Like every other day, I’m here, practicing my swing. Deep within the forest, I stand here, imitating my Master, practicing slashes with my wooden sword. I’m next to a simple hut, built to provide shelter from the wind and rain.
The rich, almost cloying scent of plant life fills my nostrils with each breath as the sun rises. And still I continue swinging.
I began my practice at sunrise, rising early to check the weather. The seasonal rains are here, but today there’s not a cloud in the sky. My regimen takes up the whole day, only ending when the sun dips beneath the horizon.
There’s nothing remarkable about this training. The routine is the same every day. It was what I did yesterday, it’s what I will do tomorrow. I, an Immortal, have maintained the same training regimen for over five centuries.
As for how I went from being a normal Japanese teenager to an Immortal in training, well, there’s a story behind that. You see, God killed me by accident, and as an apology of sorts, he sent me to live in another world.
“I’m SO sorry, but it turns out I made a mistake. See, I saw your name, figured you were an old geezer, and snuffed out your life candle. My bad. That’s all on me.”
The name that caused this mistake? Sansui Shirokuro. I’ll admit that it’s old-fashioned, but not nearly enough to justify killing me over it.
Be that as it may, it turned out that I couldn’t be revived in Japan, on Earth, so God had already decided to reincarnate me in a different world. Not as a baby, but as my original teenage self.
“Still, I suppose I can’t send you as-is. You’d probably just die and come right back.”
“Hey, so does that mean you’ll be giving me special powers?”
“Of course, my child. You wouldn’t happen to have...well, any requests, would you?”
“Since you’re asking, I want to be the strongest, and show off my strength to the whole world!”
“I can’t believe you actually said that with a straight face.”
In hindsight, neither can I. I’ve had the last five centuries to randomly remember that moment, and the passing years haven’t made it any less embarrassing.
I suppose the only really fortunate part was that God didn’t simply hand me ultimate power. Instead, he gave me the potential I needed to become an Immortal, then introduced me to my Master.
God didn’t bother explaining anything. After telling me to apprentice myself to a particular man at my destination, he teleported me to a spot deep in the forest.
“I thought I felt a disturbance... Ah, a visitor from another world.”
Master Suiboku did not look much different back then, as though he ought to be in school, rather than out in the woods, basically in the middle of nowhere. Having felt my sudden arrival, he had floated over to have a look.
“Hello, there. I’m afraid you’re a long way from civilization. I’ll take you to the nearest settlement, but it’s not an easy trek. Rather inconsiderate of God to leave you all the way out here.”
“Ah, well, actually... God told me to come here, so I could become your apprentice...”
“...Sigh.”
It was a deep sigh. Far too deep and weary for the child-like figure in front of me.
“Your name, then?”
But it seems he made his peace with teaching me quickly enough, asking for my name without so much as a frown.
“Sansui Shirokuro.”
“A fine name... I am Suiboku, an Immortal.”
“An Immortal...?”
“Yes. You understand the basics, I’m sure. Immortals are the superhuman beings who use the Immortal Arts, cloistering themselves away from the world, and spending their unending days of eternal youth in training. As my apprentice, you must learn the ways of the Immortal, so that you can become one yourself.”
“I can become an Immortal?!”
I didn’t reflect upon it much at the time. I was just excited that I’d get to learn the secrets of eternal youth.
“Certainly. Of course, that is if you can keep up with my training.”
Learning the training regimen put an end to my excitement fairly quickly.
“The training is simple. Each day, you will rise at dawn and swing your wooden sword until nightfall. Every day, until I tell you to stop. That’s all.”
“...Uhm, if I might ask... How will you decide that?”
“When you have become the greatest.”
“And, uh, just how long do you think that’ll take?”
“Mm... Even if it turns out you don’t have a shred of talent for it... Well, five hundred years should be enough to make you a passable swordsman.”
I immediately regretted asking for ultimate power so casually.
I was not, in any way, prepared to spend the next five hundred years taking practice swings...
“That is what it takes to become the ‘strongest.’ I myself have spent the last thousand years training, but each day brings new discoveries. There is no end to one’s training.”
It was such an eminently Immortal thing to say that no retorts sprang to mind.
“The most important thing is commitment. Commitment, so that you may dedicate your life to your blade! So long as you remember that, you will eventually become the strongest! That is the heart of the way of the sword, the way of the warrior!”
The God I met was about the furthest thing from a god that I had ever encountered. Master Suiboku more than made up for it, being the most Immortal Immortal that one could ask for. I couldn’t help but wish he’d ease up just a little bit.
But it was much too late for regrets, and my Immortal training began soon after.
Five hundred years have passed since then. The clothes and shoes I’d arrived in had disintegrated years ago. Instead, I clothed myself in a handmade kimono and wore hand-woven sandals. If nothing else, at least I looked the part.
It’s surprising how adaptable the human mind is. Five hundred years of training had firmly cemented the Immortal mindset. The practice swings and training were now what I did for fun.