4 months ago....
The sun had not yet risen, but Vayu was already tightening the heavy iron cuffs around his wrists and ankles. They felt unnatural at first then he got used to them. Every morning before the sun rose across the sky, Vayu strapped those iron cuffs around his wrists and ankles. They were training tools heavy bands hammered out in the blacksmith's forge, rough at the edges, biting into his skin . The weight dragged at his limbs, restricting his every movement.
Then he started running.
The cuffs clinking with every stride. At first, even running a short distance with the cuffs strapped to his wrists and ankles felt unbearable. The weights dug onto his limbs, his legs trembled under the strain, and his breath ragged just after a few dozen steps. But no matter what, every morning he tied those iron cuffs on, it felt like he was chaining himself, but he refused to take them off.
The first week was full of pain his calves cramped, his arms ached with every swing and blisters came on his feet from the added pressure.
Slowly, his body began to adapt. His strides grew longer, his balance steadier, and his muscles bigger, he could push farther than the day before. Where he once collapsed after 100 meters, soon he was running halfway to the mountain and after 3 weeks for the first time he reach the mountain top .
This was the first time he managed to finish his normal exercise routine with the weights strapped on, he collapsed into the dirt grinning from ear to ear. That night, instead of resting, he added another set of weights. Just like that whenever he was able to complete a lap till the mountain and back he increased the weight after four months.
He had started with five kilograms. Now, he was running with twelve kilograms.
Running the mountain with and without the iron cuffs, the difference was brutal. Every step with the cuffs felt like he was walking inside mud. His body resisted, screaming for him to stop, but the image of Shen standing against Tarak and of the beast lurking behind the boundary burned in his mind. Each drop of sweat, each torn muscle fiber, was a step closer to his goal. He pushed until he could barely stand, only then he would stop.
But stopping never meant rest.
Back in his small room, he started a strange exercise. The pile of pieces he'd prepared when he got those iron cuffs from the market, uneven scraps of size varying from half a foot to one foot were piled in a corner of his training room . With a single motion, he scattered them across the ground.
This was his battlefield.
He crouched, studying the scattered wood, memorizing their positions. Some lay slanted, others clustered together, a few stuck upright like jagged spikes. He tried to remember the layout into his mind, every odd angle, every gap. In a real fight, the ground would never be even so to mimic that he had came up with this exercise.
Then he barred the windows and shut the doors.
Darkness swallowed the room whole.
And then he began.
He moved barefoot across the uneven terrain, the scattered wood testing his memory and balance. Each step had to be sure and precise one mistake and pain shot up his leg. He attacked the empty air, fists and feet cutting through the dark, each strike faster, sharper, more deliberate. Dodges, spins, counters all while avoiding the wooden pieces underfoot.
Two hours passed, sometimes three. He never stopped until his body was completely exhausted.
And still, his day wasn't done.
Afterward, he slipped into the jungle behind his home.
There, the training changed.
When Vayu entered the forest, he removed his shoes and left them behind. The earth was cold beneath his feet, rough with stones, roots curled like snakes onto the soil. He moved with complete silence without snapping any twig , without rustling a leaf or disturbing any kind of thing. So he walked slowly, deliberately, lowering his weight with each movement he forced his body to adapt, training himself to stalk like a predator, measuring how close he could creep to a bird before it startled away.
He climbed very slowly without making any kind of extra movement, he forced his breathing down, making it shallow, faint — as if he were trying to silence the very rhythm of his own body, In, Out, In, Out, each breath quieter than the last, until his breathing stabled.
Like a shadow moving between shadows, he pressed forward. The forest was alive with sound of birds, the flutter of wings, the chirp of insects and sound of unseen animals and slowly he blended into the sound of the forest without disrupting it.
Eventually, he found a small clearing where moonlight fell faintly through the canopy. He stepped into it and stilled, then laid down slowly and started climbing the tree like a bug slowly reaching towards its branches that were thick enough to support him and slowly as he reached the end of the branch, there one feet below him, was a small ridge where a Falcon was making his nest .
He kept laying there, still for hours, and in that stillness, he listened ,listening to every creak, snap, and rustle, sharpening his hearing until he could pick out the faintest disturbance.
When the moon rose high, he finally descended, retraced his steps, and slipped his shoes back on. By the time he returned home, his mother had finished cooking. The scent of curry and freshly baked bread lingered in the air.
She looked up as he entered, brushing the sweat and dirt from his face .
"You come late these days," she said, setting another plate down. "you don't have to work that hard you are only sixteen."
Vayu gave a faint smile and sat across from her. "Just training, Mother that's all."
Her brow creased. "Training until the stars are out? This isn't how a boy of your age should live, you should be laughing with friends and running free".
He looked down at his food, silent for a moment before answering "I understand, mother I promise I'll spend more time with my friends" he lied.
His mother sighed, her eyes softening as she reached across the table and placed her hand on his
Vayu lifted his eyes to hers, She studied him for a long moment, then withdrew her hand with a small nod, though the worry never left her face.
They finished their meal in silence. Later, when Vayu lay in his room, her words still echoed in his mind, but so did his resolve. Tomorrow, he knew, the routine would begin again.