The Art Of Sword

After sleeping for a while. Sunz hears the sound of two pieces of metal smacking at each other. When he opens his eyes he sees that he is outside lying on the grass.

Looking around he saw that he was lying next to a smithy and to his surprise that he was wearing his ‘Windbreaker’. It immediately snaps to him that he is currently dreaming right now.

He then keeps hearing the same sound of metal smacking at each other. Figure that it must come from the smithy so he decided to investigate it.

Sunz walked around the smithy until he found the entrance and to his surprise, Sword was standing in front of it. Sunz tries to start a conversation with him but Sword doesn’t say anything.

Sword with his back against the wall clenched his fist and knocked on the door twice. Then the sound of metals beating at each other stops followed up by the running sound that keeps getting louder.

The running sound stops and the door slides open with such force that it startle Sunz.

The person who greeted Sunz was the blacksmith girl. She also doesn’t say anything except signal him to come in and quickly run away. Within 5 seconds the sound of metal beating at each other returned.

Sunz quickly follows inside. Right after he entered the smithy, Sword said “Good luck!”. Sunz was able to turn around and see that Sword was smiling at him right before the door slammed shut.

Sunz thinks (Ok then… It feels hotter in here than outside.)

The further Sunz walks away from the entrance the hotter it gets. The same goes for the sound, it keeps getting louder and louder. Until he arrived at the training room of the smithy.

The training room decoration is nothing special. It has some armor, weapon stands, and forging materials lying around. Which makes it feel more like a storage room than a training room.

One special detail about this room is that the forge is connected to it. Sunz thinks (That must be the reason why it's so hot in here.)

The metal bashing sound stops and is followed up by the sound of water sizzling with lots of vapor coming out of the smithing room. After most of the vapor fades away the blacksmith girl comes out of the forge.

Her body was covered in sweat and one of her hands was holding a sword. She throws the sword to Sunz and he was able to catch it.

Blacksmith girl: The room is a bit hot isn’t it? Let me fix that!

Suddenly the temperature of the room cools down to a more comfortable one.

The girl removes her smithing apron and grabs one of the swords in the room.

Blacksmith girl: First let me introduce myself. I am your second ‘Teacher’ and called me Violet.

Sunz: Is Violet your nickname because it matches your color? Your look don’t really match your name.

Violet pauses after Sunz finishes his sentence.

Sunz said, “ If that sounds insulting then I’m sor…ry”. At the end of the sentence, he finds it hard to speak and for some reason, he is pinned against the wall not able to move.

Sunz looks at Violet and sees that the sword in her hand is gone. Then he looks down and sees that Violet had impaled him with her sword.

Violet: You are fast with the brain but your movement is still too slow. It is fortunate for you that (She pulls the sword out of him) this is only a dream. So pain is only temporary!

Sunz checks his wound and it was gone except blood still stuck to his shirt.

Violet: To answer your question. “Violet” is only my title for us to communicate easily. And for my real name… Well, time will tell!

Every door inside the room suddenly closes and the room morphs itself to become larger than before.

Violet: For now. I want to see your blade Dance!

Both Sunz and Violet ready their blade. And for Sunz he can already see Violet’s movements. But this time instead of many different attacks she only has one move.

Violet instantly disappears. Sunz takes one step back and swings his sword at the moment he knows that both blades will collide. His timing was correct but it was still not natural. And the force he got after the two blades connected still made his hand a bit numb.

But different from the start of his journey, this time he can endure all of this a lot better. This training continued on for at least a minute with Sunz being on the defensive. Within that minute he started getting better at the timing and instead of using his force to counter.

Sunz redirects the attack to miss him or at worse graze him to open for a counter-attack. After the first minute, Violet’s attack now contains two different movements.

Sunz smiles in enthusiasm: So this is what we doing.

After saying that he got hit by four different moves from Viotlet.

Violet screams at him with an intimidating voice: Shut Up and Focus!

This time Sunz trying a different approach. He will also be going on the offensive to see if he can match or even out combo Violet.

After upping the difficulty, Sunz feels that Violet’s attacks are now leaning more on the speed aspect which leads to him receiving more hits than expected.

Violet continued to increase the difficulty to 3 and 4 chain attacks after each minute. Right after seeing the third attack from Violet. Sunz immediately switches back to fighting defensively, trying to be less aggressive.

Seeing that Sunz switches his tactic and his hands start twitching, Violet knows that (Reaching your limit isn’t it! But it's not your power it’s something else.) because after switching his tactic Sunz is still able to block most of the starting attack and take the last hit of each combo to perform a counter-attack.

But none of his counters was able to land on Violet. Time starts to feel slower for Sunz each time a minute pass and by seeing a bonus attack from Violet he knows that he is slowly improving (He hope).

At the end of round 4 Sunz’s body had never felt that exhausted before, (even though all of this is in his dream) but he can still push through because of the adrenalin rush he’s having. Unluckily his hand suddenly just cramps, resulting in Sunz being hit by Violet’s 4 hit combo.

If this wasn’t a dream then Sunz would have been decapitated.

After getting hit Sunz starts seeing Violet’s fifth combo. After seeing it his blade suddenly engulfed in flame and his hand on its own strikes the sword tip into the floor. Setting the whole room up in flame. Sunz was baffled by how it happened, knowing that it wasn’t him that activated the skill.

Violet walks toward Sunz and said “And this is why I’m here!“ then immediately slice off the hand that was holding the sword. The flame inside the room slowly dies out. It’s like she just cut off the fuel of the fire.

Violet: Still thinking of following through with that plan of yours after seeing the result?

Sunz: So all of this is just to simulate my plan and test my strength, just for you to say that I have no chance of winning with that plan.

Violet: You’re mostly correct, but forget one important detail. The test is also for you to figure out what your strength is. But you already know what it is! Even those that close to you know what your strength is.

Violet holds up Sunz’s hand that she just decapitated: So instead of testing your full strength, I want to see how long can you suppress it while being under immense pressure.

Sunz (Seeing my decapitated hand still moving is kind of weird): Is this the moment that you’ll tell me the solution to my problem?

Violet: No kid! I may be your teacher now but for most of my life, I was a blacksmith. However, there is one thing I suggest, “You should pick up another sword.” But if get good and comfortable with one then you might not need a second.

Sunz stands up, grabs his detached hand from Violet (It automatically connected back to him), and said “So I’m just gonna borrow another one of your swords then we’ll start over.”

Violet: What do you mean ‘start over’? That will be the only test and now it’s your turn to take care of the rest.

Sunz: But I’ll be able to come back and train in the next dream right?

Then a door opens and Sunz hears a familiar voice “That isn’t how this works, kid!” It was Sword.

Sword: This dream world is not a place for real training. It’s a place that allows us to pass on our knowledge to you or just to have some small talk. We might do a bit of dueling which will make your body a bit sore after waking up.

Violet: Which means most of your progress will be in the real world not here.

Then all three hear a sound that is familiar to someone knocking on a door.

Sunz asks: Is there another person coming in?

Sword: Nope! That is for you from the real world. Now we just need to wake you up.

Sunz: How?

Violet ready her sword, and said “Just so you know any sword can cut, even yours.” Then in a flash, Sunz was cut in half and turned to dust.

Sword asks Violet: Do you think he has a chance at winning against her?

Violet: For me, the Loser is the one that had no blade.