As Yoshika paced around their living room, Yue wasn’t sure where to look.

“Would you please stop that? You’re making me dizzy with both of you pacing in circles like that.”

Yoshika did not stop, glancing at Yue with both of her bodies as she responded.

“How can you be so calm about this? What are we supposed to do?”

Yue sighed dramatically.

“I’m calm precisely because there’s nothing we can do about it. Either we are not their target, and we’ll be fine if we keep our heads down, or we are and we’re doomed. As you’ve already deduced, there’s little reason that the God-Emperor would take a personal interest in any of us.”

“But what about Yan Ren?”

“Yan Ren may be a problem, but he is limited in that his presence here is primarily as a representative of the Emperor’s will. The host may be nominally under his command, but if he misrepresents the Emperor, then it’s he that will have to answer to them.”

Yoshika paused her anxious pacing briefly.

“If he’s limited by whatever the Emperor of Qin sent him here for, then what does the Emperor want?”

Yue scoffed irritably.

“How should I know? He’s the most ancient cultivator on the continent, and his thoughts are beyond the comprehension of mortals and immortals alike. Also, could you please stop speaking in stereo? It’s even worse when you’re on either side of me like this—I don’t know where to look!”

Yoshika sighed, but reluctantly sat down on the couch opposite Yue, speaking only in Jia’s voice.

“Fine! The way your country worships the Emperor is weird. He’s old, but he’s still a man, and he’s not the most ancient cultivator.”

“He’s not just a man, Yoshika. You have to understand, he’s called the God-Emperor for a—wait, what did you just say?”

“I said he’s not the most ancient cultivator. At least Jianmo seemed to claim he was older...I think. He was a bit strange.”

Yue chewed on her thumbnail as she considered Yoshika’s words.

“That demon claimed that he had been sealed there by the Emperor, did he not?”

“He implied it. Jianmo made a lot of implications without directly claiming anything. Half the time it was like he was talking to himself rather than us.”

“Okay, but if that’s true, then it could be that news of Jianmo’s release reached the Empire. Perhaps that’s what they’re doing here.”

Yoshika groaned.

“Doesn’t that still end up leading them to us, though? We were the last ones to see him, and it was your brother who undid the seal.”

Yue sat in silence for a moment, her face impassive.

“Ah. I suppose it might, yes.”

The silence stretched on awkwardly before Yue tried to repeat her reassurances.

“Look, just let me handle my uncle, alright? I know him, and if he hasn’t made a move against us yet, he probably doesn’t intend to do so at all. You just worry about the tournament—look, shouldn’t you be paying attention to your next opponents?”

Yoshika shrugged. She already knew what her teammates were capable of, and she didn’t think too highly of Tae In-Su’s skill, except with formations. Instead, she picked up on something else Yue had said.

“Is he really your uncle?”

“No, my father’s disciples were granted honorary titles and had their spiritual tablets added to the family shrine, but we’re not related by blood. Technically he’s closer to a brother in actual status, but the only father figures Zhihao and I had growing up were ‘uncle’ Ren and ‘uncle’ Hao. You can judge for yourself how well that turned out.”

Yoshika sighed. She wasn’t comfortable with the situation at all, but Yue was right, there wasn’t really much they could do about it. Tell the instructors? Yoshika was certain that they already knew—in fact, Yue had suggested that Elder Qin’s presence was probably holding Yan Ren back from acting too brazenly. With nothing else to do, and too anxious to meditate effectively, Yoshika gave in and watched the match—she was a little curious to see how it would go anyway.

The result was somewhat disappointing, but not unexpected. The mage duo ruthlessly eliminated the weak link as soon as the match began, by striking Rika with a coordinated blast of air that sent her careening off the edge of the ring before she even had a chance to conjure her doppelganger—an empowered version of a common dueling spell. Left by herself, Eunae put up as much of a fight as she could, but she had already been mostly outmatched by Dae already, and lacking though he was, Tae In-Su was more than enough to tip the scales. So it would be Dae that she faced in the finals after all. Yoshika had mixed feelings about that, since she was still uncertain about how she felt about him. Still, he was a close friend, and one of the strongest cultivators she knew, so she was looking forward to testing herself against him.

After their loss, Eunae and Rika came over with Haeun and Chiyo in tow, and Yoshika spent the rest of the evening commiserating with her friends over their rather swift and decisive defeat while the girls played with Heian. Despite repeated coaxing from Yoshika and the kids, Heian stubbornly refused to take human form again. She was very slightly more inclined to actually speak, though she did so only when communicating with body language failed, and only in one to two word sentence fragments. It was progress—however slow—and Yoshika found herself enjoying the evening enough that her worries were mostly forgotten for a while.

“For our final match of the doubles division, we have our first team—consisting of this announcer’s very own disciples, both top-scoring graduates of the famous mage-colleges of Goryeo and certified magi, Hyeong Daesung, and Tae In-Su!”

Yoshika watched Dae smile stiffly across the ring from her as his announcement was met with scattered applause. The doubles division had drawn far less interest than the singles, and it seemed that the all-Goryeon lineup for the finals didn’t hold much excitement for the crowd of mainly Qin and Yamato visitors. Grand Magus Do Hye went on, making up for the lack of enthusiasm with his own.

“Their opponents—a pair that has taken this academy by storm with their unprecedented cultivation methods, combining the traits of all three known disciplines! One of the finalists from the singles division—Miss Lee Jia. Her partner, another strong contender from the singles division—Miss An Eui!”

The applause was somewhat better for her, mostly owing to the more respectful Yamato audience giving Jia credit for her performance against their star princess.

“Fighters ready...begin!”

Yoshika instantly brought the full weight of her domain to bear on Tae In-Su. As she had discovered in her confrontation with Sun Jaehwa so long ago, mages had a critical weakness when it came to spiritual attacks. They lacked either the physical fortitude to shrug off the attack, or the spiritual power to fight against it, leaving them entirely undefended against a technique like Jia’s Corruption of the Fetid Bog.

At the same time, Dae flicked a talisman towards Tae In-Su before even beginning the signature technique that he had led every other battle with. Yoshika sensed the mana around Tae shift into a skin-tight layer of purifying essence, neutralizing the effect of her aura. Realizing that Dae had predicted her opening, Yoshika quickly tried to switch her focus, but Tae had clearly been briefed on their strategy beforehand, and though he was a little slower, he managed to cast the spell on Dae as well.

Yoshika couldn’t help but be impressed. Not only had Dae predicted how Yoshika would start the fight, but he had also planned for the order in which she would choose her targets, and accounted for his partner’s inferior magical control. Had the two mages simply cast the defensive spells on themselves, or if Yoshika had chosen to target Dae first, it may have been too late. Worse, the specialized spell had clearly been designed explicitly to counter her aura, and Dae must have invented the spell and taught it to his brother-in-craft long before the tournament had even begun. This was a strategy that had been months in development.

She almost felt betrayed that her friend had developed a spell specifically to counter her, and taught it to someone who she had a bad history with, but she knew Dae better than that. She was honored that he was giving her so much respect as a fellow cultivator. Even as a teammate and friend—someone who had been teaching Jia to read less than a year ago—he saw her not just as a peer or equal, but as a challenge. Someone that he had to take seriously, even in an exhibition match such as this one.

Yoshika couldn’t keep the grin off her faces as Dae’s glowing scroll began to float in front of him, releasing a steady stream of talismans to orbit around him. If Dae saw her as a challenge, then she had no intention of letting him down. She stopped wasting essence on her noxious aura, since she wouldn’t be able to get through Dae’s countermeasures without breaking the spell some other way first.

Dae’s strategy put Yoshika in an awkward position. Relying too heavily on martial arts would be playing into his hand, since he had made so many preparations against Hayakawa and martial arts were already a poor match against mages. However, her best offensive spiritual art had already been countered, and if the alternative was trying to match him in spellcraft—well, she’d have to just make do.

She focused her attention on Tae In-Su. As they had done against Rika and Eunae, Yoshika planned to take out the weak link first, so that she could bring her full strength to bear on her more dangerous opponent. Naturally, Dae had predicted that, and as Jia closed in on Tae’s position with lightning steps, he threw up the same hedgehog barrier of stone spikes that he had used to stave off Hayakawa. Though Eui’s Six Arms could easily smash through most barriers, the spikes posed more of a challenge, since she’d have to break through them individually while under fire from Dae’s spells. After seeing what had happened to Hayakawa when she tried to jump over, Yoshika wasn’t about to try to repeat it either.

One at a time wasn’t going to work, so Yoshika shifted her tactics, sending Jia after Dae while Eui focused on Tae In-Su. She summoned a pillar of earth at an angle, using it to scale the spiked barrier safely without fear of Dae’s gravity trap. Meanwhile, Jia gave chase to Dae, who had clearly learned his lesson about mobility after his duel with Hayakawa. Using a combination of what looked like the Body Lightening spiritual art and a modified wind spell, Dae floated around the ring in great lazily arcing leaps. It gave him extra mobility, but not nearly enough to avoid Jia entirely—speed was her specialty.

To Yoshika’s surprise, when she caught up to Dae, he didn’t attempt to stop her advance or prepare any extra defenses—in fact, he barely moved to defend himself at all! The reason became clear as her first pressure point strikes bounced harmlessly off of tiny force shields. Knowing that most of her attacks needed physical contact with his pressure points, Dae had set up a specialized mana shield that focused his energy exactly where it was needed most. It wouldn’t stop her Lightning God Transformation, but Yoshika had no doubt that Dae had accounted for that as well.

Changing tactics once again, Yoshika took a page out of Hayakawa’s book and switched to using the basic bujutsu techniques that formed the core of all the martial arts that Ienaga had taught them. Dae had meticulously prepared for her usual fighting styles, and she would need to do something different to throw him off. She also called forth her shimmering plasma aura, in the hopes that she’d be able to burn away the defensive spell that was preventing her more powerful corrosion aura from working.

Her first strikes sent Dae flying, though she quickly realized that it was because he was using Body Lightening to soften the force of the blows—a trick that Hayakawa used often with her own weight-altering technique. However, her plasma aura worked better than she could have hoped, as her qi and his mana immediately cancelled each other out, forcing Dae to quickly recast his defense as he continued to flee. Yoshika realized why it was so effective in an instant—the essence of purity was a mixture of yang and water, while plasma was yin and fire. They were exact opposites!

While Yoshika was chasing Dae around the ring, she wasn’t leaving Eui’s body idle. Tae In-Su was a much easier target without Dae focusing on protecting him. Once Yoshika had made it over the spikes, he immediately turned to flee, slapping a talisman against the inner wall of his bastion in order to dispel it as Eui menaced him. Though Eui’s body lacked the lightning-enhanced mobility of Jia, she was hardly slow and Tae In-Su was no martial artist. In a panic, Tae scrambled to escape her advance, occasionally stopping to cast some spell or another.

Frustratingly, the mages had barely even tried to attack. Dae spent almost all of his efforts slowing down Eui—the only reason she hadn't already caught Tae In-Su—while trying to prevent Jia from dispelling his defensive aura. Tae himself kept casting some unfamiliar spell that didn’t seem to do much of anything, which immediately made Yoshika very suspicious. They were fighting extremely defensively, which was a backwards approach to dealing with opponents who were fighting with martial arts. Knowing Dae, he had to have something planned—if he was only defending, then he had to be waiting for something.

Yoshika divided her attention a bit more, devoting a bit of her focus to her domain, searching for anything out of the ordinary. The only things that stood out were a few strange concentrations of mana along the ground. Occasionally, one of the mages would cast a spell that seemed to do nothing, but paying closer attention, each one created another of those strange concentrations of mana. Yoshika wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do, but she was immediately suspicious of the fact that they didn’t appear to do much of anything.

The next time Tae cast one of the strange spells, Yoshika stopped her pursuit of him to investigate it more closely. The mana construct itself was composed of mist-element—the same element Rika used to create her clones—which suggested it was an illusion of some kind. Since it didn’t appear to change anything, Yoshika surmised that it must be hiding something instead. Dae used an opening to launch an attack at Eui, forcing Yoshika to abandon her investigation, but the fact that Dae had attacked her even after she’d stopped her pursuit of Tae In-Su had to mean that he didn’t want her looking too closely at the illusions.

Taking that as a sign that she needed to investigate them even more, Yoshika redoubled her efforts to keep Dae distracted while Eui’s body went for the nearest anomaly. Knowing that one of the mages was likely to try to retaliate, she worked in a hurry, using a combination of Eui’s destructive energy and the Awakening of the Dragon’s Heart to clear away the illusion with a swipe of her tail. Beneath the illusion, an engraving had been etched into the stone. Yoshika’s eyes widened in surprise. When had they found time to—? It clicked in a moment. The spell had drawn the engraving, similar to the crude method that she had used to etch a protective formation into the stone during her breakthrough. Yoshika had never repeated the technique, but if she could do it, then it stood to reason that a spell could be made to do the same. Belatedly, she realized just how genius the illusion had been—the concentration of mana not only prevented her from seeing the formations being drawn in the ring, but they masked the spell that was drawing them.

Yoshika wasted no time smashing the engraving, breaking off from her pursuit of Dae to commit both of her bodies to destroying whatever trap the mages had been preparing for her. She wasn’t certain what it was meant to do, but she’d rather not find out. As soon as Jia's body reached the nearest formation, Dae called out to his partner.

“Now!”

The two mages both slammed talismans on the ground, remotely triggering the formations spread throughout the ring. Yoshika destroyed the ones nearest to her immediately, but it wasn’t enough to make a difference. Whatever their trap was, Dae had prepared redundancies. A shimmering, yellow-colored barrier snapped into place around Yoshika’s bodies, cutting them off from each other and the two mages, who stopped to catch their breath. Yoshika felt a jarring sense of disorientation as the barrier blocked her domain and severed the connection between her two selves.

She looked around, blinking in confusion. Which—which body was she in? She still felt like she was Yoshika, not Jia or Eui. There was a pervasive wrongness to the situation that reminded her of when Yan Yue had forcibly torn them apart, though it wasn’t quite as severe as when she had woken from Yue’s spell. Back then, they had unconsciously retreated to their soulscape, and their bond was tenuous. Yue had forced Jia awake while forcing Eui to sleep, and because of their bond the result had been like tearing her soul apart by force—a pain that still haunted Yoshika as the worst she’d ever experienced. Yoshika felt her panic mounting—she hoped that Dae hadn’t done something irreversible.