Fedal

I had been watching Carr for a while now. At first I wanted to find a hint of hypocrisy in him so as to have a spot to aim for the next time we had a verbal sparring match. The more I watched him, though, the more I realized he was actually…a really honest guy, to a fault. He didn’t pretend to be faultless. He openly admitted his mistakes and biases…yet made absolutely no effort to change them.

“Here’s a man,” I thought, “who is extremely comfortable at being himself.”

What did that feel like, I wondered. To be so sure that you can be yourself even to the point of being content with your own flaws…this wasn’t a quality, to be certain, but in a way it was a flaw that I wish I had. This was never more evident to me than when we discussed terms with the princess the day after.

“You shamed my brother, put him in a difficult position, and gave Lord Johan the chance to seize the throne…how should I trust you?” Princess Nevada asked.

Carr held out a hand. He had a stern, serious expression. “The last accusation I plead guilty on. My stupidity let Johan claim the throne and it helped him a lot. I should have been more careful…my recklessness cost both you and the people in the Empire a lot. For this, I sincerely apologize and I can only vow to give my life if it is what it takes to rectify such mistake, Your Highness.” Carr spoke without stuttering and he bowed his head at the end, a sort of serious sincerity in his voice. When he raised his head, however, his eyes were no longer apologetic, but burning with some sort of intense emotion I could not quite place. “However…as for the matter with the Executioner…I offer no such apologies. We had a fantastic match and I will offer no regrets about it. Out of everyone I have faced since coming into this world, he was the one who pushed me to my limits the most. I respect him a lot. But!” This declaration came with a thunder, and he brought his fist down on the table. “I will never apologize for defeating someone in a fair match! We both put our pride on the line and he happened to come up short! It’s not my responsibility that his loss came with consequences!”

“Carr!” Celle shouted. “We are trying to show the princess we’re on her side!”

“And am I supposed to do that by lying?” Carr exclaimed, exasperation clear in his voice. “I am sorry for my mistakes and not for a single thing more!”

It was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Valle was watching this, hand covered his face and probably contemplating just hitting Carr with something to shut him up, the sheer political incompetence too much for him. Isabella appeared to be talking to herself, but nodding as if to affirm the stupidity in Carr’s actions, and even Gilder looked at him warily.

Yet…even though everything he was doing was wrong I couldn’t help but feel a sort of sick admiration. This was my flaw, I knew. I’m afraid of being myself…so the fact that he can be himself looks really cool to me. Even if being himself meant being a fucking asshole. Stilll…what did it even mean to be myself? If I had the courage to just be myself, admit my flaws and apologize for nothing else…what would that even look like? Did I even have a personality or just a bunch of coping mechanisms?

“We’re going to kill Johan. The only question is whether you’re with us or not, Your Highness,” said Carr.

Nevada raised her eyebrow. “You understand that a word from me would have you being followed not just by Lord Johan’s men but also the entire Imperial Guard for the crime of kidnapping a princess?”

“I fail to see the logic here,” Carr replied. “How would a word from your lips reach the Empire from this ship in the middle of the ocean? Fishes tell no tales.”

She stood up, placing both hands on the table aggressively. “Do you threaten me, Swordsman of Zero? You dare to threaten an Imperial Princess and expect her to listen to idle threats?”

“And why the hell shouldn’t I? Do you threaten, my lady?” He snapped back. “You threaten us with your guardsmen and see nothing of it, but when I threaten you with the ocean’s silence you act as if I’m the only goddamn sinner here. Oh, pray tell, what is the difference? That you’re a princess? Is that what makes threatening our lives okay?”

“What makes it okay is that you kidnapped me. You started this aggression, so you will have to forgive me if my words aren’t kind.”

“I didn’t kidnap you!” Carr shouted.

“You did.”

“No, I just happened to be aboard the ship!”

“If Lord Valle hadn’t shown up, I dare not think what would have happened to me!”

Carr turned his head to Valle, who shrugged. What had he told the princess? That he had negotiated her release from her room for her or something of the sort? Why would he…Johan threatened Valle’s family. He probably needs to pull a few favours. Right. This was complicated.

“Listen. I won’t threaten you. I’m above that,” Carr said, after taking a deep breath. “We are off to kill Johan. You’re free to send your men after us, and then I’m going to defeat them just like I beat your brother. Or you can use your influence to help us kill the man who killed your father. Choice is yours, my lady,” he finished mockingly.

This line signified the end of negotiations for today. The princess stormed off and Valle followed after her. Not a moment after she was through the door, Celle sighed heavily and looked at Carr. “She’s not gonna listen until you two can work this out. The Princess has a justifiable grudge against you. Just sit there and apologize, will you?”

“I know,” Carr muttered guiltily. “I know she’s mad at me for a good reason. But that doesn’t mean she can blame me for other things. Look, I’ll take the blame for Johan. I will not take the blame for whatever happened to Valder and I resent the implication.”

“Are you willing to risk your life fighting against even more assassins just to prove that point?”

“Of fucking curse,” Carr replied proudly.

Celle lowered her voice and said softly, “And would you risk mine?”

“What?”

“The assassins wouldn’t be sent after just you. They would be sent after this entire group….and some of us aren’t as willing to die as you are. Are you willing to risk the possibility that one of those assassins could turn their blade toward me?”

“No,” he answered promptly. His own words appeared to make him thoughtful. “Damn it. That’s a problem…I don’t want to apologize for things that aren’t my fault but I also don’t want you to die. That’s a bit of a problem.”

We stopped there. It surprised me a little how open he was about his feelings—I was under the impression that he and Celle had a measure of feelings toward each other but that they would deny it publicly under any circumstances. Lately, though, it felt like they were moving forward really fast. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had some sort of relationship by now. The thought didn’t encourage me; I had a bit of a crush on Celle, to be honest. But it probably wasn’t going to happen and to be fair I didn’t really know her that well. I could probably get over that. Still frightens to see how fast some people can move with their relationships though…I wouldn’t say anything for like, a year and those two are heavily flirting…

Carr appeared very thoughtful that night, but he kept his promise to give me fencing lessons—we met up in an empty room in the ship and he was quick to give me some lessons in footwork. There was an awkward air in the room, though. We weren’t openly hostile to each other anymore, but I knew I had insulted his hard work, though unintentionally, and he had openly insulted my hard work, even if I understood where he was coming from. We both still resented each other quite a bit and despite our friendly airs, it did make for an awkward air. I thought the air would suffocate me, but Carr appeared to be unwilling to live in that environment.

“Sorry,” Carr said suddenly. I looked up at him in surprise, still practicing the footwork he was teaching me. “I was overly harsh when we met. I still think your entire cheat shit is bullshit and it’s not real hard work.” He paused, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. “But I took way too much of that out on you and you didn’t deserve that. You were trying your best. For that, I am sorry.”

“I…it’s fine.” Strangely, I meant it too. Once he apologized, it was really fine. And…he was right, too. I knew it wasn’t the same. That I wasn’t as special as I acted. That any high school athlete, let alone a college athlete, would have done the same as me if not more. But…damn, it had been hard to hear it. “I know I was being a coward. It’s just—it’s hard, to not be good at something, you know? You wouldn’t know,” I added,” but you can imagine it.”

“I do know,” he said, in a surprised tone. “It sucks. But it’s how things work sometimes.”

Here my anger returned a little. “You don’t know. Okay, I know you hate stats, but you know our world is not much better right? We have stats back there too, even if we don’t have floating numbers above our heads. Some people are just taller, stronger…and you can’t do anything about that. At my height, you really think I could have competed against somebody like you? If I had actually tried out fencing and given my best?”

“Koki Kano was Japan’s anchor, their ace in the 2020 Olympics. He defeated the USA, Korea and Russia in amazing matches…and earned Japan a gold medal. He’s also 5’7–5’8 if you want to be generous.” Carr eyed me up and down. “You have a few inches on him.”

“Okay, you know that’s bullshit. Taking one guy who managed a miracle and trying to make him a sort of inspiring story is fucking wrong. Yeah, he did it, but most people his height can’t. He was a freak of nature.”

“So what?” Carr asked, tilting his head. “At first it was physical limitation, now it’s about being a ‘freak of nature.’ You’re getting more vague with that.”

“Are you trying to deny that some people in our world have enormous advantages? And that it might be that some people can’t be the best in the world no matter how hard they try?”

“Man, you’re setting the bar really fucking high.” Carr looked at me. There wasn’t mockery in his voice anymore, but there was curiosity there, like he was hearing what I was saying but didn’t quite understand it. “Yeah, there’s some people with disabilities or without the proper training facilities, economical situations, and others that keep them from being the best. So what? Are you saying that unless you are the best in the world, your efforts don’t matter?”

A reply died in my throat. Yes. What was the point of working so hard at something if you weren’t even the best at it? “That sort of sounds hollow coming from the world champion, you know?”

“You think I always thought I’d be world champion?” He laughed incredulously. “I thought I was fated for mediocrity for the longest time. I was just trying my best and it happened to turn out that way after I was lucky enough to meet good training partners and have access to good coaching. Results have never been what I respect. It’s the attitude.”

And that’s what you don’t have, his tone said. “Bullshit. If you ever thought you were never gonna be the best you wouldn’t have put in the effort you did. You knew you could have been the best. That’s the only reason you did it. If you were a talentless loser, you wouldn’t have—what are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

Carr looked out the window with a sort of nostalgic smile on his face, the ghost of a laugh on his lips. It was clear he wasn’t going to say anything. But he had to say something. I needed him to. God, I knew I was being childish. That much as he was a rude asshole, that he was right about me being entitled and giving up too easily.

But I needed a push.

It was really difficult to climb up my hill of insecurities, and I would take any foothold I could grab ahold of. Reassurances that I would be rewarded if I worked hard the right way, that there was something waiting at the end of the tunnel…that I was going to be okay. That I still mattered, even if I wasn’t strong.

I haven’t really changed, have I?

Who was I? If my cheat skill didn’t mean as much as I hoped it did, which Carr had made me painfully aware of, then who was I? Did I have a personality underneath all that? What were my goals? My hopes? My dreams? Fuck, did I even have hobbies or just distractions to keep me from hearing my own brain telling me I was worthless? Was there even anything in life I actually was really passionate about? Goddamn it…

Carr, please…just give me something to work with here. He did not. He said nothing.

Fine.

I used [Investigation] to see into his mind.

Carr — Before Johan

“I’m surprised you came to this tournament,” Max told me. There was no malice in his voice and this made it all the more hurtful. It had been a long, expensive flight to this NAC and making it fit my schedule was hardly simple. Considering the difficulty of the event and my past results, one would wonder what I was doing there. “It’s good to see you, though!” He meant it, too.

I shook his hand and laughed weakly. When he noticed this, Max asked, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong. It’s just how things should be.”

He appeared concerned. “What’s wrong?”

It was more than a little embarrassing to be entirely frank with him, yet the situation had been weighting on my mind heavily enough that his small question was too much for me to deflect entirely. “Everyone has been asking me the same question for a while now,” I told him slowly. We had been walking outside the gym, drinking some shitty coffee while waiting for our event to start. “The frightening part is that lately, I have started to ask myself the same question too.”

Max waited in silence, nodding understandingly but saying nothing. “About why you are still doing this?” He was always overly blunt. I appreciated that about him. With a sort of crushing atmosphere, the kind only top athletes can summon, he demanded, “Tell me why. I’m curious too, honestly. Your results are good enough to help with college, maybe even a minor scholarship here or there. You could probably do really well in Div II. So why are you still hitting up the hardest tournaments in the circuit when you generally…” he trailed off.

“Go home after one round? I don’t know. I’m probably never going to win a Div I tournament and I’m definitely not going to the Olympics. I keep spending money to travel to all those events, to get training and—and…and it’s not enough. It’s not close to being enough. I am good but I am not at the top, you know? Last time you and I fenced, I…”

I couldn’t even bring myself to say it aloud. 15-3. That score was a massacre. Max just waited silently.

“I wake up early every day to get more training in, I sacrifice time I could spend with my friends, every night my body is aching when I go to sleep…and for what? To achieve middling results in a tournament in a sport no one even cares about? And even if I won, even if I was the best of the best, would that really change anything? Would I become a superstar like champions in other sports? No. I really wouldn’t. So lately when my friends and family ask me why are you still doing? Why do you subject yourself to this shit every night? Why do you torture yourself? I have a really tough time answering. I…”

“You have a tough time answering them,” Max said understandingly, “but you already know what the answer is, even if you don’t want to say it aloud, don’t you?”

I looked up. God, it was so frustrating…I had never felt this annoyed before I even had a single match in a tournament. “You know…the couple minutes on the piste, when I’m facing someone much stronger than me are all I have. I love it. I love it so much…and I work so hard for it. I give it everything, everything, everything I have. But sometimes, no matter how much of yourself you give, no matter how much love you show…things you love don’t always love you back.” I covered my face. “You know why? Because I. CAN’T. STOP.” I yelled this last bit but I didn’t care if anyone was looking. Outbursts were common enough in tournament hallways, anyhow. “It’s a sickness. I can’t stop. And yeah, maybe my fencing life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would…” I remembered being a kid, being praised by my coach and thinking I would be invincible. “Maybe I thought I would be more. Maybe I thought I—I had earned something more. But I still can’t stop myself. Max, I can take losing. I can take never achieving my dreams. But I can’t take not being here. I love this sport. It’s not for glory, it’s not for money, it’s not even for self-satisfaction. Those few minutes on the piste every few weeks in the middle of fucking nowhere, they are what I fucking live for.”

It was one of those outbursts where you are breathing heavily by the end. How long was it until I had regained my breath? A minute? Two? All I know is that by the time I felt fine again, Max had a hand on my shoulder and said, “That’s good. That’s all you need.”

“Huh?”

“You love it, so you bleed for it. It’s not about the medals or the glory. It’s about you and what makes you happy. Just do it. Just be yourself.” He tapped my chest with the back side of his hand and started moving toward the gym. “Come on, the event is starting soon. Take all those confusing feelings you have right now…and leave them all on the piste.”

I nodded. “Yeah…I always have. And I always will.”

This was hard.

It was supposed to be hard.

It wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t.

Fencing was my world and this world was mine.

“Having fun looking into my memories?” Carr asked nonchalantly. I jumped back, trying to find an excuse, but could only manage some stutters before he held out his hand and stopped me. “Celle used [Investigation] on me enough that I sort of know when my mind is being read by some dickhead with high stats.” He smiled at the end. “Easy there. I’m not upset. It makes things easier…you get it more now, don’t you? Think that gets my point across more than words ever could.”

It did. “Why?” I asked quietly. “No…how? How do you love something that much?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It just happens.”

God, I hated that…I wished I could just follow my heart like that. That I could not spare a second thought about my fears and insecurities and just go forward… “You really love the sport. It’s not just about being the best for you, is it?”

“Not anymore,” Carr replied. “I admit it was, at one point. But…the more I fenced, the more I realized there was more to it than that. That’s why, last time…when I was duelling against the Longswordsman, I had to fence him on my own terms. Sometimes you just take a loss hard, y’know? No matter who you are. And man I was pretty down after losing to Johan. But that duel reminded me that I still love fencing from the bottom of my heart.”

“Wait, that is why you gave him the chance to get another weapon?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re fucking insane,” I said. “Like, you’re consistent with your bullshit which I sort of respect, but you’re consistently a fucking imbecile.”

Carr flashed a smile at me, the kind that said ‘Yes, so?’ and I couldn’t help but laugh in response. What else could I say? “To be clear, I still think you’re an arrogant, insane lunatic,” I said. And I meant it too. “But I do respect that you’re always yourself in every situation.”

“How can I not be myself?” He asked, tone somewhat baffled.

I wonder what it was like to live like that. I don’t think I have ever really been myself in any situation. I was always what the situation called for, a sort of social, colour-blind chameleon failing at camouflage enough times that he no longer remembered his original shade. “Man, we’re really different.”

“We really aren’t,” Carr told me. “That’s the thing. I…I think I was harsh on you because to be honest, looking at you scared me. Because I came pretty close to just being you a few times in my life. There were many times I felt like giving up, and I know that if I did I would have retreated and…not have had much else in my life.”

“I’m sorry, is that somehow not supposed to come off like a horrible insult?” I asked.

Carr shook his head. “It’s just supposed to be honest. I know it sounds bad and I apologize for it.”

“It’s a start, I guess.”

“But you know…” he continued. “From the moment you gave your best trying to fight me instead of giving up, I’ve actually started to respect you.”

“Oh, should I be thankful for that?”

We both laughed. The atmosphere had melted a little since. Some time passed and he taught me some more footwork—my legs were going to kill me the next day—and made it clear that it would be weeks if not months before it was in a good state, much less an effective one. “Hey, Fedal?” Carr asked, after a while. “Gonna ask you a weirdly personal question right now.”

I shrugged. “Go on.”

“What do you want?”

“Like, from life?”

“Man, we were basically kidnapped from Earth and dropped onto this world out of nowhere. It really sucks. What’s your goal right now? Actually no, scratch that—goal is too big of a word.” He paused. “When you are laying in bed at night, fantasizing about your greatest triumph, what is it? Beating Johan?”

I thought about it. “No…I mean, I’m going to beat Johan for sure, because he’s a bastard and it’s my duty as the Hero but—well…that’s something I have to do. Because it’s the right thing to do. It’s not a personal desire just…something I have to do, if that makes sense?”

“And what is it that you want to do more than anything else?” He insisted. “C’mon, there has to be something you want. Be honest with me. Fuck, be honest with yourself. I won’t make fun of it, no matter what it is. Nothing altruistic, nothing about saving worlds or some shit. What do you want, your pettiest, most selfish desire?”

I considered this for a second. What was it that I really wanted? More than anything…ignoring my responsibilities…ignoring what I thought I had to do as a proper person…ignoring what I thought the mature thing was…what I really wanted was…

I looked up at him. “I want to get better at fencing,” I said, truthfully. “And…I want to defeat you, Carr. In a fair match. Without skills.”

He didn’t laugh. Instead, he grinned and said, “Good. That’s the attitude you need.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve a team match coming up, Fedal. You’re going to work hard there. And…what I’m trying to say is…” Awkwardly, he looked me in the eye and said, “So long as you want to beat me—I’ll be proud to have you join the Bladewolves, my friend.”