The Cost for Freedom

Chapter 8

The next few weeks went by in a blur. Jasha was quickly becoming the worst person to live with, but not because of typical roommate issues. It was because each week they paired her against me in the ring; and each week, I won. I had to. Training was all I did now. My first day had been a rollercoaster; a day of various emotional states. But it taught me that I had to take this seriously if I wanted to get out. I had initially taken things too lightly, too emotionally. Everything was too close to the heart, then. Now, I was slowly learning to be less emotional.

"Which blade today?" Chase asked as he weighed out his own options. He, along with all my other new 'friends' here, had learned to treat me more... well they now treated me as a viable ally rather than a friend. Which is what I needed. I couldn't make emotional attachments.

"Give me the Katana," I said after some thought.

I gave myself some space as I studied my contender. Chase was a terrific swordsmen, and now my coach. Today he had paired me with Glenn. Another volunteer who actually had to grow up here. Though he'd trained all this time, his brown eyes only showed fear and unsteadiness as he looked me on.

Well, guess I'll make the first move. No sooner had I jumped forward, had Chase stopped me. "Never make the first move," he whispered as he led me back to my starting stance, "it makes you vulnerable." I'd repeated that last part with him in my head, I'd heard it so much before.

I shook my shoulders as I re-steadied myself. Just in time, Glenn was waving his sword, preparing for a move. I watched carefully on his footwork, as I'd learned this would be an indication of where he would go. I was clearly still learning though as Glenn came lunging at me.

Instinctively, I threw my own sword up. Making my own countermove before he'd even made his initial swing, I met my sword to his. Aggressively I then pushed it into his torso, forcing him backwards. He reacted with his own strength and threw me away.

Taking a quick recovery breath, I jumped backwards before he had a chance to do swing. My sword came down on his shoulder just as his swung horizontally. I was narrowly able to avoid this hit as I quickly shot back. Giving him no time to breathe, I again came at him, this time from the other side, sweeping my sword from my left to the right. He deflected this hit and backed up again. I kept on him. He threw his up as I threw mine over me to deflect the hit. After a successful defense, he was vulnerable. I then swung my sword down from my shoulder to his hip and stepped back as I watched him kneel over in pain.

Brady, his own trainer, ran to his aide as I proudly put my weapon away. Another victory, I was getting better at this.

"Well, you won but you still have some room for improvement."

"Won't I always?" I responded.

"I guess so, but-" Chase began.

"But I still have a long way to go from being ready for the field," I interrupted him. "Yeah, yeah I know."

"And you have to work on your footwork and swings before you can beat Ross..."

Ohh Chase knew how to get me fired up. "Fine. Tell me what I'm doing wrong then."

We moved on after Chase spent some time showing me once again how to use footwork to my advantage. Now at knife throwing, I mentally prepared myself to be humble. This was the one station I was showing very little improvement on. Due to my success in boxing, I spent very little time there and more elsewhere. As I was told, I had to improve my weaknesses before I could perfect my strengths.

With sword fighting, I was able to incorporate some boxing knowledge in the movements, and had gotten better. Even the other types of target practice stations, Archery and shooting, I was able to improve. But this knife throwing really got me.