Following the funeral and a final heartfelt farewell to his father, Sear was sitting alone on a hillside overlooking the sea..
The sky was mesmerizing, an evening reminiscent of how it was the day before.. thoughts all over the place, to him yesterday felt like a distant dream....
That laughter of his father is something that constantly echoes in his head, haunting him yet at times providing solace... still there's a fear, as one day his father's memories—like how it was with his past life's parents—may also fade from his mind.. just the possibility is enough to terrify him..
The marines who came to deliver his father's body revealed that Jacob sacrificed himself to rescue an unknown girl during a heavy storm..
Having directly jumped into the ocean, he had successfully managed to tie the drowning girl to a rope dangling from the ship. The girl would go on to be pulled onboard by the crew, bringing her to safety, but unfortunately before he too could grab on, the waves got to him.
The following day his body was swept ashore on a nearby island by those same currents..
. . .
A gust of wind breezed past his ears.. Sear looks at the large orange ball above.. his hands reach out, trying to grasp it, but predictably, it was out of his reach..
Sniff!!
Tears well up in his eyes, drops of which slid down his face in no time..
It was heart-wrenching, remembering the moment when he saw his father for the final time..
Inside the coffin was a pale greenish corpse, a husk of a man in total contrast to the lively man the boy recognized. After peering at that face just once, he didn't glimpse at it again.
That hollow appearance was of someone he once had a close bond with, yet at the same time, that lifeless vessel had seemed so distant.. there was nothing more to see after having taken in that unforgettable memory—that face, one last time..
At the moment, a flood of memories surged, like a dam breaking down..
The haze that clouded his mind somewhat cleared.. with a better recollection of his past, among those plethora of memories Sear is reminded of an episode that occurred during his stay with his grandpa as a child..
Being the gloomy kid he was, always anxious of his own poor health, he had asked his grandpa if he would die as a result of his fragile body.. to which the old man had replied:
"Who is it, that said you will die??.. my child, the one who will die is not you.. but someone else!!"
At that time, his grandpa had left him confused with those cryptic words—words that had stuck to him growing up, even up to his adulthood..
". . .maybe Grandpa saw all this coming.. did he know I didn't belong to that world?.. wonder if he knew that one day I would be reincarnated into another world. . ."
Yet again, determination bubbles up inside of him.. there's no time to look back and keep distressing over what is gone, his eyes now look forward...
The whole night he sat there at the cliffside, viewing the sea as the sun set below the horizon and enduring throughout the windy night under a beautiful moonlight...
He woke up the next day under scorching heat, trying hard to remember when exactly he happened to doze off the previous night.
Not finding a definitive answer, he forgets about the matter and moves on..
Subsequently, he went straight to the Shimotsuki Dojo.
There he greeted the dojo master Kyoshirou and joined the others in the daily training..
Afterwards, following the morning training, he immersed himself in more exercises, mainly focused on building stamina and speed, like running, jumping etc..
He even planned to swim in the river, but upon seeing a few crocodiles he gave up on the idea for now—he wasn't strong enough yet..
Next, extremely tired and hungry, he went to the dojo's cafeteria and got reprimanded by the cook for being late. By the time he got there, all the other kids had already eaten their fill.
To further complicate things, before he could finish eating the food, the regular classes on basic language and other essential subjects had begun.
The dojo also functioned as a school.. Sear didn't particularly like this part of the day, but he had no choice.. attending those three long hours of classes, six days a week, was deemed mandatory by the dojo master..
At around 3 pm, when the classes had already ended, Sear returned back to the cliffside, where he had spent the previous night.
Instead of resting after the tiresome activities like the other boys his age, Sear does something different..
He's about to try something that had saved his life countless times on the battlefield during his past life... it's a breathing exercise, extremely secretive, taught to him by his grandfather..
.
.
.
Arms stretched wide as if about to embrace the sun, Sear stands still while facing its radiance..
Calm and collected, he slowly breathes in and out... the sun above, burning as hot as ever, causes beads of sweat to drop down his chin, falling on the dry soil..
But then in just a matter of seconds, the sweating strangely seemed to stop..
Expelling the heat, his body cools.. even his clothes, that were wet because of the sweat, completely dry in the next minute..
His ability is such... absorbing the sun's rays, while being unaffected by the heat, and even being able to radiate the excess heat from his body.. this radiating heat was turning his sweat into steam, giving off a menacing presence..
Changing his body's respiratory pattern at will is an ability that his grandfather used to showcase to him a lot.. achieved only through a proper breathing method called, The Radiant Sun Dance.
Through diligent practice, one is supposed to be able to rejuvenate every single cell in their body, maximizing the capabilities of every fiber in their organs, and giving an increasing burst of strength, speed and stamina..
The reason it is referred to as a dance is that when the technique is in effect, a person is apparently so mobile and their movements so precise, without any wasted energy, that to an outside observer they would appear to be dancing in a deep trance.
However, Sear never reached even close to that level of mastery, so really, more than anything else, it acted as a breathing exercise that in his past life had gradually helped him improve his overall health..
Also, when he served in the war, it generally wasn't something that could help alter the wider outcome of a battlefield, but it was also more than a simple trick..
In extremely stressful situations, it not only calms the mind and helps one make rational decisions, but there's also the added benefit of not having to sweat as much and not easily getting tired, which gave him a few second chances at life—certainly an edge over other soldiers.