The next day was spent in fear. When Sires finally caught a moment alone with Matt, he explained to him as best he could what X had told him, how his schedule was set to change and he would be taught privately by X. Matt seemed to understand, but didn't say anything. Sires was disheartened further when Matt looked sad for a moment, and then abruptly changed the subject.
Lunch and dinner came and went, and Sires found he couldn't eat either meal. Finally, when his last training class was over, he made his way to X's office. He went there as slowly as he could, but even so he found himself standing before the metal door much sooner than he had hoped.
Breaking out into a sweat, Sires knocked. When X answered the door, Sires was horrified to see him dressed in a black silk robe. Sires froze, his mouth turning to cotton.
"Please, come in."
When Sires couldn't, X grabbed his arm and dragged him in, slamming the door behind shut.
A while later classes let out. Most everyone walked past the bare hallway leading to X's office, minding their own business, paying no heed to the screams and cries that were coming from behind the shut door. However, two students that walked past couldn't stop from commenting.
"Sounds like X has found a new play toy."
"Oh well," the other student replied, "I'm just happy it's not me."
They laughed.
~
Sires spent the rest of his time at The Compound like that. When he wasn't in class or the mess hall, he was doing his damnedest to avoid his abuser. Unfortunately that was difficult, nearly unavoidable.
X insisted Sires still study English after-hours in his quarters, privately. Additionally, any time Sires screwed something up, his punishment was spent behind the closed door with X. Sometimes X would simply show up in the middle of the night without Sires having done anything wrong, clamp his mouth over Sires' mouth, and force him to the fifth floor office.
It took but a year for Sires to become numb to the abuse. Every leer, every advance, every unwelcome stare...It meant nothing. Even during the act Sires just shut his eyes and emptied out his head, thinking of the calming white curtains blowing gently in the breeze, waiting for it to be done with.
The entire situation became a sick game to Sires. The voice in his head was now a constant, and it no longer bothered Sires. Sires would banter back and forth with the mental intruder, both Sires and the voice guessing what perverse thing X would do to him next.
There was also a small upside to Sires' position as the leader's bauble. He could get away with murder. Literally.
The day had started like any other. Slowly Sires opened his eye, and then the other. No one stirred, and the room was still dark. Sires found sleeping until the first bell was becoming increasingly harder to do. As his paranoia and distaste of everyone around him grew, so did his insomnia.
That day, however, Sires' normal blasé disposition towards life was gone. In its wake was anger. As he stared at the sleeping face of one of his fellows, allowing his eyes to unfocus, his muscles became taught. A headache began to scratch at the back of his head. When the wake up bell finally rang, Sires found himself in an absolutely sour mood.
The disquiet didn't leave him. During lunch, he barely said anything to Matt (after a point, Matt gave up trying to hold a conversation with him). Sires found himself unable to stop glaring at everyone who passed him. It finally culminated during his first melee weapons class of the day.
"Today we will be doing something different," the weapons instructor declared at the start of class.
Sires figured as much; first of all, folding chairs had been brought in, and the class had been ushered to sit in them. All along the back wall was a rack that hadn't been there previously. It was filled with all sorts of weapons—actual weapons. Up until then any training was done with wooden replications.
"I have decided that you all have become adequate in your current training," the instructor continued, pacing back and forth as he spoke. "Now we need to explore your natural leanings. I will call your names individually; you will come forward and pick any weapon you want. Go with your gut; go with what calls to you, if anything."
Sires was scanning over the weapons already, feeling sort of thirsty, but not for anything liquid.
"Now, this weapon you choose today won't be set in stone. It's to give each of you an idea how these feel in your hands, to discover what works and what doesn't.
"As you can see, I have arranged them according to class. Bladed weapons, polearms, and blunt weapons. You may chose one, and only one. Don't overthink it.
"Samantha—you have the first pick."
The names were called out at what seemed to be a random interval. Idly Sires wondered how the name selection had been sorted out. Was it chosen beforehand? Was the instructor simply calling out names to make it truly randomized in the moment? As he wondered, his eyes drifted back and forth across the selections.
What do you think? The voice asked in a somber, genuinely inquisitive tone that Sires wasn't used to.
"Not sure," Sires muttered under his breath.
Your eyes keep gravitating towards the swords.
"They do?"
Someone nudged Sires' shoulder. Sires looked behind him and scowled. A young man, looking to be around the same age as Sires, gave a frown.
"Shut up, freak," the man hissed at Sires.
"I wasn't talking to you," Sires replied pointedly, and then went back to his selection.
I spied something that might interest you.
Sires gave a small "hm?".
Third from the left, the swords.
Sires looked. "Ah."
Recognize that?
"Why would I want that?" Sires mumbled, which earned him another shove. Sires looked over his shoulder once more and glared.
When it's your selection, kill him.
Sires rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to do that..."
Yet another shove. This time, Sires turned around fully. He gave his nastiest look. "Touch me again, and I'll break all of your fingers."
The young man laughed, as did his friends. Sires gave another glare to his fellow student that had a shock of blonde hair and brown eyes before turning back around.
Isn't that one Aaron?
Sires shrugged; at this point he just wanted both the student and the voice to leave him alone.
He is, Sires. He's Aaron. He torments you repeatedly. Be done with him.
"I'll be done with you before I'm done with him..."
Yet another prod from behind him. This time, Sires got to his feet and spun around. "Stop it!"
Aaron laughed along with his friends. "Then stop muttering to yourself, freak."
"Sires! Aaron!" the instructor snapped before it could continue. "Take a lap. Now."
Sires gave an exasperated growl while Aaron got to his feet, smirking. Aaron gestured for Sires to go first.
"After you, princess."
Gouge his eyes out!
Instead, Sires merely took off to run a lap around the training room. Aaron kept pace all the while. At one point, as soon as the melee instructor wasn't looking, Aaron shove Sires and tripped up his ankles, making him fall. Aaron's friends laughed from their seats, causing the instructor to look.
"Aaron," the instructor snapped, voice echoing around the chamber. "Stop being a fucking ass. Get over here and pick your weapon."
Sires, meanwhile, was getting to his feet, moving hair out of his face.
Aaron looked innocent. "But my punishment lap isn't—"
"Now, you fuck."
Aaron ducked his head to conceal the fact he was laughing quietly. Sires, completing his own lap, got a jolt of small satisfaction as the instructor slapped Aaron upside the head and then angrily pointed at the weapons. He watched intently, Aaron striding confidently up to a glaive and picking it before returning to his seat.
When this is done, you will be paired for a short sparring, the voice whispered into Sires' ear. You are going to be paired with Aaron.
"No shit?" Sires asked, irritated. Like most people learning a foreign language, cussing had come easy to him.
What the voice had said wasn't remarkable; standards within The Compound deemed that two students displaying animosity towards one another were often paired together in an attempt to sort it out. This most often resulted in one asserting dominance over the other, and, in rare cases, resulted in the issue being actually resolved. That said, Sires was noticing more and more the voice sometimes had an uncanny knack for knowing what was going to happen before it did. Sires, still trying to convince himself the voice was his own, simply told himself he had become good at predicting the outcome of certain things.
The voice chose to ignore Sires' sarcasm. Do you think you can disarm that polearm with a sword?
Sires grinned in spite of himself. "I can do anything I want to with a sword."
Sires wasn't exactly sure how this worked, but he got the distinct impression that the voice was smiling.
"Sires—your turn," the instructor said once he had made it back to the front of the room, barely winded from the lap.
Choose wisely...
The sword in question was the only katana on the rack. At first the idea of wielding the same type of sword that had killed his mother and sister repulsed him. Yet, as he stood in front of it, he then remembered getting revenge using that same weapon all those years ago. Without thinking, Sires ran his thumb along the blade's edge, and was quickly cut. Why this surprised him he wasn't sure, but he let out a small gasp. He looked at his thumb, a drop of blood pooling out and making a red rivulet down his digit onto the floor.
"They're real weapons, Sires," the instructor said flatly.
Sires looked at him. Then, without another word, Sires took up the weapon, spun it once, and walked back to his seat.
Shortly thereafter, the class was divided into pairs, just as the voice had said.
"Now," the instructor spoke, walking slowly around the paired off students with his arms folded behind his back. "I have paired you not only to match weapons fairly, but by skill level."
Aaron stood before Sires, giving him a wolfish, almost hungry grin.
"This is going to be a fair fight," the instructor said, annunciating every word. "As we are using actual weapons today, I expect a certain amount of restraint to be practiced at all times."
Sires stared back at Aaron in what he hoped was a dismissively uncaring look.
"So, while I don't want anyone to outright land blows, I do expect some of you to become injured. I want to keep the need for sending students to the infirmary to a minimum. Am I clear?"
"Yes," the class answered in unison.
"This will be an informal fight. You are to implement everything you have learned thus far. For the sake of safety, I would prefer you to limit combat to what we have learned specifically in this class. I implore each and every one of you to not pull in other fighting or self-defense techniques that you are practicing in your other classes. Is that clear?"
"Yes," everyone said.
"Begin."
"So," Aaron sneered as soon as the din of fighting made his words become lost to all but Sires. "How does it feel being X's special toy?"
Sires said nothing, merely focusing on the moves.
"I hear you're an orphan—is that right?"
Still Sires remained neutral.
"There's a rumor going around that you killed someone when you were just a kid; is that even true?"
Sires adjusted the grip of the sword in his hands, trying to focus on his footwork instead of the words.
"They also say that's a lie."
Sires chuckled, which caused Aaron to raise his eyebrows. "Ah, finally a rise."
Just cut him already. I tire of his nonsense.
"There's also great speculation as to why and how you ended up here."
Disembowelment is easy with a katana.
Sires snorted, focusing on what Aaron has said. "That isn't anyone's business."
"Oh, but it is." The look on Aaron's face turned sinister and dangerous. "You have no ties to this place. You have no lineage here. The idea of some sort of royalty from Iceland is absurd. People can't buy their way in."
Make him shut up. You're beyond this pathetic school yard gossip.
A smug look smeared across Aaron's face. "You know what I think, personally?"
"No," Sires replied, carrying out their sort of dance with finesse and precision few others in the class were managing. "And I don't care."
Aaron grinned wickedly. "I think your mother was a whore, and she sucked X off so you could—"
KILL HIM.
Aaron never finished his sentence. Letting out a yell that nearly brought his soul with it, Sires lashed out. Without even fully thinking, logic lost in a sea of enraged red at what was said about his mother, Sires easily beheaded Aaron.
The class halted in stunned silence. Sires was splashed in the face with Aaron's blood, and he flinched. Everyone gawked at Sires, who stood his ground and glared at everyone. Off to the side, one of Sires' classmates was noisily ill.
Sires moved into a more relaxed position. The young man getting sick fell to his hands and knees, a friend getting down beside him and rubbing his back. Swallowing down his own bile, Sires looked at the instructor. The look was returned calm and unflinching. After a moment, the instructor gestured to the body.
"Kyle, John, Fred, Tito—gather up the body and bring it to the infirmary. Lily, gather up the head and follow."
The five students scrambled, clearly feeling like they couldn't get out of the room fast enough. They even seemed at least partially unperturbed by carrying the corpse.
"Class is dismissed. Go to—"
For the first time since Sires had been at The Compound, the instructor seemed at a loss for words.
"I don't care where you go. Just leave. We will return tomorrow."
People didn't have to be told twice. Sires' classmates flung themselves towards the doors to the point of it momentarily becoming impassable. After a moment, the room was cleared by all except Sires and his teacher. A tense moment passed where the two did nothing but look at one another. Then, without a word, the instructor turned and disappeared through the open door.