by Gage Lee
I considered using my serpents to help me find something of use, but there were too many narrow corridors and twisting passages for them to reach out and pluck what I needed from the shelves.
“Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” I said to the rat spirit.
And it was hard. The librarians seemed more interested in moving books from one section to another than helping us, and the arcane organizational system made it difficult to find anything quickly. If we had hours every day to devote to the task, we might have seen more progress.
Unfortunately, I was still Tycho’s personal jinsei surgeon and purification plant. He thought nothing of giving me enough patients to fill eight-hour days, followed by another ten hours purifying sacred energy.
The work was exhausting, but the steady flow of damaged Disciples infuriated me. I didn’t know what Tycho was up to, but it had injured many members of his clan. Some channel burn I’d seen was so serious it made me wonder if any of those kids would advance again.
Days of that routine turned into weeks, and it burned me out by the time September gave way to October. It was an enormous relief when Tycho announced my first actual class, Martial Mastery, began the following Monday. A solid week with no wounded kids, breathing in tainted jinsei, and lining Tycho’s pockets with oboli?
That sounded like a vacation.
And, for the first few days, it was.
“I am Master Kalani,” our instructor introduced herself to us. She was a tall, slim woman with a gaze as sharp as any fusion blade. A trio of jagged scars ran from her right cheekbone down around the side of her neck. That she had survived what seemed to have been a grisly injury was testament to her strength and skill. “Our time together will be short, but I assure you it will be memorable.”
For the first few days, the other five students and I watched and listened as Kalani walked us through different breathing techniques, meditation styles, and ridiculously difficult kata. Even I, with my master-level core, struggled to twist and turn my body into the rapid-fire forms that Master Kalani flowed through with ease.
She moved with unearthly grace, like water given life and intelligence.
I tottered around like a three-legged elephant in comparison.
Not that the rest of my class did much better. I didn’t recognize any of these people, but given how poorly we all did in the forms, we could have been new first-years.
Every class began with a demonstration and ended after eight hours of frustration and broken spirits. Finally, on the last day of class, Master Kalani slapped her hands together and moved to the head of the practice area.
“Our time has nearly come to an end,” Master Kalani called out. “These past days have been challenging. I know many of you believe you have failed. But that is only because you have seen only one side of the picture. Watch me, watch my sacred energy, and see the truth.”
She began a kata, a simple twist and turn, punctuated by smooth sweeping foot strikes and knife-hand blows. Jinsei twisted inside her like a corkscrew. With a start, I realized the power guided her body rather than amplifying those movements. When the master ended her kata, the jinsei had gathered in her fist like a silver star.
“This sacred energy comes from within me. It strengthens my body, it fuels my techniques,” she said.
Master Kalani aimed her left fist at one of the practice dummies around the dojo’s perimeter and unleashed a bolt of white-hot flame. The wooden target exploded into a thousand burning shards.
“The Flame Strike technique,” she said. “Very effective against foes at a distance, but almost impossible to land at melee range. But what if I could deliver that devastating attack with a simple touch?”
She held out her hand, and the same spiral of sacred energy I’d seen in her kata spun up from her core and coalesced in her palm. At the same time, a faint aura of fire appeared around the professor’s fist as she prepared to unleash Flame Strike.
Every member of the class instinctively moved out of the line of fire or raised a defensive aura to protect themselves. Kalani only chuckled. She had complete control over her power. Much as I had fused copper and gold to make orichalcum, Kalani merged jinsei and the Flame Strike to make something different from both.
In the blink of an eye, the technique and the sacred energy vanished. All that remained was a faint glimmer of silver light clinging to Kalani’s hand like a translucent glove.
“Come closer,” the professor said. “Don’t worry, you’re in no danger.”
My curiosity got the best of me, and I was the first to approach the professor and examine her hand. What had seemed like residual jinsei from a distance turned out to be much more impressive. The light that surrounded her hand was dozens of strands of jinsei, all anchored to a single spark of flame nestled in the valley between Kalani’s second and third knuckles. It was as if the technique, and the jinsei that powered it, had frozen in the moment of time just before activation.
“As you can see,” Kalani said after everyone had a moment to look at her handiwork, “through will alone you can hold a technique ready. If I’m in no danger, and have nothing more pressing to occupy my mind, I can maintain the Flame Strike for an hour or more before the strain forces me to release it. But if I need it...”
Master Kalani strode across the practice area to another target. She lightly tapped her fist against the heavy wooden dummy.
Light flashed. The smell of woodsmoke filled the air.
And the dummy was just... gone. All that remained was a blackened stub that had once supported the humanoid form.
“As you can see,” Kalani said with a satisfied smile, “the technique is more powerful when delivered this way because it holds more jinsei. Almost any offensive technique can be unleashed with a simple touch if prepared. Envision the jinsei as it flows through you. The kata you practiced have prepared you for this moment. Now pair up and try it yourselves. Offense, do as I showed you. Defense, watch for flaws in their technique, and exploit them if you can.
“Pair up,” she barked. “You have practiced enough. It is time to put what I showed you to the test.”
The other students leaped up to obey and quickly squared off against one another. That left me to face a tall member of the Resplendent Suns with biceps as big around as my thighs. He was enormous and hulking, his shoulders twice as wide as mine.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand, secretly hoping he wouldn’t try to crush my fingers.
“We’ve already met,” he said, glancing down at my hand as if it were a cobra about to strike. He raised his eyes to meet mine, and all the years since I’d first stepped into the Five Dragons Challenge evaporated.
And it hit me.
This was Hank.
He was so much bigger than I remembered that I struggled to believe it was the same guy.
“Of course,” I said. “Sorry, my head’s been in the clouds.”
“Yeah, it gets that way when everyone’s constantly blowing smoke up your tail,” Hank said with a snort. “Let’s go.”
Hank bumped his shoulder into mine as he headed for one of the many practice circles around the dojo.
I followed him, annoyed at his surly attitude, but unsure what to do about it. Hank had once been the School’s Champion, a rock-star job if ever there was one. I’d beaten him with a trick during our first matchup, then more fairly during an exhibition at the end of my first year. He’d never seemed like the kind of guy to carry a grudge, but something had changed while I was off drawing the Grand Design with the Empyrean Flame.
When Hank turned back to face me as I entered the practice ring, he had murder in his eyes. “I’ll start on offense,” he said.
“Sure,” I replied. “Try to remember this is practice, not a prizefight.”
Hank snorted and raised his right fist. His eyes narrowed in concentration as jinsei flowed into his channels and transformed his hand into a ball of glowing jinsei. “This is a lot like the trick you p
ulled on me at our first match,” he said.
Still more sacred energy poured into his fist. His arm shook with the effort of controlling it, and the light became too bright to look at directly. Even that didn’t satisfy him. More power, and still more, flooded into his hand. His channels glowed like lightning bolts frozen in mid-strike.
“Careful,” I warned him. “Don’t get too carried away.”
I intended to warn Hank that he was about to scorch his channels, but he didn’t take it that way. “Scared?”
“Yeah,” I said. “For you.”
Hank switched his focus from harnessing his jinsei to activating his technique. He struggled to control all that power, but refused to let off any steam. His entire body vibrated like a struck tuning fork, and tremors ran through the ground within the practice circle. Tufts of grass pulled free of the earth and floated up around us in a slow-motion emerald blizzard. Static electricity snapped through the air like strings of firecrackers, and the bones of Hank’s fist were black shadows against the ball of light that consumed his hand.
Fire dripped from between the Resplendent Sun’s fingers and sizzled on the ground as the Flame Strike slowly took form. It looked like he was about to set himself ablaze.
I was about to call the professor over, when Hank made his move.
A wide grin split his face in the same instant the jinsei light consumed the technique. He came at me in a blur of motion, his hand sheathed in a translucent caul of blue-and-silver fire. The attack was all power and no control, a wild and savage blow that would blast me straight out of my shoes if it landed. While Hank was no master, he’d reached the artist level, and I was unprepared.
He planned to kill me.
The Vision of the Design kicked into gear, but it showed me two versions of the next few seconds. In one, Hank slammed his hand into my chest and released a Flame Strike that speared straight through my heart. In the other, my Thief’s Shield stripped his power away and left him as weak as a kitten.
I opted for what was behind door number two and triggered my technique a split second before Hank’s fist entered my aura.
His punch was powerful, and his aim was true. Most other Empyreals would have been devastated, if not outright killed, by that attack. But all the power he put into that blow was useless against my shield. I stripped away the jinsei that powered his technique along with most of the strength aspects in Hank’s aura.
The effort saved me, but it also had a cost. Hank’s power had pushed the shield near its limits, and I struggled to maintain the technique. Another shot like that would shatter it.
The big man gasped and stumbled into me, then bounced off and fell to his knees. He clutched one hand to his chest, and the fingers of the other dug furrows in the ground. “You cheated,” he gasped, “again.”
“No,” I insisted. “You tried to kill me. I merely defended myself.”
“Liar!” Hank snapped and lunged to his feet, spinning to face me with surprising speed.
I’d drained most of his jinsei, but not all of it. Hank used what I’d left him to come at me again. Sacred energy flared through his channels and his core refilled as he furiously cycled his breath. Darts of fire appeared in the air around my opponent and rushed toward me in a hissing swarm. They flitted and dove like hummingbirds, their courses so erratic it was hard to follow one of them, much less the dozen or more in flight.
My shield defended me from most of the attacks, until the technique overloaded and came apart with a thunderous crack, letting the last three darts strike home. My robes smoldered where the flaming spikes hit me in the chest, but my core saved me from any further damage. My body might not be ready for the next level of advancement, but it was more than capable of shrugging off those annoying assaults.
Hank reached me in the breath after his darts had knocked the Thief’s Shield aside. He’d also stored another technique in his fist, and the Vision of the Design showed me two more potential outcomes.
I ended up with serious injuries in both.
Well, that wasn’t acceptable.
There was no room to block the incoming strike. Any contact I made with Hank would unleash his technique’s enormous power. My arm would never survive that impact, and taking the shot full in the chest would turn my torso into a smoking crater. There was also no time to dodge, either.
Great, nothing but bad choices. I took the one that seemed least likely to end with me in the hospital.
At the last possible second, I summoned my serpents between me and Hank’s fist. I twisted my body hard to the side and fell backward, hoping that would help me shed some of the attack’s power.
It worked.
Sort of.
Hank’s fist slammed into my serpents like a runaway train and unleashed a blazing comet of fire from his stored Flame Strike. Because I was already on the move, most of that power only grazed me and singed my robes and hair. It was still enough to knock me to the ground, hard enough to crack the dojo’s floorboards and send me skidding into the wall twenty feet outside the practice ring. The Flame Strike technique tore an enormous scorched trench through the floor parallel to my sliding path, then ripped up the wall and into the ceiling before Hank got it back under control.
When the former champion’s eyes met mine, I saw nothing but anger and pain. In that instant, I realized Hank believed I’d taken something from him. His pride or honor. I didn’t know what, exactly, but what he lacked had left a bloody hole in his heart that time had not mended.
A hole that Hank seemed to want filled by a tombstone with my name on it.
“Get up,” he snarled. “It’s your turn to go on the offense.”
The last thing I wanted to do was go another round with Hank. But if I left him hanging, he’d see it as an insult. Like I was too good to practice, or something.
“Sure,” I said and dragged myself back onto my feet.
Unlike Hank, I didn’t have much in the way of offensive techniques. Thief’s Shield was purely defensive, and Fateweaving, Borrowed Core, and Army of a Thousand Eyes all seemed useless to put on the end of my fist.
An idea hit me, then, and I focused my attention on my hand. I mimicked Hank’s use of the trick Kalani had shown us, but instead of a technique, I used a spell. Jinsei flowed into the sorcery, surrounding my fist in a glowing mesh. There was nothing intricate or clever about the magic, and I hoped Hank was paying attention. I wanted him to see what I’d done, to remember the trick that had beaten him once before.
“You coming at me or what?” he asked. “It shouldn’t take you this long to fire up a technique.”
“You’re right,” I said, and came at him.
My serpents feinted high and low at the same time, forcing Hank to shuffle back to avoid cutting strikes to his head or shins. His grin grew wider as he successfully defended himself, his eyes never leaving the hand holding the charged technique.
“Nice try,” he chuckled. “Those spider legs of yours can’t touch me, though.”
The urge to lay Hank out was very strong. But pushing him too hard would make him push back, and eventually I’d either have to kill him or leave the class to get away from his anger. Neither of those was a good option. I didn’t need more enemies. I needed new friends.
“You’ve gotten even better since the last time we fought,” I said, licking my lips and pulling back into a defensive stance. I pretended to gather my breath. “Try not to take my head off.”
“No promises,” Hank replied.
I threw myself into a blistering offense about half as fast as my best speed. My serpents kept Hank on his toes, forcing him to stay on the move, but I let him parry or deflect my kicks and punches. The only way this would work was if Hank had to work.
But not too hard.
“Almost got you that time,” I said.
“Not even close,” he snorted. “Come on, you can do better than that.”
I went in for another exchange, pushing harder, using all my serpents to keep Hank fr
om seeing what was coming. He caught my spinning backfist with a sweeping block and nimbly sidestepped a pair of stomping axe kicks that would have shattered his collarbone if he hadn’t moved.
Then I threw the charged punch, jinsei blazing through my fingers.
Hank’s eyes went wide and I could almost see the flickers of memory in them. He stepped back and to the side, careful not to let my fist touch the sacred energy payload. This was an exact mirror of the attack I’d used to win the Five Dragons Challenge, the punch he’d spent the years since replaying in his mind.
His muscle memory took over, delivering the defense he should have used in our first fight. He caught my elbow and shoulder, then put all his strength into flipping me up and over.
I may have helped him a little with that.
My shoulders hit the ground, and I rolled onto my back. The jinsei bomb I’d fashioned bled off as my concentration on it faded. For a moment, I didn’t move, then I dragged myself back to my feet.
“You want another shot?” he asked, his eyes bright with glee.
“I’m good,” I said, brushing the dust and soot from my robes as I stood. “I don’t think I’m in the same league as you.”
Hank sized me up, trying to decide if I was mocking him or really admitting defeat. I hoped he believed my act. Because, while I could beat Hank at his best, he wouldn’t give up until he’d defeated me. As much of a bully as he’d been when we first met, and as much of a jerk as he was now, the Resplendent Sun didn’t deserve to die for the crime of having a bad attitude.
I bowed, but kept my eyes on him. If he tried something stupid, we’d find out who was the baddest of the bad. That’s not what I wanted, though.
Hank hesitated for a moment, as if deciding whether to take another shot at me. He grunted, then returned the bow.
I went a little lower, showing him more respect than he deserved, but less than he craved. It was strange to think I’d wounded his pride so badly that he’d nursed a grudge for all these years. That’s not what I’d wanted at all.