Chapter 5: Oh No. There is a Dead Body at My Feet.

I crept around the corner until, right as I was about to enter his line of sight. Then, taking a small breath, I launched myself forward, aiming for two-thirds of his height. As I met the wall just underneath him, I bounced off, forcing myself further up, digging the toe of my shoe into the wall ever slightly to get enough leverage to keep my upward momentum.

I heard a yell as my punch dagger entered his calf. It didn't stick like it did in the wall, but rather just went straight through as I continued up. I could see his leg go limp. But I was still moving past him, and my other dagger was held in a punch grip and dived right for his chest. He let go of the wall, trying to turn and land to run away from me, but it was too late.

My dagger missed his chest where I was aiming and slammed right into his forehead as he dropped down past me. The dagger entered and slid right out the top of his head with no resistance to pull me down. So, as his body fell like a ragdoll to the floor, I twisted in the air and landed on my feet. Glancing down, I examined the daggers. There was no blood or anything on them. It was as if they had never done anything.

Gerald lay on the floor, unmoving. I looked at him carefully and realized he was still breathing, if totally unconscious. Interesting. So, I assumed there was no permanent harm from this trial. Heartbeats later, the body started to fade, and everything around me soon followed.

This time, as the shadows changed, I had a better grasp of what was happening. I could feel the shadows whisper as they shifted, and I was pulled through them like a stick in the river. But unlike that stick in a raging river, I could reach out and touch the shadows ever so slightly. I didn't know what to do with them, but I could just feel them willing to be manipulated. If ever so slightly, as if I was brushing a stalk of grain out of my path as I was walking in a field.

I materialized in the center of a completely different maze. I could tell, based off of the pattern, that the maze had completely shifted, but my guess was the basic parameters were the same. The same size and general appearance hadn't changed too much, but the pattern was different. I thought about what I wanted to do. I could go hide or use them to try to figure out the pattern to avoid Gerald. But after what I had done in the last round and the little I knew about this body's previous owner, playing it passively just didn't seem in character per se.

If I was, if I was going to be, who wrote the note still lying on my desk, I didn’t think I would hide from someone who I considered my lesser. And after that brief exchange with Gerald, I realized, Holy shit, I could fight.

It wasn't just that I was slightly better than someone who was my peer. No, I completely outclassed him in every single way. His reactions were slow and predictable. As he moved, I could read his body language and tell what he was doing long before he did it. Even with the simple exchange of him getting injured and letting go, I could tell that his understanding was too basic. I really had nothing to fear.

Finding myself in a large two-story open room, I simply sat cross-legged on the floor and began to examine the shadows on the ground around me. Perhaps I could try to recapture that feeling as the shadows moved.

I had to wait some time. As I sat there, I tried to reach out to the shadow that surrounded me. I was actually fairly certain I had managed to recall the feeling I had when it moved. It came to me a couple times as I pulled little strands of shadows from the floor. Examining the feel of the shadow filaments, I played with them in between my fingers before they slowly dissolved and sunk back into the shadowy maze construct all around.

Finally, Gerald made his appearance. He dove at me from behind with no sound, giving away his attack. I was glad that he didn't yell like an idiot or anything. The only thing that saved me was that I noticed that while the light had no visible source and everything was a shadowy tone of gray, that didn't mean things didn't cast shadows. In fact, it was interesting because every shadow was slightly everywhere.

The issue was that it was very hard to tell what was shadowed, as every bit of shadowy wall was a slightly different pattern, but I had been staring at the ground around me long enough that I saw the pattern change ever so slightly against the murky background. To me, it was as obvious as watching a human creep up with the sun at their back.

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For anyone else with these shadows, it would take a second to make out the hazy pattern as the motley assortment of grays broke up his figure, but I knew long before he was coming. And so, as he struck, I rolled backward. Somersaulting over my shoulder. I thrust up with my feet, catching him in the stomach and sending him flying backward into the wall.

He, to his credit, was able to spin and bounce off the wall with his elbows and knees so he didn't get the wind knocked out of him and land on the ground facing me. I slowly regained my feet and looked at him.

"Not even trying to win, old man?" The now annoying challenger sneered. At first, I respected him. He clearly knew his stuff, knew how to fight, and had a touch of shadow magic himself. All this seemed to put him a touch above the Blades in some ways. Now, I was thinking that perhaps they had just not been as audacious in showing their power. But it could also be that the system was working as intended, and everyone who was power-hungry managed to kill themselves in these trials, facing off against the truly competent.

Those who were truly loyal to this society weren't willing to challenge unless they thought something was wrong. Only through enough time honing their skills did challengers ever have a chance of succeeding. So, only the most loyal could win. Perhaps this system was more stable than I originally figured. Seemingly annoyed by my non-reaction to his taunt, Gerald lunged forward, both of his knives flashing.

I stepped sideways a few inches and twisted slightly. Both knives missed me. My foot rose up a few inches, hooked his ankle, and tugged, sending him stumbling past me. Every time we clashed. My confidence grew. I easily avoided his knives or caught his arms. Slight tugs and shifts of my body sent him off of balance and careening past me.

Every time I succeeded in tripping him to the floor, I watched as he got angrier and more reckless and easier to put off balance. It felt like I was a father playing with his three-year-old kid. Eventually, I got tired of it, and I plucked one of the knives out of his hand and slammed it into his stomach. I expected him to go limp like he had last time, but there was no reaction from him, and he just became a slightly darker, shadowy face. I assumed that it would be red if there was color here. I took the other knife from him after I ducked under it and backed away from him.

"I don't think you get these anymore," I said, playing into the father figure I imagined myself to be. I held them both in one hand behind my back. "This was a farce of a challenge. You had no chance. Why? Why even bother?"

He roared at me, spittle flying. "Why the fuck not? I was going to be dead in a week anyway. I might as well die spitting in your face."

As he screamed at me, his voice rose in pitch, gained a bit of hysterics. "You sick bastard! Some branch Master you are. I know who you are. I know the names they used to call you. And I will have no part of it."

Even as his yelling filled the chamber, the shadows seemed to recognize that he had lost and melted around us. We found ourselves standing across each other in the arena, the shadowy arch retreating in the shadows, dispersing back to their rightful places in the arena. Gerald was just as red as I imagined from the line of his scalp down to where his shirt met. He was like a tomato. I could literally see foam in his mouth as he screamed and leaped at me, drawing a blade from his back.

As we had just tussled for so long, it felt as if he was in slow motion. On pure instinct, I leaned my head out of the way, easily avoiding the strike as I reached for one of the small hidden slits in my shirt. My jacket split for index and middle fingers sliding in and drawing out a thin, little needle. I pricked his arm as he went by and returned the needle before anyone could really see what had happened. When he landed a heartbeat later, his legs gave out as he went past me, and he crumpled to the floor. He twitched twice and went still.

I blinked. That was not at all what I had intended to do. I was moving purely on instinct. I simply thought to dodge and strike back at him, but my body reacted. Grabbing the needle, I felt it and realized there was a hard case in the leather, presumably something to stop whatever poison I injected him with from bothering me. I stepped around his body and knelt down, feeling his neck and neck with two fingers. He had a pulse, but it was faint.

Had I just killed him, or was he just paralyzed? I didn't know any venoms that would act that fast, but I didn't know about shadow magic either. Standing up, I looked around the room, and everyone was watching me. I couldn't make out many of their faces, but it seemed as if they learned something. We watched each other for a few moments before I felt it was starting to get a little awkward, so I gestured to the body and nodded toward two of the recruits. "Take care of him."

They bowed as they shot to their feet, and between them, they dragged the body away through an entrance that I hadn't noticed before. Slowly, people stood up and walked out. There was no sneaking like they had before. They just simply moved around their business as if nothing had ever happened.