"The saber is a curved blade; it has one sharp edge which is capable of cutting through anything; it's deadly, it's beautiful......and most importantly...........it's a versatile weapon with many ways of execution. It may be used for defence and offense,  depending upon the circumstance."

A skeleton named Aselaton dressed in middle eastern attire spoke with a really heavy voice, describing the wonders of a saber, how good, how much better it was, and how easy and fun it could be when properly handled.

Aselaton was a very large man or rather a skeleton with a big bushy beard, his body was covered by thick robes that hid everything, the skeleton was sitting with his legs crossed on a large boulder, its hollow eye sockets staring lifelessly ahead at small cluster of trees, they glistened in the sunlight as he stroked his chin thoughtfully, his long black braided beard fluttered softly in the wind.

'How does a skeleton go about having hair?'

The question had plagued my mind ever since the rabbit had introduced me to my third weapons instructor, The skeleton man, or rather, my teacher had been dressed in all white, whose body was almost entirely covered by a sheet,  

except for two holes in front of his skull and another pair directly behind the top of his skull, these holes were also covered with cloth, the holes were slightly larger than normal eyes and there were a few gaps between them,

the holes were situated perfectly above each of his eyeballs, one above the other, forming a small triangle shape, but the thing that caught my eye was the luscious kick ass braided beard that hung below his collar bone.

The previous two instructors too had been skeletons but neither of them had any hair to speak of, the first one had been a very tall thin skeleton man called  Padu who had an unusual love for spears, and the second one was a female skeleton or at least I hoped it was a female called Hetalia who had an obsession with short swords and axes, they both had trained me until they were satisfied I became competent enough to handle the different weapons in a fight with a certain amount of skill in wielding the said weapon.

Now if someone would ask me how long had that taken, I wouldn't know my time perception had been well and truly fucked up.

"The back side of the blade can be used to deflect while the front can be used to attack and when paired with a dagger the saber becomes  deadly" the booming voice of my current instructor brought me out of my deep  contemplation on what hair care regiment the skeleton unused for his beard to look so fancy.

 "Now I heard you have mastered the basics of holding a blade, So I shall not waste my effort on that"

The giant skeleton nimbly jumped down from the rock landing noiselessly next to me on the ground before extending his skeletal hand out toward me and offering me something

"We will first work on your footwork "

I grabbed hold of the object from his bony hand, they were three bowls stacked up on top of one another the handles sticking upward, I looked up at the skeleton feeling confused about what to do.

"Now I want you to catch these cats without breaking or losing any bone of those bowls, for each bowl you lose will cost you a portion of your food supplies, understand? Good, now BEGIN!" The skeleton man shouted as tossed a dozen or so cats up in the air.

I did not move for a full minute, as cats all around landed on the ground and scampered off in all directions,, I stood there completely stunned, how in blazes do you catch cats!?

What does catching cats have to do with footwork? and what's up with these bowls? What kind of sick sick fuck uses bowls to catch cats???!!

I looked at my so-called teacher, hoping to receive further instruction, however, his hollow eye socket watched me as if a robot had powered down, his hands resting casually behind his back and leaning against the boulder,

I guess my questions did not get answered, and judging by the smug expression I saw on his bony face, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was enjoying this, he wanted

 as much as I hated this situation, I am not in any position to refuse, So simply sighed and began looking for cats.

 

/////

 

I let out a scream in pain as Fumbled off the tree onto the ground clutching my right hand to my chest, tears streaming down my cheeks as I tried to pull myself into a crouching position, gasping for breath and choking back more cries as the pain wracked my body in agony.

I gasped desperately pulling air in my lungs as the god dammed cats attacked me like a pack of wild dogs, each one biting, scratching, pinning me to the hard rocky ground, my right leg had gotten badly scratched during my fall as well but I refused to let the bowls go,

 

I Shouldn't have bothered looking for these animals, the moment I had stepped into this forest, the cursed animals had begun attacking me in droves trying to break the three bowls in my hand as if something about these bowls truly deeply offended these cats.

In my opinion either something was wrong with these cats or these bowls

I gritted my teeth in anger and determination as I continued struggling to gain control over these stupid felines.

All these damned cats! I'm going to rip their little tails off!

The pain in my leg seemed to intensify as more cats attacked me, the scratches stung as if acid had been poured on them, making every move that hurt me burn even more. I couldn't stand it anymore, so with a loud growl of frustration, I finally managed to free my right leg, the blood that was beginning to flow out from my calf soon replaced the blood from my wounds With a loud shout I jumped from my crouched position onto the nearest target, one of the cats, one with brown fur, who had tried to bite my arm off, I hit her hard across the back of her head with the back of my palm, sending the cat flying but the  god in warning, it's huge yellow cat ears standing straight up as it glared viciously at me, its paws digging deep into the dirt making angry indentations in the ground,

I quickly ducked dodging a couple more slashes of claws by the other three felines and then dashed out choosing to retreat.

 

//////

 

I sat on the dirt ground panting heavily waiting for the wounds to heal feeling frustrate and humiliated, I should never have let my guard down like that.

After what felt like hours I heard a rustling sound and slowly raised my head looking around, I saw my current skeleton teacher walking toward me in small step with an unreadable expression on his skull, I had to admit, I felt relieved he hadn't decided to give up and start torturing me again like the others.

"How's the bleeding?" He asked sitting himself down next to me on the grou as his hand slowly reached for a bag hanging off his hip. I noticed that my wounds weren't that bad they weren't bleeding anymore, they were only lightly bruised after all and it seemed as though my injuries weren't even that deep.

"It's fine, nothing a few seconds won't fix"

 I replied getting back onto my feet, I wasn't about to tell him about the incident with the cats, and I certainly didn't want to mention what had happened today either.

"Good, that's good" my teacher muttered under his breath, he opened up the bottle of green liquid he was carrying and drank some of it with a grunt,

" if you continue to struggle like this you won't survive what's out there" my new teacher scolded me, I sighed but nodded my head agreeing,

"come with me we need to do something about you," he said as he got up and began marching off

"We need to make you worthy of the saber"

I too quickly got up and followed

///

"We have been here for 2 days already" I complained as I stretched out my arms,

My legs ached from all the running and jumping around, I had lost count of how many times I had gotten injured thanks to my foolishness, I mean how is one supposed to run through these dense dense bushes while fighting multiple opponents at once?, although my cuts weren't as bad as my knee and thigh, I knew they were still sore and swollen, and I could feel a painful pressure in my left leg.

"And you still haven't caught a single one of the animals" my teacher replied lazily as he watched me whilst he floated up in the air with his hands held behind his back

The only things we had been doing were hunting the small furry animals, barehanded.

I looked down at my scratched hands holding the three bowls and cursed inwardly at my luck we had spent what felt like days chasing down a bunch of cats all the while trying to protect these bowls which made me angry because, how in hell could I keep them safe?

I hadn't eaten anything in a long time making my anger much worse as I turned my attention back toward our prey.

These damn cats were just plain ridiculous! They were fast too fast for me to react to their movements and their attacks were brutal and ruthless. If I was the previous me I would have probably ended my life by now, but now I avoided death like the plague, every time I died I would wake up in my earth home to find something horrible up till now I had found my wife murdered, my wife ripped to shreds, my wife cheating with a stranger, my wife cheating with my best friend, my wife fucking my father, my parents strangled to de by me, my mother kidnapped, my father raped, my mother killed, my father killed, my wife brutally stabbed... and many other such horrors.

I would have loved to say that by now I was getting used to these pains, that I was getting numb but no I can't sadly the truth was each time was much much worse than the last, the phycological wounds were becoming more severe each time and I couldn't take it anymore.

So no I avoided death at all costs.

I ducked under a claw swing and snapped myself kneeling position grabbing the closest rock off the ground with my feet, and throwing it hard enough toward one of the larger cats which dodged it narrowly.

That's better! I'll just throw it harder next time, maybe that'll scare him away

I threw a couple of more rocks in different directions by kicking them as I kept avoiding those damn cat attacks.

"Come on, come on, come on" I whispered to myself as I threw the last rock again in the direction of the largest cat, I could see the cat's eyes widen as the rock toward it.

I felt immense Satisfaction and joy as I watched the rock sail through the air on;y to find my mood sour as I watched the cat nimbly avoid it with ease.

Rage erupted in me as I tossed the bowls up in the air, and pointed my hands in the direction of the cats, fumbling for my power, which to my great relief and joy came rushing towards me like a river.

I grinned as I felt a burning sensation on my palms as heat gathered, I began to visualize my intent and will like it had said in the books and threw the scorching flames in the direction of these fucking cats as if someone had flipped a switch the entire area erupted into flames,

I stood there watching as the cats screamed in panic and ran out of the area screaming in pain.

As I watched them running away from me and the fire roaring around my feet, my mind filled with thoughts of revenge as I felt another surge of rage rush through m.

I clenched my fists tightly clenching my jaw tightly, I wanted to kill these fucking bastards! I visualized the flame controlling it bending it and bega firing the balls of flames in the direction of the fleeing cats.

The flames shot fast through the air hitting and burning their targets like a hurricane, the cats screamed as the ball of fire hit them, some of them even fell to the ground rolling on the ground writhing in pain as the fireball continued its course, the fire grew stronger and stronger as if it had taken over the whole forest, I didn't stop staring down at those fucking beasts until the end.

when my rage subsided I found myself standing on a pitch green grass surrounded by a burning inferno which immediately subsided leaving behind scorched earth, smoke, and ash.

"CRASH!, CRASH!, CRASH!" the quiet se pieces on the dusty ground.

"You killed them" a voice stated

I turned around to find my fucking teacher floating six inches above ground staring at me, I sneered at the skeleton

"you never sated you wanted them wanted them dead or alive"

"You broke the bowls"

"After catching the cats"

The world once again fell into silence as we both stopped taking and started at each other, then the skeleton turned and began floating away

"Come"

A smile broke out as I ran to keep up the skeleton