Martial arts

Malak looked helplessly at the "little brat" standing before him.

"Uncle Malak, finest among the Adeptus Custodes, mighty warrior, please teach me martial arts."

As one of the Adeptus Custodes, he had suffered every conceivable humiliation over the past three years.

When the boy first approached him, Malak had been firmly against it. After all, the Emperor had personally ordered:

"Should danger arise, you must ensure his safety, even if you bleed yourselves dry."

Now this precious little lord not only refused to stay put, but wanted Malak to train him.

Malak refused outright without another word.

Then Bona refused to leave.

He pestered him relentlessly, brought gifts, asked around about Malak's interests, and sought him out whenever he had a free moment.

Eventually, Malak grew so tired of the harassment that he sought out a fellow Custodian and swapped assignments, taking a patrol post instead.

Then something utterly unbelievable happened.

At first, Malak could easily shake Bona off.

Then... Bona gradually became able to keep up with him, and even find him.

No matter where Malak hid, Bona could always pinpoint his location.

As Bona put it:

"I just felt Uncle Malak might be here."

Within the Adeptus Custodes, Malak's reputation gradually shifted from "a highly skilled warrior" to "the useless fool His Highness could find every single time."

He was a Custodian, for crying out loud! And Bona could catch up with him in a mortal body!

At last, even the unflappable Malak could take no more.

"Put that gift down. I'll teach you once this time."

"You're finally willing to teach me martial arts?"

"Only if you pass the test."

Bona set down Malak's favorite wooden flute, his eyes sparkling.

"Really?"

"Really."

"All right!"

Bona picked up a wooden stick, while Malak...

Picked up nothing at all.

Under their agreement, Bona would win if he could hit Malak with the stick.

"Ready?" Malak asked impatiently.

"Ready."

A moment later, Bona saw the sky, along with the wooden stick flying up into it.

He sat up in bewilderment, only to see Malak slowly walking away.

What happened?

Why was I suddenly lying on the ground?

Why did my bottom hurt a little?

The surrounding Custodians saw Malak teaching Bona a lesson, but none intervened.

After all, he knew how far to go. He would only make Bona hurt, not injure him, and their irrepressible young prince certainly needed a little lesson.

Bona stood up and spotted the wooden stick that had flown far away.

Uncle Malak was amazing. He had beaten me in an instant!

Afterward, Bona kept his promise and stopped pestering Malak incessantly.

Instead, he began seeking Malak out for a sparring match every day, almost as though clocking in.

Every day, after finishing his lessons with Grandpa Malcador, he changed clothes, picked up his wooden stick, and went to spar with Uncle Malak, who stood guard at the entrance.

The scene became almost routine.

Bona stopped about ten meters in front of Malak, bowed slightly, then grabbed his stick and charged.

Then Bona would go flying.

After being sent flying three times, Bona would scramble miserably to his feet, bow again, say, "Thank you for your instruction, Uncle Malak," and leave without further ado.

But today, something unexpected happened.

When Bona charged at Malak for the third time that day, Malak tried to send him flying with a punch as usual.

But... Bona actually dodged it!

And with a sharp clack, the wooden stick jabbed Malak's knee armor.

Malak's mind failed to catch up. Only when he looked down at the smiling Bona did he freeze in disbelief.

"Haha, Uncle Malak, you have to teach me martial arts now. That was our agreement."

Malak instantly felt the undisguised contempt in the gazes of his fellow Custodians.

He.

Had gone numb, quite literally.

But even if he had utterly disgraced himself before his fellow Custodians, he could not disgrace himself again before His Highness.

Looking into Bona's expectant eyes, Malak felt more sluggish than he ever had when cutting down that augmented emperor.

At last, he forced out a sound as though suffering from constipation.

"All right."

"Hooray!-"

Bona tossed aside the wooden stick and ran off cheering.

Malak, naturally, suffered for it.

Valdor, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, hurried back from the front overnight expressly to give Malak a furious dressing-down.

Valdor, the first Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes.

"Malak, I trusted you so much. His Majesty trusted you so much."

"And this is how you repay His Majesty?"

"Bona managed to hit you with a mortal body. If he had been holding a tremendously powerful weapon instead of a wooden stick, you would already be dead. Do you understand?"

"Even those Astartes who have only just entered the battlefield wouldn't make such an elementary mistake, yet you did!"

"It doesn't matter if you die. It doesn't matter if I die, either. But if His Highness dies, how are we supposed to answer to His Majesty? With our heads?!"

Even Valdor, who was ordinarily disinclined to berate others, could not stop himself from unleashing a torrent of abuse.

Malak's face was crimson.

"Please let me go to the front to atone before His Divine Majesty."

"Atone?! What are you thinking? Do you want to utterly disgrace the Adeptus Custodes before His Highness again? You still have to honor your agreement and teach His Highness martial arts!"

Valdor, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, left, leaving Malak behind.

None of his fellow Custodians came to comfort him. After all, as an exceptional creation of His Divine Majesty, being struck by Bona in a mortal body was truly humiliating.

And so, the next day, Bona came to understand a saying from the ancient texts.

There was no hiding the look in someone's eyes when they wanted to stab you.

Malak stood there silently, utterly motionless, with only the plume on his helmet swaying gently in the wind.

Bona swallowed. Uncle Malak seemed to be in a bad mood today.

"You're here. Your formal training begins today. Have you made the necessary preparations?"

"Yes, Uncle Malak."

"Very... good."

That day, Bona had to be carried away.

When he came to Grandpa Malcador's lessons the next day, his discomfort was plain to see.

Bona carefully sat down on the table, and the pain that shot through his bottom nearly made him jump.

Malcador did not fuss over him.

"Today, we'll discuss the story of the Aeldari."

Though he was telling the story, he was also secretly keeping an eye on Bona.

Malcador had always kept Bona's psyker power firmly suppressed, but the boy's terrifying psychic talent had already begun to reveal itself.

Under normal circumstances, he should have been utterly incapable of finding a Custodian, much less so much as touching one in a fair fight.

Yet he had done it.

At such a young age, with his own psyker power suppressed, he could rely on intuition alone to sense space and briefly alter the flow of time in a particular area.

Rather than saying he was close to the Warp, it would be more accurate to say that Bona was practically a miniature Warp entity walking the world.

Although Malcador dearly wanted to uncover Bona's secrets, he restrained himself.

This world was filled with danger and malice at every moment, and unfortunately, humanity now had little room for trial and error.