Law of the village states, all youths from the ages 5-17 must attend morning training.

This was one of the things Kou completely loathed, as he was just like his aunt Saai... not a morning person at all.

Not to brag or anything but his physical capabilities are complete and utter trash.

Kou could even be mistaken as a girl.

His only strong point was his intelligence and ingenuity at tricking his dueling partners at morning training.

Feigning injury so he could achieve a sneak attack.

Throwing sand into their face.

Nothing was off limits to Kou as he fought he would use any trick or underhanded method he could think of. The phrase his father likes to say to all the youths on their first hunt. "the only dishonor you can bring is dying before your enemy does." was drilled into him since he was small.

Most of the fellow youths in the village hated fighting against Kou in morning training for that very reason. Even if it was a training match he would treat it as a life or death brawl..

That was a part of Kou's tactic to make his opponents clumsy when facing him giving him some much needed breathing room.

His current opponent was much the same, Rufra one of the tallest of their age group at a shocking 5'8 he was often mistaken as adult but he was one of the biggest cry babies in the village.

Him and Kou have fought a few times all resulting in Kou using cheap tactics to overcome his strength and sheer size advantage.

Kou looked at Rufra and snickered. "Come on cry baby Rufra lets get this over with." As he taunted him with his index finger.

Rufra just stared back at Kou and said. "You are not tricking me this time Kou!" as he kept his guard up.

The smile on Kou's face only got wider the heat of the sand could be felt as he inched his foot one step closer at a time.

The fear was apparent of Rufra's face he knew Kou doesn't play fair and was trying to look out for his countless sneak attacks.

Grabbing his wooden dagger on his waist Kou acted as if he was going to charge at Rufra causing him to flinch.

Instead Kou threw his dagger at Rufra and quickly grabbed a handful of sand and rushed over towards Rufra gripping his other dagger with his left hand.

As Rufra dodged the wooden dagger flying at his face, he was greeted by a faceful of sand.

Courtesy of Kou, blinded momentarily Kou took advantage of his opponents weakness subduing him in the time it took to breathe a single breath.

"Enough! Winner of the duel is Kou" Kal's voice sounded through the training grounds their duels would be in full view of all the other youths, some of the adults would also come to watch these amusing bouts.

Kou extended his hand towards Rufra to help him up only to have it slapped away as Rufra gave him a glare as tears appeared near the corner of his eyes.

"You wouldn't win if you didn't always cheat." Rufra mumbled under his breath, his losing streak to Kou someone weak and fragile was extremely embarrassing.

Kou just looked at him and gave him a wide smile before going to sit with the rest of the spectators.

"Next up is Rik and Mae." Kal's could be heard throughout the crowd this was a by product of using the realms energy on your voice to increase its volume. Something Kou's father was unable to do so whenever he had to give speeches he would always have to shout as loud as he possibly could.

Rik was a well built adolescent a nice slender face and cold calculating eyes. He preferred using a saber as his weapon as opposed to the sword or daggers like Kou uses.

Mae on the other hand used an odd weapon she made up herself, it was the combination of a blade on a spear pole with the spear tip itself on the bottom of the weapon. As odd as it seemed she was quite good at using it.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Rik much like Kou enjoyed taunting the others youths before the fight began trying to make them slip up to present an easier way to win.

Mae however was not one to be taunted lightly, she simply ignored everything that came out of Rik's mouth she has seen him used this tactic on other youths before.

"Shut up and fight." Mae said as she dug her hills into the sand and launched herself forward in a downward slash. Catching Rik off guard he suddenly leapt to his right trying to avoid the oncoming blow, as he released a fury of strikes of his own only to be met with a sideways swipe of Maes weapon.

The sound of wood meeting could be heard as Rik's saber blocked Mae's weapon.

She looked rather dissatisfied that he was able to block that.  

Quickly twisting her weapon over her head in a whirlwind like fashion Mae continuously released downward strike aimed at Rik as he struggled to parry them. In a desperate attempt to switch the pace of the fight Rik charge forward as his saber seemed to form into 3 strikes mid air only to be met with countless strikes coming from above.

The sound of wood meeting could be heard again however this time a victor was certain. Rik lied on the sand with a fierce look of defiance on his face as Kal announced the winner of the match.

"Mae wins!" Kal said as his voiced propelled itself throughout the crowd.

Mae and Rik both moved sit among the rest of the crowd, one happy, another furious.

"That will conclude our mock duels for today!" Kal said as he used the realms energy to make his voice annoyingly loud. "Continue to train on the dummies until it's time for the run."

As he walked away the youths all begrudgingly got up and moved towards the field of training dummies.

The training dummies were created in different shapes, some for monsters, others for abominations and the rest where for human shaped opponents.

Kou slowly made his way to a human shaped dummy as he gripped his twin wooden daggers.  He began to rapidly strike the dummies vitale spots, neck, armpits, between the thighs, every strike was with the purpose to kill not to maim.

After the morning warm up was complete they would be forced to go on a run on the inside of the wall around the village. They were required to do 10 laps, afterwords they could practice on their own until mid afternoon where they would be free to go play and the like.

As Kou repeated his strikes time seemed to slow down to him everyone else would move slower. However this occurrence was something that happened randomly he was unable to control when it would happen.

The voice of Kal could be heard as it reverberated throughout the training area. "Time for the laps get to it!" Everyone began to sigh as they put their equipment away and began to run in the blistering heat.

This was Kou's least favorite part of the day, although one could zone out when running ... the demon known as 'Kal' would randomly send a strike your way with one of the wooden training swords.

Unless you fancied eating wood it was best to keep aware during the run.

by the time everyone else had finished their 10th lap Kou was barely on his 8th and looking as if he was going to pass out any second. But the demonic Kal cared not and continued to prod the boy along for the last 2 laps.

Kou fell to the ground dead.

Tired.

[ Back / Forward ]