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Chapter 7 - Training and pain

Hajime looked at Hina with a terrified look, his whole body was shaking in fear while Hina looked cool and come, and ready to fight.

Her eyes showed no emotions, and she looked like she had been through a lot of tough times. After all, she was just another slave in the eyes of everyone. And this was Hajime's first time using a weapon or training with it.

".... Will you go easy on me? This is my first time doing this." He said while trying to maintain his body from trembling even more.

Hina just walked away from him, it was like she was ignoring him, and she started heading in the direction where she had thrown the tree earlier.

"Where is she going?" He wondered while his trembling slowly started to wear off. He looked left and right, trying to figure out what Hina was up to, but he couldn't.

"Are we done already?" He thought to himself as he looked in the direction where Rica and Reiko went off, when suddenly he heard a sound coming from the direction where Hina had just gone.

He twisted his head to see what was up with the noise, when he saw a tree flying towards him at a "Crazy amount of velocity." His point of view. He stepped back a little bit and tripped on his legs, falling off the ground just in time before the tree barely scraped him on his shoulder

"What the hell?!"

He looked closer at who threw the tree while still lying on the ground, and he saw Hina coming back towards him while carrying two daggers covered in blood.

'Is that blood?'

'Why's she coming towards me with that look?'

He wondered intensely as he picked himself off the ground while facing Hina. He looked where his dagger had fallen earlier and saw that it was stuck on some rocks close to the direction where Hina was approaching, and one of the ropes attached to it was off the ground.

'How did my dagger end up there,

He took a step back and started running away from her. But he wasn't running away because he was giving up the training, but he wanted to read Hina away from the dagger so that the moment she was far enough from it, he could head there and take his dagger back. Hina stopped next to the dagger and looked at Hajime. She picked it up and left the rope.

'What?! Did she know I was going after my dagger?'

'This is bad.'

Hajime wondered as he stopped and looked back. He sighed.

'I have to get that dagger back somehow.'

Hina stepped back and threw Hajime's dagger straight towards him with full force. The dagger stabbed Hajime in his left leg, catching him by surprise. He fell while screaming in pain, and loud enough for Reiko to hear him from where she was.

"Looks like they have started."

Reiko said while holding some kind of shadow on the neck, as Rica was standing in front of her with more shadows around her, and she looked like she was about to collapse from fatigue. She shifted her shoulder and pointed her staff at Reiko, commanding the shadows to go and attack her.

The shadow moved swiftly like assassins going to attack their target. They shifted left and right, trying to confuse Reiko, but in an instant, they were all blown away.

"Again!"

Reiko said with a serious look, while Rika fell to her knees and was unable to stand.

"OW!!"

Hajime screamed again.

Hina was on top of him and stabbing him continuously, and no matter what he did, she didn't stop until he forced his stabbed leg to move and kicked her off him.

Somehow, he kicked hard enough, removing her from on top of him. She fell and rolled on a steep slope for a moment, allowing Hajime the chance to stay away from her for a moment.

Hina stood up and didn't move for a moment. She watched closely as Hajime was dragging himself away from her to find a place to hide. He looked left and right, looking for a spot to try and hide himself, but just couldn't find a better place. He kept on dragging himself without noticing that he was moving towards the woods where Hina threw the tree, which she went and brought back.

His blood left a trail that made hiding impossible for him, and she just kept on standing where she had fallen earlier, watching as Hajime struggled to move. Hina smiled and started walking towards Hajime slowly, giving Hajime a chance to hide, even though she knew that there was no hiding from her.

Hajime saw the woods and thought maybe he would be safe hiding in them for a moment, just enough to make him catch his breath. When he suddenly saw something from a distance glittering, and he felt like the thing was trying to push him away from it, but Hajime kept moving forward, ignoring it.

Hina started picking up her pace and staying as close to Hajime as possible. She knew what the thing was and was also trying to get close to it, but no matter what she did, the thing just kept pushing her away. With Hajime, the thing seemed to have weakened, and she was able to move closer to it little by little by following Hajime behind.

Hajime looked behind him and saw that he was nowhere near hiding from Hina because Hina was right behind him, but she wasn't attacking him. He held his head high, knowing that if he stopped moving, then till would all be over for him, but as he kept going, he remembered that he was supposed to be training and not running away and shivering in fear. He stopped and turned around while at the same time trying to punch Hina, but he missed.

Hina stopped and observed closely what Hajime was trying to do, but she grew tired. She just kicked him off the ground and sent him even closer to the thing that was glittering. Hajime did not stop there; he tried getting up after being kicked, but his body refused to work as he wanted it to.

'Damn, it hurt.' He uttered in pain.

He tried turning around again, but before he was able to completely turn around, Hina stepped on his left hand. Her foot was as soft as a snowball, but somehow it was heavy.

He screamed in pain again while trying to shake her off him, but the more he moved, the less pain he felt; his whole body started to become numb. But this didn't stop him from trying to move his right hand to try and grab anything that was in front of him, but nothing was in front of him, excluding the glittering thing.

He grabbed it, but the moment his hand made contact with it, it just passed through it like there was nothing there.

He started losing more blood after his hand had just gone through the thing, and everything around him started spinning. In other words, He was feeling dizzy from all the blood he lost.

Hina's eyes grew with curiosity. She grabbed Hajime's left hand and started dragging him away from the glittering thing until she found a spot where there was more blood and stopped there.

The point where there was more blood was close to the thing that glittered, because Hajime stayed close to the thing that glittered long enough to lose more blood.

From afar, Reiko felt that something just felt off with her magic. She was losing more mana than she was using.

"What's going on?" she muttered while looking up.

"Did you say something?" Rica asked, sitting on the grass, to refill her mana, she was growing sky blue around her body, and some flowers around her started blooming.

"What?" Reiko uttered

"Is something wrong?" Rica asked with a concerned face while looking at Reiko.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Reiko said with a smile as she looked at Rika.

Hajime feinted, but this didn't stop Hina from doing whatever she was doing to him. She tied her hand to Hajime's right hand and started dragging him closer to the glittering thing. Blood from Hajime kept on oozing out of his body, but this didn't bother Hina a bit because she was used to seeing blood.

She slowly approached the glittering thing, and the closer she got, the weaker she got. It was like the thing was draining her mana, but she kept on moving with Hajime.

Her body started burning up, but she kept on moving until she reached the thing and got to the other side of it, but the moment she passed through, she collapsed together with Hajime, and her fur skin fell off her just leaving her with bare skin.

As she was passing the thing with Hajime, Reiko felt a crushing sensation on her chest.

"Someone just left the barrier."

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