[8] An Opportunity More Precious Than Life (4)
The next morning.
Shirone trudged to the library, exhausted. He hadn't slept a wink all night because of the previous evening's events.
With his mind in turmoil, he couldn't make progress on the cataloging. Forcing himself to calm down, Shirone tried to think logically.
Fear wouldn't solve anything. He had to come up with countermeasures within a month.
First: gather information.
The head of House Bishof had three sons and one daughter. The eldest was a certified Rank-6 swordsman, and the second son, Rai, was an undisputed prodigy with the blade—everyone assumed he'd soon follow in his brother's footsteps.
Even Rian's sister was Ozent-level in talent, but because she was a woman she had to give up the sword and now worked as a pianist in the royal palace.
Put together, the only one who hadn't shown any particular spark was Rian. The family head had even provided a private tutor, but all the reports said he simply had no aptitude.
"Haah. That was pointless. I might as well have taken it," Shirone muttered.
Having lived his life constantly compared to his brothers, Rian was bound to snap when Shirone hit him with Thunder Strike. Nobility didn't mean everyone was exceptional.
"What do we do now? This is a real problem."
Once the situation sank in, Shirone's unease returned. The real sword Rian had thrown lay where it had landed beneath his desk.
He stared at it a long time, then finally stood up and headed to his study.
Whether he fought or not, it was better to be prepared. He'd lived on the mountain and trusted his stamina, so if he at least learned how to defend himself, he might survive.
For now, history books were off-limits. He collected every book on swordsmanship he could find.
There were technical manuals like The Swordsmanship Handbook, philosophical works titled What Is the Sword? and Only Humans Fear the Blade, and practical guides such as Win by Bluster and The Strong Are Those Who Survive.
Shirone opened a plainly titled book, Swordsmanship. It laid out the history of the sword and an overview of techniques.
Even as a mage-in-training, Shirone found it fascinating. If mages had the Spirit Zone, swordsmen had something called skema.
Skema was a virtual body, a schematic of the human form. Everyone carried a mental image of their body; skema was this image made extreme and concrete.
A skema master supposedly understood their body so perfectly they could influence the action of a single cell.
Reading that, Shirone realized skema was the counterpart to the Spirit Zone.
Mages erased themselves to merge with the world; swordsmen delved obsessively into the self.
Shirone tried an experiment.
He felt the brain activity that accompanied entering the Spirit Zone and attempted to conjure a virtual self in his mind.
That part was easy.
But the virtual body was dark like a shadow; he couldn't see inside it.
"If I can clear away this dark veil, it'll become a skema. Incredible."
He read on. Methods for mastering skema varied by clan; different houses emphasized different aspects of reinforcement.
Some families pursued skema through mental cultivation, others by driving the body to extremes.
One clan amplified raw strength, another speed, another the nervous system.
Shirone thought of the red-haired girl he'd met in an alley four years ago. At the time he'd been fleeing and hadn't noticed, but in hindsight her movements hadn't been human.
"She must have mastered a skema. She was about my age—what a talent."
He couldn't linger on admiration. He closed the book and thought. Rian probably hadn't mastered skema either. But if he tried himself, there were problems.
Just as the Spirit Zone wasn't magic, skema wasn't simply swordsmanship. Knowledge mattered to mages; for swordsmen a hardened body was indispensable. Without a body to back it up, even using skema would limit how much you could strengthen yourself.
"I already have a Spirit Zone. Rather than learning a conflicting concept, it's faster to look for a solution within swordsmanship."
He had to find something that would keep him alive within a month.
Shirone pulled out a beginner's sword manual and turned to the first page. Suddenly studying swordsmanship felt odd, but with his life at stake his focus was sharper than ever.
* * *
"Uaaah! Uaaah!"
A cloud of dust rose over the great training field. It was kicked up by Rian's pounding legs. His heart felt like it would explode. He couldn't breathe properly; his stomach rebelled.
"Urek! Urek!"
The lunch he'd eaten slid back up his esophagus. Rian let it come. The only thing he cared about was his legs.
"One hundred laps! Pass!"
Sword master Kite shouted boisterously. Today, Rian's changed state had never looked so right.
"Record shortened! But what's this? You're complying with the training quietly?"
"Dammit! What kind of training is this—"
"Huh?"
Kite raised incredulous eyes. He'd come to give some praise after a long while, and his student immediately fell back into his old grumbling.
But today's grumble had a different edge.
"You're still standing like that! Teacher, don't you have anything harder?"
"Oh?"
Kite was surprised. It had been a long time since Rian burned like this—the last time had been when he'd bowed before Ozent-level Rai's genius two years earlier.
"You… something happened, didn't it?"
Sweating, Rian braced himself on his knees and lifted his head.
"Nothing like that."
Kite didn't believe him. In the terrifying focus of his student's eyes some apparition surely flickered.
'Is it Rai again?'
Who else could have driven Rian like this besides the family's second son? Had Rai done something again? But what—hadn't Rai already mastered skema?
It didn't matter. Rian, not Rai, was Kite's student. And right now his student was offering himself up to be shaped.
"Fine! Then die properly once today! If you really die, I'm not taking responsibility!"
"Anytime!"
Rian slammed an iron bar—twice the weight of a longsword—down in relentless succession. If he couldn't reach skema through insight, he'd force it out by driving his body to extremes.
"Ta-ha! Ta-ha! Ta-ha!"
Kite watched Rian's vertical strikes with a mixed pride, but his expression hardened as time passed. Realization widened his eyes and he ran over.
"You madman! Stop it! You'll tear your muscles!"
"They haven't torn yet!"
Kite stopped short and stared at his student. Tears streamed from Rian's eyes as he gritted his teeth and swung the bar.
"Damn it! Why aren't the muscles tearing? Why won't the arms snap? I can do more! This isn't the end! I'm not finished!"
Tears welled in Kite's eyes too. He was a frustrated teacher. Why wouldn't it work? He was driving the body to its limits—why couldn't the skema open?
Kite wiped his face with his thick arm. This couldn't go on. If the teacher started doubting, what would become of his student?
He caught the iron bar with the palm of his hand. When his student struck his hand, Rian finally relented and stopped.
"Rian, that's enough. Let's call it a day."
The warm voice dispelled Rian's frenzy. He'd long since lost feeling in his arms; without even noticing the bar had fallen he bowed his head.
"Yes. Thank you."
Kite placed an ice pack on Rian's shoulders. The bones weren't broken—he couldn't deny the youth's naturally strong constitution.
Rian sat on the hill beside the training ground, staring at distant mountains. After treating him, Kite sat down beside him.
"What are you thinking about?"
"My arms hurt so much I could die."
A smile softened Kite's mouth.
"Rian. In the reports I send to the house, I've never once said you had talent."
"Heh. Who cares?"
"But I think you do. Talent isn't only about achieving something quickly. Striving desperately to do what you cannot—that's also a kind of talent."
"No need to console me. Nice words, but honestly, I work so hard because I don't have talent."
"Is that so? Geniuses know they're geniuses. So they also know clearly what they can do. Have you ever thought like that?"
"I don't know. I know what I can't do, though."
"Right. So that makes you not a genius."
Rian gave Kite a baffled look. The teacher was rubbing salt in the wound while his arms were killing him.
"Stop it. I know that already."
Rian pouted and Kite smiled.
"But tell me this, Rian. Do you know what geniuses fear most? Effort. To exert effort means you don't have it. They fear effort because it proves lack. Do you think people only exert themselves because they're lacking? No. The only people who can work hard are those who do."
Kite gripped Rian's shoulder and pushed gently.
"Geniuses fear you. Because you can seize what they lack. The one who works hard is the genius's natural enemy."
The genius's natural enemy.
Rian liked that. Even if it was meant to comfort a mediocre student, it didn't matter. He simply didn't have what others had. If it wasn't given, he'd snatch it with grit.
He clenched his fist. For the remaining month, he would pour everything he had into it.
* * *
Shirone knew clearly what he could do.
Rejecting any lingering hope of skema and searching elsewhere put him on a path opposite to Rian's.
Still, talent is the shortest, most efficient route to a goal. Shirone set aside miscellaneous techniques and drilled the basics of swordsmanship.
A month flew by.
After mastering cuts in the eight directions and blocks in the eight directions to his satisfaction, Shirone finished his training.
Finally, he asked himself a summative question: What is swordsmanship?
A totality of biomechanics arising from the intent to kill. And because it decides life and death, it is also a refined psychology.
He imagined Rian as an opponent and leveled his blade. The enemy would probably attack from every conceivable angle.
But that enemy was only a fiction. Only the blade that truly sought to cut him was real.
He answered the imagined opponent with imagination. His sword stretched like a phantom and dominated the eight directions. With the next exchange it split into dozens.
'It's not about counting. It's about sensing everything at once.'
If you cling to a tree, you lose the forest. To relish possibilities as a whole—that was insight.
But it wasn't easy. As patterns expanded like fractals, he kept getting stuck on particular attack points.
'It's okay if I can't do it. Observe.'
Momentum built and Shirone loosened his thoughts until, at a certain point, he let go entirely. An infinite blankness began to draw all possibilities in at once.
"Oh? Ohhh?"
Shirone stared at the world in astonishment. It had no end. The whole world filled with swords—his and Rian's.
Overwhelmed by the enormity, Shirone dropped his sword and staggered.
"Haha. Hahaha."
A hollow laugh escaped him. Like magic, the sword was infinite. He had experienced the infinite worlds that could be born from a single blade.
"So this is the path swordsmen choose."
He, too, was walking the infinite road of magic. A strange kinship warmed him.
"Mom, Dad, I'm sorry. I might not be able to go home."
No regrets. Rian probably felt the same. Standing at the fork between life and death, they had at least glimpsed a splendid facet of the world.
Outside the library, the chimes approached midnight.
Rian striving for what he couldn't have. Shirone finishing what he could. The mirrored clash of the two boys was now one hour away.