THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: THE POOL AND THE WILL

Sagiri had barely closed his eyes when the gong went off again. Unlike the previous day he was more prepared today. It took him ten seconds to put on his clothes and he was still almost the last one to get in the traditional meditative position. Torena nodded in approval before signing and got into a meditative position himself. sagiri had always loved to fall into meditative slumber and he used the meditation time to extend his sleeping time. The thirty minutes of meditation went by almost too quickly and all the boys were dismissed to go to their morning training. The other would be obstacle training and he had to run to the first year pentagon to train under captain Fuwuka.

The run across the long distance had him sweating and his back was soaked when he finally got to the first year weapon handling training arena. Fuwuka was already standing in the middle looking as irritated as ever.

”You are late again.” he said in disappointment. He tossed the same spear from yesterday at him. ”lift it to your shoulder with your left hand and circle the arena until I tell you to stop. sagiri knew just like yesterday the man was not going to let him change his hands but still he was not ready for it. His body was sore from the day before and every step was even more agonizing than the day before. Even so he pushed himself as fast as he could which was too slow for Fuwuka who frowned deeper and deeper.

”That is the poorest form I have ever witnessed.” Fuwuka said. ”Increase your pace!” Fuwuka clapped his hands but the truth was Sagiri was already at his limit. He could taste blood on his lips and his heart was beating out of his chest. He had not recovered from the day before and it was too much to take. Just as he had expected, however, Fuwuka didn’t tell him to change his hand. having trained dagger handling yesterday.

”You need to build stamina if you are going to handle any more training. This is just the foundation and I just don’t see you improving at this rate.” Fuwuka said when Sagiri slowed down to just a jog that was so slow it could be counted as walking. Sagiri had only done fun stuff or hunted for fun but he had never really submitted his body to such extensive training. He knew he had a long way to go but at the moment it was impossibly hard for him to go on. Yet it had only been thirty minutes and his bones and muscles could not take it anymore. He stopped when he felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest. He wheezed for air and his lungs burned. It was physically impossible for him to go on.

”If you stop, I will deduct one more hour from your sleep. ”He threatened and sagiri tried to move but his knees buckled and he fell to his knees. The arena tilted and his eyes swam. He knew one hour of sleep was going to be deducted but his body had been pushed to his limit and with too little sleep.

”Recruit sagiri rebels,” he announced and two junior instructors appeared. they had been watching the training at a distance. ”Take him to the punishment chamber.” he said, voice thick but sagiri could not sense any malice, it was just the laws of the academy and disobedience had to be punished. He was pulled to his feet by the two junior instructors by his arms as they pulled him.

They pulled his sagging body across the corridors until they reached the central pentagon. The biggest pentagon in the Galka War Academy. They entered through an underground entry and kept going down a long stairway beneath the central pentagon. The temperature dropped fast the lower they went, dry cold first, then wet cold. Torches lit the narrow passage, flickering against the damp stone walls. So Galka War Academy had a big underground prison beneath it?

The chamber below was silent except for the echo of dripping water. the archive inside sagiri had not stirred since it went and absorbed a whole book. It seemed it had given up on him too since he woke up. After a few twists and turns they broke out into a large opening where at its centre lay a large mass of water, right beneath the core of the academy. The freezing pool sat in the middle, black and still, fed by an underground spring. No steam. No warmth. Just a depth that swallowed light.

The juniors pushed him forward. Sagiri tripped on his feet before he fell flat on his face. Salka wasn’t joking when he told him that he was going to die in the academy. It was not only dark but cold. His breath fogged in front of him in the dim light and he shivered. One of the aides opened a metal gate along the edge of the pool. The gate touched the edges of the pool and it was circular lust like the walls of the pool. They were smooth and slippery.

”Toss him in, naked or with clothes I don’t care.” Fuwuka said to the two juniors. They didn’t hesitate before grabbing him and throwing him into the chilly dark, probably bottomless pool. sagiri did not offer any resistance mostly because he did not have any strength to continue. The water hit him like a punch to the chest. His breath vanished. His body locked for an instant as he sank to the bottom for a while. The pool was indeed bottomless because even after sinking for a while and still he hadn’t touched the bottom. The pool was not enjoyable like the ones back at home. It was an abyss of punishment. His lungs burnt with lack of oxygen before instinct forced him upward. He broke the surface with a choking gasp.

There was no ledge to cling to even so. The walls of the pool were smooth stone. Nothing to hold and nothing to rest on. He kicked just to keep his mouth above water. The cold numbed fast his tired arms and legs then his chest before a deep ache set in his bones as if the water was squeezing him from the inside. His limbs felt heavier every second. The pool was not just like any other pool, it was like its waters held gravity itself and they pulled everything they touched and swallowed it to the very bottom. The juniors stood at the edge, watching quietly. No one counted time for him. No instructions. No rescue. Fuwuka stood even far back unconcerned.

”On a battlefield,” Fuwuka’s voice cut through the cold, ”your enemy does not care why you collapsed, being tired is a privilege a warrior doesn’t have.”

”The endless pool as I presume you have found out has no bottom, well no none has ever gone deep enough to find out, if you stop swimming you will sink and die” he said as he watched sagiri swim with all he had to keep afloat. Fuwuka was the harshest instructor and principal senraki putting him in charge of training a newbie was just cruel.

Sagiri slipped under once, then twice each time fighting back up with slower movements. His arms had already been exhausted from training and he did not have much stamina left. The cold worked its way into his head. Sounds dulled. Breathing felt separate from his body. His muscles started misfiring, jerking instead of kicking. He was at the end of his rope. He knew he had only been in the pool for a few minutes but its pull made it seem like he had been kicking, flailing and trying to keep afloat for hours. His fingers wouldn’t close properly to tear the water surface. His knees stopped bending fully.Every movement dragged more water into his mouth. It was a losing battle, he was going to sink eventually.

Sagiri’s body finally gave out in the freezing pool. He had pushed until his legs simply stopped moving and the moment they failed, the water pulled him down without hesitation. His chin slipped under, then his mouth, then the rest of him sank into the cold darkness. He felt the numbness climb over his skin as if it wanted to swallow him whole. His lungs burned, but his limbs refused to respond. His mind slowly drifted into the same quiet stillness as the water around him. He dipped under again not willingly but because the cold pool plus his tired limps he was simply unable to. The blackness closed around him, silent and thick. He felt himself sink, but he could not fight it.

He wasn’t panicking anymore. He wasn’t even thinking. His thoughts were fading one by one until all that was left was a dull realization that he had reached his limit. He was sinking deeper, the sounds of the world muted above him, the cold pressing on every part of him. He didn’t know how long he had been sinking but he felt weightless and formless like he was one with the pool and he had accepted his defeat finally.

However just as he started to feel himself fade, something inside him shifted. It wasn’t the Archive. It wasn’t that structured, humming power he knew. This was something different, buried deeper than anything he had ever touched. It stirred like a small fire in his chest, faint at first, but growing hotter as the rest of him went numb.

The moment he gave up, that thing deep inside him, whatever it was refused to. it almost felt like his will. It felt like a wave of heat spread through him, not warmth from the water but something internal, something stubborn. It wrapped around him like a second skin. His muscles still barely worked, but the heat pushed against the cold and forced his body to listen. His arms twitched, then dragged weakly through the water. His legs jerked once, then twice as if coming alive, slow and heavy but enough to stop him from sinking any further. He didn’t rise fast. He didn’t rise strong. He simply rose because something inside refused to let him go under. His will. His will to go on. His will to not give up even when his body failed him.

His mind, half-frozen, barely processed it. His body was exhausted and empty, yet that inner fire pushed it to move anyway. The burning sensation grew stronger the closer he got to the surface, pushing him through the last stretch even though he had nothing left to give.

When his head finally broke the surface, he gasped hard, choking on air and water at the same time. His breaths came rough and ragged, his arms moving on instinct alone just to keep him afloat. He wasn’t swimming properly, he was simply surviving, fighting the cold, fighting the exhaustion, fighting the water pulling at him merely by his will. Fuwuka had not moved an inch or looked worried in the slightest as if he had known he would eventually come up. The juniors however had worried looks and they kept looking at Fuwuka waiting for him to give them the command. After a long stretched moment he finally parted his lips to speak.

”It seems you have found it. Don’t be late to the arena tomorrow.” He said before he turned around and walked a few steps and sagiri could feel the panicked feelings of the juniors.

”Pull him out!” He said before disappearing through the dimly lit stone corridors.