by Gage Lee
“I need to meditate a bit,” I said. “Cycle my jinsei, get my core ready. I’ll see you guys after the fight, right?”
Clem’s eyes met mine for a moment. There was something troubled in her gaze. Her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to speak. The moment stretched out into a taut line between us. I knew I should say something.
I just didn’t know what.
“Yeah.” Clem pulled a chipper grin tight across her face. “We’ll be there to congratulate you when you beat him.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Clem looked away from me then, her eyes misty, suddenly very intent on the food in front of her.
Abi and Eric wished me well, and I left the dining hall almost as confused as I had been the night before. I’d rather face a whole squad of heretics than go through that weirdness again.
I found a quiet place to gather my thoughts, far from the hubbub of the dining hall. I reached out to rats all through the School, binding them to my core and sending them off on another search for Hahen. I really needed the little rat spirit’s advice. I missed him and wondered if he missed me, too.
A solid two hours of searching turned up nothing. My rat minions didn’t pick up even a trace of Hahen’s scent anywhere in the School. It was as if he never existed.
Sort of like Tycho’s lab.
Disappointed, I released the rats and meditated to center my Eclipse nature. It was restless, churning inside me like a tiger pacing its cage. It sensed what was coming and wanted me to unleash it on Rafael.
There was no way that was happening. I tried to impress upon the dark urge the importance of behaving when there would be so many students and professors watching the duel. If I lost control and something like Singapore happened again, everyone would know I was dangerous. It wouldn’t be hard for the professors to put two and two together and discover I was an Eclipse Warrior.
And that would be a death sentence.
My core didn’t seem to care very much about the danger and was still agitated when it came time for me to head down to the exercise yard. I kept cycling my breath, purging the anxiety and anger aspects from my aura as I walked. I needed to be cool and calm during the duel. Score the points, beat Rafael, and no one had to get hurt.
I reached the exercise courtyard just in time. The area was packed wall to wall with students, the air buzzing with their excited chatter. Rafael and Professor Song were already in the center of the open space, waiting for me to arrive. I hadn’t intended to arrive at the last moment but was glad I did. My late entrance irritated Rafael and put him on edge.
That gave me an advantage.
Every eye in the place turned to me as I strode toward my opponent. An excited cheer crashed through the student body on either side of me, spreading around the courtyard in a rippling ring. The thunderous applause was peppered with boos from the Disciples in the crowd. That was good, too. I’d learned to feed on the haters while fighting in the Five Dragons Challenge. Whether the crowd was for or against me didn’t really matter. It was their passion that fueled me.
Professor Song raised his hands and waited for the gathered crowd to settle down. It took longer than I expected, and I used the time to psych Rafael out. Where he was angry, I was calm. I’d nothing to prove in this fight. I’d beaten so many challengers in the past few months, one loss wouldn’t do much to tarnish my reputation. I held the Disciple’s gaze, showing him I was ready and more than willing this time.
Rafael’s rage boiled around him. His aura was a confused cloak of anger and shame, the aspects churning around one another like sizzling oil and cold water. He wanted to defeat me not just because he thought I’d dishonored his sister, but because he hated my guts.
“All right, gentlemen,” Professor Song said, his voice boosted by jinsei so everyone watching could hear, “this is a formal duel. The winner will be decided by three touches anywhere on the torso or head. I have inscribed a circle, and there will be no doubt about when a touch is legal and confirmed. I expect no injuries from this duel. Am I clear?”
“Yes, honored Professor,” I said and bowed toward Song.
“Of course,” Rafael said through gritted teeth. He bowed to the professor, too, then we faced one another and bowed again.
“Very well.” Professor Song positioned himself between us and waited for Rafael and me to fall into our combat stances. “Fight!”
The professor dropped his hand in a vertical chopping motion, then leaped back out of the ring.
Rafael surged across the ring toward me, hands raised to guard his head and ready to strike. His steps were smooth and even, his feet scarcely touching the ground as he charged. He unleashed a jinsei-boosted bellow designed to rattled me when he came within striking range and frowned when I didn’t so much as flinch.
I held my ground and my cross guard defensive position. My eyes remained focused on the center of Rafael’s chest, which I’d learned was the first part of an opponent’s body to move when it came time for an attack. My breath cycled smoothly and evenly through me, my core filled with jinsei. I was as ready as I’d ever be and had decided to let Rafael make the first move.
He didn’t disappoint me.
The Disciple unloaded a flurry of punches that I deflected with my forearms. He transitioned smoothly into a spinning kick accelerated by a burst of jinsei. The air crackled around his heel as it sped toward my left side, so fast it was little more than a sparkling blur.
As fast as the attack was, my defense was faster. My left arm swept down and out in a powerful circle, catching Rafael by surprise. I pushed the jinsei from my core into my arm at the exact moment of impact, and the burst of sacred energy flung my opponent’s leg away from me.
Rafael shouted in surprise as his body twisted out of his control. His foot slipped off the ground, and for a moment he was airborne. His shoulder slammed onto the grass, and he curled into a ball to protect himself from the follow-up attack he knew was coming.
I took a single step and rapped his forehead with my knuckles.
The ring around us flashed a brilliant blue, and a wall of sparks shot into the air.
“Point, Jace,” Professor Song shouted.
Rafael sneered at my offered hand and kicked back up to his feet without my assistance. His aura was clotted with far more anger than shame now, and the dark aspects seemed to fuel him much as the crowd energized me. The Disciple turned his back on me and walked away.
Professor Song reentered the circle, glanced at each of us, then raised his hand again.
I didn’t like the look in Rafael’s eyes. Given the chance, he might just try to kill me again in front of everyone.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Ready,” Professor Song said. “Fight!”
Rafael took a different approach this time. He walked toward me, hands loose at his sides, bobbing his head left and right like an undisciplined street fighter. He thrust his chin forward as if begging me to knock him out. He was on the warpath, and he wanted blood.
I needed to end this, quickly.
Without hesitation, I triggered the Borrowed Core technique and connected myself to the maximum number of rats I could control. A single breath filled my aura with beast aspects, and I held them at the ready.
“Come on, coward,” Rafael snarled. “You think you can take me. Make a move and prove it.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I told the Disciple. “Whatever you think happened with your sister, you’re wrong.”
At the mention of his sibling, Rafael’s eyes narrowed to hateful slits. His rage blossomed from his core, clouding his aura with pure hate.
I chose that moment to make my attack. I stepped up to Rafael and drove a punch straight at the middle of his chest. I boosted it with little jinsei to give it more speed, though I didn’t put anywhere near my full strength into the attack. My goal was to score another point, not hurt Rafael.
My opponent deflected the blow with his forearm and snapped a kick
toward my midsection in return.
The strike was too fast to block, forcing me to pivot to the side so it could slide past me without scoring a point. Rafael’s extended leg right in front of me was far too tempting a target to pass up. I grabbed his ankle with one hand and his knee with the other. Jinsei poured from my core into my arms and hands as I prepared to snatch Rafael into the air and slam him back to the ground.
But as soon as my fingers closed around his leg, Rafael unleashed a technique I hadn’t seen before.
All the anger he’d built up in his aura burst away from him in a powerful shock wave. It ripped my hands away from his body and threw me back toward the edge of the dueling ring. Worse, the furious wave smashed into my core and scattered half the jinsei I’d gathered.
The maneuver had also severed my connections through the Borrowed Core and sapped my strength. I was stunned and unsteady on my feet, hands wobbling uselessly when I tried to raise them to defend myself. Three shimmering Rafaels approached me, all blurry and indistinct, and I couldn’t tell which one was the real threat.
And then, suddenly, one of the trio of enemies solidified. Rafael gave me a wide, hungry smile and drove an open-palm strike into the center of my chest.
Red sparks exploded around the dueling circle.
“Point, Rafael,” Professor Song shouted. He motioned Rafael back, then grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes. “You okay to continue?”
My vision was still blurry, and my core ached from the lingering effects of Rafael’s technique. I felt like I was standing on the deck of a ship in rough seas, my legs unsteady beneath me. I shook my head and cycled my breath, pulling on the beast aspects and hoping that would steady me. One breath, two, and I nodded.
“I’m fine,” I said to the professor. “I’m good.”
“Ready,” Professor Song said, eyeing me warily as I assumed a defensive position. “Fight!”
It turns out I wasn’t fine. My core was a jumbled mess and my aura was shot through with confusion and exhaustion aspects. Rafael hardly had to try to score a second point with a simple punch to my gut.
My Eclipse nature was strangely subdued when I needed its aggressive strength the most. The dark urge lay quiet beneath my thoughts like a slumbering alligator. I shook my head and purged as much of the weakness and confusion as I could from my aura. Adding more jinsei to my core helped, but not enough.
This was bad. If I didn’t recover, soon, I’d lose this duel.
As we reset our positions and assumed our stances, my thoughts raced to find a solution to this problem. My darker nature was playing possum, for whatever reason, so I’d need something tricky. A thought occurred to me, and I clung to the sneaky tactic that had sprung into my thoughts.
“Ready,” Professor Song called out once we’d assumed our fighting stances. “Fight!”
Rafael wanted to finish the duel and claim his victory. He was cocky, and that made him careless.
He walked toward me, no mind for defense, no techniques ready, the victory already secure in his mind.
“You’re done,” he said. “The big man, brought low by my hand.”
Rafael’s overconfidence gave me a tiny window of opportunity, and I took it. I pretended to stumble toward him, as if my legs could barely hold me up. The crowd gasped, sure I’d just lost the match.
My opponent raised his hands above his head, laced his fingers together, and swung a hammer blow down at my back.
Blue sparks exploded around the ring, and Rafael gasped and stumbled away from me. The front of his robes had a long, clean slice through them. A single drop of his blood ran down the fusion blade I’d summoned at the last possible second.
“Point, Jace,” Professor Song said, clearly surprised by my maneuver. “Take a knee, Mr. Warin. I want to make sure Rafael is all right.”
“No!” Rafael shouted. “I’m fine. He barely scratched me. Let’s finish this.”
The maneuver had worked, but it had cost me dearly. I’d use the last of the pure jinsei still in my core to summon my blade, and there wasn’t time to refill. I was completely defenseless, now, and my body would only grudgingly and clumsily take orders from my mind. I wasn’t sure there was anything else I could do.
Unless...
I settled into a low, defensive crouch. I held my arms tight in front of my chest, hands raised on either side of my face to protect me from a finishing blow. The next point would decide everything, and I wouldn’t go down easily.
Rafael adopted a neutral stance. He kept his right hand across his torso, protecting himself from a body blow. His left elbow was just above his right fist, that forearm vertical so his hand could protect his face on that side. It was a balanced posture, good for either attack or defense.
Especially against an opponent he knew was weakened.
“Ready,” Professor Song said. “Fight!”
I didn’t move. My legs were still wobbly, and without jinsei to strengthen them, I didn’t trust myself to take so much as another step. Instead, I cycled my breath through my core to calm myself and center my awareness. I’d struggled with this technique all year, and if it didn’t work now, I’d lose the fight.
Rafael took his time approaching me. He was wary I’d cut him again and didn’t want to give me the advantage like he had the last time. He balanced on the balls of his feet, head weaving back and forth like a snake sizing up its prey. Jinsei gathered around his hands in dark, shadowy clouds. If his next punch landed, it was really going to hurt.
My Eclipse nature roused itself at last. It wanted me to devour the jinsei and his core. It wanted blood and death. It hungered, and denying it in my weakened state was so very hard. It promised me an easy win if I let it off the leash. One moment was all it would take. Rafael would pay the ultimate price for his arrogance.
It would be Singapore all over again.
No. I’d rather lose than go through that again.
There was another way. I felt the technique at the edge of my mind, ready to unlock. It was now or never.
My serpents uncoiled from my shoulders, a roiling mass of beast, confusion, and exhaustion aspects. The tumbling mixture made a poor weapon or shield, and it was difficult to control. A precise strike was out of the question, and there was no way I’d be able to use the serpents to block Rafael’s jinsei-infused attack.
That was all right. This technique wasn’t about precision.
I took a deep breath, focused all my attention on what had to happen next, and waited for Rafael to strike.
“This is over,” my opponent declared. “You’re done.”
His fist shrieked toward me, a shadowy trail of dark jinsei behind it. It was a brutal, ferocious attack. If it touched me, I’d end up with broken bones at the very least. With no jinsei to defend myself, it might even land me in the emergency room.
Professor Song seemed to realize that, too. He shouted wordlessly and rushed back into the ring. There was no way he’d reach us in time, but it was nice that he’d at least tried to save me from the crippling blow.
My Eclipse nature strained to burst free of my control. It wanted to stop Rafael, no matter the cost. It didn’t care if it revealed itself, or how badly it would hurt my opponent. It wanted to survive.
But I couldn’t do that. Killing Rafael over a duel of honor wasn’t just monstrous, it was dangerous. Someone would find out what I’d done, what I was, and they’d kill me for it.
I pulled the serpents tight around me, like a cloak of churning jinsei.
Rafael saw the shield form and his grin widened. He saw the wispy protection and knew it couldn’t stop his brutal assault. His fist hammered into the thin veil of the serpents.
Just as I’d hoped.
When Rafael’s aura passed into the thin layer of serpents that protected my chest, I sprang my trap. I let the tiniest piece of my Eclipse core’s hunger rip through the tenuous connection between us. A dull roar filled my head, and a seismic shift revealed a new level of martial mastery to me.
The serpents were no longer separate from my core or aura; all three parts of my sacred arts were joined. The fusion strengthened every part of me, and I saw the end of this fight as clearly as I saw Rafael’s sneering face.
Something in my core snapped, and a new technique burst into my thoughts: Thief’s Shield.
For the briefest moment, my aura overlapped with Rafael’s. In that split second, my Eclipse core stripped the aspects from his aura and drained the jinsei from his core. My dark urge wanted to absorb all of the sacred energy from my foe, and it took a shameful effort for me to stop the flow of power. A spike of black pain speared my core when I killed the technique, and I groaned and nearly fell.
Rafael went to one knee, eyes fluttering, chest hitching as he tried to catch his breath. The shock of losing nearly all of his jinsei and having his aura stripped of the aspects he’d leaned on to fuel his technique had stunned him senseless.
Professor Song reached us just as I ended the duel with a tap of my boot’s toe against Rafael’s chest.
“Final point, Jace!” the professor called as blue sparks shot into the air around the ring. Rafael toppled onto his side. “The duel is complete. Jace Warin is the winner.”
The crowd roared, cheers and boos mingling together in a wave of emotion that tumbled over me. I raised my hands over my head, bolstered by the energy that poured out of the crowd. I reached down to offer Rafael a hand up.
The woozy Disciple stared at me for a moment, shook his head, and tried to stand on his own.
“I don’t need help,” he said.
“Everyone needs help,” I said. “Take my hand.”
Rafael glanced at my hand, then up to my eyes. Finally, he accepted my offer. I hauled him to his feet and raised his hand into the air with mine.
I’d won the duel without killing my opponent. I wondered if Rafael knew his prize had been the greater one that day.
The Hit
TIME SEEMED TO RUSH by after my duel with Rafael. If I wasn’t in class or eating, I tried to sneak away to channel and focus on advancing my core. That almost never happened, though, because Rachel and Clem had both gotten very good at ambushing me and hauling me off for some one-on-one time.
