I was hoping Master’s fury had been temporary. But it just kept racketing up!

  “Vincent, tackle him!”

  It had been two weeks now and to both my and Vincent’s relief, he’d somehow learned to take a blow. His record was surviving two blows now and if we were lucky, he’d finally be able to take three-

  Bang.

  Or not. His body immediately disappeared with a wave of Master’s hand, teleporting him directly to the tank. He’d begun doing that after the first week, not because he wanted to or out of any kind of sympathy, but because he had to or we were going to start dying. The battles were unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Even just sitting in my tank, I could practically feel the killing intent through the walls. I couldn’t sense Ki but I felt like I could feel Master’s boiling like lava.

  Were- Were we not getting stronger fast enough?! I knew Vincent was a bit slow, but I had been doing good! Master-

  A punch like a hurricane came slamming into me, enough force to actually punch a hole clean through me. I dodged, having copied just a tiny amount of the amazing footwork Master had shown. It was like I was following a legendary manual, my muscles bending at all the correct angles, my breathing matching the movements, my whole body putting force and pressure across itself in just the right ways. I practically disappeared as a result. Even I was in awe at the speed and power I’d gained. It had nothing to do with my slowly growing power level and all with using my body the right way.

  The me of today, through footwork, dodges, and punches alone… could obliterate me of two weeks ago. There would be no contest. I could truly feel what Master had meant when he’d said we’d sucked. If this was my level after only two weeks… what would two months do? Two years? I’d barely comprehended a fraction of all the things Master was doing, and I was sure that without being able to sense Ki, I’d never fully understand. And yet this was what it had caused in me. How much it had changed me.

  I flashed forward, taking the offensive, my movements equally demonic. I could feel my fist changing, the way it acted, the way it moved, the way my whole body put itself into it. I’d meditated in the tank long and hard. On everything. The most recent thing I was trying to do felt insane but also right. Manipulating my own blood. My body was my body, we were all one being’s in whole. Manipulating my blood fully was impossible but… not totally. Even the average person could simply raise their heart rate and increase their blood flow. All I was trying to do was to make sure it all went in the right places in the right amounts at the right time.

  I’d been doubting myself but when my fist hit and I felt how much stronger it was than normal-!

  There was a flash of movement and-

  Agony. Pain. Confusion. Fear. Danger.

  I was in the healing tank. I didn’t understand, as sensations I’d never felt before erupted across me. My mind stuttered and stumbled and I looked down- And I looked down- and- and I- I- And-

  My chest was gone. The entire right of my chest was just… gone. Even as the tank worked desperately to heal me… I felt my life on the edge of death. The tanks were miracles but, but they had limits. This was near the limit. I could feel the tank itself changing, an emergency mode, as it fiercely tried to heal me. Flesh reknit in real time and- and I could feel my power level almost going down. My body… was getting weaker, healing me so absolutely before I’d been in my most recent fight. I was losing physical gains.

  My mind blanked out, as I fiercely held onto consciousness, trying to figure out how to survive. I could see my lung regrowing but, blood. I, breathing. I needed to stay calm. A calm body, to help the healing, I-

  I needed to sleep.

  I closed my eyes, pushing past the pain, past the agony and fear and desperation, finding peace in the warm waters. The flowing waters of life. In the way my body was, every inch of muscle, every sway of it in the water. Peace. Remember my birthday, the happy times, my family's warm smiles. Relax. Relax.

  I smiled and let darkness truly take me.

  ******

  When I woke up, I stared at my chest in horror. It had been healed, but that wasn’t the problem. The memories slammed into me like a meteor. I’d been about to die. I’d really been about to die after Master had thrown one punch and destroyed half my damn torso. Worse than that… worse than everything else…

  I’d dodged.

  He’d been aiming for my heart.

  Cold white terror gripped me. I’d been so close to death. Too close. Closer than I’d ever been and it hadn’t been against a rabid wild animal or some insane creature. It hadn’t even been in a fight or a duel or something truly trying to kill me. It had nearly been because of a training accident.

  My heart beat so hard and my eyes shook in utter terror.

  I could’ve died. No, no I could’ve really died right then and there. Another moment before I got teleported, one less dodge, not relaxing my body enough to help the vital life giving waters along and… and, that would’ve been the end of Mutai. Killed by an angry master by accident.

  It was less than two weeks ago I’d told Vincent to get stronger or die, more or less, and yet here I was, about to die to something so stupid. I felt so, utterly helpless. Slowly, as the terror poured its way out of me and my breathing calmed, reality reasserted itself.

  Master was angry.

  Master was nearly killing us.

  An angry Master might not be able to fully hold back…

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  By the time the tank opened and my feet met stone again, I knew the answer. I had to calm Master down! It wasn’t simply a matter of helping out, it was a literal matter of life or death!

  “Mutai?” Vincent asked, looking at me. He seemed fine, no worse for wear besides the normal, but that wasn’t any kind of reassurance. I remembered how he had needed to start being teleported immediately.

  “Vincent.” I said, face serious.

  “What?”

  “I think… we need to calm Master down or we’re going to die.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that but it wasn’t like he had much to say. The most helpless shrug in the world was my only response as well. After all, who on Vega knew why Master was so pissed?! Was it us? But we were really trying our best! His expectations can’t possibly be that high can it?! Maybe it was something else…

  “Do you think Sherlock Sluts got canceled or something?” I asked Vincent.

  I received a look from Vincent unlike anything I’d ever seen. Complete bafflement along with utter disgust.

  “Mutai…” He said, voice laced with, well, a lot but mostly disappointment. “You watch that?”

  “Hey! No! Master does. Maybe that’s the reason he's been so angry recently.”

  “I thought it might’ve just been my imagination since he keeps breaking me down so hard. Is he really that angry? It’s hard to tell since I can barely last a moment.” He said, voice laced with bitterness.

  “He nearly killed me.”

  “So? He does that nearly ten times a day.” Vincent looked and replied deadpan.

  “No, I mean like, really nearly killed me. The tank almost didn’t put me back together. He destroyed half my chest… and he was aiming for my heart.”

  Vincent’s face grew dead serious.

  “What did you do to piss him off so much?”

  “ME?! Can’t it be you? You’re one that can barely last two blows.” I said.

  “First off, fuck you. Second off, it’s clear that he considers you more important than me. Despite him hitting me so hard it obliterates me, I doubt my lacking performance alone would be the cause. Or I’d probably be dead.”

  I had to admit, it held up. If Master was simply pissed with Vincent, Vincent would probably not be lasting two blows. Master wasn’t above letting out some of his frustrations. No, no he was clearly hitting me harder or at least doing more with me.

  “I still have no idea how can you last so long against him. It’s truly an Enigma of talent.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I’ve told you, you just have to move right. You barely copy any of Master’s style from what I’ve seen. It’s probably your decades of training in your Clan’s style that’s messing you up.”

  “Is learning someone else’s style so easy? You make it look as simple as swimming through water.”

  I shrugged. It’s not like I was talented, I was just a fresh slate while he was carved stone. It was going to take him a while to unlearn and relearn, far longer than it was going to take me to learn something new. It wasn’t a surprise but that didn’t mean I was learning that much faster. After all…

  “Don’t you think if I were some kind of talented man, Master would be cutting me some slack?”

  Vincent had no reply to that.

  *****

  As we made our way down to the training arena, I saw only more anger on Master’s face. No apology, no acknowledgment, just an unbelievably intense killing intent. I felt my heartbeat speed up staring into those normally cold and dead eyes.

  It was like… it was like I waking up something that should not be awoken.

  It was almost divine how I knew that if I kept going like this, I’d be killed. Or worse. I realized in that moment, as Master stared at me with flames in his eyes, that whatever it was, was definitely me. I had done something to piss him off.

  And I had no idea how to fix it.

  “Ready?” Master said, his voice practically a growl.

  Oh fuck, oh no, oh fuck. I was moments from death, I could practically feel the world slowing to a halt as the image of a fist going through my heart seemed to be overlaid through my vision. I could see it, moments away, seconds ticking down in slowed motion as Master finally killed me. My danger sense exploded.

  My mouth moved faster than any other part of me, a barely remembered hope reverberating in me.

  Master always answered your questions truthfully.

  “WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY?!”

  Master froze, his frown deepening and deepening as he stared right at me, the tension thick in the air. Vincent actually took a few steps away from me the same way someone would flee a raging fire.

  Those eyes… they pierced into me, dissected me, thought of a million different ways of killing me and destroying me. Master in that moment looked like nothing more than a Demon of Death. And then-

  He sagged, letting out a huff and a breath. It looked like all the energy had suddenly fled him. He was silent for some time before looking up at me, annoyance still coating his eyes.

  “You…” He said.

  My heart beat, wondering what on Vega I could have possibly done. Was I, was I really learning too slowly?! Did he have higher expectations for me than Vincent? Did I need to learn even faster? I thought I was going at an okay pace but I hardened my heart to put in a hundred times the effort in and-

  “You learn too fast.”

  What?

  “What?”

  “You learn too damn fast! Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked for my Demon Style? How many hundreds of thousands of battles I’ve been in? There’s been entire decades where I had to do nothing but learn to fight or die, every single moment! I had to go through countless journeys across the planet and farther just to get as good as I am. The amount of things I’ve done, learned, and experienced is more than anything you could possibly imagine. I have lived for over five hundred years and you just- You-! You! You learn everything so simply, like swimming through water! It’s a disgrace to me! What kind of monster are you?! A high potential is nothing compared to how you seem to tear apart everything you see, perfectly replicate it, add your own enhancements, and then figure out things you couldn’t possibly know like you’re reading a book. You’ve already learned three years worth of training in two weeks! At this rate, you’ll learn my whole damn style in less than two years. That’s… that’s… insane! My whole life’s work, my whole life’s work! Five hundred years worth of effort, of battles, of uncountable numbers of life and death experiences, learned in only two years.”

  Master huffed and puffed after his rant while I stared, mouth wide open, shocked to my core.

  “You… are a monster. And you make me feel like I’ve wasted over five hundred years of my life.”

  He sagged, looking totally spent.

  “Just… what kind of being and creature even are you?”

  My mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

  For once… I was speechless.

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