Acts of Affection
Once I had grown reasonably familiar with the Tang Clan's martial arts, Soye and I kept up our sparring every morning.
It was not only for the duel with Tang Pung. We had also become excellent training partners for each other.
A flying dagger came whistling in, splitting the air with a thin metallic whine. I slipped past it as carefully as I could, only for another to scream straight at me. Judging that evasion alone would get me nowhere, I gathered my inner energy into my legs, released it in a single burst, and charged Soye.
The impact cracked through the training ground. Even Soye, who had already broken through the wall, faltered at a speed that defied common sense—but she recovered at once and met me with calm precision. Poison arts dyed her hands a deep, venomous green, and she drove a poison palm straight into my rush.
I ducked the palm. That much I managed. The real trouble began after.
Soye's attacks never came just once.
Honestly, this is a little unfair.
Unlike Soye, who could afford to take one or two of my blows, I could not let a single strike from her poison land. No—landing was not even the issue. A graze was forbidden too. Driving the poison out of my body was no great matter, but showing even that opening before a Soye fighting at full strength would make defeat certain. I could not allow her attacks to connect. Not once.
Then I'll give up on power.
Part of me simply did not want to hurt her. More than that, as things stood, merely dodging was already more than I could manage. Attacking was out of the question. I thinned the streams of inner energy running through my body, and my strength dropped in a way I could feel at once. At the same time, that energy began racing through me far faster than before.
The new momentum carried me in. I used my right leg to bat aside every attack she sent.
The strikes cracked away so quickly that even Soye, past the wall, could not tell what had happened—and my leg was not poisoned at all.
"Huh?"
I could not claim the shoes around my feet had played no part. Even so, coming through untouched was no small result.
"Good. I've got the feel of it."
"Kgh!"
Fast. I had to keep driving at her without a breath between blows. If my speed slipped even a little, her poison would have me.
Soye, who had been taking my attacks one-sidedly, seized a gap and hurled a flying dagger. Unlike the ones she had shown in demonstration, this was a true combat blade, properly coated in poison.
It was not only my body's speed that had sharpened. My reactions had quickened with it. Unable to rein myself in, I snatched the incoming dagger out of the air before I even knew I had moved and flung it back at her.
Fortunately, my reluctance to actually attack her was still there. The blade only grazed her cheek.
"Ah! Soye, are you all r—!"
"A-ah! Gaga!"
I lurched toward her in a panic over the cut—and the paralysis poison, caught because I had grabbed the dagger bare-handed, spread through me. I collapsed straight onto her.
I had fallen while covering her, so by the time I understood the situation, my face was buried against the full, magnificent swell of her chest.
"Ga... Gaga, p-please move..."
"Ah—ah!! J-just a second!"
The moment I grasped what had happened, I tried to scramble up. I still had not neutralized the paralysis, and I lost my balance and toppled all over again. I had been halfway to my feet when I fell, so our faces drew suddenly, sharply close. Once more, all we could do was face each other in silence.
"..."
"...Ga... Gaga."
Our faces were pressed close. Soye's hot breath brushed my skin.
"So... Soye."
"Gaga..."
Somewhere along the way we had lost our reason, and we were leaning toward each other. Our lips were a breath from meeting when an utterly unwelcome interruption arrived.
"Young Miss! At least have some of this..."
"Ah..."
To be clear: our posture had completely collapsed, and I was sprawled over Soye as if I had tackled her. And in that state, we had been about to kiss.
"I—I'm sorry!!"
The maid shrieked and fled. Whatever delicate air had hung around us was long gone. Coming to my senses, I drove the poison out with my inner energy and climbed off her. Soye, having likewise flung the toxin from her system, got up as well, but neither of us could manage a word. If the maid had not come in—no. If she had come in even one second later, our lips would have met.
Soye seemed to be thinking the same thing. She only stared blankly at the floor of the training ground, her face flushed red. Fortunately, I remembered why I had collapsed and spoke to her, so the awkward silence did not stretch on for long.
"Right. Soye. Are you all right?"
Remembering the dagger that had grazed her cheek, I carefully lifted her chin to check the wound. Her face flushed even deeper. On any other day I would have said something about how cute that was. Right now, the cut mattered more.
"It isn't very deep... but what if it scars?"
"Ah, I... I'm fine, Gaga. A wound like this closes in a day."
"Even so..."
"I... um...... Gaga..."
"Hm?"
"If you could let go of my face..."
"Ah, sorry. I was just so worried... If I made you uncomfortable, I'll apologize."
"N-no! It was really nice. It was nice. I was only a little embarrassed..."
"Ah... um. Er..."
Only then did the mishap from a moment ago come rushing back, and my face burned all over again.
"I'm really—truly sorry. Again, before I even knew it..."
"N-no. I... I leaned in too..."
I could not endure the training ground's awkwardness a moment longer. I caught Soye's hand and pulled her along.
"G-Gaga? Where are we..."
"I don't know. I think we need to cool off. Let's go to the market."
"All right..."
Fortunately, by the time we reached the market, we had managed to peel away some of the awkward air between us.
A quiet forest, somewhere in Sichuan.
A man was training there, tearing the surroundings apart as he went. He was drilling a considerably difficult art that linked flying daggers with poison techniques—Tang Pung, the man called Young Clan Head of the Tang Clan. Animals and plants around him died or were shredded, and he went on training without a thought for any of it.
"I hate this... That bitch Tang Soye, and that bitch's fiancé... Once the duel is over, I'll finish them both."
He was swallowing his petty resentment alone, drilling without end for the match his father, the Tang Clan Head, had arranged for him, when someone called out.
"Well, well. What remarkable obsession. It seems the world's opinion of the Young Clan Head was entirely mistaken."
"Who the hell are you?"
The man had appeared out of nowhere, half mocking him, and Tang Pung stopped his training to stare.
"Who are you?"
"Hmm. Revealing who I am would be a little inconvenient just now."
"Is that so?"
Tang Pung hurled a hidden weapon at the man who was dodging the question. The stranger slipped past it with ease and went on in a slick, oily tone.
"No need to play so hard to get. I only came to make a deal."
"You think I'd deal with someone who won't even say where he's from, or who he belongs to?"
"Just hear me out. It won't be a losing trade."
He ignored Tang Pung's plain unwillingness to listen and simply kept talking. The longer he went on, the more Tang Pung's face twisted into something murderous.
"You're telling me to accept a proposal like that?"
"A proposal like that? You'll hurt a man's feelings."
"Shut up."
"Think it over. We help you grow stronger. You help us. Mutual aid, wouldn't you say? Each supplying what the other lacks."
"Don't make me laugh. Do I look weak enough to need help from the likes of you?"
"Yes. Enormously so."
"What?"
Tang Pung growled the question, thoroughly unpleasant, and the man went on as if he found him laughable.
"Among the young heads of the Five Great Clans, you're the one judged especially weak, aren't you?"
"You bastard..."
"And..."
Before the words had even finished, the man was under Tang Pung's nose. He picked up the flying dagger Tang Pung had thrown and set it against his throat. The realization that a little more pressure would have severed his neck spread naked shock across Tang Pung's face.
"The truth is, what you want hardly matters. You obey whatever we tell you. That's all. You little insect."
"Kgh!"
Before the fear of death, even Tang Pung—wretched personality and all—was helpless. All he could do was pray the man in front of him would change his mind and not kill him.
"Th... then what do I have to do?"
"Honestly. The ones without skill only know how to put on airs. You never come to your senses until someone makes a show of force."
"..."
"What do you have to do? What we want from an insect like you isn't much."
"Just follow orders. Quietly. Obediently. Do that, and we'll give you help in the form of strength. No—a reward."
"For now, take this."
"This is...?"
"Call it a down payment. A spiritual elixir that temporarily draws out every ability you have."
"Temporarily...? Then..."
"No need to worry. There are no side effects. If there were, I wouldn't have played it as a card in this deal."
Why is he giving this to me?
"I hear you'll be dueling someone in a few days. If you start losing, try using it."
"Against that nobody!?"
The man did not bother answering. He was already gone. He left only a single line behind.
"Five pills in all, so don't use them carelessly. If your tail gets caught, it becomes a nuisance."
Only after the man had left the spot could Tang Pung finally let out a long breath.
"Next time, I'll kill you for certain."
"Oh? Will there even be a next time for you?"
From far off, that same man was watching Tang Pung spit insults at him all by himself.
"Good grief. They say a tiger sires a dog, but I can't fathom how the Tang Clan Head produced a lacking brat like that."
A woman appeared behind him and spoke.
"How did it go? The plan?"
"A success. That one will definitely take the medicine."
"Really? The Cult Leader will be pleased. Especially if he receives the Tang Clan as a birthday gift."
"Tell me about it. I can't wait to watch the Tang Clan destroy itself."
On a dark evening, the unpleasant laughter of the two rang through the forest.