ALL NOVEL Chapter 58: No match.
“Get up, let's go!”
I felt my head ring as Mara woke me up with a yell. Adrenaline accelerated my heart rate as I snapped up.
She scowled at me with narrow eyes. “Follow me…”
I expected my break to be short, I was grateful I had one at all, but waking up so abruptly made my headache and my mind groggy as I traced her steps to the courtyard.
‘Sword training?’ That was the only reason we would be going to the courtyard. ‘Why though, usually wouldn't we do flexibility training first’
The logic behind my old training system was that we would work on flexibility and gymnastic-like exercises before combat training. It was mostly because the bruising I would receive in combat training increased the chance of me tearing or pulling muscles if I did it first.
‘Maybe that means she'll go easy on me?’ I thought back to the scowl I saw when I first woke up. ‘No, more likely we're just spending twice as much time with combat training today.’
I looked up at her as she quickly moved down the hall and out the door, her fists clenched. The door crashed open.
‘Something is definitely wrong…’
She was moving faster than normal and her body was so tense and stiff. Still, there was no reason to hesitate, especially not if she was as angry as she was acting.
I let out a sigh, there was no avoiding it. It was probably going to hurt, but it wasn't going to kill me, knowing that made it easy to step out of the house. “One step at a time.”
I didn't have much motivation, not after how badly I had failed during our morning training. I still wasn't entirely sure about my goals, but hers were unrealistic and unobtainable, it made it discouraging to even try.
‘Well, whatever. This will be over soon enough.’
I walked out and stood in front of her a thin line of tension holding our eyes locked to the others.
She violently grabbed a massive metal sword off the rack against the wall and threw it to the ground at my feet. “Pick it up.”
My eyes widened as my mind nearly overloaded. ‘A metal sword? She would never treat a weapon like that, she takes care of them, why would she throw it on the ground… Why does it all feel so familiar?’
I bent down to do as she said, and when I met her gaze again as I was standing up the light glinted off my blade and I froze. ‘This is just like my dream…’
Certain things were different, like the weather, and the sword, but the concept was the same. ‘Is she going to fight me for real?’
As the image of my limbs being torn free in a bloody mess flashed through my mind my legs began to shake. ‘No… that was just a dream, come on… Stop shaking…’
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice that started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. “You said you wanted me out here today too, right Mom?”
My sister Lu walked out from the other side of the courtyard, tightening her leather bracers. Mara handed her a sword as well, one even larger than mine.
‘Ok, does she want me to fight her then?’ If I had to fight Mara I might have just had a panic attack, but fighting my sister I could handle.
I took a deep breath and focused. As I exhaled I could see the vapor mixing with the cold air. The solid leather straps wrapped around the handle felt good in my hands as they gripped the weight of a real blade and I slowly unsheathed it from its scabbard.
It felt good, being handed a real blade. It never bothered me that I wasn't allowed to use them for training since they were too heavy anyway, but that only made it feel even better to finally hold one. There was a certain sense of accomplishment to it. I lifted it and rested the flat on my shoulder, it's cold metal weighing down on me.
‘It's not as heavy as I thought it would be. Maybe I'll be able to do something with this after all.’
I looked over to Lu who was spinning her sword around with one hand, testing its feel. To her, the sword was like a feather, and it was all the more impressive because she had left the sword in its heavy sheath. I couldn't help but envy her.
Mara clapped her hands together to get our attention. “Lu, what are the three most basic stances?”
“Face breaker, Mammoth, and Sovus.” As she spoke, she looked like she was at attention, waiting for orders from her commanding officer.
“And what is the significance of these three forms?”
Lu suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights. ‘Guess she doesn't know.’
“Even if your answer is that you don't know, you have to respond.”
Lu gritted her teeth. “Does it even matter who made them or why? They work, and I can use them.”
‘Did Mara bring me out here to help Lu?’ I mean, the answer isn't really all that complicated. “The three forms were all used by different heroes.”
They both turned to look at me, the tension between them disappearing as I continued. “Each form individually isn't just a stance, but an entire fighting style of its own, combined they form the sword arts we use. Since they were developed independently, that's why their names are so different. Of the three of them, only Sovus can be considered a defensive stance. That's because the creator of the art focused on fighting ogres and other opponents that were far stronger than him.”
Lu scoffed, looking away. “She didn't ask you.”
‘She doesn't sound like she's in a good mood either.’
Mara let out a sigh as she walked to the center of the ring. “Demonstrate the three stances and explain their uses, starting with the first one, Facebreaker.”
‘So that's your game, is it? No matter how well I know the material… You know full well I can barely hold these stances with a wooden sword…