The stick felt heavier the second day.
Suguru noticed it the moment he picked it up from where he'd hidden it behind the stable. The wood was rough against his palms, uneven where it had been hastily shaped. It wasn't a weapon. It barely deserved to be called a tool.
Still, it was something.
He arrived at the yard after work, clothes stiff with sweat and old grime. The lanterns were already lit, casting long shadows across the packed earth. Fewer men trained at this hour—those who remained moved with tired precision, their strikes slower, less sharp than during the day.
The older man was there.
He didn't greet Suguru.
"Stand," he said.
Suguru did.
"Feet apart. Too wide. Narrow it. No—too far back."
Suguru adjusted, clumsy and uncertain.
"Again."
His legs burned almost immediately.
"You've been watching," the man said. "That doesn't mean you've learned."
Suguru tightened his grip on the stick. "I know."
The man circled him slowly. "Name."
"…Suguru."
"I'm not your master," the man said. "Call me Garron."
He stopped in front of Suguru. "Raise it."
Suguru lifted the stick.
"No," Garron said. "You're lifting your arms. Raise the blade."
There was no blade.
Suguru hesitated.
Garron struck the stick sharply with his own wooden practice sword. The impact rattled Suguru's wrists and sent a jolt through his arms.
"That," Garron said, "is why watching isn't enough."
They practiced only one motion.
Over and over.
Lift. Step. Lower.
Each time Suguru thought he had it, Garron corrected him. His foot was wrong. His grip too tight. His shoulders stiff.
"Relax," Garron snapped. "You're fighting the air."
"I don't know how not to," Suguru said.
"That's obvious."
By the tenth repetition, Suguru's arms shook. By the twentieth, sweat blurred his vision. By the thirtieth, he nearly dropped the stick.
Garron didn't stop him.
"Again."
Suguru forced his hands to move.
His mind reached back instinctively—to the way he'd copied the men before, memorizing shapes instead of understanding weight. To the moment he'd almost fallen behind the stable, practicing alone and failing.
Now, failure had a witness.
That night, he returned to the stone corner by the stable and collapsed.
Sleep took him without mercy.
The next day, his body rebelled.
Every movement hurt. Lifting buckets sent fire through his shoulders. His hands refused to close fully around rope or cloth.
"You look worse than usual," Iren said, appearing beside him near the well.
Suguru huffed weakly. "I feel better."
Iren snorted. "Liar."
That evening, Suguru returned to the yard anyway.
Garron nodded once.
They repeated the same motion.
Nothing new.
No strikes. No forms. No praise.
Just correction.
"You're leaning again."
"Your balance."
"Stop thinking ahead."
Suguru bit his tongue and tried again.
Days passed like this.
Work. Ache. Yard. Collapse.
The stick bruised his palms. His stance improved by fractions he barely noticed. Once, Garron struck harder than usual and Suguru didn't stumble.
Garron paused.
"Hm."
That was all.
Magic still avoided him.
Once, a robed man passed near the yard, a faint glow rippling across the ground beneath his staff. Suguru felt it—something like pressure behind his eyes.
Then it was gone.
Garron watched him closely.
"Don't chase what isn't reaching back," he said.
Suguru nodded, though part of him burned with questions.
On the seventh night, Garron handed him something different.
Another wooden sword.
Heavier.
Better balanced.
"Don't get ideas," Garron said. "This doesn't make you a swordsman."
Suguru accepted it carefully. "Then what does?"
Garron looked out over the empty yard. "Surviving long enough to stop pretending."
Suguru bowed.
His hands still shook.
His body still ached.
But when he practiced that night—alone, after Garron left—his feet didn't slide.
Not this time.
It wasn't strength.
It wasn't talent.
It was familiarity.
And in a world that gave nothing freely, even that felt earned.