Randgris walked behind the altar of the Church, trying to contain the rush of sadness she felt after confirming the death of Gerard. The toughness she showed to Axel disappeared and she fell to her knees. She placed her hands on her chest as if she was praying. 

“Why… Why did you let those demons take you over like that… You were better than that, Gerard. You were my best student…”

Tears fell down Randgris’ cheeks. She eventually sat down on the floor and covered her eyes with her hands. She cried with all her heart, letting all the agony and pain out, as if she was a little girl who lost her doll. 

After a bit of time, she stopped her crying and she used the wall as support for her to be able to stand. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and she punched her own face. After a couple of seconds, she returned to the proud woman she was earlier and continued walking in a proud posture. She eventually reached the back for the church; there were training dummies and instruments which are used for strengthening the body. There was a small house behind all the equipment, this is where she was staying. It was a decent two-storey house it has a veranda and a chair tied to a pole which looked like a swing.

Randgris unsheathed the blade and walked towards one of the dummies. She attacked the dummy showing beautiful swordsmanship. The claymore-like weapon looked like priceless work of art in her hands. The blows were soft ones at first but as she continued to hit the dummy, it became stronger slashes until the dummy broke.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT!”

She panted as she stopped her barrage. It was not because she got tired but because she was extremely angry and frustrated. Angry that Gerard died and that Axel was prone to follow the path of his father. She knew that she needed to use a different approach in training Axel, of course, the strength training would be the same but she knew that she needed to help Axel think differently. 

“Fight for the lives of the citizens and especially your loved ones. You really lived by those words you idiot.”

Randgris picked up the broken dummy and used repair magic, the broken dummy pieced itself back together and is now standing as if nothing happened. She stepped a couple of steps back and posed with her knees slightly bent and her sword aligned with her eyes. Winds started to swirl under her and tiny blue specks of light emerged from them. 

“Valkyrie Connection!”

She shouted the skill name and she disappeared, only seeing the blows dealt to the dummy, she moved like the wind. She was not invisible, she was just moving so fast that the naked eye couldn’t see her. The dummy suffered tremendous blows but managed to stand still, though it lost its arms.

Randgris stopped and looked up to the sky. She tightened her grip on her sword; she closed her eyes and said:

“Gerard, I vow to train him and make him better than anyone else.”

She sheathed her sword and fixed the dummy. She then sat under the tree near the house and closed her eyes.

She remembered the time when she was training a young man. It was the young Gerard Grand- he was a splitting image of Axel. She knew back then that the kid had a huge amount of potential but he was extremely impatient. She remembered that it was this time of the year when Gerard first showed his impatience and hardheadedness . She remembered how she made him do menial tasks(because she was feeling too lazy to do it) and told him that it was part of the training -- it made her smile a bit. She remembered that was seated on the same spot when the young Gerard bugged her on learning her sword techniques.

“I have been training these basic shit for a couple of days now Rand, when will I start learning real swordsmanship?”

The young man was hitting the training dummy. The young man stopped, scratched his head and walked towards her.

“So Rand? When? When? When?”

Randgris smiled and lifted a long sword from the weapon rack.

“Lift this, if you can swing it properly and cutoff one of the dummy’s arms, I’ll teach you all the skills you want.”

“Ha! Easy!”

Young Gerard took the sword and was wielding it quite nicely. He took a cool stance and attacked the dummy. The motion of  the slash was quite fast, it looked quite strong and solid, at least until it made contact with the dummy. The sword’s blade didn’t even leave a mark on the arm of the dummy.

“What? This blade is dull! That’s unfair!”

“Is that so?”

Rangdris laughed and stepped closer to Gerard. She took the long sword and slashed  the arm of the dummy clean off.

“Huh? What? Why?”

Gerard’s mouth was left hanging after she slashed the arm off. She returned the weapon to the rack and patted Gerard’s head and returned under the tree to sit.

“So, carry on with the wooden sword?”

Young Gerard showed an extremely disappointed face, scratched his head and picked the wooden sword up from the ground again and continued attacking the dummy.

“This is so unfair? Why was I not able to cut this dummy’s arm?”

“That’s something you’ll understand as we go on, Gerard.” she smiled and said as she slowly laid down the grass.

“Psh! You never give a straight answer, old hag.” he whispered.

“What did you call me, little shit?”

You Gerard then felt an intense killer aura coming from Randgris who was laid on the grass.

“I-I-I-I’M SORRY!!!!!”

Gerard dropped everything, jumped and landed in a perfect dogeza.