There was no return to the relative (albeit freezing and solitary) privacy of his former cell. Kenji did not pull him back into the disciplinary dungeon's brutal gloom. Instead, with the very same detached composure with which he'd taken Sora from the wall, the great guard dragged him through increasingly emptier and less-traveled hallways, towards a part of the castle Sora had merely glimpsed: the North Court.
While if the inner courts closer towards the kitchens were habitable and sullied, and the central courtyard where he'd crashed was a muddy battle area, the North Court was bare ground dedicated to a sole purpose. It was smaller, ringed on all sides by great walls of bare dark-grey stone rising up so high they seemed actually to graze the permanent leaden sky and snuff the light and give a feeling of claustrophobia even outside. The ground was not mud there, though, but a harsh surface of rough dark gravel spiced by packed earth compressed as hard as turned stone. It was unevenly levelled, scattered about by small jagged rocks threatening damage at every step. There were a number of thick wooden pillars set seemingly at haphazard intervals about the yard, sunken deep into the ground and having surfaces scarred and splintered by countless impacts. There were small angular blocks of stone and wood set about the yard as well, obviously as rough obstacles for some brutal regime of physical fitness. At the far end was a roughlyten-meter square area noticeably darker, the earth as densely packed as anywhere else, scuffled and indeterminate stains spotted about the ground - the tell-tale ground of countless sessions of close combat.
The very atmosphere was thick with cold intent: the acrid smell of sweat-imbued wood and stone, the perpetual taste of metal Sora was now irrevocably tied to the smell of stale as well as fresh blood, and the damp of cool stone imbued by the ubiquitous damp. It was not a courtyard; it was a battleground, a killing-arena, a deliberately constructed environment designed to toughen soldiers through suffering or rid the weak ones among them.
Kenji roughly thrust Sora into the open center of the empty yard. The cool of the pseudo-morning—if this endless twilight was morning at all—clung around Sora's light-worn tunic dampened the previous evening and lifted the skin of his bare forearms into goosepimples and sent a shiver shuddering over him. It was not cold; it was the palpable aura of threat from the stones themselves. He clasped his arms about his chest by habit, eyes scanning the grim perimeter for a means of escape. For a suggestion of something beyond threat? There was none. Only grey stone, packed earth, and the oppressive weight of promised suffering.
"Here," Kenji repeated, the sound of his voice a harsh rasp of anticipation. He towered over Sora, his massive body blotting out where light might have filtered through. Kenji wore less than full armor today, just a leather brigandine over a black tunic and thick trousers, but was as hard as the gray stone of the walls. "Your world will be this one. No more cleaning floors and carrying away trash. All you do from this day forward is take orders and take what you're offered. You won't have failure for long."
Kenji pointed towards the rough shape of the yard with a sharp jerk of his chin. "Run. Around the edge of the walls. Without stopping. Until I, or the one who succeeds me, tell you you're released. I'll set the pace. If the pace gets slow, you'll be corrected. If you stop voluntarily, you'll be corrected. If you overdo it and don't get going again immediately, you'll be corrected. If you drop and get up again within more than three seconds, you'll be corrected. Do you understand the basic principles of your new reality, sky-fallen child? Move."
Sora gulped dryly. He stared back at Kenji's eyes, a revolting mix of incredulity and naked fear churning inside of him. Running? That was all? It was almost comically (Removed period before 'comically') mild next to the threat inherent within the silent command of Vayne. Perhaps it was a preface, a gauging of his endurance, before the true torture began. The hesitation, the searching for reason within this mad world, immobilized him for a killing instant.
That was enough. Kenji's open palm smacked Sora's cheek brutally. It sent his head jerking sideways, a scalding white blaze momentarily scorching his vision and the coppery taste of blood flooding his mouth where his own teeth had broken the inside of his lip. He jerked away from the blow, his own hand going up of its own accord to cup his throbbing face.
I moved! Kenji's growl was soft but burned with a rage Sora had never experienced. Not the fiery, hot rage of the tormentor, but the cold, dangerous impatience of a man who was wasting his time, a man who was used to instant and complete compliance. "Last and first verbal warning. From this point on, hesitation means hurt. Your thoughts, fears, history, they don't count here. Only the order and the compliance are of interest. Now!"
The searing burn and the yip of the command broke Sora's trance. Survival instinct, something more raw and more feral than any thought process, gained hold. He whirled and began running along the perimeter of the gravel yard.
The ground was harsh under his bare feet; they'd taken away his improvised boots and left him the thinniest and most worn-through (Added hyphen) of tunics and pantaloons. The gravel prickled the bruised flesh of his feet, bruised and likely blistered as they were from days past of work. Every step was a small torment, a jabbing distraction from the tension building in his muscles and his lungs. His weak ankles from past damage or simply from lack of conditioning ached on each uneven step on the rough ground. His lungs, acclimating as they were to the stagnant air of the hallways and the prison cell, strained to breathe the heavy cold of the yard and began shortly to scald as though he was about to breathe hot coals.
He started on a wobbly, uneven run at first, driven by fear of another blow mostly. One lap around the boundary. Two. Three. The length did not look broad, but the effort already was significant. He threw a sidelong look into the yard's middle. Kenji had not moved. He was present, a dark figure of silent disapproval, his crossed arms on his chest, his eyes on Sora, watching each step. There was not a distraction, not a clear boredom, just a focus, measuring.
"Faster," Kenji's call rang across the yard, sharp though soft. "Deathbed turtle speed. You're not even warmed up."
Sora struggled to get his legs going fast. He did succeed in picking up a bit more speed, making the jog turn into a determined run, but at a cost. The stitch in his side turned into a burning hot knife. His struggle for oxygen was a tearing, harsh gasp that was brutally loud within the comparative quiet of the yard. He could feel the cold sweat erupt on his forehead and back despite the overall cold.
Lap by lap, Sora's world shrunk into the parameters of that gray implacable circle. The tall walls loomed over him. The gravel beneath his aching feet grated unpleasantly. The sound of his ragged panting echoed within his ears. The immobile figure of Kenji in the center was the black sun around which his misery orbited.
Kenji began speaking once again, a monotonous, demoralizing beat to Sora's run. He did not scream, merely spoke at a slow and steady clip, each word seemingly designed to break the will. Your body is a weak shell of flesh and softness of a world that holds no worth here. There's no room for the weak within Kurogane. It eats the weak. Lady Vayne sees something within you. Some kind of grittiness perhaps. Or perhaps just a curiosity that she wants to cut open and look inside. Whatever the reason, your body will be tested. Or broken. There's no middle ground.
"Pain teaches you now. Fatigue becomes your perpetual companion. Fear… fear is the oxygen you breathe. Get used to it. Learn to operate regardless of it. Or perish. And failure here… carries eternal repercussions. Remember the careless servant. Remember the Lady's eyes. Remember where you are."
Sora tried to block the voice out, concentrate on putting one foot ahead of the other. But the words seeped in, attaching themselves to his exhaustion like leeches. Lap fifteen. Lap twenty. He began to stumble more frequently, his legs heavy as leaden pieces of wood. The gravel tore small rents in his feet, small smears of blood on the black ground barely perceptible. The world began tilting a degree or two, his peripheral vision dotted black.
"Weary already, sky-fallen child?" There was a touch of cold contempt within Kenji's voice. "We have barely begun. That was just enough to shake the muscles awake. To remind the blood of the reality that they do actually flow. Think of the Lady's soldiers. Think of what they endure day by day. Think of the alternative. There's always something worse. Run."
He felt the nausea rising up the back of his own throat, the acridness combining with the blood from the cut on his lip. He swallowed hard, reminding himself of Kenji's instructions. Vomiting and fainting. It just hurt worse, having to do everything over.
Thirty. Forty. Fifty. He lost count altogether, lost all consciousness save for spasming motion and growing agony. His lungs strained for oxygen that did not seem adequate. His muscles cramped wildly. He could feel blisters forming on the soles of his feet and a number of these had likely burst already, each step a burning torture on the rough gravel.
And finally, his own body turned against him. His left leg just buckled under him without warning. He stumbled extravagantly, his arms wildly flailing about as he desperately attempted to catch himself, and went crashing hard on the gravel. The impact jarred him from hip to tooth, expelling the last bit of air from his lungs in a rush. Blinding white-hot agony exploded in his shoulder and hip as they hit the hard ground.
He was on the ground, face down and unmoving, gasping spasmodically, his face on the damp and cold gravel. He tasted the dirt, the blood, the bitter taste of total defeat. He waited for the blow, the kick, the return of the beatings.
There were a couple of moments of quiet, interrupted by his own wheezing gasps and the whistling of the wind through the tall walls. He then listened as Kenji's heavy boots clomped on gravel as the latter moved towards him. He stood next to him. Sora steeled himself and closed his eyes.
But Kenji did not strike him. Instead, following a long pause that felt like eternity, he simply said, his tone as level and calculating as always, "One… two… three. You did not get up. Lesson acquired. Perhaps."
Sora was roughly grabbed on the hem of the tunic and rolled over onto his back. He gazed upwards, squinting against the gray light. Kenji towered over him, his face unreadable. He was gripping a short, thick bar of black wood, which Sora hadn't otherwise seen him carrying.
The penalty for disobeying the unwritten law—"stand," replied Kenji. "Is to remember the written law. Painful."
The rod descended. Not blindly enraged, but coolly calculating. It struck Sora's thigh with appalling power. There was a wrenched scream from Sora's lips, an animal yell of raw pain. The agony was blinding, explosive, unlike the spasm of the muscles or the shock of the drop. It was sick and deep.
The rod ascended and descended again, hitting the other thigh. Yet another scream.
"Stand up," Kenji instructed sternly, his tone firm.
Driven by a fear that for an instant overwhelmed even the keen pain, Sora fought to rise. His legs just held him, quivering as they were with a nauseating tremble. Each step sent agony and sickness shooting from his battered thighs. He crawled on hands and knees, then stood on trembling hands for a step or two on his knees, and at last, staggering like a drunkard, hauled himself to his feet. He was covered with gravel and dirt and sweat, his lip was cut and bleeding, his feet were a mass of raw pain, and his thighs were ablaze with a burning, aching pain.
Kenji watched him wriggle, the rod remaining loosely clutched within his palm. "Weak," he repeated the assessment, a chant. "Pathetic. Tear-stained. But obedient when the hurt becomes enough. We will decide how long that lasts."
He laid the small waterskin on the ground beside Sora. "Drink. Little by little. Don't choke on this. Twenty push-ups. If you hesitate over these twenty and aren't able to get through this set of twenty as a group, you'll do singles into the twenty's total. Every flaw of form will be remedied."
Sora sipped the water with trembled hands, each one a small relief for his parched throat, though his protesting belly curbed any further strain. He crawled forward into the push-up position with caution, the burning of his thighs making him wheeze. His arms cried out immediately. His arms were overcooked noodles. He managed to bring his chest almost level with the ground, though on going back up on the return motion, his arms simply wouldn't find the strength and he rolled back into the gravel again.
Kenji's rod struck the ground sharply beside his head. Sora flinched.
"One," Kenji ordered. "Nineteen more. Do it again. Back straight." Sora tried again. And again. He managed a few of them in wonky acceptable form before collapsing over and over. Each time that he flubbed the form, lost more than a second on the movements, or fell over just generally, Kenji gave a verbal scolding or a worse penalty: a crisp snap of the rod across the back, shoulders, or legs. These weren't hurtful blows designed to do damage (at least, not just yet), but designed to hurt painfully and maintain psychological pressure, to impart the lesson of obedience and exertion through pain. Finally, after what felt like another eternity of gritted determination and spiking agony, Sora completed the twentieth (or what Kenji was willing to accept as such) push-up and fell shaking on the ground, too exhausted even to move, every cell of his body crying out in aching and exhaustion. He looked at him silently for a long time. Then he tucked the rod away among his gear. "Your body's a ruin," he stated coldly. "Not close good enough for cleaning floors, far from good enough for what's expected of anyone who breathes under Lady Vayne's regime." "But… you're alive. You're breathing. You're here. It's a start. It's a terrible start, perhaps, but a start."He bent and grasped Sora's arm, pulling him effortlessly up from the ground, though Sora was unable to stand without assistance. 'Stand on your own two feet. I'll take you to the new quarters. You're not going back to the cell you're used to. You're going into training wing. With the likes of you. Or of what you'll be. Perhaps the misery of the others will be incentive. Or the hopelessness of resistance. Either way, get used to it.'" Kenji took a step back a few steps away from him, giving him room, and stood. Sora leaned against one of the practice poles, shaking his head, regulating his legs not to give way. Pain was a red cloud on the verge of engulfing him. Fear was a sliver of ice in his breast. And under all of this a new, terrible absolute realization was growing: this was not a penalty. It was the procedure. The systematic dehumanization, the slow destruction under the orders of Vayne and the sadistic disregard of Kenji's hands as a butcher skinning a sheep. Today was just the overture. Tomorrow, as Kenji had threatened him, would be worse. And the next day, and the next day… He glanced about the grey-bleak yard, at the walls looming over him, and knew, with a horror that spanned his soul, that a piece of the Sora Hikari who dropped from the sky died on the cold gravel today. And what took its place was something that he dared not even try to imagine.