Pride Comes Before a Pinched Cheek
Beneath Unhak Jinin's building, in the training hall before the Gate, Bonjwa — the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin — held her stance, facing down a black shadow.
The opening posture of the Fierce Tiger Fist. As a fist thrust forward, ferocious qi packed to the knuckles, the image of a tiger sighting prey beneath its forepaw condensed into being; and as the purest inner power refined through the Forged Blood Art billowed out, draping this small body in the majesty of a mountain lord cresting a ridge, the black shadow — thickly belching mana and demonic qi — moved.
Footwork. Steps meant to hoodwink the eye and fence in an opponent's movement. A different vein entirely from the way awakened hunters moved, all mere efficiency — this was a martial practitioner's stepping method, feet and body turning along fixed forms. Beyond the Gate lay Murim, and this shadow had been born there: mana and demonic qi congealed around the lingering obsessions of the demon people.
…………!!!
It had no vocal cords. So it loosed a soundless roar stuffed with demonic qi and came charging headlong, stamping its footwork without restraint on legs that wavered unstably. It followed formal forms, true — but as demonic cultivators ever did, it was savagely, ferociously violent, less a person than a beast slipped off its chain. Anyone who met that ferocious momentum head-on found their qi pressed flat. But Bonjwa was the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin. The world of the demon people was survival of the fittest, through and through — and Bonjwa had once sat at the very apex of the food chain of demonic arts in all the world's murim.
"How crude!"
Bonjwa merely smiled.
THOOM!
A seismic stomp rang dully off the floor, and a fist hurled itself straight into the onrushing shadow.
BOOOM!
A grand detonation sounded, like a leather ball bursting — and with a sharp crack, the shadow's arm, caught on the Fierce Tiger Fist's forepaw, bent the wrong way.
People liked to compare the impact of colliding with a wild beast to being run over by a dump truck, did they not? The Fierce Tiger Fist — the ultimate hard fist, pursuing nothing but the straight line — had stubbornly sought one thing alone: ever greater destructive power. And now that the Forged Blood Art's first stage had ripened to mastery, its qi power could back up whatever these muscles lacked. This was no longer the Fierce Tiger Fist once used on a frail body merely to deal out the barest shock. This was the fist that snapped great trees barehanded and brought cliffs crashing down — its true power, finally unbound.
"Now then — what will you do?"
PWAAAANG—!!!
With a streak of light that tore the air, a whirlwind howling at its heels, the fist flung itself once more at the shadow, whose stance had crumbled.
………!!!
Contrary to its looks, it was not entirely without wit, it seemed. It promptly slathered its one unbroken arm in sticky demonic qi and raised it like a shield, taking up a defensive posture. Watching that desperate flailing, Bonjwa could only smile, thin and cold. So it had some scrap of intelligence after all. But to answer the ultimate hard fist with defense instead of evasion — how colossally stupid must the original of this shadow have been?
KWADEUDEUDEUK!
The Fierce Tiger Fist's power smashed straight through the shield and pulped the shadow's forearm down to the shoulder. The staggering shadow helplessly bared an opening —
SLITHER!
— and fingers stretched out, supple as a serpent, curving into a hook that closed around its throat.
"Is this all? What a disappointment."
Drawing up the Forged Blood Art's power and concentrating it into the fingertips formed claws of a strange, wicked shape — the dragon's talon, the Dragon Claw Hand. Until now it had served as nothing more than a joint technique for popping enemies out of their sockets. But with the grown Forged Blood Art's power behind it — even against a shadow durable enough to shrug off blunt blades wrapped in demonic qi —
KUDUDUDUK!
— finger strength alone could pierce its guardian art and wring its entire neck out like a wet rag!
………….
With the neck bent fully back, the demonic qi sustaining the shadow's shape scattered, turning to black particles like mist swept off by the wind, and slowly faded away.
Doom… doom… doom…
As the battle ended, the pounding of a heart that had throbbed in time with the Forged Blood Art gradually quieted. In that blood-boiling fight, the Forged Blood flowing through this body had grown harder, hotter — of that, there was no mistaking. And above all: a pugilist's odds against a swordsman rise the closer she can get, and the combination techniques to end everything in a single stroke the moment that distance closed had now been drilled into this frail body, just like this. Preparation was... perfect!
"My, my. You're brimming with drive today. Does something weigh upon you?"
It was, after all, a training hall Unhak Jinin had provided — and though Bonjwa saw no need for it, the old master stood watching, lest any accident occur.
Drive, was it. Drive... yes, it would be fair to say that today's Bonjwa overflowed with drive.
"Because there is a battle I must not lose."
The words came out in a voice that sank, heavy and solemn, grim resolve and killing intent knotted tightly together — and then Bonjwa looked up and met Unhak Jinin's eyes. The old master was blinking, taken aback.
Ah. Right.
"B-because there's a battle I must not lose... sir!"
This wretched honorific. This withered little body was detestable for it — though even in the original body, Bonjwa would still have been younger than Unhak Jinin, so there was nothing to be done...
"I see... is this not an age of peace? That is the grimness of one marching off to war itself, I'd say."
"I have my reasons... sir!"
Bukgung Seol — demonic cultivator (presumed). Namgung Yurin's innocent little question had been the snowflake that started the avalanche; a squabble or two in defense of a warrior's pride, and somehow, under the respectable banner of a "sparring match"... a genuine, no-holds-barred bout had come to pass...!
Uuugh…
What flickered through Bonjwa's mind was the face of a white-haired, blue-eyed girl with her face buried in deep-fried ice cream, licking away for all she was worth. Taken in by the treacherous Namgung clan's little scheme — and without a shred of shame besides.
"──NOMNOMNOM!"
That utterly worthless face, cheeks bulging out like a hamster's — and the moment it surfaced, nothing else mattered. Never mind whether Bonjwa was or wasn't the Blood Demon, greatest under heaven. Losing to Bukgung Seol — to a tiny little animal like that — was simply, absolutely...
"A DISGRACE...!!!"
The odds of Bonjwa losing were roughly on par with airhead dropout Se-ah earning her high school diploma — that is to say, nonexistent. But Bukgung Seol was a registered swordswoman whose weapon of choice was a bamboo sword — no idea why a bamboo sword, but a bamboo sword nonetheless — so just in case, truly just in case... Bonjwa had been drilling combinations for swiftly subduing a swordswoman, here in the training hall.
And that was not the only reason for today's visit.
"U-um, Jin-in... there's a favor I wanted to ask... sir!"
"A favor? What sort of favor?"
"To borrow the Academy's sparring arena... the mentor has to... be there as an observer..."
"So this battle you 'must not lose' is a spar? Such overflowing vigor. How perfectly adorable."
"N-no, that's not—"
"Then who is this opponent of yours? Has the other side's mentor given consent as well?"
"N-no... it's... it only needs... your consent, sir!"
"Only This old man's consent...?"
Sheepish, Bonjwa revealed who the opponent was to be — and Unhak Jinin, unhurriedly drawing her hands down from behind her back, narrowed her eyes.
"So what you are saying is that right now... in the eyes of any onlooker..." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "...I must appear to be a teacher who, in her very first lesson with her students... sets her own students to fighting each other first...?"
"Th-that's... I mean... yes... sir!"
Such was the breed called murim fighters — unable to sleep at night over a loss, even if the opponent were an elementary schooler. Pride was on the line. By patient degrees, Bonjwa did manage to talk Unhak Jinin out of refusing on grounds of dignity... but the old master's gaze, brimming over with incredulity, the look one gives a hopelessly foolish child... was far, far too piercing to bear...
The sparring arena inside the Academy. The crimson-eyed girl had swaggered up onto the arena floor barehanded, insolent beyond all sense of her place. Cheongang Geom-ma — Bukgung Seol — held her bamboo sword's tip poised in high guard and fixed the girl with a cold, level glare.
Cheon Yujin. A girl who bore the same name as... the Blood Demon himself — that vicious, cunning, vile devil, evil incarnate, unmatched in all the world!
The same blood-red eyes as the Blood Demon. Merely the matching name was enough to send fire boiling up through her chest and choke her breath. Never mind that she herself had been reduced to this flimsy little body — for some pipsqueak of a girl to flap her tongue about how she could surely beat the great Cheongang Geom-ma! Because of whom, exactly, had Bukgung Seol endured every humiliation and indignity under the sun, just to pry this single bamboo sword out of Kim Jinhu's hands...!
And above all — what flickered through her mind was the face of a black-haired, crimson-eyed girl with her face buried in deep-fried ice cream, licking away without a trace of embarrassment, fallen hook, line, and sinker for the vile Namgung clan's bait.
"──OMNOMNOM!"
That utterly worthless face, gnawing at fried ice cream like a starved scribe. Bukgung Seol thought: losing to a tiny little animal like that was simply, absolutely...
'A DISGRACE...!!!'
To leash her surging fury, Bukgung Seol packed the inner power of the demonic arts into her lungs and roared.
"──HAL...!!!"
"──GAL...!!!"
Two war cries collided in the same instant.
"..."
"...?"
They stared at each other, dumbstruck, for a moment — then both erupted, wild auras flaring, fighting spirit blazing hot.
And then Unhak Jinin, standing with the observers, gave the signal to begin; Namgung Yurin, who had strolled in among the spectators, swung her high-end camera up; and with a sharp PA-BACK!, a small gust whirling in her wake, Cheon Yujin lunged in all at once!
The fundamentals: a pugilist closes the distance, and a swordsman cuts that approach down. And a murim fighter with a match on the line had to win no matter what — even against a brat. So Cheon Yujin and Bukgung Seol, both of them, had worked out their formula for a flawless victory well in advance...!
'As drilled — I drive in first!'
So thinking, Cheon Yujin charged like a tiger going in for the kill, stoking her momentum through the Fierce Tiger Fist's forms. Bukgung Seol stretched her bamboo sword out long, angling to use her weapon's reach and hold the gap open — and a faint smile brushed her lips.
'──That's a feint. Then I'll reel them in and finish it in one stroke.'
If the opponent tried to close in, she would turn that very approach into a trap. And Cheon Yujin, locking eyes with Bukgung Seol as the girl thrust her bamboo sword forward, coiled her left hand low, and stepped in upon a strangely twisted guard, grasped that sinister design in a heartbeat.
The duels of warriors who had reached the master's realm were often likened to a game of Baduk: for supreme experts capable of reading the "flow" of the martial arts, each side's moves could be divined a heartbeat before they landed. Fights between such masters sometimes clicked into place so seamlessly, one would suspect the two had rehearsed their sequences together beforehand.
And when two fighters can perfectly predict and counter one another's every intention — should some freak occurrence arrive that neither of them foresaw—
"………?!"
Bukgung Seol, reeling her opponent in for the counter; Cheon Yujin, who had predicted the bait and was aiming to counter the counter. And at the very instant the two sequences should have locked together—
"………Hghk?!"
— the control problem that had plagued her ever since she'd been reborn into this frail little body. Bukgung Seol's offense... careened off in a direction bizarrely, completely unlike her intent...!
Unintended even by its owner. The very definition of a bolt from the blue that no master alive could predict.
PA-ANG! PANG!
Bukgung Seol's left hand, out to seize the counter, slapped empty air — and Cheon Yujin's fist, out to crush that hand, whistled past it. And so, both sides still far, far too close together, the farcical verdict arrived: they had managed to hit nothing at all.
"..."
"..."
And then — close enough to feel each other's breath —
Too... close!
But both had once been martial masters who climbed as high as the realm would allow. Embarrassment was folded away and set aside; judgment took only an instant.
'Too late to answer with a sword!'
'...Then it's a mud fight — grappling!'
Bukgung Seol's bamboo sword went flying skyward, tumbling lazily through the air as it fell — and in that time, exactly as she had rehearsed against the black shadow, Cheon Yujin unfolded the forms of the Dragon Claw Hand and went for Bukgung Seol's helplessly exposed throat.
'Kgh! Distance — I need distance!'
The silver-haired girl dragged demonic qi up to its brim and packed it into her twin palms.
KUUUUU!
Both hands, brimming with churning demonic qi, lit up a deep blue-black. She slammed her twin palms down as though shoving them against her opponent's shoulders — denying the approach — and in that sliver of a gap, snatched her bamboo sword back up for the counter!
And then—
"Nwo... q-quit id!"
An honest, proper duel for the first time in ages. The intense concentration needed to keep her willful body in line had been partly parceled out into reading the match — leaving it a shade thin — and Bukgung Seol's body, swept along by instinct, went strange on her yet again.
Had they both been rank amateurs, it would have meant nothing; the bout would simply have dissolved into a wild slugfest and no one the wiser. But these two were, of all things, supreme masters steeped in the art of reading a fight — a single instant's lapse could spell defeat, and even when a strike landed somewhere entirely apart from its mark, neither could carelessly pull it back.
"Y-yaaah—...!"
"Ugh-gh-ghk...!!!"
And so it was that Bukgung Seol's twin palms, instead of crushing a shoulder, were grinding into both of Cheon Yujin's cheeks — while Cheon Yujin's Dragon Claw Hand, instead of locking a throat, had seized a fistful of long white hair. To trade out a move carelessly here was to gamble on a counterstrike — so the two warriors, tears brimming, had no choice but to keep their combinations... rolling on...!
"Mmmbh—! D-don'd... binch mee!!!"
"M-my hair! My hairrrr!"
The crimson-eyed girl's plump cheeks, stretched long and soft as fresh rice cake. Snow-white hair dangling from clutching fingers, swaying as though it would rip out at the root at any moment. Both were shielding themselves with guardian arts — which made these, in truth, ghastly blows: the kind that could grind flesh to paste or tear a head clean from its shoulders.
A desperate battle between two masters who could not let go — release a grip carelessly, and the counter would come flying in unchanged. With even one grain of a chance at defeat on the table, carelessness was forbidden. Beneath the surface, this was a battle desperate beyond all measure...
But to the one person watching, none of those stakes were visible.
"...Ah."
Namgung Yurin collapsed where she stood, overcome with happiness.