Fates Parallel Chapter 68 - Proving (Patreon)

A kitten. Its black fur was the only resemblance it had to the shadow spirit that Lee Jia had encountered before. The panther had been taller than her while on all-fours, and its eyes had matched her own golden irises. This tiny little furball seemed to be the size of a regular kitten—though it was difficult to tell the scale of things in the odd space of her soulscape—and for the brief moment that she had seen them, it’s eyes had been blue.

Lee Jia stared at the little creature napping away blissfully. She had no idea what to make of it, and neither it nor her spirit half were responding to her. So now she had a kitten living in her—soul? How did that work? How was she going to feed it? Did it need to be fed? Jia was so confused.

Before she could do anything else, Jia felt an odd disturbance. It was like a strange little tug at her attention—akin to the feeling of being watched. Instinctively, she focused her attention on that feeling, and the soulscape disappeared around her as her domain spread out to locate the source of the disturbance.

She immediately found two irregularities. The first, she might have missed if she hadn’t known to look for it—a subtle gap in her domain where another, much more powerful domain had slipped in to observe her. She wanted to hiss with frustration—even here, she couldn’t find any privacy from this ancestors-damned voyeur.

Ignoring it for the moment, Lee Jia focused on the second irregularity. This one was much less subtle—a large, person-shaped manifestation of mana that she might have confused for an elemental or a spirit if it hadn’t been so faint.

While she didn’t recognize the element immediately, she tried to use her domain to get a sense of it, like she had with the shadow element she’d just integrated into herself. The mana gave her a distinct impression of moonlight and dreams, and Lee Jia immediately scowled at the thought of the person that brought to mind.

Jia carefully focused her domain on the cloud of dark mana—it almost certainly belonged to Yan Yue, and having experienced her other techniques Jia suspected it was some sort of spiritual projection. Two spies in one night! Jia was getting sick of it, but allowed herself a small smirk as she found a tiny thread of mana that trailed almost imperceptibly away from the main body of the manifestation.

“Gotcha! I hope this hurts, bitch!”

Lee Jia punctuated her statement by absorbing a piece of that thread of mana and severing the connection to the main body. Without its connection to Yue, the manifestation of mana began to disperse into the air. Jia had no use for the darkness element, and was content to let it simply fade away before she felt a strange sense of need welling up from within her.

More.

It reminded her of trying to communicate with her spirit half, but it gave a slightly different impression that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. With a shrug, she focused her domain on the rapidly diminishing cloud of dark energy and drew it into her domain—where it was entirely consumed by her soulscape.

She didn’t feel any different after that, and there was no further communication from within her soulscape, so she switched her focus to the other domain that had been spying on her. Which, of course, was gone. Lee Jia sighed and shook her head—what a strange day this had been. She decided to spend the rest of the night on regular cultivation and figure the rest out later.

---

Yan Yue coughed up a small mouthful of blood as her consciousness was violently returned to her own body and she suffered the backlash of losing such a large amount of qi. She hadn’t expected Lee Jia to be so observant, much less be capable of severing the link to her projection so easily. There was something truly abnormal about those girls.

With a long suffering sigh, Yue cleaned herself up and sat down to meditate. After such a significant loss, she’d have to spend the night cultivating after all.

---

Training began early the next day, and Lee Jia could really feel the benefit of the mana density at the mountain’s peak. The lessons from the previous day burned in her mind after she’d spent the night meditating on them, and though her cultivation remained at a bottleneck, she found meditating at the peak to be as rejuvenating as a good night’s sleep and a full meal. She had never realized that an increase in spiritual energy could improve those aspects of cultivation as well, though she supposed it made sense that cultivation was more than simply a matter of quantity.

Feeling energized, Jia went straight to Fujino to propose another team training exercise. He bowed in greeting as she approached.

“Good morning, Miss Lee. You’re looking well!”

“Good morning, Fujino. I feel great! This mountain is fantastic for cultivating. I can see why the sects of Qin build on them.”

Fujino chuckled and nodded.

“True. It’s not uncommon for the dojos back home to be built in auspicious locations, either. Though I have to admit we’re not usually as scientific about it—martial artists don’t usually have the same spiritual sensitivity as mages or spiritual artists. We rely on our priests for such things.”

Lee Jia tilted her head curiously. This was the first time she’d heard of Yamato having such a thing.

“Priests? Are they like spiritual artists?”

“Hmm, not quite. Our priests don’t actually cultivate, themselves. Instead they rely on the blessings and protection of kami. It’s a rather unique discipline, but somewhat antithetical to the academy’s focus on self-empowerment.”

“Huh. It’d be nice to talk to one—I’ve had cause to learn a bit more about spirits, recently.”

“Well, I doubt you’d find a better teacher than our priests. Their understanding of the kami is peerless, for all the Qin look down on our ways as savage.”

Jia hummed thoughtfully—it was certainly something to think about, though she doubted she’d get the opportunity while she was training in the academy.

“Good to know. Anyway, what do you think about another training session between our two groups? I was thinking we could try doing some one on one spars.”

Fujino stroked his chin and frowned.

“I don’t know about that, Miss Lee. Our style is rather heavily dependent on the cooperation of our entire team.”

Lee Jia shrugged.

“Isn’t that even more of a reason to practice single combat? It’s good to have strong teamwork, but you should want each person to be independently strong as well—otherwise your team is prone to collapsing under pressure like it did yesterday.”

Fujino ran a hand through his hair and grimaced.

“Harsh, Miss Lee, but fair. What do you propose, then? There’s a bit of a mismatch in the numbers, and Senior Dae knows our style well.”

Jia giggled and shook her head.

“It’s funny that you call him ‘Senior Dae’. Doesn’t the nickname kind of defeat the purpose of the formality?”

He shrugged with a grin.

“Part of the charm, I suppose. He’s been quite good to us—helped to develop many of the techniques our team relies on.”

Jia nodded and sighed.

“Yeah, he’s nice to everybody. He helped me get used to the academy, too. When we first met, he gave me his personal notes on awakening mana sense, no questions asked.”

Fujino raised an eyebrow at that.

“Not that I don’t  believe the story—it sounds just like Senior Dae—but were you not a mage before coming here?”

Oops. Oh well, it’s not like Jia was trying to keep it a secret anymore.

“Uh, no. It’s a long story, but I was actually a completely regular mortal before arriving here. It was quite a struggle, at first.”

His eyes widened in surprise.

“I can hardly imagine. Most impressive, Miss Lee. So, how do you propose we handle the difference in numbers, then? I suppose Senior Dae could just sit out—he doesn’t strike me as much of a duelist.”

That was a fairly compelling solution, but Lee Jia wasn’t sure that it was the best for Dae, and besides, she was feeling unusually confident today.

“What if I took on two? You and another of your choice. Like say...that Minami girl. She seemed like she was pretty eager for a rematch.”

Fujino narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and Lee Jia blinked at him, doing her best to feign innocence.

“I suppose she was—but are you sure about this, Miss Lee? Minami and I are the two strongest fighters in the group. Not to demean your abilities, but that seems like a rather bold choice.”

Lee Jia shrugged.

“It probably is. I’m not confident that I can take you both on at the same time—or even either of you—but that’s what makes it interesting, right?”

Fujino sighed in resignation and shook his head.

“Very well, I hope you know what you’re doing, Miss Lee.”

She chuckled and shook her head.

“I honestly don’t, and I don’t know why everyone seems to expect me to. I just thought it might be fun to try.”

Fujino stared at her, nonplussed for a moment, before doubling over in laughter.

“Pfuahahaha! Alright then! I suppose I’ll look forward to it.”

Lee Jia stared after Fujino as he returned to his group to inform them of the plan, scratching her cheek awkwardly. She wasn’t sure what was so funny.

Jia returned to explain the plan to her friends. They didn’t have any objections, though Eui raised a curious eyebrow at her.

“Two on one? If you lose that, Minami’s going to be pretty unsatisfied—she’ll probably think that you did it on purpose to give yourself an excuse.”

Jia frowned for a moment.

“Uh, I hadn’t actually thought of that. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to win, then.”

Eui snickered and shook her head.

“I love the audacity, but how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

Jia hadn’t really figured that part out, either. She knew she wasn’t the best fighter among her friends. Eui and Takeda were better at martial arts, while Eunae and Dae were both better at magic, and while none of them were particularly adept at spiritual arts, Takeda had made the greatest strides of any of them. She wasn’t confident she could win a duel against a single one of her friends, much less two.

She considered her own strengths—like her opponents, she had a talent for mixing spellcasting into her martial arts, and since her aura had the same effect regardless of the number of opponents, she had a distinct advantage in a drawn out battle of attrition. Of course, against two skilled opponents, a battle of attrition was not likely to be what she got.

She wracked her brain, trying to think of something she could use to turn the fight to her advantage. Her style of focusing on quick pressure-point strikes was a naturally poor match for their force shield, without Eui’s overwhelming force or a strong defense of her own—

Jia’s eyes widened as she had a flash of inspiration.

“Rika! Can I ask a small favor? Actually, we might need Dae for this too—ancestors, there’s not enough time...”

Rika and Dae exchanged curious glances with each other before turning towards Jia.

“What did you have in mind?”

---

That arrogant bitch! Yuuko wasn’t sure if Lee Jia had bought into her own false image and convinced herself she was invincible, or if she was just setting herself up with an excuse for her inevitable defeat. Either way, Yuuko was going to teach her a lesson, and make it painful.

Fujino and Yuuko were the best fighters in their group, and Lee Jia was not the best in hers. Yuuko had heard from the others how Lee Jia had gotten past Fujino. With Fujikawa and Ishihara distracted trying to provide her support, they hadn’t been able to focus entirely on Fujino—and he was likewise forced to split his attention between protecting them and fighting Lee.

She had only won because they were distracted by the overall melee, and she had done it with a dirty trick. There would be none of that, this time. Fujino and Yuuko would be able to give Lee their full attention, and she was confident enough in their practice to keep a double layered mana shield up—Lee Jia would not be sneaking past their defenses this time.

It still wasn’t the duel that Yuuko wanted, but she was more than prepared to make up for her dissatisfaction by pounding that arrogant youkai into the ground, and proving once and for all that she was all talk.

For some reason, they had decided to do the fights one at a time—with hers last—but most of them went by mercifully quickly. The results were mostly predictable. Dae and An crushed their opponents—Fujikawa and Harada respectively—almost immediately. Harada was seething after his match, but Yuuko suspected that it was mostly because he was jealous of Fujikawa getting matched against Dae.

Izumi managed a shocking upset against Takeda, though it was mostly luck—she’d managed to guess the real one on the first try and went all out from the start, earning revenge for the earlier team battle.

The last fight before Yuuko’s was a strange one. Ishihara and Seong both seemed to prefer relying on magical attacks from a distance, but despite keeping her eyes closed most of the time, the strange fox girl seemed to evade or block Ishihara’s attacks effortlessly. It had seemed like it was going to be an easy win for Seong, but she had worn out surprisingly quickly and yielded after Ishihara had finally landed a single force bolt.

Finally, it was Yuuko’s turn to fight. She took her place alongside Fujino, and Lee Jia stood across from them. Lee bowed politely, and they returned the gesture—Yuuko might not have liked Lee, but she wasn’t rude.

“My apologies for the unusual circumstances of this match! I hope I haven’t disappointed you too greatly.”

Yuuko held back a scoff as Lee called out to them. It was Fujino who answered for the pair of them.

“Not at all, Miss Lee. I hope that we will have a good match.”

With the pleasantries exchanged, they got into their stances and waited for Lady Hayakawa to call the beginning of the fight.

“Begin!”

As soon as the fight began, Lee sprang into motion. Once again, Yuuko couldn’t read her aura at all, but she was prepared for it, this time. She activated her magical enhancements and watched Lee’s erratic, zig-zagging motions carefully. In the blink of an eye, Lee had closed the distance—she was fast! Much faster than An had been, but not fast enough to beat Yuuko’s enhanced reflexes.

Yuuko effortlessly dodged the first flurry of blows while Fujino circled around to flank Lee—obviously she had realized that her only chance at winning was to take one of them out as quickly as possible, and she had identified Yuuko as the weaker target. Yuuko was happy to take advantage of her misapprehension.

As she moved to counter-attack, she was nearly floored by a sudden wave of nausea. Her skin crawled, her eyes itched, and her stomach felt as though she was simultaneously starving, bloated, and about to be sick. She had been warned about Lee’s noxious aura technique, but this was so much worse than what the others had described. Judging from the look on Fujino’s face, it was worse than he had expected, too.

Lee Jia took advantage of the sudden shift to circle around Yuuko and keep herself from getting surrounded. As she did, she struck a few passing blows that thankfully failed to penetrate Yuuko’s double-layered mana shield.

Yuuko rallied herself and regrouped with Fujino.

“This is way worse than you said.”

Fujino nodded tightly.

“It’s stronger than last time, that’s for certain. Either she was holding back or she’s improved since yesterday.”

They didn’t have time to speak further as they moved to pressure Lee Jia once again. The unexpected potency of Lee’s aura didn’t change their strategy, anyway. That exchange had proven that Lee’s offensive strength didn’t even come close to comparing to An Eui, even without her absurdly destructive ki. The plan remained the same—take advantage of their superior defenses and overwhelm Lee Jia.

Fujino and Yuuko both went on the offensive at the same time, putting Lee on the back foot. As they kept the pressure on, Yuuko was forced to admit that Lee Jia’s speed and reflexes were exceptional—maybe even a match for her own—but it was a two on one fight, and she could only keep it up for so long.

They finally had their chance when Lee—obviously fed up with fighting defensively—struck out at Yuuko with her claws. It wasn’t one of her precise, pressure-point targeted attacks—perhaps an attempt to overpower the mana shield with brute force—but Yuuko elected to ignore it entirely, trusting the mana shield to divert the attack as she countered.

To her credit, Lee barely managed to avoid Yuuko’s counterattack despite her own attack failing to penetrate Yuuko’s defenses. However, the effort left her unbalanced, allowing Yuuko and Fujino to immediately follow it up with a coordinated attack.

Yuuko knew that this was the end. Once their attack landed, Lee Jia would be grounded and the two of them would overwhelm her without giving her another opportunity to regroup. It had been a better match than she expected, but still a predictable result. Lee recovered her balance just in time to get into a blocking stance, but it wasn’t going to be enough against the combined assault. Yuuko and Fujino’s blows landed viciously on Lee’s body—

And rebounded almost harmlessly off of her mana shield, sending her skidding several feet back instead of crashing to the ground as they had expected. Yuuko stared in shock as Lee Jia grinned at them over her blocking arms, a talisman disintegrating in the palm of one of her hands.

“It worked!”