Useless Effort
The break lasted only long enough for Kain to catch half a breath before training resumed. Eira pressed him harder this time with faster footwork, sharper angles, fewer openings. Kain adapted, stumbled, rose, adapted again.
Over and over.
Until finally, his legs gave out.
He collapsed onto his back, chest heaving as sweat cut dark lines through the dust and blood clinging to his skin. Above him, the training grounds blurred and spun as his arms felt like iron, his lungs burned with every ragged breath, each inhale scraping like fire.
Yet, he smiled, not out of bravado or denial, but because the pain made it undeniable. It proved he was still here, still fighting. The ache grounding him in the moment, real and earned, a quiet proof that he had not broken yet.
Eira lowered her spear and asked with a curious look. “Why are you smiling?”
Kain turned his head, eyes half-lidded but bright.
“Because… for the first time in a long time… this is fun.”
His voice shook, but the warmth in it didn’t.
“Training…sparring…improving. It makes me feel…alive.”
Eira didn’t respond.
Sophia, seated nearby, didn’t either.
But they heard him.
He let out a breath, soft and tired. “I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“No.” Eira’s voice cut him off before responding. “I know the feeling.”
Her gaze lowered, just slightly. Sophia said nothing but her fingers tightened around the hilt of the teacup, betraying that she, too, understood. The struggle, the climb, the hunger for something better.
Kain pushed himself onto his elbows.
Sophia rose, coat shifting around her like falling snow. As always, she began to leave when training concluded.
Kain, for the first time since her visits began, spoke to her directly.
“I hope it was entertaining today as well.”
Sophia paused mid-step. Slowly, she glanced back at him.
“Yes.” she said simply. “It was.”
She turned again.
“But,” Kain added lightly, “I can feel it, you know. You’re restless. Care to join in on the fun Princess?”
He did not say it with arrogance, but with a sincere observation.
Sophia’s steps halted completely.
“You think I would want to train you?” Her tone sharpened with wounded pride like she was insulted by his accusations. “Why would I train the very person I hate?”
Kain sighed from the floor, as if it made perfect sense.
“Fair point.”
His smile was tired but genuine.
“Then don’t think of it as training...think of it as an opportunity to beat the very person you hate.”
Silence.
Then Sophia’s lips curved just slightly, not gentle. A sharp, cold smile like the idea now seem like a good offer.
“…You’re making a tempting offer. Are you sure you can handle fighting me? You are an unawakened and I am not as kind as Eira.”
She turned fully this time, blue eyes steady on him as she was waiting for confirmation. Kain forced himself upright, wobbled, then bowed while half kneeling, fist to his chest.
“I am woefully unprepared, but I will not run away after making the suggestion myself. Even if you use aura, I will not state that the fight is unfair as eventually I will have to fight against Henry, who is an awakened himself.”
Kain lifted his head and stared into Sophia’s blue eyes before continuing.
“In fact, it will be an honor to be able to spar with you.”
Sophia eyes trembled slightly from the sheer determination and sincerity in Kain’s voice. His personality and attitude was so jarring that it once again threw her off pace. She calmed herself before responding.
“Fine. Starting tomorrow, I will join this ‘training.’”
“Thank you...Sophy.” Kain said with a genuine smile.
Sophia did not look away. For a heartbeat, warmth flickered behind her eyes.
Then she walked out as the doors shut behind her.
Eira looked at Kain with that grin still lingering on his lips and found one of her own forming before she could stop it.
“…Idiot,” she murmured.
But her tone held no contempt.
Only something quietly, unmistakably hopeful.
----
The training yard was quiet in the late morning chill, the kind of cold that bit at exposed skin and sharpened breath into pale mist.
Henry’s spear struck the training post again and again, the dull thud of impact echoing across the yard. He was halfway through his regimen, long past the point where thought guided movement. The motions were ingrained into every fiber of his body, thrust, recover, step, raise shield, and counter-sweep. Each action flowed seamlessly into the next, driven by muscle memory rather than conscious intent. When the sequence ended, he reset his stance without pause and began again.
His movements were precise, efficient, and disciplined. They lacked the effortless brilliance of Eira’s technique, and they did not carry the overwhelming force Gerald commanded. But they were honed all the same, earned through years of repetition, early mornings, and quiet persistence. There was no spectacle in his form, only reliability, forged the hard way and proven strike by strike.
“Again,” he muttered to himself, spear haft shifting in his grip.
He thrust forward.
This time, his spear whistled through the air, it was fast enough to stir the frost dusting the ground.
Nearby, two knights chatted while resting.
“Have you heard? Young master Kain has been training nonstop.”
The second snorted. “And? A spoiled noble training for two weeks doesn’t fix years of being trash.”
The first laughed. “Right? What’s he trying to do? Impress? He should just accept exile gracefully. He’s already a dead man walking.”
Henry smiled faintly to himself.
‘That’s right…let them talk...let them remember who the real star.’
But then two maids walked past, their voices hushed but excited.
“Lady Eira has been personally training him.”
Henry’s spear froze mid-thrust.
“…What?” one knight blinked. “Lady Eira? Personally?”
“Yes,” the maid whispered. “And it seems Princess Sophia has joined them as well.”
The courtyard went silent.
Then the knights burst into disbelief and starting laughing.
“No way.”
“She must just be beating him senseless.”
“After everything he did to her? Must be payback.”
They laughed, but Henry did not hear them as his mind was focus on their previous words.
‘Eira…training him and so is Sophia.’
Those words ricocheted inside Henry’s skull, scraping, tearing into his sanity.
‘She is mine.’
Not because she ever said so. Not because she ever chose him. But because he had chosen her.
He remembered every morning waking before dawn just to match her routine. Every bruise accepted without complaint. Every lesson drilled into bone. Every time she looked past him as if he were a ghost while searching for someone who never deserved her gaze.
‘Kain...always HIM!!!!’
Even when Kain ignored, insulted, and sabotage her.
Eira still spoke his name while it sounded cold, Henry knew behind all that, there was a subtle warmth. She still looked at him with hope, but hides it well.
Henry bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed.
‘Kain does not deserve her devotion or her memories. He certainly does not deserve her smile.’
Henry had watched that smile disappear, year after year, under Kain’s cruelty.
He remembered the day Eira cried after Kain refused to train with her and mocked her as she was not a true pureblood.
Henry was there holding her shoulders while whispering words of comfort. He was relishing how Kain pushed her away right into his arms. The more Kain pushed, the closer Eira got to Henry or so he thought.
She did not remember.
But he did.
He remembered everything. He loved her, but not with softness, not with gentleness, but with something consuming, absolute.
‘If someone breaks what is precious, then the world should break them back.’
‘So why now? Why was Kain regaining what Henry had spent his entire life trying to earn in a matter of two weeks?’
His aura flared as the air around him rippled with killing intent. His spear creaked under his grip with the wood splintering.
The knights and maids turned toward him, startled.
He did not care as he hurled the spear. It exploded through the training dummy with splinters bursting outward before slamming into the stone wall behind it, the spear’s shaft snapping on impact.
Silence fell.
Henry exhaled sharply, forcing his aura back down before it flared out of control. His heartbeat beating so loudly he could hear it in his ears.
He whispered as rage slowly emerged “Even when he is nothing…he still takes her from me.”
His heart pulsed like a wound, but then a slow, cold calm washed over him.
“…No matter.”
Because he knew how this ended. The trial will be his undoing, his end to Kain.
“I’ll break him in front of her,” Henry thought, eyes glinting.
“Then she’ll understand. She’ll finally see me.”
His voice lowered to something closer to a vow than speech as he smiled while licking his lips “Only I am worthy to stand by her side and then afterwards, she’ll finally see me.”
As he was walking away from the training ground. The knights and maids could hear the sound of him laughing. The atmosphere was unsettling.
