"You have two options. One, surrender and tell us everything we need to know. Two, fight us and lose a limb or two and then answer our questions. Which one would you prefer?" The protector with the bear spirit stepped forth and hit his lance's tip on the ground causing a resonating sound in the fort.
"I don't think we can beat them. Is there no other way out?" Ken unsheathed his double edged katana seeing Izumi already unsheathed her katana.
"This is the only way out of the fort. We have to fight, we have no choice." Izumi gripped her katana tightly as she held it up to face the protectors in front of them.
As Izumi and Ken prepared to fight, a slow voice came from the shadows of the wall near them.
"Yes, this is the only way out of the fort, but fighting isn't the only way to get out."
"Lesson number 1, never believe there's no other way. There is always a way out, but sometimes you have to pay a price and sometimes the price is too high. One of the common way of paying is 'taking the hit'. So remember that fighting isn't the only way out every time."
"Enemies will only tell you the options that are in their favour, won't they? That only proves that they aren't the only options and there might be more." Shin stood in the shadows as he leaned on the wall with one leg supporting one the wall. He was on the other side of the wall and was hiding his energy, so the protectors couldn't see him.
"You as*hole! Is this the way you train people? by putting their lives in danger!" Izumi shouted out loud forgetting about the protectors in front of her, a few meters away.
"Didn't I tell you that she will drop the strict and worked up tone after the training starts?" Shin let out a small smile looking at Ken to which he sighed and replied with "You are unbelievable."
"What are you talking about…training?" The protector in front of her looked at her with a perplexed face thinking that she was speaking to him.
"We can talk afterwards. Coming back to the lesson Ken, what is the goal of the training?" Shin asked in all seriousness as he looked at Ken.
"To get out of here alive." Ken didn't want to bicker either given the present situation.
"Does the goal include that you have to fight them?" Shin diverted his look to Izumi who replied immediately with a "no".
"Do you both think that you can fight your way out?"
"No." Izumi and Ken replied at the same time. The protectors in front of them were getting confused by every second and started to think that something's wrong and prepared to charge ahead.
"Good, then you don't need to fight. Only focus on evading the attacks just like I taught you both and reach the other end of the road and when you reach it, hide your energy and lose them in the city. I will meet you guys at the forest's entrance but don't worry, I will be scouting you all along the way." Shin disappeared as he said those words. A swift wind made it's way through the protectors, to which they didn't pay much attention. The swift wind was created by Shin passing by them at high speed. But he was so fast that the protectors couldn't even see him passing by them.
"Easier said than done." Ken commented in a slow voice as soon as he saw Shin depart.
"Ken, focus on getting out for now." The protectors charged forth as Izumi completed her sentence while the spirits were ordered to stand their ground to stop them from escaping.
'Swoosh' It was the sound of the lance cutting through the air as Ken jumped over his head and made his way towards the opposite end. Izumi hit one of the protectors in the gut with the grip of her katana and the other in a similar fashion with the katana's sheathe. Izumi was an A-Rank while the one's in front of her were B-Ranked and were slower than her.
Izumi and Ken were trained for a week, every day and night about how to avoid getting hit. Which made it easier for the two to dodge the attacks of the 16 protectors in front of them. Izumi and Ken marched ahead as fast as they could after they made it through the protectors only to be interrupted by the three spirits who were ready to attack if they approached any further.
"There's no way we can avoid them." Izumi shouted out loud looking at the spirits that were growling in blood thirst.
"There's always a way out, just don't think about fighting always, right." Ken reminded Izumi of Shin's word to which Izumi let out a small smile.
"Little one! Light it up!" A little bird's tattoo appeared on Izumi's right hand and the katana was engulfed in fire as she finished saying those words.
Izumi waved her katana with a swift cut in the space in front of her as they ran at the spirits without slowing down. Flames burst out from Izumi's katana and made their way towards the spirit. The flames hit the spirits leaving them perplexed for a moment and forgot what was happening for a second.
"Ba bye, guys." Ken said with a grin on his face as he and Izumi jumped through the fire without any burns as they surrounded their bodies with a thin layer of energy.
"Hahaha…that's it, nice." Shin laughed at the way Izumi and Ken made their way out as he stood on the terrace of one of the tallest building in the city. He looked silently with his hands folded in while the light wind of the night caressed his golden hair gently and blew his black long coat.
The spirits came back to their senses from the sudden confusion and started chasing the two along with the protectors. But by the time the fire cleared up, Izumi and Ken made their way into the city and hid their energies which left the protectors and the spirits clueless where they escaped.
"This is our first training session and we almost got killed. I don't exactly want to think about the future." Ken complained as he ran behind an exhausted Izumi who used a great deal of energy to create such a huge fire.
"Yeah, I am starting to worry if I would be alive after the next training session too." Izumi sighed as they reached the forest entrance.
"Don't worry about it too much. Trust yourself and trust me, you are not going to die so easily." Shin jumped towards the both from one of the trees as he said those words.
"Trust you…" Izumi and Ken shot a sharp glare towards Shin as Izumi said "We will surely die if we follow everything you say."
"C'mon guys. That wasn't that bad was it." Corners of Shin's lips rose a bit after he said those words and then added "I am just getting started after all. Let's go." Shin sped into the forest as he completed saying what he wanted to.
'Gulp' "I have a very bad feeling about this Izumi." Ken looked at Izumi as he gulped.
"I don't even want to talk about it anymore, I just want to have a 'peace of mind' for a little while." Izumi shrugged her shoulders as a chill ran up her spine.
They both exchanged one more glance at each other and followed Shin back into the forest.