I'd been practicing with Terrick almost all day.
The sun isn't quite down, but it's certainly into a later stage of the afternoon.
It's really, really tiring.
I'm starting to sweat a good bit now, something I haven't done since I got this new body.
But… it feels nice. It feels good.
It's like my body's actually breathing for the first time.
With each swing into a dummy, I can feel the reverberation of force through my wrist. With every time I grip a sword, I can feel the veins form in my forearms.
"Haah… haah…"
The wooden sword I was using crumbles, and the dummy cracked apart and fell into splinters.
Clap clap clap
Terrick claps his hands while watching.
"That was a final strength dummy, Fault! Holy shit!"
He jogs over and slams a palm into my back a few times, "Your fundamentals have skyrocketed. You can grip a sword properly, your basic footwork stance seems pretty good, and your slashes are alright. Not bad, kid!"
Terrick grins at me, making me grin back at him.
"But… there's something else we need to work on, that eye and movement."
I take a deep breath and feel my smile fade.
"So… like what?"
"We need to get you used to a moving target now. Motionless dummies are good for testing strength and the most basic of basics, but…"
He scratches his chin, "We should do a little spar."
I step back, "A spar? What? You'd kick my ass."
Terrick laughs as he heads over to a hilt and picks up a wooden sword.
"No, I won't. It's fine. I'll go easy on you, teach you through it."
I stare at him with a small scowl as he stands across from me.
I look down at the wooden sword in my hand and sigh.
"Alright, fine. How exactly is this going to go?"
Terrick smiles and wipes his chin with the back of his hand, "If you say you quit, then you lose. If you land a counterattack on me, you win."
I blink at him.
"Uhm… okay. Sure."
I lower my center, putting my feet and legs in the stance Terrick taught me. I even tilted my sword and angled it upward properly as well.
"Good stance, I like it."
Terrick smiles and takes his own.
His left arm shields a part of his face, while his right arm, carrying the sword, falls further back behind him in a one-handed grip. His feet spread as he also lowers his head and center.
'Okay…?'
"On your go." Terrick speaks.
I look around, my right eye frantically pacing itself and outline Terrick's shape and his armor ahead of me.
'Okay… it's fine… I'm not in any real danger…'
I gulp a mouthful of saliva, still hyping myself up.
'Odds are… I'm gonna land on my ass and he's gonna keep hitting me until I say I quit.'
I look at his posture and at the way he's holding the sword.
I haven't seen an ounce of how he fights, but I'm willing to give it a try, I guess.
"Huu…"
His stances sharpens as I take a breath.
"..."
…
"Go!" I shout.
Immediately, I step to the side as Terrick dashes toward me.
'...!?'
He's on me almost instantly! He's fast!
I lean back, my feet crossing as I try to get some distance.
I put my sword up horizontally to block his incoming strike.
"H-huh?"
He feinted! He faked swinging downward and switched his trajectory!
'Shit!'
THWACK
"Kh-!"
His sword collides with my stomach as I choke on the air, and he sends me flying backward, skidding across the ground.
"Kck! Ack-!"
I double over and grip my stomach at the pain of the contact, and I hear more steps of Terrick dashing toward me.
I look up, my eyes in a scowl and watering from the pain in my stomach.
*****
'I'm not expecting too much, but a little combat experience is better than none at all.'
Is what Terrick was thinking.
He delivered a blow to Fault's stomach in a horizontal line, hitting him like the sword was a bat.
Yet he didn't hear 'I quit' from the boy, so he followed up.
Dashing toward Fault, who's trying to quickly stand up, Terrick prepares another strike.
Then, he sees Fault's eye, not a hint of hesitation or defeat within the pale green.
It made Terrick smile as he prepares his next attack.
Fault hunched up onto one knee and managed to prepare his sword in his hands again.
Terrick sees this and opens his mouth, "Good! You may have been hit by it, but you reacted that I feinted!"
He angles his sword for a slash onto Fault's shoulder.
Clank!
Fault managed to put his sword up and block the blow swinging down toward him.
Fault pushed his sword out and repelled Terrick, his eyes squinting as he does so.
'F-fuck! This kid's strength is-!'
He knew Fault was irregularly strong, but he just lifted a full force swing with what looked like a light block.
'I-Insane!'
Terrick was excited to see his growth in the future.
Fault's right eye connected with Terrick's left angle, and his body twisted underneath him.
Sweep!
He tried to take out Terrick's ankle from under him, but Terrick managed to jump over it. With the jump, he went for a kick to Fault's stomach, the same area he just hit with his sword.
Fault blocked the kick with his wrist.
Terrick's eyes searched for the sword in his other hand, but he couldn't find it.
'!? W-where!?'
The same fist that Fault used to block his kick reeled back, and came colliding with his shin.
"G-gah!"
Terrick's leg was sent one direction, making him do a miniature twirl in the air from the force of the blow.
'D-damn! It felt like he broke my ankle from that!'
The force behind that punch was heavy as well, even though Fault had hardly reeled back his fist.
Then, Terrick saw it, Fault's wooden sword, aimed vertically toward his stomach.
THWACK
The sword broke on contact, but it made Terrick's armor dent on his abdomen, making him cough slightly as he landed on the ground a couple of feet back.
"Hah… haah…" Fault panted, wiping the back of his mouth and nose with his left hand.
"Did… did I win…? Does that count…?"
He lifted himself up off the floor and went over to Terrick, offering his hand to help him up.
Terrick was winded by the blow delivered on his stomach, still coughing as his air and breathing finally caught up to him.
"D-damn! Cough- cough!"
Terrick pulled himself up with Fault's help.
He smiled and looped his arm around the smaller kid's shoulder.
"G-good stuff, kid! Not bad!"
He smiled.
The reason Fault fulfilled Terrick's win conditions was because Terrick still underestimated the raw strength in his scrawny body.
No one would've expected that, even after he destroyed all of the testing dummy's ranks.
Terrick takes a deep breath and sighs, feeling his stomach and armor come to, and go back to normal.
He puts his hand out to Fault and smile.
"Nice stuff, Fault. That was brilliant. Aiming for my ankle after blocking the kick with the same hand?"
Fault paused at his words and looked away.
"Uh… yeah. Thanks." He smiled a bit.
Terrick nods, "Then making use of me losing my balance mid-air and aiming your sword downward on my stomach… you might be a prodigy, Fault."
Fault leans away from Terrick at his praise, "N-no, I don't think…"
"I'm serious, kid. I doubt anyone around your age could react to that, unless they'd already had combat training and stuff, like royals."
Terrick thought of it and smiled, leaning down to Fault.
"Have you thought about Ayen Academy?"
Fault looks up at Terrick, "Ayen?"
He responds with a nod, "Your strength could be something like nobility or even royalty, Fault. You should consider joining Ayen."
Fault looks down, "Ayen…"
—
A little ways away, Chandler had watched the exchange with widened eyes.
Fault was certainly extraordinary for a civilian child. Reacting to Terrick Lynel's attacks, while he wasn't able to block the first one, he still noticed his eye widened.
He reacted to it. This was huge for a boy like Fault.
Chandler smiled at what Terrick was telling him, too.
He didn't need to plant seeds of joining Ayen anymore, and all that was left was Hale.
Who was still in his room, for some odd reason.
Chandler turned around and left Terrick and Fault alone, already hearing Terrick set out more testing dummies to watch Fault tear apart.
Heading downstairs and into a hall lit by torches, he steps over to where Hale was residing, and gently knocks on the door.
"Master Hale? Are you in there…?"
"Mmmhmm…" A tired response calls from inside.
"May I come in?"
"Mmm."
Chandler gently opens the door into Hale's room.
It was a bit of a mess, and Hale was lying in bed, the covers off of him as his face was beet red, panting.
…?
"Master Hale, are you okay?"
Chandler steps over and checks Hale's condition, he was breathing quite heavily, and his body was heated up.
"I… I think I'm sick…" Hale responds through a slight muffle of a clogged nose.
But Chandler could see it.
A soft glow was just underneath where Hale lied down.
Hale's infusion was forming.