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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/SteelTrim on 2025-06-25 04:58:41+00:00.

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It took a while for John to come back to his senses, and by that point, they were already walking back to the fort to “plot their next move.” Yuki had stolen his notebook a while back, writing down what were presumably all the spots where the kappa had seen armed people fishing. Now that he thought of it, he could have brought his self-drawn map along for the yokai to mark, but he suspected it wouldn’t have been too helpful.

No, what little of the kappa’s instructions he heard were all based around the landmarks in the river, and he suspected that even if they had a decent quality map, it would have been impossible for him to mark down everything. It was easy to forget how much worse maps used to be before the advent of satellite imagery.

Soon enough, they were back at the fort, and he headed toward the workshop. If they were to do this, it’d be a lot faster if he managed to get the flying disc, which he should really come up with a name for, working a bit better. Being able to just fly up and look for a building poking through the sea of green was a hell of a lot easier than trying to scan at ground level, potentially falling for traps or ambushes.

“Sensei John!” he turned to see Rin speed up to follow him, almost bouncing on her heels once she caught up. He stood outside the door of his workshop, hand on it, about to swing it open. Obviously, he couldn’t show Rin his workshop. That’d give away the game immediately, and there was no guarantee she’d not run back to her family or whoever she’s loyal to with that information, whoever they may be.

“Yes?” he asked, voice perhaps a bit more tense than it should be.

“I would ask for your aid in processing this!” the dragon-blooded exclaimed, holding out the… jar which he knew contained a kappa finger, and John had to hide a shiver of disgust.

“I…” he trailed off while he tried to come up with an excuse that gave up nothing.

“I’ll aid you myself,” Yuki, his angel, cut in. “He will be nearby, of course, as his role as sensei demands it.” Yuki, you absolute devil!

“Right.” John tried to keep the annoyed venom out of his voice, and when he glanced at Yuki, all he saw was faux innocence. She was a good actor, certainly, but he believed he was starting to grasp how she thought. “Just one second, I have to grab some… things.”

“Would you mind grabbing a table while you’re gone? It’d be greatly appreciated,” Yuki requested as he turned away to his workshop, and he idly shot her a thumbs-up as he walked away. If she didn’t figure out what it meant already, she would soon… Perhaps it was a bit informal to do so in front of Rin, but as far as she knew, it was a sign of grand respect in his culture.

Unblocking the lab, he grabbed various measuring equipment, a series of sensors rigged to various meters and dials. Some were rigged to give precise moment-to-moment readings, and others averages. A scattered few were tuned only to certain types of energy. Others were set to measure total maximums.

Regardless of his misgivings, he’d be remiss not to use this chance to get more data. He still didn’t understand how the Unbound worked. How did they extract power from yokai material? Was it something he could replicate? Yuki said that he couldn’t without much bed rest… but what if he could find a way around that, or even figure out how to optimize the process?

Grabbing the last of his tools… and a table, he headed back out to his fate. If he was going to have to watch an unhinged woman eat a turtle-person’s finger, he was going to get something out of it, damn it.

________________________

Rin knelt before the table that Sensei John had levitated outside on Yuki’s request. Quietly, she was glad that her mysterious teacher had something else properly waterproofed. Although she could certainly use that strange table with the raised seating attached, the dragon-blooded couldn’t imagine it comfortable.

Maybe there was some benefit to sitting that way? She could see it as beneficial to the flow of blood or even ki, even if she couldn’t see someone meditating like that.

There were many things about her sensei that were incomprehensible, even if they were a bit less now. Guilt gnawed at her. To think, the fact that she was so close to attacking an innocent man… her heart could hardly bear the crushing weight.

Of course, he probably would have won, but her honour was like tarnished silver nonetheless. She would make up to them—both Sensei John and Lady Yuki were too kind to a lowly wandering blade. Her path, no, her sacred duty was far, far too close to being cut short!

Rin would never forget her father’s words.

“Grow strong. Become the blade that splits the clouds. Only then shall you return.”

She took a deep breath, centring herself as she withdrew the blessed pot from her robes, placing it in front of her and keeping her hands on it.

“I’m ready, Lady Yuki,” she looked at the kitsune who sat across from her, trying not to linger too long at all the inscrutable devices that Sensei John had set up, which were pointing at the two of them. She’s sure there’s some good reason for them, and he seemed eager to set them up.

The kitsune glanced over at the man next to her, and when he nodded, she said, “Let us begin, then.”

The kitsune reached out, covering Rin’s hands with her own. The kitsune’s soft, fuzzy grip positively oozed with power, and although it scared the dragon-blooded a tiny bit, she softened her Aegis and lowered her defences.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she carefully shaped the energy within herself, reaching out into the sealed pot like lightning tracing a path through the sky in slow motion. Plucking at the very edges of the Essence of the kappa, she weakened the ties that bound it in short, precise strokes, like a skilled doctor.

She reached for the next spot, and—her ki pulled to the side, away from where she had her attention. Yuki’s might easily overwhelmed her own, and she likened the experience to having a hand around her throat correcting her, even if not roughly.

“No, that will waste much of this. It’ll unravel much of the Essence from something aligned with Flowing Rivers to Bodies of Water in general,” she gently stated. “You’re primarily aligned with storms of all types, aren’t you?”

Hesitantly, she nodded.

“A complicated thing to embody,” Yuki mused, “and one that normally demands difficult to get materials. You can’t afford to waste anything. Here. Let me show you. Close your eyes, and feel how your energy is flowing.”

She was quick to obey, plunging herself into darkness as she shut the world out, focusing inward, on herself. Her spirit strained against the limits of her physical form. She felt the stirring storm pump through her veins.

Yuki carefully guided her focus, with firm yet gentle pulses of power not touching the kappa’s finger yet influencing Rin’s own ki, which carefully drilled in a few spots. It was a masterful display of control if she had ever seen one.

It was always difficult to picture one’s own energy moving in directions that were more like feelings than anything tangible, but Rin thought she had always managed decently. It was humbling to see how far she had to go. The kitsune moved her with poise, precision, and speed far beyond even her best days.

Yuki moved her in several directions at once, focusing on particular spots in core concepts she’d personally never look at breaking. They felt strong, and every bit of training she had was screaming that she’d destroy the densest, most valuable parts of the kappa’s Essence like this.

“Now strike,” Yuki commanded, and Rin blanched. Was this a test? A way to see if she’d follow her, even if she was being ordered to do something wrong? She had heard kitsune were strange, often beyond mortal comprehension due to the weight of eons they carried on their shoulders… But Yuki wasn’t that old.

But she would repay trust with trust regardless.

Rin attacked like the storm she aimed to embody, focused strikes obliterating Essence where she aimed, even if she winced at how much evaporated into nothing.

Wait. It was doing something!

She felt the flowing water start to break and disintegrate, turning hazy around the edges as it merged with the heavenly elements of Motion, Flowing Water, and Cleansing Change… but all the energy released was making them volatile, ready to break apart further. Sweat beaded on her brow as she tried to keep it together, but it was—

It was then that Yuki ground a small yellow and a tiny black crystal, previously unnoticed between her fingertips, into dust, releasing Air and Chaos-aligned energy into the mix, which she shoved into the pot with reckless abandon. It churned, soaking up the two amidst the maelstrom of unstable energy and forming… Lightning? No, that couldn’t be. How? There were many ways to call it, but to summon it as a heavenly element required something far more complex…

Rin watched in awe, maintaining the mixture’s stability only through years of ingrained training. Yuki guided her again, little strands of power slipping in as she grabbed the pieces of Motion and remaining Air before shoving them against the Flowing Water, turning it into Rain…

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