Not the Sword, but You
Hunger.
"Good. You've come much closer."
It was the first praise I had ever heard from her. And yet I felt no joy at all—I was too hungry to even muster the strength to be glad.
Lying flat on my back, I looked up at Sapi's master. Dozens of slivers of moonlight spilled down over her black hair.
"So is the answer hunger, then?"
"No."
"Then why do you say I'm close?"
"Because hunger is what you felt. It is not what is held within my sword."
The words made no sense. So I felt hunger from the sword—but it wasn't something the sword held?
"What's the difference, then?"
"Must I explain even that to you, child?"
"I'm only asking because you won't explain!"
Sapi's master's eyes narrowed. Half-convinced she meant to swing her sword again, I tried to push myself up—but no strength would come to my arms. The master gazed down at me for a moment, then slid her blade back into its sheath.
"Do not try to erase your hunger."
"......"
"Accept it as a part of yourself."
A hollow laugh slipped out of me.
"You sound exactly like Sapi."
"Is that not natural, when he is my disciple?"
"But I heard Sapi could never understand your swordsmanship."
Her gaze drifted briefly toward where Sapi sat. Far off beneath a tree, he leaned against the trunk with his eyes closed. He looked asleep, but something told me he was listening to every word.
"Failing to understand and failing to learn are not the same thing."
"?"
"My disciple remembered every one of my swords. He simply could not forge them into a sword of his own."
The master's eyes came back to me.
"You are the opposite."
"Me?"
"You remember nothing at all—and yet you carry the potential to make it your own."
"Is that actually a compliment?"
"No."
Ha... she really does have a rotten personality.
As if there were nothing left to say, Sapi's master turned her back on me. Watching her go, I hurriedly propped myself up.
"Is training over for today?"
"It is over."
"Then what about food?"
"There is none."
"You just said I'd gotten closer!"
"You did not even strike upon the answer. On what grounds do you demand a reward?"
With that, the master vanished into the black forest. I stretched a hand out toward her retreating back.
"Come on! If I got it half right, shouldn't I at least get half a bowl!"
No answer came. Only my own voice, echoing back into my ears.
I tore into the bark.
Rrrrip.
My hands moved more naturally than they had the day before. I put the thin strip I'd peeled away into my mouth. Tough... and astringent. The longer I chewed, the more it simply stole the moisture from my mouth. I swallowed it down anyway.
"Whoa~ you're getting pretty good at that, Lebetri."
Sapi spoke up beside me, a strip of bark in his hand as well.
"I'm not eating it well. I'm forcing it down."
"The end result's the same, isn't it?"
"Do you seriously consider this food?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Because it can be eaten."
An answer delivered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. I stared at the bark held in Sapi's hand.
"Did you starve too, back when the Master trained you?"
"Yeah."
"For how long?"
"I don't remember."
"Liar."
"I never counted."
Sapi bit into the bark like it was nothing. Not a flicker of expression crossed his face as he chewed.
"Did you eat like this back then, too?"
"Yeah."
"Wasn't it hard?"
"Hard enough to kill me."
"Then why did you keep going?"
There was a gravity in his eyes deeper than anything I'd ever seen in them.
"Because there was something I wanted to achieve."
"Is that it? The reason you travel with me?"
"..."
Sapi answered my question only with silence.
It didn't feel real. This much pain, this much misery, was crushing me—and Sapi had simply endured it.
"But the way I went about it ran in a different direction from my master's."
"..."
"I couldn't kill yesterday's me."
I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying. And yet it felt as though if I let this earnest silence break, if I didn't hear him out, something I was meant to realize would be lost to me forever.
"Regret... lingering attachment... guilt... I judged all of them useless and threw them away."
"Then wasn't that the right thing to do?"
By his own account, Sapi had done exactly what his master taught—discarding his yesterday self. From where I stood, nothing about it looked wrong. But Sapi shook his head.
"No."
A short answer. Then he went on, calm and level.
"Killing your yesterday self isn't the same as pretending yesterday never happened."
"..."
"I threw them away too easily... no—I had to throw them away."
Sapi stared down at his open palm. Whatever he saw there, it wasn't just himself. It might have been regret. It might have been lingering attachment. It might have been guilt. It almost looked as though he were lifting everything he had discarded back up out of that hand.
But I had no power to read minds. All I could do was watch. And still, his mouth moved again.
"I wanted it all to never have happened... so I cut it away to move forward. But every reason I had for moving forward... was for the dead."
"Then you'll never move forward at all."
The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. Clutching the past means you can't go anywhere.
"You told me that yourself, back before we started traveling together!"
"..."
"Fixed outcomes can't be changed!"
"..."
"So think about the ones who survived! Not the ones who died!"
For an instant, I saw Sapi's eyes waver.
"Ha... you're right..."
"No, I mean... I just said whatever came to mind."
Mortified out of my mind, I scooted as far away from Sapi as I could possibly get.
I turned Lebetri's words over in my mind.
Fixed outcomes can't be changed... So think about the ones who survived! Not the ones who died!
Those were my own words, once.
And yet. I had always been nothing but a walking bundle of contradictions...
"Sorry... I've gone and decided to live for the dead after all..."
Lebetri was no longer here. Even so, I murmured it quietly.
Having made a complete fool of myself in front of Sapi, I had put as much distance between us as I possibly could. Maybe the distance was a comfort, because a sigh slipped out of me.
I'm hungry... and dizzy.
The dead. The living. Yesterday's me. Today's me. All of it did was leave my head spinning.
But then hunger came flooding back, drowning out every stray thought. In the end, I tore off another strip of bark and stuffed it into my mouth. Tough... and disgusting. I chewed anyway.
She had told me, plainly, to accept this. Fine. Screw it—let's see it through.
I attacked the bark with far more conviction than before. It still tasted awful, but a faint fullness settled in. And still, I was hungry.
So what did accepting it even mean? Not making the hunger disappear. Just... going on living while hungry.
"It was all for the dead."
Sapi's words rang through my head, overlapping with everything else.
The dead... hunger...
I simply shouldered them both and walked on.
"And what was it you felt?"
"..."
For a long while, I couldn't answer. Then, carefully, I opened my mouth.
"So much came off your sword that I still don't know what to make of it."
"..."
"But..."
Sapi's master watched me in silence.
"If it isn't about erasing hunger... if it's about going on living with this hunger still inside me..."
"Yes... and if that is so—what is hunger?"
Once again I couldn't answer right away. Even so, the master waited.
"Hunger is pain. For some, it might be regret. For others, lingering attachment. For others still, guilt."
"..."
"And... I think it might be the dead."
"Then what was it you felt from my sword?"
Silence again, for a time. When her sword had come at me, I had felt myself being cut down, over and over, countless times.
"It felt like cutting down yesterday's self. But even as I cut down yesterday's me... the pain called death seemed to stay behind."
Hearing my answer, Sapi's master smiled.
"Good. Then take that mindset and swing your sword."
"..."
Cut down yesterday's self...
In an instant, the countless deaths stored in my head flashed past me. On my journey of nothing but vengeance, I had died in every way imaginable. But none of that had ever been cutting down yesterday's me. It had been throwing yesterday's me away.
This time, I would cut those deaths down.
And yet—the regret of failing to save people... the lingering doubt of every loop I chose not to repeat when one more might have saved a life... the guilt toward the Sapi of those loops who died by my hand... Those, I would not discard. I would carry them in my heart and keep feeling them. Just like the hunger.
Then, unbidden, the days before the attack came flooding back—ordinary life with my family. The hard bread we'd shared inside the bunker. We'd been hungry, but it had warmed us—and that memory streaked through my mind as I swung my sword with the guilt, the attachment, the regret of having failed to protect them.
For the first time, I swung not to cast those feelings out, not to burn them as fuel, but holding them safe inside me.
Whoooosh!!
The blade carved through the air. It was different from before—no faster, no stronger. Just... a sword I had never once swung before.
Sapi's master watched my sword. And then—
CLANG!!
She drew. The ring of steel striking light rolled through the forest.
"...!"
It was the first time. The first time I had ever stopped her attack.
But my arm was trembling. I was starving, strength draining out of every limb. And yet, somehow, I couldn't bring myself to let go of the sword.
Sapi's master spoke.
"Why do you not let go of the sword?"
"..."
"Your arm must have no strength left."
"..."
"Your stomach must be empty as well."
"..."
"And yet."
Her blade pressed me back, inch by inch.
"Why do you not cast it aside?"
I clenched my teeth.
"If I let go..."
The point of her sword crept toward my throat.
"...it feels like I could do better next time."
"..."
"Because that's what I kept thinking. Every single time."
She pushed a little harder. My knee found the ground. Still, I did not let go.
"This time..."
I forced the words out between ragged breaths.
"I don't want to let go."
"Of what?"
"The me I am right now."
The pressure bearing down on me stopped dead. Sapi's master looked down at me without a word. Those sharp, narrowed eyes of hers curved shut, satisfied.
"Oho."
A short breath of admiration. She withdrew her sword and slid it back into its sheath.
"..."
It was you."
I could only stare at her, dumbstruck. I had no idea what she meant.
Sapi's master turned her back and walked away.
"Training is over for today."
"What?"
"Sapi once came to me and said this: 'Teach me the principle behind your sword.'"
"..."
"He never asked to learn my swordsmanship. No—what he said was that you, child, would forge a sword more perfect than mine."
And with that, Sapi's master was gone.