The first lesson Ruin ever learned was not how to hold a sword.
It was how to be looked at like a mistake.
The training grounds smelled of dust, oil, and iron — the scent of futures being forged. Boys younger than him moved with sharp precision, wooden blades whistling through the air in disciplined arcs. Their feet slid across the stone in practiced stances. Their breaths were steady. Their strikes landed clean.
Each movement earned nods. Corrections. Approval.
Ruin earned silence.
When his turn came, he stepped forward gripping the practice sword with both hands.
The wood felt too heavy, as if gravity clung to him more than it did to others. He copied the stance he had watched a hundred times.
Left foot forward. Knees bent. Spine straight.
His arms trembled before he even began.
"Strike," the instructor said.
Ruin swung.
The blade wobbled mid-arc, crooked and slow. It hit the straw dummy with a dull thud and bounced off uselessly. A few strands bent. Nothing more.
A boy behind him snorted. Someone else laughed under their breath.
The instructor did not laugh. That would have required emotion.
"Again."
Ruin reset his stance. His shoulder already burned.
He swung.
This time the recoil twisted his wrist. Pain shot up his arm. The sword slipped and clattered against the stone.
The sound rang louder than the laughter.
The instructor walked over, picked up the wooden blade, and placed it back in Ruin's hands.
"Grip tighter."
"Yes, sir," Ruin said, though his palms were slick with sweat and torn skin.
Around them, another child shouted as he split a hanging sandbag. Straw spilled like golden rain. Applause followed. An elder observing from the shade gave an approving hum.
Ruin swung again.
Crooked. Weak. Late.
By midday, the other trainees were practicing paired forms. By afternoon, they were dismissed with reminders to rest their muscles and circulate their energy.
Ruin was told to stay.
"Hold the sword up," the instructor said. "Arms straight."
Ruin obeyed.
Minutes stretched... The sun climbed higher. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung.
His arms shook violently.
"Lowering it builds bad habits," the instructor added without looking at him.
"Yes, sir."
Across the yard, two assistants spoke quietly.
"He still can't sense qi?"
"Nothing. Not even a flicker."
"Then why is he here?"
A pause.
"His mother begged."
Silence again.
"Cruel."
Ruin kept his eyes forward. He pretended the words were wind.
His shoulders felt like they were being slowly torn from their sockets. His fingers went numb. The sword tilted.
"Straight," the instructor said.
Ruin forced it level again with a small, broken sound in his throat.
When the blade finally fell, it was not rebellion. His muscles simply stopped responding. The wooden sword struck the ground beside his knee.
He waited for anger.
None came.
The instructor crouched, meeting his eyes for the first time that day. There was no hatred there. That would have meant Ruin mattered enough to hate.
"There is nothing in you," the man said calmly. "Your meridians are narrow and tangled. Your body does not absorb energy. Your reflexes are dull. Your balance is poor."
Ruin swallowed.
"I can work harder."
The instructor studied him the way a carpenter studies rotten wood.
"Hard work is a tool," he said. "You are trying to carve steel with bare hands."
He stood.
"Go home. This path is not for you."
Not yet.
Not train more.
Not we will see.
Just an ending.
The other students avoided looking at him as they left. One gave him a quick glance — not cruel, just confused, like seeing someone trying to breathe underwater.
When the yard emptied, Ruin was still kneeling.
The wind picked up as evening approached, cool air sliding over sun-warmed stone. His arms throbbed with each heartbeat.
Slowly, he reached for the fallen sword.
It took both hands to lift it again.
No one told him to.
No one watched.
That made it worse somehow.
He took the stance he had been corrected on all day.
Left foot forward. Knees bent. Spine straight.
Swing.
The strike was still weak.
Swing.
Still crooked.
Swing.
His shoulder felt like it was tearing apart fiber by fiber.
Tears blurred his vision, but he did not wipe them away. If he let go of the sword to do that, he was not sure he would pick it up again.
The sky darkened above him, vast and indifferent. Somewhere beyond the clouds, the heavens that blessed geniuses and chose heroes continued their silent judgment.
They had not chosen him.
They had not even rejected him.
They had simply never noticed he existed.
Ruin swung again, a small, broken figure in a yard built for legends.
Because if he stopped—
then the world would be right about him.
And that, more than the pain, was the one thing he could not endure.