Light of Dawn

Chapter 31 - Better Than Expected

~*~*~*~Ken~*~*~*~

Clack, clack. Clack, clack, clack, clack. Whoosh, snap! Crack! Thud...

"You're still far too slow!" Yelled Sayaka as she looked down at me with her wooden sword pointed down at me. "You're grip is all wrong. Your feet are too close together. And for the love of the Night, you have no strength in those arms of yours!"

I was looking up at her and merely nodded my head at her before she removed her foot from the middle of my chest to let me up. I picked up the remains of the ruined sword splint almost perfectly in half after Sayaka had struck it. The Empress hadn't been exaggerating when she said I would begin my Shinobi training immediately. I hadn't even had time to wipe the blood from my knuckles when I was led into a separate training hall with boys and girls in their early to mid-teens.

Sayaka Hoshigaki was the instructor of this hall and unlike Sano, she didn't believe in holding back against her students. "Beings won't hold back why should I?" had been the first thing she said after breaking my nose during our first sparing match. She was brash and loud, very odd for a dark elf who up until meeting her I had all but assumed they were all fairly stoic people. She put that to rest the moment she smiled and said it was going to be fun to break me.

I began to get up only to catch a heavily wrapped foot right across my jaw that made my upper half twist around and dropping be back to the floor. "Get up Ken!" She yelled as circled me, kicking out my arms when I tried picking myself up before punting me right in my still tender ribs. But I bit back a cry and kept trying to get up only to be met with the same result. "I said get up!"

I shot her a look which earned me a gob of spit right in the face. "Am I getting you angry?" She taunted as she leaned dauntingly over me. "Is the poor little American brat getting mad?" She let out a laugh before pushing me on my side with her foot. "Do something about it." She went for another kick to my back and yelled as she did. "Make me stop!"

As fast as I could I rolled to my feet only to catch a knee to the chin that sent me back to the floor. She looked me over as I lay there trying to gather myself after that hit and she only scoffed disgustedly at me as she threw down her wooden sword. "Fucking pathetic." She said before getting down on all fours so that she could get in my face. "You hear me? You're fucking worthless!"

Still I didn't try to get up, nor did I do anything to retaliate at her which only seemed to disgust her even more before she spat directly in my face and stood up. "No wonder you let that leech kill Marion." Moving so that Sayaka was laying along side me she reached down and grabbed me between my legs. "At least SHE had balls. Not you, no you're just some bitch who went and let a blood sucking monster kill someone he claims was important to him!"

"Shut up..." I said quietly as my body began to relax after having tensed up upon being grabbed in such a way.

"Fuck you!" Sayaka spat back. "You're not going to do anything. Just like you didn't do anything when you let Marion get killed. You killed her! Not some vampire, you're the one that snapped her neck!"

At that my eyes were wide open and I threw my head forward intending to catch her right in the face, only for her to pull back and bring her leg back up so that it was pressed against my throat. I tried throwing her off but the moment I tried Sayaka let her leg and more importantly take her weight. The pressure of her full weight bearing down on my throat mad it feel like my head was about to pop off. I let out a loud but choked roar before I muscled her right off of me, she however grabbed my head with both hands and rolled over. After a slight shift in the positions of her legs she was pulling my head down while the leg that was still across my throat was being pushed upwards.