Laughing slowly, she plunged her left hand like a knife into the center of her chest, and for a moment I thought she would pull out her soul, but then I heard—

crCaccRcrCACCKakRArRcakCAckKCK

—the sound of her sternum shattering.

She curled her hand, and with it pried open the left side of her ribcage, so her upper ribs spiked forward instead of inward, resembling four spears all striking through her chest. Blood leaked like tar from the gaping window into her chest, where her heart lay muffled in shadow, beating, beating. When the sound of screeching bone came to a halt, another sound, a much louder sound, a sound something like the ticking of a watch envelopped in cotton, resonated across the courtyard.

Nobody spoke. Nobody even dared utter a cry of surprise before this utterly inhuman act. After all, it would be human to pry open someone else's ribcage and crush their heart into silence. But to do it to oneself? Even the sect leader, who had no doubt travelled all the lands east of A'erjin-Shan in her lifetime, had never seen such an act. Myself, Bailian, and Long Guan— we looked on in utter confusion, but the sect leader's countenance frosted over with only fear, since to the wise there is nothing more fearsome than the unknown. She could not even maintain enough composure to hold onto the water in her hand, which leaped out of her palm and dove into the cracks in the pavement, as if it too feared the sight of Natsuki.

Natsuki thrust her right hand into her unguarded thoracic cavity, and snatched her own beating heart out from the lung and pericardium wrapped around it. She pulled it out further, further, straightening her arm so that her heart was almost a meter displaced from where it ought to have been, in plain view out in front of everyone, her arteries so tightly stretched that they seemed they might snap.

"The scholars of Laoghairíocht have well understood that the heart is the true core of one's power. My mana flows in naught but the manner in which it truly ought to flow, with my heart as its battery! You fools who have lived seeing nothing but shadows upon cave-walls, may you listen to the sound of my heartbeat and in it behold what is real."

ba-DUM

One beat, searing the very air like a bolt of lightning, and the fountain in the center of the courtyard began flowing backwards, water climbing water like carp.

ba-DUM

Two beats, rumbling through the earth like the imminent rupturing of a volcano, and the white clouds in the sky shattered into puffs of copper flame, will-o-wisps crashing to the earth in hailstones.

ba-DUM

Three beats, screaming to the heavens like the cries of dying dragons, and the sect leader staggered back, coughing up blood, while both Bailian and Long Guan fell to their knees, bleeding from their eyes and ears.

I was— mostly unaffected. After all, I knew her power very well. It was the power of a god, my god. But I had no need to fear such power. As it is said, when the Maitreya lays foot on this earth, the faithful shall weep tears of joy, and the sinners shall weep tears of blood! —So though I found myself rooted in place out of awe, I had no reason to feel pain.

"A prisoner of the cave, dragged out to face the daylight, will have no choice but to scream in pain and flee back to the comfort of ignorance..." Natsuki thrust her heart back into her thoracic cavity, then pushed close her ribcage, her bone screeching almost as loud as her voice. "...for their eyes will have become too acclimated to the darkness to recognize the glory of the sun."

As Bailian and Long Guan staggered to their feet and drew medicinal pills out of their pockets to calm their cracking veins, Natsuki adjusted her robes, the collar of which had been dragged out of alignment by her ribs.

"Who are you?!" the sect leader demanded as she clutched her chest in pain. "There is no cultivator in the Great Plains who fits your description. Where are you from?! Which power are you aligned with?!"

"Who am I?"

Natsuki put a finger to her chin and thought profoundly for several moments, before finally declaring—

"I am Chunxue's sister, and so whatever dares to stand in his way shall break between my hands. That is why I killed the entirety of the Bai family, and Jing Ke as well."

The sect leader's eyes darted around, left and right, as she took step after step backward, until the back of her leg hit the edge of the fountain.

"You must give me an explanation for Ouyang Di as well," she spat. "Why did you attack her?"

Natsuki tilted her head to the side. "How does it matter why I attacked her? You yourself said that you do not care for petty conflicts. Do my reasons change the fact that I attacked her, enough for you to forgive the death penalty you placed on my head?"

The sect leader frowned. The answer, of course, was yes. That was the fluidity of face, after all. All of us but Natsuki knew it, yet, in order to preserve the sect leader's face, none of us could say it.

At this rate, they would inevitably come to blows—

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But I knew my wish! I wished to create a world where it was not by violence but by peace that such disputes would be resolved, a world in which the powerless could find justice by means other than borrowed power! So how could I let them die, and contradict that wish of mine?

—I stepped to Natsuki's side and put a hand to her arm.

"Sect Leader, I can offer an explanation!" I shouted, with a bit too much enthusiasm. She did not turn to look at me, but I continued anyways. "We had no grievance against Ouyang Di, but she came here and demanded unilaterally that we hand over several treasures of the Bai family. In response to her disrespect my sister offered her a few pointers— and that is all!"

It was half a lie, but in this situation, it was true enough to justify our actions.

"...Would you say as much?" the sect leader slowly asked of Natsuki, after a moment's pause.

Natsuki shrugged. "I suppose."

Sighing, the sect leader stepped back onto the fountain's edge, then stepped back once more, her foot landing on an invisible stair and lifting her several inches into the air. "I see. Then I should first go straighten out my disciple's behavior before asking more of you. I will take my leave. Farewell, and may we never meet again."

She turned and began flying away.

After all, that was the kind of person she was. She hardly cared about the offense in the first place— all that mattered to her was preserving her own face, her own pride. And what could harm one's pride more than losing a fight?

"—Sect Leader, your disciple was killed by a rogue cultivator and you're just going to let his body go cold? What will people say of you?"

Long Guan's sharp voice cut through even the winter wind, and the sect leader froze in place, five feet in the air, back turned, in the process of fleeing.

"Long Guan, what kind of bullshit are you trying to pull?!" the sect leader growled as she turned and descended back down to the ground. "If you want to get yourself killed, do it alone! Why do you insist on getting me involved?!"

"I'm not insisting on anything," Long Guan shrugged. "All I am saying is that others might question your reputation as one of the strongest cultivators of the Great Plains if you were to let a rogue cultivator get away with killing your very own disciple. If only the Phantom Orchid Sect had one more figure like the Sect Leader, it would be the greatest sect outside the Imperial Capital. That is what they say. But... looking at this situation, who would say as much any longer?"

The sect leader's teeth ground against each other like shards of cracked glass. But there was nothing she could do. She had no choice. As my words had given her an excuse to leave, so did Long Guan's words force her to stay.

"A master is as a father, and by the three reverences, one sows a bond of karma that may never be severed. And yet you would not even light a stick of incense for your disciple who has, so unfortunately, perished before his master, not by old age, but by murder, at the hands of a sinner who could not even respect the first of the Shakyamuni Buddha's precepts! What will the jianghu say of you?"

Of course the sect leader did not wish to fight Natsuki, but Long Guan's words hung like a sword over her neck. Pride, after all, it what cultivators seek to cultivate most, so she could not let her pride be debased! Thus she placed a hand on the hilt of the sword hanging at her hip, though she did not unsheath it just yet.

"Sect Leader, I will avenge Bai Qiao, as my duty compels me to!" Long Guan cried out as she pulled a set of talismans from her robes. "Of course, I know you will do the same for Jing Ke. Let us work together to defeat this rogue cultivator!"

Natsuki raised her hand to the crow hanging upon her shoulder, and it spit out a decorated sword-hilt into her palm, though she did not immediately light a blade upon it. She was waiting for Long Guan to make a move. But Long Guan, who knew well that she herself alone did not have the strength to fight Natsuki, was waiting for the sect leader to make a move. And of course, the sect leader was waiting for Natsuki to make a move.

It was a standoff. There was, here, in this short moment, an opportunity to de-escalate. But I was not sure how to go about it. The sect leader was fighting to preserve her face, and Long Guan was fighting for the sake of her sworn sibling. Neither of those were trivial motivations. And yet... and yet, in accordance with my dream, I did not wish for this interaction to be dominated by force!

I could not, for the life of me, see the way out of this Gordian knot. Yet at the same time, I did not wish to brandish a sword and cut it in two!

If only there were someone who knew Long Guan well enough to talk her down...

—Bailian, perhaps...?

I turned to Bailian, and saw her standing, shivering, biting down on her lip in a futile attempt to hide a hellish grin.

Why...? Why did she seem so... content that this fight would occur?

If only I could understand that, if only I could understand what she was thinking, perhaps I could prevent bloodshed!

If only I could be more like Sima Rui, who could flip the heavens and earth with words alone!

What would she say in this situation? Whose weakness would she grab hold of? What truth would she twist into a threat?

Brimming with impatience, Long Guan innervated her talismans with qi—

and in that moment, I saw a fragment of the solution!

"Clan Chief Long!" I shouted.