"Begin!" Lotaga announced with too much excitement after a moment, and Captain Salka groaned. Lotaga did not have any respect for Salka at all. At that moment, Sagiri could not decide who got on Captain Salka's nerves more, between Principal Senraki and Lotaga.
Sagiri heard the command, but he didn't move. being asked to hunt like he used to do had made him feel peaceful. It was easy for him to imagine the obstacles in front of him as the woods back at home. He shut his eyes, letting the image merge with the obstacles in front of him, not leaving any of them any one unaltered and merged to his own image, which was now full of trees and undergrowth and the occasional branches to latch onto and the open spaces to pass through stealthily.
He crouched low like he used to, letting his hands feel the earth pushing his senses and feeling not just the obstacles in front of him but the whole arena and everyone's current position. After one of the Tamelku twins had been called over, the remaining boys had stopped what they were doing and moved closer to have a look. He could perceive the hate of the other twin as he watched the scene unfold. He shed them from his concentration, allowing all his senses and hearing to focus only on his prey. He was crouched behind an obstacle, but he could tell his feelings of excitement beneath the hate. He listened to his rapid heartbeat and calmed his own till it was slow and steady.
When he finally moved, it was like he used to. He always enjoyed the hunt. Catching a prey was easy for him, so he made sure to enjoy the stalking and surrounding. He might not have built enough core strength and stamina for the extensive training at Galka War Academy, but hunting in the woods alone was his turf. There was no tree he could not climb or a hole he did not know like the back of his hand.
In one move, he undid his sash. he climbed a short bar, which was now a small tree in his head. Before he could reach the top, however, he jumped to a taller bar next to it and did that till he got to the tallest bar on that side. he climbed to the top and perched on it with only his feet, posture slightly bent forward. He straightened after a moment of being on the high spot. He then jumped down, but instead of falling all the way, his fall was short. He had done that intentionally, letting his sash hang on both sides of the bar and holding onto it with both hands. He loved this part most. Whenever he used to hunt, the fake falls were his favorites. He enjoyed the pull of gravity and the brain's alarm for a second before he cut it short.He used it to propel himself before he let go, and his body flew the short distance. Two iron trunks stood in front of him, and it looked like he was going to run into them. At the last second, however, he turned his shoulders and slid between them, his feet placing where roots would be. He could feel the excitement from his prey grow, anticipating contact, but Sagiri was not going to give him that just yet. An aware prey was the worst; it was better to wear it out mentally if you couldn't wear it out physically.
A swing weight cut across his path, almost making contact with him, but he dodged it at the last moment. In his mind, it was a low branch snapping back. He ducked under it, hand brushing past, never breaking stride. He ran up a steep obstacle that needed both his hands and feet to climb. The surface was smooth, and in his mind, it was a tree with no branches. They were the most troublesome but the best to hide from creatures like snakes while you watched your prey. He did not have the pleasure this time, however, because, unlike a tree, his hands could not go around it. he could only climb as fast as he could and only stop when he was at the top.
Up to this moment, he had been circling the prey, but of course, it looked like he was just climbing obstacles and swinging from them but Salka and Lotaga were veterans, and Lotaga was beside himself with admiration. He was from the west, and he had grown up hunting. It was easy for him to recognize a fellow hunter and, more so, one who enjoyed and loved the hunt. even more so, a self-taught one from the east. The boy might not have realized what he was doing, but to Lotaga it was like watching his younger self back home in the woods. It explained halfway why the boy was good in sensory.
"Amazing, he moves like he was raised and bred deep in the west," he marveled, and Salka slapped the back of his head.
"I think he moves like the north," Salka said, slightly impressed. the bot had caught his eye since their assassination attack. The boy was still far from becoming a full-blown soldier, but he was full of unpolished talents and surprises. With his sensory abilities, if he polished his hunting skills and incorporated them into his fighting style, he would be lethal. He was almost tempted to consider taking him under his wing and teaching him, but scrapped the thought from his mind. His core strength was still lacking; he needed a few more months of training before he could even think of that.
He only stopped for a second at the top to catch his breath. He was fast but not the fittest. When he reached the edge, he jumped over with both hands stretched. He twisted his body in a perfect arc as he was evading a branch but reaching for another in the same beat, and landed onto a falling platform. It tilted immediately because of his weight. He shifted his weight, toes gripping inside his boots, pushed off before it dropped, landing low on the next beam gracefully. The boots were not good on the bars and obstacles. He had always hunted on his bare feet. He had to compromise, however, so he was even more careful.
"I could have never thought he was this good. How does he look so feeble with so much skill?" Lotaga said as if he hated being proven wrong and loved it at the same time.
"You speak as if you were not his size when you joined Galka War Academy." Captain Salka snickered.
"I was thirteen, and he is sixteen or at least almost sixteen according to his file." Lotaga defended himself.
"Isn't that the same thing? I looked like that when I was seven," Captain Salka said proudly.
"Well, you are not human, that's different," Lotaga said, looking up at the towering form of Captain Salka's towering height.
"Shut up," he snapped, losing interest in the chitchat and focusing back on the ideas unfolding in front of him.
Sagiri dropped to all four at the next obstacle and the flat on his belly. The crawl frame in front of him became tangled undergrowth. He went down without hesitation, chest close to the ground, moving forward on elbows and knees, silently. He did not break the pattern or let his tiredness get to him. A target column rotated ahead. He timed it and mounted it with his hands, then his feet. He let it spin with him to the other side, but before it did a full 360 turn, he dismounted and jumped onto a section of suspended chains. in his mind, they were vined. He swung his body using one leg and used the momentum to land on another. He lifted himself backward in a perfect arc and let his body weight be held up by the back of his knees. His eyes were still closed, and he loved the position because it made him feel like a bat and made him relax.
He had already made a circle around the enemy. It served many reasons, circle and enemy, and being in that position put him directly in the line of sight of his prey. It also gave him a perfect feel of the outlets he could use. Now the only thing that remained was for him to make contact. The twin had been rotating with him, although he still maintained the same spot.
The levels of aggressiveness, hate, and excitement had risen to another level. The tensions were high, and Sagiri was thinking of a way to catch his prey without making contact. he had never been in hand-to-hand combat with anyone from the fourth year, but he knew he was still not a match. he thought long and hard, and all the angles ended with the twin using too much force for having been used as a pawn for him to prey on. Salka had gone and picked the worst of the worst.
He was like an agitated cobra, and whatever strategy he came up with ended with him getting slammed to the ground. He had to attack him from a distance. His hand reached into his pocket, and he felt for the cold metal handle. He pushed himself off the vine in one move, and before he landed, he was already moving head-on towards his target. He could feel the target feel excited. When he was close enough but far enough, he jumped over an obstacle with all the strength he could master and released his sash at him. The sash was a distraction. snakes always attack fast when they are agitation was at its highest level. In the same move, when his prey was obstructed by the sash, he pulled his dagger and released. He knew the sash was not enough to distract his prey, and his attack with the dagger wasn't going for the kill. It was to deceive Twin that that was his real motive, using his hate drive to believe it was a real attack before he moved towards the direction he could escape to run from the dagger and tapped his back.
His attack never reached, however, because he was still faster, evading all two attacks and a distraction. Sagiri had predicted this, and he chose this because of that. The counterattack could only land them in the shallow training pool.
"Stop!" Salka announced when the two boys landed in the shallow water. Sagiri might have calculated the damage, but the fall tackle was powerful, even with the pool, and he landed hard. He felt it in his head as it rattled with the force. Even after Salka announced they would stop as if predicting what sagiri already knew, the twin still kept him under water, one around the neck and another on his upper hand. He was grinning with a satisfied smile yet his hate had managed to grow and it was now in suffocating levels.
"You think you can use me as your prey and hunt me with closed eyes, ash gray?" it was as if he was trying to kill him. Sagiri was already used to holding his breath under water for a long while but after the rigorous display on the obstacles he needed to breathe. His senses heightened and the power inside of him stirred ready to crush the twin if it came to that. A part of him also wanted to punish the boy. He wanted to keep his power a secret but still not at the cost of his life still he did not want to use it to defend himself yet. It took too much strength and like N'varu said he was still not strong enough to handle it and he still did not know how to wield it. Even his meditation during the free time he squeezed in between classes had not helped him figure it out.
"Makea let go of the recruit! Now!" Salka bellowed another command and the twin moved back still with a creepy grin but lifted his hands up in surrender before saluting captain salka.
"Yes captain."
Sagiri rose from the water and gasped for breath.