A Path of Her Own

Her mind was a haze.

Only a moment ago she had been sparring with the yokai called Lilith. What was this, sprung on her out of nowhere?

Dark.

Even through the fog of her thoughts, the gloom on every side came through with perfect clarity. No—clarity was the wrong word. It was less that she felt the dark than that she simply knew it.

Where am I?

Within that dimness, everything was silent.

Mina reached at once to draw her energy up, and her body flinched. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠won't move. Her dantian might as well have turned to stone. Whatever had hardened there refused to stir.

…It isn't only my energy.

The yokai nature she carried—the blood of the demon fox—had gone just as still.

What in the world had happened?

She was still turning the question over when the space around her shivered, a fine, trembling hum, and a path opened inside it. Not one path. Countless paths, branching the way an ancient tree throws out its limbs, so many they might have numbered in the hundreds, vast beyond easy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reckoning.

Mina stepped up to the mouth of one.

In that instant the trembling force rang through the space again, and before she knew it a white fog had closed in around her. Within the fog stood a single figure.

…Me?

It was Mina herself. And yet not quite. The clothes were not the ones she wore now. The way of fighting was different. Even the basic lines of the face were a little off.

The woman in the mist carried a riper air than she did—lush, to Mina's own eye. Seductive. Decadent. Mina usually bound her chest in a specialized bra, her large breasts a hindrance in a fight. The self in the fog wore nothing of the sort. Her neckline plunged, the cleft of her breasts bare, and she bewitched everything around her.

When that woman turned, Mina understood.

Nine tails. A gumiho.

A message from her ancestor? The thought came, and she shook it off. How was a being already extinguished supposed to send a message?

Then… my future?

No. She had never heard of anyone who could see what was to come. They said a transcendent called a prophet existed in some far country, but even whether that was true remained uncertain. Hard to believe I've suddenly gained the power to see the future in the middle of all this.

Which left a single answer she could reach with a cool head.

Not the future. A possibility.

Her blood, her experience, the direction of her growth—all of it gathered and shown back to her. These countless roads are the choices open to me?

She tested it, drifting toward another fork. Fog rose again, and her own form appeared in three dimensions. Golden hair, the same as now. But something was different.

Yang is the main force. Yin only supports it. The output can't climb any higher than that.

Even so, the power on display was formidable. The woman in the fog possessed strength enough to look on high-tier exorcists and find them laughable.

And the others?

She kept walking, and at last she understood. Every one of her countless possibilities branched from only two frames.

A path that deals chiefly in yin, and a path that deals chiefly in yang.

When yin led, the tails could not be hidden. All nine swayed, and she looked as if she had taken one step further into being a yokai. When yang led, the tails could never be shown at all. Instead that yin was folded into her arts, and its collision with yang produced a might still greater.

I see. They want me to choose.

Human, or yokai. The fork set before her pressed her to take one of the two.

The fog thickened. Mina stared into it and swallowed.

"I…"

A deep unease wound itself around her.

"Mm."

Mina's bout had stopped halfway through.

The attack had been fierce. She had managed, if only by a little, to pierce even the defense of Lilith herself—Lilith, of all beings under heaven. And yet she did not follow through. She only stared blankly into empty air, and the opening she left was total.

Lilith looked at her and smiled, slow and knowing.

"She has set foot upon the forked road."

A crossroads.

"So it seems."

Bihyung glanced at the message that had surfaced before his eyes.

He himself had just done something startling enough to surprise even him, and in the same breath been acknowledged as possessing two constitutions at once, and so stepped onto a crossroads of his own. But as for what that crossroads actually was, Bihyung had no idea.

Then, all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at once, a storm of messages began to chime before his eyes—a shrill, relentless trill.

Notifications surged like a downpour. Every one of them was a legacy Mina might claim, and every one of them was a fork of the crossroads she was staring into.

Watching them, a single thought occurred to Bihyung.

Feels like a class change.

Reach a certain level, and the world shows you which profession you might take, and what that profession does. It felt exactly like that. Of course there was no such thing as an actual class change. A technique had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be learned by one's own effort; choosing an option did not make you into that thing overnight.

Even so—

They've got the word Legacy hung on them. Her growth is going to pick up speed.

At the very least, it would be an enormous help in embodying whatever those legacies contained. Insight into outstanding techniques. Experience of them. That was what it meant.

But.

She's hesitating.

To Bihyung's eyes it was as if he could see Mina dithering between the forks, unable to commit. And no wonder. Even now the chiming festival of messages told him plainly how many times she had turned the choice over, and over again.

She can't get a feel for which one is better.

He was stroking his chin when he noticed something odd about the names of the options.

One side comes right out and shows names tied to the gumiho, or to foxes.

The other side had nothing of the sort. If anything, it stressed that she was human.

Bihyung had been through a situation like this before.

They said a half-yokai has to choose one of two roads, didn't they?

The innate station that had been given to him. And, at the same time, the catalyst that had carried him outside the bounds of the story. A half-yokai, from a certain point onward, had to decide whether to stand with humankind or with yokai. The choice laid before Mina seemed to be exactly that.

Whichever she picks, I'm not throwing her away.

But.

If she can take the better option, why wouldn't she?

Even now she could handle yin and yang together, to a point. The move she had shown Lilith a moment ago had been enough to startle even Bihyung. Of course he could do it himself. No—he could do it better. But that was because he had been born a being who had passed through Transcendence and could wield the energies of yin and yang. For Mina, who had not even reached the mid-tier, let alone Transcendence, it was a performance almost too distant to believe.

Now that I think about it, this pisses me off. She's one of my Baekgwi. Who are you to decide her road however you please?

His brow twitched, and his hand called up the Harmony of the Baekgwi Yahaeng of its own accord.

What we need right now is… Perfect Neutrality.

Seek the coexistence of the two energies, and through that coexistence bring a synergy to bear. That alone would change the road before her.

He was on the verge of lending her Perfect Neutrality with exactly that intent when the answer came back.

"Huh?"

Nothing sufficient?

I'm only lending her a single achievement.

No. It was not a simple achievement. Looked at properly, the thing was a vast balance, the sort that kept the ratio of yokai and human from collapsing. Even so, that nothing on Mina's asset list could stand as collateral for it was a surprise.

Just from what I remember, two at SSS. Two at SS as well.

Beyond those there was Derivative Story Learning, and now, as constitutions, she held the Five-Qi Attuning Origin and the Grand Demon Star besides. And still it wasn't enough?

Bihyung started throwing her assets onto the scale, whatever came to hand. The scale, tipped hard toward Perfect Neutrality, showed no sign of moving.

Grr—!

Fine. Let's see who wins.

With that, he began setting Mina's holdings on the scale one by one, and little by little—ever so slightly—Perfect Neutrality began to lift. A little still remained. The weights had not yet brought the scale level when Bihyung saw it.

"…Huh?"

Every last item on Mina's asset list had gone up onto the scale.

…Then what happens to Mina?

As if in answer to the question, a message rose.

What—!?

It was done before he had time to react.

The last weight tipped.

"I…"

It was the sort of thing that ought to have given her pause. But the answer had already been decided, and so it came quickly.

"I want to become like Bihyung."

No.

"I want to walk at Bihyung's side."

Neither yokai nor human. A path bound by no shackle at all. A path whole unto itself, free of anyone's interference—and yet Mina thought that path would be long, and lonely. That was why she wanted to walk it with him. When he was lonely, when the weight grew too much for him, she wanted to offer him her embrace. Always.

And so—

"I don't choose any of you."

At those words, countless legacies rebelled. Who do you think you are? Talent, and suddenly everything looks laughable to you? They seemed to spit the words at her.

Countless stories. The history piled up as they were handed down, one into the next. The weight of that vast span of years crushed down on Mina's shoulders.

Kh—!

Both legs trembled. Her mind could not endure the remote stretch of years; it felt as if her very thoughts would burn away. And yet one person's face rose before her. With that alone, Mina could find her strength.

…Huh?

Was it thanks to that? She recognized the change rushing over her faster than she ever had before.

Yokai power… and dao power. They're coming back.

No. Strictly speaking, they were not coming back.

By nature, the quality of a yokai and the quality of a human. The two had lost their function the moment she entered this place, because she was being forced to choose. But in this moment, as Perfect Neutrality took hold in her body, the two natures no longer rebelled against each other. And that chain of events threw every path laid before Mina out of joint.

With a grinding crack, the roads collapsed. The legacies howled.

Darkness filled the space once more. Amid that silence, where the mournful cries of histories echoed, Mina said nothing. She watched a single path gradually take shape before her.

A path so precarious it looked ready to crumble at any moment. And yet, strangely, a path she was drawn to beyond all reason.

Mina set her foot upon it.

And in that same instant, her fourth tail was wrought in brilliant light.