Part 11 — Self-Control

“Self-control leads to true freedom. You simply have never understood this.”

“Stop talking gibberish!”

She tries to attack me, in order to overcome the fear she feels at my words, and toward me. The moment I make a movement to respond to her, she hurriedly stops her motion. Yes, she understands. Even if she’s faster than I am, just attacking me would end in me avoiding her attacks. Which is why she hesitates.

I’m well aware of this before I speak to her.

“What’s wrong? You’re tense.”

The brief tension that comes from halting her attack... I’m not going to miss such an obvious opening. I Flash Step next to her, and land a Ki Blow on her stomach. That simple attack sends her flying.

“Guh... This doesn’t...”

“No, I doubt it’ll leave any lasting damage. But that’s fine. That’s not the point.”

I didn’t intend to take her down. More than making a show of it, it’s to make her realize the gap in skill between us.

Of course, this is a bit sadistic, just like the gibbetting. But even if I can knock her out with a single blow, with a masterful strike, that only means that I can finish her off, not make her understand the skill gap.

“This is what happens when you have no self-control. The way you control your body is impressive. I see nothing to correct in your form when you’re running or punching.”

“Grr...”

“And in terms of stepping in to attack from a stopped stance, you did perfectly. That was the first time you tried that, yes? But it was perfect. Completely formless.”

I don’t know if it’s because she’s a berserker, or if because she’s gifted with first-rate talent among berserkers, but her body control is perfect. She has the same understanding of the human body that it took me countless years to understand. No doubt she’d be able to perfectly perform any martial art or weapon style.

“If we’re both formless, no doubt you believe that you’ll win given your superior physical abilities. However... That’s wrong. The reality is that you have no response to my skill.”

Yes, she hasn’t been able to respond to my Flash Step. Despite that I’m able to respond to her attacks, she can’t even manage to block my attacks, and takes them head on, instead.

That must be unnerving to her, because of her sheer talent. She can’t hide her panic at this situation.

“...Why? Why can’t I see you move?!”

“Self-control, as I keep telling you.”

Despite her shock, she throws up her hands in a stance. She then tries to get her agitated mind to wrap around the problem well enough to come up with a solution.

It’s futile. There’s nothing in her toolset that can resolve this situation.

“It’s about enduring, isn’t it?! What good is enduring pain?!”

“I’ll teach you. Through experience.”

Ran slowly closes the distance, but I step backward and open up space between us. The arena we’re fighting in is large, so there’s plenty of room for me to escape. As such, this is a test of wills.

“Screw you! I’m not that stupid!”

Force her to return to her old way of fighting by forcing a stalemate... She thinks that’s what I’m after. And the truth is, it is.

She plans to fight slowly. But that’s impossible.

“But you are stupid. You don’t understand anything.”

As a simple truth, so long as she’s in a stance, she can respond even if I suddenly appear behind her. The problem is whether or not she can stay calm enough to do so.

“Well? Can you still bear it?”

“Sh-Shut up!”

Yes, she’s enduring it. Because she’s agitated, constantly in a rage, she’s not suited to this sort of slow fighting. The fact that she could attack but won’t, that she’s not doing anything to an opponent she hates...all of those things are eating at her.

When she’s aggressively on the offensive — that is, every moment of every fight up until now — she’s never had to think about it, but she’s simply not good at being on the defensive. Her supposedly perfect body control steadily erodes under her growing tension.

“Get it now? This is what it means when I say you lack training.”

“SHUT! UP!”

No longer able to hold back, she attacks recklessly. She takes a big step in and swings at my face. No doubt she’s aware of it herself, but her punch is a mess. Her form is in tatters, and because of the unnecessary tension in her body, her attack is slower. And since she’s put her weight behind it, she’s unable to stop in mid-swing.

I step back slightly and place my own palm in front of my face. Waiting for the moment when her arm stretches out completely, I grab her hand and blast her with a Ki Wave.

“Guh!”

“Not good enough. Not nearly good enough.”

I could easily knock her out if I aimed for her head. However, when working with a body part like a fist, the most I can do is make one of her arms useless, and that only lasts for a moment. However, during that moment, she can’t move it at all. It’s far too long a moment to even call it an opening.

“You little...!”

“Why do you not retreat?”

Losing all use of one arm, even for a moment... Understanding the situation, she tries to counter-attack with her other arm. The kinetics of her body are, in and of itself, correct. Even as I grasp one arm, her form is nearly perfect.

But it’s all wrong. She should be pulling back, not attacking. Since I’m just holding her fist, if she pulled back, I’d have to let go. But, in spite of that, she chooses to counter-attack anyway.

Meaning, what’s wrong with her is not with how she’s moving, but what she’s deciding to do in the first place.

“Your arm is useless. With that being the case, you should first pull back and regroup.”

I use my Feather Step to lighten Ran’s body. Then, I twist the fist I’m holding, putting her joint in a hold as I pull her. That’s all I need to do to lift her body up in the air.

“Wha?!”

It’s as though I’m throwing a featherweight doll with joints. If anything, the fact that she has joints makes it easier to throw her. I turn her head toward the ground and release the Feather Step, dropping her toward the ground.

She’s not going to land on her head, of course; that would be pathetic. Using the arm she can still move, she rolls into a landing and protects her head. In the blink of an eye, she goes from looking as though she’s doing one-armed push-ups to sweeping my arm aside and standing up.

“Do you understand now? You may think you’ve got complete control of your body, but in reality, the only thing you’re able to do is attack. Your immaturity is constraining you.”

This is what it means to lack self-control. As a berserker, her physical abilities and body control are perfect, but because she’s a berserker, she can’t make any choice other than to attack, the worst possible way to narrow one’s options. There are things she can’t do, and there are things she can’t help but do. It’s an extremely obvious weakness and a perfect opening.

“Because you lack self-control, you can’t wait. Even if you try to wait, you get impatient and your body tenses. You can’t retreat when you must, and so your actions are constrained.”

“Dammit... DAMMIT!”

She understands this all too well. She understands, but she can’t do anything about it. That she can’t is a sign of her immaturity.

“You’re a berserker. That’s all you are. You have nothing else.”

I suspect every other berserker up to now was the same way. Taking the same measures I’ve used on Ran would likely result in the same results against any other berserker. How lacking in individuality. How hopelessly constrained. How mundane.

“You have no training to fall back on, no ideal to serve as your goal, no motivation, no principles, no creativity. All you’ve done is rely on your talent and cling to it like a crutch.”

“Wh-What’s your damned point?!”

“You’re dull, uninteresting, pointless, and boring.”

Even wild animals put a lot more effort into living. This girl is a spoiled child who’s never had to struggle or overcome anything.

“...!”

“Angry? But the reason you won’t attack is because you don’t feel you can hit me. The reason you keep listening to my lecture is because you can’t deny what I’m saying.”

That was likely her reason for living. Her life had nothing to do with effort. It’s not like she had any particular goal, nor was she putting in her best effort. She never thought of how she should use her strength, nor had she ever thought about how she should fight.

The fact that she was stronger than people who had goals and worked toward them must have been a source of pride for her. Conversely, that must have been a terrible thing for those around her to deal with.

However, once faced with an understanding of her own limitations, she has nothing she can do but stick her head in the sand.

“Why can’t I deal with your attacks... Is that also self-control?”

“Correct. I’m in control of myself. No matter what I feel about you, I can act as I please. I can always choose the best course of action. Unlike you.”

I spent so much time... Unlike her, I spent unimaginable amounts of time learning how to control my own body completely. From there, I spent an even longer amount of time mastering the ability to maintain that control at any time, in any place.

“You simply haven’t put in enough training, Ran. You’ve put in so little training that it’s hopeless. It shows in the fact that you think yourself the strongest despite having so little strength. You’re so immature that it’s almost amusing.”

I almost envy her ability to be satisfied merely with this level of skill. I’m still not satisfied. I can only see shortcomings when I look at myself. Someday, when I’ve watched Lain go off and live on her own, when I finish my days in the mortal world and return to the woods, then I’ll have much to learn from my master again.

“No living thing is guaranteed to be alive tomorrow. There’s no reason you or I couldn’t die this very second. You, in particular. Now... Up till today, you’ve gorged on victory, drunk on power. Ran of the Tempera Village, would you have no regrets if you were to die now?”

Death is what waits beyond defeat. Alternatively, it’s something the strong push upon the weak. In that case, she’s probably never even thought that she could really die. To her, ‘the strong’ meant herself, ‘the weak’ everyone else. She probably can’t understand what it means to lose.

“When I fought you, when I fought all of you, two days ago, I didn’t kill you. Frankly, I regret that now.”

I thought there was no reason to kill her. I couldn’t see any reason that I had to go that far. However, it turns out that I’d drawn the wrong conclusions.

“If I had killed you, Sunae... Princess Sunae wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It’s true that she had the advantage, but fighting you could have resulted in serious injury. And you could have fought others, leaving them hurt, for no reason.”

Because I hadn’t killed her and just beat her, everyone began to think it was fine to leave her alive. It’s true that I could deal with her easily, but I’m the only one who can. Anyone else likely would have been killed. Even if they hadn’t died, they could have suffered at her hands.

It’s a disappointing lack of foresight. It should have been obvious that she was in a state of agitated excitement, but because I was still thinking about the beheadings, I decided not to kill her.

“I exposed a lot of people to danger because I didn’t kill you. Because I didn’t kill you, countless people thought you didn’t need to be killed.”

Of course, it’s the height of arrogance to want to live without being resented by anyone. But even putting that aside, Ran wasn’t normal. The truth was that she was always in a state of agitation. Leaving her alone in spite of that was indefensible.

“My thoughtless decision made everyone underestimate your danger. The fact that I’ve thoroughly humiliated you this time will probably make this worse. Despite the fact that if you wanted to, you could kill just about anyone short of myself or Sai...Lord Saiga.”

And that’s probably true of Shouzo, as well. He could destroy the world whenever he wanted. What’s different is that he’s restrained himself. He’s capable of self-control.

The question with Ran is whether or not she’s even capable of doing so. Because of her nature, she flies into a rage extremely easily. Indeed, that frenzied rage was her usual state.

“What do you want, Ran the Berserker? To merely have talent, to be the demon spawn that brings nothing but chaos to this world?”

“What do I...want?”

“If you’re drunk on the logic of ‘might makes right’...then, as your superior, I will erase you. If you’re drunk on your own power and want to show it off to the world, I will smite you before you can spread your destruction any further.”

I’m not God. If she’s not where I can keep an eye on her, I can’t tell what she’s doing. Even if I did, it would take me time to identify where she’s gone on a rampage, and I can do nothing about people who are hurt or lives that are lost.

“Well, that is... Do you have any last words?”

No life in this world can simply be dismissed. But, at the same time, there is no living thing that won’t eventually die. All lives are precious, and everyone tried to cling to the things that mattered to them.

“You see, I’m not that smart. I thought at first it would be fine to let you live, but when I think about it, you could have very well killed everyone there.”

I have priorities. If she were to go on a rampage, the people first in danger would be the people at the Academy. Those people would die at the hands of someone who I hadn’t killed, despite that person being an obvious danger.

“I don’t want that. I have emotions enough to be repulsed by that thought.”

“Don’t kill her if you don’t have to.” Those are Lady Douve’s orders. But if I decide she must die, then Lady Douve will likely forgive me.

“From your point of view, the weak might well be worthless, but the people there are honest and hardworking. I want to make them stronger. Of course, it’d be perfectly natural for them to die in combat, and I can’t stop all of them from getting killed. But... I’d still regret it if they died by your hand when I had no reason not to kill you.”

To her, they have no value. To society writ large, they have no value. Even from their point of view, they probably don’t think they have much worth, themselves.

And of course, for me, in terms of priorities, they’re not that high up. However, at the bare minimum, they’re more valuable than the berserker in front of me.

“Am I...going to die?”

“Yes, you’re going to die. Just as you’ve acted on a whim all your life, due to your strength, I’m going to kill you on a whim, too. Don’t want to die?”

My affect is flat. I doubt my emotions show on my features, either. This is what it means to be free.

“I...!”

“I don’t know if you can even learn self-control. It’s possible you’ll be able to do it. But, frankly, I’m not interested. If you fail, rather than regret not killing you when I could... I’d rather kill you now and have closure.”

In a sense, it’s probably the same logic as the king’s when he didn’t put a stop to Ukyou’s killing spree. You can’t tell what they’d do if they were alive. And, while it’s possible they wouldn’t do anything, they don’t have enough value to pin one’s hopes on that. That’s what I feel about Ran right now.

“I... I...!”

She’s still in an agitated state. Her silver hair wavers. In front of her is a man she hates, me.

Fear of death, the humiliation of defeat, discontent at her lack of freedom... All of those things are likely to make her act rashly.

I’ve drawn my wooden sword from my hip. This is the knife’s edge. No matter how she moves, I can kill her.

I can see her struggling with herself. It’s more than enough to make her slip up with her body control.

And, of course, I’m aware of my entire surroundings. Everyone in the Coliseum is holding their breath, waiting for my judgment.

Maybe they just wanted to watch a berserker fight.

Maybe they just wanted to confirm that I was strong as everyone says.

Maybe they just came because a friend invited them.

But everyone present was at my mercy.

“I...!”

Who in the Coliseum could see Ran’s tears? I could, of course. I’m facing off with her.

“I...!”

In her state of agitation, she probably can’t control her emotions. If she wants to cry, she probably can’t help but bawl. And, of course, that’s probably to be expected of a girl her age.

“I...!”

“And even if I didn’t kill you... If, as a result, you did something and I was to regret it... Even then, it’s not right of me to make the call myself.”

I place my sword back on my hip.

“I am Lady Douve’s sword. I will cut down only those who Lady Douve orders me to kill. That is why I can’t kill you based on my own selfish reasons.”

After intimidating her like this, I can finally afford not to kill her. Unlike earlier, many people have thoughts regarding her. That is why I shouldn’t kill her.

I turn my back to her and leave the arena. I, of course, am returning to Lady Douve and Blois. Behind me, I feel the presence of multiple people.

“Ran, are you okay?!”

“Your head still on there?!”

“It’s not one of those things where it’s actually cut off and it falls over when you move, right?!”

“You better check!”

As she sobs, her companions come to reassure her. It’s almost farcical. But, still, the fact that I humiliated her must please Lady Douve.

I was able to drive home the point to Ran, it was probably a good lesson for my students, and the spectators are probably pleased at seeing me fight a berserker, so on the whole, it’ll probably turn out fine.

This is the most I can manage.

Sigh. If I’d just killed her earlier, I wouldn’t have had to bother with all this.

“Yes, I still need more training.”