Ch 2.62: Alive

“Surprised I managed to get away from Prisma,” Carly said, panting and taking a swig from her water as she set her training rapier up against the weapon rack.

“Yeah,” Elaina said, taking a drink herself and wiping the sweat from her brow. It was a hot day, the first really hot day of spring, and she was learning rapidly that whatever enhanced physical traits they received from their classes didn’t seem to affect comfort in that scenario. Flora probably can take care of that herself though.

“Probably for the best. I still don’t know if she believes we weren’t cheating that day.”

“Whatever,” Elaina said with a shrug. She had other things to worry about. Thoughts of Flora were reminding her of the time she’d wasted the last couple of days, the time that should have been spent working on her dress. Each little rendezvous with Flora and Carly was a little less fabric she had time to prepare, a little more skin shown in the final product.

“Want to go again?” Carly asked as she picked her sword back up.

“Not so fast, Carline.” The voice caught Elaina off guard, sending chills down her back with its singsong nature, but when she turned she realized she’d been mistaken about who it belonged to. It was the elder sister, Kohpicia Fireguard clad in an outfit of tanned leather and rough cotton not unlike what Professor Ranlit used to wear. “Prisma wants to face you.”

“Wasn’t she facing Brink?” Elaina asked.

“Was, but she poked him in the eye. He’s off to the infirmary.”

“What?” Carly said, rushing past Koh and looking around. “Why didn’t you bring him here? I can—”

“Not that seriously,” Koh said, waving off Carly’s concern with a laugh. “I think his pride was hurt more than anything, and I could tell he needed a break. Besides, you two were the finalists of the ranking tournament, so you should probably be sparring each other anyway.”

Carly looked to Elaina for some direction, maybe for some way out, but Elaina didn’t have one, so she just nodded her head yes, leaving Carly to make a quick nod to Koh and heading off to find her new partner.

“I wanted to apologize,” Koh said once it seemed they were alone, bowing her head.

“Hmm?” Elaina said, looking back to her new professor.

“I heard what Waine did. What he said at your orientation…” The look on her face was one of pain, but not just guilt. Elaina knew it, the empathy when you know what someone else has gone through, and where you kind of feel responsible for it as well.

“You didn’t say it,” Elaina replied. “You weren’t even here.”

“But I should have been. If I was, things would’ve been different...”

Elaina wanted to chastise the woman, but she knew it wasn’t her place. They were practically the same age, but even she knew that she wasn’t in a position to argue with a teacher. Still, she couldn’t say nothing. “I’m sorry too. That guy might not have said anything at all if I hadn’t caused a scene before.”

“It was Waine that started it. And he wouldn’t have said something like that if I hadn’t— If I wasn’t such a failure, none of this would have happened.”

The word “failure” hurt, even if it wasn’t one Elaina could relate to. Maybe that was the worst of it. She was called a lot of things, weird, creepy, perverted, but never a failure.

“We can only move forward, though,” Koh said, standing up straight and smiling at the field of students. “And you’re without a sparring partner now, if I’m not mistaken,” she added, pulling her own sword from her waist.

Elaina could barely process the words as she looked at the blade. It wasn’t like the dull-gray sword they were using, didn’t have the almost silly looking cup hand protector, didn’t seem like an object. It was like polished silver, reflective enough that Elaina could see herself in the thin blade, with an intricate web of wires for a handguard, and even as it was held still the blade seemed alive, like it was ready to shoot off on its own to do battle.

And then Koh set it against, the rack, taking up one of the plain training swords instead. “I saw on the scoresheet that you only lost to Prisma.”

“Uhm, yeah,” Elaina said, staring at the weapon Koh had just discarded.

“I can’t fight you with that, it’s sharpened,” Koh said, seemingly trying to answer to Elaina’s staring. “I heard you don’t have any formal training either. It kind of seemed like you and Carly weren’t giving it your alls when I was watching earlier, to be honest, so I wanted to test you myself.”

“Sharpened, right,” Elaina said. That hadn’t been her concern though. The sword that she had been amazed by only moments ago seemed to have disappeared, leaving a cheap imitation in its place. What remained was still shiny, still had the intricate handguard, but was lifeless.

And as Elaina turned she realized where the life had gone. The metal stick that had been hanging up on the equipment rack was dull as ever in color, but it too seemed alive in the hand of Kohpicia Fireguard as she raised it up to inspect it, then turned to face Elaina once more.

“So let’s duel, shall we?”