The final stretch to success

Kane, being almost at the very end of training the five basics of swordsmanship in Byrock, faced a problem unexpected to him. After six months of effective training and dominance in sparring, he was confident about moving on to further stances.

However, his plans were thwarted by the fifth stance, which was so demanding that his body training, which was theoretically supposed to be enough to leave Byrock, required further strength training.

Although Kane was a patient and intelligent child, developing his mind and body, after four long days of constantly hitting the hurdle several hours a day with no results, he was giving up.

"Fuck, why doesn't it work?"

He muttered angrily, under his breath as he threw his sword to the ground, still trying to toss the hurdle up at all after four days, drawing the attention of nearby recruits who started looking at him after hearing him scream.

"I used all the strength, speed. Hand positioning improved as much as I could, but still nothing. What went wrong for me? The forearm has gotten a little bigger these four days, there should be, at least, minimal effects."

He squatted in front of the hurdle, gasping with fatigue, forgetting to keep the calm and sober mind he had spent so much time working on, still wondering in his head.

"What went wrong? Did I see something wrong as he showed me? Is the problem in my body?"

After this thought, he looked around the training ground, looking at the recruits in his group who, despite having similar bodies, were performing this exercise with better results.

"No, well, they are relatively managing, which means it's not a matter of body....

Okay, for today, I'll continue what I've been doing, in the morning, I'll ask the tutor, maybe he'll give me some advice."

Despite his dissatisfaction, Kane decided to keep repeating to the end the same exercise for the fourth day in a row, hoping for, at least, minimal results. He dragged out his exercises until supper, slowly losing patience with each strike.

Sitting down for supper, Kane grabbed his head and stared at his plate, the sounds of cutlery hitting plates and conversations overwhelming him more and more.

Sounds he didn't normally hear were beginning to ring out in his ears, and what he heard every day was getting louder and louder every second, leading to a shrill headache.

He felt with his body and heard things around him that were unprecedented for him, the sudden rush of information frightened the boy.

Kane tore his gaze away from the plate and, looking around the dining hall, began to panic. His breathing began to increase like crazy, and he saw before his eyes a field full of different-colored spots surrounding recruits and tutors.

It was the first time the boy felt such anxiety and panic since the attack on his village. He didn't know what was going on and felt like he was about to go crazy.

Only a familiar voice snapped the boy out of his thoughts, bringing him back to his old senses

"Kane? What happened?"

His concerned roommates asked him, looking at the state of the boy, who looked as if he was about to collapse.

When Kane heard the familiar voice, the surrounding sounds began to quiet down.

He looked at a concerned Daren and Auren. Looking at them, he saw the dark-blue blur begin to disappear from Daren and the slightly grayish blur from Auren, and he sighed, trying to control his breathing, tiredly answering.

"I'm already four days into the fifth stance, and nothing. No matter what I try, I can't even half-perform it on these hurdles."

"Emm... We are both in the third stance, so we won't help you too much with that. Did the tutor show you how to perform this stance?"

"Let's say, he showed it to me, so I wasn't able to see everything."

"Then ask him for help, maybe he can give you some advice."

"This one I've already thought about, I think I'll go up tomorrow, but still, I planned to go to the lower knight rank about two days ago, and I'm still struggling with it."

"Not everything goes as we would like, but what would life be without failures?"

"I know that better than anyone..."

He muttered under his breath, with his eyes on the glowing torches of the empire waving in the night sky, burning forests, fields, and the village where he grew up. The very thought of those events, no longer gave Kane a sense of fear or sadness, but rage.

In an angry mood, recalling the events of long ago, shedding a tear, and keeping a stone face, he left the supper early and went to his room.

Lying on his bed, slowly closing his eyes to sleep, he kept thinking about his training. Through the emptiness in his heart and the lack of anything else in his life besides the army, Kane was unable to spend a day without a sword, his thoughts revolving around training and the meaning of life.

"What could be going wrong for me? Did I leave something out? What did the tutor say at the time..."

He recalled his meeting with tutor Rikimaru, trying to recall his words.

"...Basically, it's a combination of everything you've learned so far, speed, strength, sword wielding, reaction time..."

"Everything I've learned.... That is, it applies to my entire stay here. Strength, speed, and reaction time, in addition to sword wielding, hmmm.... I remember how it started when I got to the first group, the first training and fainting sessions on the training ground, the first sparring sessions, and tutor Nilon's teachings."

He sighed with his eyes closed as he analyzed his nearly year-long stay in Byrock, until learning the first stance ran through his mind.

"Basically, the fifth stance is an improved first stance, only I did better with it.... What's the difference? Hands, palms, body.... Legs!"

As soon as that word popped into his head, he suddenly got out of bed, as if awakened by a nightmare.

"I forgot to add leg strength! It's all because I didn't look at Rikimaru from the side but from the opponent's perspective. So much time lost because of something like this, I forgot to use my whole body."

As soon as he remembered this, Kane immediately ran out of the room toward the training ground, where recruits were storing equipment and wooden swords as punishment.

"Oi, leave me one sword and a hurdle!"

"What, you want to keep training?"

Looked one of the recruits at Kane like a crazy person, seeing in front of him, despite a full day's work, a buoyant and energetic boy.

"Yes, leave one set for me."

"Well, I don't know, I'll have to ask the tutor."

"You don't have to, give it to me."

He yanked the sword out of the recruit's hand and ran over to the vacant hurdle they hadn't managed to take.

The boy just looked at Kane as if he were insane and, ignoring him, continued cleaning the training ground.

"Now it has to go, arms, hands, legs. Speed and strength."

On a starry evening, on an empty, huge training ground, Kane stood alone with a sword like his traveling companion. At his feet, a light autumn wind stirred the sand like waves on the sea.

Taking a deep breath, Kane, after four days of frustration and failed attempts, once again performed the fifth stance, adding to his arm and leg strength. From the quick and sweeping sword attack, only the swish of sliced air and empty strikes against the wooden hurdle rang out on the empty training ground.

After the sound of the impact came out, Kane's eyes saw the hurdle thrown into the air along with the stars in the background. As soon as it fell to the ground, raising dust in the air, after a moment of silence, the boy let out a breath from his mouth.

"It worked"

He uttered it with unprecedented relief as the wind blew away his chestnut hair.

"While I'm here, maybe I'll train a while longer."

He stated this, hearing the sounds of conversation still coming from the dining hall.

Spending the night outside under the stars, he practiced the fifth stance, feeling a boost of desire and the possibility that he could achieve what he had planned.

Standing alone with his wooden sword, scattering sand to the side with each step, he trained in silence, hearing only the swish of the cut air, the strikes of the sword, and his own sigh from fatigue, falling into a trance of training and forgetting the sense of time.

Only after hours had passed did he fall to the cold ground from exhaustion, throwing the sword beside him. He fell asleep from exhaustion, gazing at the beautiful twinkling stars.

The boy, filled with satisfaction from his hard work, gazing at the beautiful sky, comprehending the world and life more and more with his mind, said to himself.

"A dazzling world, with pests treading on it..."

He spoiled his mood while savoring nature by reminding himself of human existence.

Kane fell asleep.

Only before 7 a.m. was he awakened by his tutors coming out to the training ground, surprised to see the boy lying on the ground first thing in the morning.

"What is he doing here?"

"I don't know, someone beat him up?"

"There are no wounds or bruises"

"Well, after all, he didn't lie down like that and go to sleep".

"Looking at the equipment scattered around him, I think he trained overnight".

"And no one noticed that? He should have been in the room"

"And how was I supposed to know that some masochist would do another one at night after a full day of training?"

The tutors argued over the boy, until finally the noise of their conversations awakened a sleepy Kane.

"What are you doing here?"

Kane heard from the man blurring in his vision, from above whose head the sun's rays were blinding him.

"I was training."

"And you're lying here like this?"

"I think I fainted and stayed like that."

"Nilon, and what are we going to do with him? He was supposedly just training, but he shouldn't be here anyway."

"Ehh..."

Scratched his head tutor Nilon sighed, looking at the boy getting up from the ground.

"Okay, other than the fact that he slept where he shouldn't have, he didn't do anything, let's already let you go this time."

"Thank you."

Not knowing how to react in such a situation, he shakily saluted.

"Go to your room to change into something clean and return to the training ground".

"Yes sir!"

He ran immediately to the room so as not to annoy the tutors. As he ran up the stairs, echoing through the halls, it reached him anew that he had managed to make progress in Friday's stance.

"I have the toss figured out, striking the hurdle down is unlikely to be a problem. Today will be a busy day."

Trying not to wake his roommates, Kane tiptoed into the room, but the old, creaky floor did not help in this task.

The quiet sound of stomping and light creaking began to echo in the room first thing in the morning.

Taking his clothes for a change, the boy left the room. While slowly closing the door, Kane didn't feel the draft coming from the open window in the room, and suddenly the door jerked in his hand, causing a loud rumble throughout the dormitory with a quick and forceful slam.

As soon as the boy heard the noise waking up everyone on the floor, he momentarily froze in place, hearing his roommates waking up screaming from behind the door.

"Whoa!!! What was that!"

"Something rumbled!"

When, at the same time, one of the recruits in his room on the same floor tore into the entire dormitory.

" SHUT UP!!!"

Hearing the recruits getting up an hour early all over the floor, Kane began to make his way back to the training ground as quickly as possible so that no one would catch him that he was the reason why a good portion of the recruits didn't get enough sleep.

As he ran down the stairs, shivers still ran through him from the incredibly loud sound, summing up the whole situation with bared eyes.

"Oops."

Walking out onto the training ground, his face was hit by a cold, gusty wind, and he noticed the tutors approaching him.

"What was that banging down there?"

"I don't know."

He walked away to his training station, trying to keep a stone face.

"Okay, today we'll let go of running, a whole day for swordsmanship."

He said to himself, staring at the hurdles scattered around the square and picking up a lying sword from the ground.

Kane stood in the middle of the empty training ground, took a deep breath of the cold autumn air as a slow, light breeze enveloped his body, feeling an unfamiliar relief and pleasure from his very existence.

"The final stretch to success."