Master did not go easy on us.

  No. No he did not.

  “Dodge Vincent!” I yelled, the words a luxury as I smmed my fist into Master’s blocking arm. It pained me, but every single block and movement was for my benefit. It was most certainly not because he thought he had to. So I tried to memorize and memorize and memorize some more. Doing so with a broken leg and a hole through my side where my kidney used to be was hard.

  Vincent tried to dodge, he did, but like the st seven times, Master hit him once and he went down. Not like a sack of potatoes, but like a wrecking ball being torn from its chain at the speed of a bullet. He’d at least dodged a little, positioning himself away from the walls, but that just meant he skipped across the stone ground like a rock across water before facepnting into the stone.

  I was growing frustrated with him. Not because he was so clearly failing, but because he had kicked my ass and then done it. I didn’t know what it was but for some reason, I reacted better to Master. I could actually “fight” him for more than a single blow at least. Maybe Master was just really not holding back against Vincent or had higher standards for him. Either way, it felt humiliating in some way. I didn’t feel like I was doing any better than him, yet he was going down first, every time, and so easily.

  Any thoughts unreted to fighting fled out of me as a Fist, not an empty palm but a terrifying Fist, came towards me.

  My danger senses fred, almost as hard as when I’d fought the ninjas, and I threw out the only block that would work right now. The one I’d only just seen Master do.

  My entire right side colpsed like a defted balloon, my arm broke again, and my skull still took enough of the brunt to crack. I felt my eye pop and screamed in agony as I smmed into the wall and took even more damage.

  And yet I had to move immediately as a foot from hell nearly crushed my head. The time between me hitting the wall and the stomp of the foot was less than half a second. This was insane, even for Master. And no longer was there a nonchant look on his face. Only a look of concentration and anger.

  The next palm attack came forward and-

  ******

  I awoke, unknowing of how long. Master was getting meaner and meaner. I was truly feeling the power and lethality behind the Demon Style. It wasn’t just that Master was strong that made everything so terrifying. With how he was lowering his strength and speed, it couldn’t have been any more than double our own power level. No, it was that every muscle seemed to move exactly as he wanted, into a fwless ferocious attack. More than an assassin, a warrior, or even a wild animal, all of which I’d fought… I felt like I was truly fighting a Demon. If even a little part of me was cking, I’d find myself dead. My heart torn out, my skull shattered, my arm destroyed in just the right ways, in just the right pces, to make it impossible to dodge the next killing blows. Every single move was a demonic attack meant to end my life. It was utterly horrifying, in so, so many ways.

  And yet…

  It felt like I’d been a frog in a well. No, like, like I’d never used my brain at any point. No, it felt, it felt like I’d not had eyes and suddenly learned to see. Yeah, that one was it. I had no idea Martial Arts could be so much… much. From the major to the minor. To the stances, the way he breathed, the way he reacted and responded. I’d seen the muscles in his arm move precisely, almost as if in a formation, just as he hit me and as he pulled back from the hit. I’d seen his breathing follow with, his next moves as if the next a thousand all led into one another. It was true Mastery. He hadn’t simply made a Style, he’d perfected it.

  It was so awe inspiring just to watch, let alone feel it against my body. It felt like what a man finding religion must feel like. I wanted it. I wanted the Demon Style so fucking bad. It was what I could use not only to ascend myself higher, but to also beat Vega with. But yet… it was so far beyond me. It felt like I was seeing a million books on a series written over hundreds and hundreds of years, made by a whole civilization's worth of people, and all the while I was struggling to even understand the first page. And yet every time I advanced even a little bit, tried even a few new things, Master would move differently, use a new small part of the style, and my whole world would be blown wide open.

  As bizarre as it was to say, despite nearly dying multiple times in the first two days… this might be the most enjoyable training I’d ever had with Master. I’d have gotten an actual job (bleh) and paid money for this kind of opportunity. My mind must have broken and become twisted to find such enjoyment in being so utterly destroyed but it revealed so much! I could feel myself becoming more!

  “How can you smile?” Vincent said, a rage I hadn’t heard before entering his voice.

  I looked over at him, fresh from the tank, and he looked… he looked tired. I’d seen him physically exhausted but he looked like a dying candle.

  “Vincent?”

  “He’s… He’s killing us Mutai. I can’t, I can’t even nd one blow! No, I can’t even take one blow! It’s, it’s just endless pain and torment! Endless torture! We’re just… I’m just… I’m so helpless…”

  The look on Vincent’s face… it was new. It was so anguished and so, so full of self hate that it shook me to my core. It felt like I was staring at a man a moment away from breaking into tears and strangling himself to death all at once. I approached, cautiously, worried that his actual life might be hanging off an edge.

  “...Vincent?”

  “I’m… Mutai, I don’t. I can’t, I don’t get it. I can’t… I’m trying Mutai. Why can’t I hit him?! WHY CAN’T I TAKE A SINGLE PUNCH?!”

  He threw a punch then, smming into the stone wall. I winced as he punched a hole in it.

  “I have to kill Vega. I have to. I have to kill him, he murdered my family. He burned them alive. He, he, he…”

  Vincent shook, his whole body rippling. My face grew grim. I grabbed his shoulder, feeling his shuddering body beneath my palm.

  “Vincent. Sit down.”

  “We need-”

  “Sit down Vincent.”

  I dragged him to the ground with me, his body giving plenty of resistance but not stopping me. We sat there, naked, our tanks nearby. Vincent wasn’t crying, but the anguish was all the more telling for that. There was far more than just depression in those eyes and face. There was a madness there. Vincent had had a direction, a goal, and progress. Now he was stalling out. He may be getting stronger but being killed in one blow repeatedly… trauma hides but it doesn’t go away. People, especially warriors, are not immune to breakdowns.

  Vincent had lost his whole family, his whole people, in a brutal, awful, terrifying way. The training and revenge had helped push it away but… it couldn’t run forever.

  I grimaced, remembering my own mental breakdowns. There had not been just one over the years and they had been far more devastating. The tears, the screams, the nightmares, the sobbing, the feeling of wanting it all to end, and my family had gone almost silently, mostly painlessly.

  It wasn’t the same for Vincent.

  This was what I’d been trying to prevent that first day I’d reached out a hand. These horrible feelings that threatened to destroy you.

  “Hey, Vincent.”

  “...What.”

  He couldn’t even look at me, simply staring down into the ground, eyes lost.

  “You know how many times I passed out in my first three weeks here, punching a bag that wouldn’t even move? God, it had to be… well it was a lot. A stiff breeze knocked me out back at that power level. And, I never got any stronger. My number never changed and I was never learning anything new. I wanted to quit the first day and then I really wanted to quit the first week. I kept going and going, even after weeks and weeks of it. There were no breaks, just, wake up, punch, wake up, punch. No food, no drink, just that. To exhaustion, every day. Yet I kept going. For three weeks. And then… I exploded at Master. Punched him until I was exhausted. And do you know what words he said that kept me going for so long?”

  His eyes looked up at me, seeking answers. Full of faint hope.

  I smiled bitterly.

  “Vega is going to kill you.”

  “...What?”

  He stared at me in disbelief.

  “I think I realized it then. That for me… there wasn’t going to be such a thing as a third chance. Even if I was power level [1]... I was still going to find Vega and fight him, even if it killed me. I don’t think… it’s different for you. You can’t give up or stop, can you? You’re going to find him and fight him. And then he’s going to kill you. You’re so focused on your family and your revenge but, you’ll never get there if you die right? You have to live to kill a monster, usually. So, what’s the alternative? Either you die getting stronger here or you die fighting Vega.”

  “But Mutai-! I… I’m not getting stronger! I’m just… I’m just dying.”

  I chuckled. Vincent looked appalled.

  “I said the exact same thing after three weeks and you know what I was? Wrong. And so are you. Even if you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel Vincent… at least there’s a tunnel.”

  I let all of my pain and despair coat those st words. I remembered, I remembered what it was like without any direction. The years of pain and misery. Of never being able to truly get any stronger.

  “I’m sorry Vincent, but do you think you have the luxury to give up?”

  My words seemed to hit him like a hammer.

  “I’m not giving up. I just…”

  I stood up.

  “There’s no guarantee you’re getting stronger and that scares you. Oh well.”

  “...oh well?”

  “You’ll either get stronger or you’ll die. Whether to Master or Vega.”

  My words were cold, like a knife.

  “So get up brother and face death a thousand times. Even if you fall ten thousand times, keep going, because the moment you stop getting up… you’re going to die. One day you’ll be stronger or you’ll be dead.”

  He looked at me. Truly looked at me. And snorted, before standing up.

  “And you, my wordy brother? Oh what lies in your fate?” He asked as we both got dressed.

  I looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “I keep telling you and you keep seeming to not believe me. But sure, I’ll say it again.”

  Staring at him in my Gi, I spoke the same words, yet again.

  “I am going to kill Vega.”

  He breathed out his nose as he followed me up and down into the killing room. I mean, training arena.

  As we both took in Master, he simply shook his head.

  “You can’t even beat Master yet you arrogant guy.”

  I grimaced at the stern expression on Master’s face. He seemed even angrier than st time. I winced. Clearly, he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

  “Trust me, I’m working on it…”

  Warix_Viviana