Chapter 71 - Trying Out New Things

That night, Akira and Kanna arranged to practice their new chi powers in the dojo, under Kiki-senpai's tutelage, with the two standing apart in front of her as she gave a lecture:

"Controlling chi is similar to how mages control magic," she explained, while expertly manipulating a liquidus stream of pure chi in front of her, through a series of soft hand and arm motions. "Only, it's accessible to all classes. Fluid enough in its uses, that it can both amplify and complement your existing combat strengths.

"The three types of chi manipulation are enhancement, volatile, and radiation.

"Enhancement is when chi is used to increase your physical capabilities beyond the normal threshold. So, that's strength, speed, jumping height, and perception, for example.

"Volatile is when you fire projectiles made out of chi.

"Radiation is mainly for healing."

Kiki then smiled at her two pupils. "Any questions so far?" she asked chipperly.

Akira quickly raised her hand, saying drolly, "sensei! I want to know if controlling chi has any applications in the bedroom. Like, maybe to form whips or chains, or to heal my partner if I break something—"

"Um...!" Flustered, Kiki turned to Kanna. "What about you, Kanna-san?"

Kanna scowled, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, isn't it obvious?"

"Oh, right," she answered, nervously laughing and scratching the back of her head. "You don't...have arms."

Kanna groaned. "I can't even open my inventory like I used to," she said. "I have to say 'INVENTORY: OPEN,'"—the menu screen appeared in front of her—"like a huge dumbass!"

Kiki smiled with compassion. "You're incredible, Kanna-san. I don't even know what I would do in your position."

Kanna gave a surly grin. "Well, you would find ways to adapt. Like I am. Besides that, your only other choice is to just lay down and die—there isn't even a choice to be made." She scoffed. "Still, I can't believe all those 'master' chi healers and surgeons couldn't manage to reattach my arms."

Kiki frowned. "Sadly, chi healing is only effective at treating fresh injuries. It was hours before they got to you."

"Couldn't the elders have intervened, then?" Kanna raged. "The elders who were in there with us said they'd be watching us with their tablets the entire time, so couldn't they do something?" She turned her head down, sighing. "If it meant saving my arms…"

"I'm sorry. I don't know," Kiki said, resting a hand on her back.

"I think I might know why," Akira stepped forward, saying, from off to the side of the room where she'd been listening in on the conversation. Silently coping with a gnawing sense of guilt, stirred by watching Kanna's struggle, when this sudden inquisitiveness about the elders had piqued her interest.

"The golems are the only source of chi abilities, right?"

Kiki nodded. "Yes, but why do you ask?"

"Because I think it isn't so much a case of them protecting the outside world from the golems" —she paused, retrieving the two broken halves of the [Gandiva] from her inventory—"more, the opposite: that the golems are their prisoners, being kept secure and safe from the outside world."

Kanna's eyes widened. "That way, they can keep giving acolytes their chi powers."

Kiki gasped. "Could that be why they're so aggressive?"

"Like caged animals…" Akira breathed.

"I saw when Red Bear and Black Cock were revived," Kanna said, looking deep in thought, before abruptly glancing up with a shocked expression. "There were sparks, and it looked like they were growing out of the floor!"

"Sparks? Like with channeling chi?" Kiki questioned while showing some channeled unto her fists, as an example.

"Y-y-yes! It was the same as with chi!"

"Are you sure?" Akira asked sharply, to which she nodded." Then, that could mean…"

Kanna nodded, catching on.

"The cave itself is what revives them!"

Akira added, "thereby, making it so that the only way to survive is by '

The three exchanged serious glances, all deeply unsettled by the dark truth they may have just uncovered. All deeply wrathful about the inconceivable toll this one ancient tradition must have inflicted over the centuries.

Kanna had her back bent low, her head leaned against the wall. 

"Damn…" she grimaced. "Are you saying this all could have been avoided? That I didn't need to lose my arms, and Vash"—she broke off, choking on her saliva.

Kiki was turned away, clenching her fists.

Meanwhile, Akira was biting her lip, ears shrunken and head bowed with a bitter look as, more and more, it was becoming apparent to her that Nirvana was a deeply flawed place. And that, the further she delved into its secrets, the more dangerous it was going to become for her and her allies.

"It's possible, is all I'm saying. Since we don't fully know how those golems 'think,' or how they're able to transfer chi power" —her eyes narrowed—"but there's still one thing I don't understand."

She turned sharply, to look at Kanna. "The golems could have easily killed us, so why didn't they?"

"Like with me," Kiki meekly added.

Kanna rose from against the wall. Turning slowly, with her face tilted up, she bore a crazed stare as she unleashed a maniacal laugh, before calming enough to speak again.

"Those bastards...

"I think they wanted us to survive!

"That Black Cock was laughing the whole time he was beating and raping me.

"Like he enjoyed every single minute of it!"

Training continued from there, at a dragging pace...until after midnight when the [Fireflies] were out in a big swarm, as the three tiredly made their way back to the dorms.

Kanna was grinning. "Ara ara, I was able to [Enhance] my legs, at least."

She was standing at the center of Akira and Kiki, their arms draped across her back, watching her resist the urge to cry with pitiful gazes.

"What kind of Warrior am I now?" 

"The bravest I know," Akira said softly.

Yet Kanna continued to mourn, "I'll never be able to lift a weapon again. I can barely make use of my [Chi Powers]. I'm going to have to get used to sleeping alone again, now that Vash is gone..."

"Wait," Akira said, halting abruptly. "You're still thinking about leaving the party?"

Kanna looked at her, incredulous.

"I can't fight anymore, Akira. So I'd only be dead weight if I stayed"—she averted her eyes—"besides...after how I've been acting lately—"

Akira spun Kanna by her waist so that they locked gazes.

"No way. You're staying with us."

"To do what? Risk losing my legs next?!"

"There's one thing you haven't considered yet."

"What's that? Killing myself?"

"Prosthetics," Akira said with a small, excited jump toward them, as a smile crept across her face. "I'm going with Kiki to the Oracle in Mithil, and we can ask if prosthetics exist in Nirvana."

Kanna froze, gawking. "That's…"

"Besides, I already said that I forgive you."

Kanna glanced at Kiki. "But is she okay with it?"

Akira faced Kiki with a mischievous grin. 

"Uhh…" Kiki was looking between the two of them apprehensively.

"Remember what you were saying before?" Akira asked her, gradually revealing more of her teeth in a wild smile. "About 'trying new things?'" 

"Ow! But Akira, now's not the time—"

"It's always the time, Kiki."

Akira had been simultaneously drawing the two closer together, slowly and gently, until their athletic bodies were practically pinned as they tasted of each other's hastening warm breaths, in the cool night air, with glowing red faces. Their lips were slightly parted, wanting. Their soft, passion-filled gazes met with lustful uncertainty—both secretly wondering if the other's held the particular relief they sought.

Akira stayed, giddily observing the hot tension between the two for a while longer, before lifting her hands from both of them and turning, to make her sneaky exit.

"I'll leave you two alone, to better get to know each other."

In the wake of her absence...

A moment of awkward silence passed, with neither Kiki or Kanna knowing how to break the ice.

Until, Kiki blurted out a nervous giggle.

And then Kanna was shaking her head, sighing with an amused grin. "Ara ara, did we just get hooked up with each other by our own boyfriend?" she said. "Poor guy must have a thing for cuckolding at this point."

"Umm!" Kiki's heart fluttered in her chest.

"You're new to this kind of thing, aren't you?'

Kiki gave a quick, shy nod.

"You've cultivated with Akira, though."

"Y-y-yes, but only him," she said with a timid, fading laugh. "I don't really count the training origies."

Kanna fixed her with an intense, incriminating glare. "It's not that you're scared of handling me too roughly, now that my arms have gone AWOL, is it?"

"N-n-no!" Kiki frantically answered, shaking her head, then calming to a hushed whisper. "It's not you. I'm just a nervous wreck in general."

Kanna gave a doubtful look. "Even though you've grown so much stronger?"

She bit her lip. "I've been...better at hiding it."

"Hum," Kanna said, turning her head with a look as though she was deep in thought.

"That's weird."

"Hah. I know I'm a total basketcase."

"No, no. What I'm saying is that it's weird for a pretty girl like you to feel so nervous all the time, when you should really be strutting your stuff."

"Eh…?!" Kiki reared away, surprised. Even Kanna-san was complimenting her?!

"You know..." Kanna started to say, but then abruptly paused; looking around as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping, before leaning her head against Kiki's slight but strong shoulder, then breathing into her ear, "I was jealous of you the first time I saw how much you'd changed."

Kiki gave a mortified look. "I don't believe it! You're only trying to butter me up."

Kanna snickered. "There's no need when you're as buttered as a lobster already," she said, moving her lips within inches of Kiki's. "And I can see why Akira likes you."

"W-why's that...?" Kiki asked sweetly, her words oozing with repressed desire.

Her breath sent tingles down Kiki's sp'cause

"'Cause, you're cute when you squirm."

Moments later, Kiki was "squirming" plenty while Kanna was servicing them with her mouth—as surefire a sign as any that things were gradually returning to normal; as meanwhile, Akira had fallen soundly asleep against Vash's robe, her nose buried deep in their scent.