Inaki sat on the floor after his loss. He looked Hassai in the eye once, got up and ran away from the temple. Inaki ran towards the castle. He just wanted to be away from Hassai.

“Son,” Hassai screamed from outside the temple.

Inaki was still holding on to the wooden practice sword and could hear the voice of Hassai screaming at him. “You fought like Gonten used to. You didn’t even get one hit in.”

SHUT UP, SHUT UP.

“You are useless, a piece of shit,” Hassai’s voice said in Inaki’s mind. This wasn’t the real Hassai but might as well be what he would say to Inaki. “You are a little failure, who thought that he could take on a Sage on his own and now paid the price. Now suffer.”

Please stop.

Inaki kept running. His legs felt like lead. He felt his head throbbing. No, not again please. Inaki tripped and hit the ground and rolled ahead. He got up and looked around him, and he felt like he was being laughed at by everyone around him. The crowd was suffocating him.

This was different from when he was fainting. He felt a strange pressure in his chest instead of in his head. He felt extremely lightheaded, and while still surrounded by a lot of people staring at him, he vomited all over the ground.

He then stepped away and kept running, but he felt like the sound of people laughing at him was growing louder and louder and louder. Inaki held his ears and looked at his own feet as he was running, but his tremble was too bad. He was going to fall again. He began limping towards the castle. It was as if the sun was a million times brighter than it normally was, it stung his eyes as if he was staring directly at it, even when he was looking ahead of him.

By the time he reached the castle, the sound of people laughing at him was too loud to tolerate. His eyes were too sensitive to the sun’s light. He covered his eyes. He thought he was going to faint, but didn’t. He just kept limping. He limped through the main entrance of the castle, he realized that he was covered in his own vomit, and a little bit of his own blood from the fight.

Inaki ran through the castle, the different Tomoka family members around him stared at him, the sounds of laughter became so loud that Inaki couldn’t hear his own footsteps, he couldn’t hear his own screaming. Inaki kept limping, he kept walking.

He reached his room. He closed the door and locked it, then fell on his bed and began screaming and crying. He felt pathetic, even more pathetic than he had felt in the month since his fight with Taral.

For nearly a week a monk had to clean his piss and shit, and then Inaki didn’t feel as pathetic. Inaki stood up and felt himself walking towards his meager closet. Inside of it he saw his knife, which he used to stab Taral in the arms and shoulders. Inaki held the knife and cut his own shoulder. He didn’t know why, but it stopped the laughing. He now heard silence, blissful silence.

He sat in his bed for a few minutes, sitting and stewing in his own pain. He pulled on the bell on top of his door, and a servant came over.

“Sir, what happened to you,” The servant asked.

“Ready a bath for me, as fast as possible,” Inaki said. He then walked back in and closed the door and locked it.

The servant knocked on his door. Inaki opened the door, and the servant led Inaki to his bath. Inaki walked through the castle, and soon found himself inside the bath. Inaki threw off his clothes without caring, and slowly immersed himself into the bath.

He dipped his head under water, and watched as blood and vomit rose from above his skin. Inaki wanted to hide under the water. Sooner or later he would have to talk to Hassai, but he didn’t want to, he wanted to hide under the water, and drown in it.

The warm water comforted Inaki, it calmed him a little bit. Inaki got done with his bath and climbed out of it. His servant brought him his swordsman’s robes.

Inaki held up his swordsman’s robes and stared at them. He wore his trousers, and then feeling uncertain about wearing swordsman’s robes anymore, he threw them on the ground, and walked out of the bath shirtless.

He then walked through the castle, without knowing where he was going to go. He found himself instinctively walking towards the training hall. He opened the door, and just sat down in the room, not knowing what else to do.

Inaki felt completely clueless. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, was there anything he could do? He just sat there waiting for nothing. He felt truly aimless.

“Son, what happened,” Hassai said entering the room.

Inaki looked at Hassai and didn’t have the motivation to run away. He felt like he was looking at his own life from an outside perspective.

Hassai sat down next to Inaki, “Are you alright.”

Inaki sat silent. Hassai raised his hand, Inaki flinched away, but Hassai just put his arm around Inaki’s shoulder, and pulled him closer.

“Please,” Hassai said. “Anything you’re feeling you can tell me.”

“I don’t want to give up the sword,” Inaki said.

“I am just asking you to take a break, temporarily,” Hassai said. “You just need time to recover.”

Inaki desperately wanted to believe Hassai’s words. But he couldn’t find it in his heart.

“You keep saying that I can walk,” Inaki said. “I still can’t run.” Inaki started pathetically crying again. “I still can’t run.”

“It’s okay son,” Hassai said. “It’s okay.”

Hassai didn’t say anything more. Inaki didn’t say anything more either. Hassai just held his son in embrace, while he cried. Inaki wanted to say more, but he felt his throat choking up when he tried to open up more.

“You are pathetic,” Inaki heard Hassai’s voice and shook. But it wasn’t the real Hassai. It was the man that Inaki had lived with in his mind for years upon years. Inaki didn’t know why this person hadn’t faded away yet, but he hadn’t.

Inaki tried his best not to pay attention to the voice in his head.

It took Gonten stepping into the room to end the silent heartfelt moment between father and son. “Father, I believe I am all ready for the sword exam.”

“Wow,” Hassai said. “Aren’t they still two weeks from now?”

“Takehito told me that I should spend these next two weeks resting,” Gonten said.

“Rest for two weeks before an exam?” Inaki said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Sorry brother, but I trust Takehito with my life, if he told me to cut my right hand off, I’d do it without a thought,” Gonten said, then began laughing, holding the empty sleeve where hsi right arm should’ve been.

“Well anyways,” Hassai said. “Since you both don’t really have any training to do, how about we do something else.”

“I think I am just going to go to sleep,” Inaki said.

“Getting whipped like that was tiring was it?” Gonten said.

“Don’t say that, apologize to your brother,” Hassai said.

“Come on,” Gonten said. “We’re both adults here. I am just joking with my brother.”

“Don’t joke about your brother’s hard times,” Hassai said.

Hassai and Gonten left the training room, probably to go drinking, watch the fights, or something else. Inaki just sat there wondering what he was going to do next. He got up from where he was sitting and picked up a wooden practice sword.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Instantly he felt his mind exploding into a flurry of noises. All of them in Hassai’s voice.

“Good job son, you did well for your injuries,” Hassai’s voice said in Inaki’s mind.

“No, you did a horrible job, you are unworthy of being called my son,” Hassai’s voice said in his head.

At once Hassai’s voice in Inaki’s mind began to praise him in a breath, demean him with the next. The real Hassai and the Hassai in Inaki’s mind were melding together into a single mess, and Inaki didn’t know what to do.

Inaki ran, and since he was already shirtless, all he had to do was take off his trousers, and jump into the Dreamspring. Inaki found himself floating in the infinite black void once again. The vision that formed around him was of Hassai, standing poised with a wooden sword in hand. He had a cold, distant expression on his face.

Inaki stepped to this vision of his father. “What happened to you? There was a time you could’ve actually been brilliant. But you threw it all away to instead be a disappointment,” Hassai said.

His face seemed to glitch for a second, his body seemed for a second as if he was made of paint, and that the painter had dropped cans of paint onto where Hassai was supposed to be, making a smudge of colors of what was once Hassai’s face. But that was only a flash. Soon Hassai was back, but this was the Hassai that Inaki had seen.

“It doesn’t matter what happened, I still love you son,” Hassai said, embracing Inaki. Then he threw Inaki to the ground.

“What is happening to me, how could I embrace scum like you,” Hassai said.

Inaki got up, and found that in his hand he was holding his knife. In front of him, the Hassai with his cold distant expression stood. Inaki stepped forward, the vision of Hassai did not move or change.

“I am sorry, but I don’t need you anymore,” Inaki said, stabbing the vision of Hassai in the neck and throwing him back. Inaki realized that he didn’t need another voice screaming at him all the time. His own was more than enough.

The man that Inaki had held Hassai to be in his head for as long as Inaki could remember faded to mist the minute a drop of blood hit the ground, leaving Inaki to stand alone in his dreamscape.

He swung his sword, and in here, he felt his familiar grace. He hadn’t thought of entering the Dreamspring to go back to how things were, but this was it. Inaki couldn’t be as good as he had been in the real world. But he could be as good as he had been in a dream world.

Standing alone in his own consciousness, Inaki raised his sword and jumped around, doing showman maneuvers just to prove to himself that he could in this dream.

But then after some time, he had to resurface. Back into the real world. He took a few deep breaths, got up and walked into the training hall. Still not knowing what to do, he left the training room, and he walked towards the artisan’s room. His teacher would be coming tomorrow, but that didn’t mean that Inaki couldn’t spend some of his time practicing.

Inaki entered the room after walking through the convoluted castle. He found himself surrounded by paints, and canvases and brushes, like he once found himself surrounded by swords, swords and swords.

He ran around, picking a canvas, the appropriate brushes and mixing the few colors. Inaki then stood in front of the canvas and began painting.

He didn’t know what he was going to paint, he just let his mind take control. He found himself running around for more colors as his mind demanded, he kept running around, he found the ink pens, and the pencils, he made a quick sketch and just let his imagination flow.

It was like he was having a conversation with the canvas. Whenever he saw the little parts which he imagined in the painting in his head, coming together beautifully on the canvas, he felt absolutely delighted.

After a few hours of just standing at the canvas and letting his mind flow, Inaki stepped back. He looked at his vision. He had drawn himself, drowning in water, with his sword above his head, just narrowly out of his grasp. It looked all jagged, but Inaki had tried to control his tremors just enough to make it look like that the jagged lines were because of reflections in the water.

Inaki looked at the painting some more, sat down against a wall in the little freespace the room had, and for what seemed like the five hundredth time, sat and cried. Inaki had cried more times in that little time since his injury than he had in his entire life. That made him feel even more pathetic. He was barely a man with how much he had been crying. Now after his fit today, everyone would know.

Everyone had heard him screaming, covered in his own vomit after his harrowing defeat. Everyone now knew that he was pathetic. Everyone knew that he was a failure. Inaki knew that he was now unwanted.

On a second look his painting wasn’t even that good. He didn’t know why he had liked it at first. The colors didn’t really complement each other. He had tried to draw himself, and it looked nothing like him, and the light source on the body of Inaki, and the sword above him, were completely different. Inaki couldn’t tolerate all of this.

He got up and ran, not knowing what to do, he ran through the castle. He thought of his first memory in his life. He was four years old. He had been swinging the sword, and one of the masters had seen him. Inaki remembered the sword master giving him sweets for his skill.

He tried to think of his happiest memory, he found it was the first duel that he had ever won. He had been only ten years old, and he had sent a sixteen year old crying.

He kept running, and found that all of his most important memories in life were linked with the sword. Until he came to his most recent happy memory. It had happened just that day. Inaki sitting in the embrace of his father.

Inaki had no clue what to do anymore. He found himself running through the castle through the training hall, into the garden. There he saw that Takehito and Gonten were both meditating.

“You want to meditate,” Takehito said. “It did help you last time didn’t it?”

“Yeah it did, but I am not in the mood for meditating,” Inaki said.

“What are you in the mood for?” Takehito asked.

“I don’t know,” Inaki said.

“Maybe meditate on it to figure it out,” Takehito said.

Inaki stepped forward to examine the flowers of the plants that Gonten had been growing in the garden with Takehito’s help. They were all beautiful.

Without the sword, Inaki realized, he would be left with nothing but to aimlessly live his life. The sword had given him purpose. Inaki laid on the grass and stared at the sky. What plans do you have for me?

“Remember I had asked you what makes you happy,” Takehito asked.

“Yes,” Inaki said.

“You had said winning duels makes you happy,” Takehito said. “Now that you aren’t winning in duels, what makes you happy?”

“I am not,” Inaki said, still staring at the stars.

“How is the search for something else that makes you happy,” Takehito asked.

“I like painting, but I don’t love it,” Inaki said.

“How about wine, women, indulgences,” Takehito said. “Don’t those make you happy?”

“Wine does not, I’ve never been with a woman, and I’m not the sort to indulge in most things,” Inaki said. “So no.”

“Then we have to find you a reason,” Takehito said.

“What?” Inaki asked.

“At first, your sword was your purpose,” Takehito said. “Can it still be your purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Inaki said.

“Yes, that’s why, we have to look for it,” Takehito said.

“Where,” Inaki asked.

“If I knew, there wouldn’t be a need for monks to spend their entire lives meditating,” Takehito said. “So come here and meditate.”

“I think I’ll just meditate here,” Inaki said.

Inaki stared at the stars, the twinkling lights that supposedly held man’s fate in their light. Inaki hoped to see something in the stars, something that told him what his journey beyond now would be, but he found nothing. He didn’t have anything to do.

Could I become good enough as a painter to be wanted as a painter? Inaki wondered, looking for some sign in his fate.

Inaki closed his eyes and tried concentrating on his breathing. For this, Inaki wasn’t feeling it right. He didn’t feel the relaxation that he could feel.

He got up and picked up his wooden practice sword, and without caring if he was good at it, or whether he was doing the correct kata, he began swinging his sword.

This sword is what makes me calm. The sword is what riles me up to become better. The sword soothes me, and yet when I am not able to use it right, it angers me. Inaki thought.

Give up the Sword, Inaki heard Taral’s voice in his head. Was Taral right? Did the sword bring that much pain into his life?

“That’s one way to meditate,” Takehito said, sitting on the ground. “Any progress on finding your purpose.”

Inaki swung his sword wide, his tremor going wild. He stood still and held his sword with his hands at his stomach, so that the flat of the blade would touch his face as he bent forward.

“No,” Inaki said.

“Then what have you decided to do?” Takehito said.

“I don’t know,” Inaki said. That’s when Inaki realized that he had cried so much that he was out of tears. All he could do now was crumble onto the floor while still holding his sword.

“Well, what do you want to do right now,” Takehito asked.

“I want to be as good as I was before,” Inaki said.

“Then maybe you should listen to Hassai and take a temporary break from the sword.”

“And do what in that time,” Inaki said.

“You could pursue painting.”

“Not like I’m any good at that,” Inaki said.

“You just started painting for Okan’s sake, you’ll be good,” Takehito said.

“I have always been good,” Inaki said. “Without effort. Effort was to be better.”

“Then welcome to being a normal person, prodigy,” Takehito. “It’s not fun in the beginning but the rise is enjoyable.”

“I guess I’ll pursue painting then,” Inaki said, lying back into the grass, and staring at the sky.

“The sword has become a horse’s blinder to you. It doesn’t allow you to see what is there to see in the rest of the world. Maybe a break from the sword won’t be that bad for you,” Takehito said.

“I hope so too,” Inaki said. Getting up to go have a bath again, since he was covered in dirt from lying in the grass.