The training hall echoed—steel on steel, laughter, the clank of armor.
Students sparred in matched pairs across the arena.
Staff barked commands.
Dummies shattered beneath practiced strikes.
The atmosphere was electric—excitement, competition, ego.
"I'm going twin daggers. Fast. Precise."
"Claymore for me. Pure force. No subtlety, just results."
Everyone was choosing.
A rite of passage.
Weapons lined the walls, each mounted like trophies: spears, bows, twin blades, axes, warhammers.
Some were forged from alloys; others from monster bone or obsidian grown in dungeon flame.
All of them deadly.
All of them waiting.
I walked past them.
Nothing called to me.
Not yet.
"You gonna pick something or just brood in the corner?" one student called out, smirking.
I didn't answer.
Another snickered. "Maybe he wants a plushie. Berserker rage needs nap time."
More laughter. Faint. Easy to ignore.
I tuned it out—the noise, the chatter, the posturing.
None of it mattered.
Because in the center of the room was something else.
A pedestal.
On it lay a blade unlike the rest—old, massive, unpolished.
No glow. No runes.
Just iron.
Worn, pitted, real.
If I'm going to speak, it won't be with words.
It will be with this.
I stepped toward it.
Someone scoffed. "That thing's a relic. Too heavy for anyone who actually wants to win."
Another voice—amused, dismissive. "Watch him throw his back out."
I gripped the hilt.
The room quieted.
The moment my fingers closed around it, I felt it.
Not heat. Not magic.
Weight.
It felt like—gravity.
Like everything that had brought me here—pain, memory, silence—was suddenly condensed into steel.
It didn't shine.
It didn't need to.
It fit.
Not in my hand—in my story.
I raised it.
Not with flair. Not to show off.
Just to feel the balance.
Then I moved.
One clean arc—fast, heavy, final.
The air split with a sharp crack as the blade carved through the empty space before me.
No target. No reason.
Just proof.
The room froze.
Even the laughter stopped.
I looked at the blade.
"Good," I muttered. "You don't pretend."
It was perfect.
Unforgiving. Solid.
Heavy enough to demand commitment with every strike.
It understood me.
Perfect.
This blade would be my voice.
My rage.
My retribution.
The instructors said nothing.
The others whispered.
No one laughed again.