Back To The Beginning
Locus slept until noon. He was so exhausted that he didn't even have enough energy to dream. But the reason he woke up was neither Genken nor the sunlight.
Locus jumped up and dodged a small rock. Then he stood still for a few seconds and thought.
"I should have killed him when I still had the chance to."
Locus was back at the bottom of the mountain. The storm had stopped, and the sky went back to a light blue tone.
To Locus, it was obvious what had happened. Genken had teleported him back down.
Locus took a look at the sleeping back next to him. A piece of paper was lying inside of it.
'Dear Locus, you did well, but not well enough. See you later.'
"That madman seriously wants me to go through all of that again?"
Locus was filled with rage. He literally sprinted up the mountain until he had to catch a break, just for Locus to catch his breath and then start running again.
By the time it got dark, Locus had reached the top. He didn't care what Genken was doing right now.
"ARE YOU INSANE? YOU MADE ME DO THIS TWO TIMES?"
Locus felt a gentle touch on his shoulder.
"And now just look how much faster you've gotten. It took you just one afternoon."
Locus drew his sword and tried to hit Genken with the one continuous move. Of course, this attempt was futile. Now, Genken stood in front of Locus.
"You'll do this every day before we start training."
Locus just stared at Genken. When speaking, Locus used a very silent and calm voice.
"What? You mean this was the warm-up?"
Genken smiled and nodded like a small child.
"YOU IMBECILE! I ALMOST DIED!"
Genken continued to smile.
"Yup."
Locus went back to standing still.
Without a warning, he suddenly started swinging his katana and attacking Genken, who effortlessly dodged Locus' attempts.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS? DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?"
"You should really hold the sword in both hands when swinging it."
"SHUT UP!"
Genken dodged by using his teleportation. While doing that, he was still looking like he was asleep.
"Ha! I know you're walking like that because you don't have any energy left!"
Genken raised his eyebrows.
"Nah, it's just that I woke up about half an hour ago. I'm still tired."
"Yeah, yeah."
"You know I never lie."
Actually, Genken's explanation made sense. There was nothing he used energy for. He was always sleeping.
After a few seconds, Locus' right arm got exhausted from swinging the katana, so Locus used his left arm as well.
"Very good. Now you should only use straight slashes. Don't cut in curves."
Genken was still dodging Locus and talking like it was just about as difficult as sitting on a bench.
Still, after trying it, Locus realized that cutting in straight lines took less energy out of him.
"What? Do you want me to kill you earlier?"
Both of them smiled.
"Don't forget to breathe while swinging that thing. You need oxygen."
After more than two hours of trying to kill Genken later, Locus went down on his knees.
"Timeout."
He ate some stone-bread and drank his bottle of water. Locus needed to recover his stamina. After not speaking a word for five minutes, Locus opened his mouth.
"You were provoking me on purpose, weren't you? You wanted me to attack you so that I could get some experience and learn. My pride made it impossible for me to stop."
Genken didn't say anything.
"You risked your own life for the sake of my training."
Now Genken began smiling.
"Don't get cocky now. You still need much more training to pose a threat to my teleportation ability."
By that time, it had gotten dark.
"How about we go to sleep and rest for now?"
"Sure, whatever you say."
Locus' head hurt from all the effort.
The night was quiet and peaceful. That was, until Locus automatically dodged a rock that was falling from the sky.
He looked around while standing at the mountain's bottom and read the note that was left by Genken.
'You look good. But how would you look if you wore this? I hope not at all.
I'm the funniest guy ever.'
Locus looked at the blindfold inside of his sleeping bag.
"Maybe I'll try to stab him from behind. That should do the trick."