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Chapter 12: Enter the Mad Dog
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I was on edge from the moment I first saw her.
The central dojo was quiet when she came through the doors. The large hall, its wooden floor clear and polished, was filled with light. All the dozens of Sword Saints were gathered to study together, the Sword God himself looking over us all.
The day was almost over. With the sun set behind the mountains, a snowstorm blew against the walls. The air on my skin was warm, though. The Holy Land of the Sword's cold did not bite into me like it once did- not since the days before I rose to Sword Saint.
But as she pushed open the doors, stepping into the light with the winter wind at her back, I felt a chill come over me.
It was for seemingly no reason, but my hair stood on end.
I hadn't ever seen something like her before.
A human with all the air of a wild animal.
Her eyes were feral, squinting at us- she was sizing us up, looking for a threat. Her red hair was short and uncombed. She was not tall but seemed to fill the doorway, unmoving.
The fight had already begun, from the moment she opened the doors. She was already tearing us down in her mind, already planning how to cut us down.
She took her first steps inside and the whispers finally reached my ears. The Saints sitting around me, backs to the walls, each a veteran with decades of experience.
"That's Ghislaine, isn't it?"
"The Sword King?"
"-She's finally returned…"
I realized that the red-haired girl was not alone. There was a scarred woman following her into the hall.
The woman had gray hair, tall and muscular. A long, curved sword clipped to her waist. Two cat ears popped up from an untamed mane of hair. I had seen a few Beastfolk through the years- they were fast, with animal instincts supporting them. She, as well, was dangerous. I could tell that at a glance.
She was stronger than the girl. Stronger than me, by a great margin. But I was still more wary of the girl.
What was with those eyes? -They raised gooseflesh on my arms.
I heard the Sword God's voice echo through the dojo.
"Ghislaine? It's really you! Ha!"
He leaned back in his cushion, chuckling to himself. The scars carved on his face stretched under the light. A shark-toothed grin grew as he looked at the newcomers.
The whispers died around me.
Ghislaine. I had heard the name before. The one Sword King currently in the world- a step above me and all the rest of the Sword Saints. Another person to aspire towards. Another person to watch.
For the past year, I had stalled in my growth. Even though I grew stronger and faster, something was missing.
I had already run out of things to learn from these Saints around me. I already knew the emotions and the motivations of their swords.
A great chasm extended between me and the true masters. The Sword Emperors, like my father. The Sword God, sitting there. They were so beyond me and these Saints- it didn't matter if I trained for the next ten years, I would still come short compared to them.
Maybe this beast-woman, Ghislaine, would have a hint for my next steps forward.
"Master." Ghislaine bowed to the Sword God, face blank.
The girl with red hair crossed her arms. She wore a petulant frown.
"It's good to see you, Ghislaine." The Sword God said, losing the shark smile, "But I can't imagine you've come for no reason. Who's the girl?"
"My disciple. Eris."
The beast-woman laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. It was a warm gesture. The girl stepped forward, her expression of disdain deepening.
"She has something she wants to ask you," Ghislaine spoke.
The girl opened her mouth.
Some sixth sense screamed in my ears, telling me this would end poorly even before the words hit my ears.
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"I don't have any time for small fry like you!"
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-I was right.
The girl was too prideful to survive this place. Nobody got away with insulting the Sword God.
The Saints around me exploded into anger.
Accusations and insults flew from those veterans and old men. They were also prideful; an insult to their God from some stranger was an insult to themselves.
Like so many arrogant swordsmen before her, the girl would die after mouthing off in this place. I had seen it before. Hans Regon was just the same.
-But that isn't what happened.
I looked at Gal Farion, sitting across the hall. His legendary sword was sheathed at his side.
Instead of the anger we had often seen explode from the Sword God, the man did something strange.
His face twitched, once. The scars on his face trembled.
And then he chuckled.
"Everyone, quiet."
The Saints all closed their mouths. Nobody enjoyed being besmirched by the master.
"You've got good eyes, girl." The Sword God said. "Who are you trying to cut down?"
Her eyes. They were violent, that was true. Was having such bare aggression a good thing?
"The Dragon God!" She declared; her arms still crossed. "The Dragon God Orsted."
…I did not know that name.
Whoever it was, they had a strange effect on Gal Farion.
If her bold insult made him chuckle, then naming 'Orsted' was the greatest joke he'd heard all year. The man exploded into laughter.
"Hahahaa! I see! If you compare me to Orsted, I'm certainly a small fry, huh?"
I shifted in my seat. Everything here was unnerving. The girl, the conversation, the Sword God's actions…
Was there someone in the world that the Sword God thought was stronger than himself? -Who was Orsted?
"I see! I see!" He kept speaking, "So it's him that you want to cut down. So there's someone other than me who wants to cut him down!"
The Sword God had a great smile on his face, as he looked at that girl. He continued to laugh. I looked around at the others around me; all these veterans and old men were frowning.
As suddenly as the laughter had burst out of him, it disappeared. The central dojo was silent. He looked at the girl again.
"But you know, just saying it is easy. Can you really do it?"
"I will."
"-Fair enough. Let's see your sword."
He cast his eyes around the central dojo- at all of us, sitting with our backs to the walls and our legs folded. He stopped on me for a moment, then kept moving.
"Nina, you're her opponent."
My cousin stood up from the crowd.
I frowned.
I hadn't sparred with Nina in months, at that point. I had become too fast to get anything out of training with her. And as I looked at those two facing off, the chills on my arms remained. The girl with red hair felt much more dangerous than Nina.
But Nina was a Sword Saint. She was able to use the Longsword of Light; it would be stupid to underestimate her.
"She's my daughter, you know." Gal Farion spoke again, "One of our youngest, but she's fast."
The girls were tossed training swords. The Sword God leaned back in his seat; his face resting in a palm.
Something dark grew in Eris' eyes. I could barely recognize it before I finally understood. It was bloodlust- a desire to break something.
My empty hand twitched on my knee, trying to grip the hilt of a sword that was not there.
"Then, both of you in the middle…"
Maybe if I had realized a second earlier, I would have shouted a warning. As it happened, I was just as shocked as everyone else.
The red-haired girl hefted the wooden training blade in her hands, that bloodlust swirling around her, and raised it high. Her legs tensed, her head swung to Nina, and while my cousin's back was still turned…
"Uraaaaa!"
She let out a roar, echoing in the training hall. She crossed the distance in a flash, a red blur even to my eyes, and knocked Nina's sword out of her hands.
Nina fell backward, her face twisted in shock, before Eris swung a second time.
The blade cracked over my cousin's head.
Nina slumped to the ground.
"..."
This time, there was no uproar. All the Saints around me were more dumbfounded than anything else.
I looked at the red-haired girl who stood, panting, over Nina's unconscious form. My empty hand clenched over my knee for the second time.
…She was fast, that was for certain. As fast as Nina, even without that sneak attack. But she wasn't faster than me.
Her form was unfamiliar- she hunched over when she swung the blade, following it close with her whole body. Very animalistic. More aggressive than a Sword God stance.
To beat her, I would need to capitalize on the aggression. Counter her with something similar to a reversal slash- aim for her wrist as she approaches. I needed to focus on her, let her make the first move, then steal the initiative with a counter...
My hand had crept off my knee, inching towards the steel blade sheathed by my side.
I stopped it, placing it back into my lap. I let my breathing slow. My heart was already pounding against my ribcage. I felt light-headed and feverish, like all the blood in my body was heating up.
I looked at the Sword God.
He watched his daughter, lying on the ground, with some strange emotion. If I could name it, I might call it disdain. He muttered something to my father, sitting next to him.
Reading his lips, he might have said… "naive, huh?"
As if he could sense it, he raised his eyes to look straight at me.
I'm not sure what he saw on my face; whatever it was, it made his grin return.
"Alright Jino, you're up."
I rose to my feet, aura humming in my ears.
The girl with red hair turned her eyes to me. They glinted with that same bloodlust. She was already crouching, her entire body ready to move in any direction.
For some reason, I felt the urge to smile.
"Now," The Sword God's voice echoed, "start after you're both in the center. Though surprise attacks are good too, this time show me your sword after I give the signal."
I heard the words, but they were faint. Like they had traveled through a long hallway before reaching me.
My attention was more focused on the wooden sword that had been placed in my hands.
The man who gave it to me nodded. His face was grim- some thirty-year-old I had never learned the name of.
This training sword was much heavier than normal. It must have had a metal core inside- something to shatter the opponent's sword. It was a trick weapon meant to kill someone during a spar.
I supposed the man thought it was natural to use such a thing, here.
I dropped it to the ground. The trick sword hit the floor with a dead thud.
"A different one, please." I looked him in the eyes.
He twitched. He would probably remember it as a slight, or some such nonsense, but at least he didn't argue. I got another sword- a fully wooden one, thankfully.
I pushed the man out of my mind as I stepped past.
A stupid thing like that could easily weigh on me and distract me before a duel. Battle Aura was surprisingly hard to use at full force; you needed a clear mind at all times, fully focused on your goal, to bring that energy under control.
The girl with red hair filled my vision.
Electricity writhed across my skin.
The world dimmed.
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"Begin!"
Wind burst into existence. Light sparked around me.
The blade arched down, forward, my entire body behind it.
She was a red blur, her own sword swung up from below.
We collided. The force surprised me. She had power.
I pulled back.
Leaning away, controlling all the momentum, letting that electricity rush through each of my muscles…
My fingers were light, pulling and pushing with the slightest control.
My blade curved around her cross guard, smashing into her wrist. I felt her bone crack beneath the wood.
Her sword flew out of her hands.
I couldn't see her face, then, but I imagined it carved into a mask of pain. Her wrist was shattered, after all-
I felt an impact slam into my skull.
A wall of darkness washed over me; my sight gone for a moment before I blinked it away.
Just in time to see her knuckles flying towards my eyes.
Another wall of pain. Another wall of darkness. This was dangerous.
I swung blindly, reversing the momentum, trying to throw her off me. She should've been in too much pain to do anything-
I didn't see what happened. Whether she dodged or ducked underneath, it didn't matter.
Another impact to my jaw.
The world was getting blurry-
Another impact.
I threw myself backward, again, slashing out with the sword. I couldn't see her. My vision was too fuzzy.
This time, the fist sank into my gut. I coughed something up from deep inside.
My grip loosened on the blade.
I remember thinking back to my father's saying from years past; 'A true swordsman only drops his blade when he is dead.'
I forced my eyes open.
Energy raced across my body. My ears were ringing, so much that I couldn't hear anything but the crackling Battle Aura.
She was right in front of me. Her face didn't show any pain at all- it was more like the face of a demon. The only thing in her eyes was a burning, bloody light.
My guard was wide open. I only had one hand on my sword. I had to make do. She was completely unarmed, defenseless to a proper attack.
I swung.
She raised her arm and let my sword crash into it. A makeshift shield.
Again, I felt her bone crack beneath the wood.
She didn't even flinch.
One last strike knocked me into darkness for good.
. . . . . . . .
I don't think I was out for more than a minute.
When I opened my eyes, I had already been dragged away from the center of the floor. My back was leaned against a wall.
I was propped next to Nina. The two of us must have made an entertaining sight.
She was still out cold. I had only been punched a few times, while she was struck with a full wooden sword. And the red-haired girl- Eris- was strong. I knew that firsthand.
My head rang like a church bell. It was hard to form any concrete thoughts. I looked to the center of the hall, past the crowd of Sword Saints quiet on the sidelines.
The Sword God stood up.
Eris had run back to Ghislaine and unsheathed a real sword.
My eyes widened.
I couldn't hear what they were saying, since my head was still far too fuzzy. But I got the general idea.
It was rare for the Sword God to perform in front of an audience. The last time was back when I became a Sword Saint and dueled him myself.
-He did not go as easy on Eris, as he had on me.
One second, he was standing across the hall, without any sort of stance. Eris took her own defensive stance. Both her hands were trembling on her sword- I was surprised she was able to hold it at all, with both a wrist and an arm broken.
But her stance, in the end, didn't matter.
The opposite wall of the dojo was blown apart.
Splinters of wood and scraps of the wall flew in every direction- Sword Saints scrambled to get out of the way of the explosion. The force slammed into me like a physical blow, nearly toppling me over, I was so off-balance.
He had appeared where Eris was standing, his sword parallel to the ground in the final stage of a swing. A flawless attack.
I drank in every detail of his posture, the arch of his back, the flex of his arm.
Eris was nothing more than a dark lump in the snow outside, fifty feet away from the building through the wall, facedown and unmoving.
...Had he killed her?
Despite bruises swelling across my head and the pounding in my skull, I forced myself to stay awake. I forced myself to keep watching her.
Fifty feet away, that short head of red hair twitched. She trembled in the snow. Her back rose and fell. She was breathing.
I smiled.
This was the secret. I wasn't sure yet- wasn't sure of the exact specifics, but I knew it was true. That aggression, that pure desire for violence... she beat me and Nina, even though she certainly didn't have our structured training.
Maybe I had ignored it up until then, but the Sword God had it too, didn't he? The same type of aggression. He was a man like a wild dog, or a wolf. The same as the girl.
She could ignore the pain of a broken bone like it was nothing, moving to win, disregarding everything else. She removed hesitation from her mind.
It was what made the difference between a Sword Saint and a Sword King, and maybe further beyond, too.
I kept watching her, through the shattered wall, as Saints hurried to their feet around me. Gal Farion was yelling words that I couldn't hear. People were going outside, grabbing Eris from the snowbank, throwing towels onto her.
Everything was moving. Nina next to me, passed out. The two of us sat still.
I kept watching her, as she was helped back inside. As the Sword King, Ghislaine, grabbed her and looked her over.
She had something I didn't. Something that the Sword God had, and my father too, and probably Ghislaine as well. They all possessed the same bloodlust, the same violence in their cores.
I had to learn it, didn't I? If I wanted to reach those heights?
-I had to learn it from her.
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