The heavy steel doors of the cafeteria slammed shut behind us, completely cutting off the suffocating tension of the main hall.
For a moment, none of us said a word. We just stood there in the dimly lit, metallic corridor of the ship, listening to the hum of the engine beneath our feet.
Then, without warning, my knees buckled.
The adrenaline that had been keeping me upright the entire time finally evaporated.
The agonizing weight of the three-hundred-laps came crashing down onto my shoulders all at once. The numbness in my arms flared into a blinding, stinging ache from blocking Tsume's monstrous kick, and I pitched forward toward the metal grating.
I didn't hit the floor.
"Whoa, whoa! I got you, man!" Ging gasped, scrambling forward to catch me under my left arm. He grunted under my weight, adjusting his crooked glasses with a free finger.
On my right side, a slender, calloused hand gripped my shoulder, steadying me effortlessly. I looked over and saw Saki.
"For a guy with zero self-preservation instincts, you're awfully heavy," she said, her glowing red eyes locked straight ahead. Her tone was completely deadpan, but her grip was steady and surprisingly gentle.
"Did you see his face?!" Ging suddenly blurted out, unable to contain himself for another second as we started hobbling down the hallway.
He looked across my back at Saki like she was a deity.
"Harasayuki! The guy looked like he was going to pass out! What did you even do to him?!"
Saki didn't even look at him. "I existed. It's a very exhausting technique."
"No, seriously!" Ging laughed, the relief washing over him. "I thought we were dead. Then you just... completely broke his brain!"
I glanced at Saki's right arm, catching another glimpse of the intricate, dark ink winding down her skin. I still didn't know the reason why she had it, but given her flawless balance and the calluses on her hands, I knew she wasn't just another privileged prodigy.
She was a weapon.
"Save your breath, Ging," I muttered, my lungs still burning. "We still have to make it to the bunks."
We finally reached Sector 4, the designated barracks for the lower-tier recruits. Ging kicked the door open, practically dragging me inside.
The room was cramped, lined with rows of stiff, uncomfortable bunk beds. But it wasn't empty.
Standing at the far end of the room was a scruffy, unkempt deckhand. He had long black hair going all the way down his back, all white eyes with tiny black pupils, unkept facial hair, and extreme eye bags.
He looked like he hadn't shaved in a week, his standard-issue uniform was wrinkled and untucked, and he was casually tossing folded, gray pajamas onto the bare mattresses.
He moved with a sluggish, lazy posture, occasionally letting out a wide, deeply obnoxious yawn.
"Oh. Hey," the deckhand mumbled, scratching the back of his neck as we walked in. "Took you kids long enough. Curfew's in ten."
"Who are you?" Ging asked, eyeing the man suspiciously as he helped me sit down on one of the bottom bunks.
"Me? Just a deckhand," the man sighed, leaning heavily against a steel support pillar. "Name's Ayashi. I scrub the decks, hand out the jammies, and pretend I don't hear the recruits crying for their mommies at night."
Saki crossed her arms, completely unamused by his lazy demeanor. She walked past him in silence, claiming a bottom bunk on the opposite side of the room.
Ayashi's half-lidded eyes lazily drifted over to me. He looked at my battered state, the bruises forming on my arms, and finally, the worn wooden sword resting at my hip.
"You look like hell, kid," Ayashi noted dryly. "Must be heavy."
"I've felt worse," I replied, massaging my numb wrists.
"Not the bruises," Ayashi said, pointing a lazy finger at my waist.
"The wood. You hold that practice sword like it weighs a ton. Tell me... what's the point of carrying it if you're just gonna let it drag you down?"
I paused, looking up at him. The question felt entirely out of place coming from a guy whose biggest responsibility was handing out sleepwear.
"My father gave this to me," I said defensively, my voice tightening. "A swordsman carries his blade to protect those who can't protect themselves. You hold your ground. You don't yield."
Ayashi let out a quiet, breathy chuckle. It wasn't mocking, just amused. "Hold your ground, huh? Sounds rigid. Sounds like a good way to get snapped in half when a storm hits."
He pushed himself off the pillar and slowly ambled over to my bunk.
Up close, despite his facial hair and lazy slouch, there was something strange about his eyes. They were deep and impossibly calm, like a still ocean at midnight.
"A sword isn't a wall, kid. It's a river," Ayashi murmured, his voice suddenly losing its lazy drawl and taking on a profound, quiet weight. "When a boulder falls into a river, the water doesn't try to punch it. It just flows around it.
You're trying to block every hit life throws at you with your chest. That's why your arms are numb and your spirit is exhausted."
I stared at him, completely caught off guard.
"What in the world is he even talking about?" I thought,
Ayashi reached out and tapped my right shoulder with two fingers. "Drop your shoulders. Stop holding your breath in your chest. Breathe from your stomach—let it pool at your center, like water filling a bowl. Then, exhale the tension through your feet."
It was weird advice from a janitor, but I was too tired to argue. I closed my eyes, relaxed my stiff shoulders, and took a deep breath, drawing the air deep down into my diaphragm.
As I exhaled, a strange, cooling sensation washed over my body.
The violent throbbing in my arms began to fade into a dull hum, and the frantic racing of my heart finally slowed to a steady, calm rhythm.
The heavy anxiety that had been clinging to me since Tsume's attack simply washed away.
I opened my eyes, stunned. "How did you...?"
But Ayashi was already walking out the door, letting out another massive yawn.
"Get some sleep, kids," he called out over his shoulder, waving a lazy hand without looking back. "Tomorrow we arrive at the Academy."
"Then the real tests will begin."
The heavy door clicked shut behind him, leaving Ging, Saki, and me alone in the quiet barracks.
"Wow," Ging whispered, staring at the empty doorway in complete shock. The tension had finally drained from his shoulders. "Saki, did you see—"
He turned his head eagerly, only to stop short. On the bottom bunk across the room, Saki was already sound asleep, her breathing slow and even.
She hadn't just ignored the profound moment; she had already completely checked out.
Ging let out a long, heavy sigh. The boisterous, loud energy he had been carrying all day seemed to just melt away, leaving him looking much smaller, and much younger.
He reached up, pulling his crooked glasses off his face, and set them quietly on the small metal dresser next to his bed.
He sat on the edge of his bare mattress, staring down at his bruised hands.
"Do you ever wonder...?" Ging asked, his voice barely rising above the hum of the ship.
I shifted on my bunk, the lingering, cooling sensation from Ayashi's advice still settling in my chest. "Wonder about what?"
"If maybe this whole Swordsman business is just... too much." Ging rubbed his eyes, the sheer exhaustion clear in his slumping posture.
He didn't look at me. "I was terrified today, Shujinko. Not just of Tsume, but of everything. The three-hundred-lap trial, the magic, the sheer size of this world."
I didn't say anything. I just listened.
"I don't want to fight monsters," Ging admitted, his voice cracking slightly in the dark. "I don't want to risk my life every single day, constantly looking over my shoulder to see who's going to crush me next. But..." He gripped the thin fabric of his mattress tightly. "...I don't have a choice."
He finally looked up at me, his eyes wide and painfully vulnerable.
"I'm a stray," he said, the word dripping with bitter reality. "I don't have a famous, legendary father like you. I'm not strong like Saki. I don't even have a home to go back to if I fail.
If I don't get my Swordsman License... I'm going right back to the streets. Back to freezing and starving in the alleys.
Becoming a professional Elemental Swordsman is the only way out of the gutter for someone like me."
He forced a weak, self-deprecating smile, tears prickling the corners of his eyes. "Kind of pathetic, right? A guy who is absolutely terrified of holding a sword, holding one anyway just so he can afford a warm meal."
I looked at him in the dim light. My throat suddenly felt incredibly tight.
I wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come.
Since the night my home was destroyed, I had lived in complete isolation. It had just been me, my mother, grandparents, and my training.
I wasn't used to this. I didn't know how to comfort someone, or how to navigate the heavy, messy reality of someone else pouring their heart out to me.
So, I just sat there. Silent.
The silence stretched on for a few agonizing seconds.
Ging's weak, self-deprecating smile slowly faltered, replaced by a bitter, embarrassed scowl. He violently wiped at his eyes and turned his back to me, pulling his thin blanket up to his shoulders.
"Right. Never mind," Ging muttered, his voice tight with frustration and regret. "Forget I said anything. You've got the blood of a master swordsmen in you. You wouldn't understand what it's like to have absolutely nothing. Just go to sleep."
He thought I didn't care.
I clenched my fists, my fingernails digging into my palms.
"I don't have a father to go back to either," I said.
Ging stopped shifting. He didn't turn around, but the rustling of his blanket ceased completely.
"People hear my name and they expect my father. They expect this fearless, perfect protector. They think his strength was just handed down to me because I'm his son. But I'm not a hero like him. I'm just the kid who was left behind in the ashes."
"Left to rot away and presumably die."
"When I was five," I continued, staring down at the bruised knuckles of my hands, "My family was attacked. By Death Bringers.
I had to sit in the dark and listen to my father be torn apart while trying to hold them off. I watched them drag my older brother into the shadows. They left my home in ashes."
The words felt like swallowing glass, but I forced them out.
"I don't fight because I'm fearless, Ging. I fight because I have a debt to pay to the monsters that took everything from me,"
I told the dark room. "I know exactly what it means to be terrified. I know what it's like to have your back against the wall with nowhere else to go."
Ging slowly turned back over, his eyes wide and shining in the shadows. All of his frustration was gone, replaced by a heavy, profound understanding.
"So yes," I said quietly, my voice firm. "It takes a lot more courage to fight when you're terrified than it does when you're fearless. You aren't pathetic, Ging. You're a survivor. We're survivors."
Ging stared at me for a long moment, his eyes shining in the dim light. He swallowed hard, the last of his defensive walls finally crumbling away.
He gave me a small, genuine nod before lying back onto his thin mattress.
"Thank you," he whispered, the words barely carrying over the deep hum of the ship's engine.
"Get some sleep, Ging," I replied quietly.
I reached up and clicked off the small lamp above my bed, plunging the cramped barracks into complete darkness.
I lay back against my pillow, staring up at the shadow of the steel bunk above me.
As I closed my eyes, letting the rhythmic thrumming of the ship carry me toward sleep, the suffocating anxiety in my chest felt just a little bit lighter.
For the first time since the night my father died, I realized I wasn't carrying the weight of the world alone. I listened to Ging's quiet breathing, thought of Saki sleeping on the bunk across the room, and finally let myself rest.
Get rest for the first day of the Academy.