Outcast

Level Up

Huddled together with only a thin and grubby bed sheet to keep us warm as the rain poured heavily outside the little shack that we had decided to crash in. The occasional crackle and bang from the heavens caused us to jump up in surprise. At that moment, Caleb looked at me and sighed, "Hey captain, any chance that we still have any soup left?" he asked, almost pleading. I shook my head no at the muscular boy, no older than 17 and yet had the body of someone 10 years of his age. 

"It's all gone Caleb, we helped ourselves to the last one when we arrived here."

Caleb looked dejected and almost in tears. "Why? Why us? Hell, we're only kids and yet here we are enduring all of this!" He had shrugged off the cloth of off him and had stood up, his arms outstretched to the room.

"One minute we were enjoying ourselves and the next, we're thrust into a mission to find some old man who by all means, has made it an effort to not be found!" he said, all the pent up tension in him bursting out the seams. He was panting slightly before he sat back down and curled up like a puppy with his back to us, "Tomorrow morning," he spoke, his voice barely audible from the pattering rain, "I'm going back home." and without another word, he went to sleep.

What he said couldn't have been any truer. We were all in the practice rooms of the country's best survival school. Me and Julia, the fair haired girl huddled on my left, were sparring with swords. She was wielding a cutlass with the finesse and expertise of someone double her age. She had already disarmed me of my dai-katana for the second time and would have been a third had I not parried a thrust to my hips and brought her blade back up in the lines of engagement. Taking advantage of the small window of opportunity where her feet was off the floor, I had charged, body close to the ground and had come up with the katana aimed below her outstretched arm. But instead of letting the blade continue its swing and cut her open, the blade paused inches from her and I smiled triumphantly, "My round this time." But before she can point out how much effort it took me to achieve the victory, a man cloaked in full black had walked through the door with a longsword drawn in his right hand, which was the size of a mug. He was 5 meters away from us and had started walking towards us.

"Where is your master?" his voice raspy and low, his weapon weaving arcs in the air, graceful and precise, a subtle hint of his mastery of the long and weighty sword.

Julia charged him the moment he had swung it to his left, thinking that the recovery swing would slow his response but she was fatally wrong as I noticed the thin lips of his turn into a smirk, she was only a few paces away from him when I called out to her that it was a trap and thank the gods that she did not let her blood lust cloud her judgement as she leapt back, the longsword missing her throat by a hair's width. The man looked annoyed but as he spoke next, he was calm and collected.

"I must commend your quick eye and perception, boy." he said as he sheathed his weapon in one fluid movement before he sat down crossed leg on the wooden floor. 

"Now," his voice still a whisper but with a renewed intensity in it. He looked at me and then Julia before he continued, "Where is your master?" 

He didn't bother for the reply and had instead closed his eyes, his gaunt face betraying no emotions. "What are your skills, boy?" addressing me with a slight nod in my direction. 

I had asked myself why I should entertain this man's question when he spoke up again. "Don't worry Reizo, I mean no harm to you or your master," he said as if reading my mind. I looked at him in disbelief. 

"How did you?-" I heard myself ask, not quite sure of it myself.

"In time, Reizo, you may one day even do what I do with your eye's open, for you see, by negating one sense, you enhance another."

I was about to ask him how he knew my name when my master entered the room, the man had stood up and smiled, "Master, how good it is-" he trailed off as a soft wind blew past me and in the next instance, he was knocked down hard on his back.

"You have no right to be here, Genji!" my master said, his voice shaking with anger.

"I come." he wheezed, his chest heaving for the air that was knocked out from him. "to tell you that the Minister of Dark Artistry, Scry, is missing or had what the Council presumed, ran away." 

My master's face paled as he took an involuntary step back. He waved at us to leave him but Genji had shaken his head no.

"Let them stay, the Council has plans for them. That's why I'm here."

So here we are, damp, cold, and hungry. 

TO BE CONTINUED