c1 part3 (1/2)

Chapter 1 – Bound Together (cont.)

The next morning, Kuroh headed out into the garden to practice swinging his wooden sword. Wrapping himself up in the white padded unders.h.i.+rt Ichigen had hand-sewn for him, he padded out onto the chilled ground barefoot. Night had not yet fully given way to dawn, and the pale orange light of daybreak scattered out about him.

“Whoo! Whoo!”

As he sw.a.n.g the wooden sword up and down a hundred times or so, being sure to adopt the form Ichigen had taught him, a drop of sweat began to bead on his chin.

“Whoo! Whoo!”

He always conducted these drills on the basics of swordsmans.h.i.+p before preparing breakfast–this was Kuroh’s daily routine. No matter the heat of summer nor chill of winter, he never deviated from this path, and he made it a point to continue these drills until he could feel the atmosphere around him blending in with his own person.

“All right!” He felt satisfied now, and after adjusting his posture and breathing, he gentle set aside the wooden sword and took up the hand towel he’d draped over the bamboo railing, wiping away his sweat. Ichigen had only just recently praised him for finally managing to perfect his forms, and Kuroh’s cheeks puffed up a bit with pride as he remembered this–but he immediately chided himself, ‘No, I must discipline myself even further!’

You could perhaps say that this manner of focusing his energies was part of what made Kuroh Kuroh. After all, he still wound up getting soundly thrashed in the face of speed he couldn’t even follow whenever he squared off with Ichigen in practice matches. Yet while Kuroh always wielded his wooden practice sword in these matches, Ichigen would at times fight with a rolled up newspaper, and others with perhaps a piece of styrofoam–and even when smacked with these unconventional materials, Kuroh somehow still managed to be blown some two or three meters away. All that–without once using his powers. It appeared to simply be a matter of attaining the right timing and tempo.

“………” Kuroh sank into thought for a moment before deciding he’d try that again today.

He cast his glance about the garden, searching for a target: old persimmon and camellia trees, a hedge blossoming with purple hydrangeas, a stone lantern, a pond which was home to a toad that Kuroh had no idea the age of.

“Meow~”

Just then, a cat slunk lazily toward Kuroh from the veranda. He thought at first it was hoping for a bit of attention and petting, but it slipped right through his legs before leaping up onto one of the garden stones and setting about calmly licking its fur.

The aloof air it gave off as it glanced Kuroh’s way was nigh on hateful–and Kuroh smiled bitterly. This was the tomcat that had taken up residence recently in the neighborhood. He hadn’t a clue where it had come from, but it looked rather long in the tooth, and Ichigen had taken to calling it “Tamagorou” for some reason.

‘I doubt I could try it out on that cat…’ he said to himself. He understood intuitively that his powers weren’t the dangerous sort with which he could lay waste by flame to his surroundings or slice an opponent to pieces with a vacuum, and had received similar a.s.surances from Ichigen, his King, as well. But this didn’t still his hesitation to attempt to take on another living being in this manner.

It was simply that–Kuroh himself still hadn’t the faintest clue as to just how his powers as a clansman of the Seventh King would manifest.

His gaze fell on the plastic watering can he used about the garden. It could probably handle a few sc.r.a.pes if Kuroh messed up…

He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath–before clapping his hands together tightly. He pinched his eyes shut tight as if meditating and forced his heart and mind to calm.

‘Focus…’ he reminded himself. He could feel waves filling him up, all the way to his fingertips–a sensation he’d long since grown accustomed to. Four years ago, he’d only been able to faintly perceive it, but now he could clearly sense it. Putting it figuratively, it was like there was an invisible pool at the base of his core, with little particles of light bubbling up from it. It felt a bit ticklish…and so very warm.

For good reason: because at that very moment, he was connected to the very root of the Colorless King, Miwa Ichigen’s soul. He could feel Ichigen’s strongly s.h.i.+ning vibrations resonating within himself–and it imbued in Kuroh boundless courage, cheering him.

He had but one mission: focus his energies on that sensation to the best of his abilities, and then–

‘Release!’ His eyes snapped open, and fixing his focus on the watering can he was targeting, he released the image of his power in a great explosion–

However…

Poof! came a dry sound, and the camellia branches on the tree in the completely opposite direction wavered a bit before two, three leaves fluttered to the ground. After perking up for a moment at the sound, the cat turned an almost snide gaze on Kuroh before returning to cleaning itself. The toad guarding the pond seemed to have hopped away, likely in response to the expanding circle of waves in its territory.

“Another failure…” Kuroh’s shoulders slumped in disappointment and his expression turned crestfallen as he sighed to himself. Despite the slow but steady progress he was making with his sword under Ichigen’s tutelage, he’d not once been able to successfully wield the powers granted him as a clansman of the Seventh King in their four years together, and this failure cast a dark shadow over Kuroh’s heart.

‘I really am just useless…’ He hated how awkward he could be. It was as if he was rejecting this bond with his Ichigen, the person most precious to him, and with each failure, he grew more and more dejected. Ichigen had warned him of the dangers of simply attaining knowledge and promised to explain all about the system of Kings once he learned to master using his abilities properly, but when could he hope for that to happen now…? What if…it never happened?

He brushed off these concerns, though, and trudged back inside.

Kuroh’s guardian, Miwa Ichigen, had been watching the entire affair from a second-floor window. ‘Well, I’m afraid this at least is all up to you. It’s difficult to put into words, after all.’ He crinkled his eyes and smiled a bit concernedly. ‘Even I can’t explain it all that well.’

He quietly let the curtains fall shut before returning to his room; he had to pretend to have been sleeping all the while until Kuroh came to summon him for breakfast, after all. “I suppose you’ve no choice but to learn the hard way–by falling down and picking yourself back up. Hang in there, Kuro,” he whispered softly to himself.

The village Kuroh and Ichigen called home lay in the valley between two mountains in a prefecture and boasted a population of some 200. Getting to the nearest station required spending some 30 minutes being jostled to and fro on a bus. While they had no convenience stores, they did have one general store that sold just about anything you could want.

The elementary and middle schools were located on the same premises, and all children in the village attended. Though–“all” const.i.tuted barely 10 in total. While summers were bearable, the snow piled high in winter, rendering life difficult as the students headed up the narrow mountain roads–too slim for even the snow plows to squeeze through–to cla.s.ses, but Kuroh made the 40-minutes-one-way trek every day, happy to do so.