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At the break of dawn, in the spring season, the spies of Date were called into a general assembly, and Haruyuki was included among them. They were shocked to know that they were called for a large fitness exercise, and all spies under the Daimyo were required to attend. A spy was caught by a dissenter within the fief, and made it an issue to smear the Daimyo's reputation, and so the Daimyo required all spies to pass the training. It worried Haruyuki much; since his birth he had a reputation for being weak in such things. No wonder he was teased that he was a homosexual when he was a child.

Remembering that thought, Haruyuki promised to himself that he would train to become much stronger, but he had not trained much when the mandatory fitness regimen came. The first challenge seemed to be running in circuit around the camp for 10 laps. It had seemed an easy task for Haruyuki as he just jogged for quite a time before he ran, but when the rain came in, the ground became muddy as Haruyuki had just finished his second lap. As the rain poured on and on, the ground became so much muddy that even jogging was a hard work for Haruyuki as the mud resisted his footsteps. He had considerably slowed as the rain dragged on and mud continuously stuck on his boots. There were some times that Haruyuki stumbled while he was trying to drag himself through the mixed forces of rain, puddles and mud. On the sixth lap it was as if half of Haruyuki's body had turned to earthenware, but he still prodded on, desirous that he should finish it before noon, though his pace might be termed as a walk due to the weight of the mud. As he was on his tenth lap, only his head seemed to be not of earthenware, but seeing that the end was near he powered himself to run as fast as possible, but as he tried to run with all that mud stuck on his clothes, he stumbled frequently, and when he was almost finished in the lap, he just dropped down on the ground to clear the first test.

Before he started the second test he let himself be showered by the rain to get rid of all the mud stuck on his body. That first task made him a terracotta soldier and so he needed to rinse himself. The second task seemed to be push-ups, and due to the rain it was impossible for him to discern the time. But it seemed that it was still not dark, and so he thought that the sun was still up. He strted on the push-ups while it was still raining, but after 17 times his arm started aching, and so he stopped for 5 minutes before he attempted again. His arm started aching again on the 16th, and so he stopped for another 5 minutes before attempting again. After 15 rounds he stopped for another 5 minutes, and the process was repeated until he could only lift himself thrice before giving up. The 150 push-ups are filled, and when he saw the sky, it was still early afternoon. After that, he gave himself a small 30-minute rest before fulfilling another task: 200 sit-ups. He quickly set himself to the task, but after 20 sit-ups he could not continue any further, and so he rested for another 5 minutes before he again attempted to make more sit-ups. But he only managed to complete 19 of them before having a rest again. he attempted again, but found that he could only make one less than before before resting, and it took him some lather-rinse-repeats before he had completed the training with 200 sit-ups. As Haruyuki laid down on the ground, he thought that he was still not capable to join the main army of the Date, since it had seemed that he was the laggard while doing the tasks of the daimyo. But with this training, he was confident that he became stronger. He just stayed on the training grounds, falling sleep while lying on the ground. It was mid-afternoon, 10 hours after the training started. At least he finished within the needed time.