B2 Ch. 9 Wax On.

Mulling over Ichiro’s question, Tilly found himself caught between sharing a list of his abilities and their effects or a higher-level summary of how he thought of himself as a combatant.  Ichiro registered his hesitation and gestured to a nearby log with a smile.  Tilly nodded in appreciation and they walked over together and settled down facing each other.

Tilly started with a simple run-down of his abilities, but the conversation very quickly hopped the rails of what he expected as Ichiro stopped him at each ability and asked when and how the abilities first emerged.

Very quickly, this turned into Tilly giving a full summary of his journey through Nephesh, stopping where Ichiro asked for clarification or more details.  Through it all, Ichiro's face never wavered from its vaguely interested and serene cast.

Whether this was due to his meditative state or a genuine unruffled interest, Tilly couldn’t help but be put at ease.  As time went on, he found himself sharing much more of the internal conflict he had faced than he expected.  It's not that he had been leaving this part out of previous explanations.  Rather, it was more that Ichiro seemed to be primarily interested in the internal environments that made up the context for each of his ability advancements and failures.  He seemed to care very little for the number side of things, instead showing a focused and consistent curiosity around Tilly’s internal state and motivations as he navigated the challenges he had faced so far in his time on Nephesh.

It was unlike any conversation Tilly had ever had, and despite Ichiro’s milky white eyes that made it difficult to know where he was looking at times, Tilly felt… seen.

“-When I saw the tree and what it was doing to you and the Flame, and I just lost it.  I went all out in an attack, and that was when I first manifested the flames.”

“Ah, interesting… I wonder, could you tell me more about what you were feeling at that moment when you charged the altar?  What exactly did you lose and what did you gain?”

…

“-This time he had one of the little kids and was threatening to kill him.  I was already furious, but when he shouted out that I was corrupted in front of Amelia and the kid… something snapped.--”

“One moment, do you mind telling me the physical sensations that accompanied this shift, and if you could, any thoughts you remember in the moments leading up to your loss of full conscious control?.”

…

They talked for hours.  At one point Ichiro even pulled out rice balls stuffed with some sort of meat for a late lunch and they both ate as they continued the discussion.  Ichiro was especially fascinated by Tilly’s description of the pattern reaching into eternity, and what he saw at the beginning and the end.  He asked Tilly to repeat the story several times, pulling out every detail Tilly could remember and even some descriptions that only occurred to him in retrospect.

They finally arrived at Tilly’s description of his recent encounter in the inner room of the temple outside of time.

“Hmm… This Facet of our Patron that we host in the temple continues to display a penchant for affecting time.  A very rare power-”  There he paused, his look taking on a momentarily heavy cast as he continued,

“- and very dangerous.  Perhaps, more powerful than the flame abilities you have demonstrated so far by an order of magnitude.”  He mused, his expression softening as his gaze drifted from Tilly, back to the temple.

“Ichiro, can you tell me a little more about your eyes?”  Tilly asked, his curiosity getting the better of him as he once again tried to understand what exactly the lapin was seeing that others couldn't.

“Ah, of course,”  He said, dragging his attention back to Tilly.  He took a deep breath and explained.

“The cleansing you released when you ended Corruption’s incursion into the temple hit me full while my gaze was frozen open by my captive state.” at those words an almost imperceptible shiver ran up his body.

“The clash of forces along with the direct contact with the blast resulted in a new title and an accompanying skill that allows me to see not just the physical world, but whatever forces move upon it.  Right now my vision is filled with a sea of interwoven strands of past, present, and future possibilities, along with all the forces acting on the environment around me.  It is so complex that I am at a very real risk of losing my mind if not for my ability to maintain a near-constant meditative state.  Even when I am blindfolded, and lose all input from the physical world, I am still bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information in the form of a sea of strands of space, time, and energy, all woven together.”  He said, some of the gravity of what he was enduring leaking into his voice,

“I am learning to limit my focus and filter out the majority of what I am seeing, but it is… very difficult.  Especially around many people or strong emotions, which both agitate the already incomprehensibly intricate pattern playing out all around me.“

“Ichiro, can you see things before they happen?”  Tilly asked, thinking back to a few of the more clairvoyant moments he had experienced with the lapin.  At his question, Ichiro’s face scrunched up thoughtfully, and he seemed to roll the questions around in his head several times before answering slowly.

“..I do not believe so.  Perhaps one day, something like being able to read the pattern to that extent will emergy, but as of now, I can not understand the vast majority of what I am seeing.  What I do know is that every action is preceded by thoughts and emotions.  The stronger the instigating internal motion is the more affected the pattern around you, even before you move.   At times I can pick up on that disturbance in the pattern before the physical action is produced.”  He finished leaning back into a slumped shoulder exhale, before taking a deep breath in and straightening his back with considerable effort.

“So you might go insane before you get a handle on this, and I might become a monster and hopefully be consumed in my own flames… Hell of a pair we make, huh?”  Tilly asked smiling.  Nothing to it but to grin and move through it.

Ichiro’s screwed up in confusion for just a moment before completely releasing its tension into a simple, easy smile,

“Yes, I believe it is this very adversity that destines us for greatness… I am sure this time together will be beneficial for both of us.  Even in my Battle Trance, it is still difficult to focus on my immediate surroundings and emotions.  The flow of the strands around me is incredibly difficult to resist.”  he said, looking down at his light-furred hands for a moment as if they held some answers he had not yet found.  Then he clapped them together suddenly and looked up at Tilly in consideration under the light of the late afternoon sun.

“But, if I may, I believe there is something more than combat skill I can teach you… something that will possibly be much more useful in the long run.”  He said, moving from the log to a place on the ground and pulling his sword and scabbard out of its band and onto his lap.

This is it! The full Karate Kid Myagi montage begins…

“Fire away.  I'll take anything I can get!”  Tilly said, settling down opposite the lapin.

“One of several benefits of my condition is the forced meditative state I must remain in if I want to stay present. This has increased my already considerable skill to something I believe may be unique, especially at my reduced level.  I want to pass on as much of what I know as I can.  I believe these techniques will do two things:” He said, raising a single finger,

“First, it will help fortify your mind against Corruptions influence without walling yourself off from your emotions.  It is essential that you not drift away from the awareness of your emotions, for they will bear fruit whether you are vigilant or not.  Better to know yourself and move from a place of honesty, then try and outrun what is inevitable.”

“Okay, meditation sounds pretty good and I can definitely use the help in the self-control department, but I thought it was all about getting rid of your emotions?”  Tilly asked

“In truth, there are many techniques that do just that.  However, the one I will teach you was given to me by my mother.  She came from a long line of servants of the Moon Goddess and they believed that meditation is about taking time to truly experience the full breath of thought and emotion.  If you do this often enough, they will flow through you like a spring, and not damn up into a maze-like series of walls that not even you understand.”  That one hit a little closer to home than Tilly was comfortably admitting.

“Leveling this technique of meditation will allow you to develop the ability to experience the deeper longings of your soul. All emotion is built on a foundation of desire and it is the strength of your desire that determines how much Will you leverage in any given action.  But the second benefit of this technique is not available unless you understand yourself and on some level,  accept who you are.”

Tilly winced internally at how much this was begging to sound like therapy...  Even worse, it seemed like it was supposed to be him, talking to himself. For decades he had survived on his ability to stop thinking and just move.

“Do the job and get out.” He had advised rookie after rookie.

Yet here Ichiro was challenging his entire way of facing obstacles. Tilly had always prided himself on his ability to shut out the noise and get shit done… but this seemed like something entirely different.

“Is that what  Battle Trance is?  You, doing all of that thinking and feeling while fighting… or I guess at this point, moving?  It sounds disorienting.”

Ichiro smiled at the questions while shaking his head in a slight ‘no’ motion,

“Battle Trance is something else entirely, the skill is locked until you get a meditation and combat skill past a certain level.  Then at some point in true combat, you achieve a moment of clarity, and the two skills birth a new one.  However due to the power of my Will and my struggle to stay present, I am slowly adapting it to a kind of constant integrated meditation.”  as the lapin spoke, his smile slipped momentarily, as if explaining the process of his continued struggle intensified it momentarily.

“As great as this all sounds, it feels like something that will take years to truly see results.  Are you sure it's going to make enough of a difference for me in the next 24 days? ”

“That entirely depends on how much you trust me.”  The lapin responded, open-faced without a hint of guile or ulterior motive.

Tilly thought hard, running through the events of the last couple of weeks in his head as he had shared them with Ichiro.  So much seemed to be passive, like he was being pulled along, often by his own knee-jerk reactions.  Maybe this wouldn't make a huge difference in his next fight, but if it could somehow help him get a handle on life here in this plane, it had to be worth it…

“Alright, I'm in,” Tilly answered, leaning forward with the same roguish grin that had been plastered on his face on the way to many a fire.  If he was going to go for this, he would do it all in.

“Wonderful!”  Ichiro exclaimed, clapping his hands together and creating a surprisingly loud sound with the impact.

“We will begin by unlocking the meditation skill.  Afterward, we will return to the valley, eat, and then I will test your blades.  This cycle of meditation, eating, and combat will continue every morning we are able.  Then before lunch, you will meditate again, processing your experiences and solidifying them in your soul.  It is my goal to set you up to achieve Battle Trance in the coming fight, which should help you immensely in resisting Corruption’s growth in the heat of combat.  It will also have the added effect of making you far more deadly than your stats suggest.”  He declared authoritatively before smoothly standing from his seated position,

“But first, you must understand the power of a truly hardened Will. You have felt a small amount of what my father is able to do when he focuses his will into a palpable killing Intent. This is not all Intent can do. It can empower almost any action to a degree few know possible.”