"No! You don't need to kill him! He delivered me here because Master Xinya was killed, by men from the Shi clan. The tiger just promised her he'd get me here safely - he's not here to hurt you! He'll leave now!" Jin said, moving in front of the tiger, his hands still up to show he wasn't armed.

"I'm not worried he will hurt me! Ha! No, I am well aware of the situation - it seems your master told me more than she told you. When I saw the horses fleeing I knew something along the lines of this was happening, and so I prepared, as she paid me well to do, for your arrival. The only thing left that I need is the beast. It was an elegant solution of hers, to send it along with you."

Jin didn't understand, but he was not willing to let the tiger die. He knew he couldn't fight the sage - he was afraid of the man as it was, without even knowing how powerful his magic was, but there was no doubt that his level was at least as high as Master Xinya's had been. The fact he had caught and tethered the bolthoof with his life energy showed that. Plus there was his prowess with alchemy. Who knew what special abilities he had given himself, or could temporarily harness with pills he could make. Nonetheless, Jin stood firm, his outstretched hands moving to his hips to form fists. Not quite a fighting stance, yet, but he was ready.

"I understand. This was the third favor, was it?" the tiger said in his low voice, "I had been wondering all this time why she had set it up so I owed her three life debts, but I had only been asked for two things. I suppose it was always supposed to end up this way, one way or another. Even if the men hadn't attacked, there would have been some request made of me that lead me here to die. Well, honor is honor, but I have my limits. I will not go willingly."

Behind Jin, the tiger lowered himself into a crouch, poised to pounce. Both were still weakened by the soul violence, and were hoping against hope that some other solution could be reached, because the chances of them winning a fight against this man, even if they worked together, were minuscule.

Jin took in what the tiger was saying with a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He had felt it was awry, too, he had just been too preoccupied with his situation to consider it much. Master Xinya didn't waste anything - efficiency and economy of action were among her core principles as a martial artist. If she had planned for the tiger to help him, why would she have only asked for two favors, when she had three? Indeed, he was sure, thinking back, that she had set the three favors up very specifically, just as the tiger seemed to think.

It had been two summers past, when Jin had just turned 16, that Xinya had brought the tiger home, encased in a cage made of her blue life energy. She had saved the tiger from a trap, that would surely have killed him if he'd been left, she had said, though she had said it with a wink that implied that without her, there would have been no trap. She had trapped beasts before for herself and Jin to fight against in the small battle arena they used in their clearing, and so Jin had not been surprised at this, though he had wondered why the tiger was in such a bad state. It looked like it had been poisoned, as well as trapped, and was barely conscious inside the cage. Why would she weaken the beast to this extent if she wanted to fight it? Even if she wanted Jin to fight it, fighting something that looked to be on the brink of death and could barely lift its head would be no challenge.

But she had kept the tiger in the large, spacious room where she slept, carefully nursing it back to health with pills and herbs. She had not permitted Jin to see the tiger. Perhaps she didn't want him to grow too attached to it, especially if he learned that it could speak. Not if she was planning for one of them to kill it in the arena. Master Xinya did not believe in killing friends. She would never have taught him lessons by allowing him to form a bond with something, and then making him fight it. Other masters valued that sort of teaching, but Xinya didn't see the need to make a disciple cruel or cold. He would kill enemies, and he would kill when it served an important purpose. He might even kill for justice, some day. But she wouldn't raise him to kill just to become more at peace with killing.

When the tiger was healthy, she had brought the cage out to the arena, where Jin sat to watch. She'd said this lesson would be one he would value. He'd assumed she was going to show off some astounding new cultivation technique, that she'd then teach him, so he was excited for this. She'd strolled gracefully out to the center of the arena, the blue energy-cage floating on ahead, moved by her power, and the tiger crouching tensely inside, baring its teeth at her serene face.

When she'd made the cage vanish, the tiger had pounced forth immediately, trying to pin her down. It had looked furious. That had seemed ungrateful, at the time - she had, after all, saved it from the trap, and saved it again by restoring its health. Jin hadn't really considered that an intelligent creature may not like being toyed with like this - trapped, then healed, then made to fight to the death. He hadn't known as much about magical beasts back then, and hadn't known that the tiger could talk. He perhaps was thinking of it as something bigger, and more dangerous, but no more likely to hold grudges than a wild dog.

Master Xinya's face had remained calm - though serious, she was not underestimating the animal - as she'd glided out of range of the tiger's leap, and then instantly, long strands of her blue energy had come from her hands, wrapping around the torso of the great beast and lifting him high, high up into the air. This was a similar technique to the one she'd used to throw Jin into the tree, earlier today, although she hadn't hidden the life energy as she had done then - that, she'd told him before, required her to burn through a lot more of her power.

"Jin, you see how this tiger is at my mercy? I could slam him down, from that height, and maybe he would survive, maybe not. But if he did, well, he'd still be in my control, would he not? I would be able to do it as many times as I needed to. That is the first thing I want you to remember about today. If you can get into a safe position like this, where your foe can do nothing, and their life is in your hands, you have options."

Jin had been impressed by how easily she had achieved this dominance over the tiger, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be learning. He would still be in the corporeal conditioning stages for a long time, and wouldn't be able to do this kind of attack any time soon.

"Now, I shall use those options. I shall give the beast a chance to live," she had said.

"Tiger! I have saved your life twice before. You know as well as I do that I only saved you from traps of my own making - I shall not insult you by pretending otherwise - but the fact is, twice you would have died if I had not chosen to make you survive. If you live on, we can agree that you are honor bound to help me, twice, too, correct?"

The beast roared angrily from up high, but Jin was astonished to hear him reply with a clear 'yes'. He'd heard, at that time, of magical beasts like this, who could understand everything one said to them and respond in human words, but he'd never seen it. Watching Master Xinya try to manipulate an animal through conversation was strange, but impressive.

"And if I bring you down gently now, mercifully, and let you return to your life as though this unpleasant incident had never happened, that would be a third debt? Yes?"

"Yes," the tiger hissed.

Master Xinya had proceeded, ignoring the writhing tiger up in the air, tethered to her like a bizarre balloon, to give Jin a big speech about how sometimes, showing one's strength to a weaker, but potentially useful creature, could create an alliance far faster than friendship or kindness. That mercy could sometimes work in everybody's favor. But only when the subject of the maneuver was thoroughly outmatched.

"The stronger you become, Jin, the more people you'll be able to rely on - and that will multiply your power in this world beyond what any cultivation method will do on its own."

And so, this was what she had been planning back then. The three favors of the tiger were always supposed to lead to the sage killing him, for some reason to do with whatever process he was supposed to put Jin through on his 18th birthday. How much else had Xinya planned for Jin that he wasn't aware of? What else had been right in front of him, without him knowing?

"Sage, I will not accept this. I think I understand - my master set things up so you'd have whatever it is you need from the tiger to make me stronger again. But I don't agree to it. I will go out in to the world as weak as I am now rather than let him die for me."

The sage laughed, though not unkindly. It was more a weary kind of sound, as if he was tired of explaining obvious things to foolish young people.

"It isn't for you to decide or agree. A lot of resources have been used up to make you what you are now, and to ensure that that process is completed. None of this was done out of kindness towards you. Did you really think a boy found in the woods would normally have been lavished with pills, trained as the sole disciple of a master, and reforged not only in body, but in mind, and now soul, too?"

Soul? So the third process is going to strengthen my soul...

He at once felt both afraid and excited to imagine it. If a tiny moment of soul violence had been so horrifying, he could only imagine the pain at having his soul reforged the way his body and mind had been, but then, if it meant he would be strong against creatures like the goblin spirit, or even be able to cultivate to use soul violence himself far more quickly than other people, well, the possibilities were enticing.

But no, he would not sacrifice the tiger for that.

"I don't know what you mean. I don't know what is normal and what isn't, for other people. I only know that if I don't want you to kill for my gain, then you have no right to do it. And I know that I should fight, even when the chance of winning is small, if the alternative is something that wrong."

"I have no particular interest in the Shi clan and Wuying Shi's grand enterprise, Jin. I don't especially care if you go on to fulfill his plans or if you die right here, I'll tell you that now. But I'm bound by financial contracts to make sure your training is completed, and so while I won't kill you, I will imobilize you, kill the tiger, and proceed with the procedure whether you resist or not. You'll wake up far from here in some village, and it will be done. That is the only choice you can make here - whether you'll come inside and talk with me, perhaps learn a little about why all of this is happening to you, or whether you'll continue resisting, and have the same things transpire without your agency. The tiger's core is needed for the elixir, and the elixir will be administered tonight. Those are the facts."

The Shi clan again. Wuying Shi. It seemed that they had something to do with him, and the sage was dropping casual mentions of it all to try to lure Jin into wanting to know more, wanting it badly enough to stand aside to let the tiger be killed. And he did want to know. But it was still more than he could bear to betray the tiger. It might be futile. Just as the sage had said, things would probably happen the same way regardless of what he did here. The sage was too strong. But whether he acted like he was OK with the tiger being sacrificed to make him stronger felt like a matter of great importance. A matter of his own honor.

And he had one thing left that he hadn't tried.