Grueling days passed. Grueling yet for Raxri, whose muscles screamed at the fiery pain whenever they were pushed past their limit. However, as with a blossoming, Raxri's mind was ever susceptible to the teachings. Akazha's teaching style was that of granting lessons while performing physical matters. At least when it came to martial arts.

Akazha said, early on: "The first thing you must know is that you must learn how to meditate. Come." Akazha sat on a clean boulder atop the clear river. Raxri did the same. They sat cross-legged in a lotus position. Then, Akazha said: "Follow me. Breathe in. Breath out. Focus on the breathing. There, focus. Now, what do you hear?"

"The chirping of the birds, the babbling of the brook," replied Raxri. Akazha nodded, satisfied. "Think upon that for a moment." And Raxri did.

A few more moments later, Akazha called out: "Close your eyes. What do you smell?"

"The smell of dew upon great mountain leaves, the smell of wet stone."

"Focus upon it for a moment."

And so they did. A long stretch of quietness, of solitude, of nothingness.

Then, Akazha said: "Next, what do you feel?"

Raxri thought for a moment, looking at what they could feel. "The stiffness of my back from sitting upon this rock, the water spray from the river. The fresh winds..."

"Focus upon that, for a moment."

Another moment of void. Raxri felt themselves being carried off, their mind space floating above them. They could visualize themselves sitting where they were, sitting in front of Akazha. They became mindful then: they focused on everything they did at that moment. They became the master of their thoughts, talking through their thoughts, guiding them, and telling them what to think. Is this mindfulness?

Then, Akazha said: "Expand your awareness now to the whole world. Reach up to the solid dome of the sky above. Reach down to the subterranean realms below. Reach to the sides and envelop all sentient beings in this realm with an undeniable compassion."

As Akazha said those things, Raxri followed. It came easily. It was easy to suddenly imagine one's awareness up in the sky, slamming against the malachite dome, or otherwise burrowing deep underground and experiencing the rush of an underground river, or otherwise the waterfall in the far ends of this archipelago, or the still pond on the farthest north of the region... Raxri felt themselves slipping into a state where there was nothing but what they were doing.

"Expand your awareness now, finally, once again," said Akazha. "To the realm beyond all realms. To the voidness, vastness, and nothingness of all space."

Raxri reached up, focusing on meditating upon the emptiness. How all those things being able to be captured by their mind meant they existed in Raxri's mind, and Raxri in their's. The interpenetration of all things, the no difference of Raxri and It...

Into emptiness, they leapt.

"This is basic meditation," said Akazha as they inhaled and exhaled. Her voice echoed from the surroundings, leaping and bounding from the leaves, carried by the winds, by the babbling brook. "Simple one-pointedness, the slow descent into emptiness. Many experts call this the Simple Void Meditation. But it's enough to ground you, and it's enough to activate the things required in a martial art. Normally, students would take a moon or two to fully grasp meditation and to fully wield the esoteric skills of a martial art such as the Whorl Hand. However, like I've said, with you... the familiarity makes it easier. Which is good. I don't suppose you will have much time."

***

It took Raxri a good three days to grasp meditation as a practice fundamentally. On the third day, they were forced to learn how to use it while in battle.

That day, Akazha taught Raxri by psychically controlling a piece of stick, long enough to be a spear, with nothing but an unseen hand. "Watch closely! This is one of the most important techniques of the Whorl Hand Art. The Whorl Guard! Once known as the Malachite Hand of Ksewran. I taught you how to meditate, didn't I?"

"Yes, great witch, but I don't know how I'm supposed to meditate in the middle of combat!" Akazha struck with the stick, and Raxri, relying on their muscle memory now, parried it away.

"If that were a blade, your hand would have been lost, now!"

"Teach me the Devastating Red Hand, master!"

"First, know this. Your meditation must expand, eventually, into whatever you do. You can suffuse yourself with meditation... and in so doing you inch ever closer to Extinction, the great transcension. Do this by being mindful, focusing on absolutely nothing else but what is in front of you, and controlling all your mental energy into that specific task. This is meditation. Should you eat, drink, shit, bathe, run, or fight... you can meditate upon it. This is the Clear Light Path Beyond Immortality."

Raxri gulped and nodded. Akazha incanted a spell, and the stick's wood was ripped away to reveal a steel blade. "Now!" She swung the blade with her mind. Raxri bent down to dodge it and leaped to the side, but the steel blade was there anyway. It plunged itself into Raxri's side. Our cloud-headed hero yelped in pain, and they pulled it out of themselves.

"Your thoughts," said Akazha. "Told you to flee instead of face your target. Cease doubt; seize victory! Bring out your meditation!"

Raxri inhaled. Raxri exhaled. Without any other knowledge, they cleared their mind and focused on their fists. On the blade. On the blade that was, at that moment, now slicing through the air towards them. They inhaled again and then planted both their feet onto the ground--wincing a bit at the sudden pain, but Raxri was quick to take that thought of pain and throw it away--hand raised. As they exhaled, they channeled their breath, turning it leaden hot.

Nothing but this.

Raxri's hands burned bright blue. The color of malachite.

They parried with the back of their hand and shattered the blade.

That instant of sheer meditation slipped away. Suddenly, the wind was cold. Suddenly, the brook was loud. Suddenly, the leaves rustled too much, and there were too many of them all about.

Raxri looked up, breathing heavily, wearing nothing but a sarong. Akazha smiled at them. "There you have it. The Whorl Guard."

Since understanding this part of meditation and fighting, learning new techniques became like second nature. Alongside all the Whorl Hand Art fundamentals, Raxri had multiple sparring sessions per day with Akazha to re-drill the muscle reflexes into our cloud-headed hero.

It wasn't long before Raxri had learned a good number of Whorl Hand Techniques. Devastating Red Hand, which funneled spiritual force into a connecting fist, sending the one struck back by a few wings. The Bladed Hand commanded true battle meditation, but it, in truth, turned the blades of one's hand into true cutting instruments. Finally, Raxri learned how to flip, apparently an integral part of the Whorl Hand Art. It did cause Raxri to limber up completely.

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And though Raxri had learned much in such a short time (truly, even Akazha had said that it was as if Raxri had known these techniques before), they intimately understood that Akazha knew yet more. She was a true master, and perhaps she wasn't exactly inclined to have had students before Raxri.

At the end of one training session, as they lounged about the porch of Akazha's cottage eating sweetened bananas, Akazha said: "You've learned a lot now, student."

Raxri nodded but was too busy chewing on a banana.

"In truth, it's still kind of pathetic," she said. "You bear the fingerprint of someone so skilled in the martial arts. But now you can barely hold your own against me. You've lost so much of your cultivation."

"Sounds sad."

"It is!"

"But I don't remember everything I've learned before! So might as well just go through it again."

Akazha shrugged. "I envy your optimism. If I were to lose all my cultivation... I would have given up."

"I suppose, at times, ignorance truly is bliss. Both the master and the student have got no clue as to my original level. In this, it is easier to restart."

"Ha!" Akazha barked out a laugh. "Spare me, you would-be sage! But a nugget of truth can be found yet in your murky water for a brain."

Raxri laughed. "Well, you know what they say!"

Akazha rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. No mud, no lotus. Spare me the koans and idioms, student. Lest you suffer ten lashings."

Raxri smiled and then shoved another banana into their mouth. The truth was that Raxri had no idea there was an idiom. They just said that so that they could stop talking.

"Nevertheless," said Akazha, licking now her fingers. "It still is an interesting thing, you know. Though your skill is just that again of a beginner's... the rate at which you pick them up is astounding. It's as if your body yet remembers. I've no idea what this might mean. Perhaps the monks in Mount Jura might know a thing or two about it..."

"No matter the speed of my learning, my application leaves a chasm to be desired. I will hone my skill nonetheless to protect you as you have protected me."

Akazha smiled. Raxri turned to look at her, but she looked away. Raxri swallowed the banana and said, "Will you eat this?"

Akazha rolled her eyes and shook her head, choosing instead to sip on her chilled tea drink. Happy, Raxri finished the last of the sweetened bananas.

***

On the eleventh day of training, Raxri and Akazha set off. Akazha gave Raxri a different set of clothes, one where they wouldn't be mistaken for a monk or an ascetic. A loose cloth doublet and a silken sarong, with a gold rope bound tightly around their waist to carry multiple medicines packed into jars. Raxri also wore an extra set of wooden sandals.

Akazha herself had also adopted a more pragmatic outfit: a long-sleeved vest that wrapped around her upper torso, a similar sarong, though cut much shorter, and the same wooden sandals. Slung diagonally across her chest was a small cloth bag that housed multiple poultices that they might need. Then, she wore a loose, wide-sleeved robe decorated with angular geometric symbols and colored the blue of the noon sky.

Both of them had on wide-brimmed hats.

"Great master, forgive me, but may I ask again where we journey to?"

Akazha sighed. "Tannum Village, student, if you so wish to spoil this surprise. We will go there to buy some fish and meat. And it will be good for you to see some other people integrate well back into society. Perhaps we can find yet more answers, though I doubt it."

And so they set off, both of them riding upon Sungai, galloping northward toward the side of Pemi Island that faced the Viridian Sea. They followed the dirt path blazed by earth-traveling merchants until it met with a coastal path. The sea breeze was surprisingly fresh at this time of morning. The sea was a bright blue, looking like blue fire, tossing to and fro. The blue of the sea met with the blue of the sky at its furthest distance: Raxri could see no more lands beyond that point. Or, at least, as their imperfect eye can see.

The Tannum Road

As they rode, they quickly were met with the sound of soft crying, and the clamor of gruff men and women. Up the path, Raxri and Akazha saw a throng of bandits, all of them wearing straw raincapes, vests and sarouels, wielding longknives and harpoons turned spears. On one side of the path was a dead carabao and various vegetables and fruits scattered upon the lumpy dirt road.

"Bandits," Akazha spat, and then she scoffed. "Dear student, think you capable of handling this?"

Raxri took stock: five bandits in dirty clothes and emaciated frames—hungry ones, these would be. "Is there a famine?"

Akazha nodded forlornly. "Locked in ever war, the Utter Islands are fractured not just in geography but in politics and resources. We live in a destroyed world: bandits, marauders, pirates, ravagers... they all do this to survive, make ends meet, living in the frontiers. Many of them end up creating new communities, new settlements, new towns, new kingdoms... That is the law of the Utter Islands, after all. We live in a fractured world. Faced with such a quandary, living in these Lands of Suffering, what do you?"

Raxri stepped down from Sungai. Though they shook, though terror seized them rightfully, they took a stand. "I will take care of the bandits. That is my duty."

Akazha smiled and ruffled Raxri's hair. "Good boy, good boy." She moved Sungai to the side, to the brush of trees, hidden away from the bandits' view.

Raxri stepped forward. Hands balled into fists, they emanated their martial skill. I must be careful. I should dispatch them quickly. No room for fancy tricks. Stick to the fundamentals and pulverize them to the ground. Raxri exhaled.

Raxri was not terribly tall. They measured around five tails and two claws tall, at most. The most average of heights, though not one where one towered over them all. Despite Raxri's frame and narrow waist, they did not exude a field of intimidation that larger and taller warriors would have had.

The young boy, who sat by their dead carabao, whimpered, protecting a small sack of what seemed to be bananas and taro crops.

"Release it! Release it, and yer life be saved yet!" One of the bandits snarled and then kicked the little boy, though with a certain restraint. The boy cried out again.

Raxri stopped a few good feet away from them. Inhaled, exhaled. Then: "By my authority, cease!"

The bandits all stopped. Turning, they brandished their weapons. One of them had an arquebus with them. She was the one who stepped forward. "O? What a curiosity, eh lads? A woman come to protect little children? What do ye, eh? There's fivetimes of us than you. And I've a gun!"

Raxri's frown turned into a scowl. A diamond resolve to save those that cannot save themselves. Suddenly, all thoughts of self-preservation and hesitation faded, single-pointed, into the duty of protecting the little boy. Raxri yelled: "Cease your banditry, and I may yet grant you mercy!"

"HA! And you're the one to talk! Stand aside, woman, lest we have our way with you!" The gun-bandit snapped her finger, and a bow-bandit from behind them loosed an arrow, which flew crookedly but close enough to Raxri.

Here, Raxri wielded that technique: Whorl Guard. With a circular movement, using only their bare hands, they caught the arrow from underneath its trajectory and deflected it towards the ground.

To Raxri's right, the sea clashed against the stone shore.

"Bloody tits of the Unconquerable Maiden..." The harpoon-bandit cursed. "It be a martial artist!"

The gun-bandit spat. "What, you think yourself to be a hero, then? Spare me! No heroes are to be found in this Age of Furor!" They began loading their gun. The others yelled and dashed forward.

Raxri took stock. Two bearing longknives, one with a harpoon, far behind the bow-wielder, and then their captain: the gunbearer.

Akazha's teachings echoed in Raxri's thoughts. "Cease doubt; seize victory." Grasping onto the grueling martial training they'd undergone, they dashed forward to meet them. Great strides to meet the bandits.

Immediately, Raxri elbowed the closest bandit's chin: the one with the harpoon. The harpoon-bandit spat out blood, and Raxri continued the movement, slamming the base of their palm into the bandit's forehead, slamming both palms into both temples and then twisting in a way to toss the harpoon bandit behind them.

The two longknife bandits appeared, swinging wildly. Raxri scattered backward, avoiding their wild swings, until the one on their right swung too wide. Raxri closed in, fist slamming into that bandit's wrist and cracking it, forcing the longknife out.

A longknife slashed Raxri's back. The strike was wide, however, and so the slash was mostly caught by the doublet, the cotton acting as a cushion. Raxri kicked backward, their foot cutting into that bandit's neck. With that same foot, Raxri hooked that bandit's neck and slammed them into the floor. With another movement, Raxri scampered for the bandit's hand, disarmed him of their weapon, and then impaled the bandit's hand to the ground with their same weapon.

Another longknife swung through the air. Raxri ducked just in time to avoid the brunt of it. The other bandit they had disarmed had risen again and swung again. Wide swings, the swings of someone untrained. I am troubled even against the untrained!

Raxri moved in to block the strike again, but this time, that bandit punched Raxri in the gut, stepped wide to the side, and then sliced down. A clean chop, one with the full weight of the wielder behind it.

Roaring, Raxri raised their hand, reaching for any strand of meditation to activate the Whorl Guard...

Hammer-force instead slammed into their left forearm.

Glancing down at it, no gash. Instead, the talismanic tattoo that wound about Raxri's left forearm burned a bright scarlet, as if cindered, and slowly faded.

Raxri moved on no-thought. The bandit too was wide-eyed at the sudden turn. Raxri lodged two fists into the bandit's stomach, continuing into an elbow up the bandit's forehead, a knee into the gut for good measure. Then, a broad crackling slap, enhanced with the Devastating Red Hand, sent the bandit flying backward.

Raxri breathed heavily. Strands of cloud hair all about them.

Then--

BANG. A gunshot ripped through the air.