章 63: Ron's Teachings
The day was young once again.
Dareon's glaive danced in the air, like a flying snake in its own joy. Its head of metal, weak and wavy, glossy from the day's cloudy sun. A smile was etched on his face, a smile that lasted since the day before.
A day before. The image still played in his mind, his heart beating harder every moment he remembered, his cheeks blushing red like a romancing young girl. To which he nodded, with the same grin.
"It would be my honor," the same words muttered under breath, a gasping breath as sweat mingled with the dirt and exhaustion took not of him.
Eyes of his fellow students and then instructors alike watched, some disdainful while some taking interest.
Muttering with each other, the students with their eyes of disgust, glancing, and gossiping. While instructors took notes on each movement of his in their books.
News had spread, one he never cared for. One thing in Dareon's mind, only one. That he was now the right hand.
The same sun shone on another's face.
Beads of sweat are like beads of pearls covered by powders of dirt.
Each of his movements straining his muscles and joints, both screamed in pain, begging for mercy. His lungs gasped for air, though they were much more relaxed than the others. The usual battle raged in mind, giving up or keep going, a battle that was meaningless. The winner was in mind.
"Two hundred…" Ron counted.
Hubert's eyes looked forward as he pushed himself off the ground for the last time. The edge of Ron's formal trouser of ragged cloth of black greeted. On Ron's feet, a pair of leather boots, fancy and practical.
Confusion was in mind as his eyes questioned at his palms, at himself.
"How?" he whispered under his gasping breath, which was almost fully recovered.
"Awakened…" Ron answered, the same bored eyes stared blankly. A smirk accompanied, painted on his face.
"Awakened? So this is what Dareon meant by power…" he wondered. A small thought drifted, his eyes blanked, the day the shadow sacrificed himself passed through his mind.
Ron nodded. His collar of white garment trembling ever so slightly hitting his trimmed gray stubble beard. In Ron's hand, a piece of wooden sword he had smuggled out from the first learning hall's inventory.
"Hubert," his voice called, intentionally weakly. His eyes though the usual, as if sure of the advancement of what was going to happen.
"Yes?" Hubert flicked out of his thoughts, and lit up in question, he too realized of the sudden change of Ron's tone of words.
"You… ready," Ron said.
"Ready? For what?" Hubert asked, barely hiding his confusion, one that was mixed with a hint of excitement.
Ron didn't elaborate. Turning around, he signaled for Hubert with his wrinkled and calloused finger, proof of his disguise in the academy.
Hubert acknowledged and nodded in affirmation.
The two made their way to the nearby treelines, the outskirts of the forest that laid onward.
Where the bunch of sticks and leaves scattered on the ground and ants took their routes of scavenging around the place. And where the birds nested on the branches while insects in their homes in trunks.
"Watch…" a low hush sounded, low but deafening.
The branches shook, the ground trembled, so light yet so noticeable.
Hubert stood behind Ron, his eyes watching Ron's every movement. A back of which was his teacher since his slaved days, also was in the early days of his academy, a strong back covered by now dirtied cloth.
In Ron's hand, the wooden sword, dull yet its edge felt cutting everything that saw it, even Hubert's eyes. Slowly and precisely then, the sword moved, piercing the air ever so slightly, like a blade against stacks of paper.
"Ha…" Ron sighed as he got into his stance. Sword in hand, pointing now at front, where he held the handle with both hands. Left leg forward by half a step, right leg toward the other direction.
Stable, his core fluctuated, eyes focused on the tree close to him, its bark waiting innocently. His breath cold, like the smell of death, as it flew against the wind, into the tree.
Raising the wooden sword overhead, Ron prepared.
Hubert watched on, the sight of what Ron showed him at the parish came to his mind. Unforgettable, the energy he saw, crescent shaped, flew against the night's wind undeterred, before marking its end on the tree far forward.
"The same strike?" was what came from his mouth. A part of him braced for the upcoming effect of the strike on the tree with his fist clenched.
Then Ron swung down his sword. It was graceful, soft, and weak. The air moved not and there was not a single shockwave, not a single thing. The day was calm and unchanged, and the birds squawked at its sight.
"What…?" Hubert questioned what kind of spectacle he was shown and what kind of theatrics of nothingness.
Ron took a deep breath, then turned toward Hubert.
"..." a smirk on his face, but not a single sound came from his old lips.
"Huh?" he questioned even more. Ron answered in silence.
Then realization struck. Where directly in front of him, on the tree's bark that was left untouched. In the smallest of size, miniscule even, a testament to Ron's precision of sword.
Hubert stepped forward, and stuck his head forward, where then his eyes were reflective of the thing in front of him.
An ant laid dead, non twitching.
An ant that was cut in half. From the middle of its glazing head, the middle of between its two antlers and eyes, the two joints that connected three parts of the ant and until its tail. The two parts laid separated, but its respective joints connected each part.
Hubert's finger poked at the ant's corpse, inspecting and moving it around. Until he then crushed the ant.
"How?" he asked as he swiveled his body around. Facing Ron, his eyes gleamed. Brows spelled confusion, but his pupils told of his hope.
Ron extended his arm in response, the arm with the weapon in hand. The Wooden sword's blade facing to the ground, with grip over the handle that Ron loosened off.
Hubert watched, his hand's muscles twitching, his attention nailed toward the handle that waited for his action. As his black hair floated against the strong wind and the leaves fell on top of his dented shoulder, the world waited for his decision.
A decision he soon made.
The sword's handle welcomed him as he took its rein. Comfortable and fitting, every single crevass of his hand as if paired with every dents of the handle. While the wood felt cold and strong, one much stronger than the wood of his past weapon.
His eyes blazed with determination, the same eyes that he directed with the hope toward Ron, his teacher. The same hope of power, one much alike to what was in him and hidden in him.
"Ron…" he called, pleading. Deep down, he himself knew his beg was already answered.
Ron answered with a smirk, his gray hair also bashing against the wind.
Hubert's sight focused on the tree, sword in hand and in front of him, the thing he felt the exact same as Ron's form he saw earlier. While Ron circled around him, examining every angle and bend in Hubert's body.
Then he stopped at Hubert's left side.
"Left," and kicked Hubert's left leg, adjusting Hubert's stance.
Then he circled to Hubert's right side.
"Right," Hubert's right leg.
Then again, to Hubert's left side.
"Knee," then his knee, kicked for the forming of a bend.
And again to the right side.
"Calf," striked by a wooden stick for balancing.
Then in front.
"Stomach," hit by a knife hand, soft but gut wrenching.
Then Ron grabbed Hubert by the head and straightened it.
"Eyes," told to look forward, focusing on the target.
Like a puppet, as he stood, he felt every single one of his joints in discomfort, not quite hurting. Where his body slowly tilted left, almost tumbling down, and his shoulder was titled right, in an attempt of fighting the imbalance.
But then, Ron noticed and corrected, making him stay in the unusual stance.
"Elbow," the puppeteering continued.
"Wrist," and continued onward.
It had been a few movements of the clock's long arms when Ron stopped the puppetmaster act. As he walked backward to the side, he crossed his arms and focused his eyes toward the dulled edge.
This was the que for Hubert.
Hubert grinned as he took a deep breath, this was his first strike and the first time he wielded the sword. Deep inside, his heart beat faster than any other moment in his life.
His body was tight for the onlookers. But in, his weight shifted right, his abs contracted upward as he raised his hand by the shoulder joints.
His eyes then glanced to the side.
Ron nodded.
And with a smile, he struck downward to the tree.
Whoosh!
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