She had died younger than she would have liked.
A lot of people probably thought the same, or would have if they could, but she felt that dying in a pool of her own blood at age eighteen in particular was something she was allowed to feel regretful of. Akeno didn’t question the truth of her own death, it wasn’t hard to believe when she could still vividly remember what it had felt like as the knife entered her body, recall the panicked look on her killers face before he fled, the sensation of warm blood spreading across her stomach and side as she found herself laying on her back and not remembering how she got there.
No, that wasn’t something she could just dream up.
All because she had the bad luck to find herself in that situation and the bad judgement to let it end the way it had. It was easy to feel bitter about that, easy to wallow and give in to either anger or misery; easy, but not helpful. If she’d ended up in heaven or hell she could indulge in those feelings for as long as she liked, for all of eternity even, but she wasn’t so lucky as to end up in either of those places; like it or not she’d been given a second chance at life, of a sort. Not the second chance she would have asked for, nor the one she wanted, but she’d been given something that she needed to keep working at if she didn’t want to end up dead again.
Akeno hadn’t considered herself a religious person in life, she still didn’t consider herself one now even though she’d literally met what might have been a divine being, but if an afterlife did exist she wouldn’t ever have guessed it would involve being reborn as an orc into a fantasy world where magic and elves and winged goddesses existed. Reincarnation
had been one of the options, she supposed, but not like this. You weren’t supposed to remember who you were in the versions of reincarnation people spoke of in religious texts; you weren’t supposed to wake up in the body of a child, a toddler, with knowledge of two lives lived, one much shorter than the other, rushing into your head all at once. Or was she an orc child suddenly remembering a life she had never lived? Was she Akeno in the body of an orc, or was she an orc who remembered the life of Akeno? Was there a difference? Technically speaking her name wasn’t even Akeno anymore. She had been given a new name to go with this new body, something harsh and ugly sounding, but now that she remembered who she was there was no reason to keep answering to it. Her name was Akeno Kudo, or just Akeno now she supposed; she had no family here.
Philosophical and theological questions aside for now, Akeno had work ahead of her. It seemed that today was the day she was going to become an adult in the eyes of the… tribe? Clan? It was the day all of the children were to prove themselves ready to leave the nest and become a proper member of whatever this group was called. That, or die trying. It was a very Spartan method of child rearing that she was suddenly being thrust into, though even with death being a real possibility this whole quest thingvwas still relatively low down on her list of concerns right now.
As some of the other runts rushed back to get their belongings and others rushed out towards the woods to complete the task they were given, Akeno lingered at the edge of the brood pit long enough for the rush to die down before walking out of camp and towards the woods as well. But rather than rush deep into the brush looking for animals or things to forage, she circled around the camp and entered the woods from a different point and began searching until she found a small clearing that was far away enough not to be visible from the camp but hopefully close enough that nothing dangerous lurked nearby.
Ever since she had come into awareness of herself in this world, something had been bothering her about her new body; something off. It would have been weird trying to figure this out in the camp with all those orcs around her, but in the assumed privacy of this clearing she could finally check. With a final glance around to confirm she was alone, Akeno held her arms out in front of her, stretching her fingertips as far forward as they would go, then raised her arms up above her head and did the same, arching her back and stretching her entire body out. Leaning forward, she tried to touch her toes without bending her knees and found she was able to do so, but not without feeling an uncomfortable burning sensation in her waist and lower back. Standing back up, Akeno held one arm out in front of her again and wrapped the fingers of her opposite hand around her forearm, then moved them up to her bicep and curled her arm to flex it. Letting out a sigh, Akeno let both arms to her side.
This body was weak.
There was muscle definition, that just seemed to come naturally to orcs she guessed, but it wasn’t much and definitely a far cry from the level of fitness she had in her previous life. She had been lean then, tall with long limbs and built for speed rather than power, but now she was basically scrawny; her arms and legs were thin, she lacked the flexibility she had developed over years and probably her sense of balance too, and she didn’t need to look down to see that her stomach was smooth and slightly protruding. It was like all of the effort and training she had put in other the last seven years of her life had been reset, like she was back in the body of a child. No, it wasn’t such like that, she
was in the body of a child; an orc child, but still just a child.
At least her eyes seemed to be good; she wouldn’t know for sure until she got into a fight but she could see clearly and her visual acuity was probably about the same as before. Her body could be trained, given enough time, but if she had poor eyesight in this new life she wasn’t sure what she would have done; odds were low that there was anything like an optometrist around here. But her reach… if she compared herself to the other orcs in the brood pit then she was tall, she thought, but compared to everything else she was small.
The only thing she still had from her old life was her memories; her experiences and her training. But whether or not she could even use them with a body like this she wasn’t sure. And that was the real reason she wanted to come out here. Akeno took a deep breath, held it for a second and let it out in a long slow exhale, then took a starting stance.
She started with a basic kata, one of the entry-level ones, the Taikyoku Jodan; it was basically just a high block followed by a punch, repeated multiple times in multiple directions. Akeno had no problems performing it from memory, but her movements left something to be desired; her arm was a little slow to reach above her head for the block and her punches lacked snap. Repeating it while putting more effort into the motions helped a little, but it still didn’t feel natural. Frustrated, she moved on to a different kata, a more complicated one; Gekisai Dai Ichi. Again, her recitation of the movements was fine, but the movements themselves… everything felt sluggish, it felt like a struggle to get her body to cooperate and the end result was inadequate. It was like she was a beginner again, back to the clumsy child that was first learning karate and was unable to keep up with the rest of the class; the child that wanted to give up, before it began to make sense to her. Only now it was worse, because she knew what it was like to be able to do this and do it well.
If she was like this then she wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to fight, let alone hunt something. Not that she wanted to kill something anyway, but still.
There was still the skill she was given, the one she had picked because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do karate at all without it, but she didn’t know how to activate it. Did she have to call it out like some kind of special attack, or was it something that only worked in a fight? The description of it said it needed to be activated. Lacking a better idea, Akeno fell into a starting stance again and tried to visualise an opponent in front of her, someone she had fought against in the last tournament she entered before her death. Taking another deep breath, she exhale and began the same kata again, this time with an opponent in front of her.
This time it was
there.
Her body felt light. Her body felt strong. Her body
moved in the way that she wanted it to, in synch with her mind in a way it hadn’t been before. Her arms snapped into the block position, her fists snapped against the air, she didn’t have to readjust her balance every time she raised a leg for a kick. It was karate, just the way it had felt before.
And then it ended.
Akeno breathed in, suddenly short of breath and let her body relax. She
could still do it, albeit in short bursts and through the use of a skill, but even in this body she could still do it. It seemed to take a lot out of her, but the description said it just needed to be activated at Rank 1; so did that mean if she levelled this skill up, it could be active all the time? That wouldn’t be a substitute for getting stronger, putting some muscle on this small frame, but it was something to consider.
If she was going to fight, if Akeno was going to avoid dying a second time, she would need to both strengthen this body and also regain her karate.
But before either of those, she was going to need to find something to eat.
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