There were many skills the recruits needed to acquire. Of course, there were the combat arts like swordsmanship and wrestling, but other know-how and classroom learning required of soldiers─tactics, medicine, and such─were beaten into the recruits from sunrise to sunset until it became their flesh and blood.
While the term “combat arts” seemed self-explanatory, it covered a wide array of techniques including swordsmanship, marksmanship, wrestling, roping, horsemanship, and more. It went without saying that these were founded on certain basic physical abilities. Likewise for classroom learning.
The recruits applied themselves to all subjects, but differences in aptitude existed to varying degrees. Roughly speaking, the Training Corps consisted of two types: physically gifted soldiers who were good at combat and mentally gifted soldiers who excelled in the classroom. The ones with the top grades needed for applying to the Military Police tended to be nearly perfect in both aspects, and both Cardina and Xavi counted themselves among that group. It was a natural result of their upbringings. Educated well from a young age and endowed with a wealth of knowledge, they’d been schooled and trained as elites precisely so that they might join the Brigade.
Meanwhile, Kuklo’s grades were poor. While everyone recognized his great potential, he relied on sensibility alone, and his self-taught ways didn’t pass muster. He was like raw ore, no different from stone unless he was processed and polished. Far from adept at reading and writing, he also suffered in the classroom, but what he lacked most in comparison to his corpsmates had to be life experience. His uncooperative streak and deficient imagination revealed as much.
So I couldn’t beat Xavi back there because I’m not experienced? As soon as the thought distracted him, his feet were taken out from under him, and he tumbled to the ground. He reflexively shot out his right hand for a soft landing─not a moment too soon, as he’d have smashed his back against the earth and been left gasping.
“You’re getting thrown because you keep spacing out,” a petite female recruit in fatigues told him as she reached out her arm.
The striking young lady with glossy, short black hair was none other than Rosa, whom Kuklo had met in the brig. She was also the one who’d just caught him with a double leg takedown. Kuklo took Rosa’s hand and stood up slowly.
“We’re in training so no one’s going to finish you off, but you’d be a goner if this were a real fight,” Rosa said, looking up at Kuklo with her obsidian eyes. As the angle of her head indicated, she was only as tall as the bottom of Kuklo’s jaw and the shortest soldier in the entire Training Corps.
I can’t believe she managed to throw me… Not particularly muscular, Rosa didn’t look strong enough to throw a guy, but she’d done exactly that to Kuklo. While he doubted he was weaker than her physically speaking, their differences in skill and experience had determined the round’s outcome.
That’s why I couldn’t match up to Xavi. Moreover, Xavi’s hangers-on had made winning impossible from the outset that time.
Looking around, Kuklo saw recruits sparring with partners across the athletic grounds. He could tell from their movements that the bouts weren’t being decided by size or strength.
“Soft and fair goes far. You may think that being small is a disadvantage, but a world of possibilities opens up if you see it as a weapon instead.”
“So I just have to practice.”
“That’s certainly the quickest way. You have the raw talent, all you need to do is have faith and keep at it.”
Perhaps speaking from personal experience, Rosa sounded confident. She also seemed to believe wholeheartedly in the teachings of Jorge, her instructor. In fact, she posted above average grades, and while the practicals dragged her down, she was completely capable when it mattered. She’d serve quite fine as a soldier out of the academy.
If she stayed inside the walls, of course. But Rosa was taking Vertical Maneuvering Equipment lessons, which meant she wanted to join the Survey Corps.
“Why did you become a recruit, Rosa?” Kuklo asked her. Even if she’d been handpicked by a hero like Jorge, going outside the walls took some serious resolve.
Rosa replied by telling him about her parents, both of whom had been soldiers. “My father died before I was born, though, and my mother’s retired.”
“So you followed in their footsteps?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“But why learn to use the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment?”
Instead of answering him, Rosa squared off against Kuklo as though to remind him that they were in the middle of training.
I see. Kuklo adjusted his posture and began sparring freely with her.
“My dad was killed by a Titan,” Rosa said.
“You want to avenge him?”
“I don’t feel like it’s anything as admirable as that, but maybe his blood is guiding me.”
“Was he in the Survey Corps?”
“Yeah. In the team your father led.”
“Heath’s?” Kuklo let out in surprise.
I see. That’s why she was quick to trust me… His father’s identity must have steered her to accept him without preliminaries when they met in the brig.
“I was interested in the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, too. After all, the guy who made it lives with my mom,” Rosa remarked with a shrug.
Then she sent Kuklo’s body flying through the air.
✦ ✦ ✦
Training finished just as the sky began to turn crimson.
Betraying a mix of fatigue and relief, the recruits retired to their barracks with whatever friends each had. Soon they’d wash the dirt from their bodies in the baths, eat in the mess room, and enjoy their free time, but it was a different story for Kuklo and the others who received remedial lessons. The day was only now starting for them, their training so far merely a warm-up. More tired than prepared, their bodies covered in sweat and dust, it certainly didn’t look that way though.
Since Vertical Maneuvering Equipment training was not part of the regular curriculum for recruits, the sessions, considered remedial, took place after hours. In other words, it ate into Kuklo’s free time. Everyone knew about the old Equipment, but the Survey Corps slaying a Titan under Jorge’s command didn’t prove the efficacy of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.
It could be used to approach a Titan’s weak point so as to slice out the meat around its medulla oblongata with single-edged swords─this, however, was nothing more than a theoretical possibility. The Titans’ weakness had been discovered and the armaments existed to destroy it, but if no one could put them to use, it was pointless. The brass refused to add Vertical Maneuvering Equipment training as an official subject as a result. If it weren’t for Jorge, even the remedial lessons might not have been tolerated, the invention shelved, never to see the light of day. Yet the same brass couldn’t reject a national hero’s proposal outright. Ignorant of the political two-step, the recruits simply saw fellow students receiving “remedial” lessons. The unjustified label of “flunkers” had spread unchecked.
The special training did not take part in the athletic grounds but in the nearby woods. Pulling oneself up with the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment involved firing anchors into targets and winding the wires back in. The targets were trees. While anchors might be lodged into a Titan’s body to approach its weakness, the enemy─an avatar of destruction─seemed unlikely to stand stock-still. A target on a rampage made maneuvering difficult, whereas trees were ideal.
The world outside of the walls was mostly an expansive wasteland, but it wasn’t entirely barren. Resilient flora that weren’t picky about soil quality grew here and there, and oases where trees flourished, though rare, also dotted the area. Forests offered advantageous terrain that drew out the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment’s full potential. The best setting not just for offense, they’d surely come in handy in the event of a retreat.
While training took place in the woods with actual combat in mind, the old Equipment was used for the lessons. Identical in concept if functionally inferior to the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, it was suited for training since it allowed adapting to a third dimension and simulated the feel of handling the improved model.
The truth, however, was that continued use of the old Equipment, which only permitted movement along one axis, barely established a foothold for mastering the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.