The start of the Crucible was fun, to be sure. Alright, that last Capture the Flag game had been a real challenge, but it had still been fun. But by comparison, the next few days were boring. They consisted of physical competitions like racing, pre-arranged sparring matches, and an obstacle course. The racing was skewed in the favor of Kanda and a few other people. I did well, placing fifth, but I was disappointed.

Sparring was a little unusual, but only because Selena had pulled me aside shortly before my first match. She’d had an unusually stern look on her face like Master Mikel had possessed her or something.

“Don’t use your scythe in the sparring matches, Silas,” she said quietly. “You don’t want to reveal anything yet.”

“What do you mean?” I’d asked her. “How does using my weapon reveal anything?”

“The competitions in the middle of the Crucible aren’t important for your score,” she said, confirming my opinion that they were a waste of time. “But they’re an excellent chance to gather information. People will use what they see to their advantage in the last event.”

She didn’t explain any further, but I’d taken the advice to heart. When I was offered my choice of weapon, I refused, saying that I would fight unarmed. The referee looked a little confused but allowed it. Predictably, my performance in the sparring suffered. I performed well by my own standards, but there was only so much I could do against a weapon, especially if my opponent was used to using that weapon.

I was interested to see that a few other apprentices also went unarmed. Two of them looked like they were exceptionally skilled at it, so I assumed that they would be the same in the final event, whatever it was. But there were two others that didn’t use a weapon, and they suffered as I did. It was clear that they had good form and excellent discipline, but I could tell that they were more used to wielding a weapon than their bare hands.

Of course, one of those two was Kanda. When our turn to spar against each other came, we both performed well, but I had a slight edge due to my practices with Master Ivan. Just over a minute in, I managed to lock his right arm in place and throw him out of the sparring circle. He’d gotten up without a word, bobbed his head in a quick bow, and stalked off to join his Master.

“You’re pretty good with your hands,” one of the other apprentices had said, sheathing his sword. “I wish I was good at unarmed combat.”

“It’s a skill like any other,” I’d replied with a shrug. “You seem pretty good with that sword.”

I hadn’t actually seen him fight, but it couldn’t hurt to give a compliment. As my luck would have it, he kicked my ass when we sparred. I’d tried to knock his feet out and send him flying out of the ring, but he’d cracked his wooden sword against my head. While I was dazed, he’d rammed his shoulder into my chest and knocked me flat, my torso clearly outside the circle.

The obstacle course had been pretty fun. It was different from any other obstacle course I’d seen. For one, most of it was in the air, consisting of creatively placed poles, boxes, and rings for me to grab or tumble through. We were encouraged to do it in Reaper form, which meant that my reflexes were sharper, and I was able to jump and swing much further. Still, I had the grace of a potato sack in comparison to Kanda, who had zipped to the peak of the course in less than a minute. It took me two minutes and thirteen seconds, and I was fourth.

“He’s like a damn ninja,” I grumbled to myself as I caught my breath. “Does he not believe in gravity or something?”

Finally, we were told that we would have today off, after only having to suffer through an hour-long speech from Mr. Jensen. Without the excitement of the opening ceremony, the hall had been considerably less packed. I’d only caught the part of his lecture where he told us that tomorrow, Thursday, and the next day Friday, would be taken up by the final event. It was the most important, he said, so we should prepare accordingly. The second he’d sat down to return to his breakfast, I’d hopped to my feet and taken off.

Several Reapers that I passed called congratulations for the Capture the Flag game and said they’d be looking forward to my performance in the final event. I gave them all a half-grin and backed out of the half. The elevator ride was short, and soon, I was outside of the Aurora Motel. It was a clear, crisp day, with a gentle breeze swirling down the street. Thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with the smell of cigarettes this time. I took a moment to enjoy the feel of the crisp morning air against my face, then turned around and went back in.

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Some of the non-Reapers looked at me in confusion as they saw me re-enter the building at once, but I paid them no mind. I’d just wanted a whiff of the clean Fairbanks air without smoke before I went on with my day. In any event, I’d turned around again, and before I knew it, I was outside again, but in Toledo. I glanced up at the Nook Inn hotel towering over me and grinned.

“Man, that’s gotta be the most convenient thing about this life,” I muttered to myself. “Halfway across the world in an instant.”

“Talking about the gates?” A familiar voice said to me.

I turned and saw Marisha exiting behind me. “Is that what they’re called?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking at the door. “Some Runist created them years ago. It’s technically one doorway, but each time you walk through it, it changes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said with a frown. “How can it be a single doorway?”

“Hey, don’t expect me to explain it,” she shrugged. “Let alone understand it. All I know is that it works.”

Well, that was that, I thought. “So what are you doing?”

“I’m going for some training,” she said simply. “A local dojo down the road is hosting an exhibition, and I wanna see how well I can do.”

“You’re going to fight normal humans? That sounds a little unfair.”

She grinned at that. “I am. But I’m not going to use any aura, so we’ll be on equal grounds.”

“Sure, except, you know, your heightened reflexes and increased strength.”

She eyed me in a weird manner. “I don’t have those. Without aura, I’m a normal human.”

“Yeah right,” I scoffed. “You’re a Reaper. We all have that, don’t we?”

“No,” she said with a tilt of her head. “You know, it just occurred to me that you’re weird for being able to fight so well for a newbie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. No new Reaper should be as well-coordinated, fast, or strong as you.”

I thought about that for a moment. It made no sense. I spent half my time being thrashed around by her and the other Masters under Mikel, and she said I’m unnaturally strong and fast? What a joke.

“You know,” she said tentatively. “I think you might be a Martial.”

“What is that?” I asked. “Master Ivan mentioned it in passing, but it hasn’t been described to me.”

“There’s only one way to know for sure,” she said. “Come with me to the dojo.”

I didn’t really have anything better to do, so I followed her. The afternoon air was stifling hot compared to Alaska, and I was soon working up a bit of a sweat. At that moment, I thought that I definitely preferred the cold air. Nah, I thought to myself. I just don’t like overheating.

“Here we are,” Marisha said after a block or two. “Issho-Ni Dojo.”

It was a pretty simple building if I was being honest. Flanked on either side by offices, the short single-story building wasn’t that impressive. But it was clean, painted fresh white to stand out against its neighbors, and the sign on the front looked cool. It had a lot of Japanese Kanji on it, and a stylized painting of a howling wolf.

“Together we fight,” Marisha read the sign. “Together we stand, and together we die.”

“You speak Japanese?” I asked, suitably impressed. “That’s cool.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “You can too, idiot. Reapers can understand any written or spoken language, thanks to our ancestors.”

“What?” I tore my eyes away from the wolf. “No, I can’t. I can only speak English. Well, that and a little bit of Inupiaq.”

She rolled her eyes again, then spoke in Japanese. At least, it sounded like Japanese to me. The strange thing was that I understood her perfectly, even though the human part of me was scratching his head.

“See? You understand me perfectly. You can speak back to me too.”

“I see,” I said. At the same time, I heard “Naruhodo. Okay, that’s weird. Why can we do that?”

“Nobody knows for sure,” she explained. “But there’s a lot of knowledge, information, and skills that all Reapers have because of our ancestors.”

“Spooky town,” I muttered under my breath. When she looked at me with Mikel’s signature raised eyebrow, I gestured for her to lead the way. “Never mind. Let’s check out this exhibition.”

I could tell by her sideways look that she didn’t like me muttering under my breath, but she let the matter go. With a faint sigh, not to mention a mutter of her own, she pushed the door of the Dojo. Which was hilarious, because it was a pull door from our side. I made sure to contain my laugh to a moderate guffaw.