/// IN THE TRAINING GROUNDS OUTSIDE OF THE MONASTERY OF THE MOON

There they stood, on the training grounds, by the cliffside, where the multicolored sea spray brushed against them under a bleached sky. They stood on a rectangular dirt arena, surrounded by little boulders that were presumably used to stop you from falling over the sides.

They all did some stretching before physical activity heated up. When they were done, Jaime stood before all of them, kind of foreboding. He raised a hand, but then Angela suddenly asked: “You know, I’ve been wondering, what kind of fashion do you guys really have here? Because there you are wearing a camisa de chino, but then you have running shoes? The others too…”

Jaime laughed and then shrugged. “Uh, well, being in the heaven of every universe, we kind of just mix and match, you know? It makes sense that way.”

“Does it, though?”

“Yes. The more you question the lie, the more truthful it becomes. Now, listen to me.” And they did. “Today we will be practicing the art of war, the secret of violence. Martial Arts, if you will, which the four of you will need to excel at if you wish to conquer this heaven and save your friend.”

“We’ll do anything,” said Esther, scowling. Jaime glanced at all of them, and indeed they saw the grim determination in their face. However, this conviction would surely get them killed if he didn’t teach them quick enough.

“Very well. Follow me.”

In the back of the Monastery, there was a rectangular dirt field. There they stood, the five of them, as Jaime began the lesson. “Firstly, you must learn the secrets of fighting, and to understand that, you must know how to fight. Does anyone here know how to fight?”

Mattheo raised his hand.

“You know how to fight?”

Mattheo shook his head, sheepish, and he put his hand down. “But! Jonathan and I took Taekwondo lessons when we were younger.”

“Alright. Is that it? Nobody else has any martial arts or self-defense related knowledge?’

“We learned some Arnis,” said Angela. “But… I’m not sure if that’d be considered self-defense. It was considered a sport.”

“The philosophy shouldn’t be too different,” said Jaime. “Other than Arnis, none of you ever did sports before?”

“Oh no, we’re all in sports,” said Esther. “Jonathan does Archery, I do volleyball and dance in my free time, Angela does track and Mattheo… huh, Mattheo doesn’t do any sport does he?”

“I swim!” he said. “But… not anymore, lately.”

“You’re a volleyball player?” asked Jaime.

Esther nodded. She thumbed her nose. “I’m school varsity, actually, of The Sacred Heart of Mary High School.”

“Right. That explains a lot. Spiker?”

Esther nodded again.

“Very well. A certain level of physical competence will surely help you in our endeavor. Now, I shall teach you how to fight by teaching you the AN. According to drunk philosophers and vagrant historians, the An was the original Art of Anything, from which every other art and form of creation stemmed from.”

“Like… Martial Arts?”

“Not just Martial Arts: even the visual arts, the literary arts, and more.”

“Weird,” remarked Jonathan.

“Perhaps, but not terribly so. All the arts have one thing in common: they are practiced, and they require certain discipline. That is the An. Practice and discipline. The An is a basic martial art that isn’t too hard to learn, but hopelessly difficult to master since it is the original Art. We will start with basic footwork, and then we will go into basic striking philosophy and basic defending philosophy. Follow me.”

“Now learn this,” continued Jaime. “The only way to true peace is through true violence. Mirthless violence will lead to a mirthless peace. The ideal of peace is violence. If the violence is wrong, then the peace will be wrong. These are collated teachings from the Broken Tomes. There are many of these Tomes, written during the Death of BATALA, for the Death of BATALA lasts for all eternity.”

“My head still hurts whenever you speak like that. It’s like you’re not making any sense,” said Angela.

“That is because God makes no sense, and neither does the Multiverse. Now, stand with your feet apart, establish your core, and move in a triangle.”

Esther blinked. “This is just Arnis.”

“Close,” said Jaime. “As I said, this is An, the Way, the first martial art used for protection and combat. A certain barangay drunk says that this is the original martial art, the first martial art to have been used in the metaphysical layer of the universe, and thus, is the pattern for all other martial arts to follow before it. Practically, it is a very balanced style, one that has principles, techniques, and exercises that can be seen in all other martial arts, befitting of being the first art. Now let us do some exercises.” And they did, a few ones involving footwork, others involving arm and wrist movements. Before long they were trying to do drills. Sweat matted their hair to their faces.

And so they did. They did drills, they did the footwork, and a lot of strikes, which they then eventually tried upon training dummies made of rattan. They learned that in the An, triangular footwork is important to keep the enemies in their toes, and striking at normal cardinal directions is the way to wither your opponents while attacking in strange, irregular angles is the way to inflict damage upon the opponent. Each attack must consist of multiple strikes. Every part of your body must be able to defend and attack at the same time. Always keep a single hand alive, even when one is attacking, so that you may defend.

At the end of the morning, with the afternoon sun bearing straight down upon them, they collapsed into heaps of sweaty bodies. “Come on, let’s head for the kubo. We can rest there.” And so they did. There they rested beneath the cool shade, with the brisk and fresh sea wind cooling them down. There were already wooden cups of water and buckets of ice within to help them.

“I’m tired,” said Jonathan, using a rattan fan to fan himself.

“Technique and form are integral to the principles of violence.”

“Speaking of. Are announcing yourselves and naming your attacks and then calling those attacks out part of violence?” asked Angela.

With a completely straight face, Jaime nodded. “You might be hearkening back to that time in Panginoon Tupas when we fought. Announcing yourselves to the universe is a powerful way of making your intention known, as the universe recognizes your flame, your being, your name, and weaves itself around your Will. WILL is one of the three most important aspects of the Multiverse, the other two beings MUST and NEED.”

“Do you name your attacks?”

Jaime thought for a while. “Some Martial Arts already have their more complicated or more advanced moves named, and so we only call those out when we need to. But others who don’t practice Martial Arts and simply fight through sheer violent instinct may name their attacks on their own, and call them out. Naming the attacks and calling them out when doing them is a powerful way of announcing your Will to the Universe. In that way, you change reality with your strikes.”

“Metal,” said Jonathan.

Mattheo smiled. “You know what? All of this sounds very anime.”

“What is anime?”

Angela blinked. “You don’t know what anime is? I mean, I haven’t watched a lot of it, and I’m not super into it, but everyone’s heard of anime, once or twice.”

Jaime sighed and shook his head.

“I wonder from what Manila you come from,” muttered Jonathan under his breath. “‘Cause that must be pretty sad.”

“Right?”

“Perhaps so, but I am currently very happy and I was never sad in the Manila I came from, so it’s all good.”

“Mm!” Esther gulped down an entire cup of water while raising her hand. “Question, why did I burn bright red when I punched that guy back then? Also, how did I manage that?”

“Your emotions were also the emotions of your soul, your Kalag, and thus you the soul became in line with your Gahum. By burning your Gahum, you can perform supernatural feats, even without knowing it, such as, well, that, what you did back then.”

Mattheo turned to her. “Wait, you punched something?”

Esther grinned, and she thumbed her nose. “That’s right. A huge Wonder Woman kinda girl. It was great. I punched her and she flew through the air like I was Superman or Deku or something.”

“That’s badass. I want to do that.”

Jaime interjected: “You will, soon, as you gain more intimate knowledge of your Gahum. However, to do that, you will need to use your Gahum, but we will get back to that later. Now that color you keep seeing burning from everyone when they exert their will? That’s called Usbong. That’s your Gahum burning through your soul and manifesting as colors in your body. When your Usbong burns, you will be warm to the touch.”

“Why does it do that?” asked Esther.

“Because in truth, Gahum cannot be contained easily by imperfect vessels such as ours, and thus it must shine through. Anyway, the four of you are doing good,” said Jaime. “Learning faster than other students, at least.”

“Thanks, we try,” said Angela. Jonathan laughed.

“Are you top-notchers in your class or something?”

“No, no,” said Esther. “That’s… Yewon.”

“Huh, I wonder how she’s doing,” asked Angela.

Angela pressed her lips together and smiled. “Hopefully well.”

Jonathan paused, and then rubbed Angela’s back. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her back. Trust me.”

“And to get her back,” said Jaime, producing a wooden bottle filled with water. “You will need to train diligently and with power. But for now, rest. Overextending yourselves will only lead to less power, not more.”

“But we need it quicker,” said Esther. “The more time we waste not being strong enough to get Yewon, the bigger the chance that we won’t see her again.”

“Which is why you’re already going out to the field tomorrow. We usually do not put students out of the Monastery until after a year of preparation and training. You are exceptions. The clouds have obscured the sun. Let’s train some more before going for food.”

/// IN THE CAFETERIA OF THE MONASTERY

The cafeteria was in a bamboo stilt longhouse with both ends having food served by expert Mortals and Spirits of Cooking, with the door being in the middle, and then the rest filled by square bamboo tables without chairs, so that one had to sit on their knees or cross their legs to eat. There, Jaime ate with the Engkantos. Gala and Jenna still weren’t there, however.

“I will check up on them after we eat,” said Jaime, of Gala and Jenna.

They ate during class hours, so the cafeteria was more or less empty and they could hear each other. They ate a nourishing rice meal to replenish themselves, and Jaime gave each of them a piece of the puto to fill them up more.

“How are you feeling?” Jaime asked them. They all took a break before coming to the cafeteria to freshen up, and Jaime gave them herbal remedies to make sure that their muscles didn’t ache too much.

Esther swallowed first before answering: “I’m… fine. A bit hungry, but that’s it.”

“The herbal remedies that Brother Owl commissions from the Serpent Albularyo are very potent, but are also dangerous. Ingest too much within a small period and you will poison yourself.”

“Who is the Serpent Albularyo?” asked Jonathan, squinting.

“An Albularyo who lives on a secluded island, further southeast from here, teetering on the edge of heaven.”

“Okay, so the question, Jaime,” Mattheo began. “You see, all these things you’re saying… they exist in our universe as well. Well, not really. They’re not, you know, real, but like, the terms and beliefs, they’re all there. Why are they so close to each other?”

“Names are fickle things,” said Jaime. And he did not answer further, too engrossed in his pancit canton.

“Man I want some pancit canton,” said Angela.

Jaime blinked. “I can buy you some if you want.”

“Oh, n-no it’s okay. I was just craving.”

Jaime stood and went out to get some pancit canton. Jonathan and Mattheo stifled a laugh.

“You know what I’m scared of?” Esther said, raising her spoon. “That we’re all going to start talking like Brother Owl when we’re all done here.”

“That’s going to take some time,” said Angela, smiling with melancholy. “Depending on how long we take here.”

“Hey,” Mattheo gazed at her sharply. “Things will be okay. It might take some time, but it’ll work out in the end. I’m sure of it. We’re the Engkantos. We can do anything.”

Angela managed a small smile. Jaime came back with a plate of pancit canton topped with an egg. “I understand your conviction is that you will rescue your friend,” he said, sitting down.

They all nodded. “Yes,” said Jonathan. “The Engkantos… the Engkantos are a family. We can’t just leave one of us behind. Especially if they’re in grave danger.”

Mattheo beamed. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that in front of everyone, Jon.”

Jonathan didn’t reply. He simply went back to shoving food into his mouth.

“And that is something I can commend,” said Jaime. “However, to survive in a broken system, you must first learn its tenets, and so it is thus: violence, in all forms.”

“Yeah, yeah,” sneered Esther. “Almost everyone here goes on and on about violence. It’s sickening. Is that all you want? To kill as much as possible? To hurt others as much as possible?”

“When BATALA died,” said Jaime. “Or so I have been taught, the divine harmony known as Hiyang was shattered, and there can never be any harmony anymore. Thus, to fix the broken heaven, we must be violent.”

Jonathan rubbed his chin. “Learning the ways of the system to survive in it. Isn’t there any other way?”

Jaime smiled. “To change heaven is also to learn its ways first. Become sufficiently well learned in this, then you will learn more to change it.”

“What is the system, then?” asked Angela.

“Ascending the Angel’s Ladder through violence and force. That is power.” Jaime nodded. “But the Ladder we climb leads to only one end: Kawalan, oblivion, the end.”

“There must be some other way,” asked Angela.

“There is,” said Jaime. “Such is the nature of the system.” Jaime finished his food. “But it is up to you to find out what it is.”

Jonathan, in deep thought, asked: “Then what is the way of the world?”

Jaime opened his mouth and then laughed.

Jonathan appended: “Before God died.”

“None know, but some Barangay Tambay might say supreme harmony, from the littlest piece of nature to BATALANG MAYKAPAL Themself.”