“Because of local laws in the Crimson Realm overseeing pilgrimages and tournaments. Unless it is for academic purposes set in an actual combat academy, these types of challenges must, by law, result in death. Whereas here in Iga, the stakes are up to the person who issues the challenge.”
“So less potential for death.”
Hojo stopped walking and turned to Arik, his face once again marked by a wedge of light. “The south is a warrior culture that has been cultivated since the Crimson-Onyx Shroud War. Some say, and I tend to agree, that they have spent the last several hundred years preparing for an inevitable invasion. This doesn’t explain why they sent these false shinobi instead of their own warriors, but my guess would be that it has to do with a strategy. And somewhere along the line, as always, money.”
“Keep their best warriors for last,” Arik said.
“You’re catching on, disciple.”
They reached the tavern with outdoor seating, blocked off from the main thoroughfare by a stone wall that had a cobbled-together look. The barmaid, a girl no older than the age of fourteen, came to their outdoor table once they sat down.
“Two ales, and as for food…” Hojo removed his hat and turned to the barmaid. “Any specials tonight?”
“Ribs, potatoes, and grilled peaches.”
“We will have two of those.” Hojo procured some money which he set on the table, the barmaid taking it quickly, bowing her head, and skipping away.
“Grilled peaches?” Meosa asked after she stepped away. “What sort of an abomination is that? They certainly weren’t serving that back in my time.”
As usual, Hojo didn’t take the bait, the master illusionist growing quiet for a moment as a group of men took a seat at the table behind him. They were already drunk, and the likelihood of them becoming rambunctious was higher than not.
Their drinks arrived, and Arik’s instinctive healing power kicked in about the time that they finished their first flagons. The second round was joined by the food, Arik and Hojo making small talk as the men behind them grew louder and louder. They had already made it through four rounds of ale when one of the men scooted his chair back, straight into Hojo’s.
The master illusionist paid absolutely no attention to the man as he drunkenly leaned over toward him, apologizing in a rude way. Hojo finally made eye contact with the man, his gray eyes flashing to some degree, the drunk suddenly not so interested in causing any trouble.
He stepped away, and they continued their meal.
“It’s Chimaura,” Meosa said in a voice that only Arik could hear. “I know that you’ve probably been wondering how Hojo is able to do some of the things he does, the subtle things. It’s Chimaura. True to his nature, he isn’t going to tell you about it, but don’t think for a moment that he isn’t utilizing chi in his own way.”
The meal was good, Arik realizing after the meat hit his stomach that he had been craving something heavy all day. It aided his sleep that night, the disciple out pretty cold as soon as he hit the bed, the long walk they’d taken that day coupled with the heavy meal having a soporific effect.
He awoke the next morning refreshed, the memory of what Meosa had told him the previous night coming to him just about as soon as he sat up. Why won’t Hojo tell me about Chimaura? I can already use Revivaura, how different can it be?
Arik decided that he would press Hojo on it at some point in the near future. It was time he knew more about the School of Illusion’s unique take on chi, which he knew must have differed from the north and its focus on Revivaura, and the south and its understanding of Thunderaura. All of it stemmed from the same source, all were interpretations of chi, and if Chimaura could help Arik, it was better that he knew about it rather than letting it remain a secret.
Always with the mysteries, Arik thought as he got dressed and slid the paper wall to the side, where he found Hojo already seated before two cups of tea.
“Drink some tea, disciple, and then we will head to the courtyard behind the inn where I will teach you the move known as Autumn Leaves Strike. It may prove useful. As for you, kami, you may stay here while we go about our morning business.”
Arik sat, expecting Meosa to chime in. But the water spirit never said anything for once, allowing the two of them to drink their tea in peace.
****
After tea, they headed to the courtyard behind the inn, one secluded from view by a high pergola draped in flowering vines, the smell of something sweet to the air, the bees buzzing around fat with nectar.
Hojo got into position in front of Arik and withdrew his blade from his belt, keeping the sheath on. “One of the things that differs between the way the School of Illusion teaches people to fight and the way that Combat Master Nankai would have taught you revolves around combat honor. Are you familiar with the term?”
Arik nodded. This was something that Master Nankai had drilled in him and the others who attended his afternoon sessions. There were rules of engagement, and that an honorable warrior fought within these boundaries.
“The Autumn Leaves Strike is no such maneuver. It is not honorable, and this is one of the main philosophical differences between the way I was taught, and the way they do things in the Crimson Realm. Are you familiar with the term that there is no honor amongst thieves?”
Arik shook his head. While he hadn’t heard the term before, he got the picture.
“The School of Illusion operates with a similar framework in mind, that there is no honor amongst combatants. That does, however, come with the caveat, one based on the parameters in which you are fighting. If it is a duel to see who is stronger, like you will experience in the pilgrimage later today, you should generally follow the rules by which the fight has been set. If you are training, you are training, meaning that your mindset isn’t one tied directly to overpowering your opponent by any means necessary. But if you’re in an actual fight, according to an illusionistic mindset, there is nothing that you shouldn’t do to ensure that you are victorious. Nothing is off the table.”
“Right.”
“I will repeat that: there is nothing that you shouldn’t do to ensure that you are victorious. This is the reasoning behind the maneuver known as Autumn Leaves Strike. Withdraw your sword, disciple.”
Arik withdrew his weapon from his belt, keeping its scabbard on, just as Hojo had done.
“Scabbard as well. Your actual blade.”
“But yours…”
Hojo nodded. “Withdraw your weapon, Disciple Arik.”
With a deep breath out, Arik withdrew his blade and brought it to the ready. He lowered his face slightly, and opened his shoulders as he took his posture. This produced a smile on Hojo’s face.
“We will work with your form later. Now, I want you to aggressively pursue me. I believe of the three initiatives this would be labeled as an Attacking Initiative. Try to kill me, disciple.”
“Try to… kill you?”
Hojo lifted one leg and stomped against the ground. “Do it. Now.”
Arik rushed forward, shifting his grip so he would perform a horizontal cross cut, a way to slice into Hojo’s upper arms.
Whack!
Arik lost his sword immediately as Hojo used his sheathed weapon to swat Arik’s sword out of his hand, his blade spinning off and cracking against the ground.
“Get your weapon. Try again.”
Arik retrieved his sword, grunting as he got back into his position. He recalled his technical curriculum, the way Combat Master Nankai had described a strategy for infiltrating an enemy space without shrinking, a type of assertion.
Whack!
Hojo once again used the tip of his sheathed sword to strike Arik’s weapon away from him.
“There are two variants of the Autumn Leaves Strike depending on your opponent,” the master illusionist explained. “One would be to actually cut at your opponent’s hand, just beneath the hilt if their sword has one. The other, the more humane way, is to aim your strike about an inch above the space wher
e the blade meets the grip. Both are achievable, but require you to shift from where your opponent’s sword is going, which is a common technique taught in the Crimson Realm, to where their sword currently is.”
Arik puffed his cheeks out for a moment as he remembered how many times Master Nankai had drilled into him to know where his opponent’s sword was going. Everything he did was with this key detail in mind, Arik doing his best to calculate the trajectory of the blade and adjusting accordingly, especially if he was taking the initiative.
“Where the sword currently is…” Arik said. “That should be my focus, right?”
“Precisely. It is the only way for you to utilize this particular technique. I know there are some discrepancies in the way they teach combat in the Crimson Realm, some masters emphasizing that the best way to beat an opponent is by doing something unexpected, others focused on form and movement, where the blade is going. How would you describe Combat Master Nankai’s instructions?”
“Both to some degree, form and movement, but also understanding and utilizing surprise.”
“Then consider what I’m teaching you here as a variation of surprise,” said Hojo. He wasn’t wearing his conical hat at the moment, and as he spoke a breeze picked up, blowing strands of his gray hair in the wind behind him, bees still buzzing from flower to flower on the periphery, something serene about everything happening around them. “Imagine your opponent draws his sword, and as he does so, you immediately strike it away. Or, imagine yourself giving him the initiative…”
“Waiting Initiative,” Arik said, recalling the technical name.
“Precisely. Give him the initiative, and don’t move a muscle as he comes in for a strike, not until you see the precise angle of his sword as it is coming down, and how you will strike it from his hand. You will likely need to use even more force than normal because he may be holding his weapon with both hands, but if struck at the right angle, you will easily dislodge it. Every time. Just remember that you are watching his weapon, ignoring anything he may be doing to distract you. Even the most trained warrior still has a moment in which there is still a chance for error. That’s all you are waiting for when you initiate the Autumn Leaves Strike.”
“I understand.”
“Now, there are three forms that should make sense to you based on what you already know about combat, which I will teach you soon. But this time, I want you to simply defend against my attack by attempting the Autumn Leaves Strike. What better way to end a fight than to stop it before it can start? Knock my weapon out of my hand, disciple.”
****
It seemed easy enough.
Nearly every attempt Arik made to strike Hojo’s weapon from his hand was a success. Even though he knew that Combat Master Nankai would have frowned upon a technique like this, Arik also had the feeling that his former sword instructor would also see it as a way to take his opponent off guard, to end the fight before it could start.
Hojo even finished their lesson with a statement that seemed like something Master Nankai may have said: “To know the pathway of the sword is to know its true course. To know the pathway means you can easily wield the weapon you always carry with you, even with two fingers. But it all starts with knowing the pathway.”
Ready to put his new technique to the test, Arik and Hojo left the courtyard, and headed in the direction of the warrior pilgrimage they had spotted yesterday, the Crimsonian fighter known as Tatum.
As he had promised, Hojo had gone over the three forms of the Autumn Leaves Strike technique. The first was designed to land before an opponent could lift their sword, not unlike the Attacking Initiative that Arik had already studied. The second form was used after an opponent was approaching, and the third was to strike once an opponent had already passed.
Because the man he was about to challenge was from the Crimson Realm, and had likely spent most of his life training with blades, Arik assumed that he would likely end up using the second or third form, not at all convinced that he would be able to get his weapon up and use it before his opponent.
Autumn Leaves Strike, second form, Arik thought, mentally preparing for the fight to come.
He passed under an archway with Hojo, the two coming to a small amphitheater, a few spectators already gathered. The disciple paid little attention to their faces as he looked to his opponent, who wore a square hat like they did in Mogra, vertical markings weaved into it, his robes a unique shade of crimson. The sleeves of his opponent’s robes were cut off, revealing muscled arms, crisscrossed with scars, and since he only had one sword sheathed at his waist, Arik assumed that he wasn’t from Combat Master Altai’s academy, which was a good thing.
The master illusionist sat, and it was only then that Arik got a better look at the courtyard. He noticed that no one had yet to challenge Tatum as far as he could tell, the drops of blood on the stone beneath his feet dry, Arik likely the first combatant for the day.
Realizing it was now or never, he placed his hand on the grip of his weapon, and as he did, Tatum, who had been still as a statue, removed his square hat.
Beneath his traditional hat, Tatum wore a type of mask Arik had never seen before. It was attached to a headband wrapped around his head, a veil of perforated gray material cascading down his face and hanging just past his chin. His red hair was twisted off into a short ponytail only about an inch long, and just about as soon as he set his square hat behind him, he withdrew his blade.
Arik noticed it immediately. Tatum held the blade with his left hand, yet another angle that Arik was going to have to face if he planned to utilize the Autumn Leaves Strike.
You can do this, he thought.
(You have to do this…)
The voice that occasionally came to him echoed inside his head, Arik not certain if it even belonged to him, yet feeling encouraged by it, aware that the man standing before him may have spent as much time studying combat as Arik had spent studying Revivaura.
Arik’s only chance was through speed, strategy, and cunning. Because that’s what this was going to take, the fuel of the School of Illusion.
Arik brought his sword to the ready.
He reminded himself to focus solely on Tatum’s blade, going against what he had studied with Combat Master Nankai. No longer would Arik try to predict where the blade was going; the fluidity in his defense would come from understanding where the blade actually was.
At least, this was the theory. In truth, there was no telling if this would actually work.
Is he going to attack? Arik thought as Tatum continued to observe him, the blade in his left hand held in an almost vicarious way, pointed out to the side, a loose technique.
Arik didn’t want to be the one to initiate an attack.
He wasn’t trying to actually best Tatum through combat; he was trying to strip his opponent of his weapon, to utilize the Autumn Leaves Strike in an actual fight.
Someone in the crowd coughed and Tatum remained absolutely still, Arik wondering for a moment if he was even breathing.
His opponent finally tilted his head down and brought his left hand back, a buoyancy to his posture. He seemed completely relaxed, sure of himself, at ease. Tatum’s confidence made the disciple second-guess his own skills, and the things he had learned from Combat Master Nankai.
Autumn Leaves Strike, second form, Arik reminded himself. He will eventually attack. Do not engage.
The wind kicked up, the two both poised for combat as a hint of excitement twisted through the group of spectators.
Something was different about this fight.
Something was about to happen.
Tatum exploded forward, his left hand going back as he leapt into the air, shot forward by what Arik could only assume was Thunderaura, his opponent twisting, his arm moving at the speed of a dragonfly as he brought his sword down.
There was no way Arik was going to be able to block it.
Schick!
The pain that followed was instantaneous, Arik’s arm cut off a
t the elbow, the disciple watching now in slow motion as Tatum’s blade went straight through his flesh.
His arm fell to the ground, hand still gripping the sword, blood squirting from his separated appendage.
Smoke, the likes of which Arik had never seen before, filled the small amphitheater.
Clank! Clank!
He heard blades meeting each other as he fell, his other hand instinctively going toward his bloodied elbow, Arik finally grasping his severed arm as someone came to him.
Hojo.
Using the sudden smoke as cover, the two quickly exited the amphitheater, and it was only when they reached the inn that Hojo slipped into an alley and lowered Arik into a seated position against a stone wall.
“Heal it, temporarily,” he said as he handed Arik his severed arm.
The pain was still there, but this wasn’t the first time Arik had lost a limb, the shock of what happened a momentary thing of the past as he held his seemingly dead arm to his elbow and summoned the Revivaura around him.
Wounds like this would take a day to heal completely, but at least he could make it presentable enough to get up to their room, where he could focus on it even further and likely face ridicule from Meosa.
“Now do you see?” Hojo asked as he stood guard, his conical hat once again casting a shadow on his face, his expression uncertain. “Now do you see what you are up against? Heal quickly, disciple. You will best him the next time the two of you meet.”
****
Hojo stepped out that night, promising Arik that he would return shortly with something that would prove useful to the next leg of their journey.
Surprisingly, it hadn’t actually taken Arik as long as it would have even a month ago to heal his completely severed arm, which told him that his power was improving. He still had been out half a day, but that was to be expected with a wound like that, one that required both concentration and skill.
Even more surprisingly, Meosa hadn’t taunted him in any way, the kami genuinely concerned for him.
Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One) Page 26