(Part 2)
10 YEARS AGO, 10450, WINTER MONTH 4, DAY 2, YEAR 10450 SAMURAI COUNTRY NAGASUKE.
Skrylla Yokuta’s next waking moment came with questions.
Why did I leave the comfort of home?
Is it really me just trying to be some hero?
Am I really the same as that man?
He shook his head and trudged on for about an hour before opening the box to reveal the study notes under the parchment once more.
Seeking to distract himself, the young man practiced according to the book till he was sore all over.
This was not forgetting even the practices he had found weird taught from his mother like Visualization and Meditation.
In Fact, if meditation did not help him easily remember what his previous battles had been like and help him adjust his mindset before on, he would treat it was than his visualization exercises.
Suffice to say, his memory and state of mind were pristine for his age and a little over slightly beyond it.
And this was not even regarding the victories he had had whenever they did their travels every quarter year.
[1]
When he fell to the ground in both hunger and tiredness, a plan came to his mind and he lay there unmoving till his rumbling stomach sounded like his heartbeat and until he was not sure if he was conscious at all.
His body shivered severally to the weather – or maybe to the hunger too – and he had to remind himself to even breathe sometimes… until he felt movement.
Still, he held his patience until he felt more sounds of loud flapping wings were coming from all around him and then suddenly, he lashed out like the end of a released whip, snagging as much scavenger birds as possible.
In his frenzy of hunger, he snagged in a hug the ones that he could and left the rest that flew away albeit unwillingly so as not to lose the ones that he had captured.
Their retaliation was as sudden as his reaction but he wrestled with them in a death grip that contradicted the fact that his body was on the brink of collapse.
This was one of the tactics that his mother had warned him against using when he had suggested it, as she had told him that there was a stark contrast between and Unawakened animals and Awakened animals called Epic Beasts.
And although he felt smug at his genius because of his results, just remembering that he had a family made him tear up.
Some minutes later, the young man had in his hands birds with multiple broken bones on their bodies.
He looked about and knew that with the season, it will be hard to find combustible material, so he tore a part of his shirt and found some stones, striking them before he finally had fire.
Hating to waste water, he boiled the first set, happy that the winds were not as ferocious as yesterday.
And after he had punctured holes in the avian beasts to let the dead scavenging birds bleed out, he put them in the boiling water to remove their feathers.
Skrylla Yokuta looked at the liquid that was mixed with blood and the entrails of the animal.
Closing his eyes in his decision not to waste the colored water, he added whatever spices he had with him into the bloody boiling liquid and used it to make the birds into something edible.
Luckily for him, the combo of spices, blood, water and entrails did not give a pleasant aroma.
So, he was not disturbed by any animals.
He bit into the avian meat like he had never had any animal protein in his life before which was almost true.
When Skrylla Yokuta was done, he packed up and left to wonder about the path that he had chosen.
The boy saw snow and trees until he was not sure which directions to walk.
He had also heard sounds of animals, avoided any as he was wary of meeting an Epic Beast.
By the end of the day, Skrylla Yokuta set up a defensive perimeter by pitching his wooden swords in incline and in a rough circle, hiding some behind the bushes and others in plain sight before finally linking the weapons, one by one, to each beside the other.
Then, he connected string again from one wooden sword, skipping the next one and finally attached it to the one after and repeated this process until one set of the string he had was finished.
Lastly, he left the box on the ground to rest against it.
This way, they were sure to spring on opponents if their traps were triggered.
The boy inwardly thanked Adriel Yokuta as after he had found a bunch of these in the unused room, she had told him to keep his hands away from it because he had been so fascinated with the strings.
And his subsequent travels had him grabbing anyone he could find.
Hopefully, she would not be too angry when she found out about the missing ones too.
Those trips they had made to the Trade Hubs were indeed useful.
He now felt a pang of regret when he had complained about how far the journey had been.
Plus, the genius of this perimeter trap was another thing he was grateful for.
What would a Samurai do?
He thought to distract himself.
The Young ambitious man began practicing again, today was 15 swings in every direction, excluding his stance correction, his footwork, body exercises and movement maneuvers.
Skrylla Yokuta, breathing hard, realized that he needed a compass but what could he have done?
Doing his routine Visualization Techniques – holding the memory of his house and family that made him tear up – he finished his session by meditating.
The young Samurai to be, slept in the cold to the next day, shivering almost every other second, and could not wait for spring to officially arrive in all his current fantastical glory.
Skrylla Yokuta still had another set of string left and he decided to attach this one to his trap before tying them to every 3 trees that he passed, for in the case where he needed to go backwards to his camp and defensive perimeter.
The Young man decided to tie strings and walk for half a day so that he would be able to scout the perimeter to find out where humans lived as he could work for cash or at least beg for food or money.
Apart from finding the mercenaries – if he found them and they even decided to accept him for pay – his other hopes were null.
I mean, there had always been the option of becoming the World’s Greatest Samurai.
But could a starved person become that?
He laughed and his thoughts simmered.
The day passed by – noon light becoming dusk light – his stomach getting hungrier by the second, and it was only until midnight that he allowed a mouthful of water when he got back to camp after he did not forget his practice of his sword, his body’s fitness and its correct poses, his visualization and finally his meditation.
The feeling of liquid down his throat made him feel as if he was born anew and how he was tempted to finish it all, but he held himself back and kept it back in its bag thanks to memories of lessons beat into him.
Like when he thought he was mischievous to finish the food on one night when he had felt abnormally hungry.
The next day came and went without event, save the occasional rustling of bushes and in his unfortunate non-encounter of fruits or whatnot, the Young Samurai to be would starve again.
The pain in his head became in sync with his footsteps and the muscles in his body felt like they had atrophied but he could not stop; he was not going back without knowing how to provide for his family.
And he could not do that if he could not even provide for his own self.
He should have saved the food for later.
And with his memory improved by Visualization since he was 5, he could still find his way back…
On the 6th day, he could hear each of his breaths, second to a faint beat of his pulse.
And if he wanted to hold the only wooden sword that he had right now, it would drag along behind him from within his tired arm.
He was also using the last sets of string as he had not gone this far before returning to his camp in a single search.
In fact, it was until later he noticed it was closer to dusk than afternoon but he was not going to turn back.
The weight of his supplies and he having to tie the strings every time he left camp was getting harder and harder.
Wobbling about the place full of vegetation that mostly had no leaves because of the middle of winter, he staggered until he reached a clearing and he began hearing a sound.
This note sounded like a distant hoot before unnatural silence.
But in the mumbled version his senses were receiving, he did not notice the danger until it was three meters before him.
A bird of prey with a mostly rounded head, a curved and gleaming beak, outstretched talons and its body at least the magnitude of half of his with wingspans that doubled that, came into his view.
His body reacted on instinct from years of conditioning by falling back to let the Owl pass over him in a miss so near that he thought he was hit until it screeched again and he slowly walked backwards towards the last tree he had tied the string to.
However, although he kept swerving between trees to discourage they prey it intended to make of him, unfortunately, the hungry animal did not stop.
He knew that he should not have taken the avian meat from before with its blood still in the mix and most of its dirt and feathers even but what was he to do?
Between his lack of food and the diet that must have not only blessed but cursed him, how was he to face this dilemma?
On its first return, it had missed him because he had actually fallen, not of his own accord, but on a growth of root that he did not see in time.
Cursing his weakness that made him rise as if he were drunk, Skrylla Yokuta resumed pushing his focus with at least 50% of his concentration on walking haphazardly but in line with his way back through the path of strings he had made.
He kept another 40% on tracking its whereabouts with all his senses as his head repeatedly scanned the area as if he were mad, and the remaining 10 percent, for emergency jumps or rolls.
Thank his training during his younger years.
In this fashion, he managed to dodge about 10 lunges, 25 dives as well as several grabs, and he could see the number of times it screeched getting more frequent which told him that he was making it agitated.
That would help it with making mistakes but he was at the end of his ropes, too.
Now, he could barely hear it anymore with a creeping silence that became closer to him even though the bird’s noise from its beak would usually be as loud as a truck horn on a normal day if he were not so famished.
Skrylla Yokuta’s head was moving slower than it used to, not all his muscles responding to him.
His unsteady legs were now traversing more sluggishly than he willed and he hoped he was still following the path of the strings he had woven about the trees as he was not sure anymore, the boy now stumbling more into the trees themselves.
His vision had narrowed and even his eyes began betraying him; their range of sight closing in.
And sometimes his eyes drooped or closed shut, not of his own accord.
It took a long while for even himself to notice he was vibrating like an unstable car engine and the second he looked at his hands in this realization, he got gripped in the creature’s talons and carried into his air; his predator finally half successful.
His body jerked back to life like the revving of this terrible engine and there were 3 things prioritizing all else in his mind;
First, never let go of the string in one hand,
Second, bash this thing in the head and,
Third, wiggle like a fish out of the water to avoid as much damage as possible, too.
Skrylla Yokuta obeyed his mostly panicked mind and held the rope in a death grip, shook his entire body like he was being electrocuted also in an attempt to make it let go or miss its plucking beak, and repeatedly knocked it in the head with the sharpened wooden sword in his other arm as its beak was maliciously intent to stab at him wherever it could.
The next time the bird screeched, it was not only angry that it could not ingest this squirmy prey but that it was actually the one being led because of the string on the young human’s tightly clenched hand.
Thus, it was dragged under and above the canopy of trees.
And as they both fought, branches knocked themselves into the flying pair.
However, his stubborn will to never let go of the string led them in a chaotic zig-zag – wrestling man and bird both – back into his defensive perimeter.
Skrylla Yokuta did not stop hammering, blood from him not just only coming forth from its beak but its grip and the branches that found purchase into his skin.
When his hand skipped his instruction as he wanted it to keep hammering, his body realized that it was too weak to hold the string anymore and eventually let go of it in his weakened body’s surrender that his will had long been battling against.
He then let himself go in unwilling surrender but…
The change in their direction of perilous movement from his hands letting go of the string caused the bird to tilt before slamming their flying bodies into a tree that knocked the avian beast forward until it flew back into the perimeter he created and impaled itself on one of the swords.
A chain reaction started and the others fiercely found a home into its beastly body – Puchi!
– making it shriek as it had its death throes.
Skrylla Yokuta felt no stress on his body whenever a stubborn pulse from his heart allowed him to remember that he was still alive.
He wanted to stand up but could only crawl on his fours after several attempts, seeing the bird motionless in a distance that was shrinking in his vision.
It was only after several minutes of his mind reminding itself that it had not gone out just yet, that he realized this was his camp and he was literally hanging by the thread but still alive.
What Luck!
He himself did not know where the energy came from but he crawled forward in glimpses of him moving and pictures of the bird becoming bigger and bigger in his painfully faltering and worsening sights as he approached it – going from the pace of a turtle to a snail which was much considering his situation – to eventually reach the avian beast, and sinking his teeth into its flesh as blood dribbled into his skin and the floor.
Skrylla Yokuta enjoyed a few bites under the moonlight as his body jolted and jerked like he had been stuck by a thunder bolt.
The madness it ignited had never made him feel so alive and he resumed his biting, as his mind highlighted every color around and closed his wounds, making him feel like he had would always want to enjoy this sensation in this life or the one to come.
Throwing any semblance of disgust that would have been there a few days ago, he buried his face within his only available feast since 2 days ago.
After the meal, was when he noticed that his skin was now unblemished, only to remember something that his mother had told him about Beasts.
If the Beast he encountered had been Awakened and was an Epic Beast, the meat would have killed him from its sheer amount of nutrients and also the fact that its body had encountered a heavenly tribulation, not to mention Ko-jin, which explained its strength and speed in ferrying him about.
He recalled that he had reached their point of encounter after about 4 hours and it had carried him back to his camp in less.
Which meant that the animal was Unawakened.
However, he speculated that it was close to awakening.
What luck!
It seemed that the heavens had not decided to get rid of him yet.
No, the animals simply had found him because it needed to survive just like him.
Skrylla Yokuta let it sink in that he had won and he cried into his torn shirt for a while before looking for ways to remove the blood off his swords.
First though, a few more bites; he did not know when he would get his next.
And right as he was gorging on unsanitary food that electrified his entire body with each bite under the seemingly serene night sky, his instinct saved him.
DANGER!
[1]
Every 4 months.