NOVEL NEXT Chapter 240 - The Wrong Weapon
The weapon in her hands was a stranger.
Despite fighting together for months, through guardians and cannibals, suffering and unfairness and terror… The spear was now a dancing partner that refused to follow her tells and lead. One that demanded instead that she be the one to follow its lead, to conform to its steps, its strikes, its truths and certainties… It was not a partner anymore that she held. It was a shackle upon her ankles. Her wrists. Keeping her locked in place by unyielding rules.
She did her best to withstand the storm lashing upon her, the long, curved blade tasting her blood again and again, but she found herself faltering. Her steps failed her. Her hands seized… And the spear betrayed her.
There was an explosion of dull pain on her chest, and the world went momentarily white… Weightless. Then she crashed and rolled across the padded floor of the Master of Polearms training room.
"Again," the woman said.
Viy lifted her eyes to her master.
The Master of Polearms was apparently the youngest amongst all the masters, which was a testament to her might. Her light blue hair was kept short and in-line with her chin, and the muted gray-green-blue skinned woman was built incredibly tall and with elongated features. The length of her arms coupled with that of the monstrous glaive she wielded with ease gave her an unfair, and near insurmountable reach. And her eyes… Dark, with a ring of muted green, reminiscent of a lengos, gave little at the best of times.
Viy grit her teeth, anticipating the blow that was coming, knowing there was nothing she could do to avoid it and that there was nothing keeping her master from delivering it.
Well… That was not entirely true. Rather than there being nothing for her to do, it was that she just couldn't bring herself to do it anymore, and so she went flying once more, the spear slipping from her limp fingers.
"Again."
Viy rolled onto her stomach and raised herself on an elbow, and spat a glob of dark phlegm on the padded floor.
"No…" she breathed through the metallic tang.
The master was suddenly standing before her, her polearm resting on the floor in a perfect parallel line to the master's body. A promise of silent death. A dare…
"No!" Viy said again, clearer this time and spitting more blood, red staining her pale skin as it ran down her chin. "Enough!"
The master cocked her head to one side, her eyes as blank as ever.
"Why?"
"Because it's wrong!" Viy shouted, pushing herself to her knees and forcing her chin up, to pridefully look up at the tall woman despite her position at her feet. "It doesn't make… It's all…"
Her voice died in her lips, the coldness of her master's eyes snuffing the breath from her. Tears welled in her eyes, and fell freely down her cheeks, mixing in with the dried blood of a forehead injury that had already closed. Again, the impossibly tall woman dared Viy to go on.
"It's wrong…" Viy whispered, even as something within her twisted. "That… Weapon… Is not for me."
The sensation within her chest grew, as something dark spread even further across her core. It reached deeper, nestling heavier within her… Enveloping her. Taking her… Suffocating her.
"The spear is not right for me!" Viy shouted through the tears.
And she cried, not for the loss of the weapon, but for the loss of what it had meant.
It had been the rope that the Master of Polearms had thrown her… The guiding arrow of truth and certainty that she knew had been meant to guide her out of the darkness that plagued her soul, and pull her into the light.
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But she was not strong enough to hold on to that rope… Nor did she have the time to struggle with it while her party grew stronger around her, making her into a burden once again. Someone to be cared for, and to be carried onwards to their future, rather than as a trusted companion in arms. And she did not have the time for it…
No, Viy… That's not right, is it? A voice asked her.
The party would have waited. They would have made it work. The problem was her… As always, it was all her, and the truth was that she just did not have the will for it.
"Is this your decision?" the master asked her.
Viy gulped and closed her eyes. "Yes… Yes."
"Then it seems we have both failed."
Viy's eyes flashed open in time to catch the Master of Polearms take her spear and store it away.
"I saw the sheer, raw talent in you," the master said, walking back to her with steps both powerful and measured. "A potential that was hampered… Chained by your past and an affinity that is not your true one."
She stopped at the exact same spot, looking down at her apprentice with eyes that never warmed.
"I knew the spear was not the right weapon for you, but I thought that its truths, rules and certainties could have inspired you… Guided you from the guilt that mars your very soul," she said, her impassive eyes boring into Viy's desperate ones. "But I was wrong. Your guilt is much stronger than I anticipated, and I am not an expert in emotions."
"Master, I…"
The master held up a long finger to silence her, from the same hand that held the polearm upright at her side.
"But there is someone aboard who is," she continued. "The Master of Emotions and Hand to Hand Combat has, as you know, expressed her desire to train you. A desire that I have so far blocked, and you have so far avoided."
Viy nodded. She had met the red and purple skinned master before, but she hadn't been ready to listen to her then. Or perhaps she hadn't been desperate enough. But not anymore… She needed to progress, no matter how.
"Unlike me, Viy, she will not try to set you free of this weight you carry within your soul," her master continued. "She will teach you to harness it instead. To derive might from it. Power. Solutions. A path…"
"A path…" Viy asked, staring up with her blood and tear-streaked face. "Of guilt?"
The master nodded.
"The way I see it, the negative emotion paths are amongst the worst one can follow, and guilt one of the worst amongst the worst," she told her apprentice. "A prison, whose key is held by the prisoner itself, a path of guilt leads only to darker and darker darkness. Guilt cannot be managed. It cannot be embraced, nor can it be eased. For to do so, is to break the very path itself... The solving of guilt is the antithesis to the concept underlying the path, and, more often than not, guilt is but a covering, a shackle, upon the true affinity within… But the Master of Emotions does not think like I do, and she will teach you the strength of guilt, no doubt. But heed my words, Viy… You will not reach your true potential until you exit your prison of your own volition, and no matter how far or fast you run, you cannot escape yourself. Do you understand?"
Viy lowered her eyes to her master's feet, unable to continue looking into that unflinching stare.
"Yes, master…" she whispered.
"And a path of guilt is what you want?"
A tear, fat and heavy, rolled down her cheek, touching the corner of her lips… A taste of salt amidst the metallic.
"Yes, master."
For a long moment, the master said nothing.
"Very well, apprentice," she at last said. "It shall be done as you want it. But know this, Viy. Your decision today is not final. On any day, at any moment, you can choose to open that door… And step out. Free of guilt, if not of the consequences of the past. Now get up."
The master paced away from Viy, and she forced herself to her feet. Despite everything, she felt naked without her spear.
"Perhaps the spear was the wrong approach…" the master suddenly said, stopping with her back to Viy, almost as if speaking to herself. "The wrong message. The wrong guide… Yes. After all, why not?"
In a blink, the master was towering over Viy, her long neck bent low so that their eyes locked into one another, a slender finger lifting Viy's chin up.
"Savage. Brutal. Reckless. Beautiful. Shackled…" the master breathed, a sudden intensity gleaming in her eyes. "Why not?"
"Mas…"
"Here."
The Master of Polearms pressed a fist into her chest and Viy looked down at the sudden weapon that the tall woman held in her long fingers. She exhaled a shaky breath as her eyes took it in.
"Take it," the woman whispered.
Viy scrambled to take the weapon as the master unceremoniously let go of it.
"This…"
The ex-spearwielder took a deep breath.
"It's perfect," she breathed, her eyes wide at the heavy length she beheld in her hands.
"Do not take this as an endorsement to your guilt, Viy. Unless you resolve it, you will never achieve your true potential, for guilt is something you regret, and what you regret, you cannot embrace. Not truly," the master said. "And while you can grow it, even nurture it, in a sick, twisted way, you can never welcome guilt. You can never become one with it, and you can never come to love it… Never."
Her master lowered herself into a fighting stance.
"But I have done my duty and said what needed to be said," the master told her. "Now show me you deserve that weapon."