Chapter 76. Clearing Eight Years of Debris Off a Weapon That Never Broke
Training Catherine was a different beast entirely. Unlike the group sessions, which were loud, chaotic bursts of energy, sweat, and competitive posturing, her sessions were quiet, surgical, and deliberately measured.
William found himself recalibrating his entire approach, shedding the persona of the instructor who pushed limits and adopting something closer to a sculptor working on fragile, precious marble. He couldn’t just throw her into the fire; he had to help her rebuild the furnace first.
The first real shift manifested in the weapon itself. William had spent the better part of a week obsessed with Aetherion, cycling through its five configurations with the restless enthusiasm of a man who had been handed a god’s weapon.
He had tested the dual-wielding speed, the heavy two-handed cleaves, and the ranged energy bursts, treating the blade like the greatest toy ever conceived. But when he finally squared off against Catherine for their first proper one-on-one session, he made a conscious, stubborn choice: he kept Aetherion locked in its single-wield configuration.
"You’re not going to show off with the fancy modes today?" Catherine asked.
She settled into her stance opposite him, her movements fluid but carrying a faint, underlying stiffness that spoke of old injuries. One eyebrow arched in genuine curiosity.
"You fight with one sword, Catherine," William said, rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension in his back.
He adjusted his grip, feeling the familiar balance of the single blade. "Sometimes you use two hands for power, sometimes one for speed, but at the end of the day, it’s always just one blade."
"There’s no point in training you against a fantasy... If I show you the other modes, I’m not teaching you skill other than teaching you a trick."
"And tricks fail when your heart rate spikes."
Catherine went still, considering his words. For a moment, the defensive armor she usually wore seemed to slip, replaced by something like quiet approval.
"That’s more thoughtful than I expected from someone who treats that sword like a toy."
"I contain multitudes," William quipped, though his eyes remained sharp, scanning her posture.
"You say that... a lot."
"It keeps being true."
They began. The opening exchanges were slow, almost meditative.
William deliberately throttled his power, pacing himself well below what either of them was truly capable of. He wasn’t looking to test her breaking point; he was trying to re-establish her rhythm, helping her reconnect the neural pathways between her mind and her muscles without the crushing pressure of a genuine threat looming over her.
’Focus on the breath,’ he thought to himself, watching her feet. ’Don’t let her overthink the blade.’
’Let her feel the air around it.’
Then came the third exchange, and something happened that shattered William’s careful composure.
Catherine launched a standard feint, a low slash aimed at his lead leg, but as William moved to parry, she didn’t retreat. Instead, in one seamless, terrifyingly smooth motion, she shifted her grip.
Her sword slid from her right hand to her left mid-strike, continuing the exact same combo without a single stutter in her footwork or a hiccup in her momentum. The blade whistled past his guard, stopping millimeters from his ribs.
William froze. He lowered his own blade, the metallic ring of their training weapons echoing in the quiet courtyard.
"You’re ambidextrous...?"
Catherine returned to a neutral stance, breathing steadily, though a faint spark of amusement flickered in her eyes at his obvious shock. "Reasonably, yes... Why does that surprise you so much?"
"Because skilled two-handed swordsmanship is rare enough as it is," William said, shaking his head as if to clear the confusion. "But skilled swordsmanship that switches hands mid-engagement without losing momentum?"
"That’s something I’ve seen maybe three times in my entire life... And those three people spent decades drilling until their hands bled."
"Where did you learn to move like that?"
The question seemed to strike something deeper than mere technique. A shadow passed over Catherine’s face, something soft, wistful, and laced with a bittersweet ache.
It was the look of someone remembering a ghost.
"Aldric, actually," she said quietly. "He was left-handed himself."
"He used to insist that most opponents, no matter how elite, build their entire defensive instinct around reading a right-handed attack pattern."
"They memorize the shoulder rotation, the hip pivot, and the angle of the wrist."
She looked down at her sword as if seeing Aldric’s hands on the hilt. "He told me that the moment you switch hands mid-engagement, you’re not fighting the same person anymore."
"Instinctually, their brain has to reset... Their entire read on you collapses for half a second."
"And in a real fight, half a second is the difference between a clean parry and your throat being opened."
"That’s genuinely brilliant," William admitted, genuinely impressed by the tactical cruelty of the lesson.
"He was insufferable about it, honestly," Catherine said, and for the first time, a genuine smile touched her lips, small, fragile, but real. "He made me drill left-handed forms for months before he’d even let me use it in a real spar."
"He said if I wasn’t fully comfortable, the switch would read as hesitation instead of surprise... And hesitation gets you killed." Her expression hardened slightly, though the smile remained. "He was right, though..."
"That half second saved my life more than once."
William absorbed every word, filing the revelation away in the complex mosaic of Catherine’s psyche. He watched her closely, noting the way her breathing had steadied after speaking of Aldric.
For the first time, there was no defensive posture, no sharp edge of hostility cutting off the conversation. She had offered up a piece of her history freely, without the careful, guarded hesitation that had defined her every interaction with him.
That small crack in her armor felt like more progress than any successful sword strike they had achieved so far.
"Alright then," William said, his voice dropping into a tone of quiet challenge, the kind that demanded excellence without threatening failure. "Don’t just tell me about it..."
"Show me... both hands, full combinations, whatever pace feels natural to you," William grinned. "No holding back on the technique."
Catherine’s eyes sharpened. The wistfulness vanished, replaced by something colder, something sharper, the ghost of the warrior she used to be stirring beneath the surface.
"You sure about that, William? I’d hate to embarrass you by being more dangerous than you anticipated."
"I’d be disappointed if you weren’t," he countered with a smirk.
Catherine didn’t hesitate. She moved.
What followed was no longer a gentle rehabilitation session; it was a revelation. Catherine became a whirlwind of controlled violence.
Her blade danced across an invisible axis, trading hands with a terrifying fluidity that seemed to defy physics. One moment she was lunging with a powerful right-handed thrust that forced William to brace his weight; the next, she had spun on her heel, the blade already sliding into her left hand to deliver a vicious horizontal slash that whistled inches past his ear.
’God, she’s swift,’ William thought, his pulse quickening as he stepped into the dance. ’The muscle memory is terrifyingly intact...’
’It’s not just the hands; it’s the hips, the weight distribution...’
’She isn’t thinking about the switch; she’s simply existing within it.’
The sounds of the training filled the courtyard: the rhythmic scuff-scuff of boots on stone, the sharp, metallic tang of steel meeting steel, and the ragged, controlled breathing of two people locked in a deadly conversation.
Catherine was relentless. She exploited every opening she created, using the hand switch to change the angle of attack mid-swing, forcing William to constantly recalibrate his guard.
Her movements were precise and surgical and carried an underlying ferocity that suggested she wasn’t just practicing; she was exorcising something.
Finally, after a particularly intense flurry where William had to put genuine effort into his parries to avoid being overwhelmed, Catherine came to a halt. She stood panting, sweat beading on her forehead, her sword held in a low, neutral position.
The blade trembled slightly not from weakness but from the sheer adrenaline of the exertion.
William lowered Aetherion, his own chest heaving. A grin spread across his face.
"That’s not rusty," he said, his voice thick with genuine, professional appreciation. "More like dormant... There’s a massive difference between the two."
Catherine wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her glove, looking down at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
"It doesn’t feel different from the inside," she admitted quietly, her voice strained. "When I move like that... it feels like I’m trying to summon someone who died a long time ago."
"That’s because you are," William said, stepping closer, his expression turning serious. "But listen to me... ’rusty’ means the skill has degraded, that the neural pathways have crumbled, and the muscle has weakened."
"That takes years of neglect... But dormant? Dormant means the foundation is still solid beneath the surface."
"The skill hasn’t left you, Catherine... It’s just buried under eight years of doubt, fear, and trauma."
He gestured for her to reset her stance, his gaze locking onto hers with unshakable conviction. "We’re not rebuilding you from scratch, Catherine."
"We’re not trying to invent a new warrior as well, but we’re just clearing away the debris of those eight years so you can stand on top of the weapon you already are."
"Now, again. And this time, don’t apologize for the speed."