Forbidden Blue (On HOLD)

Chapter 8

Sensei walked away, but I stayed in the training ground, practising the move that he had just taught me, until I was satisfied with the flow of it. I was my own worst critic and I had stayed there for about an hour, just getting comfortable to use it in my own fighting. I picked up my sword and tried to put it into a series of moves that I could use in a fight I first thought about how I could incorporate it and then flowed through the sequence slowly and in complete control of what I was doing, then I sped it up more and more until I could move fluidly from one move to the next without really having to focus all my attention on that one move that was coming up. When I had both my shield and sword I became more aware of my shield and was surprised by how much it helped to defend and attack at the same time; who would be stupid enough the try and attack a knife blade whipping through the air.

When the bell rang for the sixteenth cycle’s meal I quickly put the sword into its sheath and then realised I didn’t know what to do with either of them. Sensei had locked the door to the hidden armoury and I couldn’t leave them in the basic students armoury, so I took off my top, and wrapped them up in it as best as I could. Luckily it was a warm day and most boys were walking around with no top on so I didn’t really stand out. When I got to the main building I quickly rushed to mine and Roan’s dorm and hid the sword and shield under the bed as well as I could, I pulled the sheet untidily over the edge of the bed as if I hadn’t made it and had just left it like that, no-one would see anything under it unless they were really trying to find it.

I was happy with my hiding place and then walked outside with my top still slung over my arm, it really was hot. I absentmindedly walked in the general direction of the hall as I didn’t know where the others were and knew that the bell would be going soon anyway. As I got to the doors of the hall two things happened simultaneously; the bell rang loudly above me for the seventeenth cycle’s meal, I looked up to see it swinging over my head and as I did so I brushed past someone and felt something almost like a static shock, but somehow, deeper, I was just about to turn around to see who it was but I heard Roan call my name and turned to him first, when I looked around, I could only see the shadow of the person, it was too faded for me to even see if it was male of female.

Roan walked over to me, “That Ritsuka Kid is going to annoy me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s in all my classes, and your old ones, apparently he’s in them because he’s really good, but that I’ve seen of him so far is just that he’s lazy, he hasn’t done anything at all, he just sits in the shade watching us and doing nothing, and the worst thing is, the teachers don’t seem to mind!”

“Oh, that’s a bit out of order.”

“I know, and in Archery, he just walked out as Geldiar was doing an example, as if none of us were even there!”

“That’s so disrespectful!”

“You haven’t even heard the worst of it; I don’t think he’s actually bowed to anyone!”

“What do you mean?” It was a mark of respect, everyone bowed, if someone didn’t bow… It was like just taking everything you wanted without saying thank you or please, everyone bowed, it was as natural as running, everyone does it.

“He never bowed to any of us, even thought we’re older then him, or to a single teacher he just walked right past them and did nothing!”

I stood their for a moment, it was unacceptably rude to not bow to a teacher, it was so hard to get it through my brain that he had bowed to no one. But then I realised, he’d bowed to me in the forest. Maybe Roan was just exaggerating; it wouldn’t have been the first time.

I walked into the hall and grabbed my food with Roan, by the time we’d sat down there was a fair sized group around our table and everyone was chatting to each other. I had been talking to Kristian but suddenly stopped mid sentence when I noticed that Roan wasn’t flirting with any of the girls, Kristian stopped and looked in the same direction as me and then nudged the person sitting next to him. It got around the whole table and by the end it was only Roan and Orion left talking to each other. Roan noticed us all staring at him, “What?” he asked, half annoyed.

The others all mumbled some excuse or other and looked away, but I kept eye contact with him and he shot me a questioning look with slightly raised eyebrows, I. shook my head and smiled, as if to say, ‘nothing’ and then turned to my food. Kristian went to clear his tray and another one slid up next to mine, but I didn’t look up until I felt a kiss on my cheek, and a soft voice saying hi.

“Hey.” I said smiling at her.

“So how were your lessons with Sensei?”

“Ok, but a bit confusing to be honest.” I was thinking about the hidden armoury and all I’d learnt about my fate and the essence of my sword.

“Oh, well it’ll be okay; it’s bound to be harder if he’s giving you one on one training.” She said, thinking that I was talking about the physical side of the things that I’d learnt. I considered telling her that that wasn’t it, but for some reason I suddenly thought, ‘Why should I?’ It was strange to think that sort of thing about Midori and I felt slightly mean, even thought I hadn’t actually done anything at all. To make up for it I pushed my tray away, slid Midori’s in front of me and pulled her onto me, putting my arms around her waist. She seemed quite happy with the move and fed me a cherry; I ate it thoughtfully while she carried on with her meal.

I felt someone watching me and looked around meeting eyes with Roan again, he looked away quickly as if he hadn’t meant me to see him, it confused me slightly because he’d seemed almost nervous of meeting my gaze. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

“Looking forward to the party later?” Midori asked me. I’d completely forgotten about it with all the things that had happened today,

“Yeah, it should be fun.” I lied; a party was probably the last thing I wanted now. “Do you know how many people Roan’s invited?”

“Yeah, it’s a big one, around the one hundred mark, maybe more.”

“Oh, right.” That was good, it’d make it easier for me to sneak out later on when everyone was getting drunk. I didn’t particularly like getting drunk, I’d only done it a few times because I wanted to know what everyone was always going on about, but I didn’t find it that brilliant and I just didn’t see the point so I avoided getting drunk as often as possible. I did have a bit to drink obviously, but only a few to loosen me out a bit, I hardly ever had more than two or three glasses, it definitely wasn’t worth having many more because of what I would end up feeling like the next morning. Roan, on the other hand, usually got completely bladdered.