I jerked backwards, jumping back several meters before I realized what I was doing. Then I glanced at Mior, who still stood in front of me. Despite that, I could feel their qi far more closely than before.

‘What did you do?’ I asked. I had intended to just say it, but it had come out in mental speech somehow. Or projected to the spirit?

‘Don’t worry. This isn’t possession. Yet. I just linked us together so we’ll be able to fight together and not have to worry about getting separated.’ They smiled. ‘You didn’t think this connection with Rijoko was everything, did you?’

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Alright. Warn me next time. Now, you said something about fighting together?”

“Come on.”

Then Mior grabbed my arm again, and I felt myself pulled along as they moved through a world that seemed to shiver slightly, almost frozen in swirling qi.

I took a moment to look at the battlefield and our surroundings and to take in the situation. My companions were still at the shrine. I wished the spirits had at least given me the chance to talk to them, although I knew time was probably precious. They were turning back to the battle, which still raged on the fields outside the city. I could tell at first glance that Jideia had decimated our army, though it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Many of the Imperial fighters must have chosen to retreat. The Zarian had withdrawn a little as well, although at the edges, well away from the Greater Spirit’s incarnation, fighting still continued.

Mior put us back into proper alignment with reality, or ended the trip, or whatever this was, in the air not too far from the city walls. I rubbed the skin of my left wrist, which they’d taken previously. It still felt almost itchy. And I could sense a bit of their qi sticking to me, but on the inside, maybe even connecting to my dantian. It was a disconcerting feeling. But if this allowed me to fight better, I’d bear with it.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Come on, Little Light, get your head in the game. You probably know that as well as I do.’

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm. After a moment, I realized what Mior was getting at. There was only one target the two of us would go after, since they clearly weren’t moving to help Rijoko with Jideia. So I stretched out my qi senses as well as I could, at the same time considering where we might find him.

A rolling thunder accompanied by a shockwave that moved us even up here drew my attention. Rijoko and Jideia were facing each other. If they’d exchanged words, they weren’t audible to mere humans. But now they moved. From one second to the next, they clashed in the middle of the field. It felt like that should have shaken the world in its hinges, flattening everyone and everything around the two Greater Spirits, and yet there was nothing except this pressure change in the air. I could only barely make out the punches and stabs that followed, yet they were all so carefully controlled and contained that they disturbed nothing in their surroundings. There was only a faint sense of pressure, more in the qi than the air. The hairs on the back of my neck and my arms hadn’t stopped standing on end in minutes.

‘Alright,’ I said, tearing my eyes away. ‘Let’s go.’

I noted that even with Rijoko engaged in fighting Jideia, I could still get that sort of instinctive guidance, a sense of where to go, where to look. Of course, my connection to Rijoko also felt wider open than normal, and I even received what might be snatches from his confrontation with the Storm. In any case, it was enough that I went flying over the city without hesitation, finding my way to my target.

On a whim, I had decided on one white and one black wing today. They held me aloft and propelled me forward without trouble. It felt like the link Mior had engaged helped, like they might be sharing a bit of their power, but I wasn’t sure. My qi senses were already taxed trying to keep up with everything happening.

The Pioneer didn’t try to hide. I wasn’t sure if he could have hidden from Mior, anyway. He rose into the air slowly, in a quarter of the city I vaguely recognized that was situated close to the temple. He looked at us and raised his head.

As if on cue, I felt a slight disturbance in the surrounding qi and looked back. Rijoko and Jideia were still fighting, and had apparently gotten closer to the city. As I watched, the giant form of my father reached out to the qi shield. Some Zarian soldiers were bravely trying to hit him with techniques or projectiles, but he ignored them all, and they didn’t even rip the flowing robe he wore. He tapped the shield, his finger passing through it, and I felt a surge in the formation arrays around the city as the qi shield simply collapsed.

Mior didn’t waste any time in advancing towards our opponent, and I hurried to keep pace with them. Isuro also drifted forward slightly, and it wasn’t long until we met in the air, close enough for conversation.

‘Mior,’ he said. ‘Somehow, it is even less of a pleasure to see you than last time.’

‘Isuro,’ Mior replied with a smile. They pulled a sword from thin air and gave him a salute. ‘I don’t know why I thought you might show some manners.’

Isuro’s gaze moved to me, and I had to resist the urge to smile, too. That would probably not come off right in this situation. Instead, I gave him a serious nod. ‘Could we please do this in another location? Somewhere there are less innocent bystanders that will get hurt?’

Isuro glanced between me and Mior for a moment, but I already knew he’d agree. It was the sort of request he wouldn’t want to refuse, and especially not in front of me. ‘Alright. Let us stay our weapons until then.’

I did smile now. I really didn’t like the idea of having an epic fight right above, or even in, a populated city.

Mior pulled some of their qi around us again, and we traveled far more quickly than I usually would, somehow keeping close to Isuro. The city passed beneath us quickly, and we headed into the mountains, rising in altitude a little. I glanced at the landscape beneath us as we slowed down, glad to see that it appeared to be uninhabited rock. We were now also a good distance from the battle, with the added benefit that whatever happened here would be harder to see for anyone there. I could still feel Rijoko and Jideia clashing, but there was no large environmental sign of it.

Apparently, their gentlemanly behavior was exhausted by moving here, because both Mior and Isuro attacked right away. I summoned my spear, but hesitated for a moment, trying to watch their movements.

It was hard. I felt like I had a much better idea of what Mior was doing than I should have been able to get, and that somehow translated into understanding the Pioneer’s movement better, as well. But they still moved at speeds higher than any cultivator I’d previously seen except possibly eighth-stagers, and the first clash of their weapons literally shook the mountainside.

I suppressed a wince, then lunged forward. Isuro clearly saw my strike coming and turned to evade it, but that gave Mior the opportunity to close for an attack of their own. Their sword seemed to have expanded, and it caught in Isuro’s robes, but didn’t appear to actually touch him as the ascended cultivator stepped back in midair. Their spear flashed and it was Mior’s turn to retreat. Then Isuro turned it on me, blindingly fast, and I barely managed to dodge in time.

I frantically beat my wings, trying to keep my position stable, and cursed the fact that I hadn’t trained more for fighting with them. Mior and Isuro were already engaged in another hot exchange. The sight made me hesitate, questioning why I was even here at all. I clearly couldn’t match these powerful pseudo-spirits. But Mior must have had a reason for taking me.

I took a deep breath and turned some of my attention to my connection to Rijoko while I repositioned myself, flying slightly below Isuro. It was still open, and I could almost swear I felt it pulsing faintly. More qi seemed to flow through it than almost any time before. I gathered my will, then reached into it with my mental grip, trying to open it farther and pull more from it.

My senses sharpened, and I felt like Mior and Isuro slowed down. Rijoko was not at all stingy with his qi right now, and with him being incarnated so close to me, it felt like I had a far easier time with all of that. I felt power thrumming through my blood, in my body, taking me along into a flow of strength and danger.

This time, when I lunged forward, I anticipated Isuro’s dodge and corrected my strike. It was still a probing attack, and he managed to deflect it, but I turned the momentum of the strike into a lunge to the side and swept my spear at his legs. That forced him to jump upwards and open himself to an attack from Mior, who scored a cut on Isuro’s side.

It closed quickly, but I still smiled. I knew we had this. Their weapons of choice were a poor matchup from Mior’s perspective. Even with their ability to change their sword’s shape, the spirit might be at a disadvantage against Isuro on their own. But Fides changed the balance. I had at least as much reach as Isuro, and my shapeshifting was probably at least on his level, from what I’d seen so far.

Isuro seemed to recognize this and shot further upwards, gaining some distance. I felt qi gathering and knew he was starting to use a technique. But Mior’s qi rose in response, clashing and pushing against it.

I added what little I could to it, beating my wings and shooting upwards. Isuro deflected my strike and responded with a lightning-quick thrust at my midsection. I twisted and felt the tip of his spear graze my ribs. His focus hadn’t faltered, still wrestling his technique into existence.

I backed off, healing the cut, and threw my own qi into the mix in a more focused form. The Void’s Nibble looked different than usual, more expansive and less contained, and I had it crash into Isuro’s working like a raging wave sweeping away a sandcastle’s walls. Mior added their own will to the push, and we managed to stifle Isuro’s until he dropped his technique.

After that, he tried smaller techniques that he could build almost instantly. I had the feeling that that wasn’t really his style, but he was old and had more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Mior took on the brunt of dealing with them, while I just tried to keep Isuro occupied, harassing him with my weapon and occasionally qi as well as I could.

I paid for it. Isuro was no one’s fool and a far more experienced fighter than me. He cut me at least three times for every hit I landed on him, and I barely managed to regenerate everything in time to not lose the rhythm of the fight. He burned me, crushed my left leg, and even hacked off an ear. But he never landed a hit on a truly vital part, or something that would seriously put my life in danger.

As the fight wore on, I started to suspect that might not be coincidence. I didn’t hold back either, and gave Isuro more than a few nasty wounds, though they closed quickly. But he didn’t seem to actually be trying to get past my apparent near-immortality, instead focusing on Mior. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get back to his master, either.

‘Why are you even doing this?’ I finally said, letting some of my frustration show, as I drifted backwards a little.

Isuro paused in hurling qi projectiles at Mior, which the spirit either dodged or seemed to absorb. ‘What?’ he finally asked. ‘Do you question why we are fighting?’ He shook his head. ‘It should be obvious. But if you wish to leave, I will let you run.’

I simply snorted in response.

Isuro started to gather qi again. Mior lunged forward, predicting his sidestep and getting close. The two started grappling. I waited for the right moment, then pounced onto them as well. Mior and me both used shapeshifting to its best effect. They turned into a many-armed flexible monstrosity, while I elongated my limbs, hardened my joints, and put Isuro into a lock.

Usually, he should be able to dissipate his form, but I could feel Mior pushing against his qi, holding him. I added my own efforts to theirs, keeping us bound to the physical world while I flapped my wings and barely guided our descent onto the mountain.

Isuro struggled, and his qi helped him enough that he almost broke free several times. But with Rijoko’s power reinforcing me, Mior and I overpowered him. When we finally crashed to the earth, in a small dip in a mountain, I pulled qi-suppressing shackles from my storage ring and wrestled them around Isuro’s wrist.

He laughed. “Really?”

I continued, shrugging slightly. I knew they wouldn’t do much against a cultivator of his level, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Why are you even fighting us?” I asked again. “I think we’ve established that you don’t actually want to kill me.”

“You don’t appear to be trying to kill me, either,” he noted calmly, his eyes on Mior.

The spirit grinned. ‘I trust Inaris to know what she’s about.’

“Look, I know we won’t be able to keep you prisoner,” I said. “I don’t want to kill you, either, even if I thought I could. This whole situation is pretty absurd. I mean, I’m pretty sure you weren’t fighting with your full power, not really. Are you willing to go this far for Jideia, even discard your pride? Where’s your self-respect, Isuro?”

He glared at me. “You should make up your mind on what you want me to do, girl.”

I sighed. “I never got a chance to thank you for how you’ve fumbled all those assassination attempts. If Jideia had given them to someone who was actually trying their best, I might have had a harder time. That’s why I can’t believe you’re still doing this. You don’t even like it, Isuro. Shit, I’d be willing to bet you don’t even like Jideia.”

“I owe him loyalty,” Isuro said through gritted teeth. I noted that he’d stopped struggling, while I’d paused, one of his wrists in a cuff and the other dangling uselessly, all of us focused on the conversation. It felt like it might be the first actually frank one we’d had.

“Do you really?” I asked. “I mean, I know he helped you once, a long time ago. Fine, maybe he helped you a lot. But you’ve been doing his dirty work for a long time now, haven’t you? Was that really the deal? Being his slave in return for ascension?”

Isuro seemed to fade into greater corporality, somehow. “I’m not his slave!”

“Then act on your own opinions and decisions!” I stood up, taking a step back, and watched as he slowly rose to a crouch.

After a long moment of silence, he heaved a sigh. “So you want me to serve Rijoko? After I already betrayed him once?”

I shook my head. “My father would probably be happy to gain your support. Whatever happened in the past, you know he’d much rather have you not on Jideia’s side, so he’ll protect you from him. But I don’t know if you really need to follow him. That’s your decision.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What then, Inaris?”

I glanced at Mior, then back at Isuro, ran a hand through my hair, and shrugged. “I just want you to leave us alone.”

He stared at me. I met his gaze steadily, waiting as the seconds ticked by.

Finally, he sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, and bowed his head. “You are right. This has gone beyond what I ever intended to support. I will leave.” He hesitated for a moment, then met my gaze again. “Thank you, Little Light. Perhaps you have shown me the way to regain some self-respect after all. I wish you good fortune. We will meet again.”

There was a glint in his eyes, one I wasn’t quite comfortable with, but I understood Isuro well enough to know he was no danger to me anymore. He faded from sight and I felt his qi disappearing into the distance.

I still felt Rijoko and Jideia, fighting, in the center of everything here.