TALMAN TALES - NEW WORLD ORDER

  Chapter 3 – Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu’s Training

  And so, the long-awaited training under Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu finally began. He led us to a secluded patch of forest. It was a beautiful place and, as we later learned, it was also where he himself had once undergone his own training. The training ground was set at the edge of a river, where a small waterfall tumbled down into the stream. Five massive tree trunks had been driven deep into the ground there. The sensei told us he had prepared all of this twenty years ago, cutting down the trees one by one with an old axe, carrying them to this spot, and then forcefully setting them upright and hammering them into the earth. A few wooden swords and shields were also laid out for us to use in our training.

  After we had carefully taken in our surroundings, the sensei introduced us to the first exercise he had devised: his famous “Bi-Shi-Zu Special.” For this combat technique we had to leap high into the air, perform a full 360-degree spin, and strike the target at the perfect moment with a powerful kick. The target was a sturdy tree. Sensei executed the technique with masterful precision. In just a brief instant, he shattered the tree with a single kick and sent it crashing to the ground. Dust swirled in the air around him, and the force behind that kick was something you could almost feel on your skin.

  Once we had seen the technique performed, we were on our own. Aurelia and I spent the entire day training that one single kick without a break. Neither of us was able to pull it off, not even remotely. Completely exhausted from the training, we were supposed to go to bed after a delicious dinner. That was the plan, at least. I wanted to grab a quick glass of water before sleeping and headed into the kitchen. But it never came to that. The light was still on, and through the crack in the door I could see Mr. Bi-Shi-Zu and his wife.

  The two of them were having an intense conversation about the future of the farm. I didn’t catch everything, but a few details made their way to my ears. Among other things, they spoke about the Bi-Shi-Zu family’s financial situation, which didn’t look good at all. His wife said, “Bi-Shi-Zu, you know we don’t have the money to take these children in. We can barely support ourselves.” She also mentioned how dangerous it was now that they were essentially a whole family, and that this might draw the attention of Grandlord Braunstein.

  Bi-Shi-Zu replied, “I know, things haven’t been easy for us, not since the incident with Artemis. But I’ve thought through the risks and consequences. Even if it means that Braunstein will sooner or later send his henchmen to the farm to steal our belongings, I have faith in these two. I believe they are the children of my grandfather’s prophecy, and that they can bring balance back to this world. All they need is proper training, so they can stand up to Braunstein and Artemis alike.”

  At that point, I went back to bed. Before I fell asleep, a few questions kept circling in my mind—mostly about that prophecy. I also thought about how I could help Mr. Bi-Shi-Zu with the farm, so I could show him my gratitude for his trust and kindness. And those henchmen of Grandlord Braunstein he had mentioned wouldn’t leave my thoughts either.

  Strengthened with new motivation for training, I finally drifted off. The next morning, full of energy and determination, I headed to the training ground even before breakfast. Despite clear improvements compared to the previous day, my attempts were still terrible, but I refused to give up until I had brought that tree down.

  Eventually, Aurelia joined me and found me sitting on the ground, crying. She asked what was wrong. I answered, “I overheard a conversation yesterday between Mr. Bi-Shi-Zu and his wife about the farm’s financial situation, our training, Braunstein’s henchmen, and the prophecy.” After I explained all of that to her, with the few details I had actually heard, I added:

  “Our sensei is putting so much trust in us and our training. He’s even risking his own life just because we’re here. He’s barely able to keep the farm running and might lose everything he holds dear because of us. And yet he always has a smile for us and pours all his dreams and hopes into us. I just can’t live up to that responsibility. I’m too weak to make any difference. I’ve been kicking this stupid tree all morning without making the slightest impact. Whatever that prophecy is supposed to be, I’m definitely not the one who’s going to fulfill it. Sensei is putting way too much hope in me.”

  Before Aurelia could say anything, the sensei emerged from the forest. In a calming voice, he said:

  “Zeki, I know you’re frustrated because your training is only progressing slowly, but Schattental wasn’t built in a day either. Leave the finances to me, that’s my concern. In truth, I’m the one who should thank you. Because of your presence, I’ve been able to find meaning in my life again and finally make peace with the problems Artemis caused. Of course I’m placing a lot of hope in you, but I promise you, my ability to read people has grown enormously over the fourteen years I’ve worked as a sensei. I wouldn’t place such a burden on you if I weren’t sure you could carry it. That tree is just one of many obstacles you’ll encounter on your path. But I’ll give you one piece of advice: combine your strengths, and you’ll see that the tree isn’t as insurmountable as you think.”

  And just as quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared again. Aurelia and I spent a long time thinking about how we could combine our abilities. We tried everything, including a technique we invented ourselves: the “Zekelia Double.” It was basically just a “Bi-Shi-Zu Special” performed by two people at the same time. But nothing worked, and we spent the next few days doing nothing but trying to figure out how to properly fuse our powers.

  Hours and hours of training went by, and we still hadn’t found an answer. But on the eighteenth day, Aurelia had an idea. She used her magic to channel her magical energy into my foot in addition to my physical strength. With this technique, we were finally able to truly combine our strengths—and at last, we managed to bring the tree down.

  Relief washed over both of us, and the sensei was clearly proud of us, too. I hadn’t felt such a good feeling in a long time—it was almost like the love of my parents. Somewhere along the way, with everything I had been through, that feeling had gotten lost. I hadn’t known Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu and Aurelia for long, but I had already taken them both deep into my heart. It felt like I had gained a loving father and a wonderful sister at the same time.

  After a short break, we moved on to the second stage of training. The sensei called it “individual strength training.” We went to the waterfall at the river, where a wooden plank had been set in place. The goal of the exercise was to withstand the pressure of the waterfall. There was one rule: we were not allowed to help each other. We had to rely solely on our own strength.

  Aurelia went first. She used her magic to create a shield around her body and stepped into the waterfall. She managed to hold the barrier for three seconds before succumbing to the force of the water and being swept away.

  Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu stood on the bank with a fishing rod and, after briefly complaining that he had just had a fish on the line, he reeled her back in—though he lost his lunch in the process. Then it was my turn. I was fired up and ready to conquer the waterfall. After five seconds, the water overwhelmed me, and I found myself being dragged away by the current. I grabbed for the sensei’s fishing rod, but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his meal a second time and kept on fishing cheerfully. I floated down the river until I eventually washed up on the shore. I still hold it against him to this day that I had to walk all the way back to the training ground for nothing.

  This task proved to be much more difficult. That’s why Aurelia and I worked incredibly hard to improve day by day. The goal was to withstand the force of the water for ten minutes. Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu kept encouraging us to continue. Without his words, those torments would have been unbearable.

  On the sixtieth day of waterfall training, Aurelia and I were practically dueling over who could hold out the longest. My record was five minutes and seventeen seconds; Aurelia managed to maintain her shield for five minutes and thirteen seconds. There was barely any difference between us, and with each passing day, we added a few more seconds to our time. We had now been following the sensei’s instructions for three full months.

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  On the seventy-second day of waterfall training, the time had finally come to begin the next chapter of our training. I completed the exercise with a time of ten minutes and forty-two seconds, Aurelia with ten minutes and eight seconds. Naturally, I had to celebrate my victory over Aurelia—and the bet I had won, which meant a week of cleaning duty for the loser—with an outrageous victory dance. Aurelia didn’t find it very funny, but in that moment I didn’t care. Once I had finished my celebration, it was time to face the next trial.

  The sensei taught us the next exercise. Now that we had mastered teamwork and physical strength, it was time to learn to wield weapons. Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu presented five different weapons: a steel football, a bow and arrow, a gilded fist, an old axe, and a sword powered by lasers. Aurelia didn’t hesitate long and chose the bow and arrow. I, on the other hand, took my time and went through each weapon one by one.

  A laser sword? I’m not in some kind of fantasy movie, I thought. So that was out. The old axe looked a bit too sinister to me, and it gave off a frightening aura that made me uneasy. On to the next weapon. The gilded fist felt too boring—it was cool, sure, but not what I was looking for. The steel football, however, captured my full attention. The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew: this was my destiny. With this, I would end all the suffering in this world.

  Now that our weapons were chosen, all that was left was the training. Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu came up with a personalized training regimen for each of us. Aurelia had to recognize and hit a series of targets hidden throughout the forest, all while blindfolded. My task required more preparation. The sensei asked an old friend for help, a man known as the best construction worker in town. His name was Mikail. Together, they built a wall five meters long and one meter thick, made of reinforced steel and concrete. While Aurelia could practice and master her target course day after day, I, although I wasn’t just lazing around, had to wait twenty-eight days for the concrete to fully cure before I could start my training.

  As you’ve probably guessed, my goal was to train my shooting technique and shooting power against that wall. After the first training session, it was clear that power wasn’t the issue. I could easily slam the steel football—which probably weighed over fifteen kilos—into the wall.

  But my technique left a lot to be desired, and I refused to give up. This challenge was far tougher than any I had faced before. I couldn’t get the ball to land exactly where I wanted it. On top of that, my foot hurt from constantly kicking the ball. It felt like it was going to fall off. Day after day, I hammered that ball into the wall. Eventually, I learned to cope with the pain, and slowly I began to develop a feel for my shots. For the first time, I managed to send the ball exactly where I aimed. I was overjoyed and jumped into the air. After two hundred days of training under Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu, I had finally overcome all the hurdles. Aurelia, too, had mastered her course and could hit every target blindfolded.

  It was time to clear the final hurdle. Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu insisted that we always make use of our strength as a team. It may sound absurd, but the last task was to have a duel against each other. We were supposed to focus on the other’s weaknesses and exploit them deliberately. According to the sensei, this was meant to help us not only understand each other’s strengths, but also each other’s weaknesses, so that we could adjust to one another and become an unbeatable team.

  The fight between Aurelia and me began. I opened with a precise shot aimed at her stomach, but her shield blocked the ball and absorbed all the impact. Then it was her turn. Using her magic, she gathered stones from the ground and shot them at me. Not a single stone hit me, because with my striking technique I was able to shatter each one in mid-air. The fight dragged on for hours. Neither of us was able to figure out what the other’s weakness was.

  After about six hours of continuous battling, I came to the conclusion that Aurelia’s shield weakened every time I mentioned her past. It was a dirty trick, but my task was to identify my opponent’s greatest weakness. Once I knew, I began saying crueler and more horrible things about her. In my fixation on winning, I worked myself into such a rage that I didn’t even realize what I was saying anymore.

  When her shield finally broke, I kicked the football straight into her stomach. I was just about to celebrate my victory when I realized what I had done. Because of my hunger for strength, I had not only hurt someone who mattered to me physically, but also broken her mentally. I can’t fully describe what went through me in that moment. When I saw Aurelia lying there, completely devastated and crying, guilt crashed down on me. I ran over to help her.

  I had no idea she had planned it like that all along. That was how she found my greatest weakness—my mercy and my kindness. Armed with that knowledge, she immediately turned the situation to her advantage. The moment I was close enough, she tortured me with nearly unbearable lightning-like bursts of magic. She kept going until I finally gave up, unable to withstand the pain any longer.

  And so, we each discovered the other’s weakness. With that, we had completed this part of our training and were ready to set out on a new journey—to make Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu proud and to fight for what was good in this world. We wanted to realize our dreams and goals, to help and support other families, to fight evil, and to lead Schattental into a new era, into an age of light and sunshine.

  I was sure the future still had a lot in store for us. Yet it hurt deeply to leave Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu and his wife Li-Sa behind. This training camp was without a doubt one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I could never thank the sensei enough for this opportunity—for his hospitality, his training, and above all, for the kindness that defined his family.

  I think it was exactly this kind of wonderful experience that restored my faith in the goodness of people during these cruel times, ruled by anger and hatred. Our last dinner together with the sensei, his wife, and Aurelia stirred memories in me. My thoughts went back to the day everything began—my sixth birthday.

  I had already lived through unimaginable suffering and seen things no six-year-old should ever have to see, but maybe it was my fate to endure exactly this path. Maybe I really was meant for something greater. All of that only strengthened my will even more, and so the farewell didn’t hurt quite as much anymore. The rest of the evening was a mix of old stories from Mr. Bi-Shi-Zu and Li-Sa. I can’t remember every single one, but one of them stayed with me: the story of how the sensei met his student Artemis for the first time.

  We sat around the kitchen table, listening intently, and the sensei began his story with these words:

  “I had just arrived here and was getting to know the neighbors when I first came across Artemis. Back then, the boy was only four years old, but his parents were already terrible. He was beaten every day and forced to do work far too heavy for him. On top of that, he barely got anything to eat or drink. His only support in life was his beloved sister, Gloria. He could talk to her about anything, and she always managed to comfort him. She was the only one who stood by him, even though he also suffered from a rare illness called Zirbiss Syndrome.

  That syndrome, as it later turned out, was named after a man called Kogel Zirbiss, who one day suddenly developed an inexplicable thirst for blood—not just any blood, but that of his own family. In that state, he murdered his entire family and drank their blood. I suspect Artemis suffered from the same illness, born from his broken relationship with his father and all the hatred he felt toward him. But at that time, no one knew anything about it.

  One day, Artemis snapped, and his father became the target of his first attack. Without thinking twice, he jumped up from the kitchen table where he had been sitting with his father, ran to the counter, grabbed a knife, and stabbed him exactly seventeen times in the chest. His father bled out miserably at the table, and Artemis gave in to his hunger for blood. Gloria, however, was forced to watch everything. Because of the deep bond between them, Artemis completely ignored her.

  She rushed out of the house, but slipped and struck her head on a rock in the front yard. Her skull was pierced. When Artemis finally came to his senses again, he found himself in a situation that must have felt like hell on earth. At twelve years old, he had brutally murdered his father and drained his blood, and on top of that, he had lost the only person who truly mattered to him—his beloved sister Gloria. All of this only made his illness worse.

  He also told me that he spent about a year living on the streets under even worse conditions than those with his father, before he eventually stumbled his way to me. From that day on, our bond grew stronger with each passing day. I took the boy under my wing and trained with him. I watched as a boy, despised and hated by his entire village because of his illness, slowly grew into a confident and powerful young man. Artemis became like a son to me, and I like the father he never had.

  Even at the martial arts school, he was respected because of his extraordinary strength. The school and the other children there meant everything to him. I managed to completely change his life and watched him grow. And then, out of nowhere, completely unexpectedly, came the day when, for the first time in my entire career as a sensei, I did not arrive at work on time. You know the rest of the story. That was the moment I saw Artemis for the last time.”

  After that brief glimpse into the sensei’s life, it was finally time to get some sleep. The next morning, Aurelia and I set off on our journey. The sensei gave each of us three things to take with us: something to eat, something to drink, and a necklace bearing the family crest of Sensei Bi-Shi-Zu, which he had inherited from his father.

  Now we were ready to walk our new path and face whatever challenges awaited us.

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