Gun Princess Royale - Book 3 - Princess of the City (web version)

Chapter 10 - Part IV

- IV -

I lost.

At the finish line, I felt angry, deflated, defeated.

But most of all, I felt immensely frustrated.

Allow me to explain why.

Some of my frustration was due to my loss, however most of it was directed at myself.

Initially, I was able to easily keep pace with Arnval. Then the obstacles grew a little more complicated. It wasn't the jumping or leaping over them that troubled me. It was a question of timing, balance, missteps, and poor footing that caught me out.

My troubles began when I made a jump from the top of one vaulting horse to the next. My landing was less than stellar, and I slipped and fell. Luckily, I managed to land on my feet, regain my balance after a couple of awkward steps, then chase after Arnval. But I'd lost ground to him – at least three meters.

From then on, I never recovered the distance I unwittingly gave away because it wasn't the only fall I experienced.

Whether it was losing my balancing, or misjudging a jump, I found myself landing clumsily on more than a dozen occasions, and I fell further behind, eventually crossing the finish line – that is, returning to the starting point – some forty feet in arrears.

Afterwards, I sat cross-legged on the floor. As I caught my breath, I replayed in my mind my disastrous run through the obstacle course.

I didn't lose because of a lack of speed. Arnval was taller and possessed longer limbs, but Mirai was unexpectedly swift. So when I said I never recovered the lost ground, it was because I continued to make mistakes.

I lost because I failed to make my landings stick.

This was something I'd noticed when I was fighting zombies back in the replica of Telos Academy. I had problems with my balance. I could make the jumps, but I couldn't land right and would frequently stumble, slip, and fall. For example, when I dropped through the wrecked floors of the admin building, I failed to land properly, and that triggered a rubble landslide that caught the attention of the zombie Simulacra infesting the building.

There were occasions where my movements all came together, moments where mind and body achieved harmony. At those times, I was poetry in motion, moving with astonishing grace, but they were few and far between all the mistakes I made.

I hated to admit it, but Arnval was right.

I could move, but I wasn't anywhere near my best.

In a way, I felt as though I was letting Mirai down.

I was gifted with a body that possessed enviable abilities, yet I wasn't capitalizing on them. I was driving Mirai as though she were a truck, and not the lethal sportscar that she was.

A shadow fell over me and I looked up to see Arnval regarding me coldly.

"That was disappointing," he remarked with a frigid tone.

I bowed my head, gritting my teeth together. The shame and humiliation I felt almost brought tears to my eyes. I kept taking short breaths as I struggle to contain my burning, roiling emotions.

"Get up," Arnval ordered me. "I said, get up."

I sucked in air through my nose, clenched my hands, and then stood up.

But the weight of my failure was heavier than I realized, and I had trouble meeting Arnval's eyes.

Arnval sounded angry. "What do you have to say for yourself."