Chapter 10: Obstacle

Taichi woke up at 5:00 AM, same as always. His body ached faintly from the previous day, but the moment his eyes opened, he tossed off his blanket without hesitation and got ready for the day. He grabbed his tracksuit, headed to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, changed, and slipped quietly down the stairs. The automatic door at the front made way for him, and the sight on the other side froze him.

A girl in a tracksuit stood outside, stretching her legs, cracking her neck with calm confidence.

“Good morning, Taichi,” Asumi said without looking back.

“...Morning,” Taichi replied, stepping beside her and stretching as well. “You’re up early.”

“Well, you’re my competition for the top rank, right?” Asumi said, shrugging. “If I’m not training at the same frequency and level as you, then I’ll never manage to take it for myself. Mind if I train with you?”

“Go crazy,” Taichi replied with a slight yawn.

They started jogging around the campus.

Only a few days prior, Asumi was struggling to keep up with half of Taichi’s training regiment, and while she did try to play it off, he wasn’t oblivious to that fact. His physical endurance was higher than hers, but he knew it wasn’t enough. After realizing endurance was the very significant cost of his aspect, he knew he had to train even harder. If Asumi couldn’t keep up, so be it. He’d keep going on his own for as long as he needed to.

However, after running 5 laps, Asumi wasn’t winded at all.

After 10 laps – Taichi’s usual total – she was completely fine.

Shocked, Taichi kept running, pushing for an 11th, 12th, 13th lap.

Asumi stayed by his side the entire time, keeping his pace.

By the time they reached 20 laps – 100 kilometers – the sun had risen.

“You’ve gotten better,” Taichi remarked.

“Not by much,” Asumi said casually. “What’s next?”

“We’re hitting the aerobic gym.”

“The… what now?”

Taichi guided her toward a building on the outskirts of campus that she’d never visited before. Inside was something straight off a reality competition show: towering platforms, mechanical traps, shifting arrangements, and an endless array of automated obstacle modes that were manipulated and reshaped by the mechanics built into the building.

“How did I not know this building existed? And how did you know about it?!” Asumi demanded.

“Well, I messaged Kodaka Sensei asking if there was any type of reflex training facilities here, because back at home, I’d jump through the forest as a part of my daily routine… unfortunately this area isn’t a forest, so I can’t hop through the trees, but this is… close enough.”

The course was a 2 meter wide 400 meter long platform that he had to get across while obstacles came across laterally, attempting to sweep him off through various means. Jumping through hoops, dodging swinging rubber hammers – even the platform itself had some traps laid on it that make it difficult to stand on it.

Taichi fiddled around with a few buttons, and the obstacle course re-arranged once again… and kept rearranging. Each obstacle was constantly moving at varying speeds, making it difficult to anticipate what would appear when, and how to avoid it. They had to react in the moment, otherwise they’d be thrown off the platform from 10 feet in the air.

Asumi sweat a little and chuckled.

“Surely you aren’t actually… doing it without any actual precautions, right? This is the type of thing people with a death wish do on TV competitions…”

“The danger simulates an actual fight,” Taichi responded, going up the stairs to the platform. “Besides, the padding on the bottom is pretty thick. The school won’t let us die on something like this. I’m going in.”

Asumi stood back and watched from the side as Taichi stepped onto the platform, shivering nervously in his place.

Taichi rushed forward – a hammer swung across the platform immediately. He stopped short and burst forward immediately after it passed. A wall appeared in front of him with a circle cut out in the middle – he dove through it, barreling out on the other side of the platform.

The moment he got back on his feet, another hammer swung at him too quickly for him to get out of the way. He gritted his teeth as he put as much power as he could into his legs and jumped. The hammer hit him, but he managed to climb onto it before sliding off, dropping back onto the platform.

He kept rushing forward as a flurry of obstacles fell from the ceiling. Once he hit the halfway point, he suddenly felt his footing become unstable.

He looked down at the floor, realizing that it had become a series of rolling logs – constantly spinning to keep him off balance as obstacles rained down on him. He bent his knees to keep himself stable, but obstacles started coming from the side with even more fervor than before. After nearly losing his footing, he retreated back to the previous section to examine the area.

Once he reached the safety of solid ground at the 200-meter line, he crouched down, stared at the end point, and burst forward once again.

He didn’t touch any of the logs for more than a quarter of a second. His feet touched the logs and left with the grace of wind as his pendant swayed in the air. His speed only increased. Hammers continued to swing; a rotating arm emerged from the platform to sweep him off, and obstacles were flung down from the ceiling to do the same. It meant nothing. He evaded everything. Within seconds, the 400-meter obstacle race was completed.

Asumi exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“You want a go at it?” Taichi asked Asumi after hopping off the platform.

“Oh, uh… y’know… I’m sure it’s pretty effective training, but…” Asumi stammered.

“But?”

“Well, the platform is a little…”

“A little…?”

Asumi crossed her arms and looked away, flustered. “I mean, it’s not like I’m scared of the platform or heights or anything! I’m not scared! But…”

Before Asumi began her statement, Taichi had adjusted the platform's settings to be only 6 inches from the floor.

“Is it okay now?” Taichi asked with a smirk.

“You little…” Asumi clenched her fist. “Fine, I’ll do the obstacle course. And I’ll beat your time!”

“Oh, do you want me to put it back up to where it was?” Taichi teased.

“No! I mean…” Asumi looked away.

“Put it back up!” a voice echoed from the doorway. “I’ll do the course.”

The two of them looked back toward the entrance to see a familiar, short, bubbly figure, with her eyes fixed on the course from a distance.

“Meguri!” Asumi exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? I come here every day – I think that’s more of a question for you, isn’t it?” Meguri teased. “Considering how terrified you are of heights, I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of you coming in here.”

“Meguri…” Asumi hissed, shooting a sideways glare.

“Oh, please, Hayato already knew you were scared of heights, right?” Meguri asked.

“Yeah, obviously,” Taichi nodded.

“Since the three of us are here, do you wanna do something a little special?” Meguri asked, going over to the control panel. “We can set up three concurrent obstacle courses, all tuned to the same settings. We’ll see who gets to the end first.”

“You’re on,” Taichi immediately agreed.

“I, uh…” Asumi hesitated.

“We’ll keep the platforms low for you,”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Asumi exclaimed, her hesitance immediately being blown to the wind.

Meguri set up the platforms, and all three of them stepped on.

The obstacle race started.

Taichi rushed forward just like before, with the girls on either side of him doing the same. Behind Meguri was a trail of lightning in her wake – her speed leaving Taichi behind. However, when facing the precision obstacles like the hole in the wall, she was forced to slow down, toggling her aspect on and off. Taichi managed to carry his momentum forward, gaining a bit of ground.

Asumi was behind both of them, with speed not being a primary weapon of hers, but not nearly by as much as Taichi was expecting. He focused forward. He had to beat Meguri.

He remembered every trap from earlier and dodged them with sharper timing. Asumi, having watched his run, anticipated each trap too. Meguri hadn’t seen it up close, yet she was still ahead of Taichi.

They hit the 200-meter mark – the rolling logs. Taichi didn’t break stride this time. Light, long steps carried him over smoothly while obstacles tried to sweep him off. It bought him precious seconds that Meguri couldn’t get because of her short strides… or so he thought.

Meguri had closed the gap once again, running right alongside Taichi.

They sprinted neck and neck toward the finish. Lightning crackled from her heels. Taichi drove his legs harder.

Finally… Taichi crossed the finish line.

A fraction of a second later, Meguri followed, and a second later, Asumi followed.

Taichi bent forward, finally sweating properly.

“Wow…” Taichi panted.

“Dang, I lost, huh?” Meguri said, scratching the back of her head, trying to hide how tired she was from this race. “I thought it’d be really cool if I could beat you at a course that you’d already completed, but I guess it backfired. Oh well!”

She collapsed onto the floor, sprawling out across the cold tiles beneath them.

“You two are way too fast,” Asumi said, not showing signs of exhaustion anywhere close to the other two.

Taichi’s eyes widened at the sight of Asumi.

“You’ve been different today, Asumi,” Taichi noted. “What happened to you, seriously?”

“Asumi was just using her aspect to push herself through the race, right?” Meguri answered, to which Asumi confirmed.

“I just varied my fire output in the form of small explosions at my feet to propel myself through the obstacles,” Asumi explained, showing a small explosion plume out of her hand.

“But Isshiki was also using her aspect. Why aren’t you tired?” Taichi asked.

“Asumi’s mana control is on a different level,” Meguri explained. “She can minimize the amount of physical effort she puts in while also optimizing the amount of mana so that she’s not pushing herself too far.”

“I see…” Taichi looked at Asumi. “So… you kept up with me on that run by compensating with mana. I didn’t realize mana and physical stamina were separate.”

“That’s the only way I possibly could,” Asumi said, shrugging her shoulders. “You’re physically a freak of nature, even amongst sorcerers. I had to compensate somehow, and I spent a lot of time training my aspect ever since I was a kid.”

“Compensate…” Taichi muttered, looking down at the ground.

Taichi grew a slight smile and made eye contact with the two of them.

“Both of you, duel me.”