Times New Roman

Times New Roman 5 – Finding Myself

​?

Archen

I snap awake while noticing that it is still dark around me, remembering the final nail-biting moments before I lost consciousness. I quickly try to jump to my feet, preparing myself mentally to react to all possible scenarios. As I move to stand, a feeling of overwhelming pain wracks my body, causing every muscle in my body to lock up. In spite of this, I can't stay still. I have to be able to move in case the monster is still around. With gritted teeth, I force myself to straighten up, and once I manage to look around, I see...

Red eyes meet red eyes.

Around ten paces in front of me, I see a stunning woman, about a head taller than me right now. An absolutely stunning woman. Long, flowing purple hair and red eyes watch me with a hint of amusement in them. If I had to use a word to accurately describe her features, I can only describe her as perfect. As I take in her features and take stock of her dress, I can see that she is wearing a black and purple-ish skintight bodysuit with metallic armaments around her shoulders while holding an intimidating spear, entirely crimson in color. Did I already say she was stunning? Because I don't think I'm doing her justice with my description.

Wait... I haven't had any attraction to women since arriving in this world. My thoughts about her are making my head run in circles. Does this mean that...

Did I just enter puberty again?

One of her eyebrows raises at that.

Did I say that out loud? Please end me now.

Her appearance distracted me. Let's quickly look around to see where I am and whether I'm still in danger. Her relaxed appearance suggests no immediate danger, but I better not take any chances.

As I quickly turn my head everywhere to get a snapshot of my current situation, her lip curls up slightly at my quick thinking.

What I see is that I am standing in the middle of a castle courtyard surrounded by walls. Behind me is a grand stairway downward, and at the bottom, I can see the gate that I was at before my lapse of consciousness. Instead of ruined remains, it is once more, tall and imposing. Around me in the courtyard, I notice ash trees all around, with massive crystal spires giving off enough light to cast the entire castle in a soft glow.

As I gawk at the mystical-looking surroundings, I hear a soft cough from the woman I kind of rudely ignored. I turn back to look at her and should probably introduce myself and try to find out about my current predicament.

Before I manage to speak to give a formal introduction, her presence changes, and I feel compelled to let her speak first.

"Welcome to the Land of Shadows. I am Scáthach, the Witch of Dún Scáith, where I rule as its Queen. What is it that you seek?" she says with a clear and concise tone.

Well, fuck. I know that name, but I'm not certain that my knowledge is correct in this world. Her name is noticeable enough, even if I remember barely anything about her legend. All I remember is that she was a warrior from a bygone era, a trainer of heroes. Also I can't forget all the random fan fiction nonsense I know, except those are the least useful bits.

"Good, you recognize my name."

I think she's a mind reader. Think happy thoughts.

I go to respond, "I am..."

Before I can continue my introduction, she slams the butt of her spear on the ground and says, "I did not ask your name. I asked, what do you seek?"

Her voice brooked no argument.

"I felt a pull leading me to the ruins of the castle, and only once I got there did I notice that it was my staff that led me there." I try to start to explain how I got here.

Once more, she slams her spear. This time, colder, she responds, "Yes... your trinket is what allowed you to come here. Yet, this is still not what I asked of you. Don't test my patience for the third time. What. Do. You. Seek?" With every word, I feel a pressure descend on my body, making it harder to stand or breathe.

I...

What is it that I hoped to find by following the calling? Information about my new body? Answers to why I'm even in this world? My missing memories? A pot of gold?

No.

Somehow, I already know that I won't be able to return to my original world. Information about this body? Don't make me laugh. Why would I care about that when I can't even remember my own name? Every day I wonder if I still even remember everything about my old life.

No. What I hoped for was a power-up, a method to grow beyond baseline human abilities. Something to give me an advantage against the monsters that lurk in the dark.

With labored breath, fighting against the pressure she's exuding at my failures to respond, I manage to say through gritted teeth,

"I seek strength."

The pressure lets up, and she fixes me with her eyes, her piercing eyes which look right through me, giving the impression that she is able to see everything I tried to convey with my words.

"Good."

And she accepts my statement.

The pressure descends once more. "Why do you seek strength?"

This time, I respond immediately.

"To protect myself and my friends from the..."

"Naive." She interrupts again.

"Self-protection is a given. If that is all you are looking for, you would have run when that shade attacked you. Why?"

"I... I seek strength to not lose everything again."

I've been terrified to get close to people again, in fear of once more losing them. I was perfectly fine on my own, until I got closer to Gray. With her, Fay, and Meredith, I started having more fun again. Except, with the added closeness, the fear came right back.

With the graveyard, everything came to a head, and I started to more desperately try to get strength. It's what made me lose interest in the sport I once so adored.

Once I started to notice the motes of power and the repairing of something inside me, I started to follow that trail and trough a lot of hoops it did lead me here.

What I need strength for is to overcome my fear.

But it's not.

Overcoming my fear is something I do on a daily basis. It's how I'm even friends with them still after the events of the birthday party. I don't even want to chase after strength. I just don't want to be only surviving. I want to...

"I seek strength to live."

This time, the pressure completely fades as I stand there under her scrutinizing eyes. As she assesses my words.

"Good."

"Then how are you, a man not man, a boy not boy, a human not human, going to attain that power?"

Her blunt words, filled with some scary implications—like what the fuck do you mean not human—are clearly leading me to a response.

And what else can I do? This is the one thing I truly need right now. Someone willing and able to teach me. Someone not mundane and unattached to an organization. Scáthach is literally my perfect type of teacher.

And she's hot. I feel like I have to keep repeating this.

I summon my staff, slowly go down on both knees, and place my weapon in front of me. I lay both hands flat on the ground, look her in the eyes, and lower my head until my forehead touches the floor.

With all the desire and need I have in me, I plead. "Please, teach."

For the first time since I arrived here, she looks at me. Not as a curiosity, nor as something to glean from my past, but at the me, in the present.

With her attention fully on me now, I can feel her gaze penetrating everything. I don't know how long I knelt there, but in the end, what she sees is enough.

I don't know what it is she's hoping to find in me, but it seems she found something worth teaching at the very least.

"Stand up," she commands.

I scramble to stand straight.

"If I were to say that accepting my tutelage might mean you won't be able to see your friends for a long time, what would you say?"

I've already thought about this. I've made my peace with it.

"I would still ask for your teaching. As I am now, I would only get in their way. Even if I don't see them for a while, I hope that once I return, I will truly be able to help them."

"Good resolve. Follow me. I will assess where you are and where you need to go."

She walks with purposeful steps to the other end of the courtyard, where an arena of hardened sand and gravel sits.

"Tiwaz," I hear her mutter softly. At the edge of the arena, a multitude of weapons of war sprout from the earth. "Take your pick and show me what you can do."

Pick? There's only one type of weapon suited for me. It always has been and always will be. There can be nothing else.

I slowly walk past the weapons, taking them all in. As I expected, all are made of wood and steel, sharp enough to split falling hairs and crafted in every form imaginable.

I pick a partisan spear and take a round shield as well. When I lift them, I notice their weight is perfect for the current me and their balance impeccable.

With my spear and shield in hand, I walk to the center of the arena. My gut instinct screams bloody murder, and I can already guess what's about to happen.

She leaps and lands gracefully fifteen paces ahead of me. Twirling her spear in a blinding arc, she clears the gravel around her feet, then rests her weapon in a downward position.

In a relaxed and waiting stance, she looks at me and says one word.

"Come."

No need to tell me twice. I understand the assignment.

With her height advantage and a longer two-handed spear, she has an absolute edge in reach. If I want any kind of showing, I need to stay just outside her striking zone and use quick thrusts with hit-and-run tactics.

I raise my shield to half-height and position my spear for short thrusts. As I take small, measured steps toward her, she doesn't move, allowing me to ease into my ideal position.

With my spot secured, I use quick steps to bridge the gap and stab at her unguarded torso. She sways aside effortlessly, and with a languid motion, she tries to grab my spear's shaft. Before she can take hold, I snap back to my earlier position and prepare a different approach.

"Good basic understanding of spacing. Next."

I repeat my first few steps, ensuring my dominant foot stays back for stronger pivoting power. This time, when I lunge for her spear arm, she moves to intercept. I retreat again.

As I take steps back to reassess, she moves. I take a shield strike to the center and fly back a few paces. My arm inside the shield throbs from the impact, but I stay upright and keep hold of my weapons.

"Not enough conviction. Again."

Shit. And this is just the start. I'm fucked.

I try again. And again. And again.

Until I remember to use my fucking powers in battle. Like, what the hell is wrong with me? She's the super in supernatural. I need to step it up.

This time, when I attack, I stretch each moment to make the best possible decision. As I react instantly to her minute movements, she smiles and advances. I try again to slow down time, to see and react to her movements, but even in my altered perception, she still moves at a walking pace toward me.

My eyes widen at the realization. She smirks.

That's not a nice sight, I'll tell you that.

Once again, I go flying. Harder this time. I rag-doll for a bit.

Still, I stand up.

"Better. Again."

Using short bursts of reaction speed, I force her to take things slightly more seriously. This time, when she moves to strike me for the umpteenth time, I blink backward a few paces.

With a temporary reprieve, I burst forward to pierce her while she's still off-balance.

"Naïve."

I get fucking Sparta-kicked in the torso.

Bitch.

"Hmm... what was that? Again."

In the end, I try over and over. I can't even remember how long it takes. Eventually, I start bleeding from my eyes, nose, and ears from overusing my hastening. The strain on my brain, from trying to process so much information in the heat of battle, is too much.

But I stand.

My upgrade has made my natural recovery process faster. Or I'm even more bullheaded than I thought.

On my last legs, bruised and bleeding, barely able to feel my limbs, my eyes and ears clogged with caked blood—I move.

Without understanding what I'm doing, I hasten only my movement, giving my running a flickering appearance. Sprinting parallel to her, I throw my spear with pinpoint accuracy towards her face. At the same time, I swap my grip on my shield, changing direction at full speed and rocketing myself at her from the side.

In the last moment before the spear reaches her, at the exact same time that the spear should hit, I attack from a different angle, trying to smash my shield into her face.

"That's enough."

She casually bats away both of my all-out attacks, sweeps my feet from under me, and strikes my face, knocking me to the ground.

"Rest," she says, though I barely hear her.

I try to stand. She hasn't told me it's good enough yet, so... I stand.

All I see and taste is blood. One of my eyes is shut. I think I'm deaf in one ear. No matter. I can still fight.

I raise my shield. My spear is discarded somewhere to the side.

Even if I have to crawl, I'll just bite her ankles.

With a barely raised shield, one arm possibly broken and with a limp I still stumble towards her.

"Stop. That's good enough. Rest now, student."

And everything goes dark.

LaterI wake up to a pleasant feeling of warmth across my entire body, as if lying in soft sand under the summer sky. For the first time since obtaining my ability to heal faster, I wake up with my entire body still sore. As my memories return, I shoot up to look around. The pleasant feeling? I am lying in a beach chair inside a hot spring. The warmth on my face? The steam rising from the water.

Across from me, perfection given form meticulously cleans her spear with no care in the world. She notices my gaze, one eyebrow imperiously raising, but she makes no effort to cover herself.

I feel like I have to say something.

"Is that... the original of your spear, the famous one?"

I just blurted out something incredibly stupid. Did all her hits give me brain damage? Does my staff heal brain damage?

Her eyebrow remains raised while the corner of her lips curls in amusement at my idiocy. She happily drives the nail deeper into my fraying psyche. "Yes, this is my first created spear from the Ash Tree, Gaé Bolg."

Okay, awesome.

"But... I have the feeling you were just pretending to look at my spear. Were you... perhaps..."

No, don't do it.

"Looking at me?"

I lie back down completely. Would drowning in the Land of Shadows be such a bad death? I could just put my head under the water and escape this torment. This is my life now, and I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

While I contemplate the possibility of her reviving me just to continue her bullying, she laughs at my suffering.

She is still naked, by the way. Where do I look?

"You modern men are such prudes. I will have to beat this kind of weakness out of you one way or another," she sighs, standing up.

Can't say I have ever seen purple carpets, but they definitely match the drapes.

"Come, student. Follow me."

No nonsense, just commands. Her calling me "student" is nice, though.

Still, I am naked as well. I look around for my clothes, but surprise, surprise. They are nowhere to be found. This is a conundrum. Maybe this is a test of wit, and I have to find where she hid them.

As I hesitate, she instantly grows impatient. I hear her mutter, "Laguz," and a ball of hot water smashes into my face. I sputter, standing up in a hurry.

"This is worse than I thought. I will have to add extra lessons to get this behavior under control. Now follow. The air in my courtyard is whatever temperature I desire."

She says some ominous things.

I follow her nakedly, trying to cover myself as much as possible.

She delivers another blow to my frail mind. "Don't bother hiding. Who do you think had to wash you after the battle?"

"Magic?"

She just sighs and continues walking to the arena.

At the edge of the fight pit, she does that weird summoning trick again. This time, only a few weapons appear: a staff, a spear, and a shield—all weapons I use—and lastly, a sword.

"We are here to discuss your weapon choices and my observations. First, your staff. You are not a ranged fighter, and that is a problem we will tackle over time. But outside of that, your staff is a catalyst that empowers your abilities. You will need training to use it more efficiently and without killing yourself.

"Second, your spear and shield. Those are good, sensible choices—a mix of offense and defense. They pair well with your temporal abilities. We will forge you into a master of both while developing a style that fits your gear. Between the two, you have a slight edge in talent with your shield over your spear, though both are near the peak of natural human talent."

I don't preen at the praise.

"Third, I want you to pick up that sword and try to use it," she commands.

Okay. Sure. Whatever.

I pick up the bastard sword with both hands and immediately notice how natural it feels. As if I am connected to it. I take a stance, testing out random strikes from the shows I watched. The movements flow fluidly, almost like this is what I was made for. But with every strike, a deep revulsion settles in. Every stance change makes something inside me scream to let go.

So I do.

Dazed, I stand on the training field, trying to come to terms with my apparent hatred for swords. Well, just using them. Looking at one does not give me the same feeling.

She quietly observes the entire sequence without interrupting. One arm rests beneath her generous, still naked bust. I feel like a broken record, but this is still mortifying. It is slightly easier now, though.

"Your sword potential surpasses the peak of humanity. It easily reaches the legendary level. You would be able to reach your goal almost twice as fast if you changed your choice of weapon."

Without judgment or instruction, she simply lays out my options and the difference between them.

It is daunting. If I push past this revulsion, I could achieve more, faster and easier. But... I can't. I have a feeling that in the short term, it would help, but eventually, I would give up on it.

My course is clear. I will keep my current setup and perfect it while adding tools to handle the unexpected.

I gingerly pick up the sword one last time, deliberately placing it aside before taking up my spear and shield.

Yes. This feels like a bond forged by choice, not unnatural compulsion.

"Good. You have chosen a destination. Now it is my turn to forge you in the crucible," she nods solemnly.

"I will teach you, break you down, and repair you over and over again." Her smile and voice grow more sadistic with every word. "In the end, you will either emerge a remade man, or you will not return at all."

That sounds like a threat.

She actually smiles wider at that.

One of these days, when I am less scaroused, I will ask if she can read my mind. Her reactions to my inner thoughts are freaking me out.

"Take out your staff and use it to actively strengthen your recovery. It is part of your soul. The effect is entirely benign. You should have that ability on at all times. It will, with practice, cut down the amount of sleep you need."

Damn. That is smart. I summon my staff and, for the first time, examine the changes. It looks better, but I will still miss my stupid stick.

...On second thought, all those uneven ridges will help me grab and hook things more easily.

Where I first passively received the boost at night, I can now feel the same energy from the leaves residing in the key part of my staff. With a thought, I channel the energy, and the aching starts to fade.

"Now you will eat. This will be the only time I catch your food. From here on, you will hunt for yourself."

Wow. Outdoor survival.

"Almost all of the animals in my hunting area are predators," she smiles.

It is not a nice smile.

"You will learn to survive, to gauge an enemy's strength, and above all, how to move silently even in dire situations."

She makes it sound incredibly useful and compelling, but why does she sound so happy about my suffering?

"Every time you fail to catch your food and ask me for some, it will cost you. Perhaps a chore, a task, or even a favor." She says this casually, as if trying to make me lower my guard.

"I'm not buying what you're selling." I make it clear that I do not trust this arrangement.

"That is the thing. You will buy from me. It is all about supply and demand. Either catch it yourself or go hungry. When those two become too much, you will come crawling back to me."

Her prediction sounds way too realistic. I have a bad feeling about the kind of "food" she keeps around.

"So eat well and rest. Tomorrow, we begin conditioning for the real deal."

She laughs and walks toward the castle, signaling me to follow.

I'm in danger.

Nice ass, though.