(Qasim's Perspective)
The heavy door of the guild room slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing the final, brutal closing of a door in my own soul. I was out. Kicked out. The words of my leader, Adam, were a set of sharp-edged blades, carving into the soft, pathetic flesh of my spirit.
"You are mentally disabled."
"We don't have room for liabilities."
I stumbled through the school hallways in a daze, the usual chatter of students fading into a meaningless hum. My body was on autopilot, carrying me away from the only place I had started to feel a flicker of hope, a sense of belonging. Padro's words hurt the most. "I am so embarrassed to call you my friend! You are just a coward!" He was right. That's all I was. A coward. A giant, useless coward who was strong enough to fight but too terrified to even clench his fist.
My feet carried me out of the school and into the bustling streets of the city, but I saw nothing. I was trapped in the prison of my own mind, Adam's verdict playing on a loop. I was a liability. A cancer.
As I turned a corner, a commotion from a nearby alleyway snagged my attention. A group of three older boys had a smaller kid pinned against a brick wall. They were laughing, shoving him, their voices dripping with a cruel, casual malice. The kid was crying, his pleas for them to stop weak and pathetic.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. A voice, small and unfamiliar, screamed in my head. Do something! You're strong! You can stop this! But my feet were rooted to the spot, encased in the concrete of my own fear. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. My breath came in short, shallow gasps. I could feel the phantom pain of punches I hadn't even received yet.
I stood there, frozen, for what felt like an eternity. I watched as they took the kid's wallet, gave him one last shove that sent him sprawling to the ground, and then sauntered away, their laughter echoing in the narrow alley. I just watched. I did nothing.
The shame was a physical thing, a hot, acidic bile that rose in my throat. I turned and ran, not towards the boy on the ground, but away from him, away from my own pathetic reflection. I caught a glimpse of myself in the large glass window of a storefront—a giant of a boy, his shoulders slumped, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated self-loathing. I couldn't even look at myself.
For the rest of the day, I wandered the city aimlessly, a ghost haunting the crowded streets. Adam's words were my constant companions, each one a fresh stab of pain. He was right. My forgiveness meant nothing if I couldn't forgive myself. And how could I? How could I forgive the coward who stood by and watched while someone else suffered?
I wanted to change. God, I wanted to change. But I didn't know how. The fear was a part of me, a deep-seated cancer that had been growing for years. How do you cut out a piece of your own soul?
Days blurred into a monotonous cycle of shame and hopelessness. I skipped school, avoided Padro's calls, and spent most of my time sitting on a secluded park bench, watching the world go by, feeling completely and utterly alone.
It was on one of those days, as the afternoon sun cast long shadows across the grass, that I saw them.
At the far end of the park, in an open, grassy area, were two figures moving with a grace and lethality that stole the breath from my lungs. It was Isabel Wilson and Tiffany Watson. They were sparring.
It wasn't a game. It was a dance of pure, controlled violence. Isabel was a whirlwind of motion, her strikes fluid and powerful, a seamless blend of different martial arts that was both beautiful and terrifying to watch. Tiffany was her perfect opposite. Her movements were economical, precise, and brutally efficient. Every block was a calculated defense, every strike a strategic counter.
After a few minutes, they stopped, their chests rising and falling in perfect sync. They weren't even breathing heavily.
"Your form is getting sloppy, Isabel," Tiffany said, her voice as cool and sharp as ever, carrying across the quiet park. "You're relying too much on instinct. You need to anticipate your opponent's next three moves, not just react to the one in front of you."
"And you need to loosen up, Tiff," Isabel shot back, a playful but firm edge to her voice. "Strategy is useless if your body can't keep up. You're too rigid. You need to let the fight flow."
They were discussing strategy, dissecting their own movements with a level of analysis that was beyond anything I could comprehend. They were warriors. True hunters. And I… I was just a liability.
My first instinct was to run, to disappear before they saw me, before they could look at me with the same disappointment I saw in Adam's eyes. I stood up, my muscles tensed, ready to flee.
But then, a new thought, a desperate, terrifying thought, cut through the panic. They are the only ones who can change me.
Adam had given up on me. But them… they were the architects of the guild's strength, the ones forging the other members into weapons. If anyone could help me, it was them.
My heart was pounding, a frantic drumbeat of fear. But this time, I forced my feet to move, not away, but towards them. Each step felt like I was walking through wet cement, my body screaming in protest.
They saw me approaching. Isabel's playful expression hardened into one of frustrated annoyance. Tiffany's gaze was a wall of pure, unadulterated ice.
I stopped a few feet in front of them, my hands trembling, my throat dry. "Isabel… Miss Watson…" I stammered, my voice barely a whisper. "I… I need your help."
Isabel crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed. "Help? Why should we help you, Qasim? The Leader gave you a chance. You threw it away."
"You are a liability," Tiffany stated, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. It wasn't an insult; it was a simple, brutal fact. "Why would we go against the Leader's decision and waste our time on a liability?"
Their words were like daggers, but they were true. I deserved them. I took a deep, shaky breath and did the only thing I could think of. I knelt.
"Please," I begged, my head bowed, my eyes fixed on the grass beneath my feet. "I know I'm a coward. I know I'm a liability. But I don't want to be. I want to fight. I want to be worthy of the Hunter's Guild. Please… teach me. I'll do anything. Anything you ask."
The silence that followed was deafening. I could feel their eyes on me, judging me, weighing my pathetic plea. I was sure they would just laugh and walk away.
Then, I heard a sigh. It was Isabel. "Get up, Qasim."
I looked up. Her expression was still frustrated, but there was a flicker of something else in her eyes. Pity? Respect for my desperation? I didn't know.
She looked at Tiffany, a silent question passing between them. Tiffany just gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug, her expression unreadable.
"Fine," Isabel said, her voice sharp as steel. "We'll train you. But you're not going to like it. We are going to break you down into a million pieces. And if you can't put yourself back together, that's on you. Am I clear?"
"Yes," I said, a wave of profound, painful relief washing over me. "Thank you."
"Don't thank us yet," Tiffany said, her voice a chilling whisper. "You'll be cursing our names by the end of the day."
And so, my hell began.
Their training methods were as different as their personalities. Isabel was the storm. She focused on my body, on pushing me past every physical limit I thought I had. She made me run until my lungs felt like they were on fire, do push-ups until my arms gave out and I collapsed face-first into the dirt, and spar with her until every inch of my body was a canvas of bruises.
"Get up, Qasim!" she would shout as I lay gasping on the ground, her own form a blur of motion as she continued her own relentless drills. "The enemy isn't going to wait for you to catch your breath! Your fear is making you slow! Your hesitation is making you weak! Fight it!" Her words were a constant, brutal critique, a verbal assault that was almost as painful as the physical one.
Tiffany, on the other hand, was the ice. Her training was a quiet, insidious torture designed to break my mind. She would make me stand in a horse stance for hours, my muscles screaming in protest, while she calmly detailed every strategic mistake I had ever made, every moment of cowardice I had ever shown.
"Your fear is a logical fallacy, Qasim," she would say, her voice a low, cutting monotone. "You are afraid of pain. But your inaction, your cowardice, has caused your friend Padro far more pain than any punch ever could. You are not just a coward; you are a selfish coward. You prioritize your own fleeting comfort over the safety of those you claim to care about. You are worthless."
She would humiliate me, dissecting my fears with a surgeon's precision, laying them bare for me to see. She made me relive every moment of my shame, forcing me to confront the pathetic creature I was.
Between Isabel's storm and Tiffany's ice, I was being forged in a crucible of pure agony. There were moments when I was on the verge of collapse, my body and mind screaming for me to just give up, to run away and never look back. I would lie on the ground, every muscle trembling, my spirit a raw, open wound, and I would think, I can't do this. I can't.
But then, I would see their faces. Isabel, pushing herself just as hard, her own body drenched in sweat, her eyes blazing with a fierce determination. And Tiffany, her cold gaze never wavering, her presence a constant, unyielding pressure. They weren't just torturing me; they were showing me the path. They were showing me what it meant to be a hunter.
And so, every time I fell, I would get back up. Every time my mind screamed for me to quit, I would grit my teeth and endure. Because in their brutal, merciless training, I saw my only hope. They were breaking me down, yes. But I knew, with a certainty that was born in the depths of my own personal hell, that if I could survive this, if I could put the shattered pieces of myself back together, the man who emerged would no longer be a coward. He would be a weapon.
(End of Qasim's Perspective)