The Legacy of Guardians - Kivvora Heroes: Guardians & Destines

FOURTEEN

RUNNING WAS NEVER A PROBLEM for Akira. After all, it's all she did when she chased that village hooligan those fifteen times. But was never fast enough.

Fire froze inside her chest as she kept her breath steady so she wouldn't tire herself out too early. She aimed for perfect training, doing everything right to prove her worth of being here.

Of becoming a hero.

No matter how hard she pushed herself, she still fell behind Kazami, Netsuto, and Harumi.

Umiji ran behind Akira and Yamiyo was far, far behind. He strug­gled to keep up, and he looked so tired— like he would topple over forward any moment now.

Akira stopped, letting Umiji run ahead of her and waited for Yamiyo to catch up so that he had someone to run with. Once he caught up, Akira jogged with Yamiyo the rest of the final lap then prepared for the next part of the training session.

The obstacle course.

Akira took a deep breath and ran toward it.

The obstacle course had four parts, and each looked harder than the last. At the start, there were ten wooden posts all over the place— all different heights and crookedly placed. Akira's heart skipped a beat as she nearly slipped off the ninth last post. She kept her balance as she hopped to the tenth, then onto the snowy ground. How did the other four Guardians make it look so easy?

Yamiyo hopped down beside Akira, hands on his knees, panting and gasping for breath. He looked up at Akira and smiled as he straightened and pushed his glasses to his face. Akira smiled back at him, then continued to the second part of the course with Yamiyo.

The second part had different types of climbing frames. Some for climbing up, climbing across, and swinging body weight, jumping from bar to bar. Akira hated the swinging from bar-to-bar bit... her world spun, and she almost slipped every time she swung herself to grab the next bar.

Obstacle three was more jumping.

Jumping over hurdles this time, not off surfaces, thank goodness. But the jumping still made Akira's lungs burn and freeze. This was hero training? More like hero torture.

Finally, the last one was dodging and ducking from a spinning horizontal wooden stick. It seemed easy enough until, the heavy stick spun and whacked Akira right in her diaphragm, knocking the air out of her and flung her off the platform, landing her flat on her back into the snow.

Akira pushed herself up with a groan and wrapped her arms around her abdomen. 

Yep, this wasn't training— this was definitely torture.

Akira approached three tall polls with two punching bags dan­gling from each poll. Sparring was next. At least that's what Kazami said earlier. This part of the training course seemed way easier than the last. Akira partnered up with Yamiyo since everyone else had their sig­nature pair.

Netsuto and Kazami sparred together. 

Harumi and Umiji sparred together. 

Both pairs stood at a pole, throwing punches and kicks to the punching bags. Even in the cold, they broke a sweat.

Akira and Yamiyo went to the empty pole and tackled the punching bags. Akira threw the first punch and hissed as tears welled in her eyes. Her hand hurt like hell and would've thought she shattered it if she hadn't seen what she was doing. She gripped her wrist, clenching and unclenching a fist to work the pain out.

She looked over at her friend who was also struggling with pain after landing a punch. Yamiyo grunted, ignoring whatever pain he was feeling and went for more punches. Akira didn't realize she was staring and Yamiyo didn't notice her looking.