The metallic roars of a battered trash can bellowed through the previously silent room.
"Get your filthy asses out of bed, ladies! Get the fuck up! Get up and get ready!" Goutetsu yelled and kept hammering away with his baton. Most recruits shot up instantly. Those who did not ended up lying on the floor.
"What the fuck is this?! Do it again and right this time!" The drill instructor barked at Ieyasu, who was still out on his feet. Goutetsu tossed the white blanket almost at the other end of the room. It would have been much easier to just slap him awake.
That's how Tatsumi had done it most of the time. Either that or breakfast.
He frantically tugged at the blanket to make the ends match. Through blurry vision and muffled screams. The recruit froze up and awoke the moment the sergeant stood behind him, slapping the baton against his hand ever so slowly. Threat heard loud and clear.
"Come on, Private Peasant. Get working! Don't fall back asleep for fuck's sake. Get your ass in gear. By the time you got anything done, your entire squad is back to sleep with you. Permanently!"
Tatsumi hesitated. But he did manage to work through this verbal assault eventually.
Can't he just shut it for a second?
Sayo on the other hand was already lacing up her boots by the time Ieyasu got done with the bed. She was looking at their mentor and he seemed to have noticed.
"Are you waiting for me to commemorate you for achieving not even the bare minimum, Bad weeds? If you could run half as fast, you might not even end up a reject like General Blockhead over there."
The second he turned to torment other recruits, Sayo's jaw stretched from side to the side, teeth gnashing as she gazed up the ceiling.
"Is that your best attempt at order? Get your shite together, you retarded dwarf! For every failed shot every recruit, including you, owes me 20 pushups!"
Strangely enough, by the end of this ordeal there were no pushups in order. How kind of Goutetsu. Or perhaps he just wanted to move on with whatever regimen he had in store for his recruits and couldn't be bothered to torture them with countless pushups at the moment.
After the roll call 'the daily march' was in order.
"Get moving, you filthy animals! I could run faster on my hands!"
The drill instructor taunted his subjects. And he did so running backwards before he'd charge onward uninterrupted like the wolves in their village.
For Tatsumi, this was actually quite feasible. If it wasn't for his slightly sore legs, he could have run a bit faster even. Soon enough it became apparent that the group split into two factions.
Those ahead and those behind.
Even 'retarded dwarf' was doing fairly decent. By the end of it, one half only looked exhausted while the other appeared to be at the verge of death like yesterday. The desire to rest was the only thing that united the platoon.
"Not so fast, you wimps. I demand a hundred pushups from every single one of you boneheads for your inability to keep your shite in order. You can thank our future rejects General blockhead and retarded dwarf for the extra training. They thought you could use some more because you filthy animals clearly lack discipline. Now get down on your knees!"
If looks could kill, this would have been a public execution.
They should have known that their drill sergeant would never let a good opportunity to torture them go to waste.
"1, 2, 3, for the imperial army!" The recruits were forced to chant in unison as they endured each push-up. Some of the recruits collapsed on the dirt only for Goutetsu to yell them back into action. Most of them just couldn't be bothered to stand up, once they got done with their amount.
"Stand up, when I speak to you!" Goutetsu hissed at the last recruit lying in the dirt like a corpse. "Turns out what these 'dim-witted peasants' lack in brains, they more than make up for with their muscles. Unless you spoiled brats don't toughen up as soon as possible, I'll send you pathetic worms back to your mommies, while the real soldiers defend your city. On second thought, we might still have some use for you as meat shields for all I care."
Ieyasu couldn't help but form one of his dumb grins at that assessment. Sayo gave Tatsumi a telling, wide-eyed stare.
"Now, get some rest. I have no use for recruits playing dead. Dismissed!"
The recruits were relieved to finally head inside. There was also the familiar silence from yesterday, which was somewhat pleasant. Ieyasu did the only logical thing in such a situation:
Stuff his belly.
His two friends tagged along of course. It was always advantageous to stick together in unchartered territory.
The boy couldn't help but take a big plate of everything the canteen offered. Tatsumi and Sayo simply took a portion of fried rice each. Somehow just a simple portion of fried rice tasted better than the rice they'd eaten in their village.
"You've got to try this! It's really good." Ieyasu offered with a full mouth. Whatever the green thing was that he was holding in his hand, the desire to try has decreased significantly.
"No, I'll pass." Sayo declined.
"Sure." The other boy nodded and chewed on the round thing. "Disgusting!" He almost spat it back out again, but managed to swallow it down.
Ieyasu just shrugged. "More for me." He kept digging into his meal as carefree as a boy could.
"You'd have still eaten it, right?" Sayo gazed over to Tatsumi, who poured some water down his throat.
"Sure. I'm not picky. Food is food."
"For a second I thought you were already getting used to life here." Sayo chuckled.
For a moment, Tatsumi glanced at Ieyasu's plate filled with several different meals, they had never seen before in their lives.
"No, I'm not picky…" He giggled. "…but, you know the fish salad your mother has always made every other week or so? Yeah, I absolutely hated it. But it's still better than going to bed with nothing."
The young woman raised an eyebrow. "Strange…you always said you loved it."
Tatsumi gave a sweaty smile and rubbed the back of his head. "My parents told me to be 'nice' to your parents."
She grabbed both of his shoulders. "You idiot…It would have been ok, if we both told her that the salad was disgusting. Everyone hated it."
"Even if I did, what other options did we have?" Sigh exhaled.
Sayo gobbled down a spoon of rice. "…true."
Ieyasu broke his eating spree for a moment. "I don't know about you guys, but I liked her fish salad." Again, he spoke with a filled mouth. That would probably never change.
"Because you'd eat anything that isn't up the tree by the count of three." Sayo remarked with a roll of her eyes.
He choked down his food. "Can ya blame me? I'm hungry. A man's gotta eat. Especially when he's gotta work hard all day long like we do. Them fields ain't gonna take care of themselves, ya know?"
"Fair point." Tatsumi nodded. The three now focused on enjoying their meal. 'Retarded dwarf' approached them slowly. He even stopped for a moment, but decided to move past them. Funnily enough, the boy had nothing more than a bowl of rice as well.
The plates of the two young men over in the back corner of the room looked more like Ieyasu's. Probably living in the capital judging by accent and the size of their plates.
Sayo gave their comrade an encouraging smile. "You can sit with us if you want."
Instantly, a faint blush crept on his cheeks. "Hm? Me?" 'Retarded dwarf' asked with a slightly higher pitch in his voice.
"Yeah, you. C'mon over, we don't bite. Except her." Ieyasu answered. He immediately dove back into the mashed potatoes. The flustered boy grabbed his bowl and slowly sat down next to 'General Blockhead'.
"Says the dumb, voracious glutton!" She hissed in retaliation.
The other two couldn't help but chuckle.
"What's your name by the way? I'm sure it isn't 'retarded dwarf'." Tatsumi interjected.
The youngest of the recruits cleared his throat. "Momoharu. That's my name." He quickly stuttered out.
"Way too long. Imma call ya 'Momo' from now on." Ieyasu declared, before he chugged down another big spoon of potatoes.
"Alright…and what are your names if I may ask?"
"No need to be shy. We're colleagues now after all. My name's Sayo, the one next to me is Tatsumi and this fool over there's called Ieyasu."
"Pleased to meet you all. And thank you for helping me yesterday, Tatsumi. I felt like I was going to die at any moment. And the drill instructor…" Momo stammered, eyes everywhere except the young man sitting across from him.
"We're a team, right? We should help each other out. No one should just be left behind." Tatsumi grinned across both his cheeks and raised his thumb.
"Just between us. How old are ya, Momo? There's no way, they'd just let kids stroll into the army." The other young man questioned, putting his food aside for once.
The boy looked around himself several times, before he whispered. "I'm 14 years old. I'm turning 15 in two weeks and a few days."
"We're not even that much older…if you'd ask our parents, we're still kids to them." She shook her head, gaze focused into her bowl for a moment.
"And the authorities? They just turned a blind eye?" Tatsumi asked to which the answer was obvious in hindsight. It was still baffling as to how exactly the boy made it here.
"Everyone had to pay some sort of fee to the official, so he'd sign off on my application. I've spent the night sleeping on the road."
The three friends just looked at each other for a fraction of a second. But that sufficed to share the same thought among them. The same sensation written all over their outraged faces. Given what they saw just the day before, a night in these streets was anything but safe.
Hell, not even during broad daylight.
At least their secretary was so dull and jaded that she couldn't be bothered to squeeze them dry before she'd send them straight into the meat grinder.
"And which village are you from?" Sayo inquired, her lips spreading slightly to form a warm smile.
"Shirakawago village. It's really nice there during winter and we've got some good lakes for fishing."
"Same here. Wait a second…that ain't far away from our village. We're from Takayama village." Ieyasu pointed out, fork in hand.
"So we're practically neighbors. Sweet!" Tatsumi commented with a cute and contagious smirk.
The boy's cheekbones raised. "Dad said it's about…an hour or two away on foot. With a carriage you're surely there in no time. He's working food transportation for the Capital." Momo was speaking with significantly less stutter now. "What are your parents doing?"
"We're all farmers mostly. They grow all kinds of things for the village, but the vast majority goes to the Capital. Our parents used to do most of the heavy lifting but since a few years now we've taken more and more of the workload so they don't have to. Nowadays, they focus more on giving back to the place and helping the community out where they can. We also do, when we're not working the fields or something. More often than not you even get a free meal or a bit of pocket money as thanks."
"And…" Ieyasu choked down the last piece of his meal. "We're also goin' fishing occasionally. The fish from our lake's so delicious, ya gotta try!"
"I'm gonna when I get the chance! Our fish's also excellent. You can make delicious fish salad with it."
Tatsumi suddenly recoiled, pressed his hand against his mouth as if he was about to puke. Sayo had almost the exact same reaction, the second the two forbidden words were mentioned.
"Are you alright?" The boy asked with wide eyes.
Tatsumi snagged his water bottle. "Yeah, yeah. I just choked on accident."
After a moment of awkward silence, Momo spoke again with a lowered voice. "So…what do you think of our drill instructor?"
"He's a jerk." Sayo scoffed, arms folded together.
"I mean…he's mean to us, calling us these names and stuff. And he's working us to death. My legs still hurt. So you're probably right."
"It's his job to train us, but does he really need to go about it like this? We're still humans." Tatsumi sighed.
"I almost started to like him when he let them city folks know who's better suited for the job. I was so close to saying: 'Yeah, go tell 'em, boss!'." Ieyasu snickered, not lowering his voice one bit.
The two other recruits in the back of the canteen glared daggers at them before one of them dug his fork back into his salad and kept eating.
"Yes we knew, blockhead!" She closed her eyes and nearly smacked her forehead.
"How? Can ya suddenly read minds?"
"No, I can't. But your noggin isn't awfully hard to crack. It was written all over your dumb, grinning face."
"Now listen up! I don't give a crap what these spoiled leeches think. And stop callin' me a dimwit. Unlike your unfunny highness I know how to have a laugh every once in a while. It wouldn't kill ya!"
Instead of hissing, Sayo just remained silent.
"I still wonder though…why would people from the capital file for the military? It's not like they'd need to like us." Momo questioned.
"Who knows? Maybe they wanted to try that out and see if it works for them? Who doesn't wanna be a hero of the masses? Everyone has his reasons for being here." Tatsumi answered with another innocent grin.
"Ain't no moneybags from the city gonna send their kids to get their hands dirty. They might actually work hard. They might break a sweat, gods forbid!" Ieyasu sneered. "Anyway, I'm gonna take a good nap now." He stretched out and headed for the counter.
"I'm sure he didn't mean it that way." All he could give her at this point was a sweaty smile.
"No, he exactly meant everything he just said. Even if he wasn't wrong, I'm afraid he's gonna make us unnecessary enemies if he keeps running his mouth like that." Sayo exhaled a sigh. Like the rest of the group, she returned her bowl and got some rest.
"Hey, Tatsumi…" The girl spoke up and immediately lowered her voice. "Am I really unfunny? I know how to laugh at a joke when I hear one."
He glanced to the side, hesitating to reply. "Do you want me to be honest?"
"Always. I'm not a snowflake."
"You haven't laughed recently. At least as far as I can remember. You also scolded us a lot up until now pretty much, because we had to get this job. Maybe that's why."
She just stared at him for a moment, not saying anything. "So you're saying…I'm insufferable?" Her gaze lowered when these words left her lips.
"No, not insufferable. Listening to you and Ieyasu going back and forth all day wasn't particularly entertaining though. I think you should have a bit more faith in us. We're no longer boys. You don't need to mother us all day long. Sometimes we just like to fool around a bit, that's all. But we'll always be there when it matters. That's what friends are for, aren't they?" He offered with a genuine smile.
Again, Sayo did not respond immediately. "Thanks. I appreciate the honesty."
"No problem. I think we all just did what we thought was the right call. What matters is that we're here." The young man patted her shoulder and went to get some much needed rest as well.
In the afternoon…
The recruits were all gathered and lined up in the yard, staring down the course they were made to run through just the day prior. Their drill instructor stood at the ready for another exercise in humiliation and torture.
"You know the drill. Now get moving, you filthy animals!"
And just like yesterday, they crawled through the dirt like cockroaches, climbed up the wooden tower and swung through railings like monkeys.
"Loyalty, duty, honor, respect, courage, integrity and self-sacrifice. These are the core values of our beloved imperial army. Learn them. Remember them. Live by them. And if you don't, I'll make sure to have you kicked out before you can be a stain upon this nation and your comrades." Goutetsu yelled repeatedly throughout this entire ordeal like a broken record.
"General Blockhead, what are our core values?" Demanding eyes trained on the recruit trying to catch his breath. "Don't make me choke the answer out of you."
"Sir, loyalty…duty, honor, courage, integrity and self-sacrifice I think, sir." Ieyasu exhaled. He took long pauses in between to try to remember more of the big words the drill instructor shouted at them.
"You think, huh? I think you lack respect. I think I need to drill our values through that thick blockhead of yours. I think you can run a few more rounds since you clearly have no respect for the army, me and your comrades."
The drill instructor kept chewing out each and every single one of them. And he chased them through the parkour to no end until everyone, even Ieyasu could recite the 7 values. And they wouldn't be forgetting them any time soon.
"Alright, training is over for the day. Blockhead and Bad weeds are going to do clean-up. Dismissed!"
Later…
Almost all of the recruits have already gone to bed after dinner, only Sayo and Ieyasu remained on their feet to finish up their cleaning duty. She hasn't said a word to him since breakfast, although still talking to Tatsumi and Momo.
Ieyasu dug his mob into the water can. "Are ya sulking again?"
Sayo bit her tongue and kept doing her work. She didn't even glance at him.
"Look, I might've been a bit of an ass earlier today." He conceded. "I'm sorry, ok? I just don't like being taken for an idiot."
After a few moments, the girl did finally speak up. "No, you stood up for yourself. If anything, I should apologize to you and Tatsumi both. The past few weeks have been hard. I must've been insufferable."
For a second, he just stared at her with wide eyes, until a cute smile formed on his face.
"Only sometimes." The boy giggled. "Ya kept us on track. Our people count on us, so we had to make it here. We can't slack off, but ya can relax a bit for once. We'll get into the swing of things and everything's gonna be alright."
"I hope so. I just wish you were a bit more focused at times. It would do you good." She sighed.
"Look, I know I ain't the brightest but I'm tryin'. Earlier I just wanted to get it over with, but everytime that son of a bitch chewed me out about his values, my noggin just stopped workin'. I couldn't do anything about it."
"At least you're trying, which is good."
"How about that? I'll get smart and you learn how to have a laugh. Deal?"
Sayo's cheekbones raised and she shook his hand. "Deal. Let's clean this up real quick. I want to sleep."
"Yeah! Can't you fuck somewhere else? People are trying to sleep!" Some recruit shouted from across the other room. It could have been the one with the big ears by the sound of his voice.
"I'll put you to sleep." The woman tossed the mop aside. She was already one foot out of the restroom.
Ieyasu seized her wrist. "Let him bitch and moan. That wimp can't even take a bit of noise. He ain't worth your trouble. That spot's reserved solely for me."
Sayo turned around. "That is true. You're lots of trouble at times."
He blinked at her with a teasing grin. "Admit it! It'd be boring, if I wasn't."
"Maybe." She chuckled.
The two of them finished up their work and headed to bed. Not much later, the drill instructor shut the lights off.
A/N: Next chapter "Kill the animosity"
And that concludes Chapter 3! Sorry, that it took so long after chapter 2, but life has been busy. I have family, law school (and its exams) and more to take care of, not much time remaining for writing.
Now that I have a bit of vacation, I might be able to push out chapter 4 (and 5) relatively soon. They might also end up in the same length as this one right now, seeing as we are still in basic training but things will heat up soon.
Feel free to engage with me on discord. We've been hit with a horrendous name change update so I believe my tag is ashura3359 now. I know, disgusting right? If not, it remains Ashura#3359