Fates Parallel Chapter 60 - Communion

Lee Jia paced impatiently around the tiny living space as she considered the implications of the memory she had just examined. Not only did it create more questions than it answered, she was still no closer to learning how to resist Yan Yue’s technique.

“Argh, what a waste of time!”

Eui glanced up from the talisman she was inscribing—she had to do it the old fashioned way, since the destruction element would disintegrate any talisman she tried to inscribe with martial arts.

“I wouldn’t say it was a waste of time. Maybe not worth the effort for what you got, but you learned a bunch of things, right?”

Jia halted her pacing and sighed with exasperation.

“Nothing that I can act on! What am I supposed to tell Eunae? ‘Hey, I think there’s some kind of weird spirit living in your eyes. Also it called me names.’”

Eui snorted in amusement.

“I imagine she’d rather know about it than not know. Personally, I’m more worried that we’ve got a stalker.”

“Ugh, and we still have no idea who it is! Do Hye denied it, and Yue said that Yan Hao wouldn’t risk it.”

Eui raised an eyebrow at Jia.

“And you believe them?”

Jia threw her hands up in frustration.

“No! But that doesn’t help us, either. It could be either one, or neither, and even if we knew exactly who it was, what could we even do about it?”

Eui shrugged.

“Tell the other instructors about it, I guess. Though Do Hye didn’t seem too concerned about it. We probably just have to wait until we can make that formation you were talking to Hyeong about.”

Jia sighed heavily and flopped down on the couch next to Eui, leaning into her.

“This had totally taken the wind out of my sails. Now what am I supposed to do?”

“You could get off me for a start, I’m trying to inscribe something.”

Jia let Eui shove her over and hung limply off the side of the couch.

“Have you ever noticed how boring this place is without cultivation?”

“Not really. I’ve been keeping up with your insane cultivation pace for half a year, and the break I’m getting from that is the only silver lining to this whole situation.”

Jia sat up a bit and frowned.

“Have I really been that bad?”

“Kind of? I don’t mind it, honestly, but a bit of time off is actually kind of nice.”

Jia covered her face with an arm and groaned.

“Ugh, is there anything I haven’t fucked up as a friend?”

“Probably. I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”

Eui cackled as Jia kicked her in the side playfully.

“Jerk! I guess I should just go back to training Steps of the Stalker for now...”

“Steps of the what now?”

Jia sat up and got into a proper posture for meditation as she explained.

“You remember that dream technique I was talking about before? I gave it a name.”

“Uh, the solar eclipse one that you apparently learned in your sleep? The one that might be a useless waste of meridians at worst, and only efficient to practice during an eclipse at best—that one?”

“...yes?”

Eui eyed Jia with a grumpy expression.

“So you just decided to start practicing that despite all the warnings, without consulting anyone other than Yue, and without telling me about it?”

Jia pressed her index fingers together and pouted.

“In fairness, I only just made that promise today and I started practicing two days ago.”

“That’s not the point, Jia!”

“I know! I’m sorry! I’ll try to be better, but I can’t go back in time.”

Eui crossed her arms and sighed.

“Ok, fair enough. What makes you so sure about this thing anyway? Wasn’t it just a dream?”

“No—at least, I don’t think so. I don’t remember the actual dream but it felt like—like when we were stuck in Yue’s dreamscape as Yoshika. It was a dream, but it was real. I forgot the dream, but this one thing stayed with me—like the pain from when we were torn apart.”

Eui shuddered.

“Yeah, ok, I think I get it. I don’t really remember the Yoshika dream, but that part is so vivid that sometimes I think I can still feel it.”

Jia nodded in agreement. Parts of that dream had stayed with her, but nothing as vivid as the intensely visceral pain of having her soul torn away from Eui’s. With her preparations complete, Jia settled into a quiet, meditative state.

---

As was often the case with meditation, she couldn’t be certain if it had been a long time or not, but she was finally nearly finished opening the meridians needed for her Steps of the Stalker technique. Unlike her other spiritual art, this one did not express the refined qi directly—instead, it looped back to the dantian and sent the refined shadow-elemental qi through the connection to her body.

Jia wasn’t really certain what was going to happen once she did that, but the next step was to suppress her natural lightning ki and allow her heart to distribute the shadow element through her instead. It wouldn’t have any effect on her cultivation—at least, she didn’t think it would—but it would change the effect that her ki had on her body. Beyond that, Jia had no clue what it would actually mean, in terms of tangible effects.

As the last bit of corruption was cleared to complete the formation, Jia was startled by a sudden shift in her perception. She found herself standing on a familiar, snowy battlefield. She didn’t remember it, but she knew that she’d seen this place before, in her dreams. This time, it didn’t feel like she was dreaming.

She felt a deep pain that didn’t correspond to any part of her actual body—the scar from her separation from Eui still raw and tender. The wound to her soul felt more real in this place, somehow—wherever this place even was.

Jia looked around at her surroundings and her—body?—reacted strangely, as if her movements didn’t quite match her body. There were footprints ahead and behind her, where she had been following—the cat!

Jia searched for any sign of the white cat from her dreams—she could remember it, now. If it was present, it seemed to be invisible against the snow. Jia laughed internally as she recalled Dae using this exact scenario as an example so long ago.

Aside from the cat, it felt like there were other things missing. Jia looked up and found that the sky was an empty black void, entirely devoid of a moon. Why did that thought bring her comfort? Oh! That’s right, it was Yue, wasn’t it? There were supposed to be others, too—the corpses? Or were they from Eui?

No—Lee Jia remembered—there were others, fighting over something. But where were they now, and what had they been fighting over?

Self.

Jia whirled around, startled by the—sound? Or a thought, perhaps. It was hard to tell the difference here. There was nothing there but a small patch of ice—a frozen pond. Regarding herself in the reflection, she saw the white cat from her dream staring back at her.

“What!? Why am I a cat in my dream?”

Soul.

Jia was startled again. There hadn’t been any movement, but she knew that it came from the reflection. Had it spoken to her?

Communion.

“You are talking to me! Who—what are you? Where is this place?”

The response was a confusing jumble of raw thoughts and emotions that Lee Jia couldn’t make sense of. She shook her head vigorously.

“Agh! Stop! Stop!”

Weak.

“Well sorry for being weak. Just—one thing at a time, I guess. Who or what are you?”

Self.

Jia stared at the reflection, nonplussed.

“Of course you’re you! That doesn’t answer the question.”

After a moment without a response, Jia just sighed and shook her head.

“Fine then. Where is this place?”

Soul.

“My soul? Wait—is this my domain!? Is this where all the mana that it eats has been going?”

Incomplete.

“That...isn’t quite an answer, but I’ll take it. Can you not just respond in affirmative or negative?”

Imperfect.

“...I guess not.”

Ugly.

“Well now you’re just being rude. This is the place I saw in my dreams, right? What happened to the others that were fighting?”

Incomplete.

Jia huffed with frustration as she tried to piece together the strangely disjointed responses. This place was her domain, a representation of her soul—or perhaps more accurately, her entire being. She still didn’t know what the cat was, or the others—who she realized she couldn’t even picture in her mind—but she gathered that they weren’t present because this was an incomplete, imperfect reflection of her true self.

Comprehension.

“Well thanks, I guess. Why am I here now, though? Like—really here, and not just dreaming.”

Steps.

Jia looked down and saw that her paws were still in the footprints left by the cat, even though she had turned to face the reflection—this place was strange.

“You left the steps for me to follow—to bring me here? Why?”

Incomplete. Imperfect. Ugly.

Jia reeled as the combination of concepts was almost more than she could handle all at once.

“Ok! I get it! I get it! For a guardian spirit or whatever you are, you sure are mean. So here I am, then. Now what?”

The cat didn’t respond, but the reflection behind her became a mountain that looked a lot like the Forbidden Peak.

Steps. Kin.

“What? I don’t understand!”

Ugly.

“Stop saying that! Why is this so difficult?”

Weak.

“That was a rhetorical question! I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me!”

Kin.

Before Jia could protest any further, the landscape began to fade around her, and she heard Eui’s voice calling out to her in the distance, though Jia couldn’t hear what she was saying.

“Wait! There’s got to be something else you can tell me!”

Steps.

Jia’s eyes snapped open as her meditation ended. Her body was slick with sweat and Eui was looking down at her with a concerned expression, which was matched by Eunae standing behind her.

“Jia! Are you ok? You weren’t responding when I tried to wake you.”

Jia blinked a few times to get her bearings.

“Um, s-sorry. I’m fine, I think. I just made a breakthrough in that technique and then—wait, Eunae, why are you here?”

Eunae bowed politely in greeting.

“It’s been a day since we last spoke, Jia. I take it you were caught up in deep meditation?”

Jia groaned.

“I hate that. Why do we totally lose our sense of time when we meditate?”

Eunae covered her mouth with a sleeve as she giggled.

“I suspect you might appreciate that phenomenon a bit more when you have breakthroughs that take weeks or months to achieve.”

Jia sighed as she stood up.

“Yeah, I guess so, but that doesn’t help me right now. I’m all gross.”

“I’m sure that Eui can keep me company while you clean yourself up, Jia. I’m in no rush.”

Jia bowed in apology.

“Thanks, Eunae. I’ll be right back!”

As she retreated into the bathroom, Jia cursed her ancestors for that damn cat distracting her for so—

Jia froze as she suddenly reached an epiphany.

“Ancestors!”

---

As excited as she was to share her theory, Jia still took the time to get cleaned up and changed. Once she’d slipped into some casual clothes—with pants this time, she wasn’t yet ready for a repeat of the last time she wore a skirt—she rushed out and began excitedly explaining her thoughts.

It wasn’t going well. Eui pressed her fingers against her temple and furrowed her brows.

“Hold on, Jia, you’re going too fast. What are you talking about?”

“Ancestors!”

Eunae shook her head.

“Jia, I can understand being frustrated, but you needn’t curse about it.”

“No, I’m not cursing that’s the answer! Ancestors! The thing in Eunae’s head—”

“That what!?”

“—the cat I saw in my dream, I think they are the same thing. Spirits! Not just any spirits, though. Our spirits—ancestors!”

Eui cocked her head curiously.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know! Just a feeling, but I think it makes sense. We’re half-spirit, but what does that really mean? Does being descended from spirits really just mean having partly magical bodies and animal features?”

Eunae waved her hands urgently, shaking her head.

“Wait wait wait! Go back! What thing in my head!?”

“Oh, you have a second aura when you use your gaze—a domain, actually. It’s yours, but not yours—I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s controlled by another entity—your spirit half, if my theory is right—she even spoke to me, or maybe it was my spirit half she was talking to.”

Eunae sat back in her seat, her tails curling around in front of her to rest in her lap. She put a hand to her head and shook it in confusion.

“How is that possible? If I had a spirit residing in me—especially one with xiantian power—I’m certain that my family would have known about it.”

Jia shrugged.

“I could only sense its domain when you used your gaze, and even then only in retrospect thanks to Absolute Awareness. Have you ever used that gaze on the xiantian members of your family?”

Eunae shook her head.

“No, I was always too afraid of them—except once. I was too young to remember it in detail, but shortly after my gaze awakened I was brought before my aunt—the queen. She demanded that I use my gaze on her, but I don’t remember anything else.”

Eui narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.

“Tsk, sounds like she probably did know about it, then. I guess she never bothered telling you. I wonder just how much the high nobles know that they are keeping from us lowly citizens.”

“U-um, technically Eui, you’re not a citizen any—”

Eunae cut herself off when Eui shot her an angry glare. Jia frowned in contemplation.

“Eui has a point, though. Even if I only met mine because of the spiritual training we got here, I can’t be the first person to discover this. At the very least, the high nobles definitely know something about our spiritual heritage that we don’t.”

“Well, speaking as one of those high nobles, nobody ever informed me about it, but I’ve yet to come of age and my family isn’t particularly fond of me, anyway. Why ancestors?”

Jia cocked her head at Eunae.

“What do you mean?”

“You described them as our spirit halves—which I admit makes a certain amount of sense—but why are you so firm on calling them our ancestors?”

Jia put a finger to her chin and thought about it for a moment.

“Hmm, well when I was in communion with mine it kept using a word—or concept I guess, it was weird to talk to—kin. It was more than just a word, and there was a lot of meaning packed into it that I couldn’t really understand, but I think that’s what it meant.”

Eunae leaned forward with interest.

“What else did it tell you? I’ve never heard of something like this before.”

Jia shrugged, scratching her cheek awkwardly.

“I’m not really sure. I think it wanted to tell me something about the mountain, but mostly it was insistent that I keep training the technique that allowed me to speak to it in the first place. It was really hard to talk to.”

Eunae sighed and began idly fiddling with the tip of one of her tails.

“I see. I don’t suppose you could teach me that technique? I’d rather like to commune with my own spirit half, if only to tell her to stop stealing the will of everyone I look at.”

Jia smiled apologetically and shook her head.

“Sorry, I trained this technique mostly by intuition. Even if I did know how to teach it, I think it’s probably very specific to my own spirit. I don’t know what the equivalent for yours would be, or how to discover it. Mine came to me in a dream, if that helps.”

Eunae’s face fell in disappointment, but it seemed to be the answer she expected.

“I suppose I’ll just have to discover it for myself. Knowing that it’s possible is encouraging, at least. Thank you for telling me about this, Jia.”

Eui leaned back against the armrest of the couch and blew a lock of hair out of her face.

“That’s super interesting and all, but what are we supposed to actually do about any of it?”

Jia shrugged and shook her head.

“I don’t actually know. I don’t think my plan has really changed. Keep training my spiritual resistance, keep practicing Steps of the Stalker—actually, Eui, what do you think we should be doing?”

Eui’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment before she crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling.

“Uh, you’re really putting me on the spot, here. Let me think. Well, Yue’s technique works through hearing, right? Like Eunae’s works through sight. So we could just practice cutting off our hearing and getting used to fighting without it. Also, we don’t know much about Zheng Long or Han Yu’s fighting styles, beyond that they are third stage members of Yan’s sect. We should get more information about them if we’re worried about a fight.”

Jia blinked in surprise. Not that she was surprised Eui had good ideas, but at the fact that something so obvious had slipped her own mind. Eui was right, she got too focused on her own ideas.

“That’s actually a fantastic idea, but we’ve only got four days left before the trip. We can probably work deaf sparring into it, but how are we going to get information on the Qin students?”

Eunae raised her hand and smiled.

“I might be able to assist with that. Zheng Long and Han Yu, right? Give me one—no, two days, and I will know everything there is to learn about them. Well, everything that’s known by the students at any rate.”

Jia raised her eyebrows in shock. She’d forgotten that Eunae habitually kept track of notable figures within the academy, and she’d never really thought about how she did it. Eunae smiled as if reading Jia’s mind.

“Loathe though I am to admit it sometimes, I am still a princess, Jia. We have our ways.”