Winter blew in across Harion. A brutal frigid wind ravaged the Sunless nights, sliding in through the shutters as it ran down the children’s arms. Bodies were left cramped and stiff by the vile swirling storm. Every night a form of conditioning on its own.
Kiyo and Daisuke toughened through the bitter nights and clung to their innermost desires to keep their minds engrossed in the urge to pull through. Skin left inflexible and feeble. Focused on the warm end goal in sight, sitting upon the horizon in the distance.
No method of warmth was offered to any of the children. This temperament was something they would have to overcome themselves, a test within itself that would reshape their bodies. Such shifts were a common problem to encounter in the field. Their submerged cave plunges were a precursor for this season, a means of preparation of conditioning to expose them to the elements.
Older houses felt no change in the air, unaffected by the sudden downdraft from the north. Bodies agile and limber, warmth coursing through them via their synced radiance. A sliver of power found within the chosen one. Enough to bend their bodies will and survive detrimental odds.
The new year marked children unaware of this ability that lay within them.
Kiyo even took a couple of weeks to get used to burning his radiance for body heat. Balancing it out to drain himself completely, just enough nourishment for his body to cling to the beating life within his chest. The first few attempts went south as he woke up with a fever. His body covered in a sweltering heat that withdrew from the blessed energy leaking out. Daisuke took it upon himself to care for his friend, even during training.
Sickness was not an excuse to part yourself. Only pardonable if granted by a higher authority or if deemed transmutable to others of the house. Kiyo was seen as a contained case as were other children.
His willpower allowed him to pull through, stable enough to rebalance the shift of radiance within his body to a point he could manage. Evenly aligned to the point his fever dissipated beneath the intense burst of active pressure, back at max capacity.
Kiyo then took it upon himself to relay the correct techniques to draw out the splendor blessed to them to the rest of his group. Each found it much more excruciating than Kiyo described, their bodies not the same composure as his. One born with a higher substandard for the candor granted to the Paladinian people by the Sun. Yet little by little, they found their footing.
Through it all they continued their training. Forced to seek warmth within themselves as they dwelled out in the cold. Constant movement was their ally, able to work their nerves into a frenzy to stabilize their skin's temperature, to prevent any lasting damage.
Their skin-tight training clothes were a weak barrier against the dire winds. Built for flexibility and breathability, it resulted in no assistance against the bone-chilling onslaught.
Those unable to do so were taken into the temple by maidens. Their shivering hypothermic ransacked bodies were delivered to the heated medical chambers for realignment and dispersion of their radiance. Sanctioned calciners were able to apply steady treatments to the forlorn children. Yet their time at Harion effectively ended by their physical weakness. Lost causes in the eyes of the Sun.
Five children suffered a bleak end through the winter season. Two girls and three boys. Kept under the care of the maidens until seen fit to be shipped back to their hometown and stripped of their title as a marked child.
To go home in such a fashion was near worse than death itself. Nothing but shame and disgrace brought upon the village they trodded back to.
Day in and day out, the fear of meeting the same fate resonated within each first-year child, gnashing their teeth at the thought of losing their birthright in this manner, muscling out every day in whatever way they could. Strenuous physical and mental training to harness the adaptations gifted to their bodies. A brilliance unlike any other.
The five boys soon grasped an inkling of their luminous concordance and pulled through each day thrown at them. Hands mutilated at the end of every session as their skin tore off from the visceral chill or decimated by the excessive rubbing done to heat themselves.
Their lives were held on by a flimsy string, one flick was all it would take to snap.
Regardless, Shoma continued to meet with Monterio and Isao. Now able to come up with more information than in previous engagements, Kiyo outright harnessed his radiance to power through each day. Wafts of steam dissipated off of his bare skin. Energy burnt to overpower the sickness within him while maintaining a level body temperature. All of them came in unprepared for the burdensome winter season, but such a process was expected.
Still, they met and Monterio’s scope of his enemy grew wider. Pen picking him apart for an opening. A way to defeat him. The only person Monterio was afraid of.
…
During the duration of the winter months, a demonstration was held in the barracks square. This uplifted fight was a yearly tradition for trainers to demonstrate their skills to their classes. Each house was pinned against the other of the same age group, a form of rivalry and companionship in the sense, one that all children watched from the sidelines. It was seen as a learning process and an example of what they could become. Something not viewed as a cherished memory, but a layout of the expectations held over them.
Halfway through the season under the silver shine of the outlined dreary clouds above, the children of the first-year houses emptied and surrounded the flattened spar stone laid in front of the temple. Every child hunkered down, shivering and fading beneath the gloomy gray skies. But they refused to show such weakness, their emotions stifled beneath their clamped lips.
Off to the side on the temple steps stood the other trainers and Nari herself. Spectators present to judge what their associates had to offer to the new students. To them, this was more of a trial for their leadership and capabilities than a demonstration for the children. Takeo and Yuudai were the first match-ups. Both were clothed in only tight inky silk-sown training gear, customary for such an occasion.
Two overseers were present to judge every strike thrown, as no one was meant to be harmed in this duel. The overall goal was to disarm and debilitate their opponent. All final say coming from Nari.
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Takeo walked down his cobbled entryway to the right side of the stone, equipped with his specialized weapon of choice, an odachi katana, a wooden hand-carved blade meant to be a fitting replacement for his traditional teratoma bone sword.
His part in this was to hold himself to a higher standard, a representation of the bloodline 0 households. What they could become. Paired against his opposite, the trainer of the blessed earth 0 household, previously only seen by Daisuke and Kiyo at the opening ceremony. Someone Daisuke could only remember as the gentler trainer of the four present at their entry to Harion. A man who held a polite smile.
Yuudai, a kinder and softly spoken man marked with white shortcut sides and a fluff of a ponytail pinned on the back of his head that was pure gold. His eyes were a sparkling emerald green that stood out against the wrinkles lining his lightly tinted skin. An older man than most of the trainers here, yet with that only came experience. Years spent under the high priest as a personal assassin. Bred and born for this life.
Strolling down to the sparing stone, he removed his outer cloak to reveal his specialized weapon of choice, a long thin-cut deadwood bo staff coated in an inky jet-black tar.
To some, it was a pathetic weapon, but in Paladinian culture, it was praised highly above most others. Its slick hand-carved compact structure was an honorable blade in the eyes of the Sun. Infused with life given to the world by Amaterasu, such a staff was a holy instrument.
Every single bloodline child was awestruck at the sight of seeing someone capable of wielding the staff. A quiet wave of whispers and wide eyes stared in amazement at Yuudai.
Daisuke and Kiyo squinted in wonder at the sight, of such a weapon deserving of the utmost respect for the user. Minds filled with anticipation for the duel to commence, to see the clash of the houses. To see who would win.
At high noon the overseers pulled out their coar horns and pressed them against their lips. A sea of dead eyes waited for the Sun to peek through the clouds and bless this match between two adorned warriors.
Bwaaaaeeee!
The first signal. Each trainer stood directly across from the other and lowered themselves into their opening stances. Yuudia planted the staff on the ground as he stood upright, hands gripped onto it a foot apart. Takeo clutched the hilt of his blade and brought it close to the right side of his chest, legs spread in a running split. Left forward with the right arched and primed to charge. All that was left was to wait for the call, for the sound of the heavens.
Bwaaaaeeee!
It began.
Peeled eyes watched as the two met together in the center. Mouths gaped open as panted breaths rolled out, this battle a silent one.
Any vital strike was all that it took to win, one direct hit.
Whoooosh! Tink!
Takeo cut his blade through the air with a direct leftward slash to only be cut off by a side spin of the staff in Yuudia’s hands.
Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo!
Takeo pulled away, blocking a sudden strike from a switch of the spin toward Yuudia’s other side, passing it back and forth as he lunged forward. Each spin only built up momentum, faster than the eye could trace.
Whoo-whoo-whoowhoowhoowhoowhoo–tink!
With an upward slash, Takeo cut off Yuudia’s motion. Yuudia broke away from the spin with a jab at Takeo’s chest.
Whiff!
Slipping off to the side, Takeo took off with his blade fully extended. Building up a jump as he spun and struck down onto Yuudia with a forceful extension of his arms.
Whew-whew-whew! Tink!
Whiff! Tink-tink-tink-tink! Slash-slash! Dink! Ffrrrfrfrrr-whoosh!
Everyone watched in elevated joy as the pair quickly exchanged a flurry of moves at one another. Various palm spins and cross strikes from Yuudia clashed against Takeo’s aggressive overhead slices in the air mixed with his flip of the blade mid-upward swing for a low strike.
Whiff-tink! Tink-tink-whiff-tink!
Yet neither had hit the other. All of Takeo’s strikes received a predestined block from Yuudia, the staff a heightened level of defense that allowed for fluid transitions into his spin strikes. Being able to roll the staff around his body, he maneuvered it in such a way that allowed him to use it to its full capability.
Jab! Jab! Dink–tink-tink-tink-whoosh!
The fight dragged on with every close encounter turning into a game of defense. Takeo, unable to get a clean way through Yuudia’s sudden shifts into full extensions of the staff, took in the full blow of the impact with his sword.
Until they broke off, Takeo clutched his blade low to the ground and sidestepped toward Yuudia to change up his ongoing stance, to create an opening. Yet Yuudia was prepared as he swung low and cut off Takeo’s momentum. Takeo was forced to doge the staff and the movements that followed.
Boof-thump thump.
Tink-tink-tink! Whoosh-whoowhoowhoowhoowhoo!
Then it came. Takeo fumbled back at the spins, ready to knock them off but Yuudia shifted his hold and extended the staff. A downward smack hurled Takeo to the ground. Unable to escape its path, Takeo grabbed each end of the sword and braced for the staff’s impact.
Craaaaack!
Like a wave crashing upon the shore, wood splintered throughout the open air as Takeo’s sword split in half by Yuudia’s downward strike. A slight gruff of disappointment settled in the bloodline children’s eyes at that moment, hopeless for a win in these circumstances. Yet within an instant, the tide receded. Grabbing onto each side of the blade, Takeo used the right hilt to knock the staff aside and throw the left end of the wooden blade at Yuudia. Takeo’s motions were too fluid to anticipate, to prevent.
Wheeeeeew-tonk!
Direct hit.
Bwaaaaeeee!
That was it.
Both turned to face Nari and struck their right hands over their hearts, a conclusive sign of respect shown, turning toward each other to perform the same motion. The results were not the importance of the spar, just a mere illustration of what they were capable of.
What the children could become. True Sun Warriors.
Training commenced back into the normal routine in the months to follow. Their bodies brought to the pristine understanding of how to balance their radiance by the end of the season. They would all come out of it more knowledgeable of how to regulate their temperature and sustain themselves in bleak circumstances. This was commonplace for the souls of those dedicated to the Sun.
After the skies parted, the Sun rained down its glory back on the frigid wasteland encompassing Harion on all sides. Specks of green and tuckered tan life reared their buds from beneath the cracked topsoil to soak in the blessed life shown upon them. The chilled downdraft reeled back to the clustered northern sphere of the continent. Spring rolled in over the Sunretsu clan valleys in a single brush stroke that painted over the previous white landscape. A touch of life in the cold darkness of the world.
The remnants of nature that dotted the landscape brought with it a more relaxing atmosphere, the only time of year not devastated by mother nature. Such a season was a halfway marker for the year to come. Spring’s trial was one of great proportion, a true determiner for those who would remain enlisted in the long run.
A time of revelation.