GxG 9
The next few days passed in a flash. Even though we were now staying in Yasaka's guest mansion, we still had reservations and plans that we still went to. Nothing of note happened during those days either, but that may have been due to us being given a yokai minder who was totally following us. I just ignored them since they were obviously working for Yasaka.
That leads us to today, where I'm spending it with Kunou and her teachers for the day.
Originally this day was left open for me and my family to either rest or do something spontaneous that we didn't know about until we got here. Instead, Yasaka 'called in a favour' to get my parents two tickets to an ultra-high end overnight spa.
Initially, my parents were extremely reluctant to accept, as they already felt they were imposing in the guest mansion. Yasaka brought them around to the idea by explaining that she was basically paying them off to have me for the day. As Kunou is an heiress of a very high level, making true friends has always been a challenge for her, for many reasons. With me and her hitting it off, combined with our family being 'close enough' to easily vet for threats and ulterior motives while also being 'far enough' that there is no feasible way for us to mooch and taint the relationship, even if we wanted to.
This pacified my parents greatly, and they took those spa tickets with glee. I won't see them until tomorrow morning, then my dad finally has his business meetings, and then we are going back home.
This brings me to now, where I am joining Kunou for her morning classes. She has her normal tutor, who is focusing on some political lesson today, while I have a specialized senjutsu teacher Yasaka grabbed for me as payment for those Ki refinement methods I showed her. I'm also apparently getting a whole bunch of scrolls and scripts for me to effectively homeschool myself on the supernatural, plus a large bundle of senjutsu and senjutsu adjacent methods and techniques as payment for helping Kunou with the kappa.
I thought it was a lot of stuff for just kicking a dude, but Kunou is just that important and there are also some political optics things where even if didn't want rewards, Yasaka, as the leader of her faction, has to give me a reward anyways or else it makes everyone look bad all around.
Anyways, with Kunou on the other end of the room listening intently to her tutor lecture about 'the rise and fall of Tamamo, and how it affected yokai as a whole', I turn to face my current teacher. An older looking kitsune, but she only has 2 tails and while she feels stronger than me, she is honestly nothing compared to the supernova that Yasaka is.
"So to start with, do you have any questions?"
"Yes. What is it like to have a tail?" I'm honestly curious too. Does it affect balance and movement a lot? It can't weight that much so it can't be a full counterbalance, but it has to change her center of mass by at least a bit.
Her eyebrow twitched a little bit and her previously warm smile stiffened.
"I meant about senjutsu or the supernatural in general. But to answer your question, they are hard to keep this fluffy and clean." Huh, I never thought about that. I have my hair at like an inch so washing it takes about 30 seconds max.
"Oh, uh, sorry. What are we allowed to talk about? We have a few hours until Kunou's lessons are done right?" I can't wait to see how they use their Ki and this senjutsu stuff. So many ideas I won't have to develop myself. I am going to be careful though, as they clearly don't know everything which was demonstrated with my Ki enhancement methods.
"Lady Yasaka has cleared you for a general political lesson, but also a large array of techniques as well. We will start by going over the information you need to know to not kill yourself by accident, both socially and literally. After I have decided you aren't a threat to yourself we will spend the rest of our day together going over Ki techniques." She patiently explained to me, which was fair since I was both a child and technically a VIP for the duration of my stay in Japan.
"Ok, that sounds good. Thank you for your time Ma'am." Saying that, I settled down and got ready to learn.
The next hour was a blur of names, factions, and abridged history. Apparently, in this world there are Devils, Angels, Dragons, Gods, and all manners of supernatural creatures. I'm taking the lesson with a grain of salt, but apparently I got lucky stumbling into the yokai faction as my introduction. As a result of their more isolationist tendencies, the yokai factions are the least likely to slave or kill me. That was not a comforting thought at all.
The angels, fallen, and devils had a massive war a few hundred years ago simply called 'The Great War', which fucked up the supernatural landscape for everyone, and none of them are well liked in modern times but are still too strong to deal with. The angels are largely absent, the church is corrupt at best, the fallen are insane and the devils have a slavery streak a mile wide.
Luckily, North America is mostly devoid of any factions organized encampments. The reason basically boiled down to every faction already being so entrenched where they were that any attempt to gain a foothold into North America would leave them vulnerable at home, so nobody did. Beyond the naturally born spirits, the few remaining Native American gods, and some free agents from every faction, North America is considered a 'free zone'. No large groups are allowed, but small ones can do whatever they want really.
The rest of the lesson went like that, and the hour ended with me being given a book that lists every current 'need to know' person in the supernatural landscape. This ranges from faction leaders, to notable and active people, or even people so strong you don't want to even think about pissing them off.
Finally finished with the political lesson, I won't lie and say I'm not vibrating in my seat. My tutor can see it too, as she gently laughs into her hand.
"So, now that that lesson is done, what would you like to spend the rest of our time learning?"
"What options are there?" I say, leaning forwards slightly in pure excitement.
"Well, as you focus on Ki, and Yasaka has given us a general pass for learning, there are a few topics for us that we can cover in the next few hours."
"Well? Let's hear them!" I wonder what there is. I want to learn so much. I'm being taught nature-magic-stuff by a foxgirl. This might be heaven.
"For broad topics today we have ki, touki, Senjutsu, formations, martial arts, and that's about it. Pick two or three for us to talk about now. You will be given material on all of them when you go back home." Those all sound so cool, but I think I know what I want to work on today.
"Can you tell me what touki and formations are?" That seemed to be a good answer, because she got such a nice smile when I said that.
"Certainly. While my touki may be slightly out of practice, it is more than enough to teach you. Meanwhile, formations are actually my specialty." Oh, i picked well then. Teachings from a master can never be a waste of time.
"First off then, let's start touki as it is the faster one to explain. Then once we are done that we can talk formations." She explained in a patient tone.
"Sounds good to me! Where do we start?" I truly, truly could not wait any longer to start.
"Starting with touki. Also known as 'fighting spirit'. Touki is the act of igniting your ki and using it externally for battle." She stopped explaining, and just sat there, looking at me.
"Wait. That's it?" I stared at her, baffled. There is no way it is anywhere near that simple. She seemed to know what I was thinking and chuckled, making me blush a little in embarrassment.
"Of course there is more to it, but it truly can be summed up as such. Touki, alongside maybe simple ki reinforcement, are the fundamental tools of anyone who fights using ki in any form."
"Ok, that makes sense, I guess.".
"Touki is the act of taking your ki, igniting it, and wearing it upon your body as both a weapon and a shield." She explained, while lifting her hand up in front of her.
Suddenly, I sensed the ki in her hand slightly change and then her hand was glowing in an ethereal flame.
"This is touki in its most fundamental form. No tricks, no techniques, just pure ki burning for more power. I was told you have a rather developed sensory ability, what can you tell me about what using touki is doing to me?" She asked, while still holding her hand giving off wisps of life.
Taking a moment to center myself and really look, I instantly realized what she was trying to show me.
"It's draining your stamina, but it's not hurting you." She simply smiled and snuffed out the flame.
"Very good, that's correct. While touki burns your ki at a rapid pace, unless you are using some forbidden technique it will only ever burn stamina, and never life force. That is actually one of the first questions many first time touki users have, as nobody wants to die faster."
"That is very good to know. May I ask why touki is considered its own thing, and not a simple ki technique?" Her eyes twinkled a little at that question too, so it must have been very good.
"That is because while touki is very easy to achieve if you have any control over your ki, it is also possible to forcible ignite your ki by exercising a ridiculous amount, breaking your limits multiple times. The fact an alternate path exists has led to touki being classified as its own branch of techniques entirely, instead of being a sub-branch of general ki techniques." That's so cool! You can get cool flame punches by being Shonen levels of jacked.
We continued the lesson after that little demonstration, with it her showing me how to ignite my ki. I was able to get a tiny wisp at the tip of my finger at the end. This both nearly exhausted me and unlocked Touki. I left that mote to general training until I had more time to think about what I wanted.
"Now we can talk about my personal favorite, formations." she seemed much more excited to talk about this over touki, but she hid it well.
"What are formations?" I had a general idea of what they could be just from the name, but I was interested to learn more.
"Formations, as opposed to things like runes that use magic or divinity, are scripts that upon being placed in the world cause effects by interacting with the natural energy in the world. This means that they are much harder to learn and use as they must be more in line with what is 'natural', but they also have the possibility to be much longer lasting and powerful than things like runes or spell circles if all else was the same." She seemed to really enjoy talking about this, and I was not going to stop her.
"That is so cool! What kinds of things can they do?" If this is what I thought it was, I think I found my passion for the next few years.
"Well, a simple formation could augment a tool or reinforce a wall, while a complex formation could weave the very world around us into an impenetrable illusion barrier. The yokai subdimension we are inside right now is an example of pinnacle formation work, combined with some blessings from the Shinto pantheon, but that was more related to us 'making land' on Japanese soil which is technically their domain, so it was a collaborative project." She explained with joy, while showing me some visual examples while talking. A few simple scripts and a printed image of a greater work.
I am in love.
"That is so cool! How does it work? Does it only work with Japanese writing or would any lithographic script work? Does the age of the language matter and that's why you use older scripts? Could you use a made up language?" The questions just poured out, and she patiently answered what she could.
"We use ancient Japanese because as it is ancient, it is mostly static. The meaning of a script won't change, so it makes being exact and consistent easier. I do not know if other languages work, but I would bet they do. The Chinese also have a robust group of ki users, so I don't see why not." She pondered to herself more than me, I guess she doesn't get out much.
After I settled down a bit, she brought out some paper and a brush.
"The most basic levels of formations only require a passable level of calligraphy to have an effect. The higher levels require fine senjutsu control among other things, but we can start with the most basic reinforcement. If applied correctly, it will cause the natural energy to interact with whatever it is applied to and make it slightly stronger. In this case, the piece of paper we are writing on." She said as she wrote the script for 'reinforcement' onto the paper, and then passed it to me.
"Well, tell me what you think?" She said I sat there staring at the white paper with script on it.
"Well, I can feel the natural energy drift into the script, and then it feels like it drifts from the script through the paper and then leaves? I can't quite tell entirely what it's doing." She smiled and nodded when I said that.
"That's already an advanced understanding. Most beginners just know 'something happens' with natural energy, and any deeper knowledge is best explored alone once your sensing level is good enough." She paused for a moment, and then slid the inkwell and brush she was using towards me.
"Well, your turn boy."
"Oh! Yes, I would love to try!" Thankfully I have had many of the motes that this uses for a long time. Art for the calligraphy, Meditation to center myself and Ancient Japanese focus my intent, and Lifeforce Manipulation and Lifeforce Sense so interact with the natural energy part of making formations.
My first try was a massive success... is what I would like to say. What actually happened was that the nearby natural energy didn't even twitch even though I drew the script perfectly. Nothing happened the second try either, or the tenth time. The whole time my tutor was gently encouraging me. After my fifteenth try the natural energy finally moved, and on the eighteenth try I finally succeeded.
I watched with barely contained glee as the natural energy slowly drifted towards the script, like a nervous dog sniffing someone's hand, until it touched the script and flowed through the page.
"I did it!" I laughed loudly. This was so cool, I have so many ideas for what I could do with this.
"Congratulations, you are officially a beginner formation master. It usually takes at least months of study to get this far you know" She said kind of weirdly, but those are the numbers for people starting from the beginning. I already had the basic pieces training from my motes.
"Well, try to rip the paper."
I did try.
I could not rip the paper.
I could not have been happier.
Even the Formations mote I got wasn't even close to being as cool as actually making something.
"Hey, are you guys done finally?" Came a from a childish voice right beside me. It turns out Kunou's lessons had ended a few minutes ago, but she didn't want to distract me while I was in the zone.
"Yes, yes. We are done. What's the plan for the rest of the day?" I asked while putting down my first creation, turning fully towards her.
"We have so much to do! I know all the fun places in this stupid stuffy dimension, let's go!" she said while basically dragging me out the door of the room we were in.
"What are we doing first?" She was so excited, it was honestly so cute.
"If you think normal cherry blossoms are pretty, wait until you see Mama's gardens! We use senjutsu to grow them even prettier! Wait to have your mind blown Nathan!" She was talking a mile a minute at this point, I just laughed and followed her.
"I would love to see the garden, Kunou."
I don't think she could smile any more than when I said that.