Chapter 32 (Patreon)

“You’re early,” the heiress of House Sitri informed her guest without looking up from the document she was reading. He had appeared in a flash from a rather unusual portal. Tongues of flame did not normally accompany demons traveling this way.

“Hello to you too,” Riser said with a sour smile. “To be honest, I couldn’t stand sitting around waiting.” He gestured to his companion. “Oh, and this is the one we talked about—my servant, Li Fang. Please make her welcome!”

The student council president of Kuoh Academy looked up at her guests. The blond, dressed in his usual burgundy suit, was accompanied by a girl in a blue qipao embroidered with herons. Sona had seen her before, so she couldn’t quite understand why Riser was drawing attention to her.

Beautiful, slender, graceful. After bowing deeply to Sona, the girl took her place beside her clan leader and modestly lowered her striking bright-blue eyes.

The only remarkable things about her are her beauty and the depth of her eyes, the president recalled Taro-kun saying, his voice full of contempt, after the two of them had left the Occult Research Club.

“Tea?” Sona offered, feeling an inexplicable dislike for the girl.

“No, thanks.” Riser shook his head and practically dropped onto the sofa. Tsubaki had been relaxing at its other end only moments before, reading a newly released chapter of her favorite novel. “I had coffee before I left.”

“Good evening, Phenex-san.” The Queen bowed, and similar greetings sounded around the student council room.

“Yes, yes, hello, everyone.” Riser waved a hand. “I see you’re surrounding yourself with beauties too, Sona!”

“I choose my servants for more than their looks.” Sona shook her head. “And I don’t recruit only girls. My Pawn, Saji Genshiro, is sitting in the reception area outside. My Rook, Chiba Taro, whom we’ll be visiting shortly, is a young man too.”

“Oh, spare me the lecture.” Phenex leaned back, sprawling across the sofa as though he owned it. “Though it is rather dull in here.”

“Perhaps that’s because this room is meant for work,” Sona said pointedly, fixing the source of her irritation with a steady look. “And everyone here is busy with their own tasks.”

“Oh, really?” Riser cast a skeptical glance at Tsubaki, who had been calmly sipping tea while reading until he arrived.

“Exactly.” Sona offered no explanation. “In any case, you’ll have to wait until the time we agreed on—in half an hour. I have work to do, and Taro-kun is training right now. Please keep the noise down, since you decided to change the time of your visit on your own.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be quiet.” Phenex gave the whole room a sour smile and shut up.

Sona was about to breathe a sigh of relief. Too soon.

Riser stopped interrupting them with conversation, but he kept drawing attention to himself. First he pretended he couldn’t get comfortable on the sofa. He turned one way, sprawled another, crossed his legs, then nearly put his feet up on the coffee table. Only a look from Sona put a stop to that. With every second he spent there, the head of the Sitri clan grew more astonished by his sheer nerve—and more regretful that she’d agreed to help him yesterday.

With his attempt to claim the coffee table thwarted, Phenex took an interest in Momo-chan’s work. He came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. The white-haired girl shuddered when that… that “gentleman” pressed his cheek against her hair and blew into her ear.

When Hanaka showed no obvious reaction, Tomoe became his next target. Riser walked over to her desk, leaned against it with one hip, and loomed over her, “studying” the documents the former Meguri clan swordswoman was working on.

Once she began shuffling the papers with nervous, jerky movements, Phenex returned to the seat he had claimed earlier and fixed his stare on Reya.

He was pleased with the result at once. Reya shrank into herself under his gaze. As the seconds passed, she bowed her head lower and lower. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead, and her lips pressed into a thin line before beginning to tremble, as though she were about to cry.

Sona slammed her papers onto the desk and stood up just as her Bishop began to shake beneath Riser’s stare. He was practically licking the girl with his eyes.

“Let’s go.”

“To your servant?” Phenex sprang eagerly from the sofa, forgetting Reya at once.

“Yes.” Sona barely managed to keep her temper in check.

It wasn’t hard to see that he had successfully forced her to hurry. True to form—and why had Sona decided yesterday that the third Phenex son wasn’t so bad?—Riser had shown her he was prepared to cause trouble right there in the student council room. He had worked his way around to the servant least able to bear unwanted attention, and that was more than Sitri could tolerate.

So be it. The heiress of a Great House had no intention of letting any of her Pieces suffer through his behavior just to claim a “victory” in a frankly trivial “battle.” Nor did she want to watch the idiot’s appalling conduct any longer. He hadn’t quite crossed the line yet, but…

“I’m curious.” With a sharp sweep of her hand that betrayed her anger, Sona activated a portal spell. Light began to gather within it. “Do you honestly think acting like a pig in someone else’s home will help you get what you want?”

“Acting like a pig?” Riser gave a little laugh as he stepped beside her and took his servant by the elbow. “I don’t know what you mean. I really am impressed by your servants. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.”

Light flashed, and the three of them stood near the entrance to the gazebo Taro had built in the middle of his artificial pond.

“Is that so?” Sona smiled faintly. “You know, Riser, I won’t play games with you the way Rias does. Houses Phenex and Sitri aren’t friends. We’re merely on civil terms, and our parents have no personal ties at all. No one is going to put up with your behavior here. You came to ask for something, so mind your manners.”

“Oh, come on. What’s got you so worked up…”

“Yesterday, before I met with you, I spoke to my friend.” Sona started forward, leading her guests along. “Rias told me you had no qualms about threatening to kill her servants. Someone once told me there’s no point behaving nobly toward people who aren’t ashamed to show their ugly side. If you keep putting on this… Actually, what were you trying to prove just now? How tough you are? Never mind. I don’t care what you’re pretending to be. If this continues, I’m warning you: young and foolish as I am, I won’t hesitate to ask Serafall to teach you a lesson. And I’ll suggest she start with your Pieces.”

“Um… Sona…”

“I know my own name,” the Sitri heiress cut in, outrage boiling inside her. “But let’s not forget what matters.” She stopped and turned to look him straight in the eye. “You are the third son of House Phenex. I am the heiress of House Sitri, and the sister of one of the Devils who rule the Underworld. You behaved however you liked with your own fiancée, as though her clan counted for nothing—which, frankly, was rather reckless. With me, please keep yourself in check. Otherwise, one day—and it will be a thoroughly unpleasant day for everyone—you and your younger sister will be standing in a cemetery, looking at fourteen fresh graves and clutching a nearly complete set of Evil Pieces.”

…

“Wow.” After a brief pause, Riser gave her a crooked smile. “I didn’t realize you disliked me that much.”

“After the way you paraded around my clan today, I feel nothing but dislike for you. You rubbed me the wrong way before, too, but I kept it to myself. Whatever happens between you and Rias is your business. It concerned me only because I’m the Gremory heiress’s childhood friend.” Sona turned back toward the gazebo and resumed walking. “I don’t like meddling in other people’s private affairs, especially when I’m certain Rias can handle this herself. I agreed to help you because I have a clan of my own, Pieces I worry about. I know what it’s like to fear for the lives and well-being of my family.

“And because yesterday, when you came to House Sitri, you behaved perfectly normally. You were polite and well-mannered. Nothing like the demon Rias had described. So imagine my surprise today when I realized Riser Phenex had only been pretending to be decent because my mother and father were present. Tell me: if they hadn’t been there, would you have shown off your excellent manners then, too? Would you have tried to show a young heiress and the servants in her home just how magnificent a grown-up third son of House Phenex can be? Do you honestly think that would impress anyone like Rias or me?”

Not far from the gazebo, waves of fire rose inside the dome over the training ground, forming strange shapes and images. The dome blocked any disturbances from her Rook’s magic and qi. Sona hadn’t been making excuses: Taro-kun was training.

He had broken through on the night he met Riser and helped his servant. Now he spent every spare moment on the training ground, trying, as he put it, to get used to his new power and stabilize his rank until he had a “solid foundation.”

Sona still knew little about qi-based martial arts, but Taro-kun answered all her questions in detail. She understood, to some extent, why he needed to “stabilize the breakthrough.”

A cultivator’s strength—his progress along the path of cultivation—was divided into ranks, like flights of stairs. Each rank was divided into steps. According to her Rook, he paid little attention to the steps of the lower ranks because he passed through them too quickly. The ranks themselves, though, demanded much more care.

The first thing a practitioner had to do after a breakthrough, before continuing along the path of cultivation, was hone his newfound power. It was a way of laying a foundation that would make the next rank easier to reach.

The analogy Taro-kun had offered was a little odd, but Sona understood it: if a rank wasn’t firmly secured, the new steps built upon it would wobble. Sooner or later, the whole “structure” would shake so badly that the cultivator would have to “stabilize” what he had already conquered before he could climb any higher.

He would have to go back and do the work he’d carelessly brushed aside at the start. But, as Taro-kun had put it, “Fixing something you’ve already built is harder than building it properly in the first place. And the taller that thoughtless mess grows, the harder it is to set right.”

“I think there’s something you don’t understand, Riser.” The low heels of Sona’s shoes struck the wooden bridge to the gazebo like a hammer driving nails. “Neither I nor the Gremory heiress will be impressed by arrogance and self-importance. I’ll grant you this: compared to most demons your age, you have something to be proud of. But to us, your successes are ordinary. Nothing remarkable. We grew up among the strongest.”

The Sitri heiress didn’t enjoy long speeches, much less quarrels, but Riser… he clearly required special handling. Taro had once mentioned in passing that some people needed a good beating when you first met them if you hoped to deal with them afterward. Otherwise, they would never respect you. They lived in a world of their own, where they were Kings and Gods and everyone else was dirt beneath their fingernails.

Of course, Sona had no intention of fighting Phenex. She wasn’t strong enough to defeat him, anyway. But she did need to make it clear where they stood.

“My elder sister and Rias’s elder brother are Kings of the Underworld, rulers of our people. Two of the most powerful Devils carried us in their arms, played hide-and-seek with us, and joined the tea parties we held for our dolls. I respectfully call Ajuka Beelzebub ‘Uncle.’ The most brilliant of the Four Devils once sat me on his lap and fed me with a spoon. Despite his colossal laziness, Falibul Asmodeus used to give Rias and me rides on his shoulders, pretending to be a horse… Well, when his laziness relented and he deigned to honor us with a visit.

“And we shouldn’t forget our parents. They’re hardly ordinary demons either. Aunt Venelana, Rias’s mother, held the title ‘Princess of Destruction’ before she married. That wasn’t just what House Bael, the family she came from, called her. She was known by that name throughout the Underworld.”

Sona stopped beside the table in the gazebo, pulled out a chair, and calmly settled into her usual seat. She came here often to drink tea with the girls and boys of her clan, chat with Asia, or watch Taro, Tsubasa, and Issei train. Even Rias joined her sometimes.

Her servant had created a cozy place to rest, made far more pleasant by the demons and humans who came here with Sona. It was a pity today’s guests weren’t among the people whose company she enjoyed.

“Right. As if we could ever compare…” Phenex sat down opposite her. Irritation was plain on his face, even anger.

He hasn’t understood a thing, Sona thought with a sigh.

“Have a seat, Li Fang.” She nodded toward the chair beside the Chinese woman’s Lord. “We don’t stand on ceremony here. Provided everyone knows how to behave, of course.” The Sitri heiress gave Phenex’s servant a faint smile.

A false one. For some reason, the memory of Taro’s compliments on Li Fang’s looks kept Sona from seeing her simply as the unfortunate victim of her former martial arts master.

“And Riser, I wasn’t boasting,” Sona said, turning her attention back to him. “I wasn’t listing the powerful demons around me to impress you. I was trying to make you understand that, beside the achievements of the truly Strong, your bravado and—pardon me—your showing off look less like the confidence of a successful demon and more like a young man’s bragging and bad manners. Perhaps that’s normal among your friends: showing off before those who haven’t even assembled their own peerages, acting brazenly with new acquaintances to overwhelm them. I have some idea why you’ve adopted that manner. But mortals have a saying, Riser: rules for thee, but not for me.”

“I get the feeling you’re using this situation to unload everything you’ve been holding against me,” Phenex said, his cheek twitching.

“First, I haven’t forgotten that you called my Taro a worthless servant. That rather implies I’m worthless too, surrounding myself with trash. Second, if you hadn’t barged in on my clan ahead of our agreed time today and upset my servants, you wouldn’t have angered me, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Third, if you don’t like what you’re hearing, you’re free to leave. You told me yourself yesterday that you couldn’t find anyone who could properly help Li Fang. Out of the goodness of my heart, I contacted my servant, asked whether he could heal yours, and arranged this meeting. Notice that I asked for nothing in return: no payment, no favors. I chose to help you. And what do I get? Nothing but spite in return for a kindness? Do you have any sense of shame at all? A conscience? Any gratitude?”

“He hasn’t done anything yet,” Phenex said with a grimace. But he didn’t truly argue, nor did he leave, though she had struck the sorest spot of a vain, proud man. That did show something good in him: concern for his servant, for whose sake he was enduring this.

“The fact that I agreed to arrange this deserves at least a little courtesy,” Sona said, shaking her head. “Treating Li Fang is another matter. You’ll negotiate the price with Taro-kun yourselves.”

She let out a heavy sigh. Unfortunately, listening to someone didn’t mean hearing what they said. She had no intention of “educating” Phenex. She merely wanted him to shut his trap and stop amusing himself at her clan’s expense.

“Mistress, Phenex-san, and…” Tsubasa approached them, dressed in something resembling Taro’s outfit.

“This is Li Fang, Phenex-san’s Knight,” Sona said by way of introduction. “Li Fang, this is my Rook, Yura Tsubasa. Tsubasa-chan, are you free at the moment?”

“Well, if you don’t count the scrolls of rules, rituals, and other incredibly boring stuff Sensei’s buried me under, I’m completely free.” Taro’s student smiled readily.

“I don’t think your teacher would mind too much if you made tea for all of us. What do you think?”

“The Radiant Mistress’s wish is reason enough to declare war on the entire world,” Tsubasa declared with a solemn nod, plainly quoting Taro-kun. “What kind would you like? I should warn you, I still can’t brew Golden Bloom properly. We’d better call Sensei over for that.”

“No need to interrupt your sensei. Ordinary tea will do.” Sona adjusted her glasses with a faint smile. “The one Taro-kun introduced most recently. It’s a little stronger.”

“I’ll make it right away.” Tsubasa nodded and set off briskly across the little bridge toward the house.

“Lady Sitri,” Li Fang spoke up for the first time. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” Sona gave her an encouraging nod, taking care to make her expression friendly.

“Your Rook… is she a formally accepted disciple of Venerable Chiba?”

“That’s right. The baishi ceremony is set for the end of next week. But Tsubasa-chan’s di tie has already been accepted, and she performed three kneelings and nine kowtows before her teacher.” Sona repeated almost word for word what Taro-kun had told her recently.

“Before him personally?” Something about that surprised Li Fang, though she quickly collected herself. “I see.” She rose partway from her chair and bowed. “Thank you for answering, Lady Sitri.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“Congratulations to you and your servants on this momentous occasion for the Master and his Core Disciple.”

“Thank you…” In truth, Sona had no idea what else to say. She would ask Taro-kun later how a Core Disciple differed from an ordinary one.

“Why do you keep calling that guy ‘Master’ or ‘Venerable’?” Riser seemed glad of the change of subject. This time, it sounded like a neutral question, without a trace of contempt for Taro.

A partial success, perhaps. Riser no longer lounged like the lord of all creation; he was behaving like an ordinary, well-mannered member of the Underworld aristocracy. All it had taken was a threat and a rather blunt reminder of his place.

When it comes to getting someone to show you respect, only a beating works better than a threat, the Sitri heiress recalled one of her servants saying.

“What Venerable Chiba said about the state of my body was confirmed by my… former teacher, when you, my Lord, were… questioning him. The other masters we visited this past week reached much the same conclusion, though they needed considerably longer to examine me.” Li Fang stumbled over the mention of her former teacher and Riser’s “questioning,” her eyes fixed on the tabletop. “I apologize for causing you so much trouble.”

“Oh, come on,” Riser grumbled. “None of this is your fault, for one thing. And for another, as your Lord, it’s my duty to look after your health.”

So there is something worth respecting beneath all that ugly behavior, Sona thought, nearly snorting aloud. Riser had revealed a decent side and, embarrassed, turned his gaze toward the still water of the little artificial pond.

On this point, though, Sona agreed with him completely: any decent King would naturally look after their Pieces. Of course, that didn’t apply to moral monsters like the Lord of the reincarnated yokai demon currently held in Sitri’s prison. Taro-kun had asked about her, and Sona had given him the woman’s case file a couple of days ago, after reading it herself.

It was astonishing what sort of… people could be found among the aristocracy. Surrounded as she was by worthy, or at least reasonable, demons, Sona found it hard to imagine a King tormenting his servants simply to satisfy his sadistic urges. She had also come to realize that the Underworld’s justice system was… rather ill-defined when it came to newly reincarnated demons, or even prospective servants.

“Hello, Sona-sama, Phenex-san, Li Fang.” Chiba Taro’s voice came from Sona’s right, from the direction of the training ground, and made her flinch.

She turned quickly. Yes, her servant was standing beside the gazebo. On the water. But…

“Taro-kun.” The Sitri heiress smiled warmly. “I didn’t sense you coming at all.”

“Thank you, my Mistress.” He bowed, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “Your servant has finished stabilizing his rank. I can now conceal my presence properly. Forgive the sudden appearance, but I couldn’t resist testing it under ideal conditions. And my apologies, Phenex-san, if this servant’s little indulgence caused you any discomfort.”

“I noticed you,” Riser lied with a smirk. Sona had seen his fingers twitch when Taro-kun spoke out of nowhere.

“Then I still have room to improve.” The Rook vaulted neatly over the gazebo railing and glanced pointedly at the empty chair, then at Sona.

“Of course. Have a seat,” she said with a calm nod. “It’s your home, after all.”

“Thanks to your generosity.” Taro-kun gave a brief bow and took the seat to the Sitri heiress’s right. “Phenex-san, I heard what you said just now. Forgive me, but I disagree. A martial arts practitioner… is always to blame. He may rage, take offense, feel betrayed, curse all he likes—but if he was deceived, it’s his fault for trusting liars. If he loses, he lacked diligence or skill. If he’s robbed, he should have protected his property better. Even if a meteorite falls from the sky and kills him—unlikely as that may be in the mortal world—the practitioner’s death is entirely his own fault. He failed to heed his intuition, lacked skill in divination, or couldn’t sense danger. Or he was simply weak. Those who trample the Earth and overturn the Heavens should not die because some rock fell on them. That’s the fate of witless lizards: enormous creatures with brains the size of walnuts. Not of those who strive to equal the gods, then surpass them and claim a place at the summit as the strongest and most perfect of all. That last part…” Taro-kun smiled thinly. “That’s optional. But who would dare argue with the strongest?”

“An ambitious goal,” Riser said with a snort, leaning back in his chair and seeming to puff himself up with importance again.

“Why set the bar any lower?” Taro replied with a calm shrug. “Achieve a more modest goal, and you risk telling yourself, I’ve accomplished everything I ever dreamed of. Then comes stagnation, followed by decline. That’s why goals such as revenge are harmful, even destructive. They have an end, just as your enemy’s life does. And blinded by rage, you may choose a path that brings irreparable harm to you or your family. My Mistress told me the broad outlines of Li Fang’s situation. Her former teacher wanted revenge on her—but where did that lead him?”

“I burned him. Him and his son,” Phenex answered, brief and grim.

“A fitting end for trash.” The Rook closed his eyes briefly in approval. “I thank you, Phenex-san, for destroying a creature who disgraced the name of martial arts master. His actions… reek of weakness, of base and cowardly spite. I agree that betrayal should be punished, but—”

“Whoa, hold the hell up.” Riser jerked forward irritably, raising a hand. “What betrayal? There wasn’t any! I went to that old goat myself and practically begged for permission to bring Li Fang into my clan. I kept bringing the greedy, bearded bastard gifts. Yes, I was persistent, but I never threatened or forced anyone. Not her, and not that scumbag.”

“With my Lord’s permission, that is exactly how it happened,” Li Fang said. “I was an inner disciple, but our school had no rule against going out into the world. Besides, I never severed my ties with the school or my teacher. We never quarreled. I never revealed the secrets of his teachings. Nothing… almost nothing changed. I still visited the school, paid my respects to my teacher, and continued to grow as a martial arts practitioner. I simply lived in the Underworld with Lord Phenex and tried to serve my benefactor well.”

“Then… am I missing something?” Taro-kun looked genuinely puzzled. “If no rules or vows were broken, what was the reason…?”

“The bastard wanted Li Fang to marry his son,” Phenex growled. “She’s strong… Don’t give me that smile, Chiba Taro. She’s strong as a Knight, and strong by that old prune’s standards too. He had plans for the children his son would have with my servant. He meant to get his precious boy into the Underworld. Naturally, when I learned Li Fang wanted nothing to do with marrying her teacher’s spawn, I forbade anyone from even considering it!”

“How ironic, hearing that from you.” Sona adjusted her glasses and gave him an unusually broad smile.

“Oh, don’t be petty. That was different.” Riser’s cheek twitched.

“You don’t understand. This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!” the Sitri heiress echoed with a nod, laughing to herself.

“Was there any marriage agreement?” Taro asked, without joining in the amusement.

“No.” Li Fang shook her head. “I only learned of my teacher’s plans after I joined my Lord’s clan. At first, he was even pleased that I’d been reincarnated. My Lord was truly generous, too, giving my teacher’s school some very valuable resources. There was even an entire vial of Phoenix Tears that hadn’t been made into a potion…”

“Don’t remind me.” Riser rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What I went through to persuade my sister is a whole other tale of pain and humiliation.”

“Forgive me, my Lord.” His servant bowed her head contritely. Sona, meanwhile, wondered what Riser Phenex’s younger sister had to do with it. “As we learned yesterday, my teacher planned to use a marriage to me to somehow get his son turned into a demon.”

“I see.” Taro-kun nodded. “I take it the idea of marrying his son to his disciple came to him after Li Fang’s reincarnation?”

“Possibly. We didn’t have time to learn those details…”

“I got too angry,” the demon said with a click of his tongue.

“Hmm… Once your teacher understood there would be no marriage, did he make any requests on his son’s behalf?”

“He did,” Li Fang said with a nod. “But my Lord doesn’t take men into his clan, and the young mistress doesn’t yet have her own set of Evil Pieces.”

“And all my friends have already assembled their peerages,” Phenex added gloomily.

“I see… Waiting would have taken too long, so Li Fang’s master flew into a rage. Hmm. The usual reaction of brainless scum: My plan fell apart. That’s your fault, so don’t you dare blame me for being cruel.”

“What?” Riser stared at him. His Knight sighed and nodded in agreement with Taro, which only baffled her Lord further. “That’s fucking insane!”

“On that, I agree with you,” the Rook said, with unmistakable anguish in his voice. He turned to Tsubasa, who had set out the teacups and taken the chair to Sona’s left. “And you, disciple—have you finished all your tasks?”

“I…” Tsubasa gave him an extraordinarily pitiful look. Weariness, misery, pain—it was all there. “I’m tired, boss…”

“Ahem…” The stern look vanished from Taro’s face, and even Sona barely held back a laugh. “For The Green Mile—excellent. For effort—abysmal.”

“Taro-kun.” The Sitri heiress touched her Rook’s forearm. “I’d like to have tea with Tsubasa-chan too. She spends so much time training. I miss her…”

“For fulfilling my Mistress’s wishes—outstanding,” he declared with a solemn nod. His disciple breathed a sigh of relief. “Pardon me, Phenex-san. Now, Li Fang, did the changes in your training begin after your teacher realized there was no chance of getting his precious son into a demon’s service for, oh, another century or two?”

“Yes.” Li Fang stared at her left palm and rubbed it with her right thumb, as though trying to wipe something away. “My teacher brought me a knife. An old one, steeped in cold energy. I… believed him when he said he’d found a treasure that could greatly advance my cultivation.”

“A knife?” Taro straightened at once, suddenly alert. “What did it look like?”

“A large, old knife. It didn’t look like a weapon—more like a kitchen knife.” Li Fang furrowed her brow. “Ancient, and badly rusted in places.”

“I see…” Sona’s servant thought for a moment, tapping the table. “You drew qi from it, believing it to be frost yin?”

“Yes.”

“How did you hold the knife? Show me.” A short, oddly shaped blade appeared in Taro’s hands. Sona recognized it as a feidao, or “flying knife.” Her Rook had once shown her his rather extensive arsenal of weapons, all made by his own hand.

“Like this.” Li Fang laid her left hand over her open right palm. The knife rested on her left hand, its point facing away from her.

“That’s why the spectral qi accumulated in your left arm,” Taro-kun said with a nod. “In future, if you decide to absorb energy from an object, observe the principle of symmetry: both hands should be directly involved. But since you clearly had no idea what kind of energy you were taking from that knife, I strongly recommend you never do anything of the sort with an unfamiliar object again. Especially one that looks suspicious and… disreputable.”

Taro took his throwing knife back from Li Fang, and it vanished into the jade bracelet on his right wrist. Phenex’s Knight was staring intently at it.

“There’s a greedy look in your eyes, Li Fang.” Taro studied her face.

“F-forgive me, Venerable Chiba.” She hurriedly lowered her head. “Is that… a spatial treasure?”

“Just an ordinary spatial bracelet.” He shrugged. “I made it in my spare time. Very convenient.”

“You… made it yourself?!”

“Why the surprise?” Taro tilted his head. “Treasures like that aren’t lying around on every street corner in the Underworld, but they’re not hard to find, especially ones with limited storage. Powered by demonic energy, of course. Mortal mages have bottomless bags, and yokai have their own equivalents. Only the akuma aren’t much for crafts, as far as I know, so I’ve never heard of any handiwork from those hotheads.”

“But it’s… made with qi, isn’t it?” Li Fang asked cautiously.

“Of course.” Taro frowned slightly. “I am a martial arts practitioner, after all. Before my reincarnation, I couldn’t use magic of any kind apart from the yin sorcery of my upper dantian. I made it with qi because that was easier for me.”

“Easier…” The Chinese woman stared blankly at Sona’s Rook. “Easier…”

“I see.” Taro leaned back in his chair. “Let me guess: among the practitioners you know, things like this are seriously considered ‘treasures’? And the secret of making them is either guarded by ancient families or lost in the mists of time?”

“I know of only three spatial treasures made by practitioners in all of the Middle Kingdom.”

“Depressing.” The Rook sighed. “Understandable, though. With so many alternatives available, people see no reason to master the difficult art of constructing spatial formations. It’s cheaper in every sense to buy a bag from a human mage, do a favor for a yokai jeweler, or get one from a demon in exchange for years of your life. Fools never see the catch in the easy path. They get what they need quickly and miss the chance to discover something new—to enrich themselves with knowledge and their clan with secrets. Though, of course, no one can guarantee that a devoted researcher will ever achieve what they set out to do. Or that they won’t be crippled or die in the attempt.”

Taro gazed toward the forest in the distance, plainly lost in thought. Sona watched his profile and took a leisurely sip of tea. Tsubasa, wearing a faint smile, enjoyed the chance to do absolutely nothing. Phenex’s Knight sat in respectful silence, glancing at Taro with unmistakable surprise, even disbelief. Only Riser was unwilling to wait for their host to return to the conversation on his own.

“Ahem.” The third son of House Phenex cleared his throat pointedly.

“Um…” For a moment, Taro looked at Riser as though seeing him for the first time. “Oh, forgive me. I got carried away with my thoughts. And we’ve drifted somewhat off the subject. Now, the knife. Old, rusty, full of spectral yin. That’s bad.”

“How so?” Phenex asked.

“That wasn’t a weapon meant for battle.” Taro rose and approached Li Fang. “Your left hand.”

Without a word, she held out her hand, palm up.

“I imagine you’re somewhat skeptical of me as a healer, Phenex-san.”

“A little,” Riser admitted with a calm nod. “No offense, but you talk a good game without looking much like a great master. You know—no long beard, no flying swords. The fire show was impressive, though. Shame the dome kept us from feeling any of it.”

“A reasonable reaction.” Taro nodded, smiling as he closed his eyes. “Then, before we negotiate the price of Li Fang’s treatment, I suggest I rid her of the spectral yin and the other effects of absorbing that knife’s energy. As a… little promo, I suppose.”

“Other effects?” his Knight asked tensely.

“Yeees, other effects…” Taro-kun drew out the words. “As I thought, that blade was no warrior’s weapon. Most likely a bandit’s knife, a murderer’s, one that absorbed the hatred of many victims…”

“Now you sound like some mortal fortune-telling fraud,” Riser said with a snort.

“My Lord…”

“But if Li Fang trusts you, then please help her.” The third son of House Phenex sighed with unusual humility. “I may not be the heir,” Riser added, shooting Sona a mocking glance, “but I’ll reward you generously.”

“We’ll discuss the price later…” Taro murmured without opening his eyes. “Give me a minute, please, and don’t interrupt.”

For about ten seconds, Sona’s Rook stood with his eyes closed, holding Phenex’s Knight by the hand. It wasn’t the most pleasant sight for the head of the Sitri clan, but she let none of her feelings show. She was a little… embarrassed even to admit to herself that she was jealous over nothing, especially when there was nothing between her and Taro beyond the bond between servant and Mistress. The feelings were faint, and in demon society they were generally… hmm… not encouraged, let’s say. Still, Sona felt uneasy. Especially after that conversation with the priestess of Benzaiten.

“All right, look up at the sky,” Taro ordered, releasing Li Fang’s hand.

She obediently tilted her head back. Taro raised his hands and… flames sprang up on them. He was clearly using demonic power; that was what his Mistress sensed. Riser frowned, but the flames on Taro’s hands went out after only five seconds.

“This won’t be pleasant. Bear with it,” Taro warned her. Then he began examining Li Fang closely. Very closely.

First he lifted her upper lip, then pulled down the lower one, carefully inspecting the lining of her mouth. He slipped an index finger inside her right cheek, then her left. He pulled down her lower eyelids and spent a long time feeling the upper ones. With a sigh, he raised the Knight’s arms to examine her armpits. They were shaved—the only detail Sona herself could make out.

“Hmm…” Li Fang’s head was turned to the right. Taro peered deep into her left ear, then examined the skin behind it. “There it is.” He nodded with satisfaction. “Li Fang, have you always had a mole here?”

He pointed to a spot behind her ear.

“I… don’t know?”

“You don’t know your own body?” The Rook raised an eyebrow.

“Let me see.” Riser leaned in. “Oh, that one. I could swear it wasn’t there when we first met, but I’ve been noticing it for a while now. You’d do better to ask me—I know every inch of my servants’ bodies, heh-heh. You know how it is. Passion and all that…”

“My Lord…” Li Fang blushed scarlet.

“I don’t know how it is,” Taro replied, tilting his head again, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Li Fang has never been intimate with a man.”

“How did you… What…” Riser’s eyes showed shock at first, and then… panic?!

“Venerable Chiba…” Li Fang whispered, barely audible, her voice pleading.

“But it’s true.” Taro shrugged. “And I strongly recommend that it stay that way. In this case, intimacy between a practitioner of frost yin and a descendant of the Phoenix could have… rather unfortunate consequences.”

“What are you talking about…?” Riser’s gaze darted nervously around the gazebo, avoiding Sona and Tsubasa… who were thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. “We’ve already done everything…”

“Nothing’s happened,” Tsubasa’s teacher said with a snort. “A few kisses at most. Maybe even a little tongue.”

“I… you! Why?!”

“Is something wrong?” Taro looked at Riser with pure, almost childlike bewilderment. “Forgive me, Phenex-san, but this worthless servant doesn’t understand…”

“You…” The third son of House Phenex nearly choked on his outrage. “You petty, vindictive bastard!”

“Thank you for the compliment.” The Rook bowed politely. Sona nearly joined Tsubasa, who had turned away and was shaking with silent laughter. “But let’s get back to this utterly innocuous mole. Looks perfectly natural, doesn’t it?”

“Looks like an ordinary mole to me.” Riser was still glaring daggers at Taro and looked like a sputtering teakettle.

“You’ll have to bear with me a little longer, Li Fang.” Standing behind her, Taro pressed a point somewhere at the base of her neck. The Knight went rigid at once, as though struck by a petrification spell. “Don’t resist.” He steadied her head. “I’ve immobilized you so you won’t hurt yourself while we deal with the nasty thing inside you. Just relax and let my qi do its work.”

Then… something strange began to happen. Taro seemed to pin something behind the Knight’s ear, probably that mole, and slowly moved his finger away from it. Along her cheekbone first, then toward the corner of her eye. Another pulse of qi came from him, and he… caught hold of something… right inside Li Fang’s eye.

Sona shuddered as a… thread? A thin tentacle? appeared between Li Fang’s eyeball and the rim of her eye socket.

It was revolting. At first the Sitri heiress thought Taro was pulling out a worm, but then a… body? began to emerge behind the tentacle. A gelatinous mass oozed out with an unpleasant wet squelch, followed by more tentacles. Something… something like a slug or a tiny, hideous octopus.

“What the hell is that thing?!” Riser had spent the whole procedure wavering, unsure how to react to whatever Taro was doing. Now he actually summoned demonic fire to his hand, its power bearing the unmistakable signature of the Phenex family.

“Well… I suppose you could call it an inner demon now. At a stretch. Though calling this filth a demon would be an insult to myself. Let’s say it’s a… hmm… an inner imp?” The Rook studied his catch, which dangled from his fingers and writhed like a living little octopus. Then he looked at Phenex’s Knight. “Li Fang… Li Fang!” Sona’s servant barked at the girl, whose eyes had rolled back. “Oh, what a disappointment…”

He adjusted his hold on Li Fang’s head and laid his left palm flat on her crown. With a heavy sigh, as though bracing himself to plunge into icy water, he… spoke. Sona had heard that voice from her servant before. It held something immensely powerful. Imperious. Commanding.

“Li Fang, calm your mind. Look to the Inner Sea deep within you. Reclaim your ‘Self.’ This Senior will help you…”

And… silence fell over the gazebo. Li Fang sat with her eyes rolled back. Taro stood beside her, eyes closed, his face intent. Riser remained on his feet, his gaze darting from his servant to Sona’s, then to the writhing thing still trapped between the fingers of Taro’s right hand. Sona and Tsubasa were just as tense, to be honest. Their unease had more to do with what had just been pulled from behind Li Fang’s eye.

Sona trusted her Rook. Besides, Taro looked more irritated and focused than strained. Tsubasa… well, she had said more than once that she never doubted her teacher. So the two of them were mostly revolted by the creature, and neither wanted to distract Taro with chatter while he was clearly doing something serious.

“Why are you bobbing around like a piece of shit on the waves?” The crude words rang with irritation. “Pull yourself together. Calm the storm… Ah, forget it. I’ll do it myself.”

Taro frowned. Another pulse of power came from him… and then, with a heavy sigh of disappointment, he released Li Fang.

She came to her senses almost at once. She still couldn’t move or speak, though.

“I’ve never seen a practitioner look so pathetic in their own Inner World,” Taro-kun grumbled in the tones of a cantankerous old man. Shaking his head, he pressed a finger to the base of her neck, and she regained control of her body. “You’re supposed to command yourself, not… whatever that was. Gawking like a child seeing the Inner Sea for the first time. Flailing about like a rag in the wind. Li Fang… it’s a good thing your teacher is dead. Otherwise he’d have died of shame just now.”

“What… was… that?” the Knight asked, with long pauses between the words.

“What?” Taro asked, confused.

“May an Angel… bite me, what the hell is going on?!” Riser finally exploded. “What happened to Li Fang? Is she all right?! What the hell did you pull out of her eye?! That thing dangling from your hand! What Inner Sea? What Inner World?! Why is it that the longer I sit here, the less I understand?”

“Hmm…” Sona frowned slightly and gave Riser a pointed look.

“But I really don’t understand a damn thing!” He dropped into his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and hunched up. With his hairstyle, he looked remarkably like an irritated oversized bird.

Some kind of vulture, Sitri thought, nearly snorting.

“Was that… really the Inner Sea?” Genuine wonder shone in Li Fang’s eyes, which, incidentally, looked completely normal. She spoke softly and cautiously, as though afraid Taro might take back what he’d said. Then her gaze fell on the “little octopus” in Sona’s servant’s hand. “V-Venerable Chiba, what is that?”

Taro studied Li Fang for a long moment. She grew flustered under his gaze and lowered her eyes. He looked at Riser, Sona, and Tsubasa, then sighed quietly.

“All right. Let’s take this in order. Tsubasa-chan, listen carefully. You’re always rushing ahead, so it’ll do you good to learn how martial arts practitioners can harm themselves. Through ignorance, haste, greed, stupidity, someone else’s malice—or all of the above at once.”

He sat down, took a sip of tea, and turned to Riser. The “octopus” was still in his right hand.

“Now, Phenex-san. First of all, this thing is something like greed given physical form. I assume you’ve heard of yaoguai—objects that have come to life? In Japan, they’re… hmm, classed as a separate kind of supernatural creature: tsukumogami.”

“I’ve encountered such things,” the third son of House Phenex said, somewhat calmer.

“This is something similar.” Taro nodded toward the revolting thing in his hand. “The knife whose power Li Fang absorbed belonged to a bandit, just as I suspected. To two bandits, actually: first the father, then the son. Both lived several centuries ago—a long time by mortal standards. The father founded a line of… people who relieved others of their property and their lives. He used that knife for his foul work. Torturing victims until they revealed where they’d hidden their valuables, punishing his ‘comrades’ for their offenses… ending the lives of captive women once he’d grown tired of playing with them.”

Sona grimaced. Yet another “fine specimen,” even if he had lived centuries ago. Learning about Tagawa Ken’s vile dealings had been bad enough, and now this. Everyone at the table showed their disgust. Even Riser’s face twisted with contempt.

“The son turned out just like his dear old dad. He knifed the man who’d fathered him with that very blade—not to punish him, but to take command of the gang. They tossed his father’s body into a ravine for the vultures without any ceremony, and the new leader of the mountain bandits carried on the family business. He robbed, raped, tortured, and killed. He often used his favorite knife, even talking through it to his memory of his father, trying to convince the image in his sick mind that he was no worse than his predecessor—better, in fact.

“The knife, once a simple tool used by an honest butcher, absorbed its owners’ vices and its victims’ hatred, resentment, sense of injustice, terror of imminent death, contempt, and rage. After years of ‘service,’ it became more than an instrument of torture and execution. Fortunately, it was only a shoddy piece of work by a village blacksmith, not a gifted craftsman’s masterpiece. Impure iron, a scrap of leather for a handle, rust eating away at the blade despite its owner’s care—all of that kept a consciousness from forming within it.”

Taro-kun turned to Li Fang, who was listening intently.

“Still, the killers’ tool gathered enough qi from vengeful, half-formed ghosts. With rare exceptions, mortals cannot become anything otherworldly after death. Otherwise, the human world would be crawling with all manner of nasty little spirits. Unfortunately, sentient beings—humans included—have spent their entire history doing vile things and stirring powerful negative emotions in their own kind. Echoes of hatred after death often cling to the people who caused it.

“The knife also became attuned to its owners’… desires. Greed was the driving force behind their depraved lives. Greed for money, greed for power over the gang, greed for the right to dispose of their victims’ lives as they pleased. That greed, together with spectral qi that an inexperienced martial arts practitioner could easily mistake for frost yin, was what Li Fang absorbed. This”—Sona’s servant raised the hand holding the “octopus”—“is what I pulled from your servant’s head, Phenex-san. And honestly, her teacher was rather inventive and resourceful in his desire to ruin Li Fang’s life.”

Li Fang glanced at the tentacled creature with fear and disgust. Only now, it seemed, did she fully grasp what had been happening to her. A glimmer of understanding appeared in her eyes, and Taro caught it.

“That’s right, Li Fang. This inner… imp wasn’t yours to begin with. You drew it into yourself from the knife. Born of mortals’ base desires, it was weak. So weak that you—forgive me, a very inexperienced practitioner—didn’t even notice it. But that weakness made it dangerous. Hiding in your Inner Sea, the imp began to… hmm… influence you, just a little. Where a practitioner would normally hesitate before taking some reckless gamble to gain power, you followed your greed without a second thought. A teacher who wanted to destroy you had no need to risk anything more: given time, that knife alone would have been enough for you to ruin yourself. But the piece of trash was too impatient.”

Taro gave a nasty little smile. Sona could almost see every insult he wanted to hurl at Li Fang’s late teacher behind it.

“Judging by your… rapturous reaction to seeing your Inner World, I gather your mentor was… feeble trash, unworthy of the title of Master. A nobody who never taught you to engage with your deepest consciousness—more likely because he couldn’t do it himself. The reflection of your ‘Self.’ The spiritual projection of your subconscious world. In your Inner Sea, you appear as a helpless, hesitant, weak little girl. The clearest possible sign that, in your pursuit of outward power, you neglected your inner cultivation. It was a pathetic sight…”

“Ahem.” Riser looked directly at Taro, his displeasure unmistakable.

“Forgive me, Phenex-san, but my words weren’t an insult. They were an objective assessment. I said them to explain how stupid and worthless your servant’s late Master was. He had no need to corrupt her cultivation any further. No need to spend time making or seeking out tainted elixirs and resources that only seemed beneficial. Li Fang is an ignoramus. That isn’t an insult; it’s her current level of mastery. Weak-willed, with no inner tempering. Her resolve is raw iron, neither refined nor tempered.

“Once the imp of greed settled in her Inner Sea, it would have done the rest. Give it a century or so, and it would have grown stronger, bonded with her, become inseparable. The servant you know would have turned into a twisted reflection of herself and the knife’s former owners. A greedy, vain, unhinged bitch who would get herself killed absorbing everything her grasping hands could reach. All the while convinced that she could handle it—because she was the CHOSEN ONE. Not like everyone else.

“The imp is weak and has no mind of its own, but its… tentacles exert a subtle temptation to embrace one’s basest desires. Li Fang has no inner strength to resist them. Day by day, she would have yielded a little more, drawing closer to an ugly end. Her own overconfidence might have killed her, or her enemies might have. Perhaps she would even have died in your Phoenix flames. Someone consumed by greed can go to terrible lengths, even committing crimes against her Lord and his House.”

Taro took a thoughtful sip of tea, then looked at Li Fang, the revolting thing in his right hand, and finally Phenex.

“So the knife alone was enough for a jealous man to take revenge on his fortunate disciple. Everything else was unnecessary. It means either he wasn’t sure the imp could overcome Li Fang now that she was a demon—perhaps he didn’t even know the imp existed—or he was too impatient and wanted to see her die within his own lifetime. Either way, it shows what a worthless man he was. The criminal haste or feeble mind of a piece of trash who called himself a Master.

“If he hadn’t stuffed Li Fang with resources containing different kinds of energy, filled her head with nonsense about how she could do it, she could handle it, fouled her body with impurities, and tried to ruin her meridian system, Golden Bloom wouldn’t have sent her into shock when it met the peculiar cocktail of qi in her energy channels. The spectral yin wouldn’t even have stagnated in her left arm. She wouldn’t have felt anything strange there. And I wouldn’t have come rushing over, outraged that my tea was being blamed… Most likely, Li Fang’s former Master and his son would still be alive, we wouldn’t know each other, and your Knight, Phenex-san, would be strolling toward her own destruction.”

“Hmm…” Riser said nothing more. He frowned in thought, his teeth clenched tight. Sona didn’t know whether the third son of House Phenex believed everything her Rook had said, but he was clearly taking it seriously.

Riser had listened closely throughout their host’s explanation. Now and then, when Taro’s words sounded like an insult or reproach to Li Fang, he grimaced with displeasure, but he never interrupted. His Knight looked pale and utterly dejected.

“Venerable Chiba… do you really think I couldn’t have resisted it?”

“No, you couldn’t.” Taro shook his head, looking at Li Fang with something close to sympathy as he raised the hand holding the small, revolting “octopus.” “Of course, this isn’t some mighty entity that could smash through the walls of your mind in one assault, possess you, and enslave you. But its influence, combined with your worthless Master’s lies, would have been enough. And after what you’ve done to yourself…”

“I’d like to hear the details of her condition,” Riser said grimly.

“Bad, but not catastrophic.” Taro sighed. “For a practitioner of her rank, the contamination of both body and spirit is severe. Part of it comes from the inadequately purified resources she absorbed. The rest is a kind of waste produced by the imp, which fouled her upper dantian—not deliberately, more by instinct—to make itself more comfortable. If that were her only problem, the treatment would be simple: three courses of Purification Pills or one course of Frost-Yin Purity Elixir, along with a diet and meditation. A couple of years of treatment and discipline, and there’d be no trace of it left.”

“But…” Riser pressed his lips into a thin line.

“But,” Taro agreed with a nod. “On top of the contamination, her meridian system is in a nightmarish state. Cracks everywhere, main channels barely opened, minor loops still completely closed in places, adhesions. It’s a horror show, especially given all the different energies in her system, none of which her lower dantian has attuned itself to. They remain foreign to her. As I said, only her demonic nature is keeping your servant from dying or becoming a cripple… By the way, Li Fang…” Taro hesitated for a moment, then asked, “What have you been doing around your groin? From about five finger-widths below your navel to halfway down your thighs, it’s an absolute mess.”

“I…” The Chinese woman flushed deeply, staring at the tabletop beside her cup. “My teacher said a practitioner of frost yin… might cause discomfort to her Lord, whose nature is tied to fire, like a Phoenix’s… in… well… when…”

“I see. Another lie.” Taro closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. “The truth is that a practitioner of frost yin shouldn’t share a bed with a being attuned to fiery yang at all. But there’s a catch: that only applies to weak trash, young and inexperienced adepts, or those with a particular bloodline or constitution. In some cases—for instance, when a female cultivator suffers from certain forms of Yin Chill—regular intercourse with a man rich in fiery energy can actually benefit her.”

“Ahem…” Riser coughed, while all three girls at the tea table turned red.

“But ours is the first kind of case. Phenex-san, I know you don’t care whether a woman you fancy agrees to share your bed…”

“What?!” Riser bristled.

“Is something wrong?” Taro looked the third son of House Phenex straight in the eye. “You made it abundantly clear that you don’t care whether Gremory-san wants to be your wife. Of course, that’s a matter for the families arranging their children’s marriage. But with Li Fang, bedroom games could have tragic consequences. Your first night together might end with you waking beside a cold corpse. So if your Knight’s health and life truly matter to you, keep your urges in check. At least until her condition…”

“I get it!” Riser slammed both palms on the table in fury, rattling the dishes. “And my relationship with Rias is none of your business!”

“That’s what I said,” Taro replied, utterly unruffled. “It’s a matter for Houses Gremory and Phenex, and for the two of you. Are you still interested in Li Fang’s health, or shall we continue discussing the wedding you, your father, and Gremory-san’s father are forcing her into?”

“Do you have some reason to keep provoking me?” Riser glowered.

“Actually…” The Rook considered it. “In a way, yes. I’m much too young to have any experience with such matters, of course”—Sona smirked to herself at her servant’s words—“but my little sister is due to be born in a few months. I’m already deeply fond of her, and as a caring older brother… the thought of our father deciding to marry her off against her will makes my blood boil. Naturally, as a dutiful son, I wouldn’t seriously defy our esteemed father. I’d try to persuade him. But… if those talks failed, I’d kill my sister’s unwanted groom. Make it look like an accident, perhaps. Any boy or man who tried to get his hands on my little sister without her consent… has no place among the living.”

Rias’s fiancé ground his teeth and slowly rose, fixing the Rook with a heavy stare. Sona watched as calmly as her servant did. For one thing, she’d caught Taro’s none-too-subtle hint. For another… she was somehow certain her Rook had a plan for whatever happened next.

As it turned out, no one had to do anything. Phenex stood still for a couple of seconds, then looked at Taro differently. The blazing anger was gone; only displeasure remained.

“How fortunate for your unborn sister to have such a strong brother. I almost feel sorry for her fiancé… her hypothetical fiancé.”

“Indeed. The strong decide the fate of the weak,” Taro said with a neutral nod. “Forgive me, Phenex-san, if my words seemed rude.”

“Let’s get back to Li Fang,” Riser said, almost calmly—thoughtfully, even. “I understood little of that… diagnosis, but I can tell from my Knight’s eyes that she grasped the essentials. How do we fix it? Can you cure her? And what do you want for your work?”

“The simplest solution is for her to give up martial arts. I could destroy Li Fang’s cultivation right now, leaving her an ordinary reincarnated demon. She’d feel ill for a month or two, but her life and health would no longer be in danger. She’d be left with a few residual effects from the spectral qi that stagnated in her left arm for so long, and even those would fade with time.”

“Out of the question.” Riser shook his head without even looking at his Knight. She let out a relieved sigh at his refusal. “Her main condition for joining my clan was that she could keep training to become a martial arts master.”

“Master…” Taro savored the word, casting a playful sidelong glance at the thoroughly embarrassed Li Fang. “I see. Then let’s discuss treatment. It is possible, though it will take a comprehensive regimen over a long period: medicines, acupuncture, a diet, baths with the right preparations, exercise, and meditation. Naturally, she must not advance her cultivation while treatment continues. No fighting for up to six months, either. If Li Fang follows all my instructions, I guarantee her meridian system and her upper and lower dantians will be in perfect condition within ten years. Fortunately, her True Core—the central dantian—was untouched by your Knight’s former teacher’s schemes.”

“Ten years?!” Riser stared at him.

“Most likely it’ll take less time. I added a couple of years in case something unexpected comes up.”

“Wait, Venerable Chiba,” Li Fang suddenly interjected. “Did you say central dantian?”

“Yes, the one near the heart.” Taro nodded, then almost immediately stiffened. “Wait, wait. You don’t know about that one either?”

“My teacher… my former teacher often argued with the abbot of Hidden Shaolin about whether it exists.” Li Fang clasped her hands together. She was visibly nervous. “My teacher insisted it didn’t…”

“Your former teacher is a real piece of bread,” the Rook said, his voice oddly flat. Even with Dialectos, his meaning was unclear. “Moldy bread. You’ll understand for yourself during treatment… if Phenex-san agrees to the price, of course.”

“You mentioned a promo involving that… ghost qi,” Riser reminded him.

“Ah, yes, the spectral qi.” Sona’s servant raised his eyebrows. “Forgive me. The imp distracted me, and I overlooked that part. Speaking of which…”

A vial appeared on the table before Taro. It was rather beautiful: perfectly clear, with patterns on its rounded sides and a glass stopper. He pulled the stopper out at once and dropped the “octopus” inside. The stopper went back in, and the tentacled thing ceased to… be? It dissolved into mist inside the vial, turning the once-clear vessel murky and… unpleasant.

“Nasty thing,” Taro murmured thoughtfully, “but I’ll find a use for it. Now, the spectral yin. Li Fang.”

“Yes, Venerable Chiba.”

“This will hurt. You can bear pain, I hope? Or is there something else I should know?”

“I can bear it, Venerable Chiba.”

“Good.” He flicked his right hand. Something whistled toward them from the workshops, and a moment later the practitioner held five long golden needles.

Five. One for each finger, Sona thought with a flicker of apprehension. The thought made her uneasy.

“Now then. Put your left hand at the edge of the table, fingers hanging over.”

“You’re not going to stick those needles under her fingernails, are you?” Riser asked tensely.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Taro confirmed.

“#$%^,” the patient’s Lord swore under his breath.

“Hah…” The Rook had heard the curse. So had everyone else. “Li Fang, listen. I take no pleasure in other people’s pain, so I can perform this procedure without you feeling a thing.” He looked the Knight straight in the eye. “Not. A. Thing. No pain and, more importantly, no sensation of the spectral yin moving through your meridians. But if you can look past the pain, you may learn something valuable. You might, for instance, get some idea of how to expel foreign qi from your energy channels. Which do you choose?”

“I’ll bear it,” she answered at once, placing her hand so that her fingers hung over the edge of the table.

“Good. Brace yourself.”

What followed was painful even for Sona to watch. She had thought Taro would merely slide the needles beneath Li Fang’s fingernails, but this was far more… frightening. Uglier.

The long, slender golden needle did not stop once it slipped beneath Li Fang’s nail. Sona could clearly see the little bump moving past the nail and along the entire finger. The needle stopped only when it had almost reached her wrist. Taro did the same with all five needles, one for each finger.

Li Fang watched her hand without expression, her pale face perfectly still. Only her pupils, contracting and dilating, betrayed that she was… uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

“Good. Well done. Now pay close attention. Close your eyes and try to feel the flow of qi in your left arm. As if you were meditating, but without pushing the energy along. This will hurt—more than the needles did. The spectral yin has stagnated and practically glued itself to the walls of your meridians. The energy of the dead is more… viscous to begin with, harder for the living to work with. In your case, it’s like jelly left too long in a cool room.”

Li Fang did not answer. She drew an unsteady breath, closed her eyes, and nodded with resolve.

“Good. I’m starting.” Taro gripped the Knight’s arm above the elbow with his left hand and closed his right around her wrist.

Sona felt another surge of her Rook’s power, though a very faint one. Li Fang gave a low moan, her legs twitching beneath the table.

“Listen to me… listen… listen to my voice…” Taro spoke softly, yet every word rang clear. “Pain is something you must overcome on your way to the summit. It stands in your path. It is your opponent, your enemy. Right now, you are fighting—for yourself and for your Lord. Pull yourself together.”

Li Fang ground her teeth, but her choked moan ceased and her legs went still. She remained rigid, breathing in ragged bursts.

“Take everything you can from the wrongs done to you. Put your enemies to shame by turning their efforts to your advantage. For strength. For power. So that one day you can laugh in their faces before crushing their skulls. A martial artist bears responsibility for every failure, but must learn from each one. Turn defeat into victory and rise above the trash. Make them fear you. Make them quail beneath your gaze. Make them tremble at the thought of displeasing a woman who walks the path of perfection.”

As Taro spoke, Li Fang’s expression slowly changed. The pain she had tried so hard to hide gave way to anger, to barely contained fury. She clenched her right hand into a fist, and a low growl escaped through her teeth, thick with menace.

At the same time, something barely visible began to run along the golden needles from beneath the nails of her left hand. Gray with a greenish tinge, it gave off wisps of vapor. Drops fell from the needle tips, only to hang in the air a hand’s breadth below Li Fang’s fingers. Sona felt an inexplicable chill from the half-material substance. Damp, like the depths of an old crypt, and somehow… vicious. Full of resentment, a thirst for revenge, hatred for… everyone. Helpless, desperate malice.

And that was inside her? Sona stared in disbelief. Merely looking at the spectral qi made her uneasy. She could not understand how anyone could have mistaken it for ordinary cold.

Sona was no cultivator, of course, but as a demon she could sense the nature of Grayfia Lucifuge’s power, and Grayfia could all but freeze reality itself. She could feel the dread in the energy leaving Phenex’s Knight, too. How had Li Fang absorbed that? Sona could not begin to guess.

“And that’s it,” Taro said after five minutes of work and tense silence, broken only by Li Fang’s occasional angry growl.

He released his grip with his left hand and immediately touched the center of the Knight’s forehead with his index finger. She had only just opened her eyes, and the fury that had flashed in them vanished at once. Li Fang blinked in confusion, then hissed at a sudden stab of pain as all five golden needles slid out of her fingers on their own.

“You did well. Do you remember how it felt?” the Rook asked in a fairly friendly tone.

“I… y-yes… but what… why…”

“Anger is a double-edged sword. It often clouds your mind and leads you to make mistakes. In this case, though, your cold fury helped you overcome the pain. It cleared your mind.”

Li Fang watched Taro for several seconds as he worked with the spectral qi suspended between his spread palms. Then her gaze moved to the five long needles lying on the table. She gave a shiver and spent several more seconds examining her left hand. Sona, for her part, could see no marks on it at all: no bruises forming beneath the nails, no drops of blood, no trace of needles that had reached almost to her wrist.

After studying her hand to her satisfaction, Li Fang opened and closed her fist several times, then looked at Taro again. Sona did not like that look at all. There was no passion or love in it, but something like… the look people gave their favorite idol onstage. People who adored that idol to the point of fanaticism.

It lasted less than a second. Then Li Fang stood, swayed slightly, caught her balance, and bowed so low that her nose nearly touched the table.

“This junior thanks the Most Venerable One for his teachings. This unworthy one shall remember this day for the rest of her life,” Li Fang said in her native tongue, with the utmost formality and respect.

“Let’s hope so,” Taro-kun said with an indifferent nod, without even looking at her. “Lessons are meant to be remembered. That’s basic stuff. You need to know it…”

The unpleasant energy swirling between his palms took the shape of a snow-white pearl. He caught it between two fingers, and it vanished into his spatial bracelet. Curiously, the moment it became solid, it stopped giving off that bleak, otherworldly malice.

“Now then, Li Fang, Phenex-san. I think it’s time we discussed whether you’re willing, in principle, to have me treat her. And if you are”—he made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, miming a coin—“how much you’ll pay this worthless, petty bastard.”