Jingyi Bo narrowly ducked a blow that would have broken her nose. The fact that she had ducked after it had stopped made her quivering, curled-up squat all the more embarrassing. Izumi sighed, stepping back.

“You’re way too slow to be fighting up close. If this was an actual fight, it would have been over the moment I got within arm’s reach of you. That spiritual technique of yours is … interesting, but awful for a brawl.”

Bo slowly got to her feet and faced Izumi, her face flushed with embarrassment. She knew she was weak, going by her functional play-fights in the Saoka games, but Izumi was on a whole other level. Their first spar had ended in mere seconds. By the time Bo had turned the ground around her to mud, Izumi was already leaping over it, swinging. It was only by some act of divine grace that Bo hadn’t been knocked clean out - Izumi’s control was enough to abort what, for her, had been a gentle swing.

“I thought you said you won a duel, with a half-spirit twice your size, no less!” Izumi’s hands were on her hips, and despite their near-identical height, it felt like she was as big as Pan Da-Han had been.

“I, um … you didn’t see that bit? You seem to see everything else I do …”

“You ran off at top speed! I wasn’t going to cause a scene by chasing you.” Izumi stopped for a moment and blushed slightly, turning her face away - she had just openly admitted to following Bo around. “B-Besides, there was a much more interesting situation going on.”

For some reason, Jingyi Bo felt a little annoyed that her getting chased by a mad panda was the less interesting situation, but she had to admit - the stories surrounding Yan Zhihao challenging that scrawny Lee girl were a lot more impressive than Bo fleeing from the consequences of her actions. Speaking of which, Bo quickly explained how that duel went. It only seemed to make Izumi more annoyed.

“Putting aside the fact that it took FOUR of you to defeat a relatively unprepared first-level mage, I honestly can’t believe how weak you are. You’re one of the few omnidisciplinary cultivators in the Academy, meaning you have some talent, but you’re just … kind of hopeless?”

Why did it almost sound like Izumi liked her like that? “The Endless Steps of Transformation isn’t really for, um, fighting.”

Izumi wanted to say that it didn’t really seem to achieve anything, but she held her tongue. “If you’re going to survive here, or even out in the world as a cultivator, we need to get you to be stronger, okay? Here, let’s just practice the basic forms. You’re so sloppy when you’re out playing, you know?”

Bo wanted to say something, with Izumi chiding her like a mother with a misbehaving child despite Bo being the older of the two, but this kind of attention was surprisingly enjoyable. She had been doted on before, when she was much smaller and unable to appreciate it. Once she became an awkward teen and a fairly plain adult, even the masters at the Everchanging Way Sect never quite gave her the care she craved. She couldn’t help but smile as Izumi helped her through the martial arts forms.

In the end, it became something of another martial arts day. Jingyi Bo would practice a strike or form or move until she felt she had mastered it, and then twice as long again until Izumi Makoto was satisfied. The critiques always felt remarkably petty to Bo, with things like the angle of her strike being slightly off, or her feet mere centimetres off the correct stance. However, once she corrected them, everything flowed that much more smoothly. By the end of the day, Bo had a solid grasp of the most fundamental of fundamentals.

“The sun’s setting, so we better finish up soon. How about a spar?” Bo thought about how poorly the last one had gone, and almost refused out of hand, until Izumi held up a hand to calm her. “I’ll go easy on you - I’ll just block your attacks to start with, and throw you some easy hits.”

Relieved to hear she wouldn’t be taking a blow to the face today, Bo took up a fighting stance across from Izumi. In the light of the setting sun, a gentle breeze blew past them, the pair as still as statues. A tension filled the air as Izumi awaited Bo’s first strike … which never came.

“Jingyi, I can’t block your attacks if you don’t make any.”

“But, um, you’re my-- uh, you’re helping me, so it doesn’t feel right to … attack you?” Bo carefully inspected a patch of grass to her left. Izumi sighed, as she had done so many times today.

“It’s just a spar! I don’t think it’s even possible for you to hurt me.”

“Yeah, it might be impossible-- argh!” Izumi had suddenly swung a punch straight at her, Bo narrowly deflecting it with her arm. “What-- what are you doing?!”

“Sparring with you, Jingyi!” A knife-handed strike sailed right through where Bo’s head had been moments ago. Bo was now thoroughly on the defensive, ducking a sweeping chop. These were all very basic moves that she had been drilling all day, all designed with complimentary defensive maneuvers. Izumi wasn’t giving her a moment to think as she swept her leg low.

Bo fell to the ground, her surprise causing her to somehow forget all about Izumi’s legs. She rolled to one side, squealing as an axe kick made a dent in the dirt where she had been. Carefully leaping to her feet, Bo put a bit of space between them.

“C-Can’t we talk about this?!”

“Absolutely not! Fight me, Jingyi!”

With space and a modicum of time to think, Bo opened her senses wide. Izumi was a powerful martial artist, but Jingyi Bo had more tools at her disposal - the ability to feel intent was inherent to a spiritual cultivator, giving her a kind of intuition about where she was going to swing before she even began to do so. Her mana sense confirmed that Izumi wasn’t empowering her strikes with ki, but that didn’t mean her strikes wouldn’t hurt. Bo might have awakened as a martial artist, but she wasn’t a very good one, and didn’t have the tolerance for pain that the rest of them seemed to possess.

Jingyi Bo ducked a swipe, backed away from a wide kick, blocked a gut punch and side-stepped a tackle. Izumi grinned.

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“Good defense, but I haven’t seen you swing! If you don’t start fighting back, I’m going to seriously have to take you down!” The cruel, excited look on the other woman’s face was producing mixed feelings in Bo. The part of her that she’d always listened to was screaming in fear - Izumi could tear her in half if she so desired. Another part of her was saying, It’s finally time to stand up for yourself! Show everyone your true strength! A quiet voice, right down the back was screaming, Yes! I’ve never been more interested in getting my ass kicked!

Blushing slightly as she ignored that deranged, distant screaming in her head, Bo dived in. Her first blow was shaky, and Izumi pushed it aside with contemptuous ease. She tried an elbow to follow-up and was pushed aside, forced to side-step two consecutive jabs. Getting close and brawling wasn’t going to do the trick, and she didn’t have the reach to fight from far away … she would have to get unpredictable!

Thinking back to that toolkit she had thanks to her multiple awakenings, Bo used an old spiritual cultivator’s trick. She attempted to muster every ounce of malice in her heart to psyche Izumi out, but found herself surprisingly unable to do so. Instead, she tried a different approach - she emanated an aura of cowardice, one that anyone could interpret as a person preparing to flee for their lives. To Bo’s surprise, it worked.

Throwing caution to the wind, Izumi charged to prevent her escape. Her eyes widened as she saw her mistake. Jingyi Bo didn’t turn and run - she ducked into the charge, grabbing Izumi around the waist and using the momentum to topple her to the ground. In all honesty, the gambit still shouldn’t have worked. In an ordinary environment, Izumi would have simply shifted her weight and thrown Bo to the ground instead. This was, fortunately for Bo, not an ordinary environment.

Jingyi Bo’s over-eager attempts to back away from Izumi’s attacks had made the spar wander, far further than it usually should have. The pair ended up on the opposite side of the Saoka pitch, where Bo had earlier used her Endless Steps technique. When Izumi went to right herself, she counted on solid ground. Instead, her foot stepped on a patch of mud, sliding uncontrollably. The pair tumbled to the ground, sending Izumi down on to her back and Bo right down on top of her. A small rectangular object flew out of Izumi’s sleeve as she went down, and Bo instinctively caught it before it could hit her on the head.

As Izumi tried to get herself up out of the mud, Bo inspected the object. It was the little notebook! As soon as Izumi realised what Bo was holding, her attempts at continuing the spar gave way to panicked flailing.

“W-Wait! Jingyi, please-- guh!” Izumi’s panic only made it harder to rise, and Bo’s presence on top of her wasn’t helping. For her part, Bo was entirely distracted by the little book. Curiosity overtook her, and she opened it up.

Inside were the scrawlings of a madwoman. Names connected to other names, copious notes on people and events, attempts to predict the thoughts of others, strange charts … all centred on one central theme. The book was filled to the absolute brim with potential romantic pairings. Girls, boys, everyone Bo had ever heard of and a load more, all scrutinised for things like ‘compatibility’ and ‘affinity’. She didn’t get time to peer over the details - Izumi eventually picked herself up and snatched the book out of her hand.

Both of the women were quiet. A deep blush of embarrassment was creeping over Izumi’s face, and Bo could hear her heart thumping in her chest. Sitting in the mud, tangled together in the dusk light where no one could see them, she wondered just what would happen next.

“... Would you get off me?!” Izumi attempted to crawl out from under Bo, but the mud was especially slippery. Realising her current position, Bo leapt to her feet back onto dry ground. Somewhat sheepish, she lowered a hand to help Izumi up. The other girl looked at the hand for a moment before taking it. Bo could have sworn her blush had grown deeper.

“What was that book--”

“My charts are not for anyone’s eyes but mine.” Izumi looked away, as though hiding her face behind her long black hair would prevent Bo from realising how flustered she had become. Still, the way she was looking back at Bo from the corner of her eye made it seem like she wanted the issue to be pressed. Her curiosity piqued, Jingyi Bo obliged.

“I did win our spar though … and I saw quite a bit. Surely you could tell me a little bit?” Bo wasn’t sure if that could be counted as a win, or if practice spars even had winners, but she was happy to live on technicalities. Izumi’s face softened, and she turned around. She’s surprisingly cute when she’s like this!

“I guess you did kind of beat me,” Izumi almost certainly lied, “So I guess I owe you a bit of an explanation. Could you help me with this mud, though … ?”

--

They moved off the pitch and sat on the grass to one side. Bo carefully used her Endless Steps to turn the chunks of mud on Izumi’s robes and in her hair into water as she spoke. It felt strangely intimate, having a conversation while running fingers through those glossy black locks, or waving hands over the other woman’s robes. It’s just grooming, is all. Nothing more.

“The charts started as a bit of a hobby.” Izumi had decided to start at the start, after a shaky nerve-clearing sigh. “I’ve always had a bit of a knack of knowing who might fall in love with who, or who might be close friends, or even partners that are just an awful match. I knew a girl back in my hometown who had been propositioned by a boy from a powerful family in the next town over - everyone said they were so cute together, but I could see how awful he was. She was so mad when I told her their compatibility was all wrong. Not even a week later, they had a huge fight and broke up. Didn’t even get a thank you!”

As Izumi talked, her smile grew brighter. Talking and laughing with her like this was such a rare treat for the traditionally friend-averse Bo. The way her eyes lit up and sparkled as she explained her system, the way the fading sunlight forced them to get closer together just to see the book, the feel of Izumi’s hair in her hands as she dissolved the last of the mud, it all felt so … Huh? What am I thinking? I’m not … she’s not … ?

Realising that they were practically leaning together, shoulder to shoulder, Jingyi Bo shuffled back away from Izumi. “A-Ahem. All the mud is gone, now.”

“Eh? Oh, right, the mud. Thanks. Even if it kind of was your fault that I got all muddy.” For some reason, the image of Izumi underneath her, sprawled out in the mud, flashed into her mind. It felt like a treasured memory, which in and of itself felt a little silly. It hadn’t been that good of a battle, so why do I feel like I won so much?

The light had faded to a point where even their supernatural senses made it difficult to see the writing. The conversation petered out into sheepish, trailing sentences, and after a minute or so of awkwardness they both mutually decided it was about time to head back home. They walked the rest of the way in silence, exchanging curt farewells as they headed into their respective homes.

“Howdy, Bo!” Kokoro gave an upside-down smile from a bridge pose in the middle of the lounge. “Is everythin’ alright? Yer all red in the face!”

Bo instinctively put a hand to her cheek, and felt the heat there. “H-Haha, yeah, I was just, um. Sparring. With Izumi.”

Kokoro’s smile somehow grew wider, lighting up the room. “Looks like you had a lotta fun! Good fer you!”

As confused as Jingyi Bo was about it all, she had indeed had a lot of fun. Just why was Izumi Makoto so enjoyable to be around, and why did Bo’s heart start beating faster just thinking about her?