by J D Astra
“This is so amazing,” Yuri said as she scribbled something on a sheaf of paper in silvery munje with the tip of her nail.
Mae chimed in. “Don’t lose your focus. Keep breathing and cycling.”
I blocked out Yuri and the rest of my surroundings as my vision narrowed on the lightning. Munje cycled into and out of my core by reflex, and I cleared my mind of anything but the blue dancing from my fingertip.
A heavy pat landed on my upper back, and I jerked forward. I cut the flow of munje immediately, and the lightning spark died on my finger before I jammed it into Yuri’s face.
“Wow, that was great before you lost it,” Hana said with a smug smile.
My sweaty brow pulled together in annoyance. Hana seemed to take a special interest in my recovery. Not in the nurturing way Cho had or the supportive way Yuri had, but in her own brand of pushy torture. She wanted me to be better, faster, and I was growing suspicious of her motives.
It was as if she were keeping my recovery on a strict timetable, like if she didn’t hold my feet to the fire, I wouldn’t get there. I was equal parts grateful and frustrated with her. The pushing had resulted in me working harder, but sometimes I felt I was working myself to the brink.
“This was what you signed up for. Are you a Bastion, or not?” Mae asked, and I smoothed out my brow. She was right, of course.
“It was good, wasn’t it?” I smiled back at Hana.
Yuri sighed. “I can’t conjure a tiny sparkle for even half a second. Jiyong is way ahead of me.”
“And most of the class,” Hana said with a nod to the rest of the students in En Manipulation I. Most of the others had blue sparks appearing at their fingertip, or sometimes random fingertips at once, but it wasn’t common that they were able to hold it much more than a second. I had held mine for nearly twenty seconds.
The gong for class to end rang, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
The instructor clapped his hands. “Good, good! Everyone remember: you are not allowed to conjure lightning outside of this classroom until you prove to me you have control. If I catch you conjuring it anywhere else, you will find yourself losing ranking in the school!”
“Let’s get grub,” Yuri said with a grin as she picked up her bag.
I nodded a hearty agreement. One full class, dinner, and a half class left in the day. Then it was back to my bunk for the night since I was still under punishment from Shin-soo’s mystery beating.
The rumor mill had turned out many theories about what had happened. Some of those rumors included depictions of me beating Shin-soo in a one-on-one brawl—which infuriated him to no end—and others less savory to me like, ten outer-city boys dragged him to the glade and held him down while I pummeled him mercilessly. The rumors didn’t matter. Not even the truth. I was serving my time, and so was Shin-soo, and in a few weeks, we’d be free to duel again.
He would undoubtedly challenge me on the first day the restriction was lifted, and perhaps this was the breakneck deadline Hana had me up against.
“Hey, you okay?” Hana asked as we rounded the corner into the dining hall.
I nodded and took stock of my posture, then gave myself three calming breaths. My shoulders dropped away from my ears, and the lines in my forehead smoothed.
She knocked my shoulder. “That’s better.”
As we approached the edge of the buffet, I saw Bia bringing out fresh rice.
“Oh, oh, ask her!” Mae declared as she appeared in my vision on the buffet table in front of me.
I scowled. ‘No, it’s rude.’
Mae rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “It’s not rude! She said to ask for anything.”
“Hi, Jiyong. How are you today?” Bia asked with a soft smile.
“I’m doing better today,” I said and rubbed the back of my neck as color rose in my cheeks. I didn’t want to ask; it was embarrassing!
“Get over it,” Mae declared.
“That’s great.” She picked up the empty rice and turned away.
“Hey, Bia?” She turned back to me, and I winced out a smile. “If you’re able, can you still cook something special at my request?”
She grinned. “Of course; what would you like?”
I tapped my teeth a few times and decided to let the request fly. “I was hoping you could cook some saltwater eel-kip?”
Her face wrinkled in disgust.
“Yeah, I know. I hear there’s, um, good restorative properties in it.” I shrugged, telling the half-truth. The whole truth was that Mae and I had gone hunting through the alchemy storage shed while she scanned everything for the properties I would need to build my core. Saltwater eel-kip had the highest concentrations of... something I couldn’t remember, but she said it would help.
Bia nodded, her face puckered in revulsion. “I’ll see what I can manage. I don’t have faith in my ability to make it palatable.”
“Edible is all I ask.” I bowed.
Her face was still wrinkled with displeasure as she grabbed the empty dishes and retreated to the back kitchen. I moved down the line, piling on everything Mae ordered me to grab. Her selections had been one of the catalysts for my recovery, without a doubt, and so I knew I had to eat what she ordered me to without complaint.
I was still several weeks away from pork belly, which was a shame, but I could indulge in all the lean poultry, rice, soup, kimchi, and vegetables I wanted. Most fruits were on the menu, too, but some less savory than others.
‘Why is it everything that’s really good for me tastes the worst?’ I asked as I piled on a little mountain of fried bitter melon with a frown.
“Not everything that’s good for you tastes bad. Plus, I think the flavor is interesting and unique,” she said as she walked along the buffet table with me, passing through bowls and spoons as if they weren’t there.
Mae could infiltrate my senses, but her ability to “process” the “data” of what I was tasting, seeing, or hearing was different from how I processed it, or so she said. I didn’t understand it, but I was happy nonetheless that while she was trapped in my body, she was able to experience new and interesting things.
“The sensation of urinating after holding it, ugh”—she moaned in delight—“such a great one.”
My cheeks reddened again. ‘Hey, Mae... boundaries. Privacy illusion.’
She sucked air through her teeth. “Right, sorry.”
I took my seat at the table next to Cho and a girl I hadn’t seen before. Cho had a confident grin on as he continued his story. “You just have to remember that everything is alive, even if it looks dead. Then you’ll be able to connect with it, no problem.”
The girl looked up at me sheepishly and whispered, “Okay, thanks so much,” before disappearing back to her table.
Cho turned to me with a huge grin and raised his eyebrows a few times.
I shook my head with a grin. Ever since he’d brought my li project back from the brink of crumbling into ash—since I was in a coma for five weeks and no one thought to water it for me—everyone has been asking for his secrets. He’d told the same story over and over, leaving some people perplexed and others demoralized. “Just know there’s life in there!” he would tell them. I supposed it was a matter of faith rather than munje. If the plant is visibly dead, it’s hard to imagine any life in the roots. But it was in there. Cho proved that much.
“Why do you do that to them?” I asked before taking a huge gulp of the fragrant tea he’d left for me. It was jasmine and dragon-pearl flower petals, giving it a sweet aroma and a rich flavor.
Cho gave me an innocent look. “Do what?”
“Tell them without really telling them.”
He held his hands up. “Look, that’s the whole truth. I don’t do anything special other than believe that it wants to live.”
My promise to Mae came to the forefront of my mind. She wanted to live, too. I had to help restore her to everything she’d once been and track down her missing memorie
s. I couldn’t do that from my home village, so I had to succeed at Bastion. It was more than just a responsibility to my family. Mae was depending on me, too. Though the extra classes were exhausting, and I’d never worked harder in my life, I felt a sense of purpose and drive.
I drank down the broth of my soup and moved on to my bitter melon with determination. No foul flavor would stop me from choking down the fuel I needed to grow my core. Nothing would stop me.
Chapter 26
“DON’T HOLD BACK,” HANA said as we circled each other. There was frost on the browning grass, and the trees around us had shed most of their leaves which crunched underfoot as we moved.
Hana had agreed to spar with me afterhours to get my strength up, for which I was grateful. But what I enjoyed most was how the sparring taught me more about her. The more I learned, the more I knew I didn’t want to go home at the end of the school year.
My heart hammered as I kept my gaze locked on Hana’s intoxicating eyes. There was sweat gathered on her brow, as I was sure there was on mine. Her shoulders rose and fell as she panted, but softer than me.
She surged forward, hands reaching for the collar of my dobok. I smacked away her grab attempt and sent a right jab toward her exposed sternum. Her icy grip latched onto my wrist and suddenly she was twisting, and so was I.
Her foot swept in to throw my balance, but I stomped down on her toes, holding them in place. She changed the grip on my wrist and twisted again, pulling my arm up behind my back. I leaned back into her, and she tried to step away, but her foot was still pinned under mine.
We fell backwards to the ground, but her vise grip on my wrist only tightened. She wouldn’t let a fall make her lose focus on her objective: to twist my arm off. At least, that’s what it felt like she was going for.
We hit the earth, and I rammed my elbow back into her guts, eliciting a heavy whoof of air from her lungs. She twisted harder, and my shoulder screamed in agony. She wrapped her other arm securely at my neck, then coiled her legs around my waist. She pulled and twisted her spine, cutting off the circulation to my head.
I forced my elbow into her guts over and over, but her grip only tightened. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. With the last of my breath, I cycled zo to my free arm and pulled at her choke hold.
I pulled her away enough to unpin my trachea, and I gulped down a breath. The pain in my grappled arm intensified as she pulled it higher up my back. I gritted my teeth at the sharp tension in the joint.
“Just give up, and the pain will stop,” she hissed in my ear.
I rolled, landing on my knees and free arm as Hana returned to squeezing the life out of me. I’d gotten just enough air for another bout of zo, and I knew what I had to do, shoulder joint be damned. I dumped my reservoir of munje into my left arm and slammed my fist down on the side of Hana’s knee. She yelped, and her leg went slack for a fraction of a second. I took the advantage.
I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the back of Hana’s dobok, then yanked with all my might while throwing myself forward. Her legs slipped away from my waist as she flew headfirst toward the dirt in front of me. My shoulder popped, and Hana pitched down as she flipped, releasing my wrist.
She turned around with fury in her gem-like eyes and pulled me up to sitting. “That was stupid, Jiyong!” she snarled, and I winced as she assessed my dislocated right shoulder.
She shook her head, muttering, “So stupid,” as she poked and prodded the joint. I gritted my teeth against the pain, preparing myself for one that was even worse. Her muttering went on as she pulled my forearm up to her chest and pinned it down, then braced her feet against my ribs.
“Are you ready, stupid boy?” she asked, but before I could reply, she was pulling. Sharp agony zapped through the joint and up my neck. I yowled for a fraction of a second and shut my eyes against the torture. There was a loud pop, and I felt nauseous as the throbbing in my shoulder intensified.
Hana released my arm. “You’re lucky it was only a partial dislocation.”
I didn’t want to open my eyes, or breathe, for fear that either of those things would make the pain worse.
Hana’s words were far away. “Come on, sit up. Let’s cycle zo and heal your stupidity.”
I opened my eyes and gasped down a breath, barely able to contain the scream I wanted to let fly. I had slumped forward onto my knees, and tears were gathering in my eyes. I had been in a few scuffles before, and fallen out of trees plenty of times, but nothing rivaled the pain Hana just put me through.
“Mae, did she do it right?” I asked through gritted teeth as I sat up straight.
Hana sighed in exasperation. “Really?”
Mae hummed through the speaker on my chest. “I’m happy to report that yes, she did it right. Your shoulder is back in place, and you were fortunate not to sustain any ligament rips... but you did tear your subscapular muscle.”
I furrowed my brow with a sarcastic glare and corrected Mae. “Hana tore it.”
All amusement left Hana’s face, and she stood. “I’m done.”
“Wait,” I groaned and climbed to my weary feet. She looked at me expectantly and I knew an apology was in order. “That was stupid of me to do. I am also responsible for the tear.”
She squinted at me with disbelief. “Also? No, you are completely responsible. I told you to give up, but you pushed and made an idiotic mistake that tore your own muscle. On the battlefield, that would’ve ended your life.”
I scratched at the scar on my chest while I processed her angry words. The scar had healed nicely over the last four weeks, but it was still itchy, and scratching it seemed to calm my nerves. “You’re right. I am entirely at fault,” I conceded, but she didn’t look happy. In fact, she looked furious.
She sucked down a breath to say something, but growled instead, and turned away.
I called after her. “I said you were right... Are we done for the night?”
She stomped off through the trees in the glade, not looking back.
“I guess we’re done for the night,” I shrugged—and immediately regretted it as pain pinched in the joint.
“You’re not done for the night. Get back to your bunk and start zo cycling. You need that shoulder in ship-shape for tomorrow’s class. Sparring again, and you know who’s going to want to partner with you.”
I grumbled at the thought of sparring with Shin-soo. He’d be just as ruthless or more so than Hana had been. Sparring in Zo Strengthening I had been Shin-soo’s excuse to fight me when we weren’t allowed to duel.
He’d make sure to line up next to me in class, counting out the number of people in our row carefully so he’d be selected to work as my partner. It didn’t always work if someone else squeezed in between the lines, and sometimes Cho would just shoulder his way between me and Shin-soo, but it did work more often than I’d liked.
With the thought of another one of Shin-soo’s beatings on the horizon, I trudged my way back to the lodge and showered off. I rubbed at the spot on my shoulder as the cool water splashed against it. I needed to do serious repair tonight or suffer tomorrow.
I couldn’t stop seeing Hana’s angry face in my mind as I cycled zo. The way she inhaled, ready to chew me out, and then the defeated disappointment before she turned away. What had I done wrong? I apologized for my stupid sarcastic remark. I’d taken responsibility for the injury. Why was she still upset?
My shoulder tingled with an icy calm as I felt the reparative zo going to work. I practiced my mind clearing meditation as the munje did its job, but found myself waking to the sound of Mae’s gentle chime with a start. I looked around the room to see the beginnings of sunlight poking over the horizon outside our windows.
I scratched at the snaking branches of the scar on the left side of my head as I sat back with a long stretch. My eyes were tired, my shoulder ached, and by Mun-Jayu, I did not want to go to class today.
I sat up with a long sigh, then began my morning meditation. There were moments o
f quiet in my head when I knew I had achieved the blessed silence Woong-ji promised existed inside me, but they were fleeting. Still, I kept it up until Mae sounded a gentle chime in my head indicating the end of the session.
When I opened my eyes, golden sunlight had infiltrated our room, glowing against the dark cherry floors. I dressed, woke Cho, and steeled myself for the day to come. Much to my chagrin, there was saltwater eel-kip waiting for me when we arrived at the buffet line.
The other students wrinkled up their noses in disgust and passed it by, but I gave myself a heaping serving over the jasmine rice. I noticed from the corner of my eye as I reached the end of the buffet that other students were tentatively serving themselves the eel-kip after watching me pile it on. I smiled, hoping it would do them as much good as it was doing me.
The stuff was absolutely disgusting, and it was not an acquired taste. Bia had tried many different flavor combinations over the last several weeks, trying to mask the fishy, burnt garbage flavor with other strong flavors, like fermented mung-bean, or plum blossom wine. Nothing worked, but her most recent iteration of chili pepper soy glaze was the easiest to choke down, so I’d let her know to stick with that.
It didn’t stay a secret for long that my strange food habits were a significant contributing factor in my recovery and growth. As such, many of the first-year students were looking to me to see what they should be eating.
But it wasn’t just about eating the right things. It was the transformative processing Mae had me go through every day, twice a day, to convert the raw materials into machina for my core design.
I took a seat next to Hana at one of the center tables, but she didn’t look up, or say good morning. I swallowed as my stomach tightened with worry. Why was she still upset?
“Good morning, Hana,” I dared to say, and was not met with a kind response.