Chapter 7 HELP BUT DISAGREE

The bell rang, again.

Its loud clang echoing through the courtyard, followed by an announcement that sent a burst of annoyance through my veins. "To the sparring field, everyone!" someone screamed immediately after.

“Sparring field?” I asked Jude who was still by my side.

“Yeah, it’s one of the places where you’d train your fighting skills” He replies me “I think you should be going with your friend now. They don’t really take delays in schedules lightly.”

I turn around, wondering whom he was referring to and notice that Victoria from before was still hanging close by. “But I don’t want to fight” I whine.

“That’s impossible over here Bear. It is literally a warriors training ground. All we ever do here is fight” he called me by my childhood nickname. I wasn’t sure I had heard that name in a while.

“We would catch up later?” I really wanted to see him more often, he’s the only person I know and trust here.

“Definitely… now go” he says with a smile.

I bid Jude a quick farewell with a wave, and turned to Victoria who was apparently waiting for me for reasons I didn’t understand.

Her presence didn’t seem like a bad idea though. I needed a friend who I could relate with too. Despite having Jude, he is a senior and won’t always be accessible.

“You ready?” She asked me, a bit too enthusiastically.

“Yeahhh” I respond and together we joined the stream of students flowing towards the field.

“I can never seem to navigate my way around this place. One would think that after all my years of map reading training that I should be able to even read the stars. I feel like an idiot” Victoria says and in a little way, it consoled me that I wasn’t the only idiot present in the Signary.

“Me and you both” I say back and we smile at each other as we continued to follow the crowd.

“It seems like you never wanted to come here…” she starts saying. It could be she realized that it meant she was eaves dropping on my conversation with Jude because she immediately followed with “Not like I was listening to your conversation with your friend or anything”

“Yes, you were” I replied with a smile. I like her.

“I’m sorry. You guys weren’t as quiet too and at first, I wanted to not listen but I kept hearing”

“It’s alright. It’s not a secret anyway.” It actually wasn’t. If she didn’t know now, she would figure it out by the time we begin training that I have no basic skills.

“Why? It’s strange to hear that the daughter of the General would want to be anywhere else”

“My dad is the General, not me. My mom was a healer and I wanted to be just like her”

“Oh… my mom too. She had the coagulation wielding. She could stop any type of bleeding. It was awesome!” she said so proudly.

“My mom had the fracture wielding. Not a single broken bone in our home till she passed” and that was true. Before she was killed, my friends and siblings were reckless. My mom could heal fractures, Jude’s dad could heal skin injuries and two other of our friends, Fiona and Maximus’s parents could cease bleeding and heal diarrhoea respectively. We had both Physical and Systemic Wielding at our fingertips.

Hence, we ate whatever and played wherever because we had this belief that we couldn’t ever die.

Not when we had such magic around.

The whole concept changed when my mom was killed and so was Fiona’s dad. Fiona’s mom was the one who possessed the wielding but they moved to another country after the rebellion due to the fact they feared another, after witnessing the executions.

Maximus died a year after my mom because of a sword play accident and they couldn’t get him to the hospital fast enough before he bled to death.

Amethyst broke her arm sometime that same year too and the disbelief we had when she had to be rushed to the hospital made us realize what we had lost. It almost seemed like an epiphany we didn’t want but needed. Afterwards we all became indoor kids.

Okay, let me correct that… I became an indoor-er kid cause I had always been the one who loved safety first. I was injury prone at any slightest opportunity, so it didn’t take much to learn that I shouldn’t be playing like the rest.

“You must miss her” Victoria says.

“Everyday” The most I had gone without missing her was ten minutes and its either because I was panicking about something else or I was in non-REM sleep. “Why didn’t you want to be a healer though? You seem like you find their wielding cool” I asked, to divert the conversation.

“Unlike others… I do actually think they have cool powers. I just really love the idea of being a warrior you know. Maybe the fulfilment of my childhood dream where I could ride on the back of a horse with a big ass sword” she smiled.

I repeat, I like her.

We kept following the crowd until it looked like we had gotten to where we wanted.

As we walked, the sun tried to show off today.

I’m certain that I’d have a tan in the next few minutes.

With the wave of heat and mirages that filled all over the scene. The air was filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and the sound of chirping birds.

When we arrived at the field, my eyes widened in awe.

The space was vast, the biggest arena looking place I’ve ever seen.

With a large ring in its centre, surrounded by mats and training equipment.

And standing before us, with a grim expression, was a man who looked like he was in his thirties, but with a head full of ginger hair, eyebrows, and lashes.

He introduced himself as Master Ken, the instructor who would be teaching us hand-to-hand combat.

Master Ken gestured for us to take our seats, which inherently meant crouching and then called for some of the fourth-year students to come and demonstrate what was expected of the first years.

The room fell silent and we watched in rapt attention as two strange male faces climbed the stage.

Not like everyone in here wasn’t strange though.

In a swift move, the two guys stepped into the ring and took off their shirts, revealing toned physiques that left most of the girls in awe.

If this is what I’d get to watch then I do not really mind the Signary.

Soon enough, the two men began sparring, their movements a blur of kicks, punches, and tumbles.

“What the fuck?” I say a bit too loudly cause it called the attention of some people around me.

Consciously deciding to seal my lips, I returned my focus to the stage.

‘Was this what they expected of me?’ I thought to myself. Adding a little ‘impossible’ afterwards.

Master Ken called a halt to the demonstration, and then turned his attention back to we mortals who were seated on the floor.

"This, and more, is what shall be expected of you," he said, his eyes scanning the crowd. "Your sparring roster will be released soon and today I would be working with the final years. But for now, choose a partner and a mat, and get started with some freelance combat."

Victoria turned to me with a smile, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "This is going to be fun," she said, and I couldn't help but disagree.