“Careful, Dan.” Hyun Soon warned, not even blinking for fear of missing her pounce. Guan Po Dayu was poised to jump into action at any second. From the short distance she stood, he could see that her knuckles were white on the doorframe she held, her crouch was not pain but a gathering of power in her muscles. She was like an arrow in a pulled string.

Dan, for his part, had the main force of his attention upon the fallen foe. Hyun’s attack had shattered his collarbone entirely, he was removed from the battle completely, not even conscious any more. “He could deal it out, Hyun, but not take it. Typical of bullies.”

Hyun looked at Dan like he was insane. Agitating Po Daiyu was a great strategy if you wanted to be torn to pieces, but Dan had a different thought about it. This man, whoever he was, had a deadly power which felt similar to hers in a lot of ways. Something about the way she reacted to the mana had made Dan think. He’d seen people flinch like she had when he landed.

She hated this man. Dan hadn’t made her annoyed at himself, he’d focused some of her attention upon the cloaked figure. With a casual foot, not trying to be gentle, Dan shoved the cloak away from his face. His features were round, his nose was piggish, yet there it was in the brow and the hair. “Ah! That makes sense,” Dan threw in some gesticulation to give himself an air of casual victory, “looks just like you, Daiyu.”

“Keep my name from your mouth, Ah Dan.” Her words came through clenched teeth. Her eyes were shooting between Dan himself, Hyun and the fallen family member they had defeated. Her breathing was laboured, she was tired. Her pupils were large, engorged by emotion and frantically scanning the area before her. “Release Po Kahn.”

“Your brother?” Dan made a show of not keeping eye contact with Po Daiyu, inspecting the oafish face that was still coiled in pain and unconscious. She had sounded more angry saying her brother’s name than he had ever heard her, and they had been in opposite cells for some time. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

Her tension had reached its limit, and she had caught her breath enough. The floor burst, the doorframe she held buckled and she didn’t touch the floor again before connecting. Ready and waiting for his moment, Hyun Soon’s large frame was enough to throw her to the side. She dodged his downward swinging fist with a spin, her movements graceful, almost feline. As she avoided the blow, her foot lashed out and caught Hyun Soon’s shin with a harrowing crunch.

Both combatants were more physically capable than Dan was, so he had barely had time to react, despite knowing it was coming. He’d managed to get out of the way, but Hyun had fared worse than expected. Summoning the eccentric mana within, Dan punched and a fireblast sent Po Daiyu scuttling backwards quickly.

Hyun threw himself onto his good leg, wincing as his now damaged leg swung uselessly from the shin downwards. “I’ll be your shield as long as you need, Dan. She had to pay for hurting Xiaomei.” Hyun Soon had managed to get some of the story from Xiaomei while Dan was recovering from healing her. He hadn’t explained what had happened because he would become too angry to speak, and Dan didn’t want to see the painful tears in Xiaomei’s eyes, so he had left it for the time being.

Dan sent a pulse of healing energy into Hyun. If his shin had snapped, and it certainly looked like it had, this wouldn’t be enough to fix it completely. It would, Dan saw, be enough for Hyun to put some weight onto it. “If you punch,” Dan whispered, “you’ll probably snap it again. I’ll take over.” Treating the healing like camaraderie, Po Daiyu would hopefully be scared of Hyun’s ability to shrug off damage.

They were just lucky that she hadn’t used her mana. It seemed that Po Daiyu had a similar thought. The air started to taste of iron, the air becoming sharp enough to leave tiny cuts on the tongue. The real battle with her started from here. She wouldn’t be distracted by anger any more, Dan watched as the hot and distracting flames of it cooled into a calm analysis.

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From wild animal to spearpoint, she had just become as lethal as she could. Dan’s left shoulder was incredibly sore from his bout with Po Kahn, the ribs and hip of his left side not faring much better. Swallowing the pain down, Dan put his left foot forward, keeping the weight on his good side.

He had not been able to heal himself during any of the practices with Hyun Soon, or in the quiet of his own meditation. At the same time, he had felt his limits with his own mana, and he had nearly reached that too. His ambient mana was slower to react, less dense in the air and less precise. As much as it might have made sense for Dan to let Hyun Soon fight, he couldn’t. Though he expected the other boy, from his stance, felt the same.

The signal for this phase of combat, the event which broke the three deadlocked fighters from their frozen anticipation, was the stirring of Po Kahn. Three things happened at exactly the same time, in reaction. He would be angry with himself later, but Dan had been surprised and looked down at the man when he coughed. Po Daiyu didn’t miss her chance and unleashed a barrage of purple energy, slicing lines of destructive force.

The final action of that second was Hyun Soon flaring his mana and protecting himself. That was good, Dan thought, his perception of time slowing to a crawl. The purple slice of mana tore through the air with a whistle, and Dan couldn’t dodge. His feet had become sluggish, the mana to Hyun Soon draining him dangerously.

It was lucky, then, that Xiaomei had finally arrived.

Like some form of heavenly guardian, she appeared in Dan’s vision as a bonfire of energy. Dan’s, Hyun’s and Po Daiyu’s mana were almost all spent, but Xiaomei was fresh. Fresh, and clearly had some things to work out. Her ribbons covered the hallway before Dan like a large shield. At the same time, behind Po Daiyu a similar weaving appeared, a mesh of ribbons becoming as strong as a steel gate.

“I’m sorry!” Xiaomei’s apology was surreal, considering Dan and Hyun wanted to whoop for joy and thank her. Instead of distracting the girl with inane babble, Dan decided to drag Po Kahn slightly away from the combat now there was a chance. Hyun helped slightly, gritting his teeth as he put weight onto his damaged leg.

“Don’t moan, big baby. I’ll fix it, you help Xiaomei.” Except as Dan raised his hand to do some further healing on Hyun Soon, the boy caught his wrist.

“I’m fine, Dan. We need you to find the place we’re going. It’s important, right? Need you awake.”

“But we need to help.”

“No,” Hyun said, his voice full of confidence, “we don’t.”

Dan’s mana was so thin that he wasn’t even seeing far in front of his own face, let alone able to follow the high-paced combat occurring in the halls around them. It was a facet of Xiaomei’s quiet mana and abilities that Dan could only hear the keening whine of Po Daiyu’s attacks. It made him feel as though Xiaomei weren’t on the offensive.

Nothing was further from the truth, Dan saw, as Xiaomei raced after the other woman. Po Daiyu was on the backfoot, throwing random attacks in Xiaomei’s direction, but all Po Daiyu could do was retreat and dodge.

From the walls, ribbons exploded. Some were solid as a metal beam, impassable except to dodge. Some were elastic and aimed to grasp at Po Daiyu. Others still were smaller bundles meant for Xiaomei to step on, expanding her movements immensely. Dan hadn’t seen her fight since the Sasin forest, but he knew she had reached square stage and it showed. He certainly hadn't been able to move like that just by advancing a stage, Xiaomei was made for combat like this.

Each of Po Daiyu’s attacks made Dan’s breath catch, with each swing of her arms, he was sure this time it was going to end the fight, only for Xiaomei to block the attack with a bundle of ribbon from her arm. It coiled around itself until the ribbon was essentially a rope. The rope she held like a sword, defending from attacks and ready to bring down on Po Daiyu’s head, a target Xiaomei quickly closed on.

Feeling a little arrogant for assuming she would need help, Dan instead tried to just calm himself and channel his mana. He kept what he had of Po Kahn’s mana, leaving it to float in his core until ready. One side of his core was filled with Hyun Soon’s mana, leaving the rest able to gather his own mana again. The process was slow, and by the time he finished, the fight was truly over.

Dan had been paying increasing attention, the focus of his mana improving as he regained the energy within his core. Po Daiyu was screaming angry insults and curses at Xiaomei, who for her part had a stony silence to herself. As though the walls of the Jiaoduo themselves were at Xiaomei’s beck and call, more and more ribbons were appearing. Some tangled, some garrotted and some were just normal ribbon.

Xiaomei’s fighting style was beautiful. Dan didn’t allow himself to be too enamoured with it though, as it was Hyun Soon who couldn’t stop whispering that to himself. Their worries faded, and eventually Dan and Hyun were quietly giggling as the final steps of Po Daiyu and Xiaomei’s deadly dance concluded. Xiaomei had been able to toy with her in the end.

“Shall I do the same with this one?” Xiaomei asked, joining them. Hyun Soon had kicked Po Kahn in the jaw when he stirred, and he was flat out again. Xiaomei shuddered as she looked at him, her words were said with anger, but the Po Shang faction deserved anger at this point.

Xiaomei left both of Po Shang’s children floating in cocoons, red and yellow ribbons making them look like poisonous eggs of some strange butterflies.

They continued following the soul stone.