Without any warning, without me being able to even glimpse what was happening, my arm erupted in a burst of hot, dull agony as a wooden training blade slammed into it, hitting me hard enough to really hurt but not hard enough to break anything.
It left one hell of a bruise though, and I was most definitely not trying to get hit again... but I had said that four times already and nothing had changed just yet, because the old woman in front of me was absolutely determined to beat some semblance of aptitude into me.
In her eyes, anyways, because I thought I was doing a damn good job at not getting beaten into a pulp all things considered, though the liberty of actually being able to think was something I didn't have right now.
