Chương 30: Split Cores and Emotional Fetters

Kurisu led the boys back to the dirt patch while their parents got breakfast ready, stepping over dew-slick roots before settling onto a dry stump and crossing his arms to observe their progress. Ace held an orange flame in his palm while Kellevra stood over a patch of loose soil, lifting small spheres of earth into the air. From the dry stump, Kurisu stepped toward the younger boys.

"Well done," he praised.

"Henceforth, gradually increase your output until you reach your physical limits." Kellevra lowered his hands, letting the dirt spheres drop.

"What, you mean sweating like yesterday?"

"Just so," Kurisu confirmed.

"However, you must push yourself further. You will feel an ache as though you have performed too many sit-ups, yet the strain will not lie within your abdominals, but rather your Tanden." He froze. Something dropped on his head. Whimpering as the tickling sensation of eight microscopic points sent goosebumps across his skin, he looked at the other boys." Harae," he wheezed, praying for them to understand and get it off. They stood, staring at him, quizzical expressions on all three faces.

"Harae." He wanted to get it off. He needed to get it off. Just brush it off, that's all you have to do. One quick swipe, it'll be gone. Just reach up, and brush. Tousle your hair. You can—"Dude, you're turning blue," Kenji said, stepping forward and flicking a hand over Kurisu's head.

"Sorry, spider landed on you." As the presence vanished, Kurisu staggered a half-step back with a gasp, his skin prickling in phantom sensations as cold sweat made dirt stick to his arms. Oh, it's off! Okay, it's off now. He was going to need to be more mindful of his Zanshin to avoid such missteps.

"I am well!" he replied, his breathing a bit rough.

"I am particularly averse to arachnids."

"You froze because of a spider? Man, I thought you were having a PTSD flashback or something, don't scare us like that!" Ace scolded.

"Apologies, but I assure you, I am fine now. Sorry to have been a burden. Let us continue." After exchanging looks with one another, the boys all shrugged. With the younger boys diving back into their practice, Kurisu stepped past them, pausing beside the eldest of the three. Kenji held a flickering flame in his palm, but streaks of Kōki bled through the Kaki.

"You are permitting your Ki to mingle," Kurisu noted, watching the unstable reaction.

"This is the very task you were meant to master yesterday."

"Yeah, well, when I was super focused on pulling only one or the other, I let loose a glitter bomb, remember?" Kenji argued, thrusting a lock of his silver hair forward. As he narrowed his perception, Kurisu watched the teenager's Keiraku network, observing the knot of Kaki and Kōki swirling within his primary organ as Kenji struggled to isolate the currents.

Yet, nestled just behind the main Tanden, a secondary organ radiated a golden energy, revealing the Seiki no Tanden, a hallmark shared by the divine wielders of his city.

"Search the depths of your core," Kurisu instructed, pointing a finger at the teenager's sternum.

"See if you can draw upon your Seiki at will." Closing his eyes, Kenji tightened his jaw. Straining to locate the hidden reservoir, he held his breath. After several seconds, he exhaled in frustration, shaking his head.

"I got nothing. There's just the one tank. You sure you're not seeing things?"

"Were I, the 'glitter bomb' would not have occurred," Kurisu replied, noting the gap in their perception.

"For now, we shall return to the previous task; clamp down upon the Kaki within your Tanden and draw only the Kōki into your Keiraku." Through gritted teeth, Kenji drew a breath and focused on his hand. The flame sputtered, flashing bright white before it collapsed into a smoky flare. He cursed and shook his hand out, repeating the process to yield nothing but a messy, flickering mixture on his second attempt. Behind them, the younger boys wrestled with their increased output.

Sweat beaded on Kellevra's forehead as he routed his Ki into the soil, struggling to coax the dirt upward until it finally locked into a solid, two-foot pillar of earth. Beside him, Ace grunted with effort, thrusting his hand upward and expanding his Ki until a column of fire shot out above his head, roughly matching the size of Kellevra's stone.

"Ace Miller, don't you dare burn this forest down!" Charlotte called out from the camp stove, scraping a spatula through a skillet of eggs. With a flinch, Ace reduced the fire back down to a hovering sphere.

"Do not seek to increase its size; rather, increase the heat," Kurisu instructed him. Distracted by Charlotte's shout, Kenji glanced toward the camp stove and caught sight of the breakfast skillet.

"Cease focusing upon your hand," Kurisu ordered, bringing the teenager's attention back.

"Direct your will toward your Tanden and clamp it over your Ki." Fixing his gaze on his palm, Kenji pinched his eyes shut and tightened his jaw, holding the tense posture until the flames gradually vanished. Flaring across his skin, an unbroken stream of white light maintained a clean, steady edge. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. With a satisfied nod, Kurisu watched the reaction hold before saying in English, "Next. Do other."

"Breakfast is ready!" Charlotte called out, stepping away from the camp stove. Upon returning to the campfire, the group found foil-wrapped burritos waiting at the stove. Peeling back the edge of his breakfast, Kenji spotted the diced onions and peppers mixed into the eggs. He immediately wrinkled his nose and handed the foil package back. Raising an eyebrow, Charlotte pointed her spatula at him.

"You can eat what I made—""Don't worry, I've got it," Gloria interjected, stepping in to circumvent the argument. Pulling a styrofoam cup from the dry food bin, she handed it to her son.

"I thought I asked you to try not being picky this weekend." Kenji gave a sheepish shrug, filling the cup with boiling water from the kettle. Three minutes later, he peeled the foil lid back and scooped up a tangle of steaming, yellow noodles with a plastic fork. Kurisu frowned, watching the teenager eat.

"What manner of dish is that?"

"I'm not a fan of peppers and onions, so I have ramen instead," Kenji answered around a mouthful. He swallowed, pointing the plastic fork at the samurai.

"Wait. Don't tell me you've seriously never had ramen."

"Ramen..." Kurisu tested the word, shaking his head.

"A name I have never heard." He tilted his head, observing the curly strands hanging from the teenager's fork.

"It appears similar to soba, yet it is not, nor does it possess the thickness of udon." Over the rim of his coffee mug, Roland stared across the campsite.

"Wait. What kind of Japanese kid hasn't heard of ramen?" Kurisu paused, shifting his gaze toward Steven. Rubbing the back of his neck, Steven exhaled a shaky breath.

"He, uh... grew up very sheltered. Deep in the mountains."

"Strictly traditional," Charlotte added smoothly, peeling back the foil on her own burrito.

"Old dialects. Pre-modern diets. They completely isolated themselves from outside influences." Roland stared into his coffee mug for a moment, a grim expression pulling at his features.

"Well, it's a good thing you guys got him out of there. Though, considering what these kids can do, that might be tame." Squeezing her husband's arm, Gloria voiced a quiet murmur of agreement. Kenji smirked as he took another bite.

"Man, you're missing out. It's the absolute best cheap food." Once the meal was finished, Steven began clearing the camp stove and breakfast supplies. After getting the teenagers situated with their next drill, Kurisu stepped toward the edge of the timber. Verifying his reserves were full, he switched his phone from the translation app to the stopwatch app and reached inward to activate the Genkai. Without warning, thoughts of his home rippled through his mind, dredging up vivid images of the night his city burned.

The sudden spike of panic hamstrung his focus; he could flick the ring all he wanted, but something appeared to block the Teirin, perhaps an emotional fetter to the form of sorts, leaving the mechanism rigid as the memory clouded his focus. Through a steadying breath to calm his mind, he pushed the memory aside and flicked the ring a second time. His Teirin finally began to spin, drawing a surge of Ki straight from his Tanden.

Letting the form idle without physical action, he watched the digital numbers climb on the screen as the energy drained from his core at an even pace. At three minutes and twenty seconds, a dull soreness thrummed in his gut. Holding his focus, he monitored the screen until it reached the four-minute mark. The soreness sharpened into a grinding ache as his Tanden drained to a fraction of its capacity. Feeling the physical drag of near-exhaustion, he deactivated the form, cutting the flow.

Checking the drain on the stopwatch, he estimated the physical toll: idling the Genkai would completely empty his Tanden in roughly five minutes, an exhaustion that would force him into unconsciousness. While the explosive outward exertion of Ki in actual combat would drastically decrease that window, any warrior knew five minutes on a battlefield was an eternity. Leaning his shoulder against the pine bark, he waited for his breath to stabilize.

The following morning, Steven tightened the last ratchet strap over the gear in the truck bed, clicking the mechanism one final time before flicking the bright orange webbing.

"Yep, that ain't going nowhere." A snarl rose from the brush nearby before three green-skinned creatures crested the ridge behind the truck, brandishing rusted knives. Intercepting the creatures, Kurisu called out a warning to his disciples as he slammed his palm into the dirt to drive a circle of stone pillars from the ground, locking the monsters inside the perimeter with the teenagers and forming a solid wall to protect the parents.

"Convenient. Let this serve as your trial," Kurisu stated with a nod.

"Glad you think so…" Steven grumbled from the safe side of the barricade.

"Screw rolling for initiative!" Ace called out as he raced forward. Channeling his Ki, he threw a blast of fire at the lead creature, the surging heat scorching the air before missing the monster's shoulder and igniting a nearby pine branch. With a sigh, Kurisu immediately snuffed the flame out with a pulse of his own Ki, the pop from the vacuum of air causing the ko-oni to flinch.

Ace capitalized on the momentary distraction, lunging forward to drive his shoe into the monster's chest and throwing it backward into the stone barrier. As the second creature flanked his brother, Kellevra stomped his heel into the dirt, routing his Ki into the soil and raising a slab of earth upward, catching the creature under the chin and launching its unconscious body into the stone wall.

The final creature slipped past the shifting earth, swinging its rusted knife at Kenji, the teen sidestepped the wild slash, catching the monster's wrist before clamping down and twisting until the joint popped. Ignoring the creature's shriek, he drove a Ki-reinforced strike into its temple, dropping it flat into the dirt. Stepping past the boys to the unconscious monsters, Kurisu closed his grip around the hilt of his sword, easing the steel a fraction of an inch from its scabbard, intent on finishing the task.

"Kurisu, no!" Charlotte shouted from behind the stone barrier.

"Stop! They're down! Don't kill them!" He paused, observing the breathing monsters before slowly releasing the grip on his weapon.

"Such misplaced empathy shall prove a fatal liability."

"We don't do that," Charlotte said firmly, eliciting more than one eyeroll.

"Not like this."

"I'll call the authorities; they can get someone out here to clean these up," Steven said with a sigh as he reached for his phone. A frantic squawking of birds erupted from the canopy as the sound of grinding rock echoed through the canyon, tremors rocking the ground beneath them, causing the vehicles to squeak while they swayed on their suspension. Frozen in place, the group stared up the incline, listening to the sound of pines snapping like dry kindling as the impacts grew closer.

"What the hell is that?" Steven yelled, taking a step back.