Fates Parallel Chapter 253 - Experiment (Patreon)

Ja Yun needed some time to sort through the information that Jia had given her about Misun’s spell, which meant that Jia was back to wandering the base aimlessly in search of something to do. Eui was finished with her cooking, so Jia headed over to the mess hall—food had always been her vice, and Eui had done a lot of cooking to thank the soldiers for their accomodation.

When she arrived, she was met with a loaded plate and a kiss.

“I thought you might be coming by! How’s Ja Yun doing?”

Jia took the plate and returned the kiss, taking a seat on a long bench next to a group of soldiers happily munching away.

“You saw for yourself, didn’t you?”

Eui took a seat next to Jia and nudged her in the ribs with an elbow.

“Of course I saw, but I want to hear what you think. How boring would our life be if we just never talked because we could see everything through each other’s eyes?”

“Fair enough.”

Jia poked around at her plate while she thought about it. Eui had made a fried conglomeration of eggs, chicken, and rice supplemented by some wild vegetables. It was a fairly simple dish by Eui’s standards, but the height of luxury compared to what Jia had grown up eating. Quite a treat for the soldiers as well, judging from the way they ravenously devoured it.

“I think she needs something to work on. Hopefully helping us with our magic will help her figure out that she’s being too hard on herself.”

Eui smirked and stole a piece of chicken off of Jia’s plate.

“Speaking from experience?”

Jia smacked her hand.

“Get your own! If I’m speaking from experience, then it’s yours.”

“Hah! I suppose I walked into that.”

The two of them sat in companionable silence while Jia finished her meal. Before she could run off in search of more to do, Eui caught Jia’s hand.

“Hey. I know you’re nervous about going into Qin, but instead of distracting yourself with busywork, do you want to talk about it?”

Jia hesitated, the reflexive denial dying on her lips as she met Eui’s dark red gaze. She was right—Jia was avoiding the truth.

“What happens to Jung and Narae if we don’t make it? Misun is so sure that we’re going to fail, and even Master Ienaga doesn’t seem confident. I don’t care what happens to us—but I’m worried about my sisters.”

Eui pulled Jia into a loose embrace and touched her forehead gently against Jia’s.

“Nothing will happen to your sisters, because we’ll be there to protect them. Isn’t that what we’ve been cultivating for all this time? More importantly, Master Ienaga and Seong Misun will be there. Look, I know she’s an unapologetic turbobitch, but I’ve known people like Misun. She might complain the entire time, but she’s not the kind of person to do anything half-assed.”

“Are you sure? You’ve seen her domain and it’s...”

Eui chortled and shook her head.

“Yeah, she’s lazy as fuck. But she’s also the youngest xiantian cultivator we’ve ever met. She’d rather be back at home, being waited on hand and foot by the palace servants, but she’s not. She’s here, and she’s here to stay—no matter how much of a bitch she is about it.”

“I guess so. I just hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

Jia giggled and gave her precocious partner a kiss before squirming out of her embrace.

“Well then, Miss Genius, I think I have just the thing to test your limitless knowledge on.”

Eui raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Mhm!”

Jia’s expression turned serious.

“I think it’s time to start our training with Eunae. We’ve been putting it off for too long.”

Eui scowled—the light mood from before was completely ruined.

“I don’t like it. I know you trust Eunae, and I do too but...how much of it is us? How much of it is the geas? Is this really the answer, or are we playing into the Kumiho’s trap? You remember Heian’s vision—I think that was the Kumiho that was involved in the origin of our entire race. That’s not a being we want to fuck with.”

Jia sighed.

“What’s the alternative, Eui? We just stay glued to Eunae because of some unknown imperative branded onto our soul?”

Eui raised a hand unconsciously to the physical brand on her forehead, hidden behind the fringe of hair she kept over her right eye.

“I—I don’t know. You’re right, I’m just a little freaked out by it. I guess you weren’t the only one distracting yourself from your problems.”

Jia took Eui’s hand in hers and smiled.

“That’s why we have each other, right?”

Eui squeezed Jia’s hand back and nodded, returning the smile.

“Right.”

—-

Four girls and a blob sat in a rough circle within a small meditation chamber. Eunae fidgeted with her veil as she addressed the others, still uncomfortable wearing the new garment.

“Do you have an actual training plan in mind, Yoshika, or is this going to be another of your whimsical experiments that ends in disaster?”

Jia blushed—she did not, in fact, have a specific plan. Eui snickered.

“Why fix what’s not broken, Princess? Our method has always worked in the past.”

Eunae crossed her arms and pouted.

“And how often has that method of yours led you into what would have been certain death without my intervention or that of the others?”

Eui just grinned without answering. Ja Yun raised her hand nervously.

“Can—can I opt out of the disaster experiment part? Actually, why am I even here? I’m still not done analyzing that spell you gave me, Jia.”

Jia gestured with her head towards the fifth member of their hodge-podge training session.

“We need your help wrangling Muddy. Eui and I only just learned to talk to it today, and we’ll need a bit more practice before we’re confident enough to handle it without you.”

“Right. Got it. And Muddy is needed...why?”

“Because something tells me that Muddy’s literal soul searching can only be improved by participating in soul magic training.”

Ja Yun chuckled helplessly.

“O-oh. Is that all? I remember that now—I must have suppressed that part of the conversation with Iseul on account of it’s completely insane! Soul magic is impossible—the soul is inviolable!”

Eunae stiffened and frowned deeply.

“No, it’s not. My power is proof of that.”

Ja Yun stared at Eunae with a mixture of horror and...something else.

“Oh.”

Eui clapped once to get everyone’s attention.

“Okay! Let’s get started, shall we?”

The girls nodded in acknowledgement, though Ja Yun hesitated.

“Uh...how? You still haven’t really explained what exactly we’re doing.”

Jia stepped in to explain.

“We’re going to use one of our techniques to visualize our souls. It’s technically just an illusion technique, but it’s...very vivid. It’s kind of like a meditation aid—what you see is illusory, but what you’re doing is very real.”

Eunae frowned.

“You’re referring to Yan Yue’s signature technique, aren’t you? Melody of the Dreaming Moon. You used it to coordinate that sacred art when we fought the magma elemental.”

“Exactly! We’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with it after practicing, and we think it should work for this—except for two caveats.”

Eui counted off on her fingers.

“First, we’re really not sure how it’s going to work with Muddy. Your avatar inside of the dream is a representation of your soul, and while we’re pretty sure Muddy has one, it might be too disconnected from it for the song to work. Second, Eunae—”

“You don’t know if my inner spirit will cooperate. Last time you used this technique, she took control—I can still remember it as if it were a dream.”

Jia nodded solemnly.

“Technically that’s exactly what it was, but yes. For whatever reason, the Kumiho didn’t seem to like us poking around in your soul.”

Eui snorted derisively.

“Hypocrite.”

“Anyway, we won’t really know until we try. This is supposed to be for the sake of teaching you how to control your power, which is what your inner spirit wants anyway, so hopefully she won’t give us any trouble.”

Yoshika linked hands and reached out to Eunae and Ja Yun. Eunae took her hand, but Ja Yun was staring at Muddy thoughtfully.

“Actually, before we start—do you think it would work better if I let Muddy use my body to form Iseul again? Maybe my soul will work as a bridge to hers or something.”

Yoshika raised Eui’s eyebrow.

“We thought you didn’t want to do that anymore.”

Ja Yun shrugged.

“I’ll do it, if you think it will help.”

“Let’s save that as a backup option. Iseul is a bit fragile and we don’t want to traumatize her any more than we already have.”

“Right...okay.”

Ja Yun took Yoshika’s hand and completed the circle by placing her other hand on Muddy. Yoshika closed her eyes and prepared.

“Listen carefully to the song, let it fill your senses and don’t resist.”

The girls nodded—and Muddy wobbled—as Yoshika began to sing a wordless melody. Despite all her practice, Yoshika still wasn’t very good at singing, but the harmony of her voices carried a certain unique sort of beauty. It was distinctly Yoshika in a way that was difficult to express, except through the song itself.

Yoshika could feel the essence carried by her melody slowly seeping into the auras of the girls around her, though as expected the elemental was much slower. The melody carried Yoshika’s domain through the bonds that she’d formed with Eunae and Ja Yun, and the world of her soulscape took form around them.

As always, Yoshika was struck by the familiarity of the scene. They had appeared in the training field of the old academy, before it had been overrun by demons. The raised dueling platform had cracks and scuffs from some particularly intense spars, the weapon racks were in disarray from students carelessly replacing the training weapons they’d borrowed, and a rough dirt track surrounded the area—beaten into the earth by students running laps.

Yoshika checked on her friends, seeing that Ja Yun’s spirit form looked almost exactly the same as her real body, though perhaps a bit smaller and less defined. Eunae was taller, and had nine tails instead of her usual three. For a moment, Yoshika worried that her Kumiho fragment had taken over again, but the clothing—the fact that she was wearing any—and her expression were still very much Eunae. Muddy was nowhere to be seen.

Ja Yun looked around in wonder at their surroundings.

“Woah! What is this place? Last time you just showed us a frozen image of our surroundings, but this is something else entirely. Some kind of training ground like the ones on the base?”

Yoshika nodded.

“Something like that. This is our soulscape, represented by the place closest to our hearts—the one place we’ve ever truly felt at home.”

Eunae gazed at their surroundings with a nostalgic expression of her own, nodding slowly in response to Yoshika.

“The Academy. You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to this place by its actual name outside of official speeches.”

Yoshika snickered.

“The Grand Academy of Spiritual, Martial, and Arcane Arts is a bit of a mouthful.”

Ja Yun gawked.

“This is the place? The Academy, as in The Academy? Isn’t it a demonic enclave now?”

“Well, yes and no. This is the academy as we remember it, but also a bit idealized. It’s meant to be a representation of us, and not necessarily the place as it truly was or is.”

“That’s...cool, I guess. I don’t really know what to make of it. So now that we’re here, what are we supposed to—”

Ja Yun’s voice was cut off by a sudden scream that startled all three girls.

“AAAAAAH! Help help help help! Get her away from me!”

The source of the voice—which sounded disturbingly similar to Ja Yun, but with a strange, tinny quality to it, as if coming through a closed door or a pane of glass—was a familiar transparent blob rolling at high speed across the field. Chasing Muddy was a huge, black cat—barely an adolescent despite being nearly as tall at the shoulder as Yoshika.

“Heian, stop!”

The cat froze at Yoshika’s command, looking up at her with alarm. With a moment of focus, Yoshika confirmed that Heian’s human form was still keeping Narae company playing games with Minami’s squad. She frowned down at the giant kitten before her and crossed her arms.

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, young lady.”