“Come on get up!” A familiar voice said to me. I was just now waking up from Slinca’s blow. “Already the first day and you’re already down for the count.” The voice was muffled, as my vision was blurry. I’m pretty sure I have some serious damage to my neck as I felt it was very sore. My vision was starting to clear up when I saw Eric standing over me, bending down.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to send you to this school.” Eric said, looking away from me.
“What?” Was all I could muster as I began to lift myself up.
“Oh, good you’re awake.” Eric said, sighing a sigh of relief. “I thought I was gonna stay here for longer than I wanted to.”
I looked around and realized I was still in the fighting school, and the thing I’ve been laying on was a blue mat I used to see in my high school. Eric wasn’t the only one there, Yurinami was there, although he was sitting in a corner looking at some papers. Out of all the people I thought would wait for me to get up, Slinca wasn’t there at all. She was the one that did this to me. Maybe she felt embarrassed? Or sorry? Does she think I’m very angry at her? Well, I am a little bit. She really didn’t need to go that far.
“Come on, get up.” Eric demanded as he straightened his back. Eric reached his hand out to me and I took it. As I got to my feet I started to wobble, almost falling straight back down face first into the ground.
“Woah there buddy.” Eric said, putting his elbow out and allowing me to use it as support to hold me up. “Man, did she really hit you that hard?”
“I-I guess so.” My words slurred out like I was drunk.
“We need to get home, Alice, mom, and dad are worried sick about you.” Eric said as he helped me walk towards the exit. “Once we get home, we have some medicine at home you can take and rest. You shouldn’t push yourself to go to school tomorrow if you don’t want to.”
“NO!” I shouted. Eric stopped and looked at me. “Today was just a fluke, tomorrow I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. I can get through this, everything is fine.” I said, almost entirely unintelligibly due to me still slurring and stumbling over my words.
“Don’t push yourself Lee! It’s overall not worth it.” Eric responded to my mess of words.
“Weren’t you the one that suggested I go to this school in the first place? Weren’t you the one that was pushing me to do this!? Now you’re saying that I should stop, only after one accident!?” I said, finally sounding not like a drunk.
“Look, I know what i said but i don’t think you’re up to the tas-”
“I AM!” I yelled, as I pushed Eric away. “I can do it! Stop saying I can’t! You want me to grow stronger right? So don’t take this opportunity from me. This is my one and only chance to prove myself, to get better! And now you want to strip that all away from me!?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, I’m just worried about yo-”
“Well don’t be! I’ll be fine all by myself, look at me! I’m still standing straight up right? I’m fine.”
“You still need my help.”
“Do I? Because you sure as hell don’t need mine!”
“What did you say?”
“God haven’t you noticed!? Everyday of my fucking life I try to get you to notice me! And when I finally do, you want me to stray away from it! Remember the week before this when we trained? That was hell for me, I know, but it was also the most time we’ve ever spent together and I cherished every moment of it!”
“Lee I-”
“All I want is your respect! So, that’s why I’m gonna stick to this! I’m gonna go to this school even if it kills me!”
Eric stood there in shock after that, for the first time ever, he didn’t know what to say. Our argument caught the eye of Yurinami, who was heading towards us with his mask still on.
“Calm down gentleman, no need to get so heated.” Yurinami said, patting Eric on the shoulder. “You two just relax, it’s not very healthy for you two to be fighting like this.” Yurinami looked over at me and Eric, he leaned in close to Eric's face. “I know that you worry about your brother, and honestly it’s not my business to budge in on. But, after everything that I’m hearing from you two, I think the right course of action is to let him stay in this school.”
“Shut up, you stupid mask face!” Eric hissed.
“Ok, ok I know you don’t want anyone in your family business, but let me show you this.”
Yurinami handed a paper over to Eric and he yanked it out of Yurinami’s hand and read it. It’s almost like Eric froze when he read it.
“You see?” Yurinami said.
Eric was reading the paper, mouth agape. He then handed the paper back to Yurinami and looked down at the ground. Like a little kid getting lectured by his parents. Yurinami walked over to me and handed me the paper. I took it from his hands and read it.
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YURINAMI FIGHT SCHOOL
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Lee Pulpis Fighting Evaluation: Overall a very late decision maker, but when he gets his mind to it he can cleverly put the opponent on edge with cunning comebacks. He was the only one in today’s session to land a hit on somebody without using the sword whatsoever. A clearly competent fighter with a lot of heart and very smart. A truly great fighter indeed.
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Report written on: 06-04-27 Report Written by: Yurinami Ontel.
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I couldn’t believe what i was reading, he actually thought of me as a competent fighter. I was so happy to read that, I shed a tear of joy. Someone actually thought of me that way! Now, I get why Eric acted like that. He felt bad. Yurinami took the paper from my hands and said,
“There, the argument settled. I hope you return tomorrow Lee Pulpis.”
Yurinami walked back to the corner where he had his chair and grabbed the stack of papers and put them in a drawer at a desk.
“You guys should get going. It’s pretty late out.” Yurinami said from across the room.
“Wait! What time is it?” I responded.
“It’s 9:04”
It hit me that I was passed out for a good twelve hours. My god, did I get my ass handed to me that badly by Slinca? Whatever, that doesn’t matter right now. Eric was still looking down. I walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey. Let’s go.” I said comfortably. Eric, like always, didn’t say anything, only looking up and walking away. I noticed his face was red, and his eyes were wet, like he was crying. I never saw him cry.
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I followed him out the door and said goodbye to Yurinami and when I got outside it was pretty dark out, with only the street lights lighting up the street. Other than that it was absolutely pitch black outside. Eric walked down the stairs that lead to the entrance and went out onto the street, I followed. Eric was moving pretty fast, so fast I could barely keep up with him. It’s the fastest I’d ever seen him walk. For some reason, Eric turned down a dark alleyway, and as fast as I could I followed. Why is he taking the streets when we could just take the sewer? Wait, I never told Eric about the route I’d taken to get to the school. He kept walking and walking, not even looking back at me to make sure I was still following him. He took turn after turn to the point I couldn’t even see where he was going. After a right turn down an alley, I lost sight of him.
After I lost sight of him, I tried to predict where he was going, but it was too late, Eric was too far gone. I stood still in the middle of the dark alleyway, not knowing what to do. I knew I should keep walking, but I didn't even know where I was. Eric took me down such a confusing route. I shouted for Eric, again and again. After about a minute I heard footsteps coming from behind me, I’m sure that’s Eric I thought. But, then it struck me. Eric was moving ahead of me, so why would he be behind me? I turned around and saw two guys wearing black hoodies, with the hoodie covering their faces and they were walking towards me. Oh fuck, oh shit.
“Are you lost?” One of the guy’s said as he came closer to me.
“I think he is pal” The other guy responded.
I was too scared to make a noise or even run away, I just froze in fear. These guys were not hiding their intentions, they were clearly here to kill. They were now right in front of me, i realized i was too stupid to even bring a weapon with me. I was utterly defenseless.
“Unfortunately he is.” The guy said. “That’s too bad. There’s no one here to save you.” I wanted to scream for Eric, but my voice couldn’t speak, I’m pretty sure I couldn't even make an audible noise. The guy pulled out a gun and put it against my forehead, the other guy also pulled out a gun. I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die! I kept thinking about how tough of an act I put on in the Yurinami fight school, acting all tough and brave when in reality. My own cowardness got me into this situation. I wonder what Eric would think if he knew he left me behind? Knowing I was killed because of it, will he actually care more for his family?
“My man didn’t even make a sound once we showed up, can’t believe you’ve made it this far in life!” The guy said.
As soon as he finished his sentence he went to pull the trigger. I closed my eyes, expecting the boom, then the silence. Except, I didn’t hear a boom, instead a scream from one of the guys.
I opened my eyes and saw Eric, who was stabbing the guy, who was holding the gun to my forehead, in the shoulder he was holding the gun in. The other guy didn’t even see him coming, even though he should’ve. The guy dropped his hand and yelped in pain and went flying back into the wall. The other guy aimed his gun at Eric, but Eric hit it out of his hand. Eric proceeded to stab him in the stomach and twist the knife clockwise. While Eric was doing this the other guy was reaching for the gun he dropped earlier. I realized Eric didn’t see this happening, so i lept into action. I rushed into the guy and tackled him to the ground. Eric, didn’t notice that, he just kept stabbing the other guy so much, it might’ve been a hundred times. Eric kept stabbing until the guy didn’t struggle anymore. Eric let go and the guy fell to the ground, he was without a doubt, dead.
“You fucking monster! You ruthless monster! You didn’t need to do that to him, you could’ve just stabbed him in the head and called it done!” The guy I had tackled on the ground yelled. Eric turned around to see me on top of the guy, holding him down. Eric pushed me off of him and got on top of the guy. He then started stabbing away. This time he was stabbing the guy’s head. I could hear how hard Eric was pressing down, loud crunches and squishes of the flesh begging repeatedly stabbed. I watched Eric do this for about a minute, that’s when I decided that was enough.
“Stop! Stop! He’s already dead! No need to go overkill!” I yelled, rushing over to Eric to try to make him stop. I got over to Eric and tried to push him off of him, but he hit me and I flew back, and Eric kept stabbing. I knew that it was useless to get him to stop. Eric went at this for a good five minutes, and during that time, all I could do was watch horrified. Eric never showed this side of himself. Pure rage.
It felt like a whole year passed by until he stopped, and got up. He dropped the knife from his hand and it hit the floor with a clang. The knife was absolutely soaked in blood, with little bits of brain on the blade. I only sat there on the ground. The pool of blood made its way to my feet, and I jolted up in shock. Eric was just looking up at the sky, his shirt down soaked in blood.
“E-E-Eric?” I managed to muster out. Eric didn’t respond, only looked at me. I walked over to the body of the guy I held down, I looked at his dead body. His skull was absolutely crushed, and you could see his bran sticking out. I couldn’t hold back the puke that was in my throat and vomited all over the body. L turned away in disgust, trying to get the image out of my mind. Eric put his hand on my shoulder, the blood on his hand soaked into my shirt.
“Let’s go.” Was all he said. And he started walking. Not wanting to repeat the incident that had just happened, I walked closely behind him, making sure to keep up with his pace.
We eventually ended up back at the apartment, where I had just thought that me and Eric had to explain to our parents what happened. Then I thought about Alice, what would she think? Would she hate my brother if I told the truth of what happened? I didn’t get much time to think about it, as we walked into the apartment.
The first person to see us there was the guy at the front desk. He saw us walk in, both of us with blood on our clothes. The guy looked worried, as he looked up from the book he was reading and stared at us. He knew exactly what went down, not down to the exact detail but, he could get the main gist of it. We walked upstairs, with my heart racing about what we will tell our parents.
When me and Eric reached our front door, Eric opened the door with no hesitation. I stood outside for a good few seconds. I could hear my mother’s cries when she saw Eric walk in the door. She thought I had died or something because I didn't immediately walk in the door with Eric. But, eventually I did show myself, looking away from my mom who hugged me and Alice also joined in on the hug. My father was scolding me and Eric about being out so late. Our parents questioned us again and again about what happened but none of us said anything. The only thing i did was take my shirt off, roll out my sleeping bag, and get into it, curling up in a ball and trying to stop tears from rolling down my face.
Mom slept beside me that night, while Alice slept beside Eric. Our parents knew what basically happened, but they wanted the details. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And before I knew it. I fell asleep.
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