Ki Horizons - [Litrpg, Adventure, Power Levels]

Another day passed me by. It'd already been over a week now. It… this… this training was awful. It was so utterly boring. It wasn't just boring, it was pointless and frustrating! I couldn't feel myself getting any closer, and day after day after day just kept passing me by. What was I even doing?! There was no progress to be seen at all. I wasn't a stranger to that, I wasn't. I knew things took time, I remembered Master's first lessons, I wasn't impatient. Even if it took me over a thousand years of constant training, I'd kill Vega no matter what.

So why… is this so hard?

Had I truly gotten used to quick progress so much? Looking up every few days and seeing my power grow or watching and training with Master and feeling my techniques improve? Was I… spoiled? Had I grown like those Young Master's and Arrogant Assholes that Master had warned me about so long ago?

I frowned.

That was a terrible thought… what if Master hadn't thrown me down into the sewers but had started fighting me directly after I'd broken my wall and toughened up a little? My talent would've been found out so much sooner. I'd have… probably already been at this level a long while ago.

Every day, it seems that Master's choice to nearly get me killed and gamble with my life was beneficial to me. How awful.

I stared at the ceiling, my thoughts and mind as empty as they had been yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and... What was there to think about? What was the point? What was there to do? I couldn't fight Master. I couldn't feel any Ki. I couldn't feel my own, the Universe's, or Master's. Not really and truly. I was just… I was just wasting away. Rotting.

Like those zombies. Rotting away. Dying. Dead. D-

No. No, those thoughts, they aren't… I need to put them away. They aren't helpful. But what am I supposed to do?

I stared at the ceiling. Time grueling marching on. The thought of having to endure another day of 'close my eyes, sit still, and do nothing for eight hours' grated on my very soul. I was even starting to feel despair unlike any other. I dreaded going to sleep. I dreaded waking up. The sight of the wooden Dojo room was starting to cause me to freak out. I… how am I… supposed to do this? I-

"Mutai."

I blinked, staring upwards, the word swimming into my brain. It took me a moment to understand, to process, before I turned in surprise to Vincent standing there in my doorway. I got up, a heartbeat of fear passing me by. I checked the clock on the nightstand, but only a few hours had passed by, not a whole day and night somehow.

"Mutai." Vincent repeated again.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Want to go get drinks?"

I blinked in confusion, staring into Vincent's red eyes and impassive face. Wait. What? He wanted to-

"No. Never. No. I don't drink." I said immediately.

Never again. Never. Again. Was this a trick to destroy me? No, no, that's ridiculous. Maybe. But no, no no no no no. No. No. Never again. Never, never again. No drinks. No alcohol. I'd get drunk. I'd get drunk and drink more and more and more and more and- No.

"You can get water then. I'd like a beer. Come on."

"Uh, but, I don't know why you'd want to-"

"Stop being a coward and come get a drink with your brother."

I shut my mouth and stared at Vincent, frowning. He stared back, fire in his eyes and some emotion I couldn't place on his face.

"...and if I say no?"

"Then I'll lose any respect I had for you."

"For refusing a drink with you?!"

"Yup."

I guffawed at Vincent's shamelessness. What is going on with you?

"I don't know what the hell is going on through your mind but… fine. Whatever."

I'd be on guard either way. This wasn't normal. Either Vincent was going to attack me, or he needed my help, or, well, it was definitely something.

It beat staring at the ceiling all day.

*********

I was deeply confused.

"How's your water?" Vincent asked.

"It's… Vincent, it's water."

I said, taking a drink. It was refreshing and cold though.

We sat on two stools at a smaller bar. Vincent drank some basic beer that was about as likely to get him drunk as the sun was to go on a holiday. We weren't the only two people here, and it wasn't like the place was run down or anything. It was just a normal bar. Hell, I'd probably been in here at some point. Or maybe at least been kicked out of here.

But no, the confusing part… was that nothing was happening. It'd been ten minutes since we'd sat down, mostly in silence, and all Vincent had tried to do was make small talk. The weather, his blacksmithing of jewelry, saying thanks for the hammer again. It was all just so… normal?

There was no fighting, no attacking, no need of help. It was… why did Vincent invite me to go out drinking? Wait. Wait wait wait. Vincent and I… were pretty close, right? I mean, we saw each other as Rivals and Brothers in Arms. We shared a similar past. We'd bled, cried, and sweat together. I'd seen the man naked more times than I can count inside the shower room and him the same. It… It couldn't be that he…

"So-" He started.

Not again!

"I see you as only my Brother and not as anything else!" I said, in panic.

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He stared at me, utter confusion on his face, before slowly nodding.

"O…Kay? I, I also see you as my dear brother Mutai. I don't know what you were thinking but it doesn't matter. There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

His face turned serious and I matched it. Alright, here it comes.

"What are your hobbies?"

My deadpan look was answer enough. This was what he wanted to talk about?

"No, Mutai. I am very, deadly serious right now. It's important."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Why would my hobbies be important?"

"Just please answer the question."

"Alright… I guess. Well… my hobbies huh? I like…"

My mind blanked. What were my hobbies? Hobbies are things you usually do in your free time right? I mean… I….

I…

"I like… fighting?" I almost asked, unsure of why this was necessary or so serious.

"Alright. Sure. Fighting is great. What else?"

Now I was truly drawing a blank. Vincent's face was, strangely, encouraging. Not in an emotional capacity but like he really, desperately was eager for me to say something else. Another thing. Anything else.

I thought. I really tried, taking the question more seriously. But my mind just kept going to a white blank void of nothingness. I couldn't think of a single damn thing I actually really liked doing outside of fighting. No… no that wasn't it. I didn't do anything outside of fighting and training.

"I think that's it?"

Vincent's face fell.

"Mutai, what were your hobbies before training with Master?"

"Vincent I-"

"The entire time you've been in this City?"

"What's the point of this? Why, why all of this?" I said, gesturing towards the nearly empty bar. It was dark, it was late, and the person I was training with to have the privilege of killing Vega was taking the time to interrogate me about my hobbies. What on Vega was going on?

"Mutai…" Vincent said slowly. "Who are you?"

WHAT?

"What?"

"You haven't been right since you came back from your 'break'. You spent your break giving gifts and then nearly died. You don't do anything but train. Outside of shopping, I'd never seen you do anything else or show interest in anything else. You speak about your times in the sewers and all you talk about is meeting Ragual and fighting. You speak of nothing else about it, despite me knowing from your mouth that you ran into a village. Last month, I saw during our training you were off as well, and yet you said nothing about it. You're like a machine Mutai. You do nothing but try to grow stronger. It's like you're not even a person sometimes. More like a force of nature and determination. I get it. I get it more than anyone else ever will. But people don't crack the very first time they truly encounter a halt in action, they don't spend all day mindlessly staring at ceilings with an empty gaze, they don't shut down Mutai.'

"That first day, when you approached me. I'm not stupid Mutai. Why did you do it?"

I was in a complete daze, the words and meanings slamming into my ears. I… I was like a machine? A force of nature? Shut down? W-what? I… what? No, no I was more than that. I… what?

"I… wanted to help you." I said, my mind's words more slipping out than anything else, still trying to process and just think for a moment.

Vincent stared at me with his red eyes, as if peering deep into my soul. I realized now what that look on his face had been earlier, for it was back and stronger.

Worry. Vincent was genuinely worried about me.

"With what? Not with training, was it? You didn't want to get me a Master. You didn't want to protect me with words and tell me everything was going to be okay because you'd take care of all of my problems. It was specific. You wanted to help me with something specific. I can see it, feel it, know it. In our conversations, Mutai. The way you talk about the past, about the future. Say it."

Say it? Say what? What was even going on right now? What was wrong?

"I just… wanted to help you…"

It hit me then. What Vincent was driving at. What he was hammering down, what he was worried about. I understood it crystal clear as the words manifested on my lips.

"I wanted to help you not turn out like me."

I was a person. I was. That was the link I'd been missing with why the clones haunted me so much.

I didn't feel like one.

The last year I'd been more alive than the three before it. And yet, all I'd done was fight and train. And yet it didn't bother me much. It wasn't that my world was limited… it was that I was. I'd had everything that made me, me, destroyed on that day so long ago and hammered to dust afterwards. I could barely remember the hobbies I used to like or my dreams or wants or desires before Vega. It was like I was a completely different person and one that only had a single dream and thought.

To murder him.

But to call a person with a single action and desire a person is a stretch even a robot might laugh at. I was… I was no more a person than a single cell organism was.

The break had been helpful, at least the first day. It'd let me grow, like I knew I should.

And then the next, I'd been right back into a deadly fight, with horrors around every corner, with not enough strength to survive. If it had happened before Vega, somehow, it would be the worst day of my entire life. Finding out about all those clones… it would haunt me, like it did now, but far worse. And yet, I'd treated it as just another horror and moved on to try to fight more. And I had been okay with that.

When was the last time I did any other hobby? Not just for a random single day or two, but actually made an effort to be more than just a fighting machine? When was the last time I did something normal, regularly? Played a game, watched a movie, or more? I had time now. I had time with this training and yet…

I'd simply laid there in bed, as if someone had taken out my batteries.

Rotting. Dying. Undead. Shutting down.

"Oh." I said. My own voice sounded weak to my ears. Distant too. "I'm… empty huh?"

My voice broke; something trying to escape me and failing.

Vincent grabbed my arm by the forearm, clasping with me suddenly. His grip strong enough in that moment to leave a bruise.

"You don't have to be. You're scarred Mutai. Not broken. Talk to me Mutai. Please. No fighting, no training, just talk to me. Tell your Brother about the life you've lived."

I took a long, long drink of water, staring blankly forward. My emotions and mind were a mess. I didn't know how to feel or how to think. I'd been blindsided by the revelation of how… close to being a robot I was. Just an empty vessel for Vengeance. I don't know how long I stared out, Vincent staring at me, desperately wanting me to truly open up and try to grow a little out of the hole I'd put myself in.

Time slowly ticked by as the world seemed to hold its breath.

"...I was born a little over twenty two years ago. My birthday was last month. As was the anniversary of my Village's death. He killed them all a week after it. Also the same month I started training at Master's and when the Cloning began."

"The Cloning?"

"I truly hate the beginning of the year. I hate that month so much. Anyway, I…"

I talked. I talked and talked as Vincent listened.

And just a little bit, I felt my shoulders relax. Like some weight was leaving my body.