The next morning Azrael was up before dawn. It had snowed again, blanketing the world in soft stillness. His footsteps crunching through the frost and snow was the only sound to be heard in the morning stillness. Even Alena wasn’t up yet, but he preferred it that way.

While he had grown used to her company, he still enjoyed the peaceful quiet that came from being alone. There was nobody to watch him, nobody to judge him. He could be and do what he wanted.

Slowly drawing his daggers from their sheaves, he settled into a crouched position. On the walk home he’d done some thinking.

His character, Azrael, was meant to represent a rebirth, a new beginning, for him. He didn’t want to be the person who he used to be in-game, so he convinced himself that he could simply discard who he was. In truth, it wasn’t that easy. To protect this way of life he needed to be strong and who he used to be wasn’t anything if not strong. Even a phoenix reborn was still a phoenix. A new beginning simply meant he could choose a new end, not that he could discard the past.

Readjusting his grip on his dagger he closed his eyes and exhaled. He stood there like a stone statue, still, silent, unmoving.

He thought back to his first dive VR experience. It had been over ten years ago now, back when he was still a high school student. His then and only best friend, Samson, had invited him to play in a classical RPG game.

Back then combat skills were still hard to program, meaning that everything depended on a player’s skill. Azrael had chosen a [Rogue] as his first class. There had been something about the image of a dual wielding figure draped in black that captivated him. He had become the dark lord of the night.

Samson at that time had already played for a while and had been too high a level to enter the starter village, so Azrael sought out an elderly NPC in the village’s back streets, a retired [Rogue] character who trained new players.

Much to Samson’s annoyance, he’d spent a month there, learning everything he could. The NPC was fairly unrealistic and very simple in terms of speech, but had been programmed using real combat data. The NPC only taught basics to those that wanted to learn before sending them off, but Azrael stayed on. There had been something that intrigued him about the way the man moved. It wasn’t powerful, it wasn’t fast, but it was efficient; the movements of a man who had dedicated his life to combat. Azrael wasn’t learning from a simple AI, but the man behind those movements, which they had programmed it from. Azrael still remembered it after all this time.

Dropping lower into his crouch, Azrael rose onto the balls of his feet and imagined himself in a spar with the instructor, taking the actions in slow motion. Right foot forward. Left foot to the side. Step in with the right foot and pivot. Left foot back.

He placed each foot carefully, calculating every move. And slowly it came back to him. Sidestep. Back. Forward again.

Despite only practicing with the instructor for a month, he’d continued to use the same movements over the year and throughout the rest of his gaming career.

Slowly, he began bringing in simple combat movements. Step. Slash. Pivot. Elbow. Reverse grip. Stab.

He’d had so much fun back then with Samson. Despite spending a month in the starter village Samson couldn’t stay mad for long, as they cleared quests at an alarming rate. A [Rogue] and a [Dark Knight]. Samson had always been fond of the less moral classes. Dark Knights, Warlocks, Necromancers. You name it, he’d played it.

Those had been good days. He’d been a normal high schooler. He hadn’t been in a coma. There was no debt and his parents were alive and well. He dropped that line of thought, focusing solely on what he was doing.

Block. Stab. Feint. Evade. His movements became more complex the more he recalled. They were nowhere near the sure and well-honed movements he used to have, a mere shadow of what he’d once been capable of, but it was a beginning. Sweat rolled down his forehead, despite the chill air and dripped down his nose. He ignored it. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the flow.

He wasn’t sure how long he continued, but when he finally came to, the sun was well up on its way into the sky. He glanced down at the daggers and wondered where Samson was. Samson was one of the only ones that had never betrayed him. But he hadn’t seen him since he’d… since he’d joined Holy Empire. Back then he’d left without a word to his friend. It was one of his greatest regrets.

Azrael sheathed his blades and found Alena sitting on the front porch watching him. He didn’t say anything, instead walking past her and to the shower. Her gaze followed him silently. He ignored it. He really needed that hot shower. Now that he’d stopped moving the cold was getting to him.

***

Alena watched her master trudge through the snow to the shower. His display of martial prowess still fresh in her mind. It was… enlightening, yet at the same time it made her feel so inadequate. She thought she was getting stronger, able to be of use to her master and protect the forest, but the way he moved… It was like he was dancing with the snowflakes.

His footsteps had been so sure of themselves, as if they were as natural as breathing. His blades had flowed like the winter wind, cold and deadly. Even his breathing had been in perfect control as he moved. But what made it so special was the effortless way he moved from one sequence to another, faster than her eye could follow. His blades flashed, his feet moved and his gaze never wavered. Making sure that he had left, she drew her own daggers, settling into a stance similar to the one she had seen. It felt strange.

She took a step forwards and wobbled in place, her muscles unused to this distribution of weight. She took another step forward, her actions a poor mockery of her master’s.

A step back, a step forward. Movements usually familiar, suddenly strange and alien to her. She felt hot tears welling up in her eyes, as frustration bubbled up. He’d made it look so easy. Why, then oh why, could she not even copy the simplest of the moves? She blinked away the tears as they threatened to spill over. Step forward. Step back. Stab. Step back again. She’d sparred with her master. So, WHY?

She tried to speed up, putting more power into the strokes, but even then her movements did not contain a sliver of the speed, grace and strength that her master had. A moment of distraction and she found herself falling into the cold snow. Was she destined to always be weak? She couldn’t kill, she couldn’t fight. What could she do?

“Get up.”

She looked up into the face of her Lord and master. His golden eyes looked down upon her, like rare rays of sunshine amongst the bleak winter clouds. They held no judgement, but that somehow only made it worse.

He reached out his hand and pulled her up “Get up. You’ll get cold in the snow.”

She accepted his help and rose to her feet. He pulled out one of his own daggers and dropped back into the stance. Taking a graceful step forward he demonstrated a simple manoeuvre. There was no speed in it, no explosive power, simply a deadly and elegant grace. He turned back to her and patted her on the head as he walked back to the house.

“It’s not about speed or strength,” he said. “It’s about doing the most with the least amount of effort. Sometimes you have to fight smarter, not harder.”

With that he vanished into the house, leaving her alone in the snow.

“…smarter, not harder.”

She smiled.