"These blades are exceptionally rare," the masked man said, turning one over in his hands. "The location of the mines, the extraction methods, the forging process all of it is knowledge that belongs only to my tribe."
Hasib tilted his head toward the fox-masked man. "So what’s your real name, then?"
Sara shot him a flat look. "Idiot. He’s wearing that thing for secrecy. What kind of donkey asks for someone’s real name right to their masked face?"
"Enough chatter. Come on, all of you." Itoshi waved a hand toward the field. "We start working today."
They were buzzing with nervous excitement the whole walk out their very first day of real training as Cadets. Hasib practically skipped the last stretch of the path, and even Sara couldn’t quite hide the bounce in her step.
Once they reached the wide-open training field, Hasib turned to Itoshi eagerly. "So, what’s the training today?"
"Catch your own shirt," Itoshi said, completely deadpan.
Hasib burst out laughing. "Ha! Okay, that’s actually pretty funny."
Itoshi didn’t laugh back.
Beside them, Rocky’s stomach sank slightly. ...Did I get placed with the worst group possible?
Sara stepped up first, gripping the hilt of her new sword. "Fine, I’ll admit it’s heavy," she said, "but that doesn’t mean I need lessons on how to hold it."
She yanked at it, trying to draw the blade free and nothing happened. She tried again, harder.
"H-hey! What’s the deal? Why won’t this budge?"
Figures, Rocky thought, unimpressed. He stepped up beside her and took hold of his own blade, giving it a sharp pull.
BZZT!
Electricity exploded across his hand and up his arm, and the sword itself seemed to come alive in his grip, lurching wildly in every direction like something trying to escape him.
"What the hell?! What kind of sword IS this?!"
He can’t control his either... okay, that’s actually kind of cool,Sara thought, watching sparks dance along his knuckles.
Itoshi let out a long, weary sigh. "Look at the two of you."
He turned toward Hasib next, smirking around his lollipop. "So? Any luck figuring out the thunder problem, Hasib? Or is it really that hard? Hee. Losers, both of you."
Hasib knelt beside his own sword, pressing it flat against the ground, and gripped the hilt with both hands.
The moment he pulled, something dark and coiling like smoke given shape poured out from the blade and wrapped around his hand.
He screamed.
His knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground, sword pinned upright against the dirt, his eyes slamming shut.
Itoshi moved fast, crouching beside him and pressing a lollipop into his mouth on reflex, prying at his fingers to loosen his grip. "Hasib! What’s wrong with you now?"
Sara’s eyes narrowed with worry.
Then, just as suddenly, Hasib’s eyes snapped open. He hurled the sword away from himself, sending it skidding several feet across the dirt.
...What did I just see?
Itoshi told him gently to flex his hand a few times, checking the fingers for damage.
"And you," Rocky added, unbothered, "have absolutely nothing worth saying for yourself. Pathetic."
Hasib squeezed his eyes shut against the pounding headache building behind them.
A cold notification flickered across his vision.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: YOU CANNOT USE THE BLACK SWORD’S FULL POTENTIAL BEFORE LEVEL 10]
[FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, THIS EFFECT HAS BEEN REDUCED BY 60%]
"What is it you’re all doing," Itoshi said, shaking his head. "Why are you afraid of the blade? A sword isn’t a weapon you fight against it’s a friend. Treat it like another limb. Like it’s already a part of you."
Hasib opened his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "Right. Being scared isn’t going to help anything."
"Eat more in the mornings, by the way," Itoshi added, almost as an afterthought. "That blade of yours pulled straight from your own body’s energy reserves."
Sara’s eyes went wide. "That’s... why I’ve felt so drained all day."
Rocky glanced down at his own sword. "...Huh."
"I’m not going to keep explaining," Itoshi said. "All of you learn to feel the blade. Control it. Sync with it. Learn its energy instead of burning through your own trying to force it. That’s today’s whole lesson."
With that, he casually tossed his own sword several feet away and climbed into the branches of a nearby tree.
"What is he even doing?" Sara muttered.
From the branches, Itoshi extended a hand toward the discarded sword and spoke a single word.
NIZOMO
A faint ripple of sound, like water breaking, passed through the air and the sword vanished from the ground and reappeared in his outstretched hand in the same instant.
Rocky’s brow furrowed. That’s exactly the same as...
The cloaked figure stood among a field of bodies, sword still buried in the last one’s chest. A boy came sprinting toward him from somewhere off to the side, screaming something Rocky couldn’t quite hear.
The figure didn’t even turn fully around.
TAKIMO
One word. The boy’s eyes went wide and then he simply crumpled to the ground, gone before he hit it.
"Rocky?" Sara’s voice cut through the memory. "Why are you just standing there?"
"Yasa no!" The words tore out of him before he could stop them.
He blinked, and the field snapped back into focus Sara standing right in front of him, brow creased with concern. He pressed a hand to his forehead and shook it off, stepping forward like nothing had happened.
"So," he said, voice steady again, "what are we even supposed to name these things?"
Itoshi, still perched in the tree with his book open and a fresh lollipop between his teeth, answered without looking up. "That’s for you to find out. What’s *its* name not what you’d like to call it."
Hasib crouched beside his own sword, studying it. "So you’re saying we’re not naming them. They already have names."
Itoshi went back to his reading without another word.
Hasib picked the sword back up, bracing for another jolt.
Nothing happened this time.
Sara fumbled with her own blade, turning it over in her hands, whispering under her breath.
"What’s your name?" Hasib wrapped both arms around his sword like it was an old friend. "Come on, tell me!"
Sara and Rocky both stared at him like he’d lost his mind entirely.
Rocky held his sword out in front of him with both hands, bracing as another spark of electricity crackled along his fingers but this time, instead of fighting it, he tried to simply feel it. His energy against the blade’s. For one brief, suspended moment, the crackling settled into something almost steady.
Then it snapped violently, throwing him backward off his feet.
He picked himself up, brushing dirt from his sleeve. "...Well. Guess that’s something, at least."
A few feet away, Hasib was backing up rapidly. "Sara move!"
"Excuse me?! Are you actually about to hit me with that thing, idiot?!"
He wasn’t swinging it at her, exactly his sword had simply decided it wanted to go somewhere entirely different, and it was dragging his arm, and the rest of him, right along with it.
The afternoon bled into evening, all three of them still at it, sweat-soaked and exhausted.
Sara finally sank down onto the grass, breathing hard. "I’m seeing double. And it never even told me its name."
"Tell me about it," Hasib grumbled, dropping down beside her. "I offered mine gifts. Chotpoti. Everything. Still nothing."
Rocky remained standing, brow still furrowed in concentration, sword raised one more time despite everything.
Up in the tree, Itoshi’s face had gone faintly red over whatever he was reading, a small, private smile tugging at his mouth until he snapped the book shut and popped in a fresh lollipop.
"Rocky. Are you trying to force it?"
Rocky paused mid-motion.
"That won’t get you anywhere with a blade like that."
He lowered the sword, and for once, didn’t argue.
Itoshi dropped down from the branch, landing easily, and drew his own sword in one smooth motion.
"Here. Watch how it’s actually done."
He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and let out a slow, steady breath.