The Last Swordmaster

Never Trust a Bunny

I really didn't feel like talking to anyone the next day, so I slept. Literally. I woke up the next morning, thankful that I got to skip a day of my life in basically prison. Unfortunately, when I woke up, someone was knocking on my door, which made me growl. Jack peeked his head in cautiously. "Since when are you a growling dog?"

As soon as I saw it was him, I let my head fall back down onto the pillow. "Um, Scarlet? Can we talk?"

I shook my head and started to drift back to sleep when he shook me. "Hey, wake up."

I stayed there until he sighed and ripped the covers off of me. "Wake up, Scarlet."

I groaned and sat up, staring daggers at him. He scooted away from me a little bit and cleared his throat.

"I just wanted to say sorry for following you or whatever it looked like. I was going to apologize yesterday, but you never came out of your room. Speaking of that, is there a reason you were in here all day yesterday?"

I continued to glare at him. "The next time you wake me up and expect me to talk to you, I will slap you. At least give me some time to wake up."

"You are awake."

I threw a comb at him, which he wasn't expecting, and it hit him right in his temple. "Ow. Watch it. That hurt."

"I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't made that comment."

"But  that's my thing," he told me with a grin. "I love making irritating, amusing comments."

I sighed and put my head in my hands. "So, apology accepted?"

I barely looked up at him and shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

"Okay, but are you ever going to eat anything? You've been up here for a long time, so you might want to eat."

I opened my nightstand and showed him the Pringles and other junk foods that were stashed in there. "I think I'm good."

He thought for a moment and shrugged. "Okay. But you haven't trained in a little while."

"So?"

"So hurry and get dressed. The sooner you learn how to take care of yourself, the better."

*****

I got dressed and we trained for a few hours, and when we were done, Jack turned to me. "You're actually almost done. Everything else is stuff you learn on the job."

"Really? It's about time. I hate it."

He laughed, walked to a bench in the training room, and motioned for me to sit next to him. "Trust me, the missions are so much more fun. You should be going on your first one soon, then your training will be considered complete."

"What kind of mission?"

"Nothing too big. It would be like trying to kill you if we sent you out with us to kill a major demon, but you'll get to that eventually."

"Is that how Axel became a cat?"

"Yeah, that's exactly how, except he was a swordmaster since the seventeen hundreds. He's been a cat for... I don't know... six years now, which is how much time we spent looking for you."

"Could it have been someone else?"

He shook his head. "No, it was destined to happen. Usually it's something special about that person that makes them an automatic target. Actually, no, that sounded like we're trying to kill you," he told me with a small chuckle.