Our group training finally starts. We wake up early in the morning, and I'm not surprised to see that Haru was still fast asleep. Mayumi on the other hand, was already practicing. As usual, I wake Haru up and he actually wakes up, which is a surprise. I go to the spar arena to find master. I walk in as he was meditating, he gets startled and I apologize, he says "Oh, it is really not your fault. I was meditating while you guys were meant to be training" I bow my head down to say "Good morning."
And so my day starts. Regular routine, my 5km run. The usual. I spar with Haru and he's still as amazing as ever. I aspire to learn from him. At lunch I ask him "How do you do all of this stuff while still being half asleep?" He simply answers, "I don't know. It just happens." I laugh at his cliché response and begin to eat. After we finish our lunch we go back to our spar training. Only this time, with Mayumi. Oh boy, this was going to be a fun one, as we start the duel. She quickly repositions herself with a swift movement, as fast as the wind. Not only was difficult to get close to, I must be careful of her arrows. After a lot of chasing and dodging, I finally get in close and manage to land a hit. Which makes her drop her quiver. I smirk, knowing that victory was certain. When all of a sudden Mayumi pulls out senbon needles from her pouch. Loads three of them into the bow and shoots them at me. Startled, I dodge two of them, but the third one gets a clean hit on me. With that, she wins the duel. We both bow down after the duel. I go back to my harsh kicking practice. Kicking over and over again to improve my muscle memory a swell has leg strength. Today was the day I made a new personal best record of 500 kicks in a day, I was quite satisfied. We had dinner, and went to sleep. This training regiment went on and on for months and months to come. It was now 1 and a half years after my first duel with Mayumi. Haru and Mayumi both become the absolute best they could be at their respective crafts. I too became better at my taekwondo skills, and also picked up some weapon combatant experience.
The three of us became strong by a great caliber, the day had come, the day for our graduation from the Dojo. Master cried tears of joy, looking at us, all big and strong. We all bow down to master and head off to the tower, the tower we had all so wanted to traverse. The day was finally here.
We first head out to the city the tower was located at, many people still circled the tower. Waiting for the climbers to come back. We make our way to the gate. Just as we proceed to go into the tower, people stop us and ask us if we're screwed in the head, to which I calmly reply "No, we're here to challenge this tower." The crowd gasps and cheers us on. This puts up quite a face on the three of us. And so we push the doors open and walk on inside. After closing the door shut behind our backs, looking forward, we saw nothing. Everything was pitch black. But not for long though, just as we speak, weird-looking light altars start lighting up. Showing us our way to the first chamber. Going into the first chamber, it stank of blood. We had trouble breathing in here. We continue to walk for a while. Monsters start gathering around us, we get ready as well. The monsters that were gathered, attack all at once, unleashing a large-scale attack. But with Haru's huge arsenal of weaponry, he chose to use a staff for this chamber. He swings his staff to defeat all of them at once. But yeah, we aren't that surprised. Haru is a prodigy after all. Moving on further into the chamber. A new wave of monsters closes in, this time Mayumi aims, shooting poisoned arrows. Which quickly gets rid of the new monsters that appeared. I was anxious, waiting for my turn to shine, just as I started to lose hope, today was my lucky day. The next wave of monsters were ogres they fought with close-ranged combat. I quickly approach all of them, swiftly eliminating all of them with my kicks, all in one motion. Which leaves the two smiling. Finally, after the three waves, it was time for the boss, It approaches us, we look at it. It's ginormous, a ginormous ogre. Mayumi quickly aims and shoots her poisoned arrows at it, to much surprise. It barely left a scratch. She panicked and told the two of them to deal with it. "Uh.. my attacks don't work on it, so would you pack this up?" we gladly accept the request and use our best equipment and weaponry, this was the perfect time to test out my new weapon, my newly forged katana. On the other side, Haru gets up and uses his Sansetsukon, looking at the look in his eye, I knew he was serious this time. We approached the ogre. Which out of anger does a rather dumb move, smashes the ground. Leaving openings all over his body for us to take advantage of. Both of us move quickly to its back and attack, I try to slash its legs, and Haru tries to keep him on the ground by hitting its hands and head repeatedly. I successfully cut its legs off, now unable to move. The big ogre screams in agony and rage. Haru quickly switches to his naginata and slashes off its arms. The ogre no longer has limbs. Moves here and there, trying its best to counter-attack. But we left no openings. And slash off its head and behead it. Leaving behind his Axe, and necklace. The necklace was said to increase sanity against the Tower chambers. After defeating the boss of this chamber, we see two paths, one that leads to the next chamber. One that leads to an exit. We sit there, for a while trying to decide which path to choose. We finally end up taking the exit. We took with us the necklace and ax and headed on outside. As we came to the exit door. We could hear people cheering. We were the first trio-party to defeat this chamber on our own. The people congratulated us on our victory. But one problem had risen, we were incredibly hungry.