Well that confirmed it. Felix knew I let Gun win. He just wanted to see if he could beat me, and I proved that he couldn’t.
“We aren’t as evenly matched as I thought,” he said as he flicked the last flame thread off his pants. “I don’t think I could have defeated you if we’d continued fighting.”
I frowned. “You could have seriously gotten hurt, Felix.”
“That’s the point,” he said as he looked at me. “I wanted to see how long I could last in the ring with you. Now I know I have to work on my resistance to pain, and exploiting your weak points.”
“I’d say you were doing a pretty good job with that.”
“I could have done better. I could have used the air to block your view. With the mess we made, that would have been easy.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Something was pulling me away from the idea…”
I smirked. “You think you have something to prove? And maybe even thought that doing that would have been like cheating for a win?”
He chuckled. “Sensei said that there was no such thing as playing clean.”
“Yeah, when fighting monsters.”
“And you have a few things to work on too, Nero.”
“Like what?”
“Learning how to stop holding back…”
I laughed. “Well yeah, I have to.”
“Why?”
My smile started sinking. “What do you mean by why? We are all friends here. I’m not going to seriously injure any of you.”
“Like in that match with Gun. It would have been easy to knock him out while he was on the ground, or to break his leg, his arm, anything. There were multiple times where you had him in a position to do real damage, but you stopped yourself. Why?”
I had to think for a moment. Felix was asking troubling questions. “I guess I didn’t want to cause any serious damage.”
“Exactly. But that’s the difference between someone like you and someone like me. I don’t care about causing someone pain. In fact, if I were able to cause my opponents a lot of pain, then I would have a much better chance of winning.”
I looked at him funny. “That’s a cruel way of training, Felix.”
“Cruelty is irrelevant on the battlefield, Nero. You’ll need to learn that if you want to survive.”
“We are at the dojo,” I confirmed, in case he’d forgotten. “This isn’t a contract. In fact, this is as far from a contract as we could get.”
“What does that matter? You aren’t a warrior, Nero. You are a killer. There is a difference.”
I stared at him seriously. “I am no killer. I’m a hunter.”
He snickered. “One and the same! You need to fix your mindset. Mercy is a luxury that a killer cannot afford.”
“So what you’re saying is that I should have fought you with the intent of killing you?”
“I mean, yeah. Why not? You don’t hold back when you fight monsters, right? So why would you hold back with me? If this were a fight to the death, you would be dead. And I’d be standing here.”
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I shook my head at him, disappointed. He was being totally unreasonable. “This isn’t a fight to the death, though. You do realize that, right?”
Felix’s perspective was shot. I wasn’t sure if he was pretending to be some bad-ass or something, but I was starting to really worry about how he saw his hunting career.
“Training for what? An actual fight to the death, right?”
“I guess so,” I said, agreeing with him to unravel his thought process.
“Then you should train for it the way it would actually be.”
“So you want me to beat you to a pulp?” I asked, incredulously. “Is that it?”
“That’s the problem, you can’t. Something inside your head is stopping you. I don’t think you realize out there, it’s not just monsters you’re fighting. It’s other metas, too. While the Hunter Games is an entire realm of its own, where we aren’t dealing actual damage, you still have rogues and vigilantes out there messing everything up for everybody. If they don’t have a problem killing you, you shouldn’t have a problem killing them. When it comes down to the wire, you need to see them as a threat, too. And do whatever it takes to neutralize the threat. Even if it means taking a life.”
“Felix…”
“I’m trying to save your life, Nero. And Reina, and Naomi’s. You need to start thinking like a leader, and not like a wimp.”
“A wimp?”
“There’s nothing worse than fear…” he said, as if talking to himself.
“I understand what you’re saying, Felix,” I interrupted. “But I can’t just kill someone because they are in my way. It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not that simple?” Felix scoffed. “It’s as simple as breathing! If they’re trying to kill you, you kill them first! It’s self-defense!” he vented.
“But what if they’re not trying to kill me?” I asked. “What if they’re just trying to stop me?”
“Then you stop them from stopping you!” Felix shouted. “You don’t let them get in your way! You do whatever it takes to get the job done!”
“I just… I can’t kill someone who’s only trying to stop me. I’ll find a way around them while protecting myself and others. If they try to kill me to stop me then it gets more complicated. But in the end, I will always protect myself and those I care about.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed out there, Nero. You think you’re going to be able to spot when they go from trying to stop you to killing you to make sure the issue ends? It’s not going to happen when you’re ready for it! You need to toughen up! You need to—”he stopped himself, his eyes growing wide.
It was now I realized where he was coming from. He was projecting himself on me….
Something in his past shifted his perspective, and he was speaking from experience.
“You had to kill someone, didn’t you?” I asked quietly.
Felix didn’t answer. He just stared at me, his eyes filled with a deep sadness.
“I’m sorry,” I said, immediately regretting asking. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I know,” he said finally. “And, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to flip out on you like that.” He chuckled. “Must be those fumes! Got to my head.”
“Felix, you don’t have to explain w—”
“No, really. It’s fine. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I got carried away….” Felix took a seat on a head of stone to decompress. I joined him, giving him time to collect himself. After a long silence, Felix spoke again. “These monsters have a real knack for messing with people’s heads. They are professionals. It’s bad enough that they are stronger than your average meta–they have to have the ability to shape shift, too.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping further. “You don’t know what it feels like… to live with a shadow walker for days without even noticing. My parents were so distant that I had no idea… and neither did Sara.”
“Shit….”
“We’re just tools to them, Nero. It’s why I’m hard on myself, and my friends. It’s why I’m hard on you.” He turned his kind eyes to me. “I don’t want to see someone I care about get tricked like that. Never again. Don’t take pity, all right? Get the job done, even if it’s hard. If no one has ever told you this before, let me be the one to endorse it. Don’t let your kindness be your downfall. And don’t let your gullibility hurt the ones you love.”
I smiled, and tapped his shoulder comfortingly. We were having a wholesome moment, just in time for Hayashi to walk in and ruin it.
The onset of chills swooped in before I saw him along the corner of my eye, the disappointed expression on his face speaking volumes.
I jumped off that rock, faster than I’d ever jumped before in my life, and tried to explain myself. “Master Hayashi, this isn’t what it looks like!”
“Seriously?” Sensei grumbled. “First my meeting hall, then my kitchen, and now, my garden.”
Felix got on his feet too, his eyes scanning the mess we made. It probably didn’t dawn on him how bad it was until sensei pointed it out. But before he could say a word, I pointed to Felix childishly, his face ridden with guilt. In all honesty, I was the one who’d been trying to move the fight away from the dojo, knowing the type of trouble we’d get into.
But it didn’t matter. Master Hayashi gave us a look that said that we both deserved some lashes.
“I hope you two have cleared schedules this afternoon, because you’re both going to rebuild my garden to its former glory.”
We both bowed and replied together, “Yes, sensei.”