THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 31: Chapter 31: THE PILL

”Cadet dismissed!” Fuwuka said when Sagiri remained still on the ground. He had tried to stand up twice, but he fell back down, coughing blood. He walked past him, but then came back and lifted him like Salka always did.

”It’s been only two days and you are ready to die,” he snickered as he walked through the corridors of the first pentagon before breaking into the central pentagon.

”Fuwuka, aren’t you torturing the boy enough?” Sagiri barely heard Salka’s footsteps following Fuwuka to the central medical wing. ”The boy has been to this wing twice in three days. If I didn’t know you, Fuwuka, I could have thought you were trying to kill.”

”The boy has no core strength at all. He is useless,” Fuwuka said, walking into the medical room. ”Give him the strength rejuvenating pills, Miss Sayaku,” he said to one of the high-ranking healers.

”Fuwuka, why do you torture the boy? You already dumped him in the endless pool, and now you have him bursting veins.” The nurse chastised, pulling Fuwuka’s ear, and he just stood there and let it happen. She was a whole two feet shorter than him. She was dressed in a calm blue coloured combat uniform, clearly made for the military medical teams. Her hair was a mob held back slightly by a pin, but it still stood up like a wildfire. Fuwuka dumped him on the healer’s bed and retreated.

After Sagiri took the black pill, he felt better almost instantly. It did not matter that he had not eaten breakfast again, but he felt rejuvenated. He wished the healer could give him more, but he knew that was not possible.

”I told you to add weight, but instead you have shed some in only two days,” Salka said after Fuwuka left.

”Can I have more of those pills?” Sagiri asked Salka. Salka posed for a moment before he burst into laughter.

”You are such a funny kid. Those are made for injured soldiers in battle. You are lucky to have found healer Sayaku. She only made an exception because you are too unfit.” Salka laughed again and sagiri was still not good with humour so he did not understand what was funny. ”I see you are better now, head to your next lesson.” Captain Salka said a second after laughing his face back to normal. With the current strength sagiri felt like he could run thousands of vaara. He had missed the morning assembly and breakfast but he was energetic as he made it to the second year library.

He took the battlefield simulation volume and placed it on his desk at the corner just like always. Only today the archive was powered to the fullest and he felt like he could finish the whole unit. The first Chapter explained that battlefield simulations were not about reenacting victories, but about recreating conditions where mistakes were inevitable. The terrain was simplified. Numbers were controlled. Outcomes were recorded not to praise the winner, but to study the error that led to the loss.

Sagiri read that simulations were designed to strip soldiers of instinct. Familiar routes were removed. Timings were altered. Orders were delayed on purpose. Units were given incomplete information and forced to act anyway. The goal was to see how long a soldier could function once certainty was taken away.

Diagrams showed layered battlefields divided into phases. In the early phase, movement mattered more than force. In the middle phase, communication determined survival. In the final phase, exhaustion revealed discipline or the lack of it.The battlefield does not always reward the strongest plan. It rewards the plan that survives contact.

The simulations described in the book often ended in total collapse. Units would advance perfectly, then fracture once pressure was applied from an unexpected direction. Others would hold position too long, mistaking patience for control, until they were surrounded.

Sagiri understood then why Galka trained them through games and formations. Simulations were not about winning. They were about learning how defeat unfolded. He turned the pages slowly and soon he was at the end of the volume and he was still energetic. He moved to the tactical reading and analysis volume. It was denser than the battle simulation volume yet it made the archive inside him more eager. This book did not teach how to fight, It taught how to see.

The opening Chapters explained that every battlefield was a text written in motion. Footprints in mud. Broken grass. The angle of abandoned weapons. The absence of sound where there should have been noise. Tactical reading was the ability to extract meaning from what others overlooked. Sagiri read about threat assessment: how to judge danger not by proximity, but by intent. A still enemy was often more dangerous than a charging one. An open path was usually a trap. Safety was rarely where it appeared to be. The book broke battles down into moments. Before contact. At contact. After contact. Each moment required a different kind of reading. Before contact, the environment spoke. During contact, body language did. After contact, silence did.

One Chapter focused entirely on misdirection. The enemy will show you what they want you to see. Your task is to understand why. Diagrams showed false retreats, exposed flanks meant to draw pursuit, deliberately weak formations designed to hide reserves. Tactical reading demanded restraint. Acting too quickly meant reacting to what was shown, not what was true.

Sagiri paused, eyes burning. He realized why this subject followed battlefield simulations. One taught how battles collapsed and the other taught how to recognize collapse before it happened. By the time he reached the final pages, his head throbbed with information and the archive buzzed. If only he was this energetic daily he could finish all the books in the library, even those outside the syllabus in under three months and have time to spare to train his body. He needed to heed captain Salka’s advice and eat more.

He was still energetic when he got to the third year library. He still had a few compressed second year units to study but he had already finished three months’ work in three days. He wished he could finish the remaining third year volumes, but the pill effect was fading fast. He still had the Pressure Point Strikes, Pattern Recall, Strategic Layering, Ethical Command and Situational Hierarchy volumes to go after finishing advanced mobility. The third year library was full and a few curious eyes turned to look at him.

”Hey new boy, come sit with me.” an overly cheery boy called him, his hair was braided in four lines and decorated with colourful ornaments. The tisewani tribe of the west. They are the most colourful tribe, and they lived in the far west. ”I hear you bet the suffocation chamber, everyone was kinda scared of you but after seeing how feeble you were carried by captain salka i am not scared so i’m the first to talk to you, i’m Daziko ogiri of the tisewani tribe.” he said as soon as sagiri sat down.

”Tell me why did you not go to school till now? Why are you always covered? I hear your father is related to the Grand Zorath of the east?” the boy whispered loudly but Sagiri could tell those around him were eavesdropping. He did not know his sudden display of weakness could attract such attention. Another boy moved silently and sat opposite them looking at him curiously. He might have been too hungry to notice it but whenever he walked to the third year pentagon all he could smell was courteousness yet now he could only preserve curiosity and he did not know which one was worse. He did not like being swarmed at all. The archive and the power inside him all craved solitude or absorbing the atmosphere and feelings around him could get overwhelming.

”Cadet Kutama and Daziko maintain silence and move away from that table!” an instructor snapped from and the two boys moved quickly to other tables. Sagiri breathed a sigh of relief before he opened the book that always piqued his interest.

He ravaged through the shelves before retrieving the pressure point strikes volume. The opening pages explained that pressure points were not mystical weaknesses or secret tricks. They were structural failures, places where nerves surfaced, where blood flow could be disrupted, where the body’s own design worked against it. Strength was irrelevant. Accuracy was everything.

Sagiri read that pressure point strikes were divided into three purposes: disruption, disablement, and termination. Most combatants failed because they confused the three.

Disruption points were meant to break rhythm. A strike to the side of the neck could blur vision for seconds. A precise hit below the ear could destroy balance. A blow to the nerve cluster above the collarbone could deaden an arm instantly. These were not finishing moves. They were openings. Disablement points went deeper. The inner thigh where major vessels ran close to the surface. The back of the knee where stability failed under pressure. The base of the spine where shock could shut down movement. The book stressed restraint here, too much force could kill, too little would do nothing.

Termination points were listed last and without diagrams on the first read-through. These points were described sparingly, the hollow beneath the jaw, the soft space under the ribs, the junction where the skull met the spine. The text emphasized that these strikes were rarely clean in real combat where bodies moved and angles shifted. Pressure points could not be attacked head-on. The book explained that effective strikes came from movement passing angles, rotational force, and unexpected entry. A dagger did not stab straight in. It slid, hooked, twisted, and exited. Bare hands used knuckles, thumbs, the edge of the palm. The strike was small, precise, and immediate.

There was even an entire section on failure. Miss the point by a finger’s width and you wasted energy. Strike too deep and you lose your weapon. Strike without creating space and you died where you stood. The book returned again and again to the same principle. Pressure point combat was not about aggression, it was about control under chaos. He mostly knew how he was still weaker than everyone and if he was in danger perhaps hitting a pressure point of a bigger opponent was his only chance for now. His hands rested on the table, fingers stiff, mind heavy with knowledge his body could not yet follow. He understood now why this subject was reserved for third year. Knowing where to strike was easy.

The pill momentary boost had run out and he chose to stop there. The pain in his body came back far worse than in the morning. It felt as if every muscle in his body had been put through a grinder. Even walking was painful. He stumbled right after he stood up but Daziko held him up.

”The first days are the worst. I almost ran away twice and regretted not going to a Sabonya wild academy, it is the closest to home and at least the art of hunting isn’t too cruel.” he said helping sagiri to the third year pentagon gate. ”You have to tell me more about you tomorrow. I have to rush to lunch before those greedy boys finish all the servings. Just thinking that after lunch was miss lakiyas team combat class at the The Shadow Colonnade arena made sagiri want to weep. As if that was not bad enough, he was on the team with the ruthless and vicious king of galka academy who despised weakness.

It was going to be rough.