Chương 23: Book 1: Chapter 8 - Foundations [Part 3]

The young man hesitated.

"Are you waiting for a written invitation?" Jūbei asked, a single eyebrow raised in challenge. Shimon attacked, choosing a simple direct cut, fast enough to test rather than injure. Matsuda stepped slightly to the side, and Shimon's weapon passed without contact. Out of nowhere, a light strike touched Shimon's ribs.

"Again," the master demanded. This time, Shimon watched the instructor's feet and attacked from the right. Matsuda's weapon met his with a dry slap. Shimon recovered, parried the return, and felt satisfaction flicker. He could follow this, he thought to himself with no small amount of pride. Matsuda struck again. Shimon blocked. Again, then again in a series of blocks and parries, as he focused completely on defense. The instructor's attacks were fast but not impossibly so.

Shimon's reflexes caught them, his confidence building with each parry. Left, right, wrist, mid-section, then shoulder. The new samurai could see the pattern behind them as he met everything. Matsuda's gaze remained almost bored.

"Your hands are quick," the instructor remarked. Shimon parried another strike.

"Your eyes are quicker." Then another came with increased tempo.

"Your feet, however, are stupid," he stated with a shake of his head, as he thrust towards his student's throat. Matsuda shifted, but the movement was not an attack. Shimon's attention went to the weapon anyway. Jūbei's shoulders turned left, and his sword lifted for a cut. Shimon read the line, stepped to close it, and brought his own weapon across. Nothing met it, for the instructor had not committed. His rear foot moved instead, sliding outside Shimon's leading leg.

His body vanished from the line Shimon had predicted in a sequence known only to true masters of the blade. The chip screamed a correction, showing potential avenues of attack—far too many to make a proper decision. [ANGLE CHANGE] [BLIND-SIDE ENTRY] More energy required to process data… Shimon turned, but it was too late. He could not react to what he could not see. Matsuda's practice sword struck the back of his upper arm.

At the same time, the instructor's foot pressed behind Shimon's ankle, and the young man's own momentum completed the lesson. He tripped over himself, twisted, and landed in an undignified heap with one leg folded under him and the practice sword skidding across the floor. The hall fell silent as the humiliated man stared at the floorboards. Pain radiated through his shoulder and hip, and his Health had fallen by several points. More troubling was the toll the struggle had taken on his Stamina.

Only now did he realize how hard he was breathing. Only then did he realize that there was a notification that he had ignored. You have gained 1 attribute point in Body. At least I got something out of it, he considered with no small amount of bitterness. His reflexes had worked perfectly, but he had reacted and moved to exactly what Matsuda wanted him to see. The instructor stood above him, a towering presence.

"Your foundation is rotten." Shimon pushed himself upright.

"Your reactions are excellent," Matsuda continued clinically.

"Your balance is not. Your cuts begin with the hands. Your feet cross. Your hips arrive after your weapon. You chase what your eyes are shown. A skilled man will lead those eyes by the nose." Shimon's face burned. Matsuda tapped the practice sword against Shimon's shin.

"I made you react incorrectly. Your hands are soft, your breath has smoothness to it, giving you poor stamina. Your shoulders rise when pressed, an easy sign to read," the instructor added.

"Your power, however, is satisfactory. Shimon looked down at his palms. They were soft. An ordinary life had left small marks, but they were not the hands of Tarō, Shinnosuke, Genbei, or anyone else in this world.

"You have been given the roof of a house before anyone built the walls," Matsuda said.

"Until the foundation is corrected, you will not fight freely with the senior students." Shimon's head came up. The instructor shook his head.

"You will train with the juniors." One of the boys he had beaten tried very hard not to look pleased. Tarō looked away, a ghost of a superior sneer on his face. Matsuda pointed toward the end of the hall.

"Stand." And Shimon stood. Matsuda looked at him with a discerning eye.

"Feet apart, like so," he demonstrated. He obeyed.

"Not like that." The instructor kicked one ankle outward, and Shimon almost lost his balance.

"Again, this time find your center," Matsuda ordered, letting disappointment enter his voice. And so Shimon Ayanokouji, Proven Yōma Hunter, killer of men, slayer of three grey monsters, bearer of an impossible Spirit Break spent the next hour learning how to stand properly.

Training continued until the sun stood high, and then continued beyond it—an endless, relentless feast of suffering. Matsuda drilled Shimon harder than the juniors, though Shimon did not realize it immediately. He was too occupied with keeping his feet aligned, his weight centered, his shoulders relaxed, his grip neither too tight nor too loose, and his breathing joined to every movement in an endless sequence: raise, step, cut, recover, and begin again; raise, step, cut, recover, and begin again.

Again, and always again. Tarō trained with the intermediate group, moving through paired forms and short exchanges. Every time Shimon looked over, Tarō seemed to be doing something interesting. Shimon returned to stepping forward and cutting the air. The extra points in Body helped. They did not make exercise pleasant with the ability to enjoy mindless repetition. At some point a notification flickered at the edge of his vision. You have gained 1 attribute point in Body.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. You have gained 1 attribute point in Mind. Shimon was too tired to celebrate, but a small corner of his mind noted it. Kenzen naru tamashii wa, kenzen naru seishin to, kenzen naru nikutai ni yadoru— A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body, he remembered as he saw the gains. By the time Matsuda finally called for the midday meal, Shimon felt as though he were half dead.

He sat beneath the eaves with Tarō and ate the rice balls Kiyo had wrapped.

"You look pleased," Shimon started.

"I am eating," the other man replied dismissively.

"You were placed with the intermediate students."

"Yes."

"Still, I beat the man who beat you," Ayanokouji continued. Tarō chewed.

"Then the sensei beat you like wet laundry." Shimon shrugged before biting into the rice ball. The filling was salted plum, and sourness struck his tongue. Tarō looked at him.

"My opponent, he cheated. And, when he faced you he was no longer fresh."

"He did not cheat," Shimon denied. Shimon hated how Tarō could be, well, difficult. Admittedly he had not known him long, but something about him had changed. Perhaps it was his sudden jump in social status. Ignoring him for the moment, he searched opened his status, searching for a missed notification. Unfortunately, much to his chagrin, there was no increase in his Swords skill. Of course not. He had spent hours holding a sword, doing the most inane, and repetitive things.

Matsuda somehow snuck up and approached while Shimon was still looking at the invisible panel.

"You are staring at the air." Shimon closed his status immediately.

"Thinking, sensei." Matsuda looked at him as if was touched by something, then just handed Shimon a wooden sword.

"Practice the first form. One hundred times before sleep."

"Only that?" Matsuda's expression became colder. Shimon corrected himself.

"Yes, sensei." Homework, he silently sighed to himself. Looks like it caught up to me after college.

They returned to their respective homes after several more hours of training, unfortunately without any further gains to his Attributes. Genbei had heated water in the bathhouse behind the kitchen. It was no modern bath, but Shimon lowered himself into the wooden tub with a groan of gratitude. The hot water stung every bruise the training had left behind. He sank deeper until only his head remained above the surface. The bath smelled faintly of cedar and smoke.

Light entered through a small opening beneath the roof. Outside, he could hear Genbei splitting wood. For several minutes, the young man felt almost human. Then he remembered he had one hundred cuts to perform. He sank lower, trying to escape that near future. Dinner was served in the main room. Rice, simmered roots, greens, and river fish. Kiyo also brought a ceramic flask of sake, explaining that Nagai-sama's household had sent it with the house allotment.

Tarō, having invited him yet again, poured one cup and then another. Shimon drank more slowly. In truth, he would have avoided the sake altogether if he could have done so without seeming rude. The vintage was rougher than the refined bottles Shimon had tasted in modern Japan: warm, faintly sweet, and sharp enough to crawl into the nose. But, Tarō drank it as though it were water. By the fourth cup, the older man's usual silence had grown heavy and contemplative.

By the fifth, his eyes had taken on a glassy intensity, his posture had loosened, and contemplation had become argument.

"I am the better swordsman," Tarō announced. Shimon looked up from his fish without quite looking at him.

"Congratulations."

"You struck Shinnosuke once."

"Yes," Shimon replied absently.

"He struck me three times…" Tarō paused to suppress a belch and failed.

"…because I let him."

"This argument has become difficult to follow." Tarō frowned at his cup as though it had betrayed him, then pointed it accusingly at Shimon. A little sake spilled over the rim.

"I am still better."

"Sensei placed you higher."

"Exactly." Tarō nodded too firmly and had to steady himself against the table.

"There."

"Do you want an award?"

"I have an award." Tarō reached for the flask, missed it once, then caught it on the second attempt and refilled his cup.

"I was placed at Intermediate." Shimon glanced toward Kiyo as she cleared the dishes, but she avoided his eyes with professional discipline. Tarō drank again. His face had gone red, and beneath the liquor lay something darker—grief, poorly buried and beginning to surface.

"You move strangely," he said, the words running together.

"Too fast." Shimon sighed.

"Thank you." Tarō leaned closer, swaying slightly over the table.

"Your face is strange too."

"I look that way because I am half asleep because you are boring me."

"Your eyes." Shimon looked at him sharply.

"What about them?" Tarō squinted, struggling to focus.

"Sometimes they look wrong." His voice thickened.

"Like Sakurai's." Kiyo stopped near the door. And outside, Genbei paused over his evening meal and became very still. Neither knew the particulars, but both knew enough of the world to recognize danger when a name changed the air in a room. Shimon's fingers tightened around his cup.

"That is not funny."

"I did not say funny." Tarō's expression sagged, anger and grief failing to find a victor.

"Sakurai looked like a man. Spoke like one. Walked alongside us. Then he cut Kuroda and called the grey things brothers."

"I know. I was there," Shimon replied testily. Kume looked at him sideways.

"You were there at the end. Alive, when others were not." The unspoken accusation landed, and Shimon felt something cold move under his ribs. Tarō blinked, perhaps hearing himself too late. But then he ruined everything.

"Maybe you are a yōma too." A cold silence followed and Shimon very much wanted to hit him. The desire came cleanly and surprised him with its force. Not to draw steel, and most definite not to kill, not yet. Just strike Tarō in the mouth hard enough to send the sake cup across the room and shut him up. Instead, he stood and Tarō looked up at him. Shimon's voice came out flat.

"You should go home and get to sleep."

"I will sleep when—" Tarō swayed, then his eyes lost focus. He tried to rise, apparently to prove something, and failed halfway. He dropped back onto the mat, muttered his brother's name, and folded onto one side. Within moments, he was asleep. Kiyo knelt near the doorway.

"Ayanokouji-sama—" The young man schooled his face to neutrality.

"He is drunk, could you ask your husband to get him back to his house."

"Yes, of course, Ayanokouji-sama," she accepted demurely. Genbei coughed outside in agreement. Shimon left the room, and walked into the thin moonlight of the courtyard. He took the practice sword from where he had left it beneath the eaves and walked further into the center of the yard. One hundred cuts. He was angry enough to perform a thousand. Shimon took his stance, and swung. The wooden sword made a soft sound through the air.

His shoulders tried to lift, but he forced them down as he struck at the innocent air. Again and again, he repeated the motion. At fifty cuts, Shimon began to notice that he was not performing one action but several connected badly together. Separate pieces pretending to be a whole. At sixty, he tried to make them begin together and the sword moved smoother, if not faster. Throughout it all, sensing its master's intent, the chip had been comparing his movements.

[MOTOR PATTERN ANALYSIS] Integrating observed motions dataset: 43% complete. Movement consistency: Improving Force transmission: Inefficient Upper-lower body synchronization: 41% Shimon gritted his teeth and continued through the form. Then, on the ninetieth swing, something shifted. The movement suddenly felt smoother, as though he had broken through some invisible barrier.

You have learned Swords [7] You have learned Spears [4] You have learned Hammers [2] You have learned Axes [2] You have learned Unarmed [3] You have learned Pain Tolerance [3] Apparently, some elements of weapons training carried over from one discipline to another. Some principals applied to all things, or something like that. A quick check of his status also revealed that he was hair's breadth away from the next level.

Pain Tolerance, meanwhile, seemed less like a reward for his training and more like the System formally acknowledging his suffering. He had probably put more effort into training today than he had into every physical education class of his life combined. On the ninety-seventh cut, Shimon felt something change. For a single movement, the step and the strike became one, and the sword seemed to travel not because his arms had driven it forward, but because his whole body had entered the line behind it.

The bamboo blade came to rest with less strain than before, revealing something hidden within the form's apparent simplicity, a principle whose edge he could sense without yet understanding. The next cut was poor, and the one after it worse, as whatever he had discovered slipped beyond his reach.

"Come back," he muttered, though life had never shown much interest in being convenient. He finished the hundredth repetition and began again from the first, continuing until his arms trembled and sweat had soaked through his fresh robe. Only then did he notice that the darkness beneath the eaves seemed deeper than it ought to have been. He had the distinct impression that something was watching him from within it, but when he turned his gaze directly upon the corner, there was nothing there.

Shimon raised the wooden sword and pointed it toward the shadow.

"I am not in the mood to deal with you!" The shadow remained only a shadow, and Shimon decided to ignore it and take another bath before sleep. Shadows be damned.