25 25 - Question

Over the course of the second week, they bought winter clothing for Kairo, as the cold began to make training impossible without wearing one.

The next day, Kairo and Aisia faced a new jogging challenge set by Grisia.

"You've already grown accustomed to both directions. This time, when I say 'change', you will change the direction of your jogging."

"That's pretty arbitrary," snarked Aisia.

"I see that you've expanded your vocabulary," Grisia commented, surprised by the effect Kairo has had on her.

"That's beside the point, pops."

"Well, on the battlefield, it is not guaranteed that you'd only be running in a single direction. Changes can and will occur, may it be an order from your superior or an effect of circumstance, it is your job to respond quickly to change. Now, enough dilly-dallying. Commence."

And so, once again, they jogged as instructed. Only this time, they felt exhausted quicker than they expected because of the abrupt and unpredictable calls for change in direction. On top of that, changing their direction took more energy out of them than they realized.

Previously, their best record was both around an hour and twenty minutes. This time, with the addition of the sudden changes in direction, they fell on the ground after only about thirty-five minutes.

"My body can't move already? Gah!" Aisia exclaimed as both of them felt their body ache as they lay down on the snow.

"So far, you haven't dealt with the mental strain comparable to what could occur in battle. In this exercise, you only faced a single unpredictable factor," while Grisia was speaking, the two of them groaned and gasped.

"The battlefield has tens, if not, hundreds of them. I'm introducing it to you now instead of you having to learn it in real combat the hard way."

"Not so— hah— arbitrary— guh— after all. I retract my comment from earlier, heheh... ow!" spoke Aisia.

"If only it wasn't so cold..." Kairo grumbled as he tried to sit up and catch his breath.

"But what if it was?" Grisia spoke. "What if the battlefield occurred during a snowstorm? Will you flee? Will you hide? Will you continue to arrogantly air out your complaints?"

"B-But, you're the one who told us it's okay to run!" Kairo spoke back.

"Yes, it is, if you feel that you are in mortal danger. But I must remind you that not all troubles are as grave as life and death. Fleeing is an option, but it is not always the option."

"Well, of course..." Kairo lowered his head. Grisia was right, but he felt like he wasn't necessarily wrong either. He knew that when you have to fight, you have to fight, and as Grisia himself taught them, when things get too hairy, it's okay to flee.

Aisia's thoughts seemed to mirror his when he looked at her.

In any case, he steeled himself so that the cold should be the least of their worries in battle. He must be ready even if a battle broke out in hell itself, especially if he was going to be picking fights with those bandits hooded in red.

That must be what Grisia wanted to say, to complain about the little things less... or to be strong enough to be unbothered by the weather? The more he thought about it, the less sure he became about what Grisia was trying to teach them.

"Snow, rain, hail, a storm of sand and thunder," Grisia spoke. "Whatever it may be, you mustn't give up so easily. Find out your options first before even thinking about bowing down to fate."

"Yes, sir!" the two of them shouted in unison.

"But yes, you are correct, Kairo. I'm currently training you two to be able to flee better. But at the same time... well, I don't want you two to end up being cowards whose only specialty is to run at the first sight of danger. You could say that my lesson is somewhere in the middle ground."

The two started to get confused about what he was trying to say exactly.

Noticing this, Grisia shook his head and said, "It's fine, you two know what I mean, right?"

"Yes... sir?"

"Do you really?" Grisia squinted.

"Err... find out and do the best course of action depending on the situation?" Aisia answered, scratching her head.

"Yes, basically," Grisia confirmed.

"Why couldn't you have just said that? You seriously need to get better at talking, pops," she reprimanded.

Grisia cleared his throat. "I-I suppose. We'll continue this tomorrow. For now, get ready for your job at the bakery later. Don't cause any trouble for the old man."

They were becoming more and more sure that while Grisia was a seasoned warrior, he was not the most experienced when it came to having students.

Sometimes, his lessons seemed to contradict each other or he was too vague with what he wanted to see from them. But it became one of their pastimes to decipher what their unsociable teacher meant in today's training. Despite that, they did feel like they were becoming more agile and growing tired much slower.

In any case, Kairo was simply relieved he wasn't actually being scolded. His master was simply being awkward but in a good way, he thought.

As the days went by, the intense training which Grisia kept calling "pretraining warm-up" continued. Similar to the previous iterations of the endurance training, both Kairo and Aisia kept on adapting with no discernable limit to their potential as Grisia kept pushing them whenever they became too comfortable. Fortunately, there was never a day when they stagnated, always breaking their record. And so, Grisia was able to keep pushing them with his strict training.

Two days later, they were able to hit the one-hour mark for the ever-changing direction jogging challenge, going over another five minutes before their body couldn't advance any further.

"I can't do it anymore, pops!" yelled Aisia.

"Me too... Grisia...!" seconded Kairo.

"Nope, you can still do it. If you can still talk, you can still jog. Keep at it."

"Slavedriver!" screamed Aisia.

When they once again went past their limits, they both tumbled down on the soft, snowy ground. They were able to get much farther past their limits than they usually do. Aisia spoke as she heaved desperately at every chance she got, "What now... pops? Can you... beat that? Ugh!" she gasped.

"Yes, actually."

"WHAT? Lies."

"The longest that I ran continuously for was twelve hours while my leg was wounded," he said with a completely monotonous tone.

"T-That's not possible. You're just saying that!" replied Aisia.

"As a snively, little, snot-nosed brat once said, hope and cope."

"Grr!"

"Does that mean that someone... inflicted a wound on you?" Kairo asked. The two of them looked horrified about the fact that someone or something managed to wound someone like Grisia. The dread that came from Grisia's apparent silence haunted them.

That was until he casually answered, "Well, yeah. Even gods bleed, let alone me," he shrugged.

"You realize you're saying that you're comparing yourself to a god," Aisia commented, still lying down on the snow, starting to catch her breath.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You may choose to doubt me, what matters is you improve in your training. I only answered your question to give you peace of mind, if I didn't give an answer, you would only be losing focus from speculating."

"Or if you lied," she added, her rapidly thumping heart starting to slow down as she breathed in the winter air.

"That's what you think I'm doing. But you have no proof, so I guess it's the same as not answering it because we've lost focus and digressed."

"You do know you're arguing with a kid, right?" she reasoned.

"I think it's better than running away from an argument with a kid, or dismissing it and never thinking critically about one's preconceptions."

"Also, how do you even know that gods bleed?" Kairo asked.

"Ah, that's a story for another time."

"Or another lie for another time!" she retorted.

"In any case, I have a question to ask before I finally reveal another power."

"Another one?" Kairo perked up, sitting up from the snow.

"Yes. Though, I'm reluctant to teach it to you two, especially to you, Kairo."

"Me?"

"Remember when we took a bath at the waterfalls that one night? When I told you that Sia was going to need what I'll be teaching you?" the two of them nodded. "Well, it's not about chakra nor magic. When we first started training, I originally planned to include this power, but then I hesitated as it may have been too dangerous. Even now, I remain unsure," the two crawled closer to Grisia in anticipation.

They gulped.

Something that Grisia had been keeping as a secret was now going to be revealed to them. A power that even he deemed perilous enough to be teaching to two children.