XXIV. Strength Is...
Strength is something that dwells within your soul but it is something that must be drawn out if it is to reach its full potential. That strength once drawn out and recced back in again, that is why it must be clung to, never forgotten, even when it seems like the battles are over with every enemy slain. If you let your strength wither in the glory of your victory, how can unleash the strength of the next generation of trainees?
Can you say that battle was ever truly over?
The aspiring tributes of the Institute must have the image of a great warrior to look up to. They must know strength is, the strength that they should achieve if they have any hopes of returning victorious. Brutus Acrebi maintained a strict training regimen for this very reason - he would not just maintain his strength but cultivate others.
Brutus Acerbi maintained a strict training regimen because part of him never left the arena - he would surely have to fight once more.
Brutus found that he was not understood by the personnel of the Institute, not even his fellow victors. Especially, Domitian Grimm - he did not understand strength at all or that very least he had foolishly forgotten it. The Domitian Grimm of the arena was not the Domitian Grimm that returned home. The arena Domtain was strong. The so-called victor Domitian was almost… pathetic.
The Brutus of the arena entirely different beast to be Brutus the victor, no matter how much he told himself that he was unchanging. The Brutus of the arena might have been strong but what of Brutus the victor? Did he have the same strength as Brutus the tribute?
The others claimed to understand. They tired. At the very least they got a part of it but crucially not entirely. Aetius Verndari would have more than understood had he still been alive. Hera too. But Hera was also dead, slain by the hands of someone whose strength should have still been locked deep within them.
They had a different strength. One that Brutus did not understand. One that could not understand. Would not understand.
He must carry on living by his creed so that Hera's and Aetius's memories will not be forgotten, their legacies will be carved into the Institute's students, so that those who truly knew what strength was would only number among himself and the dead.
A legacy that Brutus knew that they did not ask for.
But despite the lack of understanding that his peers offered his creed, Brutus would cling to it for what else did have.
Was else was he but a warrior who could give in peace? One day Brutus would have the strength to realise that and begin the difficult journey of finding a strength that did not lie in the blade.