4 YEARS EARLIER
Reiji ran through the forest, avoiding arrows from all directions.
It was a cold April day and what Reiji didn't expect was for the Frost people to still be active.
There wasn't even snow anymore and it was daytime damn it.
Hiding wasn't an option so he ran into the direction an arrow would come from, hoping to take them out one by one.
An arrow whipped past him, cutting his calf.
This caused him to slow down just enough to get hit in the abdomen.
He dropped down behind a tree.
Reiji stayed there for a moment before breaking the arrow, keeping the arrowhead inside of his abdomen.
He quickly got up, facing the pain head on.
The arrows never stopped.
After running for a moment he collapsed, the pain was too much.
He took a few deep breaths, imagining his wound was healing and trying to focus on his surroundings.
He looked around from his position on the ground.
Trusting his gut, he quickly moved forward, keeping low to the ground.
What surprised Reiji was the fact that right after he moved an arrow struck where he was a moment ago.
Reiji managed to fend off the offensive using his bow and close quarter combat skills.
He stumbled back to his campsite and when he got back, he closed all of his wounds with fire.
He thought about how he sensed that one arrow, looking at the bloody arrowhead he pulled out.
It was a gut feeling, like he knew something was coming from the general direction.
"How do I recreate that scenario? Was it the pain? Probably not since I had that feeling after I took a few deep breaths, temporarily lessening it."
He then looked up at the mountains.
Where he lived was already pretty high and well-hidden but he sometimes liked to take a walk even higher in the mountains.
Looking back at the fire in front of him, he got back to thinking.
He closed his eyes and tried to map his surroundings in his head, taking deep, slow breaths in the process.
He did this every day for hours until either he almost fell asleep or his mind wandered too far to keep going.
Reiji noticed something. Sure, he couldn't exactly feel the life force, as he calls it, of other beings such as plants or animals but he could control his own quite well.
He applied this to combat, imagining a supernatural energy that would flow through him and into his fist as he punched.
After a week he got quite proficient at it, becoming superhuman as some might say.
Still, it was far from perfect as a lot of his punches weren't enhanced by his life force.
He wanted to be aware of his surroundings or at least feel the life force of the beings he focused on.
Nonetheless, he guarded that damn passage that led down the cliff's edge into the village that was under his campsite.
The Frost people were smart.
They tried bows and arrows, but when that didn't work out, they tried to fight Reiji up close while having him under constant fire from arrows, but that didn't work either.
There was one last thing that they could try, an all-out attack with spears and knives and no archers.
Reiji waited until they attacked. The sun had already set.
When they jumped out from cover, Reiji quickly unsheathed his katana and cut down some of them.
Too many!
He thought to himself as he backed up.
Putting some distance between himself and the Frost people, he thought he could pick them off one by one.
But there was one frost person that lifted its mask up just enough to show its face.
It took out some kind of tube with two clay lids on each side from the small pack it carried.
It removed one lid and put the open side in its mouth. It then took off the other lid and blew a fine powder into Reiji's eyes.
He couldn't see as the Frost people started to laugh, yes, they actually laughed at him.
It sounded like children were mocking him.
He dropped down to one knee after getting hit in the side of his left one.
Then got punched in the face, knocking him down on his side.
They kicked him everywhere. His back, face, the side of thigh and even his solar plexus, making his gasp for air and go into a state of shock.
The kicking finally stopped as he laid there, hopeless.
He decided to take deep breaths.
One frost person came up to him with a spear, aiming it at his head.
It lifted the spear, preparing to drive it though Reiji's skull at a 90-degree angle.
When it came down, blood started to pour and cover the ground.
You see, while it might not have been known at the time, hysterical strength was a burst of power when the fight-or-flight response of the human body was activated.
It can even cause the muscles to rip themselves off of the bones in extreme cases.
But what good is such strength when you can't even use it?
Reiji didn't know where his enemy was, what weapon they had or when they would strike after he got blinded.
That was the cause of Reiji's death…or it should've been.
You see, Reiji had nothing to live, fight nor die for.
He simply wasn't fazed by the fact he might die but everything that lives will on instinct defend itself from death.
His reaction wasn't caused by his will to live or maybe it was, who knows? All that Reiji knew was that for some reason, dying while being laughed at was so repulsive, so maddening that he refused to let fate have its way.
The blood that was on the ground wasn't from Reiji's head getting pierced, it was from the hand Reiji caught the spearhead with.
"I'm not dying here, in such a meaningless place!"
His words were full of fury, sitting up, he used his life force to enhance the punch that broke the neck of the frost person that was holding the spear.
He got up and quickly jumped back. That's when he realized that he didn't see them, he felt their life force.
Reiji's face contorted into an unstoppable grin.
He gripped the spear properly and yelled.
"Come on! I've got more than enough fire in me!"
As he yelled his words, a Frost person jumped up into the air, aiming to permanently blind him with a slice across his eyes.
Reiji used the power of controlling and feeling life force to ultimately win the battle.
By the end of it, his vision was already cleared up.
That was the last attack the Frost people carried out. The next one would come during that year's winter.
After practicing for months, he realized the limits to life force.
Controlling his own wasn't a problem anymore but he had to focus on one being to be able to see its life force. That, or he would have to enter the fight-or-flight mode.
What most excited him was the fact that he could now match a Frost person in strength.