Sky qi? There’s no such thing child. Sky, moon, land, the elements, all the so called “qi aspects” that the chattle rant about are nothing more than boxes forced on the spectrum that are the Paths we walk. Our Paths are more than a handful of whimsical inspirations, and they do not care how we categorize anything. Find your Path; do not categorize it into powerlessness. -Matron Huri of the Mind’s Peace Pavillion to her disciple.

* * *

It was still several days before Jaili gave me her blessing to leave. Even then, she gave Lin and Xinya strict instructions not to let me go anywhere alone, lest I fall and hit my head. Even if it was unwarranted, her concern was touching, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a fall and a bump on the head wouldn’t keep me down, even in my weakened state.

I didn’t have proper funeral attire…or really many extra outfits at all…so I elected for the white and green robes that I’d worn when I first escaped the labyrinth. They were nice, at least, being of the highest quality materials an Ascendent could muster. Of course, during my imprisonment, they’d lost much of the qi that had once been infused into every thread, but they were still the nicest and most respectful thing I owned. Hanako deserved that much, at least.

Jaili also insisted that I wear a cloak of gray fox fur that her father had once worn, and I was immediately grateful. One step outside, and I could feel the biting chill of the autumn air. While I was sleeping, the weather had turned, and it was clear that we were approaching a harsh winter.

“How has your cultivation progressed?” I asked Xinya as the three of us walked through the chilly streets. Immediately, her expression became excited. She hopped forward and began to walk backwards in front of me as she happily shared everything that had happened while Lin and I were away.

“I got the lightning! See?” She pointed upward so that no one would get hurt and a tiny streak of violet lightning shot from the tip of her fingers.

“Excellent work!” I praised. “And your moonlight?” she nodded and held her hand out. Concentration furrowed her brow, and a little orb of silver light flickered dimly in her hand.

“The moonlight is hard. I don’t know why it resists,” she admitted.

“We’ll work on it. These things take time, but your dedication is clear.” I pat the little girl on the head. She turned back around and fell in line between Lin and I. “You’ll want to start considering how the nature of moonlight and lightning could mingle together.”

Xinya nodded, then frowned and bit at her knuckle. After nearly a whole block of walking, she tugged on my sleeve. “What do you mean ‘mingle together?’”

“Right now, lightning and moonlight share a space in your core, but they do not mix. They sift and shift like oil in a pitcher of water, together and not at the same time,” I explained. “However, to reach Bronze, you will need to condense your core, which will naturally begin to mix them within you. When you reach Iron, you’ll layer both into the same pathways in your meridians. The further you progress, the more the two forces will collide and mingle. They’ll influence one another.”

“What about yours?” she asked.

“My path is not yours.” I crossed my arms. We had arrived outside the cemetery gates. Once we entered, we would not be allowed to speak until we left, out of respect for the restful dead.

“True. I can’t copy yours, but I can get inspiration, right? Nothing says I can’t study yours in order to develop my own.” She had me there. I cast a pleading look at Lin, but he just shrugged.

“She’s your disciple, not mine,” he said, but I could hear the amusement in his tone.

“Some help you are.” I sighed, then stopped to ponder it. My path had changed so dramatically since my first ascension, and I hadn’t really stopped to think about it in any meaningful way. Perhaps that was my mistake. If I understood it better, would the void have less control over my thoughts and actions?

“My path combines the reality altering power of the moon with the destructive isolation of the void,” I began, trying to put words to intuition as I went. “By combining those ideas, the obvious conclusion is that my path is one that destroys reality, but, if you look at my abilities, that isn’t quite true. My bloodline certainly can destroy a reality in progress, but that’s only a tiny part of my full path.”

“But, void also deals in isolation. Are you instead isolating realities that aren’t favorable?” Xinya proposed. I knew she was just trying to impress me, to guess the wisdom behind my words before they became apparent, but it was an insight that I’d never quite considered.

The void is the space between the stars. It separates them and isolates them, keeping them from ever interacting with one another. One could say that, by taking two grains of rice and placing them on opposite ends of a table, you are demonstrating an inherent principle of the void’s teachings. But…

When combined with the reality alteration of the moon…

I thought back to the times when void colored moonlight. The effect the voidlight created in the world was akin to creating extremely poor luck, but it did more than that. It blocked my blooded techniques. If it simply drained luck, then why would it block Flash Forward and Flash Back, unless there was another mechanism at play that I couldn’t yet see.

Without answering Xinya, I pushed open the cemetery gates. I needed to more carefully consider the void’s true influence on my path, and the next several hours of quiet seemed as good a time as any to do so. Hanako would understand if my thoughts were elsewhere. After all, figuring out the true nature of myself might help me to understand how to avoid becoming the wicked demon that lived in this world’s legends.

You are more than just your titles…

Her words rang clearly in my ears, and I could almost see her cheerful smile. Were she here, hearing the tribulations in my heart, she’d call me silly. Then, she’d take my hand, read the fortune in my palm, and encourage me to keep trying. The least I could do would be to continue that path.

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Lin split off from us to visit his parents’ graves while Xinya and I continued on to Hanako’s. Fresh flowers lay on the stone under her name. Zumi must have just left his vigil to see to his aunt and uncle’s graves. Without a word, Xinya and I knelt at the grave to our departed friend and bowed our heads. We lit the incense and stoked a fire in the offering brazier. Then, with heavy hearts, we sat in quiet contemplation, burning the paper money we’d brought for Hanako.

“Take care of them both…for me…”

You have my word, Hanako, I promised silently. I will guard them with my life.

But, some guardian I would be if I didn’t get a hold on my own techniques. As we sat in silence, I began to mentally catalogue every technique I’d used, developed, or seen used by the Chain-Bound Fury.

Most of them were simple. Simple Lunar Blades and Void orbs were not hard to create, and they used mostly one form of qi. Because they were so simple, they did not have the same mingling of power that the others displayed.

However, anything that used voidlight was under scrutiny. That included the ability I’d dubbed Baleful Light, which just produced a voidlight orb of light, and Corrosive Light, which created a denser mote of voidlight that would destroy anything the light touched. Since Corrosive Light simply worked off the principle of enhancing the void qi inside Baleful Light, it was a safe assumption that the two operated off the same fundamentals.

At the end of the day, the most dangerous part of both techniques was the effect that the void had on myself and others. To myself, it blocked my blooded techniques, preventing me from seeing and changing realities in progress. To others, it seemingly forced their luck to go sour.

But, how is luck related to the void? Fortune would normally be a trait of star qi… If Chouko had been around, I’d have asked her. After all, in life, she was a star artist, practicing the art of channeling the power of the constellations in order to manifest a specific result. Like many star artists, she also looked to the stars for guidance, using it to do minor predictions, even if it wasn’t her focus.

Perhaps Xinya was right. Void qi also dealt in the isolation of objects, which often manifested as destruction, but wasn’t necessarily required to be. Like the two grains of rice, perhaps the void was trying to isolate something behind the scenes.

Isolation…reality-alteration…isolating realities…

I frowned. Was it really so simple as that?

If every possible future were a grain of rice on a table, then the void would try to separate them. With a finite amount of table space, the optimal solution would be to remove grains until there were only a handful left. They would be far apart on the table, and the void will have done its work.

By that same principle, was the void trying to isolate realities? If realities were arranged in such a way that negative outcomes were grouped and separated from the positive ones, and, if the grains removed from the tabletop were all the average outcomes, then what would remain would be only the very negative and very positive ones.

Moreover, if this were the case, then it would explain why Flash Forward became unavailable whenever the voidlight was active. What was once the most likely outcome, the average one, was no longer an option. Flash Forward couldn’t show what no longer existed.

However, even that theory came with some discrepancies with what I’d observed in reality. If this theory was true, then why would Baleful Light only create bad fortune? Wouldn’t it try to create very good fortune, as well? Or perhaps it did, and I just hadn’t seen it? Would I even recognize good fortune anymore after so long manipulating the odds to always be in my favor?

Regardless of the answer, I would need to spend time in dedicated cultivation to get any closer to the truth. As much as I hated it…as boring as it would be…I would probably need at least a few weeks of meditation and technique development to further myself and prepare myself and Lin for reaching Silver.

* * *

The vigil ended when the sun began to dip below the horizon and the wind was too cold. The last thing Hanako would want was for any of us, particularly Xinya, to join her in the afterlife because we were foolish and caught a nasty cold.

Lin had joined us about halfway through the day, kneeling silently next to us before Hanako’s grave. When all was done, the three of us kowtowed before the memorial stone before standing. Xinya had tears in her eyes, and I pulled her close, wrapping my cloak around her as we walked to the exit.

As soon as we stepped beyond the gates, Xinya’s sobs bubbled forth. I leaned down, taking the little girl into my arms as we quietly returned to the Lang residence. As the only home between the three of us, it was the only place to go.

Dinner was a muted affair. Lin made dumplings. Though no one said so, everyone clearly agreed that they weren’t the same as Hanako’s. While Lin and I cleaned up, Xinya crept into the bedroom.

“Did Zumi say how long it would take to rebuild?” I asked softly, not wanting to disturb Xinya if she had gone to sleep.

Lin shook his head. “The foundations are still good, but everything else is burned beyond repair. They need to remove the debris before they can start rebuilding.” The way he spoke, it was as if he were speaking about someone else’s home. As if everything he loved and cared for hadn’t gone up in smoke, and he’d just go home to find his wife and mother in the kitchen, and his father at the table with a half-finished game of go.

“I heard that Pharyx and Pollen sent word. They’re returning to Saikan to pay their respects.”

“That’s very kind of them.”

I nodded in agreement. “Has Master Feng been arrested?”

“He was sentenced while you were unconscious,” Lin said. “But Kansi and Lian are also staying nearby. Apparently, they’re both convinced that their mission objectives are somewhere nearby.” Lin gave me a meaningful look, and I shrugged. Given that they were both searching for me, they were actually rather perceptive…or at least Kansi was. Lian already knew he’d found his mark and was staying near while I considered his offer.

I needed to speak with him further. His words still echoed in my head. The offer to see me back to my former strength was enormously tempting, and yet…I came dangerously close to listening to the Void again when Hanako died. If I’d had the power of an Ascendent, would I have resisted wiping the Moon-Soaked Shore off the map? Maybe it was better if I didn’t have that kind of power.

A knock at the door drew our attention. I set down the bowl I was drying and opened the door to find Zumi outside.

“Master Tsuyuki, Cousin Lin, I hope I’m not interrupting,” he said with a bow.

“Not at all, Zumi. Please, come in.” I held the door open for the assistant as he stepped in and removed his shoes. From his cloak, he pulled a green envelope with silver trim.

“I was catching up with everything after leaving you both at the cemetery,” he explained. “This was marked as urgent, so I opened it. It’s important.”

Lin took the envelope and read the message inside. His brow furrowed with every word he read. Given that it didn’t bear the Lunar Hunt emblem, I was unsure as to what could be so dire, but he quickly handed it to me after he was done.

To the Administrator of Saikan,

Due to reports of increased spiritual activity in the vicinity of Saikan, the Spirit Caller Sect will be arriving early to hold the Shattered Moon Festival. Please make the appropriate preparations for our arrival. Please send a cultivator native to Saikan to the Black City on the enclosed date to escort our representatives for the remainder of the journey.

Sincerely,

Sect Elder Senri Yao of the Spirit Caller Sect