The thunderous impacts of battle rang through the Great Arkus Rainforest, echoing against the trees before being lost in the canopy. But as violent as the encounter sounded, the battle was anything but even. In spite of his historic age and lack of eyesight, Raiga no Kyuu was more than capable of keeping pace with his student, deftly dodging her attacks as he had trained her to dodge his. Though he was tall and broad, he eluded Ieda with ease, smiling all the while as he studied her progress closely.
Ieda shaped the terrain, twisting earth and stone as she tried to trap Raiga against rock and tree, but he somersaulted over her obstacles and slid under her swings. She tried to grab him as he passed, but he easily broke her grasp. She threw waves of fire at him, pitching torrents of flames in an attempt to burn him, but he breached the fire unscathed. Much like how he had been described in the stories she had heard in her youth, Raiga was seemingly invulnerable. Frustrated, she desperately reached out to the water in his body, halting his movements as she tried to pull the blood out of him.
((Oh. Trying that now, are we?)) He hummed with amusement as his arms slowly but surely broke away from her command, before turning the tables and freezing Ieda in place. ((You’re a few hundred years too early to make that work on me, though.)) He pushed her and her water away from him, slamming Ieda against a tree. She barely had time to regain herself when she found Raiga had swiftly closed the distance he had made between them, ducking down to avoid a brutal knee. She tried to strike back with her dagger and sword, but Raiga slipped around her flank and kicked off of her, staying out of her reach.
A wave of dread washed over her as she felt a pain in her lung; Raiga had attacked one of her ki points, disrupting the flow through her torso and the circulation of her blood. True to his word, this was a test, and Raiga was not one to set his standards low.
((What’s the matter, Ieda?)) his voice rang through her mind. ((I thought you wanted to see your sister. There’s no going out to play until you finish your homework.)) He stood firmly, waiting for her response. She reached out to the moisture in the humid air, shaping it with spiritual hands. Raiga rushed her as she tried to arm herself, throwing flames at her as she tried to fend him off. She dodged his strikes diligently, determined not to let him land any more blows on her. She knew that any and every hit from him could spell her failure.
Ieda swung viciously with four arms, wielding steel and water in a dizzying tandem as she tried to land a cut on him. However, Raiga pressed forward, and when her tachi struck his shoulder, the blade bounced off. She gritted her teeth in frustration as she tried to push Raiga back, roaring as she threw all of her strength, spirit, and focus into her strikes, but her weapons beat against him fruitlessly as he blocked her blows with his bare flesh and grabbed hold of her water. She tried to stop him from taking it, tried to resist him, but he wrested the water away from her and sent it crashing back into her. He broke her footing and knocked her away in a wet heap. Ieda panted, shaken. She realized that even after all of her training, she was still in the same category as that orc, Brazzka: she couldn’t cut Raiga. She was still too weak.
((You’re trying to overpower me,)) he spoke to her mind. ((That’s not going to work. Not for a long time. That’s not the point of this test. You face an opponent that outclasses you in every category. There is no escape. How do you defeat someone who is stronger than you?)) Ieda picked herself up and grabbed her weapons, drawing the water off of her body.
((By taking away their strength,)) she answered.
((That’s right. Now…)) The air around them grew dense and heavy, pushing down on Ieda and the trees around them. ((Come and take it. Put aside your pride and stop trying to fight me as an equal. We are not. Fight me as if I am an obstacle. Because I am.))
Ieda sheathed her weapons as she readied herself to continue. Raiga rushed Ieda once more, attacking her with eight arms. She backed away, trying to fend him off and evade his strikes while twisting the earth under them. However, he was already employing the same strategy, and he forced her into the air, taking away her ability to absorb his blows. She kicked off of the air, narrowly dodging a boulder Raiga launched at her before focusing her rage and desperation into a great wave of fire. The flames were breached by a wall of water and ice, while Raiga sprinted up the sheer slope to meet her.
Ieda kicked herself down toward the ground, standing firm as Raiga’s path of ice quickly curved back toward her. She gripped her tachi and, in a swift and whirling motion, drew it from its sheath with such ferocity that it split the air with a violent vacuum, cleaving the ice at the base. Raiga launched from the ice at Ieda, finally airborne, finally disengaged from his connection to a surface. She thrusted her sword at Raiga’s outstretched hand.
The air behind Raiga warped and distorted as her blade slammed viciously into the palm of his hand, stopping him, but his hand refused to be pierced.
Disbelief overtook Ieda as she could see the arms of his aura reach out to the earth underneath her, using Ieda and her sword as his connection to the ground. She felt the ground shift beneath her feet, trying to pull her in. She tried to pull her sword away, but his hold was firm. It was all she could do to saturate the earth and free herself with a geyser of water before knocking Raiga away with a cyclone. He showed no sign of injury, however, and effortlessly righted himself in the air before landing gently on his feet. He stood there as Ieda collected herself, smiling, not out of condescension, but of genuine interest.
((That was a good attempt,)) Raiga assured her. ((Indeed, it is one’s understanding of the Path of Earth that allows the ability to absorb and disperse impacts, and full mastery can even allow the flesh to withstand blade and bullet. Your plan to sever my connection to the ground was a decent one. It may have even worked against a guard at the Temple of Thunder. But it would not have worked against a Master of the Four Paths, much less against a Raiga. The source of my strength, of all strength, is much more fundamental.)) Ieda gazed at him long and hard, beginning to understand what it was he was implying.
((By the gods,)) she began, trying to find her calm. ((And I thought your challenge was excessive when you first said it.))
((Oh? Could it be that you are admitting defeat?)) the ancient warrior taunted her. Ieda resheathed her weapon before entering a crouching stance.
((Not on your life.))
Raiga hummed with open amusement, waiting for Ieda to engage him once more. She stood there, poised to strike as she formulated a plan. Her stance was still firm under the weight of Raiga’s staggering aura, but she found it steadily harder to breathe after Raiga had attacked her left lung. He had said that there was no time limit, but she understood that that wasn’t entirely true. If she failed to wound him before she exhausted her body, she would have to make a full recovery before she could make another attempt. And she hated being bedridden.
((There really isn’t a time limit, you know,)) Raiga wormed into her mind. ((You don’t have to fight me to the point of collapse. We can always take breaks, if you need them.)) Ieda considered that for the briefest of moments before shaking her head.
((I’ve kept my sister waiting for five years. I’ll not have her wait another minute more than my body will allow. Besides, if the price of admission is a drop of your blood, I will gladly draw it. It's a small retribution for your exercises.)) Raiga laughed from the pit of his stomach.
((Retribution! That is precious, my apprentice. Were my warmups too strenuous for you? Perhaps I should have held your hand while we were stretching.)) A projection of Raiga’s aura swiftly closed the distance between him and Ieda, reaching for Ieda’s hand. She quickly backed away before trying to retaliate against the phantom, only to watch it quickly vanish. Realizing that the gesture was a feint, she balanced on the balls of her feet as Raiga flew into her with a brutal kick, glancing away from it before firing back with a stream of fire.
Raiga grabbed a hold of the flames and tore through them before landing easily on one foot. However, Ieda pressed back hard, getting in close to him as she focused her spirit into a third pair of arms. She didn’t draw her weapons or reach out to any of the four cardinal manas, she didn’t formulate, elaborate, or scrutinize any plans. The Delphinian woman simply understood what she needed to do and advanced, allowing herself to be one with the earth under her feet and the air she breathed. Like water, she flowed from one action to the next without hesitation or doubt. All parrying and footwork slipped from her conscious thought until she found a fleeting moment, a hole in Raiga’s defense as he struck out with his fist. She could see the fire flow through his arm in the wind-up, she could feel it, and she fiercely struck Raiga in his outstretched wrist, stopping the flames from leaving his hand.
((Yes,)) Raiga practically cheered to her mind. ((You understand what to do. Now you must simply do it. Hmph. Simply.)) As she tried to press forward, Raiga retreated behind a phantom. The projection of her master occupied her as the genuine article watched patiently, launching an occasional boulder at her. She needed to overcome the ghost in front of her, and in a way that Raiga couldn’t outflank her.
However, she soon found herself beset by a second phantom, then a third. Finally, Raiga himself rushed Ieda, surrounding the outlander with four opponents at four arms apiece. Ieda struggled to evade and outmaneuver the four versions of her master as they refused to let her escape. It was all she could do to deflect their blows and redirect all the stones, waves, gales, and flames they threw at her. Each breath she took was more difficult than the last. For all of her bluster, she was still fighting a Hero of the Old World, and each passing second brought Ieda closer to submission.
Ieda took a deep breath and cast a projection of her own mana to combat those of her master. Her double forced a phantom back to clear a way for her body, pushing forward on a wave of mud and water. The remaining three descended on Ieda, but not before she and her phantom deconstructed the besieged projection of Raiga. Her breaths were labored as she tried to maintain her focus and keep her phantom, using everything she had learned in order to guide herself and her projection through the onslaught of the God of Storms. Ieda and her double managed to single out and flank another of Raiga’s phantoms, but Raiga rushed in and dismantled Ieda’s double. Once again she found herself alone with her master and his ghost, struggling to fend them both off.
Struggling for air, Ieda restrained herself from trying to rush ahead. Raiga’s focus was narrowing, and the number of mistakes he was likely to make was further diminished. She had to take her time, evading with only the most necessary of movements. She, her master and his phantom were in a tight dance of fluid motion, twisting and weaving earth and water in a meticulous exchange as they tried to outplay one another. She seized her moments diligently, striking the points in his arm one by one to choke the flow of his mana, his ki, and remove his phantom limbs.
Finally, she sealed enough ki points in his projection to dispel it outright. With her back turned to him, Raiga pounced, raising his arm to cut her apart with his bare hand. The outlander gripped her tachi and swiftly turned to draw it, severing Raiga’s right arm below the elbow. Ieda’s eyes widened with shock as the dismembered limb flew past her and into the jungle foliage with a streak of blood.
((Well done! Very well done,)) his voice rang through her mind, the density of the air quickly dissipating, but the praise was ignored as Ieda frantically turned to retrieve his arm.
“Master! I’m so sorry!” she apologized out loud. “I didn’t mean to cut your arm off, by the gods, what have I done?!” Raiga, however, seemed alarmingly calm for a man who just lost one of his limbs. He stood there in silence as Ieda apologized profusely, scrambling to find his missing arm and hurriedly retrieving it. Amidst her hysteric apologies, Raiga offered a collected “Thank you,” as he received his severed forearm from Ieda.
“Come, Master! We need to find a healer and-!”
“Ieda,” Raiga barked, seizing her attention. She watched as Raiga focused his mana into a pair of arms, pulling the two pieces of severed flesh together by the blood and sinew. Lightning crackled about his left hand as he ran two fingers across the pieces of his right arm, and she watched as the laceration disappeared in a flash of electric sparks. Raiga flexed his arm, hand, and fingers, as if it had never left his body. He patted Ieda’s head with his restored hand, the outlander rendered utterly speechless.
“…You can do that?”
“Yes,” Raiga answered flatly.
“How?”
“By reconnecting each and every fiber of severed tissue and bridging every gap. In truth, my right arm is about three micrometers shorter, but my body will correct that by the morning.” Ieda digested that revelation for a time in silence.
“…So nothing I could do would’ve actually hurt you,” Ieda concluded.
“Not unless you applied enough ki to damage one of my chakras. And in your current state, that would have been exceedingly difficult.” Ieda loosed a heavy sigh, gaining a chuckle from the ancient warrior. “You still have a great deal of growth ahead of you, my apprentice, but do not worry. It took me twenty years to do what you have done in five. Your aptitude for Shinryuudo, for martial arts, is unquestionably exceptional. Continue to train as you search for your sister.” Ieda was taken aback.
“Master? But I…”
“But what? Did you already forget the condition of my test? I told you to ‘draw blood from He Who is Made of Stone’, and you did precisely that. You passed my test, Ieda. Now go enjoy your leave.” Ieda stood quietly for a moment before bowing low.
“Thank you, Master. I will be leaving shortly.” The outlander straightened up and hurried to the tree she had slept in. She rolled up her sleeping bag and opened her pack. She made sure she still had her effects: a wallet, an old cell phone, a charger, and a sealed waterproof folder. She opened the wallet to see only two bank cards, and a water-stained photo of herself and a little girl: Arlee.
The outlander placed her meager belongings back in her bag and hurried to Raiga, moving to bow again. However, he quickly stopped her mid-bow.
“Stand tall, Ieda Bestahl,” he bade her as he removed his mask. Even though they were dim and gray with atrophy, his eyes seemed to peer into hers. “You are still young, and have very much left to learn, but it is my firm belief that you will learn, and complete your training. The point of this test was to teach you that while there are many powerful creatures and people in this world, they are all mortal. Every single one of them can be overcome if you understand their body, from the biggest dragon to the Heroes of the Old World. Go forth with confidence in your self, and if anyone dares to strike you down, show them the might of the next Raiga.”
“Yes, Master!” she loudly affirmed, giving him a traditional tenjin bow. As she returned to an upright position, however, she threw her arm around him in a hug. Raiga paused briefly before gently returning it. “Thank you. And I will return.” She released him from her embrace and sprinted in the direction of the Dimon Jungle, the last place she saw Arlee five years ago, speeding through the trees far faster than any creature had a right to, bipedal or otherwise.
“Don’t you think you were going a little easy on her?” A sultry voice addressed Raiga, but he didn’t flinch or turn to face it. Indeed, he had been aware of the owner’s presence the entire time. Light bent and twisted as a fair-skinned, voluptuous woman seemed to step out of thin air, grasping a naginata with a radiant blue crystal embedded in the flat of the blade. She was almost as tall as Raiga, standing at six-and-a-half feet, and that was without the wide-brimmed violet hat rimmed with jewels that she wore over her long copper hair, the pointed tip bent and crooked. Her sheer pearlescent dress struggled to cover her unrestrained and impressive bosom. Violet bridal gauntlets covered her arms, and she wore leather sandals with strappings that snaked up her calves. Her long, pointed ears were adorned by a pair of golden earrings in the shape of lightning bolts. Gold and platinum rings and bangles adorned her fingers, wrists, and ankles, beset with precious stones of every hue and cut, glowing as though each stone contained a power of its own. Her fingers and toes were tipped with sharp purple nails, and lush purple lips outlined a smile as bright as her golden eyes. Raiga simply smiled at the remark of Archdemon Lilith, the Witch of Chaos, To Whom the Dragons Bow, and fellow Hero of the Old World.
“Perhaps,” the ancient warrior conceded. “But she did meet my condition, fair and square. She was even able to sever my arm. Now she has a good story to tell her sister when they reunite; how she took the arm of the Taker of Arms.” Lilith walked up to and stood next to Raiga, her smile wide with joy.
“You’re a good dad,” she posited, causing the old man to chuckle.
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I do. You know, if I ever get the itch to have another kid, I know who I want the father to be~.”
“Niji.” His tone was short, almost scolding her.
“I know, I know,” she said as she dismissed his ire with a flick of her wrist before standing up straight and crossing her arms. “I could never burden a child with my cursed blood,” she said in a mocking tone, imitating Raiga. The ancient warrior remained unamused. “I’m just saying, if Master Midori could see the way you’ve taught and cared for that young woman, she would be proud of you.” Her tone lacked the previous playfulness, offering only tender sincerity. However, Raiga’s smile did not return.
“...If you say so,” he finally commented before quickly changing the subject. “Tell me, what brings you here to visit me?”
“...I want to check on the wards I cast. Those wards,” she emphasized.
“We aren’t due to check them for at least another six years,” Raiga said as he cocked his head toward her.
“I know, but… Something feels wrong, Gurren.” There was an unusual worry in Lilith's voice, one that did not escape Raiga.
“I understand. Should we fetch our brother?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “Just in case.”
“Very well.” Raiga walked over to the tree he had rested under and grabbed his tattered white haori off the ground, displaying the characters for “Thunder” and “Fang” on the back. He reached out to Onigiri and called the massive blade to him, pulling the ancient weapon into his outstretched, phantasmal hand. “Let’s be off.”
