Sword Saint part 4

-Nina pov-

He was a few steps away from her, in the empty training yard behind her house.

A week before, he had been injured while training with his father, which still confused her. His father was a sword emperor, not the kind of man who could accidentally hurt his son while training. Gino had been forced to rest during those days, and that boy did nothing but train.

He probably felt it was torture.

And after a week, he suddenly recovered, surpassing her in every aspect.

It was the day he became a sword saint. Although she could remember it vividly, it was not the day he defeated her for the first time in combat. It was not the day she saw him for the last time in her life, but it was perhaps the most terrible day of those first eleven years of life.

Standing in the snow, she felt a difficult emotion, his gaze piercing her like a steel rope, she couldn't find the name of the emotion, although it was certainly unpleasant.

It wasn't like the love she felt for him, it was different, something totally negative.

The feeling was darker than the day she had first killed a man in a duel, it was more painful than when she had broken her arm while training with Lera, the sword saint of the central dojo, it was more terrifying than the day she saw her father strike down an enemy swordsman.

Nina Farion worked on herself, forcing her mouth to smile, and she said "good job" to the boy three years younger than her.

She saw something finally rise on his face, warming that frozen expression, his lips parted suddenly, his teeth gleaming against his eyes.

That laugh burst from Gino and spilled across the yard from his small body, he laughed for a few long seconds, it was a display of childish emotion and alien to what Gino is.

"Nina" he sighed looking at her with those dark eyes, he had short brown hair.

"Did you see that?!" he said enthusiastically.

"That was it, wasn't it?... the long sword of light! It must have been like that!" she answered, and indeed it was, it was so fast that she couldn't even move.

She was surprised that she didn't choke on her words.

He nodded twice, shaking his head up and down, his eyes moving everywhere, to the sky, to his house, to her, but always coming back to the wooden sword he held in his hands.

He wore a white training kimono, a common outfit, with bandages around his shoulders, his eyes were still dark, as they always were, like black pools, she thought sometimes.

"I can still feel it... my touki..." he said looking at his hands again

"It's like electricity... it's humming... all around me, it's perfect" he murmured

She was still smiling, wondering if she should stop, stop smiling, or keep that expression.

His eyes landed on her again and then looked away, he never looked at one thing for too long.

"Let's go show my dad..." she muttered.

...

Everything moved quickly after that, it wasn't long before the two boys arrived at the central dojo, and it wasn't long before Gull asked Gino to fight.

All the dozens of sword saints and the two sword emperors saw what happened.

Her father stood up from his "throne", took out his sword, and cleared the ground, he asked Gino to attack him.

Once again, the boy moved faster than she could understand.

Gino and his father, the Sword God, were ten steps away from each other, a second later, their swords clashed.

She couldn't even see it happen, that was what disturbed her.

That dark feeling came back, rising deep inside her chest like black tar, it didn't leave her for many weeks.

In the end, she found a name for it: hopelessness.

It was the lesson she learned that day.

Gino officially became a sword saint, her father nodded and smiled at her with that wild smile he only showed when a swordsman impressed him.

Then he looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, it seems your little boyfriend has figured it out, when will you be there too" he said

He laughed after saying those words, Gino looked at him in silence but with confusion, the same as always.

...

"Nina, are you okay?" A girl called out to her

She looked up from her bowl full of food: a mix of chicken and rice from Begaritt, bought in the village, her mother always told her to eat between training sessions.

Her friends were strolling through the market square, on an autumn day, a few girls around her age, between eleven and fourteen, all of them were advanced or intermediate rank, daughters of the sword saints who lived here all year round, Gino was studying with Gull in the central dojo.

It had been a month since he had dueled his father, a month since he had become a sword saint, and the black tar was still on his chest.

The townspeople walked past them as the group of girls walked down the busy street, with snow-covered buildings leaning on all sides, those who weren't swordsmen always gave them a wide margin of safety, some looked at them with fear, others with respect, but the difference didn't change the distance between them.

"Yes, why do you ask?" she said with a broken voice.

They said something about him spending less time with them, she couldn't make out the exact words.

Their faces stood out to her, they were all pale and brown-haired, they were more concerned with the boys in the village than their training, more concerned with buying new makeup than anything else, it was always the same, of course, she had spent less time with them.

She had already wasted time that day, Gino was ahead of her every minute, he didn't take breaks, he never took breaks.

She found herself thinking about the past years with disdain.

Every day, Gino would go out for a run in the forest to train alone, she had never seen him sitting, talking to friends, she had never seen him think about anything other than his goal.

The difference between them was their commitment, he was more committed to the sword than she was, and that was the plain truth.

No wonder he broke that three year gap, no wonder, when she spent her time doing things like this.

She blinked, snapping out of her thoughts, those pale-faced girls staring at her with wide eyes.

They said something else, she responded with something else.

Minutes passed, more words.

The conversation died down.

She said goodbye to the girls and walked back up the main road, where the snow had flattened under the carriage tracks and foot traffic, as she left the town behind, she was surrounded by small houses and training dojos.

She took a moment to breathe, alone.

I need to stop this.

No...I need to work harder.

She wondered which of those two voices would lead her to what she wanted.

The girl had been dedicated to fencing like a fish in water all her life, every day she swam against the current towards mastery, all the adults told her that she was destined for it, that she had it in her blood as the daughter of the God of the Sword, it was a path laid out for her from the beginning.

Sometimes, Nina Farion wanted to go out into the woods and fall asleep forever.

The other children had no frame of reference for someone like Gino, he was different from most in his way of thinking, but Nina knew him, she knew he loved to use swords, she could relate to him because of that.

They were the same and walked the same path, but Nina could see that a new day would soon come, she would go so far that there would be no point in looking back.

If that happened, she would end up like all the other children, Gino would become a stranger to her, which terrified her.

Four months later, Nina became a sword saint in the middle of winter

It was her twelfth birthday.

That day, after making the long sword of light and beginning to see the world in a new shade of color, she was officially allowed to enter the central dojo.

Despite this, she never defeated Gino Britzs in a sparring match again, the gap between the two continued to widen.

Gino Britzs studied under the gaze of the Sword God in the central dojo a few times a week, other days he would go train alone for countless hours, he didn't seem to follow any routine, he just trained and studied as he wanted, despite his age he held one of the fastest swords in the central dojo and on his way to being a sword king, none of the other sword saints could keep up with him in a fight.

Nina Farion continued training alongside him, losing contact with those friends of hers and following the path she had chosen.

In the eyes of her father, she finally began to mature, he looked at the two children with pride, they were the young stars of the holy land of the sword and would probably lead the next generation of great swordsmen.

and Gull was not wrong, besides he believed he would leave his daughter in good hands if the two were to marry.

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What do you think, Peak? Or is creativity chasing me but I'm faster?...

I would really appreciate it if you would comment on what you think about this...

This way I'll know if anyone is still reading this...

.,_,.

Oh, and also give me power stones so that this can be recommended to more people xd!