“Who are you?”

 

    “I am an alien.”

 

    “Be serious.”

 

    “Do I look un-serious to you?”

 

    “Yes.”

 

    “Haha! I like you, human.”

 

    “Don’t call me that.”

 

    “Aren’t you human?”

 

    “Not proudly.”

 

    “Really? Weird. You’re an exceptional human, if that makes you feel better.”

 

    “It doesn’t particularly. Do you like humans or am I an exception?”

 

    “Well, judging from your reaction, it wouldn’t upset you to say I hate humans.”

 

    “It doesn’t. That makes me very interested in you, actually. Your abilities are far above humanity’s.”

 

    “Are you jealous? Does your human body hinder you?”

 

    “Somewhat. I’m more limited by my human brain, though.”

 

    “Wow! You’re smart. What’s not to like about your smart little brain?”

 

    “…”

 

    “Okay, okay, I’ll stop. If you want to fix humans, why not try to win my little competition? Then wish to make them as strong as me!”

 

    “I know you can’t do that. I don’t want to do that, anyway. A fundamentally flawed species with power is no less flawed. Although, if I could make them stop pretending to be flawless, that would be interesting. Maybe I would get to see the true nature of somebody for once.”

 

    “Yeesh, tough crowd. So, you believe in that stuff, huh?”

 

    “No. I don’t believe in anything.”

 

    “That’s a first. You’re not the cheeriest fellow to be around. Regardless, I think you could make use of a special alien’s wish-granting powers, right?”

 

    “Maybe. We’ll see what happens after I have waged my war.”

 

    “War? Against who? Or what? Now you’ve got me all curious, human!”

 

    “Sit back and watch. Your game will be the perfect grounds for our end times.”

 

    “You think highly of yourself to be able to do such a thing.”

 

    “No. They will do it to themselves.”

 

    “Scary stuff. What’s your name?”

 

    

 

    

    “Yu!”

 

    My eyes shot open as I heard Rubi calling my name from outside the tent. I was asleep for so long that I didn’t even remember going to bed. I let my eyelids close again, taking a deep breath before sitting up. I thought the pit in my stomach would be gone when I got some sleep, but it remained. Looks like I’ll need to confront that. Bummer. I can’t even tell what specifically is making me feel that way. Maybe it’s the absurdity of this whole situation.

 

    I stepped out of the tent and shielded my eyes from the sun. It feels like it’s been forever since it was this bright. Probably because yesterday afternoon felt like forever.

 

    I looked over at Rubi, who was stretching her arms and yawning. I felt the pit in my stomach deepen. Was she why I felt so bad? I was a little concerned about her reaction to her power awakening. I immediately shook my head. How stupid. How would I find a way to blame her in such a ridiculous event? All things considered, she’s been handling it very well. Like she’s been preparing for it.

 

    “Good morning, Yu. You took longer than the others to wake up, so I started their training before yours. You don’t mind, right?”

 

    I blinked at her rapidly in an attempt to adjust my vision to the light once more. I almost couldn’t believe there was actually daytime in this place.. “I don’t mind. I figured I would get in their way if we did it at the same time, anyway.”

 

    Rubi looked unhappy at my self-deprecation. She walked away from me towards the trees, which in the light I could now see led to an open area beyond the foliage. “That’s not it. You require different training from them, but after a few private lessons I expect you will be on the same page as them. Just because they work out or play sports doesn’t mean they’re at an insurmountable advantage. We’re in the wild, basically. Think of it that way.”

 

    No response left my lips. She said it so sternly that it actually made me feel better.

 

    “So, we can start after you eat, okay? I’ll be waiting.”

 

    I sat on the tree-couch we had claimed and leaned over to grab a plate of cooked fish. “Don’t you ever rest? Sheesh.” I took a bite out of it, intentionally aiming for the smaller pieces. I don’t like taking big bites. “I hope we can get some berries or something besides meat soon.” Speaking to myself, I ate the rest of it without complaint. It wasn’t bad that this was the only immediate thing I had to complain about right now.

 

    I later made my way to the clearing Rubi had declared our training ground. I popped my neck and stretched my arms while walking. “Hey, don’t aim for my stomach until that fish digests, ‘kay?” I was only half-joking.

 

    “Haha! You had better block well if you want it to digest before you chuck it up!” That reply didn’t bode well.

 

    “Hey, I thought this was basic training. I’ve never done this before.” My eyelids drooped but she crossed her arms and laughed haughtily.

 

    “I joke! Come on, I thought I was the one without a sense of humor.” 

 

    It was seriously too early for this. I let out a sigh of exhaustion as I stood at what I guessed was a decent distance from her. “So. How do I fight? I’ve never done it before.”

 

    Rubi brought a hand up to her chin and hummed as she thought to herself for a moment. “Well, as with Garald, I’m going to have to pick a martial art to train you in. Although, I think for you, we’re going to go with a few different ones.”

 

    “Different ones? B-But… Don’t masters of these things spend their whole life learning it?”

 

    “You’re not going to master any of them, silly.” She extended her index finger and waved it as she spoke, as though giving a lecture. “Garald already has a keen fighting sense. Second only to me, which is impressive considering how untrained he is.” My first reaction to that was to think of how bluntly she said such a thing, but before the feelings could materialize I decided that it was merely an objective understanding of the situation and didn’t warrant any negative reaction.

 

    Rubi continued, “You need to make up for your smaller frame. Not to mention you aren’t a natural fighter, or a fighter at all for that matter. Teaching someone with natural instincts like Garald multiple different martial arts will just cloud up his instincts, since he’ll be trying to overwrite them with what he’s been taught. He learned how to disarm an enemy and how to grapple better, which is just making better use of the basic techniques he used already in wrestling. If he dedicated his life to mixed martial arts, it would probably benefit him to learn them, but we don’t have that time. I have a few ideas for you, and they start with a knife. The three of us agreed before you woke up that you would be the one with the knife.”

 

    My eyebrow twitched at her comment. To stop myself from immediately rejecting, I closed my eyes and lowered my head with my hands on my hips. When I looked up at her to speak calmly, I could see that she knew what I was going to say. She spoke before I could. “We aren’t looking down on you, Yu. We decided it was the best way to split up our resources and time. Barb has a power, Garald doesn’t like using weapons, I have a weapon and a power, so that leaves you with the knife. You also require the most training, and the time required to make you strong is shortened by virtue of you having a weapon. It would make you a hindrance to the team not to have it, and I don’t mean that as an insult to you. I think most people here are like you. Getting into fights isn’t a common thing for a lot of people.”

 

    My lips opened to let out a sigh. She could tell I was exhausted by this talk. Too many thoughts were going through my head, about how much better this would be if I could have stayed home and not had to worry about this, and if they had picked a much more capable teammate. I finally spoke. “If you ask me, I think one of you having the knife is better for our chances of survival. Instead of limiting yourselves to buff up the weak link, level yourselves up as much as possible and then let me stay out of your way. I’d probably trip over you or something and get us all killed…” I almost mentioned my plan to be a sacrificial pawn when the time comes, but decided that nothing would come from it besides making them worry. It’ll happen when it happens.

 

    “No!” She stomped towards me and smacked her wooden blade against my stomach. “Do you really want to ignore the hard work that must be done? Do you want to leave us a teammate short from the very start?! I know you’re not that selfish!” I flinched and instinctively avoided her firm and angry glare.

 

    “...Damn.” I couldn’t say anything to that. 

 

    She exhaled, looking a little embarrassed. “That is, if we’re using your logic. When someone else says it, you start to see how ridiculous it is, don’t you? That sort of logic isn’t how we friends view each other. We’re here because we all want to live and spend time with each other! Isn’t that why you’re here, Yu?”

 

    I was actually almost a little stunned by that. With the clarity her words offered me, I remembered why the pawn tactic was a bad idea. I just wanted an excuse to get out of this early, didn’t I? I blinked at her slowly with wide eyes before finally giving her a reply. “I… Yeah. I understand. I do want the same, trust me. That's all I want.”

 

    That sort of cleared up the bad feeling I had in my stomach. I still couldn’t figure out what was making me feel so bad earlier, but I figured it was inevitable with the situation we’re in and all. I had the feeling that there was something bothering me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. With my emotions in a panic like they have been, it makes sense. There’s a million things to be bothered by right now so I won’t let it get to me. Hearing her word her feelings in that way really put it into perspective for me and helped ease some of my issues. “Okay. If I have time to wallow in my feelings, then I have time to work for you guys. If I’m going to fail anyway, I may as well try.”

 

    “That’s not exactly what I had in mind, but that’s pretty positive by your standards, so thank you!” She pumped her fist up in excitement, a sentiment that I didn’t share as I sighed at her unintentional insult.

 

    “Let’s just get started. Do I need to go get the knife?”

 

    Her eyes lit up as she tossed her sword onto the ground and entered a boxing stance. “No, actually! Step one is fighting without one!” I gulped at how eager she seemed to beat my ass. I tried to mimic her since I didn’t know what a good fighting stance to take on was. Wiping some sweat from my forehead, I asked her, “So, um, are you going to tell me what to do, or…”

 

    My voice turned into a shrill gasp mid-sentence as she started dashing towards me, weaving from side to side in the same stance as before. I panicked and started backing up, only to hit my back against a tree. I watched her kick herself high into the air with an arm brought back ready to swing at me. Without much thought, I tried to grab her legs, as my immediate judgment was that she couldn’t move them in the air, but she used her other arm to grab my wrist and lift her legs up higher so that I couldn’t reach them. The wrist she had grabbed belonged to my dominant arm and I couldn’t reach her with the other one from this angle. My brain shut down as it tried to process what to do here. As a defensive instinct, I shoved my head forward to try and catch her arm or chest or something, but she released me after pushing herself off of my arm and fell down my back. She grabbed my scarf and pulled me down with her. The sudden force sending me back rattled my brain a bit and hurt my spine. She made up for her lack of physical strength by bringing me down with her weight and gravity. I hit the ground hard and coughed. My breath escaped me for what felt like a solid minute but was likely much shorter. She had stopped herself from landing too hard with her hand, though she still scraped her knee and palm on the rough ground. She stood up, panting loudly, and pushed her bleeding palm against her other arm for comfort.

 

     My breathing was too fast for me to talk. I tried to get out fractions of a sentence each time I opened my mouth. “Th… That was… That was.. uncalled.. for…”

 

    She lifted up her palm to look at it, seeing that the blood had dried up. She shook her hand and patted her shirt with it. “It helps a lot to see what level you’re at right now. It also helps to know how quickly you react to danger. That might influence what I teach you.”

 

    I stretched my arms and back on the ground before rolling over and slowly standing back up. My legs were weaker than I expected they would be after that. “How the hell did you move like that? Are you a monkey or something?”

 

    “I don’t know, I’ve been feeling really energized since this thing started. I did train against bigger opponents constantly back on Earth though.”

 

    I rolled my eyes. What sort of training lets you do a frontflip over somebody? Deciding not to think about it too much, I finally managed to catch my breath. I was thankful that there weren’t any mirrors here, because my back was probably really bruised. I felt like such a thing should have left me more exhausted, but it wasn’t actually that bad. “So, did laying me out tell you anything, Teach?”

 

    She smiled. “Despite your sarcasm, it did. You aren’t as slow as your inactive lifestyle would lead one to believe.” Ouch. “Your first response, to grab my legs, wasn’t a bad one. Your opponent is very unlikely to jump that high in your fight, but your reaction to something so bizarre was satisfactory, considering most people would have expected a more straightforward fight. Your second response to headbutt me was clearly wrong, but I don’t think many people would make two good decisions in a row against that attack without much experience. You should have stopped yourself from landing so hard, though. I was able to make a perfect land and likely would have done serious damage to you in the time it took you to stand up.”

 

    “Yeah, I figured. If we were in a life or death scenario, I probably would have gotten up.”

 

    “That’s true, but don’t use that as an excuse to slack on your training. If your response to such a scenario in training becomes to give up, then your reflexes will dull.”

 

    “Sure thing, Master.” I snickered at how bossy she was being. She must love being a teacher. She walked past her sword and picked it up, resting it against the tree she had just pushed me toward and disappearing into the forest. When she returned, she had our knife in one hand and two twigs bundled together in the other. She put the knife on the ground beside her sword and handed me a twig. “Here. I’m going to go over the basics while the two of us hold these sticks. Unfortunately, there’s no rubber sheath for the knife or something similar. I guess the alien doesn’t want us to get too much training in with this. It was likely meant to be used for food only. Although, I imagine an element such as weapons being introduced does make the game more exciting for a twisted onlooker…”

 

    I accepted the slightly less effective twig-knife from her and flicked my wrist a bit while gripping it to see how it felt. Not very good, given how it was rough and made of wood. She held her stick in front of her with one hand as though it were a sword. “So, Yu, here’s something to always remember: Knife fights don’t exist. If you encounter an opponent with a knife, run or disarm them, even if you have a knife. If you attempt to rush someone like that, both of you armed, it will almost certainly result in two deaths or two critical injuries.” If she had told me that earlier, I probably would have taken note of this fact and planned to use it later. “When I teach you knife techniques, only use them against an unarmed opponent. Don’t worry about the fact that you’re picking on the weak, alright?”

 

    “Morbid, but sure.” I shrugged. “So, what, do I drop the knife when I’m fighting an armed enemy? Sounds stupid.”

 

    “No, no. You hold onto the knife, but you’re going to learn how to knock a knife out of someone’s hand while holding a knife yourself. Whether armed or not, you will approach an armed opponent the same way. A knife will stop them from approaching you too quickly, and in their moment of indecision, you can flee or disarm them or call for help.”

 

    “Okay…” I paused, wondering if I should continue the thought I was about to vocalize. “So, you’re telling me not to kill them? Just get the knife out of their hand?”

 

    She seemed taken aback by my response, like it was unnatural to think of killing such an enemy in this instance. “Um… Yes, I suppose. Most martial arts aren’t designed for killing, and self-defense techniques are taught under the assumption that killing an opponent would get you in trouble with the law, so…”

 

    She paused. It was as if she were just now realizing that something like the law didn’t exist here. I replied, “I didn’t think your morality was dependent on the law. Since when has that been the case?”

 

    “Oh, hush, you know that’s not it. I just.. didn’t want to reach the conclusion that we have to kill people here… Let’s try to avoid it, okay? As long as we can, anyway.”

 

    Some part of me told me I should push further, but I decided to hold off on it. She didn’t seem to break a sweat in the last two battles. Hopefully that wasn’t making her lower her guard and think she could save everybody if she wanted to. “Okay, whatever. If I’m about to die, though, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

 

    “I get it. That’s alright. Honestly, I was more worried that you would be the first person to give up and let something like that happen. I’m glad to know you’re ready to keep fighting to the end!”

 

    Does she ever think about how messed up the things she says are?

 

    “Only if you do the same.”

    A little over two hours passed. Rubi taught me how to hold the knife properly, how to use it, how to get a knife out of someone else’s hand and keep my advantage… I totally didn’t internalize all of it, or most of it, but it didn’t seem as hard as I had made it seem in my head. Although, we didn’t learn any unique martial arts, just general knife stuff. I guess that’s to be expected on the first day. I still feel pretty weak, but I could probably stop another high schooler from killing me. She told me to meet her again tomorrow to train with the other two as well. So it’s gonna be even more exhausting, basically… I wasn’t about to complain, though.

 

    I came into view of the tent and saw that Garald and Barb were preparing and catching food respectively. As I sat on the tree and used the collar of my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face, I felt thankful that nothing unexpected had happened today. I guessed that the other competitors had time to sleep on it and realized we’re all better off gathering ourselves before we break out in war.

 

    Rubi returned from washing her face off in the river and sat in the middle of the three of us. Barb turned towards us from her fishing spot and decided to pull the bait back up and set the rod aside. “Ugh, can’t figure this shit out. Fish are afraid of me too, huh?”

 

    Garald continued cutting up a fish, but Rubi decided to speak anyway. Garald tuned in after he had finished the sloppy but passable chopping. “So,” she began, “We need to discuss our strategy. I’m sure a lot of other teams already know what their plan is. I think that’s why we haven’t been attacked today. Most of them decided that their best bet is to wait it out or to set up a trap that we haven’t noticed. Hopefully that hasn’t happened yet, but daily check-ups of the area are required in case of tampering or enemy scouting.”

 

    Without moving my head, I glanced around the borders of our little clearing with concern. It hadn’t come to my mind, since none of us should have the means to set up something like a trap. Garald raised his hand to speak. “Why are we assuming everyone thinks that way? If it were me, I’d try to knock a bunch of dudes out at the start before they started developing powers.”

 

    “I think there will be some people who do that and we must remain diligent for something like that,” Rubi continued, “but the majority of people brought probably don’t have much combat or survival experience. Early on, the people who were already strong are favored, but the longer this drags out, the more people will awaken their powers, and we can’t predict what those will be. Two of us have already seen the signs of a power blossoming, but we can’t know how many others have also noticed their powers. I would like to do some scouting in teams to assess this. Two of us go scan for other teams and see what their progress is looking like. The other two stay behind and make sure our belongings aren’t stolen. If we find a camp nearby of people without any powers or non-combatants, we tell the others. We can then decide after gathering information if we want to take it slow or go on the offensive. If we encounter a team we can take on and decide that we must fight them, we’ll either form an alliance with them or subdue them.”

 

    Most of that sounded reasonable. This time, I raised my hand lazily to speak. “If we defeat them while they’re powerless and then leave them unattended, wouldn’t they be more likely to target us once they have their powers? Since they know we’re serious threats now. That, or for revenge.”

 

    Rubi seemed hesitant about replying, as if she knew that me bringing this up now had to do with our small disagreement during training. “I thought about that. If everyone agrees it is necessary, then we can tie them up and dig a hole for prisoners or something.”

    “And what, keep them fed until we win? That’s a little absurd.” I tried to keep my voice down, but this was starting to get on my nerves.

 

    “We’re not going to be starving. We can gather more than enough food to live. All we’d be sacrificing are unnecessary snacks in-between meals. If it’s between that or killing people, I think I know what’s right.”

 

    “Can you determine that after only one or two days? What if our food is stolen or goes bad or any other number of factors we can’t account for? Besides, if we want to win, it’s not enough to only eat what’s necessary. We need to be healthy and in good shape. It’s not worth the risk!”

 

    Garald and Barb didn’t chime in. They seemed to both understand that we needed to hash this out. I took a deep breath and spoke once more. “This is a situation nobody here has ever been in before. People will panic. If there’s a chance to kill someone, they’ll do it, because not killing means your chances of dying increase. I’m not some sort of murderer who wants to do this, but nobody here wants to do this! Maybe you’re interested in the end goal, but how many people are going to die before you get there? Whether you do it or not, someone will kill them. When you’re the last person standing, do you think it will be because the others gave up? No. They’ll be dead. If you didn’t kill them, then you’ll be another body in the pile while someone else gets the prize. If you’re serious about your goal, if it’s not just something to make you feel like a good person, then you can’t halfass it. Everyone else here is serious.”

 

    Rubi’s expression was conflicted. She wasn’t really sad or angry with me, but she wasn’t pleased. She looked down and clenched her hands together in front of her, deep in thought. “Your head isn’t in the wrong place. Those are all reasonable assertions.” She spoke without looking up. “What do you two think?” She turned to Garald and then to Barb as she talked. I felt a little bad that I hadn’t thought to ask them. The two looked at each other as they were both taken aback by the discussion.

 

    Garald answered first. “I don’t want to kill people, man. I think I agree that we shouldn’t unless we have to for self-defense.” Barb responded, “I think in a situation as crazy as this, what Yu said IS self-defense. This shit’s serious, you know.”

 

    “Yeah, I get that… I’m not fully on Rubi’s side. I think we’ll probably have to kill eventually, but…” Garald looked like he didn’t know what to say after that. Barb scratched her head and leaned back in a more relaxed position on the ground. “Okay, well I don’t think we’ve gone over all of the factors. When Rubi mentioned subduing them, I guessed she meant capturing them or breaking their spirit and sending them off. Both sound stupid to me, but the second option would take less resources than making a prison, watching over them and feeding them. To be fair, let’s discuss the pros and cons.”

 

    I gave that a thought. Letting them escape meant they could develop a plan for revenge with knowledge of our fighting styles, or worse, they develop abilities. Capturing them meant we took up resources keeping them alive, as well as room in our camp for a prison that we don’t even know what it would look like or be made out of. We would probably have to keep them separate to make sure they don’t help each other escape.

 

    I decided to think the rest of it aloud, as I felt myself reaching a conclusion. “Well, making allies is smart. If they say no to an alliance, then while they’re captured they may decide to agree later. But working directly with another team is too dangerous. An alliance in this case would have to be information sharing and not actively fighting as a team or anything like that. Am I wrong?” 

 

    The three of them nodded. Rubi had lifted her head up now and begun to speak. “I agree with Yu. I think a ceasefire is safer than joining battles together. They can always take advantage of the chaos and backstab us. Every captain wants to win, but I hope that when they realize how they’ve been overpowered by us, they will compromise on their ideals to keep themselves alive. Of course, we won’t tell them that we plan to keep them alive. The threat of death is necessary to get through to some people, just don’t take it too far. We won’t torture any of them.”

 

    I agreed and clasped my fingers together, hunching over and laying my chin on the platform I’d made with my hands. It was taking energy to keep this up. Barb, having prompted the most recent question, chimed in. “We can’t tell what kind of false info they’d start feeding us.”

 

    Garald countered her skepticism, “Better than no info, right? If they’re telling the truth then that’s cool, but if not then we can like, guess why they’re lying or something. Basically it’s not a huge downside. As long as they’re busy lying to us and not busy plotting to kill us.”

 

    Barb didn’t look convinced. “Sounds naive as hell. We have better things to do than worry about interpreting bullshit. I don’t think the info sharing thing is a big enough deal to justify the chance of betrayal. I mean, how much info can we realistically share around here? It’s pretty much just the locations of other camps. Creating a map would be helpful but I think it’s lower on our priority list.”

 

    “If we kept making enemies and not finishing them off,” I said, “we would have to take prisoners eventually. If we take any near the start, then they’re likely to develop powers later under captivity and blindside us.”

 

    Garald replied calmly, sitting up straight with an expression as if he had plotted the whole thing out in his head, finally. “Yeah, but even with powers, they’ll be tryin’ to get us 1v4 so we probably beat them there, even if they do give us trouble. I don’t think we’ll have to take too many prisoners this early on. I think if we find someone who is that hard headed, they’ll already have powers.” It was a bit of a leap in judgment, but I understood the perspective.

 

    Rubi looked like she was holding herself back from interrupting. Either that or she couldn’t think of what to say to us. I decided to speak up on her behalf with my fingers covering my lips slightly. “Rubi, what are you thinking about this?”

 

    “Well… I think you all have valid concerns… Whichever one we go with, it will be difficult anyway. I’m ready to put in the extra effort for this but I shouldn’t force you all to as well…”

 

    The group went quiet. I couldn’t tell if we were reaching an agreement or not. “Rubi, I don’t think your plan is entirely stupid…” I spoke hesitantly, making sure I knew what I was saying before it came out. “I understand where you’re coming from. I’ll fold on this. Let’s see what happens and then decide based on the next few days or weeks. It’s going to be a less crucial decision here at the start. If we get put in a scenario where one of us thinks we have to do it, then we’re allowed to, right?”

 

    Rubi didn’t respond. Her gaze shifted away from me for a second until she looked back and responded. “Yes, that’s okay, Yu.  I trust you all to make decisions like that if it becomes important, but please respect my wishes to preserve life unless forced otherwise.”

 

    “Sure.” We all accepted her conditions. Garald stood up and walked over to her so that he could put a big hand on her back. “Sorry if that was a lot of pressure, Rubster. We know you’re doing your best to be the team leader. Just remember you don’t gotta carry everything on your own. We’re doing this for you, too.”

 

    The short girl looked up at him with a somewhat surprised look. Suddenly, a tear fell down her cheek, then another. She lifted up her glasses and moved an arm to wipe them away, but her eyes were still a bit wet when she returned her stare. “Yes, I know… Thank you for reminding me, Garald, and thank all of you for having such a meaningful discussion with me. Even if we didn’t resolve this how we would have liked, I feel like we gained a lot from this.”

 

    Barb and I nodded in agreement. I smiled as I stood up and walked past the two of them. I could tell that Rubi saw my smile. I didn’t want to get all sentimental over it, especially since the two of us didn’t exactly reach an agreement as much as we did a compromise, but I felt good about how we all got our feelings out there and reached a conclusion that involved all of our input. I fell to a squat beside the campfire, where two plates with chopped fish had been left for Rubi and I by the others. I felt happy that they considered to prepare our dinners for us since we had been busy. That brought the thought to my mind, though, that Rubi must be exhausted. She trained Garald and Barb together and then me separately. She didn’t show any visible exhaustion, but I thought that her tears earlier must have come in part thanks to how much she’s been going back and forth between all of us today without rest.

 

    That sucks, I thought to myself. Getting good with this knife is the first thing I can do to make sure she doesn’t have to work so hard for us. I was still a bit conflicted on if she should be participating in this thing or not. She’s doing this for her own vision of justice, which is a little conceited, but when I see her pushing herself like this I can’t really view her as selfish.

 

    After eating, I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing knife techniques by myself.