Editor's Note: This is the first installment of an 11-part short story written by Shawn Smith, a junior English major from Keene, N.H. A new installment will be presented in each issue of The Norwich Guidon during the 2001-02 school year.

Reality's End

by Shawn Smith

Part 1

ECHOES FROM THE PAST

The cool breeze passed along my face as I ascended the hill. My light brown trench coat whipped ever so slightly, just enough to reveal the black hilt of my katana - a Japanese sword I forged and named Sukuu. The breeze felt good on my face and even better in my lungs as I inhaled deeply, a perfect blend of coolness with a crisp flavor on the very tip of it. It rippled across my cropped blond hair and cooled my scalp as nothing else could.

As I reached the top, two figures clashed swords together in combat as the sun set behind them; their bodies were mere silhouettes against the soft reds, yellows, and purples of the sky above. They circled each other, attacked and parried, circled again, and started their deadly dance once more. They both were highly skilled, and I watched every move for quite a while. Then, finally, one of the warriors ended the battle with a swipe of his sword and disarmed his opponent. I smiled when I recognized the victor as my own mentor and teacher, Ishiru Akagi.

My name is David Sands. I cannot age, I cannot die by natural means, and I can create or destroy reality as we know it. Like me, my mentor - Master Akagi - and countless others possess a powerful ability. We are practitioners of an ancient power that stems back centuries: magick. Not the magic that you see on television or in movies with trick mirrors and fancy special effects. No, this is true. This is real.

We have been called several names over the course of time: sorcerers, wizards, witches, even magicians. To us, a name is insignificant, as our goals haven't changed in thousands of years. As a group we have no name, but within we are divided into sects. The more traditional sects - mine being one of them - observe and respect the founding ways of magick; it is to be used to protect those without the ability - the Unaware - and to serve the good of humanity. Not every sect abides by such ways, and such conflicts have sparked numerous wars among us over the centuries.

Our powers are only limited by our imaginations and skill level. Some are weak and restricted, while others are obviously quite powerful and can perform almost inhuman feats of magick. However, we are not as omnipotent or as omniscient as it may seem. In order to even control our powers, one must train constantly for years. There have been those in the past, however, that could gain our knowledge and powers with such speed that he or she became powerful enough to equal - and sometimes exceed - those who mastered their abilities long ago. I am one of those rare few.

My journey into this world began when I was born in the United States sixty-two years ago. My parents and I moved to Japan when I was only three. I was an outsider when I arrived there, because I had no concept of their culture or the language. School was a nightmare, for I was always the one the other students would target for abuse, since I was a gai-jin - a foreigner. I was thoroughly beaten outside class almost every day and had no way of defending myself short of running away.

When I was ten years old, I remember running past a karate dojo with around ten or so of my antagonists right behind me. I turned my head to see how far away they were, and suddenly I slammed right into what seemed like an immovable object. I fell right onto the ground and looked up. I saw the face of an old man who seemed to stare right through me. His eyes were green and bright with power, his grey hair tossed about in the air.

"Who are you running from?" the man asked me in Japanese.

I couldn't answer. I was utterly frightened by the man's stare and the sound of boys' shouts and footsteps as they ran toward me. I only stared back at the green eyes overhead. Then, I felt something. I didn't know what it was, but it felt like someone reached inside my head and pulled out the answer to the old man's question. It scared me so much that I started to cry a little.

The man put his hand on my head and patted it. He said, "Do not worry, they will not hurt you this day."

The horde of boys caught up to where I lay on the ground and slowed their pace. They watched as the old man stepped around me and confronted them dead-on.

"You will leave this boy alone for as long as you live. If you harm him, you will lose everything that you hold dear to your heart," the old man said sternly.

The boys only bobbed their heads in silence. They were completely mesmerized by his presence, as I had been moments before.

"You will leave now and not come back to this sacred place. Go!" he shouted.

My would-be attackers darted off like hummingbirds and were soon gone from sight. I sat there on the ground with my mouth open as the old man came to my side.

"They will not bother you again, little one. You have no more to fear," he spoke in English now. His Japanese accent was strong, but I could still understand his words.

I summoned up some courage and offered my thanks. "How did you do that?" I asked him.

"I only told them what needed to be said. You are new to this land of mine, young one?"

"I've lived here since I was three, sir."

"Ah, and yet you have not found a place among your peers here, eh?"

"I guess not. I don't really fit in."

He knelt down and looked straight into my eyes. "I can see within you that you have great potential, but your fear gets in the way. I can show you how to overcome such fears and then perhaps you will find your way to your true inner power."

I wasn't sure what he meant by inner power at the time, but I accepted his offer and began training under this old man, who I learned was the great Ishiru Akagi, master of his own form of karate, Akagi-Do.

I entered the dojo the next day to begin my training under Master Akagi and his instructors. I wore a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants as I stood barefoot on the pure white padded floor. Six other young children stood with me as they, too, were beginners in Akagi-Do. They looked just as nervous as I was - sweat beaded off my brow every second I stood there.

While we stood perfectly quiet, the rest of the students lined up by rank, highest rank in the right-hand corner of the front row followed by the next highest to her left and so on. Master Akagi emerged from a room off to the left, his instructors in tow behind him. They lined up in front of the class with my master parallel to the highest rank, the next highest instructor to his right and so on. The class looked enormous, about six rows deep with five across each row.

Master Akagi shouted in Japanese for everyone to stand at attention. His expression was deadly serious as he stood rigid as a steel pole. He seemed to stare through every one of the students that waited for his next command.

"Face us! Bow!" he commanded in his native language.

The students wasted no time in doing what was ordered of them. They stood just as rigid as my master was when they completed their task and were absolutely silent.

My master faced one of his instructors and bowed. He walked around the class and back to where we all stood in the very back of the dojo. His expression had not changed in the slightest as he faced us and glared into our eyes.

"Do you want to study my art? Do you want to learn what they," he pointed to the students in the class, "are learning?"

We all bobbed our heads up and down slowly in response. His voice was overpowering and his intimidating demeanor was adding to our building fright.

"You do not sound like it. Answer me! Yes, sensai!" he yelled.

"Yes, sensai!" we said nervously.

"Say it!"

"Yes, sensai!"

"LOUDER!"

"YES, SENSAI!" we screamed at the top of our lungs.

Master Akagi made an affirmative grunt and stepped back a bit from us. "Now, attack me. Attack with all your strength and all your numbers, but you will not win against me," he said plainly.

I looked side-to-side at the boy and girl that stood at my sides, as the rest of the beginners did. I couldn't believe what he was asking us to do! Attack him? The master instructor of his own dojo? What would that prove?

"Attack me!" he shouted impatiently.

Two boys rushed straight at him, fists clenched ready to strike. They shouted a battle cry as loud as they could while they swung their arms in a desperate attempt to knock my master out.

Master Akagi moved deftly to his left so as to line up his two attackers in a single line. He grabbed one of the boy's wrists and flipped the boy in the air and on his back. As the other boy came forward to lay into him, my master jumped in the air and threw an outside-to-in crescent kick on the side of the young lad's skull.

I was amazed at how easily he had dispatched his two opponents, but I wasn't about to let myself be another one of his victims. Luckily, I was spared for the time being as the rest of the beginners pounced after Master Akagi.

I thought I saw a very slim grin on his face as he turned to face the onslaught of screaming children ready to kill that came at him. He squared his body off and jumped forward into the air. While still airborne, he whipped both legs out in a split kick into two beginners' mid-sections. He landed, then threw a spinning side kick into another that was ready to land a punch to my master's stomach. The last one came the closest to actually touching my master with a missed hook punch at Master Akagi's head. Without turning to face her, he thrust his elbow directly into her sternum in a quick, snapping motion.

Now, I was the only one left. I felt that intense fear that I had felt each time the schoolchildren would chase me through the streets. The same fear that I felt as they pummeled me until I was bloody. I backed off slowly as Master Akagi walked toward me just as slowly. He wanted me to attack him, but did he want to attack me?

"You want to fight. You want to use your anger to extract revenge, don't you? You see me as the children that would chase you down everyday and hurt you. You don't want to hurt me, you want to hurt them," a voice inside my mind told me. It was tempting me, baiting me, to launch my whole body and mind against my master. It was the voice of the man who just beat six opponents without so much as a small effort.

I stared at my master's form. It warped and changed before my eyes into a large mass of my worst enemies. The enemies that disgraced me in front of everyone at school every single goddamned day. They waited for me to be scared, to run from them.

That lesson proved to be one that stuck in my mind all through the six years I was a student in the dojo. Even up until the time I was to test for the black belt I thirsted for, I remembered each and every detail of that day. It would never leave my memory, ever.

Two days before my black belt test, Master Akagi pulled me to the side during class. He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. "Do you feel you are ready for this test, David-san?" he asked me.

"Master, I don't know how I feel other than scared and anxious."

"Ah, in this case, being scared is fine. You have reached a point in your life where the road you walk on becomes two. You must face two choices now, one to run from the hardest part of the long walk you have taken these six years."

"And the other?" I inquired.

"To cross the hardship and conquer the unknown of this test. To simply have a belt is nothing more than an ornament. To have this belt represents the knowledge that you have faced the greatest unknown in your life and conquered it with honor and dignity. That is something that not everyone can have, David-san. I give you this choice now."

I didn't hesitate one second when I said, "I want this test. I need it."

"Then you shall have it," he smiled.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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