Chapter 25

"...…Training? As in getting stronger?"

Scathatch looked at him as if he was ill in the head. "What else could I mean? To train you to get weaker? Unless you train you're magecraft and swordsmanship in a lab testing things."

Sirius was.....stunned? Surprised? Astounded? Lot's of words, not enough understanding. He had just had, what was to him, a life or death battle with the renown god slayer of the Celts, Scathatch.

Excuse him if he's gonna be a little...weirded out. "I just....I almost killed you and you want to make me stronger? For what? A better battle, because I know for a fact that the Scathatch of legend wouldn't be bested by someone a few hundred years their senior so you definitely held back."

Scathatch sighed. "I'm training you to be better. I fought you to understand you and your desire to improve upon what you have and what you need. I need no other reason to train somebody, unless said person is a coward."

Sirius was now more understanding. This was the woman he had heard in legends. A honorable warrior who trained Setanta or Cu Chulainn as he was known. This was the woman who had trained several heroes throughout her life.

"Well it's good to know that I didn't die on the first day from my sadistic teacher...." That was the wrong thing to say at the moment in front of a being who was known for....near death training.

"Ho? So you wouldn't have died from that? I'll need to up the difficulty a bit then. Come I'll show you where you are staying while in the castle." Then she hopped off the throne and walked down the enormous hallway, not waiting for her pupil who was pale as a ghost.

Then he snapped out of it and rushed to her, panicked. "Master! You don't have to up it, I most definitely died in that last attack, you don't have to overwork yourself!"

She stopped at one door and turned to Sirius. "This will be your room for the remainder of your stay inside my castle while we train. Make sure your healed up by tomorrow so that I can train you." Then she started to walk away.

"Master about the previous thing...…" His voice trailed off as he watched her walk away unimpeded and he sighed at the reality that was about to absolutely smack him in the face.

Then he walked into his room and thought back on the battle. His alchemy was used a effectively as he could and his sword skills were fine if you didn't think about the massive difference in physical strength between the two.

"Yet I still got my ass handed to me....."

He paced back and forth thinking up different ways the fight could have gone if his magic hadn't messed up. Having decided, he looked into his magic and experimented with it.

He transmuted the floor into a little wooden cube. Then he 'hid' or a more accurate term would be he made the wooden cube exist outside the concept of being split. After he was done he casted a spell to cut the cube only for it to fail and the cube remain whole.

Then he cancelled the magic and used it on his sword, Arcane, instead. He chuckled at the actions he made. 'Using magic, the epitome of mystery on a sword meant to cut mystery, man the things I do sometimes.'

When he was done, Arcane should be invulnerable to the concept of cutting. The sword smashed the wooden cube to pieces, as if it was a blunt weapon and not a sharp pointed one.

'So it works on understanding of the target. That's why divine constructs would be hard to use his True Magic on when they are so hard to understand on what their made out of.'

Then he shook his head. 'Sigh that means I would have to know the past of the weapon to understand how it was forged. Would master even let me do that?'

He continued to pace around the room thinking about all of the restrictions and bonuses his magic had and built on them. Making his True Magic gain the foundation it needed to make him very strong, and that would give him opportunities to unlock the limits of certain things.

…

'I won't fail this time, I don't even have to give him the spear! His divine construct can do it.'

Scathatch sat on her throne, thinking. She was a warrior. A warrior who went to the Land of Shadows to guard it, to make sure nothing ever got out and terrorized people.

However, during her stay of after a few hundred years she changed. She was a half divine spirit, the very thing she hated. She became the thing she killed and it was ironic that she, Scathatch of Dun Scaith became a divine being, a race known for their arrogance for their pride.

She hated it. She wanted death. She wanted her life to take the natural order not this monstrosity! And so, she taught Setanta how to use rune magecraft, how to wield weapons, she trained him to use Gae Bolg. She trained him to kill her!

And he couldn't do it. He wasn't strong enough. All it led to was Cu Chulainn using Gae Bolg to kill his loved ones, his best friend, and his son from across the sea. She led him down that path, she led him to misery.

Did she feel sorry? Yes. She was his teacher, but she loved him unlike a teacher, though it didn't develop into that. She still loved him, dearly. Her desire to be killed by Setanta was equal to wanting to be saved. He still failed.

'It could go wrong all over again. I might never get my peace until the 'outside' disappears. I can't bet on hope....'

Then she thought back to that fight, that fight that she held back on until the last moment, the moment when it mattered. The moment when death came flying in uncontrolled. She could feel it, if she trained him enough he could completely kill her with that weird sword. Not to mention the odd effect of him phasing through her spear, though it didn't help when she used its true power, it still put him high on the pedestal in her eyes.

She looked at Gae Bolg. She thought back to the past, to the time when she was but a little girl who roamed her fathers castle on the beach. That little girl who trained hard enough to slay gods and the same girl who travelled to The Land of Shadows to safeguard it from anything escaping.

She paid the price by making her self immortal, just like the monsters that lived there, the same exact ones she was guarding.

'What am I doing? Was I such a coward?'

She was disgusted when she looked back on the thoughts she had for the past few hours, the thoughts of hesitation.

'He's gem. A gem that I will polish.'

Her conviction relit and she prepped herself for the training that was destined to put Sirius much higher in the eyes of future modern man than Alaya first thought.