The sky over Haze Forest was a pale, washed-out gray, as if the world itself were exhausted. Snow drifted lazily, its softness at odds with the killing cold beneath it. Darwin exhaled, watching the steam curl around his face before disappearing into the wind.
His legs trembled.
Not from fear—
from repetition.
From stubbornness.
From the kind of relentless practice that broke a man before it shaped him.
He dragged his foot an inch forward, heel barely brushing the snow. His center of gravity shifted, his torso lowering instinctively to compensate. He locked onto the tiny sensation of imbalance—where his shoulder dipped too far, where his left hip rotated late, where his breath hitched.
His next step corrected it.
Another inch.
Another shift.
Another tiny correction.
A step that aligned with neither the elegant form of sword styles, nor the rigid discipline of knight training.
A step that belonged only to him.
Gajisk leaned against a frost-covered tree a dozen meters away, thick arms crossed, watching silently. He didn't interrupt. Darwin had entered a kind of trance, and the blacksmith knew better than to break it.
The boy wasn't just practicing footwork.
He was *building* something.
Finally, Darwin stopped. His breath came in short bursts, fogging the cold air. His left hand clutched the wooden practice sword Gajisk had carved for him.
Darwin's gaze lowered to the snow beneath his boots.
"…Seven flaws," he whispered.
Gajisk raised a brow. "You counted?"
Darwin nodded weakly. "Seven. One in my ankle, two in my hips… the rest in my shoulders."
The blacksmith chuckled. "Most novices don't even realize when they fall over. You're analyzing each muscle."
Darwin didn't smile back.
"Because I have no choice."
Those words carried weight—sharp, heavy, suffocating.
He lifted the wooden sword again.
His grip wasn't perfect. His stance wasn't textbook. His movements were unrefined.
But every motion had a stubborn, angry determination behind it.
A child abandoned.
A boy tossed into the snow.
A survivor who had no mana, no right arm, no gifts from the world—
only suffering, instinct, and a hunger he didn't understand.
Darwin stepped forward.
This time with intention.
His left foot glided in a crescent shape—not straight, not diagonal, but curved. A path that would allow him to pivot faster, to redirect force more effectively.
He repeated it.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
Until the curve became natural.
Gajisk watched with quiet awe.
"That movement… it's not normal," he muttered under his breath. "He's not imitating anything I taught. He's adjusting around his missing arm. He's letting his imbalance guide him."
Darwin didn't hear him.
He was too busy listening to the rhythm of his own body.
Every misalignment.
Every shift of weight.
Every flaw that threatened his balance.
He forced himself to adapt.
Not by correcting the imbalance—
—but by **using it.**
He pivoted sharply, driving the wooden blade forward in a downward strike. The arc was uneven but precise in its own strange way. The lack of a right arm forced his left shoulder to tilt, and the tilt redirected power into speed.
It wasn't clean.
But it was fast.
Darwin froze at the end of the motion. The wooden sword trembled in his grip.
"…It works," he whispered. "It actually works."
Gajisk spoke up finally. "Kid. This is your footwork now. Not the knights', not mine, . This is yours."
Darwin swallowed.
A warmth stirred in his chest—not pride, not joy, but something rawer.
Purpose.
A small, fragile purpose blooming inside someone the world tried to throw away.
He tightened his left hand on the wooden hilt.
"I'll master this," he muttered. "I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how many times I fall."
He took another step.
Another curve.
Another shift.
His breath synced with the movement—inhale with the lift, exhale with the turn. Snow crunched underfoot as he repeated the pattern over and over.
An hour passed.
Then another.
When he finally collapsed, Gajisk stepped forward, crouching beside him.
"You're overworking again."
"My stamina… needs to increase," Darwin panted.
Gajisk's eyes softened slightly. "That it does. But rest is part of training too."
Darwin didn't argue, but his eyes stayed fixed on the snow where his footprints curved in uneven half-moons.
Patterns.
Mistakes.
Corrections.
Progress.
He had carved his effort into the earth itself.
Gajisk noticed the look and sighed. "You're obsessed, kid."
Darwin didn't deny it. "I have to be."
He rested his hand on the wooden sword beside him.
"If I don't become strong… I'll die here."
Gajisk didn't answer immediately.
The truth was too simple to argue.
Darwin closed his eyes, letting exhaustion pull him downward. The cold air bit at his skin, but he endured it. Pain had been his companion long before he met Gajisk.
As he drifted into light sleep, his mind replayed the day's movements.
The angles.
The missteps.
The improvements.
He saw them not as failures—
but as pieces.
Pieces of a style that didn't exist yet.
Pieces of a path only he could walk.
When he woke, the sun was setting. The sky burned orange behind a screen of thin snowflakes.
Gajisk was packing tools. "Up. We're heading back before a storm rolls in."
Darwin forced himself to stand. His legs shook violently, but held.
He glanced once more at the snow where he trained.
Soon, he thought.
Not yet, but soon.
He would take all the imbalance in his body—
and turn it into a blade sharper than anything this world understood.
A step.
A curve.
A shift.
The beginning of his Sword Style had just begun forming.
Piece by piece.
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