The elders say that a journey of a thousand ri starts with a single step.
For Futago, it was by tripping over themselves and toppling over.
The fear of breaking one’s nose is never lost and so they blew out a shrill gale from their lungs and spirit both, wind-milling their arms as they narrowly avoided the fall. Well, better said that they had avoided the abrupt stop at the end of the fall.
That had to be their magatama’s second clause, that of autumn auspices. Futago looked within themselves instinctively to measure the amount of reikon that manifestation had cost them. Barely a tenth of a tenth. That was unexpected—even with a soul whose flame had been fed twice the normal amount of fuel, that release had to have cost more.
Gōto-sensei did not present Futago with the answer this time around, instead exchanging their question with a question of her own.
“Is the man that runs twice as much as his neighbour twice as out of breath?”
Futago returned to practice, their body moving as if possessed by another spirit as their mind meditated on Sensei’s riddle. Exercise was to the body as tempering was to the sword—an alchemical process of hardening through exposure. What then had their soul-embryo done to them to make their tamashi so robust?
‘Two souls; one soul flesh.’
That ryōiki-clause nagged at their thoughts like a thread unravelling from their kimono—either they cut it at its base or they would end up pulling at it until the kimono came undone. Either way, the thread would be gone.
Dismissing the reikon-shroud, Futago sat down in the Lotus Form and put a hand to their chin. The elders always used poetry to capture the essence of the soul, the tamashi; be it water or fire or wind, the spirit was always equated to some tangible metaphor so as to ground it in an understandable concept. Sure, it was a phenomenon rather than a noumenon—a fabrication to categorise reality to the human mind rather than a universal truth—but Futago was not going to discover the nature of existence itself in an afternoon.
They stuck to the water metaphor as it was what most resonated with them at the current moment. It was easier to conceptualise the spirit as water within the vessel of the body; when reikon overflowed from the soul, it seeped into physical reality. This was the nature of the shroud formed by Whisper.
The kokorro of the Scales explicitly told Futago that they were the essence of two people within one sole flesh. Logically, that much reikon would not fit within the confines of their soul—it would overflow into their body, and in so doing, make its reikon pathways more efficient in conducting water throughout itself. This was the same basis for many forms of body-tempering that warriors would undergo to strengthen their physical might.
“The man that runs twice as much as his neighbour has twice as much breath.” They whispered and the truth struck their soul like the weight of a monk upon the beam striking the tsurigane, the hanging bell. It resonated with the guiding wind of Fūjin, the ideographs bleeding into their tongue and branding it.
A corona of white fire erupted from Futago, swirling around them with tongues of scouring wind. The manifestation lasted but an instant, the burst of reikon evaporating back into the ether just as fast as it had come into reality.
Breathless, Futago fell to their knees.
----------------------------------------
Shinjitsu spoken: Two-Fold-Prayer-of-Breath
Shinrikyo-rank: Kinzoku (Silver)
Godai-nature: Wind (Primary) - Fire (Secondary) - Akasha (Tertiary)
Ryōiki (Domain): The man that runs twice as much as his neighbour has twice as much breath. Vital air burns hot within lungs of cold lead.
Kōsoku (Restraint): The man that runs twice as much as his neighbour is twice as tired. A cold forge needs bellows more than the one that is hot.
----------------------------------------
Futago had spoken too soon for they had, in fact, discovered the nature of existence itself in an afternoon. It was only an aspect, just a shard of the greater whole yet it was still a fragment of Truth.
“I did not expect a revelation within this batch of neophytes.” Sensei said, their voice faraway yet their body near. Futago’s head swam as if they’d hit their skull with a mallet, fever taking root. “We already had a newly-awoken in Sakai’s generation speak in Shinjitsu; they only manifest this early once every century.”
Gōto-sensei handed them a pill that tasted of loamy earth and spring winds. Futago’s weariness lessened just a fraction and their sense of hearing returned to them along with their other corporeal senses.
Of course they knew of shinjitsu but they hadn’t expected to find enlightenment themselves so readily. It wasn’t unheard of but Futago was not one to indulge in idle fancies and imaginary fantasies. They hoped for the best and planned for the worst, yes, but did not otherwise take to such things.
“Do not exert yourself for the rest of the day, rōnin.” With that said, Sensei began to explain shinjitsu and the nature of Fūjin revelations to the rest of the class rather than hamon control.
----------------------------------------
The next day after a night of sleep on a thin futon, Futago’s spirit returned to equilibrium. Their reikon reserves had regenerated yesterday but their focus and spiritual attention took longer to convalesce. They had glimpsed a strand of divinity, had taken it into themselves and assimilated such within the core of their being, so it followed that their mortality would be wounded if only temporarily.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Futago had asked their mentor yesterday why they hadn’t been reprimanded for the display of power when Chikara had been. The answer still echoed in their thoughts today as they waited for Sensei to begin the lecture on hamon-control.
‘Unearned power is poison that clouds the spirit. The guiding wind has seen that you’ve earned yours, who am I to deny you your accolades? Chikara’s magatama was bought for by their parents while your shinjitsu was not given but taken from the heaven’s themselves by your own power not another’s.’
Kneeling on the bare tatami, Futago ruminated on how the power they’d received did not feel earned. It felt like an inheritance, a foregone conclusion, not an achievement. Was it a matter of perspective that made them feel so unworthy or was it a bitter truth that they could not help but swallow?
Before they could descend too deeply into that rabbit-hole of rumination, Sensei began their lecture. Their tone brokered no dissent and their face was a severe rictus of wizened savagery. At the sight, Futago and the rest of the class stiffened their spines ramrod straight and began to sweat under her stare. It seemed to pierce into the—
“The soul is inviolate. Nothing but your own magatama and yourself may interact with your tamashi. This rule has no exception. Do not attempt to persuade me or yourselves otherwise. Whatever befalls your spirit is your own responsibility and no one else’s.”
It was Chikara that asked the first question. Her pride, seemingly, had not been so easily snuffed-out. “What about auras, Gōto-sensei? They are expressions of the soul and are they not suppressible? There are also techniques—genjutsu—that can tamper with the senses. How do spirit-curses and other sorts of spiritual attacks factor into this?”
The girl’s curiosity was just as deep as that of Futago's. They’d underestimated her as nothing more than a scion fat and plump on their sire’s coffers but apparently they’d only been at least half-right which was the worst kind of right.
Sensei used one hand to perform a jujutsu-seal, the sign of Ton which means ‘release’ in the ancient tongue. The index and middle fingers were straight while the rest of the digits were closed with the thumb bent so that its tip touched the enclosed digits.
“Tamashi.”
A blob of viscous reikon manifested on top of Gōto-sensei’s, ebbing and flowing and revolving.
“Is not the same as reikon.”
The sphere of power disappeared but Sensei’s spiritual weight doubled, imposing itself upon the students like weights upon their very souls. Their lungs spasmed as their diaphragms forgot how to function. Their hearts stopped for an excruciatingly long moment before resurging into a drum-beat that could beggar a thunderous storm. None could move nor blink no breathe, the only movement present being that of the beads of sweat that dripped down their collective foreheads.
The pressure abated like fog before noon, its absence stark against the memory of dread within Futago’s being.
“The tamashi cannot be directly manipulated by anything other than itself. Though a severe oversimplification, it uses reikon as fuel.”
Again, Sensei released a wave of spiritual pressure but it was not near the magnitude of the previous one. She conjured another orb of reikon with the jujutsu seal of Ton.
“For the spirit to sway reikon, it must bend its weight—hamon. The echo of intent, the ripples of one’s being, is what interacts with reikon.”
Next, Sensei spoke a word of power in the ancient tongue, her voice no longer audible to the ears but to the soul. Ideographs formed themselves upon Futago’s mind’s eye, detailing esoteric and paradoxical concepts of ashen secrets and hot darkness.
“Moyasu.”
The white sphere of un-aligned reikon changed form into a candle-flame, still the same colour but with a transformed contour.
“Godai-nature follows after hamon, a ripple of the ripple. Your magatama will each have its manner of metaphysical weight which will bind and repel and attract inertia in its own unique way.”
Sensei blew out the flame with her breath and said: “We will now practise hamon-restraint. Find yourselves a partner and I will narrate the process. Futago, you are the odd one out—you will partner with me.”
They weren’t going to look a gift-kirin in the mouth and quickly sat in the Lotus Form before Gōto-sensei. She spoke to the rest of the class with a steady and legible voice but kept her eyes on Futago’s bowed head, going through the process of hamon manifestation.
“Hamon does not come easily to newly-awoken—you’ve just kindled a fire and we ask you to move its shadow; of course you’ll fail. Begin by performing the jujutsu-seal of Ton and release the smallest amount of reikon possible.”
Futago did as they were bid. They did not know why but it felt right to speak the seal just as they had when they’d received their revelation.
“Release.”
A perfectly round sphere whose sides were paradoxically one and countless manifested atop Futago’s hand-sign. It held no movement, seemingly, but when they looked at it closely and with attention, they saw that it spun fast enough to appear still. It held no apparent Godai-nature, neither wind or fire or water or earth. Heatless, colourless, substanceless nothingness.
“Akasha is the base nature of reikon—the natal stillness of reality, of the nothing-waters of the Skysea that go on for infinity.”
Gōto-sensei produced a sphere of her own.
“Once you have manifested a sphere like mine and Futago’s I will hand you the accompanying scroll that will teach the next step of the technique. Do not rush this process for control and restrain are paramount and cannot be hurried. Houses built upon shifting sands fall into the abyss.”
Sensei handed Futago a scroll and they bowed deeply to her, accepting the jujutsu with gratitude. The casing was of carved red jade like blood that had coagulated into a precious stone; this was not idle metaphor for the divinity that emanated from the stone told Futago that this had once been the ichor in a god’s veins.
They wondered why a sacred treasure such as this would be used on a lowly bit of yokai-parchment and so uttered their ignorance aloud.
“A sword made of the bone of a titan cannot be easily broken. The food held within the maw of a god-beast cannot be easily taken.”
The answer was another riddle—there would be no easy meals within the tatami of this dojo, it seemed. This was fine for Futago for unearned power is poison that clouds the spirit.
When they attempted to draw the parchment from its capsule, pressure descended upon Futago. It was like that of Gōto-sensei but tinged with the aspect of slaughter and violence. Phantom teeth excoriated Futago’s soul, raking their very being until they relented and let go of the scroll, letting it close.
It was a genius method to safeguard knowledge—the sacred scroll would ward-off curious children and would teach those of the correct age how to resist a foreign hamon. Futago could scarcely believe the perfection in such a simple concept.
They attempted again and again until noon came. None but them had yet to produce an unaspected sphere of reikon but neither had Futago cracked open the scroll.
“Eat and then return to your practice. Once the sun sets you may converse among yourselves but until then you are mine to mould.”