Sachihiro

We disengage from the clash of strength and I chase him with a follow up and quick jabs with the point of my katana which he dodges one after the other resulting in all four stabs missing him before I slash and spin coming in with a spinning cyclone slash as both my weapons one after the other miss him by a centimeter as he dodges those as well. His blade comes for my ribs but I swerve and deflect his other blade from cutting into my knee and slash out cutting strands of hair off his head as he dodges.

A foot to the chest sends me 2m back creating some space between us and he is now stabbing at me as I deflect and retreat from his strikes, kept on the back foot by the speed and power of the onslaught pressed against me. A foot sweeps low and I step over it, a shoulder charges into my chest just as I'm unbalanced but I use it's momentum to step even further back and its only my shirt that parts at the middle of my midsection not my skin as his blade passes.

I push hard on my feet and legs and launch myself even further back as I feel Nyye getting slightly more aggressive than I'm used to him being. We look at each other, both breathing deeply but controlled, we look at each other seriously for a moment before he lowers his guard and I lower mine.

"You are getting better." He says spinning his twin blades in his hands before sheathing them easily and smoothly on his back sheaths in a single movement in his lower back with the hilts facing down.

I privately admit to myself how cool that just looked while keeping a stoic and displeased facial expression. "You've been holding back this whole time we've been sparring together haven't you?"

He grins at me indicating for me to check my weapons, I do and they are mostly fine but I think after all these years they finally need resharpening. "How do I sharpen these things, I don't recall anyone ever needing to back home." I ask at the enigmatic elf.

"You will need to see a smith I'm afraid, and while he does what he does you will need to retract your spirit energy so the metal becomes raw again." He says walking to me and checking my injuries.

"I didn't know I could retract spirit energy from bound weapons." I say as we walk to the side for a drink of water and a change of clothing. My hakama is in tethers and I have numerous cuts on my body but I'm hardly bleeding, I'm not sure if its the result of my evolution, Nyye's precision or the blades he uses that's the cause of that.

"How else to gift a spirit weapon to another or any spirit bound item for that matter if you can't retract your own spirit from an item?" He asks me looking at me like I'm stupid. I've honestly never heard of that even at the Spiritus nor read it in any book.

"Would you teach me?" I ask and he frowns as the young man that was sitting at the sidelines applies ointments to my wounds before bandaging them and doing the same for Nyye.

"The things you people overlook in your teachings astound me sometimes. Here." He says and grabs both my arms hard at the forearms.

Then he is communicating to me mind to mind, sending in Universal but instead of just meaning and a twing of emotion in his mental voice there is action, meaning and no emotion at all. Knowledge of how to do this thing is conveyed to me in all it's simple execution but complex mechanism of how to bind and unbind with spirit.

There is a way to pull back my own spirit energy from any object like a veil from a virgin's face. Holding it back letting it return to me or dissipate off its excess or I can hold it and return it back to the object from which it came. There is a lot of theory behind it and it could be possible to bind other objects to spirit that aren't necessarily celestial in nature and-.

The connection between us is severed and I reel back a step but balance quickly. My mind is whirling with the possibilities of what just happened. That way of teaching someone something seems very accurate and so convenient surely if everyone could do it that's how things would be taught, unless...

"You're a Mind Mage?" I ask suspecting that what I just received isn't a norm of any kind.

"I'm a psion." He says as Marvin finishes patching us both up and shrugging at me as I look at him for help dealing with this man.

"You've been holding back a lot haven't you?" I finally ask even as I survey the many minor injuries I inflicted on the man.

"Wasn't the point of our exercises to hold back so you can get better?" He asks putting on his under-tunic then a beautiful white robe with intricate red and gold patterns that some of the priests that don't see patients regularly like to wear.

"If you hold back how will I get better, how will I know I'm getting better?" I ask walking with Nyye towards his chambers I assume, come to think of it I still don't know the man's role here really.

"You have gotten better have you not?" He asks casually, I'm still excited about the implications of retracting my spirit from things and and the fact that some types of psions can transfer living knowledge directly to the mind of another person without the hastle and need to speak.

I concentrate and divide my mind though, a state of being that still needs my effort and energy to accomplish but I have managed to achieve anyway. With a divided mind I work on the various thoughts from different angles at the same time.

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"Yes, I believe I've gotten better."

"Well when we began our little spars I gauged your level of skill and lowered myself to your level so you could have a chance. We spared this way several times until I started increasing the expertise of my duel wielding minutely through the process of all our matches. What do you think this eventually achieved?"

"I started fighting better in order to keep up with the increased rhythm of the matches." I say, slightly excited by the realisation.

"Yes, and you didn't even realise you were fighting better because you didn't realise I was fighting better. From the moment we started these matches until today you have thought us equally matched and because of that your mind hasn't gotten in the way of your body learning the moves to keep up with me.

"You just didn't want to be 'one-uped' by your 'equal' and as I improved my blade work, you improved your blade work. But unfortunately I am distracted today and let a bit of my true expertise show. Now our matches have to end because you will no longer get better using this method my family developed."

I shrug at that, "Even knowing you are probably better I still think I could take you."

He looks at me a moment then nods, "I believe you believe that. Truly your people must be suicidal beyond normal understanding if you still think you could 'take me' when I'm clearly of superior skill,older and much more powerful than you are."

I shrug again, "I've killed things stronger than me before." If you can't retreat or its a fight you have to face regardless, better to fight a superior foe like you're already dead. That's what da taught Dee and I.

"Very well then, I will show a bit more of my superior skill tomorrow and see how you fare. How long before you can leave the cult?"

I shrug again, "they are still deciding what to do with me but I have expressed my desire to leave the congregation. Apparently there is a sect known as 'the wondering pilgrims of Eros' that travel place to place helping people with sexual wounds heal. They proposed I finish my training and become a member but I really just want to have sex with my own mates now."

"In the meantime you still have your acolytic duties to perform I assume."

"Yes, I'm still a senior acolyte and as such I still have many duties to perform and clients to see again on a regular basis and training I'm still to be put through."

"Interesting, well whatever you decide it has been good getting to know you. I may even transfer to this Conclave Brothel temple I've recently been made aware of in a few years."

"Right, not sure what you do here exactly but I wouldn't mind seeing you around more often. Now can I speak to you in confidence about a personal matter?"

"You can."

"Well I recently acquired a spirit creature previously summoned by someone else..." I explain my situation to him in as much detail as I can as we sit in his rooms and he serves tea. I explain about Keir, I explain about the dream and what I did to overcome it.

I explain how soul weapons work as far as I can understand them, even going so far as to talk about my inability to summon a spirit of any kind while undergoing training at the Spiritus Enclave. Talking about the Conclave inner secrets to a man I've fought numerous times but really hardly know in all honesty, but fighting a man gives you a greater perspective of the type of person they are, and maybe I'm also trying to recruit him to the Conclave with my explanation and little hints.

He listens attentively, stopping to ask me questions at certain points and clarification at others. I mention my still clear connection between Honour and I, even as I suspect she is somewhere in the Underworld in the presence of the creature Zillah. I talk about the ritual the old man taught me by which I was eventually able to accomplish a summoning but instead summoned my nodachi instead of a creature from the spirit planes.

Even as I mention this I realise that I now have two other creatures I could potentially summon at will with the same ritual. Maybe three if the Lilithian creatures Zillah is also susceptible to the summoning, but definitely Keir and Katya are firmly under my spirit summons, I feel it to be true. Nyye realises this immediately of course which sort of embarrasses me for being slow but I remind myself I'm dealing with a psionic elf of undetermined age.

"Well by my guess I would say you just left your spirit energy wherever it is you were, I'm not sure it was the spirit plane either, but a place that mimics it and resembles it. You truly have inherited a powerful and dangerous spirit from this Albert you say you have banished."

"How could I leave my energy in the spirit planes and how do I go get it back?" I ask ignoring everything else he's said for the more pertinent part of the conversation.

"You can summon it as you summon your other weapon I believe. It should come to you easily and eagerly with no extra cost in the form of spirit energy." His words are like a light shined in my mind as the simplicity and elegence of the solutions lifts the weight off my shoulders.

I smile as I realise how quickly I can again be whole,I can again be protected and have enough energy to summon my zanpakutō to my side at a moments notice.

"But I'd advise you leave your spirit energy where it is." He says shattering my realisation with those words and bringing all my attention back to him.

"Why?"

"Think about it, where else could spirit energy gain more potency, inside you or in a place of spirit already surrounded by spirit? Though it will not increase in quantity and you will have to take measures to guard yourself against spiritual attacks using other means in the time being the concentration of your spirit energy is likely to be increasing rapidly where it is.

"And you said time moves differently there than it does here by the implications of the words spoken to you by this creature you have made a contract with. Imagine if you wait only a few months or years here with no spirit energy only to summon it as a much more potent and therefore effect energy later."

The man is making complete sense to me and I think its time I tried speaking with this creature Zillah as I do Keir and Katya. "I will think on what you say Nyye, thank you for your wisdom."

"Of course, now finish your tea before you leave."