from the dojo could even land a hit on her.
-Maybe, though, that was why she got so bitter after losing to me.
I shook off the idea. It was a waste of time to think about things like that- things that had no bearing on what was important.
It took me the better part of an hour to finally reach the house. When I opened the door, my eyes were already drooping, a yawn on my lips. But when I saw my father at the kitchen table, I snapped to attention.
"Hello, Jino." He spoke softly. My mother was probably asleep in the other room.
I nodded to him.
"Hello, father."
He motioned for me to sit. I quickly did, putting my training sword against the wall, next to the front door.
There was a candle lit on the table between us, mostly melted down to a stump. He must have been sitting there for a while.
His eyes were firm on me, but I knew I wasn't in trouble. I had never done anything to get on his nerves. -I mean, I didn't do much else besides training, and I doubted he found a problem in that. He was the same, and probably worse than me.
"I see you haven't been using your new sword very often." He spoke.
My eyes moved to the other blade leaning against the wall, next to the training sword I had just dropped off. The other sword was sheathed in fine leather, a hint of steel glinting in the dim light of the candle between us.
It was my birthday present. Given to me a few weeks earlier, the day I turned ten years old. An incredibly sharp edge, and heavy, but beautiful.
"...I've been sparring with Nina a lot, and we use wooden swords."
He let out a long, low hum. His expression didn't change- all angles and shadows.
"I agree with that. You two aren't skilled enough to avoid injuries while sparring. However, you should always keep a real weapon with you, in case of emergency."
I let him keep speaking. I appreciated the advice, especially from a master like him, but I was tired after the day.
"-And real swords are weighted far differently from training blades. You should know. It's best to use them for practice swings and while training by yourself."
I nodded.
"How has your progress been, by the way?" He asked.
"...Me and Nina have both been working hard," I said, slowly, "and I'm able to consistently use the Longsword of Silence. We're focusing on Battle Aura right now."
"Yes, I see."
"..."
My father rose from his seat, the scars on his face puckering in the candlelight.
"Come outside with me. Bring your sword- the real one."
I followed.
It was late summer, that point in the year, and the holy land of the sword was in its warmest days. That meant instead of there being many feet of snow on the ground there was only a light dust.
Beneath the stars, me and my father stood across from each other in the training yard behind the house. My pain still hadn't faded from the day of training, but I had a feeling he wouldn't care for it as an excuse.
I couldn't make out his expression, even in the starlight.
He unsheathed a long sword. It was not his personal sword- the magical artifact gifted to him by the Sword God- just a simple, well-crafted weapon. It was still alarming to look at in his hands. My father could probably make a butter knife look threatening if he held one, and this was definitely not a butter knife.
I felt the saliva in my throat and unsheathed my own blade.
Something was different here. Our usual training sessions were in the morning, under the light of the rising sun. They were almost casual, my father giving me openings, letting me make assumptions and improvements in technique on my own.
I cleared my thoughts as I saw him ready his sword.
"Defend yourself." His voice reached my ears.
My grip tightened. I moved my blade through the air, placing it in front of me, pointing towards him. A simple guard- he was a dozen paces away; I would be able to react-
A burst of wind, and a flash of light.
I felt the cold pinprick of steel on my throat.
My father's blade rested at my neck. His eyes dug into me, standing shoulders above.
"...Ah."
My voice came out.
"We'll go again. Next time, try and respond."
He walked back to his starting position across the yard.
I was shivering, I realized.
I don't think he had ever shown me his true speed before.
Sure, I had seen it, watching from the sidelines as he and the Sword God sparred with friendly intent, but that sword had never come for me. Not seriously.
It was a different experience, standing across from him as he stared me down.
"I think I made a small error in your training, Jino." His voice echoed across the yard again. "-You're a bright talent, all of us see that. But because of that talent, you've been pampered, I think. You've been allowed to go alone, off the beaten path. There have not been many times that you were truly tested."
His eyes glinted like two shards of flint. I didn't respond as he continued to speak.
"You've only had to prove yourself one time, with that stranger, a few years back. Do you remember that duel? In the central dojo?"
I nodded, my movement jerky. Hans Regon. The name was imprinted in my mind.
"Then you should remember how much you improved in those following months."
The hilt of my sword was especially cool on my palms. Surprisingly enough, my shivering had stopped.
"My master- the Sword God- and I both agree that the greatest swordsmen are born under the greatest pressure. There is no powerful warrior who has not faced hardship."
The reason this night felt different was clear, right in front of me. My father was not looking at me as a son. He was looking at me as an enemy.
A cold focus washed over my mind. Ice-cold, like steel, cooling any other emotions. A coldness identical to the calm that I had felt, years before, when I faced Hans.
My father was emulating it. He wanted to draw it out of me- that bloody, terrible intent. He was succeeding.
"I will count down from three. Then I will cut your right shoulder. It will be deep."
Slowly, very slowly, he raised his sword further, to a point in front of him. It was a common offensive position, high guard, used as an opening stance for unleashing the Longsword of Light. The most powerful, most famous sword technique of them all.
-Would he use that attack on his son?
"Three."
My legs bent beneath me. My sword fell to my waist, the tip narrowly hovering over the ground. The low guard stance, used to receive an attack from the high guard. If I did it right, I could cut him at his wrist on his opening swing.
"Two."
I took a deep breath, letting air fill my body, racing down to the tips of my fingers and toes. Blood pounded through my arms, through my legs. I felt it- energy, electricity, crackling and racing.
"One."
I let all the air fade away. The faint starlight, shimmering on the snow in the training yard, dimmed to nothing. I felt it, the world on my skin, pressing against me.
Light burst from the silence.
My arms swung the blade up before I could form a thought.
It was so quiet, remembering it now. What felt like an explosion, a burst of energy and air that could have destroyed me, was all in my mind. Wind rushing in my ears, fire burning in my veins, all of me, at once, alive.
My skin beating, the stars overhead, the candle still flickering in the house beside us. The air in my hair, the sword in my hands, the light.
I felt all of it- more than seeing or thinking. I just let myself breathe.
And then it was over.
Blood splattered, a spurt of it sparkling in the air.
My blood.
I gasped as the pain hit me, burning from the tendon in my shoulder. I lost my grip on the sword, stars in my eyes as my knees hit the ground. I groaned, choking down the scream, tears flooding my sight.
I saw the boots of my father crunching in the snow in front of me.
A hand, in my vision. I grasped it, shaking. He pulled me to my feet.
I saw a smile on his face.
My eyes, still blurry from the tears I restrained, fell to his hand, where he was holding me. I was staggering, the pain still rushing to my head, messing with my thoughts. I would have fallen back to the ground if he wasn't supporting me.
But I didn't care about the pain, at that moment.
I saw something else that took all my attention away.
A small, red cut, on the corner of his wrist. Where he was holding me, gently. A pinprick of blood, beading out from the razor-thin wound.
It wasn't anything more than a fingernail wide. But it was there, on my father's hand.
I looked down to the ground, next to us, where my sword lay in the fallen snow.
A single bead of blood stained the steel edge.
Through the tears and the pain, I couldn't help but laugh.
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