by J D Astra
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Cho. We have limited time and need to come to a resolution on our next step.”
He nodded and folded his hands on the table.
Shin-soo leaned in and whispered, “Ko-nah can read thoughts, just like the instructors, and he’ll know what was going through your mind when you asked for the frame.”
“I felt him try to invade my mind when I walked into the dining hall for the first time, and he failed,” I fired back.
Yuri nodded. “We advanced our jang-ryzo to the point of a fifth year, so it’s good to know he hasn’t exceeded this.”
“As much as I don’t want to work with Ko-nah—” Hana snarled his name—“he might be the only way to get that frame back. We need it.”
“What if he holds it ransom?” Shin-soo asked, flustered.
“Then we’re right back here with no harm done. He will have no idea what it is or how to use it. Even if he hands it over to the best ma users in all of Kokyu they wouldn’t figure out the puzzle box to open the munje pathways—but I doubt they could even figure out that’s what it is.”
“Your arrogance is going to get you hurt,” Shin-soo said, a snarl on his lips.
I leaned forward. “The puzzle box requires a munje sacrifice to activate and is coded in Mae’s language to only respond to my mental signature. Anyone else trying to open the pathways will just see a broken ry projection path to the diamond on the front.”
Shin-soo sat up straighter and shook his head. He wasn’t one to hold back. If he’d had another concern—no matter how big or small—he would’ve laid it on the table. Part of me wondered if Shin-soo just wanted me to be wrong.
I took a deep breath and sat back on my mat. “So, since Ko-nah’s involvement changes nothing about our current predicament, even if he betrays us, what are we going to do without the frame?” I asked, looking to each of my friends in turn.
Yuri blew all the air from her lungs in a raspberry. “Sneak out of Moon Shadow and invade Dokun’s warehouse?”
Shin-soo rolled his eyes with a tut and Hana rubbed the muscles in her temples. That was certainly a suicide mission. There was no way Dokun’s warehouses weren’t protected by Enjiho, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t do some nighttime recon. There were Ribatasan friendly bars nearby and other places we could go to learn more about our enemy—or make connections who could easily get the frame back from Ko-nah if he tried to hold it for ransom.
I was sure the Ribatasan had some idea of where Ko-nah lived, and therefore where his mother was. I didn’t relish the idea of holding a person hostage in return for our frame, but I’d seen how Ko-nah operated. He’d do anything to save his mother, but would he believe I’d hurt her?
“No, that was good, Yuri. Every idea needs to be spoken to help spark more ideas. Maybe we can’t bombard the warehouse, but we could connect with the local rebels to get leverage on Ko-nah. If he gets the frame and holds it for ransom, we could always hold something valuable of his for ransom in return.”
Yuri winced. “You don’t mean Maria, do you?”
The woman’s face flashed in my mind. Her only crime in my book was having a wretched son, which didn’t deserve a death sentence.
I shook my head. “It was just an example of how any idea can help fuel others. We should be thinking about how we can make these ideas work rather than trying to shut them all down. This is how we’ll outsmart the enemy.”
Cho nodded. “He’s right. Okay, so on the next rest day when we’re doing community chores, we could engage the locals to talk about what’s been going on. Maybe we could get an idea of some of the changes that have been happening with the terror attacks—or who they’ve been told are perpetrating them.”
“You may as well wear a sign that says, I’m investigating your political leaders and testing your country for instability,” Shin-soo said with a groan.
I sighed at him. “Sure, but we could also frame it positively. Like, saying we’re so glad the Enjiho are here to protect us. This could get people talking about the extra regulations and restrictions that have been put in place. All of that could give us valuable information.”
Shin-soo laughed. “Right, like the local layman is going to have some critical bit of information we don’t already know.”
“You never know what someone might bring up. It could mean nothing to them, and everything to us. Something I learned in the entertainment business,” Hana said.
Shin-soo shook his head. “This isn’t a dance hall, Hana.”
“Fine, what’s your idea?” I asked him, crossing my arms.
All eyes at the table fell on Shin-soo, and he shrank down. “I don’t have one that’s perfect yet.”
“What’s your non-perfect one?” Hana asked.
He shrugged. “It’s really just a first step right now.”
Yuri groaned. “Just tell us already.”
“Ask Dokun for a tour,” he mumbled.
The words struck me like lightning. Of course! We were here to learn. We could easily ask to tour Yamato Corp without implying anything insidious. A tour would at least get us access to the things Dokun would feel comfortable showing potential enemies, then Mae and I could take it from there.
“That’s a pretty good idea,” I said with a nod to Shin-soo.
He sneered at me. “Whatever.”
“No, I’m serious. We’re here to learn, after all, and Yamato Corp has a lot to teach us. Woong-ji can put in a word to Ena, get us a tour. If he says no, then we’re just back to square one, and there was no harm done. But if he says yes—”
“You and Mae can do your magical machina stuff and get into their bots,” Shin-soo finished excitedly.
I smiled. “Exactly.”
Yuri crossed her arms and nodded. “Not bad, new guy.”
“And if that doesn’t work, I think a midnight escape could,” I said with a glance at Hana. Her eyes sparkled for a brief moment, and a smile pulled on her lips. She loved sneaking around. “The fūdō could be an easy way out, and we could leave ourselves a decent way back in—as long as no one is afraid of heights.”
“I don’t like working with Ko-nah. We should call it off. We have two good plans now,” Shin-soo said assertively.
I shook my head. “Neither of these plans is going to be as effective. The second, while possible, is downright dangerous. There’s a dozen or more things that could go wrong, like the top of the school being over one-hundred meters in the air, and having nothing to break our fall. We need that frame, and we need to keep thinking of other plans.”
It was our turn to join the breakfast line, and we left the ry shield with smiles. Cho questioned me about the shūspekta attack, and I recounted the details to him and the other listening ears nearby. It seemed I was the new celebrity student, which wouldn’t do anything good for our mission, but if I talked out the tale too much, perhaps everyone would become bored with me.
After breakfast, the Bastion students were then introduced to the fundamentals that all Kokyu Primary students learned. We had our cores evaluated and I discovered that, while everyone was building bands, they didn’t all look like mine. Hana’s core bands were designed like stars, a heptahedron to my hexahedron.
I stared at the wonder of her silver sparkling bands. She’d built her blocks on the points of each peak, and in the valley were secondary blocks. I wondered why she’d selected a duplicative design that wouldn’t allow her to create more intricate spells. She smiled, and I realized I’d been staring too long. I returned the friendliness and then turned my attention back to the instructor.
Next was learning the basic Kokyu physical form. At Bastion we’d learned brute force techniques, but the Kokyu way was very smooth and flowing. They moved from one posture to the next without pause, their arms and legs flexing and swaying. My muscles burned from the strain and I relished it. Bastion exercise was hard, but this was a new and interesting form of exertion.
When the day’s classes were done, we
were allowed to roam and relocate our bedding. I elected to find a spot with Cho and Shin-soo. Not long after we’d moved our gear, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a red-faced Ko-nah, and a stern-looking Genta—one of the students who had sat with me for the first meal at Moon Shadow.
“We’re going to sleep here,” Genta said and forced his way in.
I likely could’ve stopped him, but I stepped aside. He gave Ko-nah a shove to the center of the room and closed the door. Genta flicked a burst of purple ry at the door that crawled up the warm wood and spread like creeping moss. It moved across the door, then over the walls, floor, and ceiling until we were completely encased in the ry munje. How had he cast so much in a single throw of his hand?
“We can’t wait any longer. What is your plan?” Genta asked the room.
I looked to Ko-nah. “What is he talking about?”
Genta growled and stepped toward me aggressively. “We’ve lost too many good people for you to keep playing dumb. I know why you’re here. My organization is how you got any of your information in the first place, so it’s time for you to cooperate.”
I kept my face still as stone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Genta’s hands flew up to my neck in a blur of black. There wasn’t time to think, and I slapped away his grab on reflex, sending a jolt of enzo down his arm. He recoiled and gritted through the pain. Then he smirked and said in a strained voice, “You’ve been training beyond your class. What have you been preparing for?”
The question hung heavy over my head and tension traveled on the air. The silence dragged on, and Genta’s eyes darted between us. He must have found the answer plain on one of our faces.
Genta smiled and bobbed his head. “Busa-nan keeps its promises.”
“What did you tell them?” Shin-soo snarled and snatched Ko-nah by the collar of his robes.
“Shin-soo,” I warned him with a glare, but he wasn’t looking.
Ko-nah stammered. “Nothing—”
“Liar!”
Shin-soo pummeled Ko-nah in the gut with a black glowing fist. The boy gasped and doubled over. I crossed the room and put a hand on Shin-soo’s shoulder, then stepped between him and Ko-nah.
“Stop,” I ordered, and he hesitated. I had the enzo spell at the tips of my fingers, ready to zap him into submission.
“You’d defend this traitor?” Shin-soo whispered the accusation like a threat.
He was going to ruin everything. We had no idea who Genta was, what his goals were, or who he worked with. He could’ve been with Ribatasan or Dokun or maybe the man who’d sabotaged the train. We didn’t have enough information to reveal anything to this stranger, nor did we want to show our hand to Ko-nah. We’d taken enough risks as it was.
“We are guests of Moon Shadow,” I said, trying to convey my meaning, without revealing more.
Shin-soo’s face morphed to disgust. “You would protect him after what he did to your family?”
I hit him with a tiny jolt of enzo, and his face flushed with anger.
“Enough bickering; we have more important things to discuss,” Genta said, his voice thick with annoyance.
Shin-soo’s eyes shifted from me to the older student. “Go fight your own battles. We’ve got more than enough with—Ah!”
I discharged a larger jolt of electricity into Shin-soo’s shoulder. It wasn’t enough to put him down, but a good reminder to keep his mouth shut. His zo-blackened eyes locked on me, and his chest heaved. The veins in his forehead pulsed, and my hand burned on his shoulder from the heat of zo surging through his body.
“Calm down,” I whispered.
I didn’t see the hit that smashed into my gut, but I felt it all the way through to my spine. I dropped to one knee and sucked in a gasp as the agony blossomed up my back and chest, seeking the fastest way to my brain. He’d used a ryzo spell that amplified the pain signal to my nerves. I lost track of where Cho was, but heard the scuffle as punches flew.
With Mae’s help, I sucked down another breath and sent the counterspell of double zo through my stomach to collect Shin-soo’s amplifying nanites. A second later, Cho hit the ground next to me, but I was ready to get back in.
Shin-soo’s legs were a blur of black as he delivered a flurry of low kicks to my side. Zo flowed through my right arm, and I reinforced it to be as strong as steel. His next kick hit my block with a solid snap. Shin-soo growled and grabbed his leg, then staggered back. I jumped to my feet and advanced on him.
“What are you doing? We’re your friends!” I yelled, outraged.
“No, you’re not! You’re just a controlling ganhan, with an ego bigger than your ugly scar.” Shin-soo jabbed with his words and his fists.
“Friends or not, we’re still your allies.” I slapped away his attacks, side stepping. I caught his wrist and pulled him in close.
“Yet you’d work with a traitor,” he said. He kneed me in the gut and pushed away. “I won’t die with you when he betrays us again.”
I stepped forward with a flurry of palm strikes as I ducked and weaved through his attacks. Shin-soo was bigger, but I was faster. My palm struck his chest, and I discharged my enzo spell again with no effect. He was too good at keeping his shield up. I needed another angle.
Sweat gathered on my forehead, and I steadied my breathing to cycle for ry. If I couldn’t shock him into submission, I’d command him. Shin-soo took advantage of my lapse in focus and pushed forward. He kicked my side, and I caught his leg, then locked his leg against my hip. I twisted and delivered my own blow to his gut, sending him staggering back several steps.
The double ry was ready, and I sent it to my throat, coating my words in a command spell. “Stop this madness!”
Shin-soo hesitated and his eyes lost focus for a fraction of a second. He brought his fists to the ready, a disgusted frown pulling at his lips. “You’re the crazy one, not me. Can’t you see that?”
I looked around for any aid. Ko-nah had gained his feet, but stood idly on the other side of the room, while Genta and Cho were nowhere to be seen.
“What do you suggest, kill him?” I asked, gesturing to Ko-nah, whose forehead took on a worried wrinkle. “I want to see him punished and had half a mind to do it myself when I saw him, but that won’t help us. We have to think about our goal.”
“Lecturing me when all you think about is the inside of Hana’s thighs—”
Red-hot anger burned in my face, and my feet carried me forward, fists flying before I knew what I was doing.
“Jiyong, don’t let him bait you!” Mae warned, but I hardly heard her.
He blocked my first strike, and my second, black zo curling away from each impact point like a munje explosion. All my power went into each hit, and Mae flashed the temperature gauge in the corner of my vision. I advanced, but Shin-soo stayed on the offensive. I ducked low under a right hook and spun, sweeping my heel across the floor. He jumped, but I followed with an upward palm strike. He jumped back, but was running out of space as we neared the edge of the room.
“Jiyong?” Hana yelled, and I turned, surprised. “What—”
Pain radiated from the side of my head, and I staggered from Shin-soo’s sucker punch. I hit the ground on my side and came up to an elbow. Shin-soo didn’t relent, his foot sailing toward my head. I blocked and pushed against his leg with enough force to get my ass off the ground, and my feet back under me.
“Stop, both of you!” Hana demanded. I felt the threading of a ry command in her tone. It wasn’t enough to stop Shin-soo, who’d taken on some animalistic, zo-entranced rage. He was beyond reason, coming at me with his full power.
His arms shimmered as he used the disruption method to hide the angle of his strike. Mae brought up a quick calculation in my vision to detect his possible range, but not before his fist struck my gut—despite my block. I grunted, but had layered my abdomen with double zo to strengthen for impact. It was all I could do to be on the defensive with Mae’s help.
Shin-soo punched, kicked, and kneed me into the corner while Ko-nah blocked Hana’s and Yuri’s path. I wasn’t certain why he wanted to see us fight—perhaps some sick revenge—or why Hana and Yuri had heeded his request, but they stayed out of it.
A flicker of red burst in my mind’s eye, drawing my attention from the fight for but a fraction of a second. Shin-soo was getting faster, his attacks less powerful, but harder to block. The zo reinforcement on my chest was waning, all but used up. Why wasn’t Hana helping?
The spark of red twisted around my freshly forged third band, forcing a new block, one I’d not had the chance to investigate, over the center crystal. The two inner bands rotated away, allowing the single block an uninterrupted path to the core.
I tried to open my eyes, to refocus on Shin-soo, but it was as if the red munje—uw—wanted me to watch. It soaked into the golden band and ripped through the block. Pain lanced through my stomach as a tiny, focused beam of crimson light blasted my crystal. In an instant it was over, and a larger pool of uw flowed out the bottom of the crystal.
There wasn’t time to ask Mae to analyze it as Shin-soo’s fists hammered against my sides. I curled in on myself, making my gut a smaller target, while keeping my guard up to divert those blows away from my face.
The uw munje flowed of its own accord down my arms. I opened my eyes to see Shin-soo’s next strike directed at my groin. Like lighting, I reached out and batted his hand away in a swooping gesture. His strike went wide, and red sparks flew from the contact.
Shin-soo staggered back, cradling his limp right arm, which leaked zo munje like a broken dam. The black swirled against the floor, then flowed into my chest. Shin-soo growled, swinging with his left arm, and I blocked with my forearm. Another spark of red exploded from the impact, and his arm went dead like the other.
“What have you done to me?” he demanded.
I stood in awe, unsure of what to say. Then visions of my father fighting Bo in the garden flashed in my mind. The red explosions at each of his strikes that put her down in an instant came into focus, and my face drained of color. He was already using this exact power.
