Killing Is Ageless

The village. Nir and Rain are in bed. The dawn breaks.

Nir wakes up. He is on his side of the bed, facing the same way he was when he fell asleep. He smells a nice fragrance. He then realizes he is being hugged from behind like a pillow. He lifts his head a bit and calls her: “Rain, we should probably get up”.

Rain wakes up slowly. She opens her eyes. She notices they are close together.

“I doubt we need to arrive in time… But still, we can…” - “POOF!” - A loud slap is dealt to him while he is trying to complete the sentence.

Embarrassed, Rain gets out of bed and starts preparing, saying nothing. Nir Follows with the same actions.

Right before leaving, Nir looks at the table, where their weapons are laid.

“Should we take our weapons?” - Nir asks.

-”Probably”. - Rain answers.

They exit the cabin and walk in the direction of the military school. There isn’t a specific gate or anything dictating what facility it is. Just a bunch of buildings and training grounds lumped together. Some people are training outside.

They enter the closest building and walk in a relatively short hall to notice the only open door in sight. They hear a lot of noise from within the room.

“It’s probably the class”. - Rain assumes. - “Mhm”. - Nir nodes.

They enter through the door to a huge commotion. The class is full of students cheering and yelling. The tables are very disorganized, yet prepared in the shape of an arena in order to hold some sort of combat.

A lot of them appear to be kids. They look very young. Behind some of them who entered the arena only to cheer from a closer position, some kid could be seen on the floor, bleeding, with a wooden sword laid next to him. The noise of their cheers almost masks the horrible sounds that are heard from the continuous beating that kid still suffers. He barely moves as he gets hit again and again by another wooden sword, used as a blunt weapon at this point. The bleeding increases while the cheers finally stop. The students that cheered from within the arena disperse and the one who beat him can be seen moving to a table that is still positioned in an organized manner - to take the seat.

“The kid on the floor… He is dead…” - Nir whispers to Rain, horrified.

-”I’m glad you came”. - A voice is heard behind them. It is Null. He looks somewhat more official now with a new set of leather armor.

“Did you just kill him?” - He asks the class vaguely. “You always act without thinking. What would we do if our soldiers die before the war even starts?”

“You mind giving me a hand with this?” - Null asks Nir and Rain, pointing with his head towards the direction of the kid who just got killed. They look at him as if to say ‘What do you expect us to do here?’

Null realizes that communication failed as they have a habit of not being too responsive, so he moves on to asking one of the students for help. A student agrees and together with Null they lift the body and remove it from class. Other students start arranging the tables in order. Nir and Rain are basically frozen in place.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, amplified by the fact that nobody cleaned the blood, Null and the student return. The student sits down and Null starts introducing Nir and Rain. “Today we have two guests. These two are…” - He realizes he doesn’t know their names. - “Rain”. - She completes the sentence. - “Nir”. - He joins.

-”These two are new here. They have killed two empire soldiers”.

The rest of the students are amazed by those words:

-”Wow, already?” - “Not bad…” - “Is that how you got those weapons?” - A bunch of them try to get answers from them.

Rain whispers to Nir: “How can they act like this? Did they completely forget one of them just died?”

-”Not just died. Killed. They were cheering for this. That Null guy is no different. Their culture is different from ours”. - He answers.

-”And that empire is no better…” - She keeps whispering.

-”The soldier attacked us on sight… The empire may be even worse. This world is potentially much less advanced than ours”.

-”Why is she not covered?” - Asks the student in the back of the class, who just killed the other kid.

-”Covered?” - Rain assumes he is probably talking about her, but doesn’t understand what he means.

-”I think he is talking about your clothes. Remember? Women dress differently here”. - Nir whispers to her.

-”Oh”. - She understands. “Where I’m from - that is how we dress. But we aren’t from the empire if that is what you mean”.

-”I didn’t ask you. I asked him. Aren’t you ashamed of your woman being seen like this?”

Rain is getting angry.

-”She is dressed just like me. And I dress much better than you. Aren’t you ashamed of giving fashion advice to others?”

Rain can’t help but let out a small laughter: “Pfft”.

The aggressive student gets up angrily, as if prepared to engage further.

“You just killed one of your own like it was nothing, don’t put us with the likes of you. And he was just a child too… Animal!” - Nir starts pushing harder with his comments.

-”What are you talking about you dirty dog? Of course he will look like a child”. - The student replies.

-”What? - Nir says quietly, as he does not understand what he meant by that.

-”Rampei, that’s enough banter. They are from a different place, it is obvious they may dress or act differently”. - Null intervenes.

Nir looks at Rain quietly. They decide to treat that outcome as sufficient enough, albeit still bothered by what happened to that kid, and by the lack of care his peers seem to show, including the teacher.

“Take your seats. You can choose anywhere that is empty”.

Nir and Rain look around the class to choose a good spot, realizing that almost half of the seats are empty. They choose the spot in the front of the class, as far away as possible from Rampei, the aggressive student they antagonized. The class begins.

Null is teaching about the different herbs that are found in the forest.

-”I didn’t imagine there were going to be such normal classes like this”. Nir whispers to her.

-”Yea, me neither. I thought he was just going to teach combat. But this could be useful, although I could use some more info about the animals, not just the herbs”.

Eventually, the class is over and the students walk outside to the training grounds. “They probably go training after class every day”. - Rain suggests.

Null suddenly stands next to them and asks Nir: “What did you mean by ‘a child’ earlier?”

Nir looks at Rain surprised. Some of those interactions just fail to connect. Rain turns her head left and right, signing she doesn’t understand what he means by that question either.

“Most of the students are not children, but we are all soldiers. We respect the will of the spirit. Though, of course those who got their kill young will appear young.

This conversation makes less and less sense to Nir. He stays quiet.

“Anyway, come outside to the training grounds”.

They follow Null outside. Some of the students are already at it, combating each other.

“Do the two of you want to participate? You can also just watch if you prefer”.

-”I’ll participate”. - Rain declares.

In the distance, Rampei can be seen leaning against a target dummy designed for shooting arrows. Rain picks up an arrow and prepares her bow. She aims straight at that target. After focusing for a few seconds, she releases the arrow, which is sent flying rapidly, hitting the target dummy right in the middle. The hit is swift and powerful. Rampei gets caught so off guard that he jumps backwards, scared for his life.

The rest of the students are in absolute awe of her skill. - “Wow!” - “She is amazing!”

Some of them laugh at Rampei for his miserable reaction.

He is furious. He is staring her down resentfully.

-”I will just watch for now”. - Says Nir. He and Rain stare right back.

Some students come to ask Rain about her technique. They surround her, creating a view that Nir recognizes. Rain’s getting everyone’s attention.

She is drowning in a sea of questions, unable to properly answer any.

She turns to Nir: “This is all too familiar”.

-”Yep”. - He replies.

-”You are not bothered by this, are you?” - She asks.

-”Never did. It feels good… The nostalgia”.

Rampei is leaving the training grounds. Nir and Rain notice that.

Rain keeps practicing her arrows while Nir is watching. The rest of the students get back to their training with wooden swords. Some of them are being more aggressive than others.

It eventually gets dark. Null is about to leave the school’s training grounds but gives his permission to keep going. Some students stay but most of them leave.

“I still have some money left, shall we go to the market to buy some food? We can decide what is the plan for tomorrow… Well… Tomorrow”. - Nir suggests.

-“Yes. Good call”. - Rain answers, implying she is hungry.

They head towards the market.

-”Do you think they plan to go to war against the empire?” - Nir asks her.

At the same time, back at the military school.

Rampei gets back to the training grounds. He holds a sword that looks like Nir’s and the empire’s soldiers’ swords.

-”I don’t know… They did say something about it, didn’t they?” - Rain considers.

Rampei lifts his sword to the sky, looking left and right, seeing there aren’t many people left there.

-”Yea…” - Nir answers. “I just hope we don’t get caught up in it”.