The next morning, I met Becca by the West Gate, and we headed out towards the glade I had been training in. It was about four kilometers, and I was afraid that she’d balk, but she assured me that she had no other plans today and that a good walk out of the City was in the works for her.

We spoke of inconsequential matters on the way out. She spoke a bit about Master Wong and the dojo, the best pastries in the City, and the results of last year’s tournaments.

When we got to the field, I took off my vambraces, duster and hat and set them to the side with the rest of my belongings, under the oak tree. Becca only had a light pack, and sat that down nearby as well.

“Hey, what with those bands you have around your arms and head?”

“Hmm?” She couldn’t see the others. “Oh, they’re training weights.”

“For like strengthening your body?”

“Yes.”

“Well, interesting. Never seen them strapped to a body part like that before. Though, they’re so small they can’t possibly weigh that much. Still, don’t want you to get hurt too badly when I kick your ass today. Better take them off.”

I raised an eyebrow at that, but wasn’t really willing to argue the point. It took a while to remove them all, especially since several were under clothing and I had to discretely discharge the gray ki charging them least that raise her suspicions.

***

“Now, you said you’ve done a fair bit of unarmed sparring before, yes?” Becca asked

“That’s right. With an old friend.”

“Well then. We’ll skip the basics and just move to kicking your ass, shall we?”

“Har har har,” I mocked laugh, and took a stance. This was my first time sparring unarmed in this younger body, and I felt awkward. I thought I had been getting used to it, but apparently it was only to specific activities. Oh well. That’s at least part of the reason for sparring with her.

“Interesting,” she said, as she settled down into her own stance, “you have a very similar stance. Hmm… If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were also taught by Master Wong. Who taught you that?”

“Like I said, an old friend.”

“An old friend huh?” she said, then muttering to herself, “Maybe one of Master Wong’s pupils.” Then, louder “Alright! Get ready to—” and Becca cut off as she stepped forward to strike me. My body still felt stiff, and she got within my reach and hit me in the chest. I grunted and was knocked a step back. I only just reacted to block a blow from the side, but wasn’t able to respond before she spun and struck my other thigh with a kick from her heel. I blocked another two blows, before she got a jab right at my chin, and I staggered back a few steps. She paused to let me recover, though truth to told, it hadn’t really hurt and I wasn’t winded.

“Alright,” I said as I shook my arms loose, “let’s try that again.”

***

We sparred on and off for a half bell. I took a lot of strikes, and even got one back at her, but even that was only near the end when she was starting to tire. The half bell was helpful to me as my mind began to put together how this new body had to move based on my old skillsets.

Becca said I was a good punching bag and expressed interest at continuing to come out. I was less than amused at the former, but nonetheless invited her to come out every day an half bell before lunch. She agreed and went her way back to the City.

Once she was gone, I sat down on the ground and hugged my knees. Our interaction yesterday had been so short and formal, I really hadn’t thought anything about it. But today—the casual chatter, the banter, the sparring—it was too much. In my old lifetime, most of my party had died months before the end. I had seen a lot of good people die up until then, and lost a lot, but after that happened, Sam and I mourned them painfully. Worse, we did so in our own separate ways and weren’t there to comfort each other.

Coming back to the past, I had been so optimistic, almost naively so. What could we do when the hordes began to get worse in a few decades? Did I really think I could get the gang back together and just defeat the fucking dark lord, with a little future knowledge and extra training?

And for six weeks, I had just gone about strengthening myself, telling myself I could gather my friends when I could. Stumbling across Becca was something between a blessing and a curse. Interacting with her—even if it was an aspect of her personality I hadn’t seen in decades—was deeply soothing to my soul. And yet, for so much that she acted like the old Becca I had known, she didn’t know me at all and that cut deep—far deeper than I expected. I had heard that sometimes the very elderly would forget their friends and even their families, while remaining fundamentally the same person. But I had never experienced that as a spiritualist on the trail, and I began to wonder whether I really knew all that much in my old life.

For the first time, in a long time, I sat in that field, crying softly.

***

For the following week, Becca and I continued to spar daily together, right before lunch. For the first few days, I continued to take a beating, but was steadily relearning the muscle memory from my old lessons. By the third day, we were trading hits two to one and, by the fifth day, nearly even.

For the first three days, our casual conversation had died down pretty significantly. I was still wrestling with my emotions on the subject—I couldn’t blame everything on teenage hormones—and Becca herself seemed troubled by something, though I didn’t pry and she didn’t volunteer.

On the fourth day, I packed an extra lunch, and invited her to stay after to meditate and eat next to the creek before she headed back to the City. Earlier in the week, I had also finally gotten around to purchasing some incense—in this case juniper—and burned some to aid our meditation. Becca was, unusually I thought, quite complimentary about it.

And as we ate lunch, we began to catch up on the casual conversation that we had missed out on in the first few days. We still weren’t quite friends, so we mostly covered only inane topics, such as E-ranked beasts we had fought, which whether a gyro was a sandwich, and rumors about whether or not the Queen was actually B-ranked. But that was alright, and for all that our friendship was recovering—or rebuilding I suppose—I didn’t think we needed any heavy topics at this time.

The important part was that we established a new habit. And thereafter, we included meditation and lunch after each sparring session. Becca started bringing her own lunch, but I always packed two anyways. We had a good laugh about it the first time, and after that, we just gorged ourselves a little bit because, well, that remained a luxury of the young.

Things had, I thought, been going well.

On the eighth day, as we were having lunch, Becca’s suddenly became consternated as she was looking at me.

“What?” I lamely asked.

“Aren’t those the weights you had on before our spar the first day?”

“Umm, yes?”

“Hold on, how long have you had those on?!” she said sounding alarmed.

“Hmm…About seven days now?”

“What? Why? That’s got to add like at least 10 kilograms.”

More like 150, but who’s counting. “Ahem, because I wear them during my morning training, and you say how much a pain they were to remove on that first day.”

“Wait!” she cried and leapt to her feet, “you mean that after our first spar, you’ve been wearing weights the whole time, and training before we’ve sparred?!?!”

“Umm, yes.” I didn’t like where this was going.

“Don’t you fucking lie to me!” she yelled, “I’ve been watching you and You. Hardly. Ever. get out of breath when we’re sparring,” punctuating her words, “and there’s no fucking way you can spar like that wearing weights and, and,” she trailed off, at a loss for words, before resuming full volume “AND after spending the morning training! What kind of gaslighting bullcrap is this!?!” she ended with an accusatory finger.

Thirty second ago, I was a little worried about it going downhill. Right now, we were careening off a cliff. Okay, deep breath. Casual honesty would be best. Yes, that’s right.

Smiling my best unconcerned smile, “It’s completely true.”

“BULLSHIT!!” she cried as her foot whipped out at my head. Aside from our protective auras—which were a given in a friendly spar—we hadn’t used any offensive ki in our fights. And right now, Becca had just thrown half of her gray ki behind that kick. This might hurt, was the only thought I was able to get out.

When Becca’s kick connected with my the side of my head, it came to a complete stop.

Becca didn’t move as the incredulity of what happened hit her. I didn’t dodge because she just fucking kicked me and shit was hitting the proverbial paddlewheel. Becca had been eyeing the side of my head as her foot made contact and her eyes ever so slightly widened when it had stopped. Her eyes met mine only to find a cold stare. We stayed like that—eyes locked—for a timeless moment. What my instincts were screaming at me to do seemed incredibly stupid. Yet, no other course of action came to mind as the seconds passed and all I could do was hope as hard as I could that this wasn’t a mistake.

I released my ki and focused my spiritual pressure on her. As she was still only on one leg, she fell onto her back, eyes wide as dinner plates staring at me as I stood up in a single motion and looked down on her. Her face was seized in a rictus of awe and terror as my spiritual pressure bore down on her soul. A wet stain began spreading across the front of her pants before I cut it off and we were enveloped by silence. Not even the forest dared make a noise at that.

I was ashamed and terrified that I had completely screwed everything up. I left behind my belongings—my hat and coat, and both my weapons—and walked past her and away as she lay shivering.

As the distance slowly increased, I heard her roll over in the grass and heave up lunch.

“Who the hell are you?!” she yelled, though weakly now.

I paused for only a moment, not looking back, then continued to walk away.