Hitryel fell to the wooden floor, holding his gut, Kelty standing tall by his feet.
She smiled, wiping the sweat off her forehead. "That makes this 1200 wins and 0 losses for me."
Hitryel put a hand over his face, trying to hide the tears that were erupting from his eyes. "Smoke it!" he sobbed as he grunted. "This is so frustrating! Why can't I defeat you! No matter how many hours I kill on training, I can't even get a single hit on you! Defeating you is impossible!"
Kelty breathed out, sitting next to him on the floor. "Not if you train more than me."
Hitryel got up sharply, grabbing Kelty by her collar. "Don't give me that!" he blurted in annoyance. "I train in a single day more than what you've trained in your entire life—!" He stopped after noticing the look on Kelty's face. It wasn't her usual look—the one that seemed to look down on him. It was a look that Hitryel had never seen on Kelty's face before this. It was a look of seriousness.
Hitryel let go of her collar, lowering his head. "I'm sorry," he said, softer. "I won't do it ever again."
"You always say that for everything," Kelty said, exhaling softly. "But never when it comes to fighting."
Hitryel covered his eyes, trying to stop his tears. "That's why this is so frustrating!"
Kelty tried to look at Hitryel's tucked face—
Hitryel turned his face to the ceiling, squeezing shut his eyes, tears rolling down from them, trailing down his flushed cheeks. "I love fighting!" he shouted. "And I hate losing! But my love for fighting is far greater than my hate for losing! Smoke it! Smoke it! SMOKE IT! Why does it have to be this way?" He turned his head down to meet Kelty's eyes.
Kelty gulped, eyes widening. "You're…smiling…?"
Hitryel did not know why, but his lips had curved to a smile as tears climbed down his face, dripping off his chin onto the wooden floor. "Even if I try to," he confessed, "I can't stop myself from fighting a strong opponent like you, Kelty. When I'm facing a strong opponent, I feel…alive.
"The stronger the opponent I face, the more meaningful my dream becomes! That's why I can't stop myself from fighting you! You give meaning to my life! Without you, I'd have left Arestos long ago in search of some other meaning! But you kept me here. I hate you for that! I hate that you're standing in the way of my dream! But at the same time…I love fighting you, and without surpassing you, my dream holds no meaning!
"Smoke it!" he said loudly, flushing further. "I don't know how to explain this to you! I don't understand it myself! I'm an idiot!"
Kelty's eyes watered before lines of tears trailed down her cheeks. She turned away, sobbing.
Hitryel snorted in his running nose, apprehensive for another reaction, though obviously surprised by this one. "Say something, Kelty," he said, reaching for her with a gloved hand. "At least call me an idiot!"
Kelty glanced over her shoulder, her golden eyes solemn. "Hitryel…" she said softly, eyes welling up. "I won't be able to fight you for long…"
Hitryel leaned toward her, brows furrowing in confusion. "Huh? What…do you mean?"
A tear dripped off her chin. She exhaled with closed eyes. "I'm just…moving away."
Hitryel climbed to his feet sharply. "Huh?" he said, annoyed. "Moving? Where? When?"
"It's just…" Kelty said, lowering her head. "I also want to fight stronger opponents. I also want some meaning in my life. I have to go."
Hitryel gulped, his lips forming a crooked smile. "Oy, oy!" he said, voice wavering. "Are you saying I'm not a strong enough challenge for you? Just wait for another day or two. I'm evolving at a frightening pace. I'll train until I surpass you, Kelty—!"
"You can't!" Kelty cut in with a frown, looking up with her watery eyes. "You're too weak, Hitryel! You won't ever become the strongest fighter, because you won't ever be able to beat me, idiot!
"I'm going to be the warrior known throughout Highplexia as 'Unrivaled under the Stars' because I'll have defeated the strongest of fighters that exist! You can't do that, since there can only be one 'Unrivaled'! And that's going to be me! Got that?"
Hitryel set his jaw, meeting her eyes with resolution. "If that's the case…" He straightened his back, putting forward a gloved hand. "Let's make a Warrior's Vow, Kelty!"
Kelty reached to wipe the tears off her eyes. "A Warrior's Vow? That's the most sacred promise a fighter can make."
"That's why I'm asking you to make a Warrior's Vow with me!" Hitryel said loudly, letting his hand hang in front of Kelty's face.
Kelty let her eyes linger on the offered hand thoughtfully. "What are we going to promise each other?"
"The fight for being 'Unrivaled under the Stars'!" Hitryel announced. "Didn't you say that only ONE OF US can be called that? That's why I'll be waiting at the top for our final match. We'll decide who among the two of us is truly worthy of being known as the 'Unrivaled'! What do you say, Kelty?" Hitryel looked deep into her golden eyes, trying to find if she really understood the weight with which he blurted out his words—
Kelty tightly clasped the hand hanging in front of her, smiling. "I Vow!"
Hitryel smiled back, pulling her onto her feet. "I knew you'd understand!"
"But I have a condition," Kelty said, leaning closer. "No matter what happens to the other one of us, we're not going to falter from this path. Got that?"
"I do," Hitryel said with a smile. "I wasn't planning on giving you the title of 'Unrivaled' out of pity anyway."
"But we both know you won't show any 'pity.'"
"Nothing makes me madder than my opponent holding back against me. That's why I won't ever disrespect my opponent by holding back against them."
"That's why I never went easy on you."
"Thanks for that."
"And I'm keeping it that way! I won't EVER go easy on you, Hitryel!"
"Good! I wouldn't have it any other way, Kelty!"
###
Another day meant another match with Kelty. Having done his workout for the morning drills to come, Hitryel entered the dojo with excitement for this day's match—after the drills, naturally.
Only to be greeted by unsettling gloom on the face of every person inside the dojo. Many students stood in front of him, blocking his path. Looking around, he did not find a single student doing anything even remotely resembling a drill. He pushed aside a couple of students and his confusion elevated as he noticed Emerton sitting on the dojo floor next to a couple of strangers.
Both of them were women, though one was significantly older than the other. One had blue-hair with light skin, and wore a white coat over her dark blue shirt. The other was an older lady who had purple hair and wore a brown coat. She had a medical mask hiding most of her face.
Hitryel stepped closer to them, pushing aside the students standing in his way. The students looked down at him as he walked from in between them, but not a single shred of anger was to be found on their faces. Not even in the faces of the two foreign students that had come to challenge the dojo the previous day—who still were here for some odd reason.
Hitryel finally made past the students silently blocking his way, standing straight from Emerton. "Good morning, Master Emer—"
He froze, words choking out of him.
It couldn't be. This had to be something else.
Hitryel's eyes fell upon the person lying on the floor in front of Emerton and the two strangers.
This was someone else, right? It couldn't have been…
The person had a white cloth covering their entire body, a separate cloth covering their face…
Silver hair on the head beneath the cloth.
Emerton bowed. "It's good to see you attending morning drills again, Hitryel, though I'm afraid we won't be having those for today."
Hitryel gulped, eyeing the face of the person lying lifelessly by his feet, trying to look past the cloth on their face—
"Last night," Emerton said, "I had to experience the worst thing that has ever and that will ever happen to me."
The purple-haired lady sighed from beside Emerton. "Humans are fragile beings, so we have to act smart."
Hitryel's eyes boiled with anger, warms tears flooding out of them. He clenched his fists as tight as he could, his nails pushing into his palms.
'We made a Vow, you smoking bastard!'
He clenched his jaw. "This…" he whispered to himself as he blinked his tears, "is not real… You…are stronger…than this." He slowing reached for the cloth covering the lifeless body's face.
Emerton gulped. "Hitryel—?"
Hitryel pulled down the cloth, eyes widening when his fear turned true. "You can't go back on your Vow!" He gripped the collar of Kelty's lifeless body, pulling on it as he cried loudly. "What about our promise, our Vow! You cannot just die! You're way stronger than this!"
Marlev held him back, trying to pull him away from Kelty's body. "Let go, Hitryel!" he said through clenched teeth. "Don't make all this any worse!"
Hitryel let his grip on Kelty's collar loosen, getting pulled away by Marlev. He scrambled onto his feet, running head first toward the entrance.
He squeezed his eyes shut, for he had seen enough, and wanted to see nothing more.
###
As Hitryel overlooked the setting sun from the cliff, he realized how selfish he had acted in the dojo this morning. He cared so much about the Vow that Kelty and he had made that he forgot to care about Kelty herself.
If he did, he'd have asked Emerton about what had happened to her instead of running away from the dojo just because he was angry at her for…
'How much did Kelty care about our Vow…?' he thought idly. 'Wait…I'm angry at her because she…died?'
Hitryel's stomach felt sick as his mind yelled at him for thinking this way. He was an idiot, for he could not even decide what he wanted to think and what he was fighting off his mind…
"You seemed to be down even more so than usual evenings, dear student," a familiar voice said from behind. "What's bothering you this much?"
Hitryel slowly glanced over his shoulder, suppressing the surprise of finding Emerton standing behind him.
Emerton presented a pair of gloves to Hitryel.
Hitryel stared at them for a long moment, accepting them and turning forward. Hitryel ran his fingers through the striking gloves, examining them thoroughly. The padding of these gloves had taken a lot of beating—a sign of the person using them training with discipline. But they were of Hitryel's fit more than they were of Emerton's—
"Those are Kelty's," Emerton said calmly. "She overexerted her body while she was training."
Hitryel's eyes widened as he sharply turned to face his teacher. "Training?" He looked at the worn out gloves once again. "She trained…THIS much?"
"To stay the strongest," Emerton said. "To not lose to you, her only opponent."
"So you mean…" Hitryel's head sunk as he came to a grim realization. "I…killed Kelty…"
"Before others woke up," Emerton said calmly, "and after everyone was done for the day, my daughter trained. I have yet to meet a single person who loved fighting more than Kelty. She loved fighting to the point she was willing to die for it.
"And you think she did all this for you, Young Hitryel? You couldn't be more wrong, my dear student. It seems you failed to understand the true meaning behind the Teaching 'respect your opponents.' It does not mean not talking down to them, it simply means not disregarding the effort that they bring into a fight."
'I love fighting!' Hitryel's own words echoed in his head. 'She…also loved fighting…' he thought. Of course she did. But…more than even him?
Enough to die for it?
"If anyone is at fault here, it is I," Emerton admitted. "I couldn't stop her. Should I have put more effort in holding her back from getting closer to her dream? Was she running after it at an unnatural pace? Did she know the possibility of this happening? Can I blame her for not learning 'balance' before it came to this? Who's at fault here, the daughter who dreamed, or the father who failed to stop her from dreaming?
"These are some questions that I have to deal with. This is my burden to carry alone. You had nothing to do with Kelty's death, Young Hitryel. Though, you might have had a part in her pursuit of greatness—which is never a bad thing. If anything, while she was with us, you helped her more than I did, dear student. You gave meaning to her dream.
"So, thank you for that, son."
Hitryel's eyes watered as he turned away from Emerton with a clenched jaw, holding back his tears, tightening the grip on Kelty's striking gloves. 'You cared even more than I did…! I'm an idiot! Kelty…'
"I'll do it for both of us!" Hitryel announced, pressing Kelty's gloves against his forehead. "I'll fulfill our Vow! I'll become the greatest fighter to ever exist!
"I'll become Unrivaled under the Stars!"
###
'This is not how it's meant to be!'
As the sharp blade hidden inside Maxvil's right forearm shot toward Hitryel's face, his view darkened, even though his eyes were wide open.
They got even wider when the whole canvas shook beneath his feet, bringing him back to the moment.
"Huh?" Hitryel said, surprised. "You?"