I’m not a person that’s commonly stubborn, but when I want to be stubborn, I’m the most stubborn person that you’ll ever meet. And there’s a big difference between choosing what to do and being told that you have to do it, number one, there’s the fact that if you fail or don’t reach the expectations on your own then it’s only your self that’s disappointed, but if you don’t reach it and have everyone pushing you, then you automatically become a failure in everyone’s eyes. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure if my life was heading in the direction that I wanted it to; I didn’t want to be a leader, I wasn’t sure if I wanted a lover that would stay with me for the rest of their life because I’d probably end up trying to find the right person for too long, or look past the person who it was meant to be, or had I already found her? I love Midori, but I could I imagine myself with her for the rest of my life? I was only in my seventeenth cycle, I didn’t want my life to already be planned out for me without my consent.

I became disagreeable.

“What if I don’t want it?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if I don’t want my life to be planned out for me? What if I want to make my own decisions and plan my own future? What if I was to tell you that I didn’t want the sword at all?” I said to him defiantly.

“You can’t.”

“I can’t?” I asked him in a low and dangerous voice, suddenly rebellious. I could feel my eyes narrowing and my posture becoming stiff and incompliant.

 “Well, you could, but it wouldn’t change anything, your fate would still stay with you, the sword isn’t what brought you that fate, it was already planned out for you, the sword just showed what it was in a way that we can understand.”

“Oh.” I turned away from Sensei insolently and walked out of the armoury and into the sun. I put the sword on the floor and leant against the wall of the armoury and looking up into the clear blue skies I cleared my mind of everything but the feel of the air and the colour of the blue, avoiding any thoughts about the sword lying at my feet. But as much as I tried to stop them, thoughts of my future kept coming into my mind and disturbing me, I got so frustrated that I grabbed the sword and flung it into the trees. Sighing I walked to the forest and stood just inside the trees in a small clearing, the sword was standing in the ground, angled at me with the hilt in the air as if it knew I was coming to pick it up. Stupid thing.

I roughly grabbed it out of the ground and tore off its sheath, tossing it to the side of the clearing. I closed my eyes again and held the sword out in front of me, feeling my surroundings as my teachers had taught me to do throughout my training. I was trying to remain calm and clear my mind, but as before the thoughts kept coming into my head, I got frustrated again. I slowly pulled myself into the first position of fighting with my sword still in my hand, then I slowly flowed into the second position, I went through all twenty of the positions and then repeated them again with increased speed, until I could hear the air as it whipped around the blade of my sword, I heard extremely quiet and unfamiliar footfalls coming behind me, but carried on flowing through the fight stances with increased speed.

When the footsteps had gotten close enough for me to just touch with the tip of my sword, I whipped around opening my eyes and resting the point of my sword against his collarbone, I stayed silent as I looked into the electric blue eyes with a cold mask of disinterest on my face, hiding the confusion I felt at the intensity that our eyes met. I slowly took down my sword and saw the small scratch that I had left on his skin, without drawing any blood or making it deep enough to hurt.

“Never try to sneak up on me again.” I said quietly, with no emotion in my voice. He simply narrowed his eyes, nodded and said nothing. I could see that he was the type that would speak only when he needed to, and I did not need him to speak. I bowed to him shallowly, he returned the bow and then I walked past him without another look. I might have tried to be nice to him before, but I was not in the mood to try and accommodate anyone else at the moment.

I walked back to the training ground and bowed deeply to Sensei, “I am sorry for my behaviour, please forgive me.”

“It troubles me that you have such difficultly with accepting your fate.”

“I like to know that I’m in charge and be able to control what’s happening, to have it all taken away from me… I just don’t like it at all.”

“If that is the only reason, then I am pleased, to like to be in charge suggests that you are used to it and know how to handle it well. You are forgiven.”

“Thank you Sensei.”

“Now, if you’d allow me to continue with my lesson, then we might salvage something of the time we’ve lost.” I bowed my head keeping my eyes on the floor as I followed him to the middle of the training field, there was another class there, a group of fifteenth cycles, but Sensei just nodded to their teacher and then moved nearer to the edge and out of our way. I could see some of the looks that they were giving me; some were annoyed, some were puzzled, but most were just purely nosey and wanted to find out what was going on.

“I saw you practising before, now I want you to do it again with your sword and as much concentration as possible, start fast and keep your senses open, for your eyes will be blindfolded.” I nodded as he wrapped the dark strip of material around my head.

Settling into the first stance I could hear the sound of Sensei’s breathing, was aware of the teachers voice instructing the younger kids in combat, the sound of the birds and the trees as the breeze rushed past them. I felt the same breeze on my face, the sand beneath my feet and the hard grip of my hand on the sword. When I felt comfortable I moved from the first position into the second and third, checking each stance for three seconds before I moved into the next position as quick as I could.

“Faster.” Sensei ordered. I knew that the speed between the movements themselves I couldn’t increase, so I only checked each stance for two seconds. “Faster.” I began to move through the movements so fluidly that I could hardly check one stance before I moved into the next. Even in the open field I could hear the winds whistling round the blade of my sword as it slashed through the air with devastating speed. I noticed that I could not hear the voice of the teacher or students anymore, but was aware of Sensei’s breathing still present to my left, then to my right as I whipped into the next position.

Suddenly I heard a foreign noise as something whistled towards me as if it had been thrown, I turned just before the object hit me and then slashed my sword through the air, cutting it in half as it flew past me. I wasn’t sure what to do so continued through the stances at the same speed as before, then I heard another two objects fly at me and swung my boy around at a frightening speed, even for me, slicing both missiles in half as I spun.

More objects were thrown at me at different times and speeds, I could hear them coming and was spinning, dodging, ducking and whipping my sword around with as much efficiency as possible, without getting hit. Finally the missiles stopped and I stopped in the final position, panting for breath. I bowed with my eyes still closed and then opened them as I came back up.

I quickly looked around me to find out what had happened to the teacher and students, there were still there, standing still as statues, watching me with open mouths. I looked at them openly and they all bowed their heads to me, even the teacher, I was surprised and confused so I turned to Sensei, but remained confused as he also bowed his head to me.   

“Sensei, why do you bow your head to me?” I asked him softly.

“I only bow to those who have earned it.”

“It was only a practise, it wasn’t even long.” I said quietly, embarrassed.

“Shigeru, you have just been doing that for ten minutes without a single flaw, the speed and agility, the awareness of your surroundings, you should have failed that exercise, but you didn’t, you passed with more expertise than even I expected. Why did you never show me this before?”

“I was never asked to do anything like this in any of my classes after my fifteenth cycle, none of my other class mates could do it, so I think my teachers gave up, I still used it in practise and training because I find it easier to concentrate.”

“I see, well it’s a valuable skill, I’m just surprised you didn’t use it in one on one combat in the group lessons?”

“I thought I’d look stupid with my eyes closed,” I explained simply “I only usually do it when I’m alone in training.”

“Well I will only ask you to do it on some occasions, but it has brought our training forward about two to three months.” I knew that I didn’t need to say anything, so I bowed my head respectfully and stayed silent. “Stay here until I return.” He ordered me as he walked away.

He came back a few minutes later, carrying two shields, one, I could see was the shield that partnered of my sword. “I know I told you that you would learn to fight with a sword first, but I was including the shield as well, for they come as a pair; it is no good fighting if you can’t protect yourself at the same time, for the offence is not enough, you need to include the defence as well, otherwise you will always fail.”

I nodded and accepted the shield off him without a word. I took a relaxed position with the sword hanging down in a comfortable grip and the shield hanging off my forearm. The shield was not as heavy as I had expected, but was still quite a weight to bear as well as a sword, and would tire me out quicker.

“Say you had just thrown your sword into the body of someone you were fighting and another attacker had just come to fight you but you sword was still out of reach, what would you do?”

“I don’t know.” I said, wondering what would come next.

“Put down your sword.” I did as he said and stood there with only the shield on my arm. “Now imagine that I was about to come and kill you, I knew you were unarmed and helpless, so what would be the last thing that I expected you to do?”

“Erm, attack?”

“Exactly. Now look carefully at that shield and tell me what you could use to attack me.” I looked closely at the shield and noticed for the first time how the bottom of it came to a rather nasty point which was hidden by the convex shape of the rim, I also noticed how sharp the rim actually was, not as sharp as a sword, but easily as sharp as an every day knife. “The edge is sharp and the bottom is pointed.”

“Yes, anything else?” I noticed how the back of the shield was padded where my arm rested against it, it was padded more than any usual shield.

“The back of the shield is padded, but I don’t see how this could help… unless I was to use it as a battering ram against someone.” Sensei nodded his head with a smile on his face.

“Now I am going to show you a way of attacking that is only shown to those of a higher ability.” He held the other shield with his left arm and turned his hand towards him so that the shield was flat and the point was in front of him, I copied his position. “Keep your elbows in, make yourself as small a target as possible.” I tucked them in and turned slightly sideways.

“That’s it, now bring your arm round to the front of your body like this,” he brought his arm around the front as if he was trying to touch his right shoulder, the shield was now pointing out to the side of him, rather than in front “Now I want you to sweep it out and down at the same time, like this.” He showed me another example and I tried to copy it, but found it a lot harder to do than he had made it look.

I had to do it several times before he was satisfied with how I had executed it. Then he moved onto the last bit of the move, which was to turn the shield back upright and hold it to protect myself, as a shield. I also had to do this bit several times before he was satisfied. When I had done it, he then put the three movements together in front of me, he flowed so quickly from one to the other that he made it look like one movement, I found out a few minutes after that that it was meant to be one movement, he’d just broken it down so that I would execute it properly. I tried the whole move several times and found it slightly challenging, but not too hard to do and was satisfied with it, as was Sensei.

The clock struck for the end of evening class and I bowed to Sensei in thanks for the lesson. “Even after the little upset at the beginning of the lesson, we have managed to get further than I had hoped, however now I know your true ability the lessons will not be as easy as this one. You have done well learning the most basic movement of the shield, but they will only get harder.” I nodded again, that was the most basic movement? It had taken me nearly twenty minutes to learn and execute it to Sensei’s satisfaction!