Two Hundred And Thirty-Six

Two Hundred And Thirty-Six

“So, uh, bro... go easy on me, all right?” My sis said as we found a quiet spot to train. My answering smile was kind, yet it still seemed to unnerve her a bit.

“Aiko.” I said seriously. “I’m angry, and you know why. But it isn’t like I don’t understand. Don’t think this is a punishment, it’s training. You want to be stronger, and I want you to be stronger. I’d have more peace of mind, and you wouldn’t feel so irritated, left behind.”

“Well, yes.” She nodded. “Fine. I may regret this, but I trust you bro! I’ve shown I’ll do whatever it takes, right?”

“Right.” I agreed. “So, prepare yourself.” As my sister nodded, eyes damp, pumping her fists to motivate herself, I scanned her status, my Eye shining a majestic amber. “Well, we have to see what we are working with first.”

“Nice, that looks just like Shaeula’s eyes. Kind of cool, bro...” my sis said, but I wasn’t listening, as I was reading the amber letters detailing her progress.

“Not bad.” I approved. “I’m feeling less worried now I see your stats. You’ve been working hard.”

“Yeah.” my sis muttered, embarrassed, before gaining strength and declaring. “Yeah. I have! Good job on noticing bro, now that you are a popular guy, you’ve finally worked out how to compliment girls. Good job!” She gave me a thumbs-up to cover her embarrassment. “So, what’s the verdict? Damn, it’s so inconvenient we can’t check our own status. Isn’t that like... fundamental? That’s what those two in class said, anyway.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you. But it seems that even a lot of the others like me don’t get that. Anyway...” I read out her stats, and Aiko was pleased, though she noticed one thing that puzzled her.

“Hey, a skill has vanished. Unstable Lunar Chakra, or something like that, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I think it was just a representation that your Eight Moons Chakra Network wasn’t adapted properly for human use. But since we’ve fixed that and your network has hit Rank 2, I guess there’s no need for it anymore.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. So, I remember yours from before. Care to fill me in on your progress, bro?”

“Sure thing” I laughed, and after I was done, Aiko punched me in the arm, though gently, as she was learning. With her cheeks puffed out in an annoyed pout, she grumbled at me. “Well bro, that is just so unfair. Are you even human with those numbers anymore? And your stat sheet is stuffed with skills, and a load of them are high level! And what’s with all those classes? Even Eri has one and I’ve got nothing... damn. Wow, now I’m super pissed off!”

“Hey, don’t forget I had quite the head start and other advantages.” I said. “You’ve made good progress too. I’m impressed your archery has gone up, you must have put in a lot of effort leveraging your new stats. If it works like my combat skills though, you won’t get any better without finding your own path or borrowing one from others. Combat Techniques is a nice pickup as well. I was going to recommend that and daggers too.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed this last week I’ve been able to hit the target pretty much every time, without much difficulty, even at longer distances than usual. My hands just do what I want without effort, and my eyesight is unreal. I reckon if I entered a tournament this year I’d take first place. I’ve also had to really try to not be too awesome at volleyball club. But hey, no changing the subject, bro! So, what’s the training you are going to put me through?”

“Well, like I said, the keys to strength seem to be your chakra network and silver cord, as well as your elements. So we’ll work on something that combines them all, as well as a little something else. Though... no, never mind.” I said, shaking my head, a look of mock-sadness on my face.

“Wow, don’t do that bro, spill it. I can take it!” My sis said, pumped up for her special training. I guess being sporty, sis always did enjoy practise. To be honest, I get the appeal now, even if I never did before. Numbers going up is damn addictive.

“Fine.” I reached out and patted her head, my face showing a sad smile. “Since my brave little sis sapphire is capable of bravely enduring savage burns just to grow stronger, there is one skill I think you should have. I was torn over whether to have you and Eri try for it, as the thought of the two of you suffering made me ill, but... well, you’ve gone and grown up, right? So, I decided.”

“Wait, you don’t mean...?” Aiko began, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Ether Healing. It’s too good not to try for, though with how little Aether you have compared to us, I doubt you’d be able to get more than a rank or two. Even so, it offers a ton of benefits, and for a girl about to go out into the wide world, it’s a handy skill to have.” You do hear horror stories about spiked drinks and so on at uni. I doubt it happens much, at least I never saw any at my uni, but just the thought of it... no, resistance to drugs, poisons and foreign substances is something I want all my girls to have.

My sis looked around then, as if she expected Hyacinth to jump out, but I laughed at that, amused. “No, the spores are the advanced course. No way you’d learn anything from that right now, and I don’t want to hurt my precious sister for no reason. We’ll start slow, and try and develop your true lunar chakra as well, as it’s stronger than any of the other seven as far as I can tell, and you already have fire element. This is going to be tough, but it’s what we both wanted, right?”

“You know it!” she laughed, holding out her palm, while a ball of yellow flame blazed above it. “So, I’m not scared of hard work! In fact, I’ve always been less lazy than you! Hit me with it, what do I do?”

“Fine. To learn Ether Healing, it was a multi-step process. The first... well, sorry sis.” Even though I want to teach her not to be reckless, this is still hard for me. Still, what brother would want to hurt his sister? No brother I’d like to know, that’s for sure. This wasn’t for pleasure or punishment. It was a skill she needed. The others too. It won’t just be my sis learning from this, I will as well, as if I can teach her, I can teach Eri and the others too.

“I get it.” She shrugged. “Healing, huh? I have to be hurt to heal. Makes sense. Just... just go easy on me bro. Please.” She winked at me, trying to be endearing, and I gently rapped her forehead with my knuckles.

“Easier than you went with the fire huh? Well, sure.” I took her hand. “Hold still, this is going to sting." She squeezed shut her eyes as I drew on a thin strand of wind energy, and pierced clean through her palm. She let out a yelp of pain, before closing her mouth, muscles in her jaws working. Blood both silver and red splattered from the wound, and I felt an instinctive sense of revulsion that I was harming my sister, just as I had felt with Shaeula and the spores, but I hardened my heart, Resilience working overtime to keep me calm.

“All right then.” I said, and my sister opened her eyes, her blue ones meeting mine, resolute despite the tears that were accumulating. “You need to feel aether moving through your body to heal the injury, but that’s the easy part, sadly. You could just use aether to heal it with the proper image, but that’s not what we are doing. This is much more fundamental than merely using aether manipulation. Anyway, once you master that, the next, far harder step begins.”

“Okay, I get it.” She squeezed shut her eyes again to help her concentration, and with my Eye I could see aether moving through her network. Still, her command of it was one I could call rudimentary, if I was being charitable.

“You aren’t moving it right. You are making the wound heal through aether manipulation, not through your body.” I chided her, reopening the closing wound suddenly, causing her to yelp.

“Fuck bro!” she swore, unusual for her. “Give me a warning before you pierce me like that.”

“Phrasing.” I snickered, and she flushed. “Fine. I’ll get it, I will. The first time I picked up a bow I could barely draw the string. And when I did, I sliced open my fingers, remember?”

You know, I think I do. There are still some extremely faint scars on her fingers from that, but you can only really see them when she gets a suntan in summer. “I guess you’ve always been reckless. Oh well, keep at it. But you might want to...” using my Eye, I could see the flow of aether in her body, through her recently perfected network. This intense training was doing a good job at flushing out the debris of the Chirurgery and strengthening the new capillaries and lesser chakras, but Aiko was rapidly running out of aether, so I placed my hand on her belly. Her eyes snapped open at my touch.

“Wow bro, I said don’t shock me like that. What are you doing?” she asked, and I answered that I was giving her a boost. Aether flooded from me, cascading into her network. A lot of it was wasted, but enough was usable for her.

“Cool, I’m all full of energy again!” she grinned. “This time, I’m getting it for sure!”

“Sure you are.” I sighed. Even with the power of my Eye, it was a little hard to see the exact path the aether was taking as her clothes obscured it. “All right, shirt off.” I declared.

“This again, huh? Looks like you got a taste for me in my underwear, Eri will be devastated... ouch!” once more I rapped her head, and she sighed. “I’m just lightening the mood, bro. Don’t be such a grouch...”

“I know. But I have others I want to tutor a bit too, so there’s no time for messing around. It isn’t often we get an opportunity for everyone to be together like this.”

“Yeah, I get it.” She sighed, unbuttoning her blouse and setting it aside. “Well, here goes.”

Yeah, I see it. There’s the problem. “Some debris has gathered here.” I poked her shoulder and base of her ribs. “It’s diverting the flow. Flush them out with concentrated aether... yeah, just like that...”

********

“Seriously, your Eye is a cheat and a half, bro.” My sis said, flexing her healed hand again. “I wish I had one too. The colour is pretty as well.”

“Yeah, I’ve definitely grown to love that colour.” I agreed. As my sister laughed and said she’d definitely tell Shaeula that, I moved onto the next part, the hardest part. “All right. Now you’ve mastered healing the astral body, you have to realise the link between the material and the astral, and use your aether to heal that too.”

“Oh yeah, my real body is being all sliced up by you bro. Ugh, you should be grateful you have a sister who is prepared to endure all that pain and blood for you!”

“I know you’re phrasing it that way on purpose now.” I chided her again, though I couldn’t help but smile. It was great to be on such good terms with my sister again. “In any case, your hand.” I took the offered hand and pierced it several times. Aiko barely even flinched now, having grown used to it over the last few hours. “That should be enough damage to be working with on the Material. Now, this time, instead of taking in ether from your silver cord, this time you are pushing aether through it and back to your material body. This step is hard.” Once you realise the bodies are linked and how, and condition aether to move to heal both of them, then the silver cords and subtle bodies change to absorb and disperse healing aether naturally...

“Well, with you in my corner, I can do it, right?” My sister was hyped up, and that lasted about ten minutes, until she was grinding her teeth in frustration. “Damn, how the hell do you do this, bro? It’s like pushing treacle through a sieve, it just doesn’t want to go!”

“Yeah, I remember that. Really, it’s just a case of practise and focus. Having the proper image and control is important, and you are trying with skills far less developed than I had.”

“Yeah keep bragging about your high numbers bro.” she sighed. “Hang on, maybe...” she closed her eyes, and adopted a strange pose. One I recognised, her feet and body-line placed very specifically, even though her hands were empty. That’s Ashibumi, right? Placing the feet. Now she’s moving into Dōzukuri. Her body was straight and proud, and her arms stretched out, even though she held no bow, mimicking the three stages of Yugamae.

That’s incredible. No wonder Kyudo is a spiritual art. Her aether was reacting to her will as she focused, and her silver cord was pulling in aether at a fairly decent rate for its low level. Spiritual Kyūdō is no joke. I expect Motoko and Natsumi will be able to achieve similar heights with the Tsumura techniques, though they are more martial in essence...

At Ulfuric’s nod, I grabbed a spear. “Fine then, Natsumi. Show me what you’ve got!”

“With pleasure!” she cried boldly. “I’ve learned so much in just a brief time here under your master. This is heaven, is it not, Motoko? We can fight and train as much as we want!”

Heaven, huh? Ulfuric is a hard taskmaster. Let’s see if you still say that after a few more sessions. Still, keeping the smile off my face, I attacked, my spear darting out, only for Natsumi to knock it away, countering with a swift thrust. Motoko and Kazumi-san were facing off against Ulfuric again, and as another sharp stab whizzed past my face, I found I had no time to worry about them...

********

“So, I bet I’m the last, huh? Not that I should complain.” Kana was saying, as she sat in a meditative position, watched over by several white snakes, the ruby energies of earth surrounding the Earth Altar being drawn slowly into her body. To one side was a pale-faced Ren-san, who to his credit was still concentrating on the mirror in his hand, trickles of gold and indigo energies sparking into faint life before being drawn into the polished surface. “Though you did say you’d be helping me with my training. So I can’t help but be a little disappointed.” She looked a bit frustrated too, so I apologised.

“Yeah, sorry about that. My sister took a fair while to assist. But you aren’t last. I haven’t seen Eri yet.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t compete against your sister, now can I? Though I’m ahead of her, huh? She won’t be pleased. Oh well, you can make it up to me now, right?” her smile turned bright. “I’m struggling a bit. And I’m starting to really ache.”

“Right, let me take a look.” I agreed, my Eye glowing.

“Do I have to strip again?” she grinned, and I shook my head.

“Not for this, it doesn’t look to be too delicate a work.” I placed my hand on her stomach, allowing aether to flow, soothing the minor yet accumulating damage around her root chakra, where earth energies were slowly accumulating, yet since they weren’t under control they were being used by the network like aether, which Shaeula warned me was harmful, back when I first tried to master wind. Even so, the damage isn’t severe. I daresay it would recover in time. Though with repeated exposure without success, it might cause permanent harm, maybe...

“That tickles and is pretty shivery.” Kana shuddered. “Still, whatever you are doing is helping. Thanks.”

“You know, I was thinking. Your gift is a visual one, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I would say it was pretty useless, but it found you, so maybe it isn’t.”

“Well then, I think we need to work on that as well. With the ability to see what you are doing, all this training is far easier. Not easy, but still.”

“So, how would I go about doing that?” Kana asked, interested.

“That’s a good question. I’m going to look deep into you now, it might feel a little strange, but it’ll help me assess you better.”

“Fine. I guess it’s too late to mind that now.” She shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want me to strip?” she winked, enjoying embarrassing me.

With a chuckle, I focused my gaze, trying to locate her ability, just as I did with Ren-san’s, though his was easier, as I knew it was light-related, so likely to be around the third eye chakra. Still, I had no idea with Kana, so I had to scan her thoroughly.

“Yeah, that does feel uncomfortable. It’s like you are peering into my soul. Damn, this isn’t the first time you’ve toyed with my body, you really do need to take responsibility for that.”

“Yeah, sure, I’m sorry, just bear with it, and I’ll do whatever you want to make it up to you.” I said idly, my concentration engrossed in the search for her ability. In the end I managed to find it, and it was strange, not anchored to any main chakras, or even the lunar one, but tied to several minor ones around the eyes, which had tenuous links to the third eye chakra. I’ve never seen anything quite like it...

“What is it? No takebacks.” Kana declared as I frowned, only to sigh as she realised I hadn’t heard what she had said before it. “That’s an unpleasant face. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Your skill is just unusual. I guess I’m too used to seeing elemental skills. This is more... well, a divine one, maybe, due to your heritage. Anyway, here goes...”

She gasped and shivered ather erotically as I peered into her skill, but I paid it no mind. Here.

Eyes Of The Shrine Maiden Rank 1:

These eyes are a remnant of a divine blessing bestowed on the bloodline of a faithful worshipper, though the adherence that created this blessing has almost been exhausted. These degraded eyes were only capable of occasionally perceiving fragments of mystery, or sensing the surface thoughts of others during rare moments of stress, yet due to the increased flow of aether and stronger supporting network, these eyes are beginning to regain the form they possessed by her ancestors, allowing conscious control over the Eyes.

“So, how is it?” she continued to ask me, so I answered. “Yeah, not bad. Eyes of the Shrine Maiden. Seems pretty apt. Apparently some ancestors of yours were blessed by a kami, but over the generations what created and powered the blessing was exhausted and it degenerated, hence why you had so little control or power.” I explained the rest.

“So, that’s it?” she asked, and I asked her what she meant by that.

“Well, don’t you know a lot more about Eri, your sister and a few others? I don’t get all my stats and skills? If not, how can I improve that skill and the others?”

To think Kana has changed so. Originally she used to hate her shrine and all her duties. Now she seems keener than ever. “Well, I only get full details on those I consider kin, or who have Lovers’ Link. I’m sorry. Maybe when my Eye levels up.”

“Right. I see.” Kana nodded. “A shame. Still, you’ll help me until I master the earth, right?”

“I sure will. But first, let me just check on Ren-san.”

“Fine.” Kana smiled, winking at me. “But you shouldn’t keep a girl like me waiting too long, right?”

“Yeah, you got it.” I chuckled, waving her away. I approached the tired Ren-san, who glowered at me with his handsome face as I approached. “I told you.” He said, and I cocked my head, confused. On seeing that, he snorted bitterly. “Never mind. it doesn’t matter, and you won’t get it.”

“Yeah, so how’s your training going?” I asked, and Ren-san shook his head. “It’s draining. I’ve never done anything harder. Still, I think I’ve improved.” He let out more soft light which was drained by the mirror.

Yeah, but compared to what Shaeula does with the dagger, it’s a trickle. My sis won’t succeed with just that. “Good job, it definitely looks stronger. But when Eri was practising with darkness, she also practised withdrawing darkness out of the mirror too. It’s even better training for you, as you have a very high-quality mutated element.” Which I want to get for Aiko. It’s like the Moonlight Spirit Water, it’s too good not to share...

“Yes, I do. After all, our shrine is one of the most important outside of Kyoto, it only makes sense.” He stood taller, shining with pride, and I felt a little bad. Well it isn’t like I’m tricking him, really. He will grow stronger, it’s just I’m getting a side benefit too...

After some further encouragement I watched him start extracting the light and absorbing it, using my Eye to correct him a few times. It sure would be great if Kana could develop her eyes more and she could help with this sort of thing. Shaeula and I have too many demands on our time as it is, and it’s only going to get worse... Seeing Ren-san convert the store of light into mere trickles of sunlight, I bit down on a sigh. It looked like I would have to delay my plan to have my sis learn light element, until Ren-san had become better able to fill the mirror. She’ll probably be relieved...

I left Ren-san with a few last words of praise, keeping him motivated, before returning to Kana, who was watching me, amused.

“He doesn’t know you that well, but I know you better. You had a wicked gleam in your eyes as you instructed him. Maybe you should buy my silence with some more training?” she smirked.

“Sure thing, I can spare a bit more time.” I laughed, demonstrating some of my own earth elemental abilities...

*********

Okay, I’ve used up more time than I planned, but Kana is close to a breakthrough... Leaving her with fresh insights, I headed towards the graveyard, where the Dark Rhyming Tree was. When I arrived, I could see Eri and Hyacinth sitting under it, both talking softly, their expressions annoyed. As I approached, they both whipped their heads towards me, fixing me with hungry gazes, one black as obsidian, the other silver-violet.

“About damn time!” Eri snapped, reminding me of that time in Nishimorioka she went a bit mad on darkness element. “Why did you keep me waiting so long?”

“Yes, master. Hyacinth is sad. Where were yooou?” They leapt to their feet and came rushing towards me, their faces changing between a myriad of emotions at a rapid pace.

“Got you!” Eri declared, grabbing one of my arms, while Hyacinth conjured vines that grabbed my other.

“We have yooou now, master! Nooo escape!”

Sure, I could have easily avoided them, but it’s Hyacinth and Eri, they mean me no harm. But... the way they were looking at me hungrily was making me distinctly uncomfortable, and as the darkness element swirled around us, I remembered it was an element deeply connected to negative emotions... Like jealousy, right? Well, damn...