The shoulders of giants
In another life, I would have hated Tracy. Proud, Callous and Fiercely ambitious. She doesn’t offer much unless one is willing to suffer the silence, and then she has this domineering air. The aura of a predator.
Frankly, she scares me. I didn’t think there was a place for me beneath that shell of hate, but the military changes people. Root changed me. Next to the challenges I was already facing, Tracy’s frank resolve became something of a rock. She may not be the friendliest person, but she is reliable.
We started to hang out in the canteen, and cross paths in the fields more often than chance would have it.
“You think they’re going to start sending us on missions?”
Tracy shook her head. It had been a tricky topic to navigate, “Not yet. In a few years maybe. There’s a point where trainees change tact. I don’t know where or what it is, but I’ve caught wind of a test.”
I raised my brow and looked around, “Do you think these guys are graduates?”
Tracy scoffed, “Same uniform. They had to get here somehow.”
It didn’t sit well with me. While there was plenty of raw talent to go around, the teachers felt stuffy. Muted in most regards. Exaggerated in others. I preferred to keep my mind busy with training, but there were certain aspects I couldn’t ignore. The corps would strong arm us through milestones if we couldn’t keep up, and would drill through boundaries if that’s what it took.
I’d been crossed twice, and I was starting to see how people could get so insulated. That wasn’t the kind of growth I was willing to live by. Another thing that Tracy and I had in common.
From the canteen to the door, sunlight flared across my shoulders, and the wild aura of the world embraced me.
---
The leaves whispered through my ears. A breath that soothed my mind before it ever crossed my lips. I looked up, where the canopy split, and slivers of the sky snuck through. Somewhere, up their, the voice of the forest was thick enough to govern. The face of each leaf reading the fate of its neighbors, from one individual to the next.
I took a deep breath in and lowered my gaze. Slipping down the side of the tree nearest and fumbling with the branches of its neighbors. Once by one, I stumbled and failed, trying to measure the stamina it would take to cross such a great distance.
In my mind, the memory replayed. Of a ninja flying between branches as though they’d been woven into a mat. My mind’s eye dove and spun between the branches, trying to match the foreign movements with more familiar ones.
Unthinkable parts of my brain awakened, but it wasn’t enough. My body felt separated from those thoughts, exhausted to the point of immobility. Asking my chakra to flow there~
Impossible? Do I look like I care? I believe it, and I came out here for one thing~
~MOVE~
I Lurched forward, catching myself against the side of the tree. The aged toughened pillar scuffed at my skin with coarse bark, and unmade momentum stored in my veins. A numb panic flowed through my skin, along my arm.
My vision swam as I overthrew my focus, measuring my stamina and I shifted across rooted earth.
I can’t. I must. I will. I fail. I try. I fall.
I narrowed my brow
~so fall forward~
I reached forward and felt gravity pivot around my veins. Chakra emerged and spun between my pressure points, bracing my flesh against hydraulic force. I took a defeated breath, and willed myself on. The two elements, of yin and yang, collided.
They mixed… and then I was falling. My motor control failed. My legs unresponsive, I tumbled further and further beyond my center of mass, feeling my perception of gravity go haywire. I reached out to break the fall, and to punish the ground for resisting so.
My hand caught something, and then it slipped.
And it kept going. I looked down as the earth swept closer. Flinching as pound after pound of flesh deflected against the roots.
Phantom pains. Why couldn’t I feel anything yet?
My feet slipped, and I pivoted. Sweeping my arm around for purchase. My skin stung where it impacted the coarse bark, and I looked down to where the branch rocked beneath me.
~woah woah woah, what the?~
The branches were filled with dirt. The roots were tangled around me. Behind me, barely there surfaces gave way to a bottomless pit. I felt the pull of gravity and immediately held fast. I forbade myself to fall.
I shook my head, trying to loosen the illusion. Somehow I’d found myself ten feet off the ground. In an unbroken panic, I’d somehow ascended by more than twice my height.
I could be wrong, but the more time I took to recover, the less I cared to measure.
The view was impressive. Lime green and deep shadows decorated thousands of branches. Above… below… I was in awe. Barely willing to move, and yet so enchanted by the sensations it brought. The tree shifted beneath my feet just so. The branch gave generously, but each shift of my weight brought different parts of the canopy closer and further.
I caused the forest to sway, and my position to change with an afterthought~
I took a moment to let that sink in. Somehow, the forest became completely still, and more so as I remained unmoving. I had to think. Somehow the ninja moved. It was nothing. As easy as breathing. Somehow, the entirety of the forest was in reach~
Sage chakra flowed around my body. An extension of the trees around me. I was different. The entire process by which we received air was different, and a part of me focused on where the fulcrum was. On what kind of leverage it carried.
The shadows grew in length.
“Heeey~! Ya gonna skip on training!? Yo~!?”
I looked to find Tracy wading through the woods.
~How long was I out?~
~Around twenty five minutes. There’s enough time to get to the field if you walk it~
For a moment I just stood there in silence.
~Oh, Sally? Hi.~
~ehehe, morning silly~
I look down and hopped from my perch.
~woah woah woah wait, this isn’t a chair!?~
I bent my legs and took two brisk steps forward.
~huh?~
I looked down, back and up. I wasn’t sure if it was the same tree.
“C’mon idiot! We’ve gotta get moving.”
I grunted as she pulled my arm, still somewhat lost in thought. Old habits came to bear as familiar paths crossed my field of view. I schooled myself, structuring my emotions in a way that would leave little for the instructors to get at, and less to snowball with.
Unfortunately, this ran counter to my need for understanding. I tasted an anomaly, and my psyche would not let go. More than once, discipline issued warnings and sanctions against my inquisitive mind. That same discipline was reaching its wits end as the flame would not go out.
In the dark, things are drawn to the flame. Some are burned, and others lie in wait, but others still will seek to destroy it. Within my shell, I could protect certain values no matter how much abuse I suffered. The roots there were old and bound together in such a way that they would not be easy to fray.
The issue was these rare moments when my self esteem stepped out of the shadow. Surrounded by predators, I was often challenged and inextricably tangled between claws and teeth. There was a very slim line of code that I could hold fast to. Affording myself luxuries put that precious sliver of safety at risk.
As we reached the field where they held roll call, my focus was stretched thin. When I looked up I felt ice forming in my stomach. New faces stood over the crowd, and the students were in clean lines.
We had a new manager.
---
Protocol was tightened. Punishments were set out for those who strayed from the paths. Regulations were put in place to make it harder to disguise social activities. We were given strict rules to follow. How to stand, how to dress, how to look, how to speak.
A couple infractions put the entire crowd through the wringer. Someone was pulled aside for lip, and several cliques were slow roasted by the new commander. There was little doubt this was a military man.
The issue is, many of these groups provided an outlet. Plenty of students looked up to them for advice where instruction failed. It was made very clear that any exceptions taken were going to come at a steep price.
Some students were shaken. Bad enough I didn’t have time to empathize. A couple of my own reservations began to kick. Butterflies and anxious cramps set my flesh ablaze. It felt like needles grating against each other, and at several points I wished it would collapse.
It never did. The pressure was on. Morning exercises were carried out. No one was spared. Those who out-performed got chastised, and those who lagged behind were not allowed a moment to rest.
There were a few exercises that I’d been struggling with, and by the end of the warm up, I felt my body screaming. I needed something, anything, to direct my attention out of the fatigue. Something to strive for.
It didn’t come from classes. We started with forms. Again, students were grilled, and punishments were doled out to the entire crowd. On the upside, my inner war began to mellow out around this point.
From there we were dismissed to freshen up. Water, rations, room to breathe. At the same time, the instructors started pulling us aside for training. They quickly cycled more than half of the class back into action, and those who finished didn’t have long to wait.
My focus reached its limits, and I had to haul my burning body through one stage after another. Somewhere along the way my group switched to sparring.
Not a mock spar either. By the time I understood what was happening, I had a busted lip and a uniform caked with dust. My turn was over.
Wave after wave, we worked ourselves ragged. At one point we made our way back to the barracks and I didn’t even notice I slept until I was putting my uniform on the next morning. For three days, we worked and worked and worked.
I forgot which joint my arm was attached to somewhere along the way, and felt like an animal when I had the chance to feel much at all. My defense crumbled, my ability to resist was eclipsed, and the only thing I had to look forward to was how my responsibilities doubled over the course of hours.
The war horse went on. I lost myself between thinking we’d taken a break and simply blacking out on my feet. Something in me began to stir anew.
I was stronger. Exponentially stronger than ever before. My endurance, self control and speed soared. My appetite was thoroughly sated.
My spirit, on the other hand, had been divided into two parts. Between the two was a narrow path that willfully deviated from the promise of the day. They took the will to fight and made it their own, but I still had my soul. Ultimately, the decision had already been made. I would not align myself with this faction. The only demon I had to worry about was loyalty.
