Chapter 52: The Ten-Round Bout

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By the time Lin Nian reached the classroom, it was already packed with people. No one seemed particularly surprised to see him come in; after several days of classes, they were all familiar faces. Lin Nian had learned the names of a few students, but the only one he had truly grown close to—the only one he spoke with almost every day—was Caesar Gattuso.

The classroom for the cold-weapons course was a spacious training hall large enough to hold a hundred people. Its wooden floor had been polished until it gleamed, making it necessary to remove one’s shoes before stepping onto it. The lamps set into the corners of the ceiling cast a soft, gentle white light. Hanging on the wall directly ahead was a calligraphic painting bearing a single character written in wild cursive: “The Way.” Lin Nian found the setting quite familiar. The classroom was hardly any different from the kendo hall at the youth center.

When Caesar saw Lin Nian enter, he gave him a slight nod. Lin Nian nodded back in greeting, then walked over to him and struck up a conversation.

“Morning. Why are you here so early today? You usually arrive right on the dot.”

“Because there’s bad news.” Caesar folded his arms and surveyed the empty training hall. A short distance away, one wall had been replaced by a huge mirror that reflected every movement of everyone present.

“Bad news? What kind? Is there going to be a test?” Lin Nian bent down to straighten his socks, then lightly hopped twice to test his footing.

“No. It’s something else. If I remember correctly, this is your first cold-weapons class, isn’t it?” Caesar asked, looking at Lin Nian, who stood half a head shorter than him.

“Yeah. Why? Is the class difficult?”

“Not particularly. Basically, the instructor demonstrates practical techniques with various cold weapons, then breaks the movements down step by step and has the students practice in pairs. Finally, every student gets to spar with the instructor once before class ends.”

“What did you learn last time?” Lin Nian asked curiously.

“Short-dagger combat: footwork, rhythm, and distance control. At the end, the instructor even demonstrated how to disarm someone barehanded.” Caesar lifted his chin toward a wooden rack in the corner. It held a variety of rubber weapons, from daggers and short blades to bamboo swords and nunchaku.

“Is it actually useful?” Lin Nian asked.

“Mixed-bloods are naturally superior to ordinary people in athletic coordination and reaction speed. Haven’t you seen the girls in the gym outdoing people in slam dunks and blocking shots in street basketball?” Caesar said. “For ordinary people, if an enemy is carrying a knife, it’s best to run or find a weapon of their own. But mixed-bloods can combine their physical advantages with trained technique to achieve results beyond the ordinary.”

“Then what was the bad news you mentioned?” Lin Nian glanced around. Class was about to begin, yet no instructor had appeared.

“The bad news doesn’t concern everyone. It concerns you and me.” Caesar folded and flexed his arms, loosening his muscles. “Usually, the instructors are retired Navy SEALs from the campus maintenance division. But I heard they brought in a temporary instructor today.”

“A temporary instructor?” Lin Nian could not imagine anyone more familiar with cold weapons than those hulking former SEALs from the maintenance division. Any one of those muscular men could have walked straight onto the set of Terminator as the T-800.

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“It has to do with today’s lesson. Last time we studied short-dagger combat, and the class before that was clubs and staves. Today...” Caesar paused. “Today we’re studying kendo.”

“Kendo?” Lin Nian froze for a moment. “You mean...”

“The bad news is that the temporary instructor they found is the president of the Student Union’s kendo club. Guess who it is?”

Lin Nian did not guess. There was no need. At last, he understood why Caesar had called it bad news.

Just then, the door to the training hall slid open again. Caesar and Lin Nian were the first to look over, but both of them froze. The person who entered was not the Japanese man with the high ponytail they had imagined. Instead, a dignified old gentleman stepped onto the wooden floor. His hair was white, yet his eyes seemed to conceal a lion. His suit strained against a muscular frame utterly unlike anything one would expect from a man of his age.

“The headmaster?” Most of the class cried out in astonishment.

With a smile on his face, Hilbert Jean Angers rolled up his cuffs and made his way through the crowd to the front.

“You all seem rather unenthusiastic about welcoming me.”

Everyone shook their heads in unison like a row of rattles. Some of the female students even covered their mouths to keep themselves from shrieking. Angers enjoyed such immense prestige at the academy that he was practically a celebrity, worshipped and admired wherever he went.

“Brother Caesar, it seems your intelligence was incorrect.” Lin Nian nudged Caesar with his elbow.

“My information is never wrong.” Caesar gestured toward the entrance.

Another student had slipped quietly into the hall. He was taking off his shoes and adjusting his socks. It was the president of the kendo club, Miyamoto Isshin, whom Lin Nian had seen at the Amber Pavilion banquet.

“I heard today’s lesson would be kendo, so I rearranged my schedule and came especially to teach the first-year students a class.” Angers swept his gaze over all the uniformed students. “Cassell College’s educational principle is to provide the finest faculty and teaching conditions. There is probably no one in the academy better qualified than I am to teach you kendo.”

“The headmaster knows kendo?” Lin Nian asked, somewhat surprised.

“Knowing it is putting it mildly. Look at his wrist,” Caesar whispered.

Lin Nian turned his gaze toward the front of the crowd and froze. Beneath the cuff Angers had rolled up, he saw not an expensive watch or a gold bracelet, but a riot of colorful tattoos. There was no doubt that they were merely part of a much larger design.

“Damn. Was the headmaster in the yakuza?” Lin Nian lowered his voice as well.

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“The real thing. Japanese organized crime. When I first came to the academy, I became curious and looked into Headmaster Angers’ history. He’s over a hundred and thirty years old. When the American forces landed in Japan, he was among the first to set foot on Japanese soil, arriving there aboard a warship. That was where he became acquainted with his kendo companion, Nyuugan Fudou-sai. The two of them studied the Two Heavens as One Style founded by Miyamoto Musashi. They also established the Japanese branch. Before leaving Japan and returning to America, the headmaster passed the formal kendo trials and received the honorific title of Tenfold Strike.”

“Tenfold Strike? Are you sure? Is the headmaster a sword saint?” Lin Nian could not help feeling a chill run through his cheeks.

“Tenfold Strike. Japan had no formal kendo ranking system back then. The graduation trial consisted of fighting one opponent or several opponents at once. Even the sword saints of Japanese kendo could manage no more than Fivefold Strike or Sevenfold Strike. But the headmaster defeated ten opponents without suffering a single injury.” Caesar’s gaze passed through the crowd and settled on Angers. “The headmaster is now over a hundred and thirty. It was probably several decades ago that he earned the title. In Japanese kendo, people have always said that the older a swordsman grows, the more monstrous he becomes. So tell me, how many opponents could the headmaster defeat now?”

“Although kendo examinations have age requirements, at the headmaster’s level, the number of opponents he could defeat probably has little to do with age, right?” Lin Nian imagined himself standing alone in the center of an empty training hall, surrounded by ten enemies wielding real blades. The instant they attacked, he might be able to parry three or four swords—but in the next moment, the remaining six or seven would chop him into mincemeat.

“Just because ordinary people can’t do something doesn’t mean mixed-bloods can’t. And that goes doubly for Hilbert Jean Angers, hailed as a natural-born dragon slayer. The headmaster is strong—absurdly strong. That’s why everyone in the academy, whether they’re first-years, second-years, third-years, or agents of the Executive Bureau, respects him completely. Whenever people mention the headmaster, there’s only one word that comes to mind: invincible,” Caesar whispered.

“Damn, he sounds incredible.”

“Incredible?”

“It’s slang. It means someone is exceptionally powerful.”

“Then the headmaster certainly is exceptionally powerful.” Caesar nodded in agreement.

“Exceptionally powerful doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Lin Nian nodded as well, then suddenly realized something. “Wait, Caesar. Didn’t you say there was a part of the cold-weapons class where we had to spar with the instructor?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Lin Nian turned his head to look at Caesar and discovered that Caesar was looking back at him. The emotion in their eyes was astonishingly identical: barely suppressed eagerness.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Angers, reputed to be the strongest of all mixed-bloods, was standing right in front of them.

They had to find a chance during this class to take a swing at the old sword saint.