Reysha closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. The second she did, she got a smack at the back of her head. “Don’t even start forming that habit,” Mai scolded her. “You’re no healer that gets protected, you are a Rogue. We don’t ever get to be unaware of our surroundings.”

Simply nodding, Reysha kept her eyes open while she studied the flow of her mana. The only difference between mana and ki was in its application. Mages called their resource mana and they used it to achieve Spells, supernatural occurrences beyond their own body. Martial artists called their resources ki and they used it to achieve Skills and Martial Arts, supernatural occurrences inside their own bodies.

The line was sometimes blurry, particularly when it came to Martial Arts. The distinction of ki and mana was purely on a word basis – it was de-facto the same resource. It was also useful to communicate to someone what category something fell in. After all, understanding in matters of mana translated between Classes, sometimes poorly, sometimes well. It didn’t translate to Martial Arts. The opposite was also the case.

Reysha had only a basic grasp on joint-focused Martial Arts. The instructions were simple enough: send your ki into your joints and shape it in a certain way to get the wanted result. Drawing could have been broken down in the same way. Put lines and colour in these places and you get the representation of what you want. Neither form of art was that simple in execution.

The first difficulty was to get ki past her own skin. She had never tried that before, nor considered trying it. Getting it out of her palm and into the wooden haft of the Runeblade felt like she was attempting to get water through a stone wall by throwing buckets full of liquid at it. Concentrating on her palm, Reysha realized what was about to happen and lowered her head.

Not fast enough. Mai’s palm hit the back of her head. “Better, but you would still be dead,” the teacher pointed out, “or at least be missing your pretty ears.”

“I don’t get what the fuck I’m supposed to do,” Reysha complained.

“Do you see a lot of people capable of Weapon Arts running around?” Mai posed a question in return.

“No?”

“Then you should have figured that this isn’t going to be easy. The Runeblade is a crutch few people get. It is still complicated.” Mai’s harsh tone turned softer when she asked. “What are you trying to do?”

“Move my ki into my palm and then just push it out, I guess,” Reysha responded. “…Oh fuck I’m stupid, I’m not doing skin Martial Arts.”

Mai hummed, pleased that her pupil had that revelation on her own. “It would serve you better if you didn’t need people to take you out of a moment before you think.”

“Me going with the flow of shit is the entire reason why I picked this path, right?” Reysha asked and refocused her efforts. She hadn’t ever used her finger joints too much, when it came to training. The only Skill she did know dislocated her joints and who wanted to dislocate their fingers? Sending Ki there was an alien sensation. As long as she didn’t form that expanding bubble, her joints would remain as they were.

Once she had gathered some Ki, and properly dodged another slap, she started sending it into the blade. The Runeblade was still a wall, but less of stone and more of a wooden house. Finding the little holes and the windows would allow her to raise her efficiency. Even as she was still figuring that out, the first rune faintly shimmered.

“Good, that’s a start,” Mai said, inspecting the Runeblade. “Keep the ki flowing,” she instructed and started gesturing at the various symbols along the weapon’s spine, starting with the lowest one. “This is the charger rune. You will find them on every Runeweapon, in one form or another.”

“You can read these?” Reysha asked, trying to keep her attention split. Control slipped and the shimmering decreased. Hastily, the tiger girl tried to regain control, only to have her human earlobe pinched. The ki retreated back into the familiarity of her body, undoing her progress.

“No,” Mai answered her question. “I understand this one, because it’s mine and I had it explained to me by the Runesmith. How exactly they are made to function or what the shapes mean is beyond me. All I can tell is that there are three paths out from the charger rune.” Mai pointed at the thin, golden line that connected the lowest rune to the one next up. The remaining bridges had a seemingly random number of connections. “The number of connections between the charger rune and neighbouring runes is always the same as the number of different Weapon Arts the weapon is made for. Keep that in mind, it will come in handy at some point.”

“Noted,” Reysha nodded and restarted her efforts.

Four hours passed, during which the tiger girl sat in the chair, desperately attempting to balance her situational awareness with this new sensation. The most successful strategy she found was to keep the build-up slow and steady. Fuelling the Runeblade ambitiously distracted her mental state too much to keep up with the slaps and other small punishments Mai tormented her with.

Sometimes, Mai distracted her in other ways. “Never mistake Weapon Arts for Enchantments,” she said. “Weapon Arts are Martial Arts – Enchantments are Spells. A magical craftsman binds an attribute to an object outside his body. For the duration of a Weapon Art, the weapon is part of your body.” Mai tapped the almost fully charged rune.

It was as if someone was putting pressure on her fingernail, except her fingernail was four times as large and definitively displaced from where it should be. A moment later her brain realized that she didn’t even have an eleventh fingernail. The confusion stopped her channelling for a moment. She maintained it. Then she continued.

‘Slow and steady,’ she thought.

“As you’re currently realizing, charging a Weapon Art slowly is a valid tactic, particularly as a novice. You can prepare the attack and keep on dodging. For us Rogues, who specialize in definitive strikes to secure our takedowns, this is vital. However, if the weapon you are charging breaks, the pain will be incredible. Even Warriors are incapacitated if it occurs.” Mai circled around the chair a few times. “If you ever fight a Weapon Art’s user, focusing their weapon while they charge up can win you the fight. In the same vein, it may lose you the fight, if you aren’t careful. This is why you must measure carefully when to make the attempt and what Martial Art to transfer. The faster you can pull it off, the safer you are.”

“Makes sense,” Reysha answered, finally feeling like she was getting somewhere. Her ki expanded past the charger rune and down all three paths. She blinked rapidly. “Which path should I follow?” she asked.

“The left one.”

“…where is left?” Reysha asked and then looked down at the weapon. “If you slap me now, I’ll be so fucking nettled.”

“Enemies don’t care how nettled you are,” Mai chided and gave Reysha a smack on the shoulder at about half of the Infiltrator’s actual speed. There was no hope of dodging. She failed to remain seated and fell to the ground. Her grip on the weapon loosened for a moment. Ki fled into the air as blue mist, dispersing without effect.

Reysha growled, feeling the demon claws push out of the fingertips of her empty hand. Mai stomped down on the hand, preventing the redhead from raising it. When she turned her head, the tiger girl quickly swallowed her anger. What looked down at her wasn’t a friendly teacher, but an Infiltrator who had killed thousands for money and hedonism.

“We are murderers, Reysha,” the teacher admonished both of them. “We try our best to redeem ourselves, but the blood will stick. We have no right to ask mercy from the world. We haven’t given it enough.”

“So, how are you not depressed?” Reysha returned with a sassy smile.

The one she got in return was jaded, tired, “If I get too self-aware of my sins, I can’t teach upstarts like you how to avoid them.”

“Spilled milk in my case.”

“In the Omniverse, there is always more to ruin. Now, back into the chair.”

Reysha did as instructed and sat back down. She had been set back. The progress she had lost, she knew how to recover. Familiarizing herself with the process was the entire goal. If she thought of it like that, the constant distractions made sense.

‘The left one,’ she thought, once the charger rune was filled again. She put her eyes on the blade, to find the correct path to follow. The shimmer started so weak, it was difficult to discern where it went at first. It didn’t help that she had to duck under another slap. Then a chop followed. Reysha hissed, but managed to stay her progress, while jumping out of the chair. Mai followed after her, swiping her hand around at a pace that allowed her pupil to keep dodging – as long as she paid attention.

Watching the blade and her teacher at the same time was impossible, even for Reysha. Just like she had played with the boy, Mai was now playing with her. It was infuriating. It was also silly. Incredibly silly. What were they doing, jumping around inside the office, one of them trying to read magical lanes off a Runeblade?

Reysha began to laugh. Loudly, unabashedly, she laughed and stepped forwards, hugging Mai. The Infiltrator could have dodged, but the course of action puzzled her enough that she let it pass. Arms wrapped around her teacher, the tiger girl read the blade over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Mai’s left hand repeatedly chopped into her side.

It hurt. The constant giggling and the hits.

In her day, Reysha had been starving, stabbed, bitten, bruised, heartbroken, had an entire limb melted, deeply depressed and traumatized. Her sides getting tortured was nothing compared to all of that pain.

“I -hehehe- I got it!” she declared triumphantly and pulled out of the hug. “I figured ou- hahaha. I figured out where LEFT IS!” That sentence made her roar with laughter again and she fell back into the chair. In her amusement, she lost complete track of the weapon. Her ki drained back into her and she didn’t mind at all.

Mai looked at her pupil, one eyebrow raised, and shook her head. “You truly are an odd one.”

“Said the assassin turned teacher and housewife.”

“Hubby deserves the best,” Mai answered decisively. Her entire body language shifted when she spoke about her family. “We can banter later. You have a mission. Get it done.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Reysha waved off and returned to the task in her hand. It only took her three hours this time around. Through the continued meddling, she charged up the bottom rune. Part of her remembered where things were relatively, so she found the left channel with little fumbling. Another hour later, she had finally made it up to the second rune.

The edges were expanded by a blue, sharp sheet – the lower five centimetres of it anyway. Reysha could sense the form her Ki took inside the weapon. There was no choice in how to form it, the runes acted as a mould. The path was set and this shape, if she could recreate it in her own joints, would have the exact same effect as it would have on the blade.

“Congratulations, you finished the easiest segment of the mission,” Mai applauded.

“Easiest?!” Reysha cried out. “The fuck do you mean, I just have to repeat the same thing up the weapon like… 12 times, right?”

“Yes, and remember how I said that joint-based Martial Arts got more difficult the longer the conduit?” Mai reminded her pupil and tapped the tip of the arm-long blade. “Plus you have to counter the energy loss.”

The redhead’s ears deflated and she mumbled, “All Martial Arts and no play make Reysha a depressed girl.”

With a chuckle, Mai put a hand between those red cat ears and ruffled her pupil’s wild hair. “You did good for the day, so I’ll let you go for now.”

“Hurray!” Reysha declared and ran towards the exit. Before she could cramp herself into the shaft, Mai grabbed one of her legs.

“Leave the Runeblade,” Mai warned.

“Cawn’t I haz the wveapon to trainz at howme?” Reysha asked in her sickly-sweet voice. Mai narrowed her eyes threateningly. “Okay, okay,” the redhead laughed and handed the Runeblade back over. “Didn’t think I’d get away with it anyway.”

“And yet you try,” Mai sighed.