Broken heart of a warrior

Chapter 16

"You hit like a damn girl, Axel. Even Miri can punch harder than that," I snickered, watching his eyes narrow with a mix of irritation and determination as he adjusted his stance in the training hall. The air thick with dust, sweat, and the echo of movement from other Warriors nearby.

Today was a new day and I refused to let the failures and the near loss of control from last night cling to me any longer like a stain I could not wash away. Every surge of anger and every tremor of frustration I had felt was carefully locked down inside me, sealed behind discipline I had built over years of survival, returning me to the only state that ever truly made sense. I reminded myself over and over that I am a Warrior and I am in control, not because it sounded strong, but because without it there was nothing but chaos waiting underneath my skin.

I ducked and twisted just in time, the rush of Axel's right cross slicing through the space where my face had been and snapping the air sharply against my cheek. He was holding back as he always did and it was starting to annoy me in a way that was almost personal. The beast inside me, that coiled restless shadow that never fully slept, paced beneath my control, pressing against my restraint with quiet hunger, begging for release that I could not afford to give it. Discipline was not just training for us, it was survival. Our sparring was never simple exercise, it was preparation for a world where hesitation meant death and where a single surrender to instinct could erase everything we had become.

The clash of blows filled the hall in a steady rhythm, sharp and controlled yet still wild enough to carry meaning, a symphony of skill and instinct where every movement was both attack and answer. Our drills were meant to strip away yesterday's tension while sharpening the instincts that would decide life or death when it truly mattered, and I knew Axel was still holding something back, as he always did, while I gave everything I had and more. Reading him like a language I had learned through repetition and trust and frustration.

After yesterday I needed this more than I cared to admit. The focus, the movement, the controlled rush of adrenaline that kept me from tipping too close to the edge where nothing inside me felt human anymore. Once a Warrior crossed that line there was no return. No sense of right or wrong left to guide them, only the endless craving for destruction and blood and oblivion until nothing remained but instinct stripped of everything else. No one came back from that, not ever. The thought alone was enough to tighten something in my chest as I glanced at Axel just in time to see him shift his weight preparing to sweep my legs out from under me.

Silly boy. He knows I am lighter, faster and more precise.

I pushed off the ground before he could complete the motion. Leaping cleanly with a sharp controlled pounce that carried me just out of reach while a low growl escaped me without permission, instinct bleeding through discipline for just a fraction of a second. Sometimes I felt a flicker of guilt at the force I wielded, at how easily I could push him back if I stopped holding myself in check. The control, the clarity, the certainty it gave me was intoxicating in a way nothing else ever had been. Without it I would have been nothing but noise and chaos and memory, and that was a version of myself I had buried long ago.

Without Master and Blade I would have lost myself years ago.

Master's presence was always there in the back of my mind, calm and commanding in a way that never needed explanation. A constant magnetic force that kept everything inside me aligned when it threatened to fracture. Blade, fierce and silent, was something different entirely, an anchor in motionless form, someone who could stand beside my storm without being consumed by it and still somehow pull me back into clarity without ever forcing it. With them I had learned to separate myself from the flood of emotion and memory that constantly tried to drown me and instead channel it into something controlled, something powerful, something useful.