“Uchoyo what do you think you are doing?” An angry roar interrupted the momentary peace that had appeared after the end of the match. Mwana did not even get to bask in the glory of his victory before another pest appeared.

“Bring it on!” However, he was not one to back down despite how tired he was. His opponent did not even wait for the end of Mwana’s statement before attacking. With Mwana’s ‘battle confirmation’, Uchoyo was already zooming towards him at his fastest speed. Evidently, he could not forget the humiliation he had faced at Mwana’s hands. However, Uchoyo was much stronger than Maji 1 in a straight up battle as he had already been a Bone Forging Warrior for a long time.

Uchoyo’s [Bone Piercing Fist] was like a missile as he propelled it towards Mwana’s stomach. Even though Mwana activated all his defenses at once [The Golden Statue Technique, Millennium Wood Technique, and the GOD.F’s Aura Shield], he had been significantly drained of energy. He knew that he would not have an easy time blocking this hit. However, the pain he expected never came. The punch never landed.

“Haha, you sure are courageous huh?” The first part of the statement was said in a humorous tone but the final questioning part was asked filled with anger to the point that the speaker’s voice was vibrating.

Hearing this voice, both Mwana and Uchoyo first looked to the side then at Mwana’s stomach where Uchoyo’s fist was stopped less than half an inch from Mwana’s stomach. The fist was tightly clasped in someone’s hand.

‘Just how strong is she?!’ Both boys could not help but think at the same time. This was Malkia’s hand.

Although Mwana knew that Kia had been stronger than both him and the Majimaji cousins 2 years ago, he had grown stronger since then. He could not be bullied anymore and had learned to stand up for himself. However, it seemed that Kia’s strength had also not stagnated. After all, just because one worked hard to get stronger did not mean that others were not working hard as well.

On Uchoyo’s end, before he even had time to comprehend what was happening, fists and kicks rained on him driving him into the ground. Cheza, Jana, Fury, Lotan, Jode as well as some of Mwana’s other friends were right behind Kia as they quickly stepped onto the stage and ganged up on Uchoyo. Mwana even saw his little sister throw in a few jabs with her meager strength, ‘Isn’t this brat supposed to be in bed this early? What is she even doing here?’

Mwana had to forego throwing in his own attacks in order to drag his little sister away. However, he was eternally grateful to Kia and his other friends for standing up for him. ‘I have really been blessed with great friends’.

“Uchoyo! Shameless! What are you attempting?” Even though he was the one getting beaten up, Uchoyo was still getting scolded. This voice was the very same voice that had roared angrily at Uchoyo when he first attacked Mwana.

Although Mwana had supposedly accepted Uchoyo’s challenge, everyone knew it was only out of pride. Uchoyo should have never made a move against a tired and weakened opponent.

The person who had just spoken was another young intermediate warrior. Even after Mwana’s friends stopped attacking Uchoyo, this young warrior still continued scolding the latter. This young man was a swordsman and the village heartthrob in the current young generation of the Kijani age group. At the young age of 12 or maybe 13 years old, he had already achieved Tendon Strengthening stage. In fact, this young man could have even gone further if he only focused on training his body normally. However, he had decided to focus his training on acquiring the legendary True Sword Body. Therefore, this boy was far stronger than he seemed especially with a sword in hand. This young man was Jua Mkata-mwezi also nicknamed as the Moon-cutter Swordsman.

Mkata-mwezi wore all white everything: a white cylindrical wool hat, a knee-length white wool skirt, a long white robe that covered his entire body but was open at the chest area, white leather sandals, and a huge icy-white sword sheathed in a white scabbard that was secured on his back.

His white robe was loosely tied at the waist like a bathrobe with a silk-like white belt. Mkata-mwezi did not mind the robe being a bit open since he already had the wool skirt underneath. One of his hands was hidden under the robe since this robe did not have sleeves. It looked more like a long sheet in the same vein as a traditional Shuka.

Apart from his dapper fashion sense, Mkata-mwezi’s looks were not left behind. He had healthy brown skin with a subtle golden glow. His long black hair was tied with a circular band at the back but continued to spread out over his back almost reaching his waist. His facial features were smooth and refined giving the image of a young budding warrior. However, his most outstanding feature was his eyes which seemed to emit a strange light similar to the sun. This was the effect of his unique physique, the Violent God Sword Body Physique. It had the effect of making his body and especially his gaze emit minute sword rays like the sun.

“Uchoyo, you are actually picking on Junior Warriors who have not even left the academy?”

Mkata-mwezi did not let go of Uchoyo who had already stood up after the beating he took. Uchoyo stood there at the stage looking at his feet in shame. Clearly, he valued Mkata-mwezi’s opinion on him far more than any of the other people in the field today. However, their interaction did look a bit comical. It looked as if a child was scolding an adult because of the height difference between the two boys. While Mkata-mwezi was slightly above the average height of a 13 year old, Uchoyo was far taller than him already reaching over 6 feet tall.

Uchoyo had the bloodline of the Siribi people making him the tallest child in his age group in the entire Jua village. In the history of the Siribi tribe, the tallest adult male had been 12 feet tall; a towering giant! Even the shortest men were around 9 feet tall while the shortest woman would be at least 8 feet tall. In such a tribe, a height of 6 feet or 7 feet would be akin to dwarfism.

Listening to Uchoyo being scolded, Mwana and some other children around the stage could not help but verbally pile on him. This was a fellow who had built up a lot of enmity with almost everyone.

“Right on, tell him big bro Mwezi.”

“Why don’t you pick on people your own size instead of bullying little chicklings?” Another older intermediate warrior in the audience added.

“Right, yeah, wait no!”             

“You are insulting us too? We aren’t chicklings! You take that back right now or let’s fight!”

“Big bro Mkata-mwezi, why are you here to cause trouble?” Mwana could not help but ask as Mkata-mwezi’s presence alone had swept up the crowd into a state of frenzy. Additionally, as far as Mwana knew, Mkata-mwezi should have been adventuring in the outside world far away from the village.

“I heard about your Awakening Ceremony when I was outside so I came with a gift as soon as I returned to the village.”

“A gift! Where? Show it.”

“It might be useless to you now. I thought you didn’t have a good sword but it seems you have your means.” Mkata-mwezi replied with a sigh. He had thought Mwana would not have a good sword but the boy had gone ahead and swindled an above average weapon from Waya’s old man, Jua Fisi. Mwana had named that sword ‘the Instant Sword’.

“Stop beating around and take it out. No one ever complained about a free gift just because they have something else.”

Mkata-mwezi proceeded to lay down some materials he had collected for forging a sword. “I got these from the Sword Grave when I was exploring in the Giza Forest.” Mwana and the other children who were listening were shocked to hear this. Their mouths were almost dropping in shock and a bit of fear.

The Giza forest was also called ‘The Forest of Darkness’ or the ‘Million Men Grave’. Mwana believed that he even as much as dared step into the periphery of this famous forest, the only outcome was death. It was said that hundreds of years ago, a major war had been fought where the forest currently grew littering the ground with millions of broken corpses and shattered weapons. Due to changes in climate over the following hundreds of years, what had once been an open plain transformed into a full blown forest. This forest had grown on the blood, flesh, and bones of a million fallen warriors. The amount of resentment and malevolent energy within this forest was simply immeasurable.

The items Mkata-mwezi had brought back were ‘Sword Shards’ with strong energy radiating from them. Some even seemed to be remnants of Heaven Grade tools and broken Spiritual Weapons.  There was also a piece of Sword Wood among the pile of metallic shards. This was a type of wood that formed after trees absorbed a huge amount of sword energy. These sword shards and sword wood were retrieved from the ‘Sword Grave’ within the Giza forest. Sword Graves were unique locations of great providence which were used to burry many weapons used in war so that they could be cleansed of their malevolent energy by nature itself.

After Mwana collected his gift, Mkata-mwezi took him to the side for some gossip.

“I hear that you have someone now.”

Cough, cough.

“You have grown up. Ehm, so which one among them is your girlfriend?” Mkata-mwezi said these words in a very normal tone as if what he was asserting is true. Unlike Waya, Mkata-mwezi was not a joker or a pervert so Mwana knew his words were probably told to him by someone else. He was not teasing Mwana instead he was just repeating what he was told.

“Chezaaaaa!”

It did not take a rocket scientist to realize that Cheza had been prattling around about his crush on Kia and probably spreading misinformation everywhere.

However, Cheza had already escaped and landed on the fighting stage. After Mwana’s match today, the rest of the children did not leave and proceeded to challenge each other to some friendly matches. As expected, the battles were not as intense as Mwana vs. Maji 1’s fight since most of the other children did not have deep grudges against each other.

Cheza fought against Maji 2 with their fight ending in a draw. The 2 giants of Mwana’s class, Tembo and Kiboko, competed once again testing their strength against each other but none could gain a win over the other. Even Fury entered the stage and after constant provocations, some hotheaded young boys and girls could not help but fall for her trap and enter the stage only to be beaten up black and blue. 

In all this, the village martial schools’ scouts were the biggest beneficiaries as they could assess the abilities of the younger generation beforehand. At the end of the Academy year, some of these children would join their martial schools and it was important to start courting the talented ones earlier.

New Words

Mkata-mwezi – Moon-cutter

Uchoyo – Selfishness

Tembo – Elephant

Kiboko – Hippo. Also if you remember, Uchoyo and Kiboko are brothers. They are half Jemedari and half Siribi in terms of ethnicity.

Kijani – Leaf/Green. This is the current younger generation (under 20). The age groups in this generation are a variation of green or leaf. For example, with Kato and Wasswa who obviously come from a different tribe, their age group name might not be Kijani but it will have a similar meaning in their language.