YUKAN WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING to see the sun peeking through the curtains of the Meiji family’s living room, its radiant light shining upon his eyes. He slowly sat up, expecting to be in a good deal of pain, but found himself to be entirely unharmed. Confused, he looked at the woman on the chair beside him.
“Good to see you’re finally awake, Yukan,” Oba began. “You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours now.”
“Twelve hours?” Yukan muttered before catching something else. “Wait, how do you know who I am, Ms…?”
“Meiji,” she added. “Oba Meiji, and your girlfriend brought you to us.”
“Ite brought me here?”
“With the help of my nephew Kadaina, of course.”
“Now we’re talking about your nephew? Look, I just want to know where I am right now.”
Just as Yukan said this, Ite and Kadaina came downstairs.
“See? He’s alright,” Kadaina began. “Quite the upgrade from last night, right?”
“Thank goodness for that,” she replied as she approached Yukan. Seeing this, he began to sit upright, finally seeing something familiar. Ite grabbed his shoulder as he tried to stand up, gently pushing him down.
“Don’t,” she simply stated. “You need to rest. You almost died, Yukan. Don’t force yourself too much.”
“But I’m not forcing myself at all,” Yukan argued. “I’m actually feeling more refreshed than ever. And what do you mean I almost died?”
Everybody nearby stopped in their tracks.
“Did you really forget what happened last night?”
Just as Ite said that, Yukan’s expression changed. Perhaps he had been willing to deny what had happened that day for as long as he could, hoping he could go on with his life just as he had before. But, of course, everything came rushing back to him from the night before, from the first moments of waking to his falling unconscious from the physical trauma he sustained to go with his mental trauma.
“I need to know the fastest route to Acophis right now,” Yukan demanded, the sight of his family’s death stuck in his brain like a weed whose roots refuse to escape the dirt.
“Wait, Yukan-” Ite interjected.
“We need to leave right now!” his tone of voice grew more desperate, but he did not wish to explain why at that moment.
“Yukan, calm down and wait a moment. You’re still-”
“I can’t wait a moment!” Yukan finally yelled out before heading into another room, searching for any belongings of his.
“Both of you stop!” Kadaina finally intervened, Yukan and Ite stopping where they stood as Kadaina approached Yukan. “You want to get to Acophis? The most I can do is give you a safer route.”
Yukan turned to Kadaina and slowly approached him, a more solemn and stern expression on his face.
“I don’t need safe,” he began in a quieter tone of voice. “I need fast.”
“I can do that too,” Kadaina said as he took a large piece of rolled-up parchment out and began to untie it. The parchment seemed to be coated in a glossy material, but not quite laminated. Kadaina unrolled the parchment, revealing a map of Akuni as it was sprawled over the dining room table.
“This road will take you straight to the heart of Acophis,” Kadaina told them as he pointed out a dashed line in red ink. “We’ve gone there several times and you shouldn’t run into any problems before your first stop. It’s a house owned by my mentor, Mr. Kashikoi Masuta.” As he said this, he pointed to a simple drawing of a house in red marker, with a rectangular chimney with smoke billowing out.
“While you’re staying with him, you can undergo training. Y’know, in case you run into your attackers again.”
“The best escort we can lend you is a pair of horses,” Oba added. “Your trip to Mr. Masuta’s house will take about a day. I can make you some food if you’d like before you leave.”
“Thank you,” Ite said to Oba, nodding. “I don’t know how we could ever repay you.”
“I’m just glad to have helped,” Oba replied humbly. “If I were in your shoes, I would want somebody to do the same for me. It’s the least I could do. Stay safe out there.”
“We’ll try our best, Oba.”
Yukan stood, looking at the map in a silent focus. “How long will this training take?”
“It depends,” Kadaina began. “What are you training for? How far do you want your training to go? How much are you willing to put into training? Are you including rest days? What does your diet-”
“One question at a time,” Yukan groaned.
“I guess we’ll just wait and see then,” Kadaina dryly answered. “Oba’s going to be a while with your food, so you might want to do whatever morning routine you have.”
“Right,” Yukan replied, looking down at his clothes, stained in blood.
“We can get you some new clothes if you need,” Kadaina added.
“I’ll be fine, Kadaina,” he said as he headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll just wash them whenever I get to that Masuta guy’s house.”
“I mean, I suppose you could.”
Once Yukan got done with his shower, he saw his clothing still there, still soaked in his own blood. Yukan stood frozen for a few seconds before resuming in redressing. Once he was back in his usual clothing and their food was made, the two once again thanked Oba before heading out to the stable.
“Take good care of him, Ite,” Oba told her while they hugged. “He needs you now more than ever.” Ite nodded as she went in with her boyfriend. While she was talking with Oba, Yukan had already found himself a majestic and well-kept dark bay steed. Kadaina was helping him onto it as he turned to see Ite.
“Look,” Yukan sighed. “Ite, I-”
“I know that you’re going through a lot right now,” Ite interrupted, “but are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Not entirely,” Yukan began, “but I feel like I have to. I’m sorry about how I handled it all back there. I’m glad that you’re with me, Ite. I don’t know what I would do without you here.”
Kadaina offered to help Ite onto her steed. Having never rode a horse before, she accepted the help.
“I’m glad to help you,” Ite responded as she got onto a skewbald horse. “Let’s go meet this Kashikoi Masuta.”
The two of them began toward Kimura once more. The trip lasted about twelve hours, in the wilderness, during which they briefly stopped to eat lunch and had trouble remounting. They were only able to remount after a few minutes of struggles and Yukan being back-kicked in the stomach by one of the horses. Once they were a few hours away from Kashikoi’s house, they ended up taking a break to rest, tying the horses’ lead around a few trees.
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The next day came and the two woke up as normal. Now having a better understanding about how to remount their steeds, they did not take nearly as long to get back onto the trail. Only a few hours after sunrise, they reached Kashikoi’s house, a rather small hut with smoke billowing gently out of the chimney. Yukan and Ite walked up the stairs to the front door and Yukan knocked on it twice. As he did so, the door moved forward a small amount each time to reveal that the door had been opened before the arrival. They walked into the hut and were greeted to an empty room, absent of any life or light except for themselves, the light coming from the door, and the gentle glow of the fireplace.
“Hello?” Ite called out into this abyss, “Mr. Masuta?”
She was met with only the reverberations of her voice against the solid walls of the room.
“This should be the right address,” Yukan remarked. “Maybe he isn’t home.”
The two continued regardless, realizing as they went through the hut that it was much larger with its interior. The house inside felt more luxurious and decadent, but on the outside it appeared to be no more than a modest hut of wood and cobblestone base upon which the rest of the hut stood. They began down the long hallway. There was a sound of footsteps behind them, but they did not take heed of them, not able to hear them against their own.
“Are you sure we should be doing this, Yukan?” Ite asked in a hushed voice. “Maybe we should just wait until Mr. Masuta arrives.”
“I’m sure that girl who told us to come here would have given him some kind of warning,” Yukan replied, taking on a similarly low volume.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“You mean Oba?” Ite responded.
“No, the other one,” Yukan added, stopping in the hallway as he spoke. “I think her name started with a K. Was it Katherine?”
“First off, it was Kadaina,” Ite began, “and second off, that was a boy.”
Just as Yukan was informed of this, a sneeze came from behind them. They turned around and saw the very person they were just talking about.
“Really, Yukan?” Kadaina said, unimpressed. Of course, in all truth, Kadaina was just a boy who happened to have long hair. His voice invoked a sort of middle-range tenor more than it did a low-range contralto. He did not strive for femininity in any way either.
Just then, springing from the shadows further down the hallway, an arm reached out and grabbed Yukan by the shirt collar.
“Who are you two?” the owner of this arm interrogated with a raspy voice as he emerged from the shadows. Ite turned to see that the voice belonged to an elderly man, lanky in build, somewhat pale, and wearing a somewhat ornate robe colored in red and gold.
“Well,” Yukan gasped, the collar of his shirt constricting his neck slightly, “this is a pleasant greeting…”
“It’s how I like to greet trespassers such as yourselves,” the old man continued.
“Wait, Mr. Masuta!” Kadaina called out to his master. “Don’t hurt them! I can explain.”
The elderly man, who had only now been revealed to be the estate’s owner, relinquished his grip around Yukan’s collar.
“There had better be a good reason for this,” Kashikoi muttered.
“I directed them to you, sir,” Kadaina began. “The one you had in a stranglehold had fallen victim to an attack on his house and sought your training.”
“Is this true, young man?” Kashikoi asked Yukan as the latter got back onto his feet.
“Yes, sir,” Yukan replied. “My house had been burned down and my family was killed. We’d been targeted by the Emperor of Aotoshi.”
“By Emperor Mujihina?”
“That’s the heartless monster!”
Kashikoi paused for a moment.
“Say, young man,” he continued. “What is your name?”
“Yukan Kenshi.”
“So it is just as I’d been warned,” Kashikoi remarked as he finally got around to turning the lights on in his house. “I am sorry about what has happened to your family, Yukan. If it is training you wish for, then I will be glad to provide it. There’s a lot that you don’t know about this world, I presume.”
“In what ways?” Ite asked.
“Well, I’m sure you don’t understand how this works,” the elder mage replied as he placed a finger onto a power outlet and drew out its electricity. The lights in the house went completely dark once again as he held it out in front of him in a contained ball, perhaps the size of a globe. After a few seconds, he returned the globe of electricity to that same power outlet and the lights returned to normal.
“You got that much right,” Yukan muttered.
“Every living thing has a capacity for magic,” Kashikoi began. “To what degree, however, is hardly equal. Very few have learned to tap into its true potential. Humans only rank second in terms of magical prowess since there’s only one other race that has accomplished such a feat.”
“Only one?” Ite inquired.
“That would be the maila,” Kashikoi continued. “Their innate magic is the strongest of the lot. That being said, they’re fairly rare in Crenon, usually being found on their own settlement in the Unkempt. Fortunately, they’ve been able to document a large amount of their magical repertoire for us. Of course, it’s written in their native tongue, so you would need to learn it in order to use it effectively.”
As he spoke he presented Yukan with a large tome, somewhat dusty after decades of neglect. It was unusually heavy as well. Yukan flipped to the final page of the book to read “4214” as the last page number.
“You know what?” Yukan began as he slowly closed the book and put it on the table beside him. “I think I’ll just stick to normal weapons.” Kashikoi took the tome back with one hand.
“I suppose magic isn’t for everyone,” he sighed. “In that case, would you mind following me to the armory?”
“Wait, you have an armory in this place?” Ite interjected, perplexed by this.
“Of course I do,” Kashikoi replied. “Weapons act as some of the best focuses for magic, after all.”
“Either way,” Kadaina chimed in as they started toward Kashikoi’s cellar, “I’m going to help you guys train. Oba wanted me to go with you to where you don’t get yourselves lost.”
“Thank you, Kadaina,” Ite responded. “We need all the help we can get if we’re going to make it to Acophis swiftly and safely.”
“It’s fine, really,” Kadaina gloated in a form of false humility. “I’m just happy that I could catch up to you soon enough.”
“Enough talk,” Kashikoi stated, ready to begin their training. He flicked a light switch and the armory lit up, an incandescent lamp hanging from the roof giving off a faint glow, which barely reached the corners. That, however, did not obscure their view of the plethora of weapons in the cellar. One could look at this stockpile and assume that Kashikoi Masuta had been a blacksmith as opposed to a high mage. There were swords of all varieties, daggers of every size imaginable, and even some more unconventional weapons, including maces, nunchucks, kendo sticks, scythes, and a blowgun.
Ite’s attention was grabbed by a golden bow, about five feet and seven inches long. The natural curve of the bow appeared to interrupt itself to curve in the opposite direction before bending back inward once more to return to its proper form.
“What’s the story behind this one?” Ite asked, pointing to the longbow.
“That is a bow I was given by a colleague of mine about fifty years ago,” Kashikoi informed her. “He said it was called the Nukenai Bow. He told me that, if you pull back on its string, you can get a strong sense behind even solid objects.”
“If it works as a bow,” Ite began, taking the Nukenai Bow off of its hook and grabbing a quiver, “it works for me.”
Kashikoi nodded before turning his attention to Yukan as he grabbed a greatsword from the wall. He stumbled back slightly once the sword was removed from its place on the wall.
“I think I can do this one,” he grunted, seeming to struggle keeping the sword in place.
“If you insist,” Kashikoi chuckled. “Just let me know if you want to change your mind. Don’t worry, though. I’ll step in if you’re going to injure yourself.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Yukan replied somewhat sourly. Kashikoi cleared his throat.
“If we are all ready,” Mr. Masuta began, “then one of you may enter the testing room. This will be used to determine what you are capable of. For each of you, there will be twenty targets that pop up, followed by a row of axes. Yukan must cut each of the axes down and Ite must shoot an arrow through them. Now, who would like to volunteer?”
Yukan raised his hand.
“Wonderful!” Kashikoi called out as he grabbed Yukan by the shoulders. “It’s great to see some eager participants for once!” Kashikoi looked toward Kadaina as he made this last remark.
“Wait, no,” Yukan protested, “I was trying to ask-”
“Just remember what I told you, Yukan,” Kashikoi continued, “all of your questions will soon be answered.”
Kashikoi nudged Yukan into the testing room and shut the door behind him with a resonant bang. Just then, the room lit up, fluorescent tubes lining the entire ceiling of the room. Only a few seconds remained for Yukan to observe his surroundings, as a large timer showed up on the wall opposite of him. Within the five seconds it took for the test to begin, Yukan concluded that, although the circumstances behind his selection for the test were less than favorable, it was best to give it his all so that his training could have some sort of purpose.
As soon as the first buzzer sounded, Yukan hauled his greatsword over toward the first target. Once he had regained enough balance to swing, however, the target ducked once more into the ground, causing Yukan to swing with the blade. This pattern repeated for the next five targets as well. Finally, the youngest Kenshi managed to use his momentum to land a strike through the seventh target, slashing it diagonally. The zero on the scoreboard to the bottom left of the timer changed to a one as the target was destroyed. Using these techniques, Yukan was able to destroy nine of the targets, only to find a row of twelve axes, about five feet high, lined up facing the east side of the room. Yukan began to charge toward them, doing the best he can while toting a greatsword weighing nearly ten pounds. He heaved it through two of the axes in one slash, knocking out one more before the timer ran out and the axes retreated back from where they’d initially popped out. Yukan began toward the exit of the testing room, dragging the greatsword onto the ground, a somewhat grating noise emerging from the scraping of metal on cobblestone. A weak smile could be found on his face as he opened the door to the armory.
“Great job, Yukan!” Kadaina complimented him. “You managed to get a decent number of targets considering your lack of experience. Your swing is a bit wide, though…perhaps you can put more force into your elbow than your shoulder.”
“But my shoulders are stronger than my elbows,” Yukan replied.
“Your elbows don’t take as much energy to use either,” the young mage continued. “You’d be wasting it with your shoulders when you don’t need so much force to cut skin.”
The two of them kept with their conversation, with Kadaina providing even more tips on how to improve and Yukan trying his hardest to remember all of them. Kashikoi turned to Ite as the two boys left the room.
“A bit of distraction is really good for him,” he began. “He seems to be moving past this much better now. Wouldn’t you agree?"
“Of course,” she answered. “This is the least tense I’ve seen him since that day.” Ite then arose from her chair and tugged lightly on the string of the Nukenai Bow before continuing.
“I presume you’re wanting to test my skills now.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Daitan.”
Ite opened the door to the testing room, nocking an arrow into the bowstring as the door closed behind her. Watching through the tinted glass windows of the training room, she’d memorized the patterns of the targets. Once she knew where the targets were, hitting them was hardly an issue. Ite had been practicing archery since she was about ten years old and became quite adept at it. She had a small archery range in her backyard, consisting of only a tree, an old target, and about twelve lines of white paint on the grass, each line about fifty yards from the first. She’d gotten to the point before going on this expedition to where she could reliably hit within an inch or two of the bullseye from six of those lines away. One time when Yukan had visited, she managed a bullseye at the eleventh line, a feat she took great pride in for several years. These targets, being at most five yards away from her at any given time, were almost child’s play in comparison.
Then came the most difficult of the tasks: shooting an arrow through twelve axes. This task was, at least on paper, almost impossible. An arrow tipped in steel could not possibly break through twelve steel axe heads. Its momentum would no doubt drop too quickly to even get through the second head. At first, Ite’s suspicions were confirmed true. That was, however, until she saw a small discrepancy with each axe. All twelve of them had a hole already drilled through, just wide enough to fit an arrow. She knelt down slightly, peering through the opening, and she saw the distinct red hue of one of the targets. She nocked the last arrow into her bow and pulled the string back. After a brief pause, Ite released the string and the arrow flew, clearing the hole in each of the axes with a slight whistle, followed by a thud as it connected with the dead center of the target. The buzzer sounded as the test ended and Ite rose once more before exiting.
“Bravo,” Kashikoi applauded. “I must say that I’m impressed. That being said, I’m not sure of how you do against moving targets. We’ll start there.”
“I hope to not disappoint you, sir,” Ite responded.
As she said this, Yukan and Kadaina returned to the armory, talking with each other as if they had been friends for several years and laughing with each other.
“Well then,” Kashikoi announced, facing all three of them as Yukan and Kadaina calmed their laughter and returned to seriousness. “I’m sure you are all tired from your travels. Feel free to rest for the night. We will begin your training at dawn.”