Fates Parallel Chapter 43 - Plan

Lee Jia sat by the fire in her living room meditating—or trying to.

“So how do you plan on convincing Hayakawa to take us up to the mountain?”

Lee Jia eyed Yan Yue and sighed with frustration. She hadn’t expected her new roommate to be so chatty. It might have been tolerable, if not for the fact that it always seemed to be some sort of complaint or criticism.

“You do realize that you made up our relationship with Hayakawa, right? We’re in the same class, but we’re not associates, and we’re not personal disciples of Ienaga—whatever that means. Also, aren’t you supposed to be meditating or something?”

Yan Yue crossed her arms and scoffed petulantly.

“Hmph! It’s not night time yet, and I don’t feel like it.”

Lee Jia cocked her head with a confused expression. What did that have to do with it? It was a wonder Yan Yue had such an advanced level of cultivation with that kind of work ethic. Eui looked up from the book she was reading with an irritated scowl.

“Jia’s right. Hayakawa’s barely said two words to either of us—usually after pounding us into the dirt in a spar. I still can’t believe she’s only in the second stage.”

Jia nodded grimly. After training at the academy for long enough, they had picked up a basic idea of the capabilities of their fellow students. Hayakawa was by far the strongest single combatant among the students, with Dae as a distant second. Nobody else even approached those two, except maybe Eunae, if she actually used her gaze.

“Peak second stage, and purposely delaying her breakthrough, if she’s anything like Dae. Her aura’s become active, though I’ve never seen her actually using magic. I doubt she’s unlocked her qi yet, unless she knows something we don’t. Miss Yue, do you know why it takes so long to awaken the soul to spiritual arts?”

Yan Yue rolled her eyes and huffed irritably.

“You can drop the honorific—at least in private. I can’t stand watching you two going by given names and then awkwardly switching to formal speech with me.”

Jia shrugged. Once she might have felt awkward at the informality with a relative stranger, but after Eunae—

“Sure, same to you I guess.”

Yue nodded amiably, then went on to answer the question.

“It’s because the students here are all too old. Pushing the limits entirely, in some cases. Back home, new disciples usually begin their training as early as five or six, if they weren’t born awakened.”

Jia furrowed her brows in consternation.

“Born? How is that even possible?”

Yue sighed wistfully and had a bit of a far away look as she responded.

“Why do you think talented women cultivators are so prized, yet almost none are here? Think about it, Jia, it might be metaphysical, but where does it feel like the dantian is?”

“It’s like a space below the stomach, right around where the—”

Jia's eyes widened as she made a sudden connection that had not occurred to her before. Yue smiled and nodded.

“Yep, looks like you got it. For men, the location is hardly anything special, but for women it corresponds almost exactly with the womb. So what do you suppose happens when that woman cultivator has a child?”

“I’m guessing the baby is nurtured by the qi?”

Yue wobbled her head side to side a bit, considering.

“Sort of, yes. Have you heard of dual cultivation?”

Jia and Eui both froze briefly, but luckily, Yan Yue misinterpreted their sudden hesitation.

“Looks like you have. Well Qin has a bit of a dark history with dual cultivation as a predatory practice, so now it’s considered to be a demonic technique and forbidden. However, a pregnant mother and her child are naturally connected—it’s an exception.

“As the child grows, some of the mother’s cultivation is naturally transferred over. The mother can consciously hold it back, or willingly give up more, but it’s costly. My mother was at the peak of the third stage when she had me, and neither gave extra nor held anything back. I was born awakened, but my mother’s cultivation dropped to the early third stage.

“It took her two years to regain her strength, and then she got pregnant again. When Yan De found out it was a boy—well, my mother ended up giving everything she had for little Zhihao, all the way back to the first stage. What a waste.”

Yue had a bitter expression on her face, and Jia’s resolve to help her escape that fate was redoubled. She stroked her chin thoughtfully as she considered Yue’s tale.

“So that’s what Elder Qin and Xin Wei were talking about. I had wondered how anyone was supposed to do it without something like my awakening stone or—something.”

Lee Jia trailed off a bit lamely as she avoided the topic of Eui’s unique awakening and their joint meditation technique. Yue shook her head with a sad smile before suddenly jerking her head up to stare at Jia.

“Wait, what did you just say?”

Jia held her hands up defensively at the sudden sharpness of Yue’s tone.

“U-um, just that it’s difficult to awaken without an awakening stone.”

“Even putting aside how you know about awakening stones, that’s not how you said it—you said ‘my’ awakening stone. That stupid fucking fatty! He sent the stone with Zhihao!?”

Jia was startled by Yue’s use of profanity—until now, she had been extremely proper in her speech.

“Uh...y-yes? It was among the manuals in—you know.”

Jia avoided mentioning the ring aloud for fear of being overheard. Yue scoffed and shook her head.

“It’s a little late to worry about that now. Between the ring and the awakening stone, the stone is much more precious. Only the imperial family and the great sects have them, and each sect only has one. That one belongs to the Great Awakening Dragon Sect, and if my father knew it was here, he’d forget all about little Zhihao or siring a new heir. No wonder he’s so desperate to—”

Jia fidgeted self-consciously. She had known she was being bold when she had demanded everything from Yan Zhihao, but the full weight of it was starting to feel stifling. She wondered now, whether Qin Zhao had truly done her a favor back then, or if he had been expecting this, and playing the long game.

“W-what do I do? Should I give it back?”

“Tsk, don’t be stupid, they’d kill you just to make an example, and besides that, it would give away that you have the ring as well. How many people know you have it?”

Jia thought about it for a moment, she had lent the stone out to help most of her friends awaken.

“Just three. Dae—Hyeong Daesung, Seong Eunae, and Takeda Rika. Oh, and Elder Qin Zhao.”

Yan Yue choked on the response she had been preparing and stared incredulously at Jia.

“Gh—what!? And he didn’t say anything about it?”

Jia shook her head.

“He had more to say about the ring, and all he said was that he wouldn’t lower himself to rob a disciple, even if we were only his students by name.”

Tue bit her thumbnail and frowned.

“What is that crusty old imperial playing at? Well, that’s not too bad, as long as he’s keeping your secret. We can use this, as long as you tell your friends not to speak of it—actually, on that matter, who knows you have the ring?”

Jia made a sour face and Eui started laughing. She had ended up revealing her secret to her entire party during the fateful mountain expedition in winter.

“The same three, plus Xin Wei, Guan Yi, and Kim Yongsun.”

Yue’s sour expression matched Jia’s as she shook her head in disbelief.

“Ugh, really!? I’ve aligned myself with an imbecile. You’re terrible at keeping a secret!”

“It’s not my fault! Eui was hurt and—ugh, I’m not justifying myself to you!”

Yue waved off Jia protests.

“In any case, this is something you can use as leverage to convince Hayakawa to grant us access to the mountain.”

Jia sulked grumpily, unhappy at the idea of revealing and using such a precious resource just to maintain Yan Yue’s ruse.

“What’s the point? It’s not like Jianmo’s actually on that mountain. He’s long gone by now.”

“Maybe so, but we must keep up appearances, and access to the mountain will be beneficial for our cultivation.”

That was true—Jia was sure it was no coincidence that Hayakawa had finally managed to awaken her mana sense shortly after gaining access to the mountain for training. Still, her friends were one thing, but she wasn’t sure she trusted Hayakawa with such a big secret. Of the Yamato students, Kasai Hanako was the one she was closest to other than Rika, and even then she was just a friendly acquaintance.

If she was going to be trusting them with a secret like the awakening stone, she was going to need to get much closer to them.

---

The next day, while Eui oversaw Yue’s bullyi—Yue’s training, Lee Jia found herself considering her Yamato classmates more closely than she had before. She felt a little bad for not paying them much mind before, but she had already made more friends at the academy than she had ever had before.

Kasai Hanako—who preferred to be called Hana—was the one Jia knew best, simply because Hana’s extremely outgoing and friendly demeanor. She would happily join any conversation, and was usually the first to volunteer to participate in sparring matches and exercises with the non-Yamato half of the class.

A distant second for the one Lee Jia interacted with most was Satou Ryuuji. He didn’t speak much, and had a very serious attitude. The limited conversations Lee Jia had shared with him had always been about martial arts training, and he came off as a bit of a loner.

Then there was Hayakawa Kaede and her pet sycophant Miyata Toshiharu. Miyata didn’t seem to have much going for him beyond his incessant toadying. He was an average combatant at best, and it was disturbingly easy to forget he even existed apart from being Hayakawa’s shadow.

Hayakawa herself didn’t pay Miyata much mind, except when he tried to overstep or speak for her—which she always chastised. She wasn’t unfriendly, nor was she as cold as Satou. Instead, her attitude was best described as aloof and distant—every conversation was like speaking to someone you had just met on the street.

Those were the four who had been given access to the mountain’s peak for training as a reward for culling the most beasts during the expedition. Well, there were actually six others who had been on their team as well, but Lee Jia couldn’t remember their names or faces—and since she had perfect recall, that meant she had never bothered to learn them in the first place.

Jia envied their reward, though she hadn’t come away from the expedition empty-handed—her team had been rewarded with access to the academy archives, as a reward for discovering and resolving the source of the mana disturbance. She hadn’t made much use of it, though, except to do some limited research on the nature of demons and a fruitless search for qi techniques that could be practiced effectively by women.

Oh, and it was also where she met Dae for studying now—he practically lived there, these days.

Hayakawa and her team were granted permission to bring up to one guest each along with them for mountain training—with the stipulation that they had to be at least second stage in one or more disciplines, as there were dangerous beasts on the mountain.

Lee Jia supposed she could ask one of the other six teammates she’d forgotten, but she didn’t know them at all, and even if she did, she doubted that they would agree to anything without Hayakawa’s blessing. Among the Yamato students, Hayakawa’s status was second only to Master Ienaga herself—apparently she was an important political figure.

So in the end it all came back to Hayakawa herself. If Lee Jia was going to gain access to the mountain, she would need to go through Hayakawa. But how? According to Yan Yue, it was enough if they could just get Yan Yue onto the mountain at first, but later she knew that Zheng Long would demand to make his own investigation.

Lee Jia supposed that the first thing she would need to do is actually approach—which was easier said than done. Hayakawa was as intense as Eunae, though it was a more quiet sort of intensity than Eunae’s aggressively friendly willfulness.

---

Lee Jia stood nervously across the dueling ring from Hayakawa. It was the same place where she had defeated Yan Zhihao in her fateful duel not long after arriving at the academy. Back then, she had been filled with the anticipation for a difficult battle that she had spent an entire week training for. This time, she felt like she was attending her own execution.

She had approached Hayakawa to ask for a one-on-one sparring match, thinking it would be a good excuse to strike up a conversation, but it had not gone to plan. Somehow, Miyata had gone and convinced everyone that it should be a proper duel, and before she knew what was happening, everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch.

Miyata’s voice called out and broke her from her reverie.

“Ready!?”

No! Lee Jia was about as far from ready as she’d ever felt, but she nodded affirmation anyway, and lowered herself into a mobile stance—Hayakawa was fast, and would probably open the duel aggressively.

“Begin!”

As expected, Hayakawa launched herself directly towards Lee Jia as soon as the duel began. She was impossibly fast, which Jia knew had something to do with her weight-altering martial art. Luckily, Jia’s own Lightning God Transformation also had a focus on high-speed mobility, and she had gotten much better at controlling the path she took when using the movement technique.

As Hayakawa closed the distance, Lee Jia launched herself in a jagged arc that gave her opponent a wide berth, arriving safely on the other side of Hayakawa. Jia knew that she had no chance in a close-range battle. Hayakawa could massively increase her weight without any impact on her speed, which rendered most of Lee Jia’s strikes useless and gave her own strikes a brutal impact.

Instead, Jia chose to keep her distance and focus on less physical means of assault. First, she activated the newest form of her Corruption of the Fetid Bog technique—silently cursing Hwang for giving it such a gross name. The area around her was infused with corrosive qi, in what she recognized as a crude facsimile of a true domain.

The original version of this technique created a sort of sanctuary aura which would provide warmth, comfort, and—in its most advanced applications—healing to anyone within its effect. Lee Jia’s corrosive version did the exact opposite—creating a cold, unsettling aura that would sap the strength of anyone within it.

Though Jia’s domain wasn’t as strong without Eui with her, she had discovered a synergy between her domain and any aura-type techniques—she could intuitively absorb the aura into her domain, temporarily changing her natural aura to exhibit the same effects, with increased potency.

As Hayakawa caught up and entered the effects of Lee Jia’s corrosive domain, her face went pale and her steps faltered slightly. That moment of hesitation was enough time for Lee Jia to slip away once again. The technique was effective, but she knew that Hayakawa would anticipate it next time, and press on through.

Still, the noxious feeling should at least slow Hayakawa down a little bit. Lee Jia attempted to hit Hayakawa with a shock talisman as she fled, but Hayakawa anticipated the attack and caught the bolt with a burst of ki that dispersed the attack. Lee Jia could only clench her teeth and internally commend Hayakawa for her impressive timing—lightning was not easy to parry.

After a few more exchanges like that, Jia began to wonder if she might actually have a chance. Hayakawa was fast, but Jia’s corrosive aura had evened the playing field somewhat in that regard—and while neither of them had been able to land any decisive strikes on the other, Jia’s domain and her combat meditation technique gave her confidence in winning a battle of attrition.

Perhaps coming to the same conclusion, Hayakawa gave up her chase and stood still in the middle of the ring, at a safe distance from both Jia’s aura and her spells. Lee Jia started to get a bit nervous as Hayakawa took a stance that she had never seen before and took a deep, steadying breath.

Lee Jia had no idea what this was. She considered trying to approach, but worried that it might be some kind of trap. She gripped a talisman that she wore for emergencies—the only one she hadn’t set off against Yan Yue when she had been taken captive. While it paled in comparison to the one Dae had made her, Lee Jia had learned the lightning bolt spell and created her own special talisman as a trump card.

She shook her head—this was just an exhibition match. Whatever Hayakawa was up to, it wasn’t worth expending her best talisman. Instead, Lee Jia began to edge cautiously towards Hayakawa, waiting for her to make a move.

Just before Lee Jia made it close enough to catch Hayakawa in her aura again, she saw Hayakawa drop her stance lower and whisper a single word in the native Yamato tongue.

“Mujuuryoku!”

Suddenly, Hayakawa vanished completely from sight, and before Jia even had time to panic, appeared right next to her, already throwing a punch towards Lee Jia’s face. The most Jia could do was try to lean back from the strike, but it was too little, too late. The blow landed with the force of a tree uprooted by a typhoon.

The taller girl’s strike came down on Lee Jia’s face and smashed her viciously into the stone floor of the dueling ring, causing the stones to crack as Jia bounced off of them once before landing in an awkward heap.

Jia’s entire world was spinning, and it felt like she’d broken every bone in her body. Distantly she heard someone shouting—probably Eui—but mostly she just heard the ringing in her ears. She was certain she had a concussion, and was surprised she hadn’t already fallen unconscious.

In her last moment of lucidity before falling unconscious, it occurred to Lee Jia that her plan to engage Hayakawa could have gone a lot better.