Ashara walked toward the goblin with her fists up by her chest.
Step by step, slow, the way Celeste had taught her. Weight centered, knees bent, hands guard-level. She knew the stance. She'd drilled it dozens of times. But right now, walking toward an actual living monster that had claws and a knife and teeth, a lot of the other lessons she'd ever had decided to pack their bags and leave her brain at the same time.
[Okay. Okay, this is fine. It's just a goblin. It's small. I'm bigger. I've got this.]
The goblin looked up from the stream. Water dripped from its chin. Its yellow eyes found her, narrowed, and it shrieked, pulling a jagged, rusty knife from a sheath made of what looked like dried animal skin.
It charged.
[SHIT—]
The goblin hit her like a bag of rocks.
It was small, yeah, but it was fast, and it slammed into her midsection before she could get her hands up. They went down together, Ashara on her back, the goblin on top of her, snarling and snapping its teeth inches from her face. Its breath was rotten. Its claws dug into her arms as it scrambled for position, and the knife came down toward her throat.
Ashara grabbed its wrist with both hands. The blade stopped an inch from her neck.
[It's strong, what the fuck, it's so strong—]
The goblin was maybe three feet tall and weighed less than a child, but it was fighting like it had nothing to lose. It thrashed and kicked and bit at the air, trying to wrench the knife free, and Ashara could feel her grip slipping. Its other hand clawed at her forearm and she felt skin tear, hot and sharp.
She looked past the goblin, toward the treeline.
Celeste was standing there, arms folded. Rain was beside her. Neither of them moved.
[They're not coming? They're not going to help me?]
She could feel the rest of the class watching too. The tension, the held breath, the collective expectation that one of the instructors would step in any second now.
They didn't.
[They're leaving me alone with this thing.]
The goblin yanked its wrist free and the knife came down again. Ashara twisted her head to the side and the blade bit into the dirt next to her ear. She brought her knee up hard into the goblin's stomach and it let out a wheeze. She kicked, putting everything she had into it, and the goblin flew off her, tumbling across the dirt.
Ashara scrambled to her feet, breathing hard. Her forearm was bleeding. Her hands were shaking. She'd been on the ground for maybe ten seconds and she was already gassed.
[This is a fucking F-rank monster. The weakest kind there is. And it almost killed me.]
The goblin got up too. It was snarling, knife still in its hand, circling her. Its yellow eyes were locked on the blood running down her arm.
Celeste's voice echoed in her head.
This thing is trying to kill you, Ashara. This isn't a lesson, this isn't a sparring session. It's do or die.
The goblin lunged again.
This time, Ashara didn't fall.
She sidestepped, barely, and the goblin's knife sliced across her abdomen. Pain, bright and hot, ripped through her stomach. She looked down. A red line across her skin, shallow but bleeding, soaking through her shirt.
[Fuck—]
The goblin spun and came at her again, knife first, shrieking. Ashara threw a jab. It connected with the side of the goblin's head and the thing stumbled, but it didn't go down. She threw another one, catching it in the shoulder, and the goblin slashed at her arm again.
More blood. More pain.
But Ashara was fighting back now, swinging ugly, swinging desperate, and that was better than being on her back with a knife at her throat.
The goblin lunged low, going for her legs. Ashara brought her knee up and caught it in the face. Something cracked. The goblin reeled back, knife arm swinging wild, and Ashara stepped forward, grabbed it by the throat, and slammed it to the ground.
It writhed under her, clawing at her wrist. Its knife came up and she knocked it away with her free hand, the blade spinning off into the grass.
The goblin bit her.
Its jagged teeth sank into the meat of her forearm and Ashara screamed. A raw, ugly scream, the kind that came from pain and fury at the same time.
She raised her fist. She flooded her knuckles with every drop of mana she had left, reinforcement pouring in until her hand felt like it was made of stone.
She brought it down on the goblin's skull.
CRACK
The goblin's head snapped to the side. It let go of her arm. Its yellow eyes went glassy.
[Again.]
She hit it again.
CRACK
And again.
CRACK
And again, and again, and again, her reinforced fist coming down over and over, each hit wetter than the last, until what had been a goblin head was just pulp. Bits of bone and flesh and grey-green mush spread across the ground and across her knuckles and across her shirt, and she kept hitting until there was nothing left to hit.
Then she stopped.
She sat back on the dirt, breathing hard, her chest heaving, her arms covered in blood, some hers, most not. Her hands were shaking. Her stomach wound was bleeding through her shirt. The bite on her forearm throbbed with every heartbeat.
She looked down at what she'd done.
[I just...]
It didn't look like a goblin anymore. It looked like meat. Something that had been alive thirty seconds ago and now wasn't, because she'd beaten it to death with her bare hands.
Her stomach lurched. She swallowed it down.
[I killed it. I actually killed it.]
She sat there, on the ground, staring at the mess in front of her. Her brain was trying to sort through everything at once. Relief that it was over. Disgust at the pulp on her knuckles. Pain from the cuts, the bite, the burning in her mana-drained limbs. And somewhere under all of that, buried deep, something that scared her a little.
Satisfaction.
A hand landed on her shoulder.
Ashara looked up. Celeste was standing over her, smiling down at her.
"Good job."
Ashara stared at her for a second. Then she looked back at the dead goblin. Then at her bloody fists. Then back at Celeste.
"That," Ashara said, her voice hoarse, "was the worst experience of my life."
"I know." Celeste squeezed her shoulder. "And you made it through."
Rain walked over with a medical kit, crouched down, and started wrapping Ashara's forearm. Her hands were steady. Ashara watched her work.
"You let me fight that alone," Ashara said.
Rain didn't look up.
"You needed to."
"I could've died."
"No. We were right there the whole time." Rain tied off the bandage and looked her in the eye. "But you needed to believe you could. That's the only way the first one sticks."
"..."
Ashara looked at her hands again. Bruised, bloody, shaking.
But she'd done it.
She'd actually done it.