Rid of Hesitation

Jessica's eyes widened as she watched her blade get deflected. Despite her unordinary strength, it was as though she were an infant, unable to do anything as her posture was broken.

Right afterward, the crow ripped a nasty chunk out from her side.

It was far larger than the cuts she had received before and made her consciousness blank out for a moment purely from the pain. She felt the reins for control over her body were restricted, almost like there were chains on her.

However, for what it was worth, she was still in control.

She thought back on the reward she had gotten previously, the Condensed Vitality. Recalling that it was supposed to heal wounds and increase strength, she took it out and ate it without hesitation, not caring if it was a waste to use it now or not.

Steam quickly formed from her wound as it grew back fast enough to be seen to the naked eye. It was so cleanly done, that it almost seemed as though it was actually being done by a photo editor rather than natural regeneration. Her control over herself had promptly returned.

Jessica remembered the description stating that there would be a minimal strength increase. However, because of how it was phrased, she wasn't expecting much.

Yet after taking it, she felt both her bones and muscles changing. Whatever it was, this was definitely far from unnoticeable. The main difference she found wasn't actually in her muscles themselves, but rather in the toughness of her bones and tendons. Her strength had definitely increased substantially, just shy of twice her original, and that was also considering her higher than average strength.

But the actual toughness of her body was far more substantial.

As the crow did a circle before coming back, along with another crow this time, Jessica thought she could handle it this time. Yet, as the memory of how strong the parry was the first time, she couldn't help but stop her train of thought there.

Even if her strength doubled once more, no, even if it had grown ten times as much from her current point, she was still not confident in even being on par with the crow. Just recalling it made her feel as though a mountain was bearing down upon her.

She could tell that it wasn't something meant to be overcome.

While watching the two crows coming closer, she remembered how the crows first taught her about feinting, which helped her deal with the dodging crows. Following that logic...

Jessica let the katana fall to her side, not bothering to even lift it up.

She stood still while watching both the crows approach without taking any stance. Her eyes widened and remained open as her breath softened somewhat.

Mere moments before the crows would rip into her once more, she twisted her body and threw it to the side, moving past in between the two, like it was a choreographed dance move.

Along with her movements, the blade twirled and slashed both of them in the back, causing them to fall to the ground like the others.

It was a strange feeling to be successful like this for Jessica. It felt fulfilling, even if she knew that it was a test that was meant to be passed. The way it was structured was clear enough on that front.

Showing things, then asking for their application in return.

Before she could ponder over it any longer though, the crows' flight pattern had changed ominously. While previously, they had circled around her, many of them were instead looking right at her, instead floating in the air, watching.

Then, several of them dove downwards.

This time it wasn't a wave, but more of a disordered assault of crows one after another, coming for her relentlessly. Jessica wondered if there was supposed to be some sort of pattern, but as her eyes locked onto all the crows she realized what was happening.

Some of the crows moved right towards her, but others were quickly shifting their trajectories, constantly shifting where they were. A subset of crows were going slower than others, and some kept their body perfectly still, gliding as they came over.

It was only now that she realized these small differences corresponded to the move that they would perform. The ones moving right towards her would simply attack. The ones erratically moving would feint. The ones that were slower would dodge. And the ones that were gliding would parry her attack.

This was essentially a final exam.

And for Jessica, who was forced to pass each lesson beforehand, was as ready as ever.

She raised her blade into the air and let out a harsh, but steady exhale.

With a flash of light, her blade moved in tandem with her.

Constantly slashing and feinting, which was paired with dodging. She did it all with even more ease than at the start, despite being far more difficult. It was to the point that her confidence grew enough to attempt a parry herself, just from seeing a crow do it once with its beak.

The semantics concerning the fact the crow used a beak and she had a katana, which would deflect things quite differently, was completely lost on her.

Jessica simply went and put full trust in her intuition, ridding herself of hesitation. For just this moment, she was able to let her go with her first and most clear thoughts instead of second-guessing herself. Something that was far more difficult said than done.

The only sounds may have come from her blade, breath, footsteps, and crows, but it was enough for her to get lost in the music.

Jessica could no longer register the fact that time was passing.

It was only when there were no longer any crows coming for her did she realized it was over. The countless crow carcasses and blood coating her all turned into black ash and were carried off by the wind as though they never existed.

A few seconds later, crows flew towards her once more. But this time, Jessica didn't even bother facing them. They quickly approached, yet instead of attacking, they landed next to her, at the sides of the road. Lined up like they were soldiers.

It was at this point she recalled the words of the masked guy at the start, suggesting to rush down the road to pass this test.

From the sounds of things, if she had simply run, then she wouldn't have to go through all the tests, making it significantly easier.

However, she had no regrets.

As she walked down the path, the crows she passed gave her a nod. A glint had passed by their beady eyes, and one that matched it similarly passed by Jessica's.

...

Once Mia found herself in the room with four doors, she only briefly looked at the other suits before walking towards the one that showed diamonds, pushing through it. She was greeted with a familiar looking white room, comfortably big enough to be a bedroom.

The door had disappeared behind her, though that didn't make her all that concerned.

She focused on the nine tile puzzle across from her. The exact movements she had to make were still clear in her mind, though they weren't the most important as it wasn't that hard of a puzzle.

Still, there was no reason to make it harder on herself, so she followed the optimized way to do it.

While it wasn't that hard to guess what it would look like while mixed up, after sliding the last piece into place, it showed a bag with the money symbol on top of it. With a click, a mechanism activated, making the wall open inwards, letting her pass to the next area.

After walking for a few seconds through a thin hallway, Mia found herself at the second test. She was faced with a person holding onto two different masks. They were in a suit and had an androgynous look, partially because of the masks covering their facial features. They were energetically tilting their head, giving it a playful bop before tilting it the other way and seamlessly switching masks.

Both of them were a blinding white, matching the room, along with a smile. However, there was a slight difference in that one had a wide smile with exaggerated red lipstick. Two large splotches of pink formed overly large eyebrows, distorted to become unnaturally thick and curvy.

The other one had a minimal amount of lipstick, clearly more stylized, and also pink. On the cheeks, there were similarly pink hearts, and around the eyes were light blue rings.

Despite having a vague idea of what the person here was supposed to look like, it was still quite jarring to see it clearly and in person, instead of a memory.

Upon noticing her arrival, the person began speaking, first with a cheery and excessively girly voice.

"Hello, there! To pass, simply answer my question."

It then shifted to a reassuring, but deep voice.

"What is the most important thing?"

Wearing the mask with exaggerated lipstick, it spoke in that same voice.

"Kindness? Or..."

Then, they switched masks, switching to the cheery voice.

"Is it family?"