Fates Parallel Chapter 165 - Safety (Patreon)

Though she was a little bit leery about leaving her fate in the hands of the person who’d had her thrown out of that very city years ago, Jia had to admit that Tae In-Su seemed to be making good on his promises. Which was great, because Jia was learning that law was absolutely not one of her fields of interest. She had imagined intense debates, dramatic accusations, and a surly arbiter making determinations about who’s interpretation of the facts was more accurate. Indeed, that had been fairly close to Eui’s experience during her trial. The truth of their current circumstances were much less interesting.

Tae In-Su had spent months filling out paperwork, filing motions, researching obscure precedents, and putting together their case to present to the legal authorities—whoever those were. Jia wasn’t exactly clear on the process, and she felt like she was going to fall asleep every time Tae In-Su tried to explain it. The whole thing was taking much longer than Jia had expected, but Tae assured her that he was in fact pulling quite a few strings in order to speed up the process. She resolved that if she ever had to deal with the law again, she’d find herself an advocate like Tae In-Su.

In the meantime, Jia and Eui continued training with Heian—who had made enormous amounts of progress. They worked with Hattori to create special talismans for her to use—like that shadow shield that had made her invisible before. While the old onmyouji insisted that he wasn’t able to share the exact rites that his order used to create shikigami, he was happy to assist Jia in reverse-engineering similar concepts in order to allow Heian to project her power independently of Jia. The results were a bit mixed, but Jia was looking forward to working with Heian to work out the kinks.

Hayakawa wasn’t idle either, coordinating with the leader of their military escort—who had arrived at the same time as Tae In-Su—in order to vet her entourage, and sending out messages to prepare for the next leg of their journey and their eventual arrival in Songdo. Watching her and Tae working so hard made Jia feel a bit useless. It’s not like she was idle—she kept up with her meditation, Heian’s training, and sparring with Rika every day—it just felt as if everyone else was being far more productive. There was nothing for her to do in Nayeong, and she was getting anxious to move on to the next place.

Eventually, her stir-craziness led her to take a walk through the city with Eui, tailed by an exceedingly nervous half-spirit mage who had arrived in the city as part of their military escort. The man had catlike traits, like Jia, with light brown hair. He was trying to be sneaky, but Jia had been acutely aware of how many people had been watching her since her arrival in the city, and she was politely ignoring most of them.

She walked down the streets of Nayeong, arm in arm with Eui, entirely heedless of both her unsubtle minders and the occasional curious stare from passers by. Today she had eyes only for Eui—they were on a date. They hadn’t really had the chance to in Yamato, and their extended travels through the wilderness hardly qualified either. Now, with an abundance of free time while they waited for Tae In-Su to do his thing, they finally had the opportunity to go out and enjoy a day alone together in the city—so long as they ignored the third wheel shadowing them.

They started with a circuit of the city markets, where Eui snickered at Jia excitedly sampling all of the different food vendors.

“Are you still determined to follow Yan Hao in the dao of round?”

Jia stuck her tongue out at Eui playfully.

“Food is a big deal for someone who spent most of their life starving! Let me have my luxuries!”

She happily visited nearly every vendor in the market, buying up as much as she could and storing it away within her dimensional ring. Jia felt a tiny bit bad about spending Yue’s gold so freely—she’d been carrying it in her ring when they’d been separated—but there was so much of it that she could have bought out the entire stock of every vendor in the market without so much as making a dent. Besides, some of it was hers too—though she was slightly ashamed that she’d never thought to keep track of how much. It occurred to Jia that she was perhaps being a little bit too unsubtle about the use of her storage artifact, but she quashed the thought immediately. What could be more important than this? She shuddered at the thought of having to eat more magical beasts, then again at the realization that she’d probably have to keep doing it anyway in order to feed her core. At least Eui had learned some techniques for cooking them in Yamato.

Speaking of which, once Jia had her fun filling up her storage artifact with food, it was Eui’s turn to go on a spending spree. Eui’s interests lay in a decidedly more feminine realm than Jia’s, and they spent a few hours visiting tailors, apothecaries, and spice merchants. Jia was most looking forward to seeing what Eui could do with what she’d purchased from the lattermost of those. She could give or take the clothing and cosmetics, but she could admit that having fresh clothing available was greatly preferable to her old life’s habit of just wearing whatever she could get her hands on until it wore down to the seams.

With Jia’s ring fully stocked and their funds...hardly impacted, really—they spent most of the rest of the day simply wandering around and taking in the sights in companionable silence. It was Eui who eventually broke the silence, turning to Jia with a look of playful mischief that rarely went anywhere good.

“Say, Jia, why don’t you show me your old place? You used to live here right?”

Jia grimaced.

“Eui, the place I lived in was a hole in the ground. Literally, a cellar that someone forgot to fill in after tearing down the house that had been there. Also it was set on fire.”

Eui shrugged dismissively.

“So? I want to see it.”

Jia sighed. Eui was clearly up to something, and though Jia could easily find out—it was impossible for them to keep secrets from each other as Yoshika—she trusted Eui implicitly, and it would be more fun to just play along.

“Alright, follow me.”

Jia led Eui out through the front gates and through the shanty town—which was really just a kinder name for the slums. They were met by rickety constructions, starving kids, awful smells, and the wary eyes of every single denizen as they made their way through the impoverished town. Eui scowled fiercely the entire time, and Jia was almost insulted until Eui finally spoke her mind.

“I never knew it got this bad outside the walls.”

Jia glanced over curiously.

“Did you not see it yourself when you were exiled? Plus you had my descriptions and memories to go by.”

Eui nodded solemnly.

“I only ever saw them from a distance—I couldn’t enter the shields, remember—and while it’s not that I didn’t believe you...it’s different seeing it in person.”

“Yeah, I guess so. To me, this was all there ever really was. The inner city was just a hunting ground—I barely even acknowledged the idea that people actually lived there.”

“Mm.”

Eui was a bit pensive for the rest of their trip as Jia led them through the shanty town to a secluded little spot well away from the prying eyes of the slum-dwellers—far enough away from the occupied parts of the shanty town to slip in and out unseen. The structures there were all run down and abandoned, left over perhaps from a time when there were more people living here.

Jia’s old hideout really was a hole in the ground. The cellar door that had hidden it was gone, and someone had replaced it with a few boards of wood with dirt kicked over them in a vague attempt at subtlety. Through her domain, she could sense that it was currently empty.

“Well, here we are. I didn’t actually live here all that long. Less than a year, altogether. I’d been hoping to hold out through the winter but...well, you know.”

Eui nodded.

“Right. Shall we go take a look?”

Jia frowned and crossed her arms.

“Someone else is living here now, Eui. It would be pretty rude to just barge in like that.”

Eui snorted derisively.

“They’re not here now. It’s not like we’re going to steal anything—I just want to take a look.”

Jia sighed, but it was rare for Eui to insist on anything like this and she didn’t really have the heart to say no. In the worst case, the current occupants ended up returning while they were in there.

“Fine—but if we get caught, be nice! Even if they attack us, we’re basically asking for it, okay? Don’t hurt anybody.”

Eui scoffed indignantly.

“Who do you think I am?”

Jia stared at her flatly for a moment, and Eui wilted a bit.

“Okay, I promise.”

Mollified, Jia swept the dirty wooden boards aside with a wave of her hand and a quick improvised wind spell. She descended into the cellar with Eui in tow, and found that the cellar was nothing like she remembered it. None of her things had survived the fire, and the wooden supports were blackened by scorch marks. The ceiling was sagging dangerously, threatening to collapse due to the compromised structural integrity. There were a number of crates piled up that she didn’t recognize—whoever had claimed the place was probably using it for storage of some kind.

“So this is where you used to live, huh? You weren’t kidding about it being a hole in the ground.”

Jia snorted as Eui looked around curiously, closely examining some of the scorch marks before moving on to the crates. Jia frowned as Eui opened one up to peek inside.

“I thought we weren’t stealing anything.”

Eui shook her head to reassure Jia.

“Just looking. It’s boring stuff anyway. Rice, alcohol, and I think this is some kind of medicine?”

She held up a handful of crystals that Jia didn’t recognize. It was best to avoid unknown crystals and powders, in Jia’s experience—though as cultivators, mundane drugs would have little effect on them.

“Probably a smuggler’s cache. They won’t be too happy that it was found. Are you done yet?”

Jia was feeling a bit put-out. This wasn’t exactly her idea of a romantic date, although she didn’t begrudge Eui the look into her past. Eui put the lid back on the crate and skipped over to Jia, surprising her with a peck on the lips.

“Almost—just one question, Jia. Do you feel safe?”

Jia blinked in confusion.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I feel safe?”

“This is where it all started, right? Where you were assaulted and forced out of the city before you ended up in the academy. You were going to be sold into slavery and worse if you hadn’t gotten away.”

They were unpleasant memories, but Jia didn’t entirely understand what Eui was getting at.

“Sure, but that was over three years ago. I don’t have to worry about people like that anymore.”

Eui nodded along smiling.

“Yep, that’s true. If they showed up here, you’d be able to squish them like bugs, but you didn’t answer the question. Do you feel safe?”

Jia scoffed. She wanted to tell Eui that yes, of course she did. Why wouldn’t she feel safe? She and Eui were probably the strongest cultivators in the city, especially together. The entire notion that she wasn’t safe was completely absurd. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. The more she tried, the worse she began to sweat and shake. She didn’t feel safe! In fact, with every moment it felt as though the walls were closing in around her. She’d been nervous from the very moment Eui had suggested coming here. Jia was snapped out of her thoughts by Eui’s embrace.

“I thought so. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Jia couldn’t find her words, but she nodded as Eui led her out by the hand. When they were a good distance away from the place, Jia finally released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and Eui hugged her again until the trembling stopped.

“Are you feeling better?”

Jia nodded, meeting Eui’s eyes with a questioning look.

“Sorry, I don’t even know what came over me...did you know that would happen?”

Eui shrugged.

“I could guess. Your nightmares have been getting worse ever since we came back to Goryeo, and I do share your thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. You spent years trying to run away from Lee and his cronies and this is the place where they caught up to you. It’s not surprising you’ve got unresolved trauma about it.”

Jia huffed in irritation.

“What am I supposed to do about it? I can’t just keep suffering from nightmares and deviations all the time.”

“Yeah, that would be just terrible. I can’t imagine having your own essence turn against you like that.”

Jia couldn’t help but giggle at Eui’s deadpan, glad to have the mood lightened a little bit. Eui had suffered frequently from minor ki deviations due to her destructive essence, eventually culminating in a much worse one and the formation of her demonic core. Now, it felt like the roles were reversed.

“Sorry. I don’t think the same solution is going to work for my problems, though.”

Eui shrugged.

“Back when we faced our—well, mostly my—inner demon as Yoshika. You showed me how to stop fighting all the time, and let myself find peace.”

Jia shook her head to protest that it had been a cooperative effort but Eui stopped her with a finger on her lips.

“I know what you’re going to say—we might have been Yoshika, but that was very much you. Now it’s my turn, Jia. You need to stop running. This trauma isn’t going to go away until you face it.”

“Isn’t that what I just did? Kinda failed miserably, there.”

Eui chuckled sardonically, shaking her head.

“No, that was just a small test. I didn’t want to suggest this without knowing that I was right. Trauma is like a weed, and visiting your old hideout was a sprout. We need to go after the source, tear it up by the roots and burn it away entirely. Boss Lee—that’s the one who caused you so much grief. We already planned on finding your sisters, and when we do, we’ll find him too.”

“I don’t know about that, Eui...I don’t want to go looking for trouble—”

“Jia, no. You can’t run away from him forever. You have to face him and crush him. Crush him so thoroughly that you never have to think about him ever again. Until he can never hurt another child the way he hurt you and your sisters.”

Jia hesitated, but she knew that Eui was right. After years of running away, she needed to choose to fight instead. She took a deep breath, looked Eui in the eyes, and nodded resolutely.

“Okay. Let’s do it. It’s probably going to cause all sorts of trouble, but you’re right. I need this.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it!”

Eui grinned ear to ear, taking Jia’s hand in hers as she led the way back towards the city gates. Jia sighed wistfully as she looked out at the sun setting over the horizon.

“By the way, Eui...”

“Hm?”

“This date sucked. You owe me another one.”