Inaki woke up with an explosive headache. How much had I drank? Once Inaki found a little bit of consciousness, he realized that his head wasn’t the only thing hurting. His left shoulder felt like it was in a furnace, burning horribly with terrible stabbing pains.

He thrust up in his bed and grabbed his shoulder only to feel that it was covered in bandages and under the bandages, a lot of salves and creams. He tried to open his eyes, but the light of the monastery was blinding. Through a blurry squint, he saw that Gonten was sitting next to the bed, a concerned look on his face.

Was this the wine, or was this one of my fits? Inaki wondered. He tried to remember the events just before he had fainted, but he couldn’t. The last thing he had a clear memory of was looking into an empty wine bottle, and then picking up his sword. That had been in the morning.

“What day is it?” Inaki finally said.

“Its Thirdday, the day before the Diamond exam,” Gonten said.

“What in Okan’s hallowed name did I do yesterday?” Inaki asked.

“That’s the question I wanted to ask you,” Gonten said.

“I will drink less from now on,” Inaki said. “Just been coloring a little bit out of the lines with the purple wine lately.”

“A little,” Gonten said. “You were training while in no condition to be training and you stabbed yourself in the shoulder.”

So that’s what happened.

Inaki didn’t feel like himself these days. He felt like a completely different person was inhabiting his body, leaving only vague memories of the person he once was. The man that had lived in this body before, the one truly named Inaki, would’ve never fallen and hit the edge of a sword whether he was stone sober and as drunk as the waves. This impostor who only used the name Inaki was a completely different case.

“It wouldn’t have been any different if I was sober,” Inaki said. “I fell because of my fits.”

“Were you lucid enough to know that,” Gonten screamed. He took a few deep breaths, trying to control his anger. “I am cutting you off. No more wine.”

“Okay,” Inaki said.

“And you’re in no condition to give the bloody Diamond exam tomorrow,” Gonten said. “Take this week off, give it next week.”

“I just want to get this over with,” Inaki said. “You and I both know it won’t make a difference.” Inaki pointed at the bandage on his shoulder. Inaki looked around him, his throat was extremely dry, a mixture of wine and not having had water in a long time making him have a sandy feeling in his throat. He reached out and picked up the cup. It shook in his hand. He tried to stop it, but it just would not stop. So he let it shake. Shaking, he brought the cup to his lips and tried to take a sip, but the glass slipped out of his hand, toppling over his lap and cracking on the floor.

“Why do you even want to give the exam,” Gonten said.

“We’ve spoken about this before,” Inaki said.

“You’ve got an injury, it's not worth it,” Gonten said. “You know this too, people have died giving the Diamond exam.”

“So be it, I’m still giving the exam,” Inaki said. Inaki got up and saw that his sword in its sheath was on a table. He picked up the sword and unsheathed it. “I always thought I deserved more than a wooden sword. I went to the temple and appealed to the master that they didn’t give me what I deserved earlier than the rest, and I lost sleep over it. If I couldn’t live with not having what I deserved when I deserved better, then how could I live with having something better than what I deserve. I am going to give the exam, and if—when—I fail, I will happily give up this Diamond hilt. I will go back to being a Wooden, if that is what I actually am.”

“Now what are you going to do,” Gonten said. “Rest some more then go train and fall neck first into your sword.”

“Just leave Gonten,” Inaki said. “You cannot change my mind.”

“Fine,” Gonten said. Gonten got up from his bench to leave the room but just at the door he stopped and looked back.

“You didn’t even ask me how my exam went,” Gonten said. “You didn’t ask me if I did well, if I did badly.” Inaki didn’t say anything. He looked down on his bed. “I don’t know if you care, or whether this makes you feel worse or better about yourself, but I just want you to know that I have become a Silver. From one of the oldest to become an Iron, to one of the youngest to become Silver. While you were drinking and falling on your own sword. And I am the one with only my left hand.”

Inaki clenched his fists, “You are going to hold your progress over me. Can’t you see my condition.”

“This is not about your fucking condition,” Gonten yelled, holding his empty sleeve. Gonten stepped forward. “It’s about the fact that the minute one thing went wrong in your life what did you do, drown yourself in wine. You not being able to swing the sword isn’t weakness, but this is. I don’t care if you fell because of your fits or because of drinking, that doesn’t change the fact that you were training while drunk.”

“What does it matter to you, you are a rising swordsman, the man who turned around for good,” Inaki said. “Aren’t you happy that people are talking about the children of Hassai in a reversed tone? Pitying Inaki and praising Gonten.”

“How could you say that,” Gonten said. “I care about you because you are my brother, and if you think this way, then I doubt you care about me. In fact, except for your petty honor and your worthless reputation, what else do you care about?”

Inaki was once again silent.

“That’s my answer,” Gonten said, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. Inaki sat up in bed and looked outside the windows. The sun was just barely beginning to rise, which meant that Gonten had probably been sitting there, without sleep. Inaki teared up a little bit.

I should get some sleep, then I have a day of training ahead of me. Inaki closed his eyes and melted into the comfortable bed.

When he opened his eyes next, it was because the sun was beating down on his face. He looked through the window and saw that it was at least noon already. He felt sick, his head still hurting from the hangover, and his shoulder still hurting from his wounds.

Inaki got up and began walking out of the monastery, he opened the door to the little room that they had given him and continued walking. A few feet away from the door of the monastery, he slipped and fell over. Inaki quickly got up before a monk could come help him. He left the monastery, and found himself in the garden. A pleasant smell wafted through the air, it was a blend of earthy and flowery. Looking around him, Inaki saw that Gonten was in the garden.

“You still haven’t shown me,” Inaki said.

Gonten was watering the plants. He did not turn back. “Aren’t you going to show me the Silver?”

Gonten pulled out his sword and showed it to Inaki, holding his hilt a little low. He tried to avert his eyes, but when he looked at Inaki, Inaki saw a complex of emotions.

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“Please brother,” Gonten said. “Don’t go.”

“I am sorry,” Inaki said. He walked to the gates of the monastery. He turned back to his brother and said. “If there’s one thing I truly care about, it is the sword. I cannot disrespect it this way.”

“The sword is not even alive, and you respect it more than me,” Gonten said.

“I respect you more than you can understand brother,” Inaki said, closing the gate behind him, and leaving to go to their inn. Gonten had lost an arm, and somehow Inaki was the one who was a broken mess.

He walked through the Livion city towards their inn and saw that there were swordsmen everywhere in the city. They were all better than him. A few of the swordsmen had friendly duels with wooden blades at the side of the road. Few others did katas, and saw who could do it better. Inaki felt disgusted at himself as he walked through the street.

He walked into the garden of their inn, and stood there. There were other swordsmen everywhere. Most of them were training for the lower exams, but there were a few of them training for the Diamond exam. All of the men and women there who were training for the Diamond exam were at least more than double Inaki’s age.

The garden was big enough to fit the ten or so swordsmen who were training there comfortably. Surrounded by walls on three sides, there were creepers, vines and bushes growing along the walls, and there were flowers with closed buds on the bushes, and creepers.

Inaki found enough space for himself a few feet away from one of the corners of the garden. He tried to do his Tiger kata, unsurprisingly, he failed. The rest of the day was spent infuriatingly failing each and everyone of things he tried to train. His shoulder was no help of course, but it didn’t impair him that much.

He tried the Tigerstance kata, the Bullstance kata, the Fundamental Five, the Basic strikes. He failed nearly all of them, he was able to do the Basic strikes, but his accuracy was horrible, and his strikes were weak.

He knew that everyone around him was laughing at him as he trained. By the time it was sunset, Inaki got frustrated. He stepped into the inn and looked around. All he found were empty bottles. Not a single one with a drop in it. He thought of filling a bottle with a few drops with some water to at least get something, but there weren’t even drops. Just empty bottles everywhere.

Inaki sat down in his room, and laid down, staring at the ceiling. He knew how the exam tomorrow would go, so he raised the Diamond-hilted sword up, and just looked at it for a few minutes. His hand was shaking too much.

Everyday he continued living, it was becoming more and more painful. Tomorrow would be a cathartic release, his announcement to the world that he was done.

He woke up the next morning to slants of sunlight tickling his eyes through the windows. Inaki rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“You’re awake,” Gonten said. “Here’s breakfast, some egg, chicken and rice, I made them add extra chili, just like you like it.”

“Thank you,” Inaki said, accepting the bowl. He began eating it. “You still don’t have to go,” Gonten said. “You have time to change your mind.”

“Did you give the Gold exam,” Inaki asked.

“Went horribly,” Gonten said. “I just gave the exam because I could.”

Inaki quickly swallowed down the breakfast, and rose. “Before you leave, drink your tea,” Gonten said.

“Thank you,” Inaki said.

Inaki gulped down the hot tea not caring about how it burnt his throat, and saw his shaking reduce. “I won’t get far enough in to get in real danger,” Inaki said.

Gonten was silent.

Inaki closed the door behind him, and began walking towards the exam center. He walked through the streets where all the swordsmen walked towards the exam center. The Diamond, and the Platinum exams were sights to be seen. Inaki had never seen it himself, but it had always been described to him as a brilliant display of some of the greatest swordsmen in the Province.

Inaki entered the exam center, and saw that in the room, there were only about fifty people. About half of the people standing there, he vaguely recognized that they had been training in the same garden. They were all leagues better than him, but he didn’t know how many of them would actually become Diamonds.

“Hello, my name is Kazuma, and I will be your head examiner for today,” Kazuma said. His voice was lazy and tired, and he was very clearly reading off a script. “The Diamond exam is in four stages. The first stage is the swordsmen obstacle course, where you will start at one end of the room, and will have to dodge all the obstacles in the way and get to the other side. Your time limit for the first exam is one hour.

“For the second part of the exam, all of you candidates will be placed in a large arena, with all sorts of cover and places to hide. You will be given a candidates number, whose sword you have to steal. In this round, killing is permitted.

“The third part of this exam is a normal duel, everyone will have to duel another candidate, and this time, those who lose will not move on to the next stage, and will be disqualified right then and there.

“The fourth and last part of the exam, you will have to duel an actual Diamond. Remember that your performance is not based on only one round, so if you do really well in one round, then mess up every other, you won’t get anything, and if you do really badly in one round, but do well in the others, you’ll still get selected. Keep casualties to the minimum, and may the best swordsman or swordswoman progress.”

Inaki found himself an odd one out in the crowd. Almost everyone knew everybody else’s name, and they were all conversing with each other too. A man around the age of Hassai walked over to Inaki and said, “Look who’s here, the guy that defeated Boru.”

“You really did,” One of the other men said. “She never accepted my challenge, and then she goes along and fights this shorty.”

“Women are picky like that, or maybe Diamonds don’t like wasting their time on us Golds,” The man who approached Inaki first said. “Anyways, my name is Ryu-son-Nol Tiri, and that is Renal-son-Torata Tiri, sorry for being rude, but we were just wondering how you defeated Boru? The woman was damn near becoming Platinum last time I fought her, and that was a few years ago.”

“I am the son of Hassai,” Inaki said, looking down in a soft voice. “It’s just my father’s gifts passed to me.”

“Anyways, what have you been up to since Taral ran away,” Ryu said.

“Just recovering from injuries,” Inaki said.

“Well, I hope you’re good today then,” Ryu said. “Looking forward to passing the exam with you.”

“Same here,” Inaki said, forcing a smile.

“The first phase of the exam is about to begin, candidates begin following me, the head examiner,” Kazuma screamed, and got off the stage, and began walking towards one of the doors. Inaki and the other fifty or so candidates all followed him.

“Since you are only fifty candidates,compared to the thousand or so we’re used to over here, we’ve got individual rooms for the obstacle course. It's probably going to be the shortest part of the exam,” Kazuma said. His voice was lethargic but loud enough to be heard at the most distant corner of the large room.

From the large entrance hall, all the candidates were led into a long hallway with rooms on either side, and each of the candidates were one by one assigned rooms. One of the last rooms was given to Inaki.

“Your father wrote me a letter,” Kazuama said, just before letting Inaki in. “He told me not to force you to stop, but he told me that he doesn’t want you giving the exam.”

Inaki didn’t say anything in response. Inaki just entered the room, and Kazuma was forced to shut the door behind him. Inaki found himself standing in a maze. The ceiling was as high as he could see, the same height as the large entrance hall, and as he looked ahead of him, he realized that there was a ladder on the wall.

He could either navigate the entire obstacle course through the maze from down not knowing where he was going, or from top, tight walking on the narrow walls, while still trying to dodge whatever things were attacking him.

Of course the people who chose the tight walk would win the easiest. Inaki couldn’t possibly take that choice. Inaki decided that he could climb up onto the ladder, try and memorize the layout, and then finish the maze from the bottom. Inaki began climbing the ladder and when he reached the top, instantly, arrows began flying at him from the ceiling. He jumped back, but his leg tripped. He fell over, on his chest, his head flopping onto one side of the walls and his legs the other.

He rolled to dodge arrows that he could hear, and his back and chest burned in pain. When he thought the onslaught of arrows had stopped he stood up again. He took a peak at the maze, and began studying the layout. More arrows pelted towards him. An arrow hit him in the chest, and he fell back. To Inaki’s luck, they were blunt arrows, meant more to disturb balance than to injure.

But falling from that height would be the same. He tried to force his body back onto the ladder, but it was no use, he lost balance, and got onto the ladder upside down. If things couldn’t get any worse for Inaki, the ladder began falling back. Inaki was certain that this was the end for him, but the distance between the walls was narrower than the height of the ladder, and the ladder ended up getting stuck on the other wall. Inaki lost his grip and hit the ground. Luckily the ladder tipping over had closed enough of the gap between sky and ground, that he felt barely injured from the fall.

Inaki stood up and stared forward at the maze. His genius plan of looking up to scout ahead, then continuing the rest of the way down was foiled completely.

Will I even be able to finish the first phase of the exam?