A few breaths passed. The breeze trickled through my hair. My palms were sweating, grip too tight on the handle of my training blade.

The tension kept increasing, reaching a fever point. Once it started to boil over, I lunged forwards, bring my blade down in a vertical strike, arms and wrists rotating out to add power. Kai stepped back, easily avoiding my swing. My lunge had removed me from my stance, and my weight was primarily concentrated on my front foot, back muscles firing as I attempted to regain my balance. Kai swung his blade down, striking it against the back of my sword, pushing it farther towards the ground, nearly driving me to my knees. He stepped forwards, arms gently swinging, arcing his sword to land gently on the side of my jaw. He stepped back, resetting to neutral, as I collapsed, rubbing the stinging pain in my jaw.

I pushed myself back to my feet, warily respacing my legs until I had some semblance of balance back. This time, Kai didn’t wait for me to make the first move. His sword was suddenly in front of me, swinging towards my right arm. I shifted my blade in front of it, wincing as the wooden poles collided, producing a resonant sound. My hands stung. I tried to push his sword back, but it was already gone, lazily trailing towards my left leg. I brought my left side back, the blade narrowly missing my thigh, before Kai changed the angle slightly, causing it to collide with my right leg. With a shout of pain, I hopped back.

I was starting to get pissed. Kai was easily toying with me, dribbling around me like an NBA player against a toddler. I knew it was unrealistic to expect to be able to match the abilities of someone who had trained in the sword for years, but I was thinking less and less with my rational mind with every blow I took.

Not bothering to reset my stance, I brought my sword down, parallel to the horizon, and pushed off of my back foot, tensing my arms up and pushing the tip of the blade forwards as fast as I could. Kai’s head swung around, his sword whipping down and knocking my strike to the side. Instead of fighting it, I used the momentum to spin around. I felt a strike on my back, but I was too mad to care. I rotated around, whipping my towards Kai’s head. Kai took an unsteady step backwards, dodging the tip of my sword by inches. I brought my sword back around, aiming, once again, towards Kai’s head. He blocked, prepared this time, no longer surprised by my initial failure to adhere to the rules of the bought. He stayed on the defensive for a while, passively watching me with narrowed eyes as I whipped my sword around in a rage fueled haze. Kai met each strike more and more easily, as the speed and strength I was using came at the cost of extremely telegraphed strikes. This continued for some time. My arms started to grow heavy, sweat beading down my brow, dripping into my eyes. The stinging of my eyes and the pain in my hands from the repeated impacts. I was starting to lose steam, blows slowing, failing to find new angles of attack. With a last, desperate cry, swung my arms down, from over my head, with all of my might. Kai blocked the strike, but his wooden sword, fed up with the abuse, cracked. I came in from the right. The crack widened. One again, I attacked from the top. His blade split in half. As my sword flew towards his head, wind whistling around it, Kai seemed to speed up. Suddenly, he was standing in front of me, fist cocked back -

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I peeled open my eyes. The sunlight sent a lance of pain through my head. I blearily looked around, scanning the training ground. Wooden walls surrounded a clearing of packed dirt, with sparse grass around the edges. Faded banners hung upon the walls, which themselves were splashed with the faint traces of old, dried blood, cleaned improperly or not at all. A loose grouping of wooden dummies and battered training posts stood by one of the walls. Weapon racks, half filled with chipped wooden weapons, sparsely dotted the arena. Any other occupants had already left, leaving me alone. I pushed myself up, to a sitting position. A flash of maroon drew my gaze down to my shirt, which was splattered with drying blood. Oddly enough, despite being broken a few minutes earlier, my nose barely hurt at all, and was no longer bleeding.

I unsteadily pushed myself to my feet. It seems I had lost my temper. And that Kai had knocked my shit out. Someone must have picked up my training sword, as it was nowhere to be found. I stretched out, and tried to dust myself off, but it was somewhat in vain.

I stood around for another 5 or so minutes, trying to stretch out and get myself back into a somewhat functional state, before I heard footsteps coming through the archway behind me.

As I turned, I saw the stern face of the man who had laid my flat. Kai had an irritated look on his face, as if he was annoyed at my inability to be blasted by a fist that landed like a truck. I did almost smash his head in with a wooden sword, so I probably deserved it, but he could have at least pretended to be concerned, right? He obviously wasn’t in any danger, judging by the way he quickly extinguished the situation.

“Your chaperone is here. You aren’t cut out to be a guard. You will come back every week to train, however. Her orders, not mine”.

With that, he turned and spun, walking back towards the entrance. I hurried to catch up to him. Dusting loose soil off of my clothes, I stepped outside the door. Davnida was standing there, hand on her hips. She scanned me up and down. Mirth flashed through her eyes.

“Kai explained the situation to me. Got a little over-eager on your first day, then, hmm? I guess you’ll have to try for the other options”

With that grim proclamation, we set off down the street.

This is gonna be a pain in the ass.