-1 years ago-

It was close to the same summer setting in the background, where birds came back and clouds became more and more lowered in opacity, where rains were rare as your favorite artist was throwing a concert in your city and birds sang early in the morning.

It was the ending festivity at Ilinca’s highschool. She got a lot of diploma’s because of her high intelligence and good student manners.

After she met up with all her relatives and friends to take photos and getting huge congratulations from everyone, which made her very happy knowing that she is loved, but let’s not forget that her trainer was also there, her fencing trainer which helped Ilinca to evolve in this career.  An idea came to her mind, to visit the gym where she trained years on years, for fencing and where she won tons of competitions and where she evolved into where she is right now, a world champion. She also wanted her mother to come and see it for the last time, but she talked with the rest of the relatives and her fencing teacher, an old but fit person with long and fine white hair.  

even after school, with other students, and sometimes alone. It was a small gym class that belonged to the high school, containing some thin mattresses all colored in dark-blue, stuck to the wooden parquet, as well as wooden swords placed in a barrel right near the exit.

Inside the gym, there was a person all dressed up in a brown suit, with shiny transparent glasses and golden earrings, as well as a diamond encrusted watch, seeming like he was waiting for Ilinca for quite some time

“Hello… Miss Ilinca Adam, is that right?”
Asked the man with a big smile which showed his shiny white and perfectly aligned teeth

“Do I know you?”
Asked Ilinca awkwardly, looking in different angles to see if she was not being recorded for some kind of prank.

“I am here to give you an offer”

“An offer? Sorry but I am not quite interested”

“Oh you may want to hear this, miss Adam. It’s about your evolution in the sports industry, or I should say, in fencing”

“How do you know that I do fencing?”
Asked Ilinca, narrowing her eyebrows, left in awe.

“That does not matter, miss Adam. Here (takes a card from inside his coat and hands it to Ilinca with two of his fingers). Look at it. It also pays well and gets you extra “strings” as I may say, and lets you be more free in this crazy world.

The man passed her, with Ilinca clearly feeling the man’s expensive and good smelling cologne, leaving Ilinca with more questions than answers, but she didn’t bother asking any at all.

“And what if I don’t accept?”
Asked Ilinca, holding the card up near her face, pointing at her with her sight, once, then looking back at the “fresh-looking” man.

“I’m not a future-reader or nothing of that sort, but you WILL need it”
Calmly said the man, going his way out of the gym with a nonchalant walk

“Can I at least have your name?”
Asked Ilinca, but it was too late, the man had already left.

Running towards the door, Ilinca only saw the man boarding up in his sports car, without a registration plate, driving off in high speed, off the private property’s parking lot.

“What a weird guy”

Whispered Ilinca, looking at the front and back of the small business-card, which was made out of thick glass with the numbers were on it

“A phone number?”

She looked at it a little bit more, chuckled and then placed it inside her pants pocket.

When she went back, Ilinca got a phone call from her mother, telling Ilinca that they had to take her father to the hospital, because his heart “started failing” as some called it, from around them.

“Will he be okay?”
Exclaimed Ilinca, placing her hand on her mouth, starting to cry

“Of course, sweetie, your father is a hero, and you know that, right?”

“Yes, but…–”
Whined Ilinca, stopping herself from talking, as tears flow down her cheeks at high speeds.

“Ilinca, I’ll call you when we get there, okay?”
Said the mother

“I’ll come there right now, don’t worry mom”

“NO, DON’T! (breathes heavily over the phone) his skin is turning different colors and he is entirely cold, it may be a virus of some sort. And if it is, they will have to quarantine the both of us, Ilinca, so stay safe, we will come home as soon as we can, promise!”

Her mother hung up.

She went back to greet all her friends, with a bare smile on her face, wanting to act happy in front of her friends, but she just couldn’t, since she was stressed about the health of her father.

Her five main friends met up with her outside the school, and asked her if she wanted to come with them in town, to eat at the newly opened mall.

“Maybe later, I’ll see you guys there, okay?”
Gently said Ilinca, waving in goodbye for them, leaving the highschool’s place in a hurry.

*

In a taxi, Ilinca looked outside the window. The music was going loud in the car, but Ilinca was too introverted to ask the man, who was an older person, with an innocent neutral look on his face, to turn the music down.

Her eyes directed towards the exit of her comfort zone, through a piece of glass that survived through various evolutions so that it would be a gate of safety in an unsafe metal weapon, thinking about all the moments that she had at highschool, with her colleagues, all the times she laughed she smiled, when she was the girlfriend of most popular boy from her school, and how they separated over a hangout of the boy with another girl. She did some choices, that she yet does not know whether they were good or bad, taking an example of separating away from his boyfriend over a girl drama. She sighted and placed herself back on her seat, staring at the roof of the car, slowly realizing that all the great moments are now passed.

“Rough day, miss?”
Asked the taxi driver with a gentle voice, fixing his glasses that give him daily vision.

She chuckled and looked at the taxi driver, not wanting to reveal too much about her, wanting to just tell him her current emotion

“Could have been better”

On a closer look, Ilinca saw a black colored tattoo, covering the man’s wrinkly, which was a symbol of a deformed circle, which’s form Ilinca couldn’t really understand.

“What does that tattoo symbolize? The one on your hand”
Asked Ilinca, wanting to make a little chit-chat

“Oh… (chuckles) this? (raises his hand closer to Ilinca) this is my soul, patch, protection and life. Cool tattoo, eh?”

“Y-yeah… (nods awkwardly, not really liking the tattoo at all, but didn’t say anything since she didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings.

She found out, tomorrow morning by asking the doctor on how much the treatment would cost. The doctor mentioned a number that Ilinca didn’t even heart about, basically it was too much…

“But, unfortunately, we are still unsure if the treatment would work”

“It will, for sure it will. Just please keep me updated, and don’t tell my parents, doctor that I asked you this”
“Ilinca, I got to go, goodbye”

Ilinca called the number from the business card and got a location sent through text, which she followed. It was an abandoned alley with barely any light flickering from the sun.

And from an iron conduit, from a building, something heavy was dropped, she couldn’t get it out so she broke the conduit  and took out something long wrapped in a pale-brown clothing, held tight by a thin piece of rope from 4 corners. It revealed that it was a sword inside a toque, and a piece of thick paper, colored in the coffee-color.

“Thank you for choosing to be with us. Swordkick has assigned you a sword. Do NOT lose it”

“Rules to be in the Swordkick: 

1. You are allowed to eliminate your opponent only if you are challenged to a duel, or if you challenge someone to a duel.

2. You are not allowed to back out. After you’ve been assigned a target, or challenged, you have to take it until the end.

3. You are not allowed to fight in front of the citizens.

4. Whenever you get a call, you answer. And if you don’t…. try to not find out.

5. To challenge someone to a duel, you have to take a cherry leaf and break it in six pieces, with your hands, and not letting the leaf flinch not even a little 

*What does he mean by… eliminate…?*

Though Ilinca to herself, turning the piece of thick paper, where it was written

“Your opponent will appear in 3…2…1”

“A countdown?”

The throw of a trashcan was heard

A person with a kitchen knife, a mask and expensive clothes appeared from the corner.

“You that Ilinca?”
Asked the person with the voice of a girl

“Who’s asking?”

“Your de-ath!”
She started attacking Ilinca with a bunch of knife attack combos, and Ilinca somehow dodged all of them

“You're good at being scared, but you’re sure not good at killing, right?”
Continued the girl, barely being able to control her talking and breathing simultaneously

“Kill…ing?”

She whispered to herself

“FIGHT ME ILINCA ADAM, THIS ISN’T A GAME!”

“W-wait, this has to be just a misunderstanding, I didn’t sign up for this”
Gently exclaimed Ilinca

“Neither did I, sis”

The masked girl somehow managed to cut Ilinca in a few places, but nothing extreme, so she took out her sword in defense, tripped sideways and hit the girl with the sword, right in her solar plexus. Blood messed up her clothing, starting from the place of weapon. The girl threw up blood from her mouth, which rejected back and was quickly falling down on her neck.

“Beginner’s luck, eh?”
Asked the girl, chuckling faintly, then dropping down on the floor, not moving an inch

“SOME-”

But she was interrupted by the grab of the girl on her foot. She took her mask off, she had a pretty face, being around 20-25 ish of age, short hair and long eyebags

“You are one of us now. It’s legal, this association, no one will do anything. We are all on our own. Our own rules, and our own lifes (coughs). You really amazing, as a first-timer, to beat someone from top 100 is really something (chuckles, with her smiling fading away).

She died in Ilinca’s eyes. Lowering her, Ilinca cried on her lifeless body

From the same pipe, another package came, wrapped in a thin cardboard box and sealed with scotch, it was a touch-screen phone

“Congratulations” appeared for her, with confetti going around her screen. Wins 1. Credits: 250.

Ilinca angrily went up the ladder to see who was the one sending her packages. But there was no one. Seeing the other block, and homes, she saw, around two houses away, a buffed person with casual clothes. Jeans, jacket, and a straw bag over his head. He was holding someone with his arm, clawing his right hand on the other person’s neck while turning his look towards Ilinca. She froze up on the distant look of the man. He pointed towards while choking the man so hard that his head exploded from the blood remaining in the head. He looked at the man’s body and left it on the roof, after which he jumped off the building like some kind of built different guy.

“No, no, no, no”

Repeated Ilinca, falling down on her knees, crying.

“If he also is in Swordkick, that means that-.. -that would be me, if I get challenged by him?”