He'd lost consciousness from all the pain. What pain though? He couldn't remember. And why was it so loud, so stuffy, so constricting?

  He opened his eyes, but the light was too bright. And somehow he was in the middle of a press of bodies. It was anything but comfortable.

  And the smells. He was in a press of bodies, and that liquid that was pouring everywhere, it was red, it was familiar, it was tangy.

  A person in front of him got their head crashed. Something viscous fell on his face. He knew what it was, and he almost lost his lunch over it. His hand was confined, it couldn't move to free his face, to raise his weapon. He was in the middle of battle, somehow, even though he didn't know how he'd ended up here. He was going to die, again.

  Again, he thought questioningly, when had he ever died? All around him, warriors got in each other's way, and he was right in the middle of the melee. An explosion went off behind him.

  He could feel the heat on his back, seinging his shirt, pushing him towards the back of the man or woman in front of him. He bounced on a bark hardback, and this time there was no one behind him to keep him in the scrum. The whole backline had been obliterated by one spell.

  He fell slowly, and the ground behind him was filled with boiling gore.

  He could see the whole cluster falling towards him, their balance messed up with their support in the back obliterated. The column collapsed. He was there, the nameless soldier was, and he fought to breathe as he found himself struggling not to drown in a sea of bodies of which he was at the bottom.

  He struggled, as did everybody, and it seemed like hours before he finally made it and was able to breathe anything that wasn't disgusting and tangy and sweaty and or smelled like excrement. His relieved breath didn't last long.

  Their whole cluster of what could only be amateur soldiers was vulnerable, and the large spell he watched gathering power was ominous.

  It was a large spell, slow. The soldier thought it was the kind of spell a mage couldn't use in the middle of an intense battle. When your opponents were stuck on the ground though, unable to dodge or counterattack, almost four dozen opponents, to be wiped out in one fell swoop, it made things a little convenient.

  The ice spiraled outwards, and an aura of intense cold emanated from the building mana. The heat of bodies pressed together and the residue heat of the fire spell were useless. And the swirling storm of cold that kept building was hypnotizing. Still, his fingers were already starting to freeze. And the spell was still just building power.

  And then he appeared, someone the nameless soldier could have sworn he'd seen before. It was a boy, a young boy with long hair tied to the back of his head, terrible scars on one half of his face, and strands of white hair mixed in his ponytail.

  He came from the sky, like an avenging god, and cut that swirling representation of power in twain with a descending slash. By the time the view cleared, tens of enemy combatants lay on the ground in front of him, groaning and screaming in pain, some quiet in one final rest. The mage was in the latter group.

  The boy crouched, his bastard sword held loosely in one hand, its tip touching the ground. He added his second hand to the hilt and started performing a series of diagonal slashes, so fast were they, and graceful.

  Those in pain were granted early release, and the few who tried to ambush him were summarily dealt with with the simplest swings. None of them was even a match for him.

  The nameless soldier clenched his empty fists. He did not have a weapon anymore, but he would one day. And he would be like that angel of death too.

  It took the fallen soldiers a while to realise the swordsman was waiting for them to collect themselves before he'd move on.

  He didn't stop there though. Once he realised they were all standing, he instructed them to follow him. Cutting up humans like stalks of wheat, he led them to a resting area.

  “Your first blooding, wasn't it?” the boy asked them after they'd reached the resting area. “Well, it's not pretty, but you need to get experience somehow. Now, hopefully, you'll know it isn't good to crowd like that. Makes you susceptible to those destructive fire spells.”

  No one felt like responding just then, and some even seemed offended. They just might have forgotten this little man saved them a few minutes back, and that he'd killed at least twice their current number, of experienced soldiers no less.

  The next day the nameless soldier had a sword. They did not return to the field for almost three days.

  He was not as comfortable with using the sword as he'd assumed he would be. He had put himself at the front of the formation, trying to simply swing his sword. The warrior he met first wielded an axe, a graceless weapon in the soldier's eyes. Only when they clashed the axe wielder had more grace than the nameless soldier.

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  He was pushed back. He crashed into one of his squadmates, throwing off the man's rhythm. The axe warrior jumped after him and it was all the soldier could do to shuffle on the ground like a worm to try and escape. He heard, more than saw the squadmate he'd tripped up be eviscerated. He wanted to crawl into a barrel and hide from the world for all eternity.

  Not only had he made a fool of himself, he'd also killed a squadmate.

  Sure, he couldn't remember anything, therefore he couldn't remember most of them, but he'd killed a squadmate. Nothing else seemed to matter but that.

  Then he returned, that swordsman from before. Saved them again. Only this time there were less than five of them left, and two of the others were too injured to fight again for at least half a year. He was transferred to another unit.

  He watched the warrior every chance he got, saw him training, saw him mowing down people on the field. He tried to learn from a distance. It wasn't working. Mostly because he scared easy. Something happened to the air whenever an enemy looked his way. The air seemed to cuddle with blood and steel, like the amount of blood they'd spilled was solidifying into some kind of aura.

  It always left the soldier breathless and shaky, throwing off his rhythm.

  “I think I've been at this battle front long enough,” the boy wonder was telling a sergeant the nameless soldier had gone to visit just then.

  He had come to the sergeant's tent because he needed to change units again, his new one having been decimated after not even a month together.

  “I guess it's fine, captain,” the sergeant told the boy.

  The soldier froze. The boy was going to another battle front. He was going to leave this place and the soldier was never going to see his perfect form again. To learn from him. That was…terrible.

  The boy left the tent, startled a bit when he saw the soldier just standing there but soon regained his cool and nodded as he moved past the soldier.

  The soldier did not nod back. He just stood there, stiff as a board, his mind whirling.

  “Can I help you, soldier,” the sergeant said from his open tent flap.

  “Huh? I… Yes. My unit was destroyed.”

  “Oh? Alright then. You'll have to be reassigned. Just wait here for a few minutes while I send a courier to—”

  “Minutes?”

  The sergeant frowned, obviously not happy with being interrupted.

  “Yes, about thirty minutes or so will do.”

  The soldier stiffened. Thirty minutes. But the boy would be gone by then. He debated it in his head for precisely five seconds. Then he was running.

  “Hey! Wait! Wait a second,” he yelled at the slowly receding back of the boy.

  Somehow, he heard him. He half-turned his body with what the soldier thought might have been a receding smirk.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “Ye… Yes. Yes! I want to be like you. I want to be a swordmaster too.”

  The boy stopped and turned to look at the soldier fully. He smiled indulgently like he was talking to a precocious child.

  “I'm not a swordmaster yet, chap. I'm pretty close, but I'm not quite there yet. Not in this scenario anyway.”

  “But you are strong,” the soldier insisted. “You are the strongest one here.”

  The boy scratched the back of his head. He was having trouble keeping a grin from his mouth from what the soldier could see.

  “I don't know… Do you think you can be like me though? I train. A lot.”

  “I can do it. I can train a lot too. I just don't want to be useless.”

  The boy looked away for a while, then he spent a few moments studying the darkening sky.

  When he looked at the soldier again, his eyes were suddenly cold, the air around him friggid. The soldier took a step back, shivering.

  “Your fighting spirit needs a lot of work,” the swords man commented even as the air turned back to normal.

  “Luckily for you, this is a war. You will never find a better place to temper yourself, temper your aura. As for being a swordsman…”

  The boy studied him from head to toe.

  “Your physique doesn't look half-bad. You're still a child, but you'll grow, just like me. I think I might be able to help you.”

  The soldier smiled. His heart beat faster from excitement. He dared get his hopes up.

  “Unfortunately, I have to go to another battle front soon. I can only train you in the basics for about two days before I have to leave.”

  “Take me with you!” the soldier said after thinking about it for a few moments.

  The swordsman scratched the back of his head.

  “It isn't that simple. Traveling with me while I roam the battlefronts… it won't be good for you. You won't be able to keep up, and even if you could, you couldn't handle the enemies I will be engaging. I will have to protect you all the time, which will be detrimental to your growth and my health.”

  The soldier found his shoulders caving in.

  “Tell you what,” the swordsman said, “let's make a deal. I teach you the drills, you do them everyday. Swing your sword a thousand, no, a million times everyday. Learn the basic stances. Make them as easy as breathing. Then, survive. Survive this war, and at the end of it, I'll take you as my apprentice.”

  It took him a few moments to understand the offer, but once he did he nodded his head sharply, and then again, and again.

  “Yes-s…sir,” he replied.

  The boy nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned away with a smile on his face. The nameless soldier had no idea back then. It was the first time he'd ever spoken to a god.

  ****

  A month after his cousin's graduation, Rafe called his aunt again for the hundredth time. He sighed. Her phone was busy, again. He wondered when she was planning on coming back.

  He shrugged, cleaned the house, and went out to get the mail. It was weird. Why the hell was his aunt's house addressed through his father's Kingsley name?

  One of the envelopes was empty but for a small rectangular plastic thing. Rafe saw the envelope, the somewhat familiar writing, more formal than he remembered.

  It was addressed to him, a credit card. He didn't know what to think, he didn't want to think. The limit on it was crazy, too crazy. A fifteen-year-old boy bought a sports car.

  And in another world, a nameless soldier woke up with sweat beading on his forehead. It was hours before that day's deployment, and hours were what he needed.

  He didn't know how long they'd been fighting this damn war, but he had something to look forward to. In the end, the greatest swordsman he'd yet seen would take him on as an apprentice. He went through a couple of the stances a few reliable veterans had taught him, and swung his sword again, and again. He didn't count, he just swung vertically, diagonal from the right, from the left, rinse and repeat.

  His muscles throbbed, and the light of the rising sun glistened off drops of his sweat. He did not stop. His breathing was rugged, he could hear the whoosh of the sword's movement through the still air. He smiled inwardly, making his movements faster and faster. His feet moved in the most basic of patterns he'd learned over many battles.

  The rest of his platoon woke. A new platoon once more. He'd lost three or more by now. He always survived though, always the last man standing somehow, not through better battle awareness or anything. He couldn't explain it.

  How did he survive all those massive area of effect spells? He didn't want

  to say it, acknowledge it.

  Five hours later, his troop fell into a trap spell. They did not stand a chance. All their bodies were evaporated, his too. There was no possible way he could have survived that.