859 F.R
Charlie opened the page of her brand new diary, given to her by one of the older women in Soppio.
“The first week of training was pretty intense, Sanosuke-sensei told me that he wanted us to start from zero. He had crafted these wooden weapons the night before, I got two wooden short swords that even combined together just like Twin summer! The rules were that no abilities could be used, just our innate strength, skill and the wooden weapons. Lady Inari told us that clashing godsends caused the Fantasia world to distort and break around the users. Lady Freya then added to wait till you see the level of destruction two retainers could cause. That most likely means that the group that attacked Soppio didn’t have a retainer among them. Unless they were holding back. I’m so tired of people holding back against me.”
Out in the fields of Soppio Charlie and Sanosuke stood in their battle stances, their deities sat in Freya’s chariot as foxes fanned them with giant leafs. Freya lifted her hand up and then quickly motioned it down.
“Begin!”
Charlie used her speed advantage to try and land a strike as quickly as she could on the samurai. Every swing Charlie made towards Sanosuke was either dodged or parried, then Sanosuke would immediately counter and playfully smack Charlie with his wooden sword, causing the young Norse elf to tumble on the ground.
“Lady Freya told me that Lord Freyr was going beyond easy on me! I don’t blame him; he did help boost my confidence but then that made me get cocky against that snow elf that attacked Soppio. Sensei didn’t even hesitate to hold back; I couldn’t get one hit on him at all. He kept whacking me on the back of my head and laughing the whole time. Lady Freya kept laughing every time it happened, at least Lady Inari was considerate. It was a bit weird how she stared at me the whole time we were training; her gaze was super intense. Either way, my goal right now is to land one clean hit.”
Days and weeks passed as the two continued to train tirelessly on top of all the work they did at the smithy.
“Charlie, I wrote out your new training schedule. Lady Inari herself came up with this for you.” Sanosuke handed Charlie a folded up piece of paper. Charlie quickly opened the paper and looked back at Sanosuke dumbfounded.
“This is written in Japanese.”
“Yes, this writing style is Hiragana. Me and Inari wish to teach you all the other writing styles as well,” Sanosuke said with a smile. Charlie just laughed and folded the paper away into her pocket.
860 F.R
“You would think waking up at five in the morning would get easier after a year of doing it. It doesn’t. Every morning Sensei and I ran from Soppio to the caverns. We do this as a simple exercise for cardio and endurance training. Sensei’s role of polymath makes him super intelligent so he was able to tell me exactly how long we took to get to the caverns. It's about a fifteen mile run to the cavern and it takes us about two hours to get there. Lately though we’ve been making some excellent progress and cutting that time to an hour and twenty!”
Charlie slammed the pickaxe into the wall with all of her might, grabbing a big chunk of ore, she rotated it around inspecting the ore and gave a big grin. This was a really good piece, she turned to Sanosuke, about to yell for his attention when she saw creatures moving in the shadows of the cavern.
“The other reason we go every morning is to take care of new monsters that find their way into the cavern. Sensei had to fight all the monsters himself when he first came to Soppio. They are really annoying to deal with honestly, but they aren’t that big of a problem for us now.”
Charlie had no time to even see what the creatures looked like, they jumped out of the shadows and pounced on Sanosuke. Charlie pulled out her hook-claw and fired at the ceiling, she quickly swung up using the momentum to gain more speed. Pulling out one of her spare daggers she stabbed the neck of a gray creature, pushing it off of Sanosuke.
Its torso looked like a man’s torso with long pry mantis-like claws connected to it as its hands. Its lower half was as thick as a bear's hind legs. Green pus and ooze spattered out of its neck as Charlie’s dagger stayed in the creature, glowing faintly. The creature roared, showing the many razor-sharp teeth it held in its mouth about to lunge at Charlie.
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“Blæst!”
Charlie smiled as her seidr spell completely decimated the creature, blowing up the top half of its chest, neck and head. Charlie then rushed to aid Sanosuke only to see her sensei standing tall, he had the creature on his back around its neck, having it look up at the ceiling.
Using the creature’s mass against it, Sanosuke held his arm around the creature’s neck. The creature struggled, trying to escape trying to claw at anything, until an audible snap was heard from its neck.
The creature became limp.
“Two of these weird monsters popped out, Sensei killed one with his bare hands. It was crazy! You would think that would count as training for the day but nope. We went back to sword training; I was feeling a lot more confident the last few days in my skills. Lady Freya noticed that I wasn’t using my footwork after I would miss attacks. It was like I was a deer in headlights after my attacks missed.”
Charlie swung her wooden sword down, she knew Sanosuke was going to dodge this one. She made sure of it, waiting for the perfect opportunity. She watched her sensei’s perfect dodge and used her feet to pivot herself, she spun to the side dodging Sanosuke’s attack and whacked him on the nose causing him to stumble back. Freya jumped for joy as her retainer finally landed a hit.
“HA take that, Sanosuke-sensei! This hard work is really playing off. Sensei’s nose was bleeding, but he looked really proud and that really meant a lot to me. Heck, even Lady Inari was proud of me, not only for my newfound strength but also in my Japanese lessons. It was like being in school again learning a whole new language and writing system.Recently I’ve been having the Freyr training dreams again. This time though, the person I was in the dream also landed a hit on Freyr, if only I could do that in the real world.”
On top of training every single day for the past two years, Charlie and Sanosuke continued to help expand Soppio and its community. Whether it was teaching how to craft tools or agriculture, the pair pushed the community forward with every stride of progress they made.
“The kids lately have been a bit bored, I wouldn’t blame them, no TVs or video games around and the books that we did have they already read multiple times. Sanosuke-sensei started to craft a puppet out of wood and then showed it to the kids. I yelled out that it looks like Masked fighter Black! A Japanese hero of justice who's been on TV for a long time. Masked fighter Black aired when Sanosuke’s son was still a boy, they would watch it together every day and do all the cool poses and pretend to fight monsters. He later rewatched it with his grandson, we put on a puppet show based on one of the episodes we both remembered.”
“Hey sensei, do you remember the theme song?” Charlie asked. “I want to teach the words to the kids.” Charlie loved the theme song; he and Carmichael would sing it together at karaoke from time to time back on earth.
“I don’t remember the lyrics, but I think I remember the basic chord structure.” Sanosuke quickly went to grab a lute he had crafted and began to strum the opening chords of the song. Charlie grabbed the wooden puppet and jumped in the air; she did a back flip onto one of the roofs nearby. She lifted her arms up and struck a heroic pose herself and with the puppet.
“HEN-SHIN!” she shouted and moved her arms into a different heroic position. “I am the child of the moon, Masked fighter Black!”
The kids were in awe as Charlie started to move the puppet into different poses, punching and kicking the air.
“Falling down from moonlight, a hero emerges!
He will fight for his ideals to the very end.
For those that believe in justice!
The truth will be your compass.
So wake up… the hero inside of you!
Don’t give up on, until the very enddddd.”
Charlie stopped singing and jumped down as Sanosuke kept playing. “This part’s really easy, you guys say masked fighter and I’ll sing the rest.” The kids all agreed, and Charlie jumped back on the roof.
“Masked fighter, with armor of black.
Masked fighter, an unfaltering spirit.
MASKKKEDD FIGGHTTERR BLACK!”
Sanosuke watched as all the kids sang and ran around striking heroic poses, Charlie herself smiled the most. As the song continued the static voice sang along as well in Charlie’s head,helping her remember some of the previous lyrics.
“Some missionary came to Soppio looking for a place to rest. I mean I know deities and God exist now but the god she worshiped wasn’t one I knew about back on earth.”
The missionary was of fair skin and wore a white cream color robe with a hood on. She was quite young and had a clear face veil over her mouth.
“Blessed be the ultimate lifeform and his perfect love. The God known as Rajiren waits for you to accept him.”
“Honestly… What kind of egotistical person calls themselves the ultimate lifeform? One that’s probably a dick if you ask me.”
861 F.R
As the sun set, Charlie and Sanosuke stood out in the fields of Soppio. They were in their battle stances already but this time they held real weapons instead of wooden practice ones. Freya yelled for them to start and the two rushed towards each other. Clashing their swords over and over again, neither of the two letting the other gain any advantage.
Eventually the blue moon of night arrived, the two continuing to clash their swords against one another. For the next few hours they kept fighting one another until exhaustion caught up to the both of them. Inari called for the end of the bout which the two gladly obliged, the two fighters fell to the floor immediately. For the first time in three years Charlie held her own against his teacher.
“You know for someone with a locked resolve, you don’t know when to give up,” Freya said.
“I… just.. don’t want to give up.. anymore,” Charlie huffed out. But even with that declaration, she still felt the sting of doubt in the back of her mind. Telling her, screaming to her… Give up you are nothing.
Inari delicately stepped out of the chariot and walked towards Sanosuke. “A momentous day has arrived Kento, you have helped craft a fine warrior. This calls for a celebration! Soppios first festival.”
“Oooooo Inari knows exactly how to throw a festival. We definitely need fireworks!” Freya chimed in. Inari commanded Sanosuke to return to Soppio immediately.
“I have some things I need you to craft Sanosuke. Charlie return to your home and rest, this festival is for you so Freya, make sure she doesn’t go outside and spoil herself.
Charlie looked at Sanosuke who just shrugged his shoulders.
“As you wish, lady Inari,” the two replied.
“A.. re…al… Jap..an..ese fest…ival!!” The static voice was excited, and although Charlie was tired, she too held that same excitement.
As she entered her room, she grabbed her diary with the intent of finishing the day's entry.
But the bed was calling her, so she fell onto her bed before even grabbing her quill pen. It took three years of long, grueling training, but she never gave up. Yet there was still a creeping self-doubt that hid in the back of her mind. She still remembered how powerless she felt against the snow elf three years ago.
She did her best to ignore those feelings, instead focusing on thinking about all the people who have helped her so far in her journey. Freyr, Freya, Jophiel, Achilles, Damaris, Inari and Sanosuke all helped shape Charlie into the new warrior she was now.
She smiled and slept accomplished, for now.