Fates Parallel Chapter 120 - Spider (Patreon)

The rest of the day passed without any real surprises. Eunae, Yue, and Kim all won their bouts while Jia was still busy with her own match. Later in the day, Eui completely demolished her opponent, while Rika and Yuuko both managed to advance to lock in their fated duel in the third round. The last fight of the day was two of Hayakawa’s teammates against each other—Satou Ryuuji and Tokuda Ryo. Jia didn’t really know either of them that well—Satou was in the same martial arts class as her, but he mostly kept to himself. Jia’s only real interest in the fight was that the winner would be Eui’s third round opponent—and after a bog-standard martial arts bout, Satou ended up advancing.

The first group of the sixth day had Jia’s full and undivided attention.

“Eun-eun! Jia! Heian’s cheating again!”

...almost undivided. Jia suppressed her exasperation and smiled down at little Haeun.

“Tell her that if she doesn’t stop, I’ll ban Yue from giving her treats for a month.”

“‘Kay! Thanks, big sis Jia!”

Jia smiled wryly as the little princess returned to the courtyard to deliver her verdict to the disappointed cat spirit.

“Is it really okay for a princess to be calling me that?”

Eun-eun smiled awkwardly, scratching her cheek.

“Um, probably not, no. Nor is it appropriate for her to be using the nickname Eun-eun for me, but once she heard Rika say it there was no stopping her. Are you going to tell her to stop?”

Jia could just imagine the adorable little fox girl pouting up at her, with a quivering lip and tears in her eyes as Jia told her that she couldn’t call her big sister.

“Ancestors, no!”

Eunae nodded sagely. What the little princess wanted, she got. The girls returned their attention to the scrying formation—thankfully the matches hadn’t begun yet. They were completely spoiled for choice, which was why Jia was so intent on watching closely. Three out of the four matches were of interest to Jia. After her impressive showing against Ishihara, Jia was very interested in seeing how Izumi Makoto fared against Hayakawa.

In the next ring, it was Xin Wei versus Guan Yi. Xin Wei had been a surprisingly effective combatant in his previous bouts, and Guan Yi had always quietly been one of the strongest combatants that Jia knew—though perhaps she was a bit biased by the memory of how soundly he had thrashed her during practice when she was still just learning. Mostly it was interesting because the two of them were such good friends, yet Jia had never once seen the two of them spar against each other.

Arguably the most interesting of the matches was the one featuring the last of the seeded competitors—Bai Lin. Jia finally got a look at the boy and he was—not what she expected. Bai Lin was tall, slender, and vaguely effeminate. He had skin like porcelain, narrow eyes, and mid-length, dark hair that he kept slicked back. If she didn’t know better, Jia might have mistaken him for a girl at first glance—but the only woman from Qin in the entire academy was Yan Yue.

“Yue, do you know him?”

Yue focused on the boy and bit her thumbnail.

“I think there’s a Bai clan which has been making overtures to become a new Great Sect, but I don’t know much about them. They’re quite far from the Awakening Dragon Sect’s territory.”

That didn’t tell Jia much, and since his opponent was another nobody it was fairly unlikely that she’d learn much from watching the match. That was probably unfair, but after a year at the academy, Jia had gotten a pretty good idea of which cultivators to watch out for. Then again, Bai Lin was already a huge surprise to her—so maybe there were other gaps in her knowledge.

---

Hayakawa Kaede stood opposite her opponent, Izumi Makoto. She was one of Fujino’s group—the ones that she had used to test Lee Jia’s value as an ally. By and large, she and the rest of her team had completely obliterated Kaede’s expectations. Which meant that Lee Jia obliterated her expectations.

Kaede still had mixed feelings about the way things had gone with Lee Jia. It was regrettable to lose such a valuable—potential asset. Lee Jia was someone who devoted herself entirely to everything she did, and that devotion could have been Kaede’s to do with as she pleased. If she had been more like her father, it would have been. She had no doubt that even if she had accepted Jia’s offer of friendship, it would have been simple to twist the relationship into whatever form was most profitable for Kaede and her clan—it was what she had been taught to do, after all. She couldn’t do it—not after hearing Lee Jia’s story.

She set her regrets aside to focus on the present—she had no doubt that she’d be able to defeat Izumi Makoto, but this would be a good opportunity to test just how much she was capable of. Izumi, more than any other in her group—except perhaps her team captain, Fujino—had truly taken to an omnidisciplinary fighting style. Unfortunately, the only way Kaede would be meeting Fujino in this tournament would be if he made it to the finals—past Bai Lin, An Eui, and Lee Jia. Izumi would have to do.

Not that she intended to underestimate her opponent. She had seen Lee Jia’s misstep against her opponent and been disappointed, but she supposed that was inevitable. With how swiftly she grew, it was easy to forget that Lee Jia had next to no combat experience. Her instincts were good, but they were no replacement for years of practical training. No, Hayakawa would be going all out from the very start, and if that meant that Izumi didn’t get the chance to show what she could do—well, then that was a result in and of itself.

Hayakawa prepared to reduce her weight as she lowered her stance. It was a delicate balance—she could move faster by making herself lighter, but her strikes would carry less force. Too light and the air turned into soup, too heavy and she wouldn’t be able to generate enough power to lift herself off the ground. Being lighter was generally better for speed, while heavier was better for power, but there was a limit to both. Kaede had never been particularly good with the mechanics of it, but she knew from experience where those limits were.

As soon as she heard the signal to begin, Kaede flew across the ring, light as a feather. Izumi’s form began to flicker, but she was slow—since Kaede’s breakthrough, everyone was slow. Kaede ramped up her weight as she landed next to Izumi with a solid thud that was incongruous to her featherweight movements from the previous moment. Her first strike met air—passing straight through Izumi’s projection. On instinct, Kaede lowered her body as much as possible, feeling the rush of air above her as an invisible attack just narrowly missed her.

Izumi fought using illusions. Her real body was almost certainly invisible, while the projections were just distractions. It was extremely reminiscent of Takeda Rika’s old fighting style, and equally annoying. Kaede had only barely managed to awaken her mana sense, and she had no talent for arcane arts. As a result, she had no ability to sense illusions with her mana sense, and had to deal with them the old fashioned way.

Kaede swept her leg around in a full circle to make sure Izumi wasn’t nearby before springing back up to her feet. She closed her eyes—they wouldn’t be doing her any favors in this fight—and concentrated on her other senses. Since her breakthrough, they had improved dramatically, and she’d spent much of her time since on training herself to use those senses to the fullest. Izumi wasn’t a fool, and she didn’t give her position away with something as pedestrian as sound, but neither could she hide her presence entirely. The shifting of the air, the warmth of her body, and her subtle scent all served to give Kaede an impression of where she might be.

Izumi wasn’t going to make things easy for her, however. While Kaede was trying to narrow down her location, a never ending barrage of invisible bolts of force rained down on her. She could usually feel them coming, and those that she couldn’t she simply blocked by increasing her weight as much as possible. Kaede usually preferred to be lighter when taking attacks, as they would harmlessly push her instead of impacting, but there was a real risk of Izumi’s telekinetic attacks sending her out of the ring if she did that. Increased weight helped her hold her ground, but did nothing to blunt the impact—if anything it made the impact worse, since she was only heavier, not sturdier.

None of the attacks came from Izumi directly. She was obviously being cautious of getting too close to Kaede, but that ended up being her undoing. Armed with the knowledge the Izumi was being still and silent, the very middle of the range of positions that she could be in became almost certain to be her true location. Most of the attacks were coming from the opposite direction, but that was likely a deliberate attempt to mislead her.

Kaede’s ultimate technique was ready, but she didn’t think it would be necessary here. She kept the ki prepared, so that she could unleash it at a moment’s notice, but held it in reserve for now. It was a bit of a distraction, but well worth the effort. As Kaede felt another attack about to strike her, she reduced her weight as much as she possibly could, allowing the bolt of force to push her into Izumi’s likely position. She felt the air moving as Izumi tried to dodge out of the way, but it was too late.

“There!”

Kaede twisted in the air and reached out to grab onto Izumi’s robes. She caught something and immediately reversed her weight to the maximum, slamming back down to the ground with the weight of a mountain.

“Urk!”

The sudden increase in weight caused Izumi to be choked by her own clothing, setting her badly off balance. Kaede took advantage of the moment to twist her body around and throw Izumi to the ground over her shoulder, following up by falling on top of Izumi with the full force of her incredible weight.

“OOF!”

She landed on top of Izumi with a rather nasty sounding crunch, and felt an urgent tapping on her shoulder.

“OW! Oh fuck, I give! I give!”

Kaede stood at once, opening her eyes to see Izumi almost literally flattened next to her. She relaxed, allowing the gathered ki to disperse itself back throughout her body, then reached out to give Izumi a hand.

“Well fought. Are you alright?”

She felt a small pang of guilt as Izumi struggled back to her feet under Kaede’s support, clutching at her side.

“You just crushed like all of my ribs. Pretty sure you got a few organs too...ugh. I might be sick.”

Kaede’s pride warred with her empathy. She felt guilty that she had caused such harm to a—an ally, but losing was not an option and she couldn’t afford to show weakness by holding back. Not if she was even going to be shogun.

“I’ll escort you to the medical pavilion. Let’s go.”

“Thanks, Lady Hayakawa. Good fight. I thought I had you for a second, there.”

Kaede pursed her lips. It hadn’t been a close fight, but Izumi had pushed her. More than any peer that Kaede had ever tested herself against since Lee Jia. Izumi had her weaknesses, of course—she relied too heavily on avoiding detection, and wasted energy on those projections—but she had also managed to capitalize on one of Kaede’s own weaknesses.

“Good fight.”

It really had been. There would be time later to correct her deficiencies but for now, Hayakawa had her own conundrum. This bout had only been further proof that Lee Jia and An Eui were far too valuable to let go of, or alternatively too dangerous to leave alone. She bit her lip in frustration—she knew what she should do, but she forced herself to try to think of alternatives. She didn’t want to lose a—she shook her head, unwilling to allow herself to complete the thought. She would do whatever she had to for the future of her nation.

---

Xin Wei ducked an invisible blade of qi, and preemptively waved a hand, releasing a small wave of water to purify the air as the blade exploded into a cloud of choking miasma. His best friend and bodyguard had only one trick, but he was a dutiful soldier—the type to hone their blade more and more until it didn’t matter that they only had one weapon. Their one weapon would be sharp enough for any foe. That was the idea, anyway, and at the moment Xin was hard-pressed to disagree. Each of Guan Yi’s attacks forced Xin to both dodge the invisible blade, and then deal with the poisonous cloud that came afterwards. Even prepared for it as he was, it was straining Xin’s ability to defend himself from the unrelenting assault, and draining him of resources that should have been spent on a counteroffensive.

He’d thought that he’d at least be at an advantage if Guan was without his signature polearm, but the brute had just gone and conjured one up out of qi as soon as the match started. Apparently, he’d learned the trick while not apprenticing under that Yamato smith—Murawhatever. Worse, the big lunk was so damn strong that Xin’s Earthen Realm technique barely slowed him down. Xin wasn’t sure if that was because of his progress in martial arts, his natural build, or both—probably both.

“You’re ruthless, Guan! You couldn’t hold back just a little!? Aren’t you meant to be my protector?”

Guan Yi didn’t let up his assault as he responded, swiping his guandao back and forth while he approached.

“I am confident that the instructors will stop the fight before it comes to that. If you are truly worried for your safety, then as your retainer, I advise you to withdraw.”

Xin clicked his tongue irritably—Stoneface’s sarcasm was as impenetrable as ever. He was right, though. Xin Wei didn’t have any hidden abilities he was holding in reserve, or secret techniques to deploy—his strongest techniques were meant for healing. He had nothing with which to turn the tide, and his strategy—as effective as it had been in the first two rounds—had clearly met its match. As if to emphasize the point, a slightly mistimed dodge earned him a shallow cut along his side, the venomous qi it carried with it spreading through his body before Xin quickly cleansed himself of it.

“Agh, fine! Fine! By the emperor, I yield!”

Guan Yi’s attacks immediately stopped as Do Hye’s voice announced the result of their match. Xin Wei just brushed himself off grumbling.

“What’s gotten into you lately?”

Anyone else might have missed it, but Xin Wei and Guan Yi had been together since they were babies, and the nearly imperceptible shift in Guan’s eponymous stone visage may as well have been a grimace to Xin’s eyes. Xin knew exactly what the problem was, of course. That damn Yan girl. Xin knew that Guan was still infatuated with her, even if he’d never admit it. If Xin were a colder man, he might consider the ways in which he might use that relationship to his advantage. Instead, he just saw his friend in pain, and felt an overwhelming desire to destroy the source of that pain.

He couldn’t, though. That would only hurt his best friend even more, and besides—Yan Yue was part of Lee Jia’s cohort now, and that was a hornet’s nest that Xin had absolutely no intention of disturbing. He’d already put himself on thin ice by associating with Zheng Long and Han Yu, but they were useful tools, and Zheng Long got talkative when he thought he was among friends. It helped, of course, that Xin found the man to be genuinely good company, but he wouldn’t trade Guan Yi for a million Zheng Longs.

Still, he wished there was something he could do to make the big guy happier. Perhaps he could offer Yan Yue asylum within the Flowing Spiritual Purewater sect? Lee and An, too—why not? It wasn’t as if the sect’s reputation could get any worse. He’d talk it over with Guan Yi later, when he was in a better mood. Though Xin worried that he might have to make the decision sooner than expected—he’d seen a few faces among the visitors that unnerved him. Something big was about to happen, but Xin had no idea what.

Nothing good, if the Emperor’s host was involved, that much was certain.

---

Jia stared frowning at the image in the scrying formation. Bai Lin’s opponent—a half-spirit boy from Kim Yongsun’s team—hung from nearly invisible threads by the wrists. The threads cut into his arms, and he bled from dozens of other cuts. The fight had ended when he passed out from blood loss. Bai Lin had been much stronger than his opponent, but the fight had taken a long time. Because Bai Lin made it take a long time.

He had played with his opponent. Drawing out the fight as he slowly led him through wire traps that seemed to spring up out of nowhere. Eventually, his opponent slowed down, and Bai Lin strung him up and started torturing him, using the threads to make cut after cut until the boy finally succumbed. Only the boy’s continuous struggling and refusal to surrender kept the match from ending sooner. Except he hadn’t refused to surrender. Jia saw the razor-thin red lines around his jaw—it had been tied shut.

Most disturbing of all was the gleeful grin on Bai Lin’s face, which never wavered during the entire ‘bout’. Jia shuddered as Bai Lin sauntered out of the ring, leaving the boy strung up for the instructors to retrieve. Jia glanced worriedly at her girlfriend, to see Eui scowling at her future opponent. In her own unique way, Eui voiced the thoughts shared by everyone in the room at that moment.

“Wow, fuck that guy.”