Our Tears Makes Us Stronger

OTMUS 7 - Be a Man

~ Chapter 7: Be a Man ~

 Lumina had brought Leif in a remote clearing on the other side of the river. It was a little bigger than the clearing with the tree, and they had stopped right in the middle. The sun was bright and warm and the cool air kept them from sweating. Lumina, with her back turned to Leif, crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

“Right,” she announced. “Let’s get down to business: to defeat Sherbert!”

“Wait,” Leif replied. “I thought we were training for survivability or something.”

Lumina slapped him across the face, making a very high pitched noise. “Shut up! You fool! Are you going to take what he said? Well??”

Leif shook his head, rubbing his bright red cheek. She stood tall, almost towering over Leif. He knew that it was going to be brutal.

Lumina clicked her fingers and fire emitted from her hand. She shot it at his legs and shouted, “Push-ups! Now!”. He immediately dropped on the ground and pushed from his weak arms. After 10 push-ups, he was already puffing. His pushes became slower and he shook every time he got close to the ground. Finally, after twentieth push, he fell face first on the ground.

“Get up!” she shouted as she shot another fire ball at him. He got up faster than she had fired and yelled.

“Go easy on the fire! Jeez!”

The next task Lumina gave him was 50 laps around the clearing. She shouted at the top of her lungs while Leif was gasping for breath every five seconds. He slowed down at the third lap and completely stopped at the sixth. Lumina sighed in disappointment.

“Hey,” she said, returning to her normal tone. She patted his back. “If it’s too hard, just tell me.”

“Well of course it’s too hard!” he managed to shout while gasping. “Like I can do this!”

Lumina considered this for a minute. She stood in front of him, wondering what to do. She clicked her fingers as a light bulb above appeared above her head. “How about we can see if you can find your Nexion type?”

Sherbert stood hidden in the forest watching them. He saw everything, the push-ups, the laps, the fire. He had his arms crossed tightly and angrily. He gripped his arm tighter every minute he watched. Farron came up behind him, but he didn’t seem to care. “He’s the saddest runt I’ve ever met.”

“C’mon go easy on him, Remon.” Farron tried to tell him.

Sherbert didn’t turn. He still watched angrily at the two of them. Lumina was shooting more magic at Leif, who was pathetically screaming ‘ow!’ every time. Leif continued to desperately balance a large rock on his head while Lumina kept shouting at him, telling him to keep going. “But I bet, before they’re through…”

“Leif,” she said after an hour of balancing rocks on Leif’s head.

“Yeah?”

She clenched her fist and fist pumped.

“I’ll make a man out of you!” she said with a gleam in her eyes.

Leif was confused. Was this because of what Sherbert said? It didn’t matter to Leif, but he asked what she was talking about. She looked almost surprised with this question for a second then turned away.

“N-nothing,” she replied. “By the way…”

Leif was just about to lie on the grass to rest for a while, but Lumina’s tone was very intriguing to him. It sounded very curious, like a cat peeking through a window. He sat back up and saw her awkwardly scratching her cheek and her eyes kept jumping back and forth, not keeping eye contact with him.