Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 8 (section)

===Record 20: Would I Be Helpful?===

'''06/15/1997

'''12:11

The Mountain had us running a morning mountain marathon.

Why did we have to do this? I stayed in the lead most of the way.

Some dropped out almost immediately, others got worn out once their stamina was drained, and others were stopped at the checkpoints because they couldn’t answer the questions asked by the instructors. Very few of us did any real running.

I was currently running up – well, climbing up really – a cliff face with a 70 degree angle. Doing that for 100 meters was a real workout.

I had to wonder what I was doing. I still didn’t know what my Mobilized Writing was and the instructors kept asking me questions along the way.

“Checkpoint 1: How many times has the earth rotated as of today?”

“Checkpoint 2: Go back and retrieve the flower growing at the starting point.”

“Checkpoint 3: There is a dolphin here. Now…what will you do about it?”

I punched them all and kept going. Yes, I punched them hard.

But did I really intend to see this through to the end? Checkpoint 4 was at the top of this slope. My instructor would be there. That young one with spiky hair who mainly uses kicks. He wouldn’t tell me his name. He said my punching-centric fighting style reminded him of someone. He could be a pain, so I knew I would just end up punching him and keep going. Looking back on the day, I couldn’t figure out what any of the instructors had been thinking. They were all a bunch of losers.

I found myself out of breath.

I was currently 90m up when the exhaustion hit me along with a sudden breeze.

''Whoops.'' I came back to my senses just in time to stop myself from falling backwards. If that had happened, I would’ve needed some pretty extreme reconstructive surgery for my face and body.

“Kh.”

I had to stay calm. My instructor knew my fighting method in and out. He had taught it to me, so of course he did. Could I really punch him and keep going?

If I didn’t win this, I would end up stopping.

That might be fine sometimes, but not this time.

No, wait. This mountain marathon up a steep slope was just one event in our Mountain training. Losing this didn’t mean anything in the long run.

But I didn’t want to stop. Because surely…

This was bad. What was bad? That I was starting to realize something weird. If I kept on in this direction, I was certain it would greatly influence the rest of my life.

I didn’t want to stop even though it didn’t really matter?

I suddenly recalled when I had gotten 2nd place on the track team.

Did I want to be #1?

But just when I decided that choice wasn’t for me, I heard my instructor’s voice from the peak above. He was apparently talking to someone.

I climbed the stone and poked my head up to see my monk-robed instructor speaking with a young man in a suit and glasses. My instructor scratched his head.

“I’ve calmed down some. I don’t think I’m the same as that kid who wanted to scatter in the wind like a flower. And didn’t you marry your wife when you were still students?”

The other man nodded and my instructor smiled bitterly.

“Graduating didn’t stop any of us. I’m thinking of joining the GASAS after spending a while longer here. Your old man won’t stop asking me to join.”

And…

“We’re the same as these kids. We doubt ourselves and eventually make up our minds. I still believe that I’ll become king one day.”

I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I could tell he was walking a similar path to my own.

What was that about them all being losers? Did I think I was #1 or something? I wanted to become #1, but that wasn’t the same thing. So…

“You can do it!”

It doesn’t help much when you have to say it yourself, does it? But I still crawled up onto the peak and readied my fist without any self-restraint. While wondering what was with me today.

Yeah, what ''was'' I doing today?

I looked past my clenched fist to see a smile on my instructor’s lips.

'''Author Comment:

This has some interesting information for anyone who read Osaka, but I won’t be revealing anything here.

During a school trip to Nikko, I nearly fell off a cliff. I just barely saved myself by grabbing onto a tree at the last second. I slipped on some mud and slid right under the fence.