After thoroughly trouncing Rika, Yoshika was just beginning to worry that she’d overdone it when Lord Noguchi broke the silence.

“Kami preserve me, you weren’t boasting, were you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a fine display of martial prowess—and I’ve had the privilege of meeting Master Ienaga Yumi herself!”

Yoshika shook both heads emphatically at the comparison.

“No, no, no! We trained under her, and we’ve seen Master Ienaga fight all-out—it was easily the most terrifying experience of our life.”

Rika and Hayakawa nodded solemnly in agreement, causing Lord Noguchi to blanch a bit.

“Oh my! How insensitive of me—of course that was a poor comparison.”

Yoshika frowned a bit at the insincerity of his comment, but ignored it. Hayakawa sighed before interjecting.

“The praise isn’t unfounded. Loathe though I am to recall it, Miss Lee once fought me to a standstill, and her team defeated mine in a mock battle before the descent.”

Noguchi had a dangerous glint in his eye as he glanced between Jia and Hayakawa, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“And now? It’s been two years since then, no? Surely this is as good a time as any to test yourselves against each other?”

Hayakawa glared at Lord Noguchi with a hard expression, but from the brief glance in Yoshika’s direction she seemed to be considering it. After a moment, she shook her head.

“No—neither of us would be satisfied with a simple sparring match, and the castle wouldn’t survive a real duel. Suffice it to say that I am glad to have Lee Jia and An Eui as allies.”

Noguchi was disappointed, but he accepted Hayakawa’s denial with good grace. However, determined not to allow the evening’s entertainment to end without a momentous final bout, he pressed on.

“Well then, perhaps a demonstration from our resident onmyouji? What do you say, Hattori? I’ll bet our foreign guests have never had to face someone of your talents before, eh?”

The old man sighed with resignation.

“In fact, my lord, both of them have. During the Grand Academy’s tournament, they faced one Bai Lin—a foreign onmyouji wielding a number of spider shikigami. Miss Lee destroyed those shikigami during their match, and I’d rather not subject my own companions to such treatment.”

Yoshika blinked in surprise—how did he know about all that? As if reading her mind, Hattori bowed before explaining himself.

“Onmyouji are more than simply the wielders of shikigami—within Yamato we also act as spiritual leaders and...well, our duties carry us far and wide, and one tends to hear things. We onmyouji make a point of sharing what we hear with each other.”

Yoshika nodded in understanding. There were similar information networks among merchants and gangs—though the onmyouji sounded distinctly more state-sanctioned than those examples.

“We can promise not to destroy your shikigami—our fight with Bai Lin was somewhat personal, but we’ve heard a lot about the priests of Yamato, and we’re very interested in your techniques.”

“Hmm, you speak as though your partner has already made up her mind, yet I haven’t seen you confer with her a single time. In fact, you’ve hardly spoken a word to each other this entire time.”

Oops. Yoshika frowned, her bad habits were getting the better of her. Jia and Eui rarely needed to speak to each other in social situations, and Yoshika had a tendency to refer to herself in plural. She decided to respond in Eui’s voice—not inclined to share her nature with everyone present.

“Jia knows me well enough. If I disagreed with anything she was saying, I would say so. If you don’t trust us enough to show off your techniques, you don’t have to beat around the bush like that.”

She grimaced internally. That was harsher than she’d intended, but Yoshika had also developed a habit of speaking in different tones with each of her bodies, and Eui tended to be more aggressive and adversarial. Hattori chuckled, not offended by her accusation.

“It’s not that. I was simply curious about another rumor that I had heard—but I will drop it. Very well, I’ll accept a bout on one condition—two if we count not destroying my shikigami.”

Yoshika nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

“I understand that you have a guardian kami of your own with which you share a most unusual bond—something between a channeler and a tsukumogami. Might I ask you to demonstrate that as well?”

Yoshika considered it for a moment, before deciding that it wasn’t really her decision to make. Heian had never really fought anything except for the brief moment that she’d spent merged with Jia against Bai Lin. She focused on her soul, concentrating on the inner world of her soulscape where Heian spent most of her time.

“Heian, there’s a priest here who’d like to meet you. He’ll probably want to spar as well, would you like to do that?”

Yoshika could feel Heian expressing affirmative emotions, but she waited for a verbal response. She didn’t need words to communicate, but making Heian use them was part of the ongoing effort to develop Heian as a person. After a few moments, Heian’s grumbling voice rang out in Yoshika’s mind.

“Yes.”

Good enough. Yoshika stood back as Heian manifested in her cat form between her and Hattori. The old priest’s eyes widened at the display.

“Oho! No talisman, no tool, it’s as if you host the kami within your body, yet you can manifest it directly without channeling it. An extremely rare bond indeed! How did you come across it?”

Yoshika knelt down with Jia’s body and Heian nuzzled into her hands as she stroked her fur.

“She was given to me by—well, her. It’s kind of hard to explain, and I don’t really understand it entirely myself. I think she felt a kinship with my own inner spirit-half.”

Hattori nodded with interest.

“I see, the relationship between kami and youkai—er, half-spirits is poorly understood, but perhaps there’s something to that. It’s never tried to take control of your body?”

Yoshika shook her head.

“We’ve channeled her twice before, once during a fight and once when we escaped the academy during the descent. Each time it only deepened our understanding of each other.”

Lord Noguchi cleared his throat to interrupt.

“Ahem, this is all very fascinating, but the evening is growing quite late. Might we have that last bout to finish the night’s entertainment?”

Yoshika sighed—maybe she’d get a chance to talk to Hattori more later. He was the first person she’d ever met who had experience fighting both with and against spirits.

“We’re fine with it if Sir Hattori is.”

Hattori Koji nodded.

“As promised, I’ll demonstrate my techniques—though perhaps not against both of you. I’m outmatched enough as it is, haha.”

Yoshika shrugged and had Eui’s body stand by next to Rika, who snorted.

“As if that makes much of a difference.”

Yoshika shot Rika a glare with Eui’s body, but she just giggled. Rika was having far too much fun with the private knowledge of Yoshika’s nature as a gestalt.

All of that went unnoticed by Hattori, who took his place opposite Jia and Heian and bowed politely.

“To begin with, why not test your kami against one of mine?”

Yoshika glanced down at Heian, meeting her bright blue eyes.

“What do you think, Heian? Do you want to try fighting another spirit?”

Heian nodded, and Yoshika turned her attention back to Hattori, who was once again looking a bit stunned.

“There you have it. She agrees.”

Hattori shook his head and chuckled wryly.

“You are becoming more interesting by the second, Miss Lee. Very well, let’s begin!”

As soon as the old priest finished speaking, Yoshika felt an eruption of power from him. A bright, flaming pair of wings erupted from Hattori’s chest as a brilliant phoenix manifested before him. Heian immediately poised herself to pounce, staring with intense focus at the bird of fire before her. Despite its impressive appearance, and even more impressive essence, the phoenix wasn’t projecting any kind of domain. Furthermore, it was made entirely of the element of fire—while every spirit Yoshika had seen before had been a more complex esoteric element, such as Shadow, or Forge.

The phoenix dove for Heian, and rather than dodge out of the way, the cat spirit leapt forward to meet the bird mid-air. Yoshika felt a twinge of concern as the two of them tumbled to the ground in a ball of fire, but the flames didn’t touch the building around them, and the emotions that Heian projected were the same as if she had been playing with Rika and Eunae’s little sisters back at the academy.

Not that you could tell from looking. Heian tore into the flaming bird viciously, biting into its neck and clawing at it with her back paws. The bird escaped by erupting into a small explosion of fire and reforming itself high above. From just below the ceiling, the phoenix began raining fire down at Heian, who was unable to retaliate from the ground. Heian dodged what she could, but the rapid stream of fireballs was overwhelming, and she growled in frustration as a few of them singed her fur.

Suddenly, Heian’s frustration changed into the sort of mischievous playfulness that, in Yoshika’s experience, usually preceded Eui doing something particularly mean-spirited. Before she could interject, Heian lunged towards Hattori. The phoenix squawked urgently and attempted to head Heian off, but it was much too far away. The onmyouji himself didn’t budge as Heian’s claws swept towards him, only to be blocked by the sudden appearance of a giant turtle shell. At the same time, a snake lashed out from behind the shell, its fangs gleaming with venom.

Heian was unperturbed—in fact, she was overjoyed at the prospect of more playmates as she avoided the snake’s bite and began to wrestle with the spirit. Yoshika frowned at what she sensed from the newcomers. Once again, extremely powerful projections of essence, but no domain and elements that seemed strangely simple for spirits—Earth and Miasma, this time. Yoshika met Hattori’s eyes with an irritated glare.

“Three on one seems hardly fair.”

Hattori shrugged.

“I can’t be blamed for defending myself. Besides, my shikigami are the sole source of my power. To limit myself to only a single one of them would be tantamount to asking Miss Takeda to fight without any of her duplicates.”

Yoshika didn’t miss the implicit challenge in the onmyouji’s words. Heian attacking him had turned it from a play fight between their spirits into a proper bout between Hattori and Yoshika.

“In that case, I hope you won’t have any complaints if I step in to help.”

Hattori chuckled.

“By all means, Miss Lee.”

Yoshika didn’t like his confidence—it seemed genuine, and she couldn’t help but feel as though she was missing something. As Heian ‘fought’ the snake and the phoenix—the turtle seemed satisfied to simply remain in place, protecting its master—something fell into place for Yoshika.

“Those aren’t actually direct manifestations of your shikigami are they? They’re projecting their power from inside their talismans. That’s why I can’t sense the domains of your spirits like I could with Murayoshi’s.”

Hattori’s shocked expression gave him away, even as he tried to hide it behind a veneer of incredulity.

“Wh—th-that’s preposterous! These are the manifestations of my shikigami!”

Yoshika had heard enough to be convinced that she was right. She sprang into motion, her lightning steps carrying her next to Hattori before the old man could react—he really was just a mortal. The spirits protecting him were not, and they reacted instantly, breaking away from Heian in order to stop her as soon as they sensed her intent. They were far too slow. Jia’s left hand glowed with a strange red and black energy that seemed to eat the light around it as she swiped her claws effortlessly through the turtle, causing it to disperse into harmless earth essence. With her right, she struck out with a straight punch that stopped so near to Hattori’s face that she was practically touching his nose. The rush of air from her movement blew the old man’s graying hair out of the topknot it was tied into, though to his credit, he didn’t flinch from the blow. The beads of sweat forming on his brow betrayed his calm expression as he spoke.

“I yield.”

Yoshika took a few steps back and bowed as the spiritual manifestations returned to Hattori—much to Heian’s disappointment.

“Well fought. I didn’t know that spirits could cast spells! How did you keep the phoenix’s fire from burning the building down? Can you help me teach Heian to do that?”

Hattori grimaced, holding his hands up in front of him as Yoshika excitedly barraged him with questions.

“One thing at a time, Miss Lee—and please keep it down! You've, er, stumbled into some things that onmyouji don’t normally share with anyone, much less outsiders.”

His voice was low as he spoke, and most of the crowd—including Lord Noguchi—were too busy chattering excitedly about the match to notice their exchange. Yoshika blushed—she’d been so concerned about her own secrets that it hadn’t occurred to her that she was rudely airing out someone else’s.

“S-sorry about that! Alright, we can talk later then, if that’s alright with you?”

The old man sighed.

“I knew this bout was a bad idea. Yes, I suppose we should. I hope you are as much of an ally of Yamato as you claim, Miss Lee, or you’ll have made my life very complicated.”