Chapter 138 - "... A Ladder All Along ..."

"Very good, Osamu. Great job…" Yoshiko immediately give Osamu praises as soon as the child finally climbed down the gate.

"…Phew…" Osamu looks at the gate in relief before, "Thank you nee-san.", accepting Yoshiko's praise.

"OSAMU SUCCEEDED!" Yoshiko then yells out loud for the others on the other side of the gate to hear.

*…wooo…*

*…. Clap clap clap…*

Osamu, hearing the muffled cheers and applause from the other side, feels proud once again.

"You crossed the gate quite fast! How was it?" Yoshiko who has sensed Osamu's climb through the atmospheric spiritual energy, asks.

"Fast?" Osamu is quite pleased and proud at his achievement.

"Yes! You spent a longer time sitting up there than the actual climbing." Yoshiko nods.

"Really…?!" Osamu softly exclaims in suppressed excitement.

"It was scary, nee-san. But it's easier than I thought." He starts sharing his experience.

"*Sigh*" Yoshiko shakes her head seeing Osamu still shaking from the nerves.

"Kichirou-san is crazy, huh?" She ruffles the child's head for comfort.

"Crazy?" Osamu is taken aback by Yoshiko's choice of words. "Yes." But he agrees.

"Heh." Yoshiko finds amusement at Osamu's adorable frown.

"But he trusts you. He trusted you that you that you could really do it." She explains.

"He trusts me?" Osamu is surprised.

"Of course! He never would have asked you to do this if he didn't trust you. He trusted me too, that's why he asked me to climb the gate before." Yoshiko explains.

"He trusts me…" Osamu utters to himself.

"…" Yoshiko's heart warms seeing Osamu's rare but sweet smile. 

After a few moments of silence, "Oh… Nee-san. What's the reward?" Osamu asks, reminded of the subject.

His objective after all, was not the reward that Red was talking about earlier, but to be the first one among the kids to climb over the gate.

"I also don't know." Yoshiko shakes her head. Even though she has a good guess, she knows that it is not her place to tell.

"Oh…" Osamu shrugs, dropping his interest in the matter.

"Hey, look." Yoshiko, sensing that Kanon has reached the top of the gate, takes Osamu's attention.

Osamu looks up and he is not surprised to see Kanon's figure saddling the top of the gate.

He then sees Kanon's usually stoic face wear a fearful expression. This worries him as he knows how daunting looking down at such height.

"K-…" He wants to cheer Kanon up, but he does not know what to say. He also fears that him yelling might distract her, and might cause her to fall.

"Kanon!" Yoshiko however, is less worried, and calls out.

"You can rest there for a moment. Look at the gardens. Aren't they beautiful?" She advices.

"…" Osamu, hearing the same advice that he was given earlier, feels less worried for Kanon.

He too was stuck for a few moments at the top of the gate, but after looking at the gardens, and getting used to the height, he managed to relax and thus giving him the guts to descend the gate.

Soon enough, he sees that just like him, Kanon also manages to relax, and starts descending.

Kanon, after scaling down with focus born out of fear, successfully steps on the soil on the inner side of the gate.

"Good job, Kanon."

"Congratulations, Kanon." She immediately receives praises from Yoshiko and Kotone.

"T-Thank you…" Kanon returns while sighing in relief. Her body and limbs that felt heavy, now feel much lighter.

"KANON SUCCEEDED!" With Yoshiko's announcement, the spectacle continues.

Ran and Chihiro soon succeed at the task too.

They however climbed less proficiently than Kanon and Osamu, and they were even more nervous. But after cheers from Yoshiko and supportive comments from Kanon and Osamu, they managed to descend the wall with a few stumbles.

Then, it is finally Taishiro's turn.

"You read, buddy?" Red asks.

"…" Taishiro grimaces.

"May I not do it?" He asks in return, intending to decline the task.

"It's up to you. But would you really be the only one who did not climb the wall?" Red asks.

"…" Yori and Akane frown in hidden repulsion at Red's goading.

*t..sh..ro..*

*t..sh.ro*.

Taishiro then hears his adoptive siblings' muffled cheers of his name from the other side.

With Red's words and the other children's cheers, he is starting to feel pressured.

"Taishiro. Weren't you watching closely? Don't tell me you didn't learn from how the others climbed?" Red asks.

"I did but…" Taishiro sighs.

"Weren't the others safe? Didn't you see that they climbed the wall rather easily?" Red asks.

"… That's true…" Taishiro is starting to feel convinced.

"You are just as fit as them. No, you're even stronger than Chihiro and Ran. What's stopping you?" Red continues to goad.

Taishiro's mind starts running and processes Red's logic.

'Yeah… why can't I do it?' The more he thinks about it, the more confident he gets.

"So… Are you going to do it?" Red asks the child.

"I'll… do it." Taishiro, figures from how he saw others climb and knowing what his body can do, that he has a very high chance of success.

"Very good." Red nods.

"Okay. Don't let anything else distract you… Just focus on your hands, your feet, and the next place to hold on to or step on … Before you know it, you're already on the other side with the others." Red advices.

"Okay." Taishiro takes Red's words to the front of his mind.

"Good. Every time you feel nervous, just stop, relax, and think of the next step calmly, okay?" Red advices one more time and sends Taishiro off.

A moment later.

"Just me, and the wall… Earthquake is unlikely. Strong wind is not enough." Taishiro, while ascending, mutters to himself his own thoughts.

Unlike Ran and Chihiro who climbed before him, he is not feeling as nervous with the help of his mantra.

"… Good odds… As long as I'm careful, I'll be fine … Good odds…"

He also figures that there is no outside element that will lower his chances of succeeding, so as long as he does what he is supposed to do, then nothing or nobody will stop him.

Using his estimations to boost his confidence, he finds himself near the top of the gate before he even realized it.

"Nervous. They were nervous." He then remembers the looks on his adoptive siblings' faces after reaching the top of the wall.

"As long as I'm doing it right, no need to be nervous." He prepares his emotions and remembers his estimation of the thickness of the wall based on how the others were sitting on top of it.

With his guts and his estimations prepared, he quickly pulls himself up and immediately mounts the wall in two smoothly connected motions.

As soon as his buttocks rest on the gate, "Phew…" He sighs in relief.

"He made it!"

"Whooo!"

He receives cheers from the other kids from below.

He simply nods in acknowledgement, not in the mood to showboat as he realizes why the others looked nervous before.

"So this is what it feels like…" His stomach sinks at the height.

Then, just like the others, he decides to rest for a moment to get used to the height while satisfying his curiosity at what is beyond the gate.

"So… that's why they looked like that…" He utters seeing the beauty of the gardens.

"I want to take a closer look…" The view motivates him, and he recovers quickly.

As soon as he starts his climb down however, he freezes, his body resting on top of the wall, with his legs hanging over the edge. He just realized that he has no idea how to climb down. He also did not see how others descended, so he feels unprepared.

He looks at Red as if asking for help.

"I told you all you needed to know… I gave you more advice too." Red tells him.

"…" Taishiro's heart drops. He realizes that Red indeed not only told him what he told the others, he was also told some extra.

With that, he starts remembering all what Red told him and soon enough, he finds the advice he deemed useful.

'Stop, relax, and think calmly…' He repeats in his mind.

It takes him a minute before coming up with a realization.

"The bamboo logs are… stitched by the ropes. The way they looked on the outside, is the same as the inside…" He leans further over the wall to look at how the ropes are tying the gate together from the outside, to get a general idea of the pattern of the ropes on the other side.

The angle at which he is looking at the patterns gives him another realization.

"Looks like a ladder…" He utters.

"I was climbing a ladder all along… Only I can't wrap my fingers around the ropes." He chuckles at the realization, cutting down his nervousness substantially.

He then moves his legs and as soon as he feels one of his feet touch one of the ropes, he proceeds to climb down.

While he is still cautious, his observations have given him confidence.

Soon enough, he reaches the ground and joins his adoptive siblings, starting another round of commotion.

"…" Red after connecting Taishiro's utterances that he heard clearly, is pleasantly surprised and impressed by the boy's thought process.

"I hope he's a good seed …" He utters, hoping that Taishiro has the potential in the field of Spirit Formations like how Fumio has potential in the field of Herbology and Apothecary.

He then puts his thoughts about Taishiro to the back of his head for now. After all, Taishiro still have more immediate priorities.

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" Red then turns to Akane and Yori.

"…" While the couple are impressed by the children's display, they still found it harrowing.

"May I ask something?" Yori asks.

"Please." Red allows it.

Yori hesitates for a moment before encouraging himself to proceed with his daring question. "What was the point of them doing that?"

"A test." Red shrugs.

"Compared to how some superiori clans test their children, this is nothing." He adds.

"Then… why did you have us watch it? And what happened at the training yard earlier, how did it end up like this?" Akane asks.

"Because… I also want you two to take this test.." Red smirks.