The Fellowship of Tears

Young Master Gart (2)

Like nearly all his fellow young masters, Young Master Gart hailed from a commoner’s background and was rather mighty proud of it. He felt that the assignment to Kasgar was a godsend as he was very sure he would have hated having to deal with the rich families of the cities or towns he should have been rightfully assigned to.

At Kasgar nobody put on airs before him. It would not have been the same elsewhere. He was sure he would have run off several rich kids from the training center.

“Especially because they are rich,” he thought with a laugh.

Young Master Gart had a feeling that his luck had not been good as of late. Since his last failure in the assessment, a lot of unfortunate incidents had happened to him. Just a month ago, his father had died after years of suffering from a debilitating disease. On top of that, the girl he thought he loved married his most ardent rival for her hand. Then, just recently, he had an unfortunate incident with a bunch of bandits that resulted in a broken leg.

What was unfortunate about the girl he sought to marry for several years was not that she married someone else. As far as Young Master Gart was concerned, he didn’t feel bad at all that she married that pathetic spoiled brat. He was merely lamenting the fact that, had he learned sooner that he only loved the girl in his mind, he could have spent those wasted hours doing something more productive.

Upon pondering over it, he concluded that he must have tricked his mind into missing her and acting miserable over not seeing her for months at a time. Otherwise, why wasn’t he actually so eager to go and see her.

At this time, Young Master Gart was already twenty-nine. Due to his age, his parents had exerted no small amount of pressure to force him to marry and father grandchildren for them. Once, he retorted jokingly, “Why do I need to marry when I can always give you all the grandchildren you want without having to get married?”

His parents didn’t take the joke kindly and prayed fervently for a full night to Kamina, the goddess of enlightenment, that their son’s mind would be cleansed of such evil thoughts and live a virtuous life. They never forgot to add that he be blessed with a faithful, loving wife and a dozen children, of course.

His misfortune at the hands of the bandits was actually a laughable occurrence that could have been totally avoided.

Six days ago, Young Master Gart went after a gang of bandits. The ruffians had set up a trap that ended up surprising him enough for them to gain the chance to smash his lower right leg. Fortunately, while he was wincing in pain, the bandits made the mistake of thinking he had lost the ability to fight and took the time to taunt him.

When the leader walked up to Young Master Gart to talk trash in his face, the latter jabbed at the bandit’s throat. The jab nearly choked the life out of the poor i***t as he passed out.

Every disciple of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy received training in fighting with a handicap. The reason for this was that, in a real fight, a lot of things could happen including getting blinded temporarily or breaking a limb, among many other possibilities. Among these situational trainings was fighting on one good leg.

It was a little troublesome, but the young master violently struck down the bandits. However, he was so mad over his injured right foot he decided to permanently disable the gang leader and two others before his anger could be appeased.

When he inspected his right foot, Young Master Gart realized that he had a slight fracture on his shin. While he could be fully recovered after seven to ten days more, this was still a troublesome development for him. He would miss a considerable number of days of training and just might, as a consequence, miss the privilege of challenging for a spot among the elites for the very first time.

His luck was definitely bad.

However, just the day before, he felt as if his luck was about to take a one hundred-eighty-degree turn. The very reason for the young master’s designation to Kasgar himself happened to visit the training center that had been built in his honor. Blink turned up at the center dressed in an immaculate white robe like a scholar. Yet, a fine-looking sword also dangled by his side as if to warn people that he was also a warrior. The visage fitted him perfectly.

While Young Master Gart wondered why Blink turned up in Kasgar instead of training intensively at the academy, he didn’t really want to bother too much with such particulars. What matters most was that Blink was here just when he needed some help. And if his luck could hold up, he might heal up in time and have a few more days to exchange pointers with the most gifted fighter among his juniors.

Blink held a respectful notoriety among the young masters.

A year ago, one of the young masters wanted to show off in front of the junior disciples and apprentices and tapped Blink for a round of sparring. While it appeared that Blink lost the bout after going down with a kick to the midsection, the more discerning young masters saw clearly that Blink was merely saving his senior some face. Had he really gone all out against his senior, Blink could have struck him down with a punch to the nose, a side kick to the floating rib, an elbow to the throat and a whirling kick to the temple. Anyone of those could have taken out the young master.

As for that kick to the midsection that ended the fight in favor of the senior disciple, it was actually clearly blocked but that Blink simply had an enormous disadvantage in power and, thus, ended up sitting on his butt and declared the loser.

During the succeeding assessment, Master Tszarek caught his senior disciples talking about the sparring bout with Blink. The headmaster mildly chastised the young master in question for his lack of sense and warned the others not to do the same.

“You are very lucky that Blink didn’t want you to lose face in front of your juniors, otherwise I would have banished you from the academy on the spot,” Master Tszarek berated the erring young master.

He then sternly warned them as a group to avoid situations wherein they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

At this very moment, Blink himself was standing beside him ready to take his place, even if only for a few days.

Young Master Gart cleared his throat.

“Listen up!” he bellowed. “I would like to introduce to you a very special person!”