It took them two more days to reach thirty mana stones.
"Yes, that's thirty exactly. And with the record of you reaching the seventh floor, you've met the requirements for the exam."
Nora stamped the ledger.
Beside Luca, Celes clenched a small fist.
"Eight days left until the exam. ...Nora, who's going to be the proctor?"
"This time it's Gareth. He's Rank Six, and he used to teach swordsmanship to the knights. He's very strict about forms."
"Strict about forms," Luca repeated.
Nora glanced down at Luca's application. In the box for Preferred fighting style, it still said A bit of everything.
"...Good luck."
"Thank you."
There was a little sympathy in Nora's voice.
* * *
"Oh, and Luca? Could you pass something along to Grun for me?"
Nora called him back just as he turned to go.
She dragged a wooden crate out from behind the counter. It was crammed with a jumble of things: gloves, water flasks, sweat rags.
"This is the Guild's lost-and-found box. It's everything people left at the training grounds or the tavern that nobody came to claim within three months. Grun always takes it off our hands."
"I'll take it home."
Luca hefted the crate in both arms.
It was a little heavy. But mostly, his heart was racing.
"...Luca. Your face."
"I'm not grinning."
"You are. You look like a little boy hugging a treasure chest."
* * *
As soon as he got back to the shop, Luca started going through the crate, one item at a time.
A lot of the things in it had no skill left in them. A water flask that someone had simply forgotten showed him nothing but the last time its owner took a drink, and the voice never came.
In among them was a pair of leather gloves.
The fingertips were worn through, and the backs were nicked with a scattering of small blade cuts.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Sand underfoot. The training grounds.
Her opponent's wooden sword is coming. From above. Don't dodge. Not yet.
The point is about to touch her forehead. Only then does she shift, half a step to the side.
The wooden sword grazes past the tip of her nose and slices empty air. The wind of it stirs her bangs.
Dodge wide, and you won't be ready for the next strike. So dodge by the width of a sheet of paper. No more.
"Damn it! Why can't I hit you?!"
"Because your sword is slower than my eyes."
She rests the point of her wooden sword against his throat.
Match.
She pulls off her gloves and tosses them onto a bench. She wipes off the sweat, changes, and heads straight home.
She's already forgotten all about the gloves.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Hairbreadth].
"It was a woman. A duelist," Luca told Celes, who had been watching beside him. "She dodged by just the width of a sheet of paper."
Celes picked up the glove that had tumbled out of the crate and narrowed her eyes.
"The width of a sheet of paper... Isn't that perfect for the mock battle at the exam?"
"Yes. I want to try it out."
"Then it's the training grounds. Theo should be there."
* * *
The Guild's training grounds were a wide stretch of sand out back.
Theo was in the middle of coaching a group of rookies through their practice swings. His left leg was out of its splint now, but he still favored it a little.
"Hairbreadth?"
When he'd heard the story, Theo propped his wooden sword on his shoulder and laughed.
"All right, then. Dodge me. If I land a hit, you're buying dinner."
"And if you don't?"
"Then I'm buying."
Theo took his stance.
Even favoring his leg, his lunge was beautiful. It was the very same lunge Luca had inherited first, before any of the others.
The wooden sword came. From above.
Luca didn't move.
Not yet. Not yet—
Just before the point touched his forehead, he shifted half a step to the side.
The wooden sword brushed past the tip of his nose and cut the air. The wind of it stirred his bangs.
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"Wha—"
Theo came right back with a sideways sweep.
If Luca had dodged wide, he'd never have made it in time. But he'd only moved half a step, so his body was already set for the next move. He dropped low. The wooden sword passed over his head.
"Damn it, again!"
Three times. Four. Five.
Theo's wooden sword never touched him once.
"...Ah, forget it. Dinner's on me."
Theo flopped down on the sand.
"Getting your own lunge dodged by a paper's width really gets to a guy."
"It's because it's your lunge, Theo. I know exactly when it's coming."
"That isn't making me feel better, you know."
Next to them, Celes's shoulders were shaking with laughter.
"Right. I'm next."
"You too, Celes?"
"Obviously. We have to see if you can dodge magic."
Celes raised her wand. With her new count-of-seven chant, she loosed a smallish fireball.
Luca let it come as close as he dared, then slid aside by the width of a sheet of paper. The fireball rushed past his cheek. Hot. But it didn't touch him.
"...That's cheating, you know."
"Sorry."
* * *
That was when it happened.
From a corner of the training grounds came the sound of something slicing through the air.
Whff. Whff. Whff.
Luca turned. A boy was swinging a wooden sword.
He looked about Luca's age, with short-cropped black hair. On the chest of his well-tailored practice clothes was a crest: two crossed swords.
High. Middle. Low. Thrust. Return cut.
Every movement was as precise as a line drawn with a ruler. His feet landed in the same spot, his shoulders turned to the same angle, every single time. It was the sword of someone who had repeated the same motions hundreds, thousands of times.
"...Beautiful," Celes murmured before she could stop herself. "That's the Grafen Style. It's a prestigious school of swordsmanship, with a branch even in the capital."
"That's Viktor Grafen," Theo told them quietly.
"He started the same day you did, Luca. Registered at Rank Ten the same day as you, and he's taking the same exam as you two. Third son of the family that runs the school. With a sword, he's a head above every other rookie here."
The boy—Viktor—finished with one last thrust and lowered his wooden sword.
Then he turned to look at them.
His eyes were sharp.
They went from the iron tag at Luca's neck, to the dagger at his hip, to the scuffed sand where the mock fight had just been, one after another.
"You're Luca. The one who came up from scavenging."
"Yes."
"I watched the way you dodged just now."
Viktor leaned his wooden sword against the wall.
"Which style's form was that?"
"It isn't from any style. I picked it up."
"...Picked it up?"
Viktor's eyebrow twitched.
"You would settle for scavenged scraps, where the sword is concerned?"
That was all he said. Then he walked out of the training grounds.
Luca tilted his head. He didn't think he'd said anything to make him angry.
"...How unpleasant," Celes muttered.
Theo was watching the doorway Viktor had left through, looking a little troubled.
"He's not a bad guy. ...Every morning he's here before anyone else, and he's still swinging that sword after everyone else has gone home."
The echo of that whff still seemed to hang in the air over the training grounds.
* * *
On the morning of the exam, about twenty Rank Ten delvers had gathered at the training grounds.
Every one of them looked tense. Some kept regripping their swords. Others muttered their chants under their breath, checking every word. The trio who had laughed at Luca on measurement day were huddled together in a corner.
Luca's eyes met those of the one in the middle. The other delver looked away, awkward.
"Luca, did you eat breakfast?"
"Three times."
"...Three times?"
"I get hungry when I'm nervous."
Celes gave him an exasperated look, but her hand was clenched tight around her wand. Luca hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
"You'll be fine, Celes. All you have to do is count to seven."
"...I know that."
Celes let out a long breath. Her shoulders loosened, just a little.
* * *
"I am Gareth, your proctor."
A tall man had taken his place in the middle of the training grounds. Forty or so, Luca guessed. His gray hair was combed straight back, and he stood as straight as a spear. The sword at his hip had a knight's fittings.
"Rank Nine lets you go as deep as the ninth floor. The ninth floor has traps. The tenth has a Gatekeeper. Today, you will show me whether you have what it takes not to die down there."
His voice was low, and it carried.
"First, a practical test in your specialty. After that, a mock battle against me. I won't be judging the mock battles on who wins or loses. I'll be watching your swordwork, how you move, and your judgment."
* * *
The practical tests started with the mages.
Straw targets were lined up at one end of the training grounds. One at a time, the mages fired spells at them from twenty paces away.
Then it was Celes's turn.
She raised her wand, closed her eyes, and breathed in.
One. Two.
Luca counted in his head.
"Flame, gather in my hand. Become searing heat, and pierce my foe!"
...Seven.
A fireball as big as a man's head punched straight through the center of the target. The straw went up in flames in an instant, and an ooh ran through the watching Rank Tens.
"Ardia, is it?"
Gareth wrote something in his notebook.
"At your age, you're already building half the chant in your head before you speak it. Did you learn that at the academy?"
"...No. My partner taught me the trick."
"Your partner?"
Celes glanced at Luca. Gareth followed her eyes to him. Then he looked down at Luca's application, where the line for his preferred fighting style read A bit of everything, and a crease formed between his brows.
* * *
The mock battles went in order, swordsmen first.
Gareth was strong.
He held his wooden sword loosely, almost carelessly, and yet not one of the Rank Ten swordsmen could break his guard. Strike at him, and he turned the blow aside. Back off, and he closed the gap in a single step.
Even so, he watched how each of them attacked and how they moved their feet, and gave every one of them a few short words.
"Your lunge is too shallow. But you know when to pull back."
"Your sword is moving with your arms alone. Use your hips."
The middle one of the trio who'd laughed at Luca got knocked down by Gareth three times. He still got up for a fourth.
"That's a sword you've put a year of honest swings into. You pass."
When Gareth said that, the delver bowed his head, looking close to tears.
Luca felt a little happy for him.
"Next. Viktor Grafen."
The air in the training grounds changed.
* * *
Viktor stepped out onto the sand.
He raised his wooden sword into a center guard. The placement of his feet, the angle of his shoulders—not a hair different from what Luca had seen here the other day.
"Grafen Style?"
"Yes."
"Come."
Viktor lunged.
An overhead cut. Gareth blocked it.
The instant it was blocked, the next one was already on its way. Middle, low, thrust. Each movement began before the last had finished. Like flowing water, it never broke.
For the first time, Gareth took a step back.
"Hm."
Gareth went on the attack with a sharp sideways sweep. Viktor stopped it head-on with a textbook block, then rode the force of the rebound straight into a counter.
Clack. The two wooden swords met and locked, and stopped.
"That's enough."
Gareth lowered his sword. The training grounds had gone completely silent.
"Excellent. The forms are completely in your body. How many years have you been training?"
"Ten."
"Ten years. ...You pass. That's the finest sword I've seen today."
Viktor bowed, his expression unchanged. All around, people let out something like a sigh.
"Incredible..."
"And he's only Rank Ten?"
Celes murmured too.
"...I hate to admit it, but that really is a beautiful sword."
* * *
Viktor came back from the sand. As he was passing Luca, he stopped.
"You're next."
"Yes."
"Let me ask you one thing first."
Viktor looked him straight in the eye.
"What do you think the forms are?"
"The forms?"
Luca thought about it for a moment.
"...Something useful, I think."
"Useful."
Viktor's eyes went cold.
"The forms of the Grafen Style have come down for three hundred years, from our founder. In that time, thousands of swordsmen, in the Labyrinth and on the battlefield, have carved out how to swing a sword and survive—and died doing it. Every single form is an answer that the ones who came before us paid for with their lives."
His voice was quiet. And because it was quiet, Luca could tell he meant every word.
"And you pick them up, nibble at them like snacks, and string the pieces together any which way. ...To me, that's nothing but an insult to the ones who came before."
Luca didn't say anything.
It wasn't that he couldn't think of an answer. It was that he felt like he understood about half of what Viktor was saying.
[Lunge]. [Shield Block]. [Hairbreadth].
Every one of them was a skill someone had learned with their life on the line.
"Next. Luca."
That was Gareth's voice. Luca picked up a wooden sword and a small wooden shield.
"I'll be back."
"...Luca."
Celes started to say something, then shook her head.
"Try not to let your stomach growl."
"I'll do my best."
He stepped out onto the sand. Gareth looked at the sword and shield in Luca's hands, then down at the application, and the crease between his brows deepened.
"Preferred fighting style: 'A bit of everything.'"
"Yes, sir."
"...Come. Show me what 'a bit of everything' means."