The Story of Aria and the Slayer

Chapter 9

After that first real training session, time had seemed to pass rather quickly.

Aria remembered spending a few days training weapon-less. She'd only used her hands and shinsu to repeat whatever slashes and techniques the Slayer had shown her. It'd been tough at times, dealing with the demon's criticism and judgement. Though there hadn't been as much deprecating as Aria had expected from someone who'd mastered swordsmanship before he'd even been born. Someone from the Arie family.

Still, even with the verbal torture, she made it to the point where she'd been given that same silver sword she wielded in the past to practice with. And those initial sessions with a sword had been all about the movement of each muscle of her body. All about each twist and turn, each rotation of her shoulder and flick of her wrist. She'd been forced to learn it all. Right down to the positioning of her fingertips and palms on the leather-covered grip. She'd been forced to learn everything that could've possibly assisted Aria in her attempts to complete an even relatively similar slash to one of the Slayer's.

Weeks later, they'd moved on to footwork. Knowing when to jump back or step forward during a fight. Knowing how to perfect each motion. And when Aria had finally begun to get a hang of each unfamiliar maneuver, the training sessions had started to focus on the actual defense and offense parts of swordplay. The things that were the most difficult and most important.

There was just so much for Aria to wrap her head around. Too much.

 She could read the Slayer's purposefully slowed movements, know where and how he'd strike next, but that was as far as Aria could go. She'd had trouble with blocking, and even greater trouble with attacking, lunging forward and slashing, always giving the demon another reason to lecture her about how her actions were limiting her swings and how the amount of strength she'd used as their blades clanged together was wrong in every way. Each word he spoke, each belittling statement and drawl, made her blood boil even though Aria knew it was the truth.

At some points, the only things that kept her from going insane were the occasional visits she'd received from a certain healer. Though it didn't help that every time they spoke, it was while she'd been locked in a familiar pair of shinsu-restraining, unlinked cuffs and while the Slayer was out murdering people in places Aria couldn't even get to if she tried. Because he'd be heading to the floors of the tower with some of the more powerful rankers. Floors in the inner and middle area of the tower, which, as far as Aria knew, she couldn't get to because she was neither a regular nor a ranker. She wasn't even a normal irregular. She didn't know how to travel from floor to floor, and there was a high chance it wouldn't be possible for Aria to go somewhere other than the outer tower. Regulars were chosen to climb the tower, and the few irregulars that had come before her opened the doors to the tower and unexplainably ended up on the first floor of the inner tower. 

So Aria couldn't follow the Slayer. Couldn't stop him. All she could do was wait for him to return, sometimes for days at a time.

Hell, even with the months of time she'd been given, she couldn't even figure out anything new about the Slayer. The only thing she had on him was the deep-rooted hatred and poorly hidden admiration he had for his father. Even then, she barely knew anything about his reasoning for despising Arie Hon. There had to be more to why he wanted to kill the man than what the Slayer had told her. It really seemed like there was a lot he wasn't telling Aria. She just needed to find out what. But for too long, she'd been unsuccessful.

Time was running out for her, and she was getting to the point where she would soon make mistakes in desperate attempts to fulfill her goals. One of which being ever so slightly opening up to Miraan about what she truly felt towards the Slayer. Opening up about the emotions burning and writhing within her, trying to be let out in a single crashing wave of wrath and anger toward the monster who killed her parents as though they were nothing when they'd been everything to her.