"Now listen to me, and listen close." Maya handed Jennifer a truly terrible plan. "Whatever you do, never get physical with Audrey somewhere quiet—she's Slavic, you won't win that fight. But you can wait for a crowd. Best if there's a beat cop nearby. Then you start shrieking that she stole your husband, and you scream that she's a homewrecking mistress while you lay into her."
"Really? Why's that?" Jennifer asked, curious.
Jack was eavesdropping too, ears pricked. Maya swept a glance over the pair and spun her nonsense. "Audrey caught Jack's eye, which means she's got a certain refinement about her. And refined people mostly won't stoop to a scene in front of a crowd—hit them in public and they'll just shrink back rather than make a scene. So do exactly as I said, Jennifer. And remember: only when there are plenty of people around. Land a couple of hits and leave it there. Don't overdo it. If you actually push her over the edge, you'll be the sorry one."
"Th-this doesn't seem like a great idea," Jack cut in, hesitant.
"None of your business. Sit tight and stay out of it. And another thing—you're on the couch the next couple of nights." Jennifer glared at him.
---
That night, in the trees by the lake in Central Park, at the stroke of midnight, Stick patted his stuffed belly and sighed with boundless feeling.
"Maya, these dumplings of yours are better than all but a handful of the Celestial Empire's imperial chefs could turn out. Back in the day this old blind man strolled the Forbidden City and filched a taste off the emperor's own table. And I tell you truly—the dumplings that old emperor ate weren't a patch on what you made tonight."
"Hic—hic—right, right." Matt agreed from where he lay stretched out on the grass, burping contentedly. "Maya, you could open your own restaurant. Or—hey, rent a food cart over summer break and go sell dumplings!"
"As long as I've got enough pocket money, why would I care about that kind of change?" Since a Shadow Clone doesn't need to eat, this Maya talked while she packed up the gas burner and the rest of it. "Besides—tonight's dumplings, from mixing the dough to sealing the filling, were all ninjutsu work. You expect me to put on that show in front of an audience?"
Watching Maya tuck the whole bundle away into a Sealing Scroll, Stick mused, "Your chakra ninjutsu falls well short of the K'un-Lun Qi Refining Art where nurturing the body is concerned—but it's specialized for practical use: not just powerful, but endlessly varied. That question you raised the other day, about your sea of qi—I've been turning it over these past days. K'un-Lun has a cultivation method, the Three Chakras and Seven Channels, that would suit you well. Once I've finished teaching you both the meditation, I'll tutor the two of you on it directly. If Matt can learn to meditate and develop a sense for qi within ten years, I'll die content. As for you, Maya—your dantian already holds chakra. For now you can raise your spiritual attainment through K'un-Lun meditation and set the qi question aside. I keep feeling chakra and qi might reinforce one another—who knows, it could give rise to something new."
As he said it, the "gaze" Stick turned on Maya went a touch feverish. Mm. Maya knew that look intimately. It was the exact look she gave her lab mice.
"Ahem. Master, I have my own thoughts on that." As the saying goes, knowing a hundred crafts is worth less than mastering one. "Chakra will be my main object of cultivation. Teach me the K'un-Lun Qi Refining Art by all means, but I don't need to master it fully—I only want a look at a different cultivation system, to draw inspiration from another angle and round out my chakra work. And, Master—please, teach me the way of the Iron Fist right now!" Maya laid out her thinking and put her request to him.
Her words were orderly, her aim clear without overreaching, and Stick, turning it over, could find no ground to refuse. He could only ask, in earnest, "Maya, these past days I examined your chakra myself. In truth—ninjutsu is versatile and mighty, but it's poorly suited to nurturing life. It's no heretical path, yet it's a little like the fast-forged demon arts of the old armies. With your gifts, if you devoted yourself to qi alone you could easily add a century to your life, and within a few decades attain a good measure of my own cultivation. Won't you truly reconsider?"
At that, a few exasperated lines crossed Maya's smooth, round forehead. Old man, she thought, your "cultivation"—could it even handle the cannon fodder that works for the lackey of Thanos's lackey? Twenty years from now, when Thanos snaps his fingers, are you going to weather that?
Of course, Master Stick meant well, so Maya couldn't just come out and say it: Your qi does pitiful damage, and your Iron Fist can only handle small-time thugs. Matt's trained for over a decade and still gets knocked out cold by ordinary men on the regular; your girl student Elektra got beaten to death outright. Not one of you and your handful of disciples came to a good end.
"Master, Heaven granted me the power of chakra. Clearly it's the will of Heaven, and I can only accept my fate. Look—in just a few short months I've come this far, done all these great things. If it lets me help more people, what does it matter that I won't live long?" As Maya said it, her whole body seemed to give off a golden glow.
Both Stick and Matt "gazed" at her in admiration. Neither doubted a word—after all, everything Maya had done bore her words out.
"Good—well said! Maya, the people you've saved in a few short months add up to more than this old man has in a lifetime. Though what this old man was saving was the world!"
And when you say that, old-timer—do you ever spare a thought for the Ancient One?
"So—the secrets of the Iron Fist. What do you say, old man?" Maya put the question that mattered.
Stick frowned, puzzled. "Once you've finished learning everything else, I'll teach you, naturally. Though it'll do you no good. You don't have the Power of Shou-Lao."
Maya didn't bother explaining. She simply channeled her chakra, brought Chakra Enhanced Strength to bear, and drove a single punch into a big rock at the lake's edge.
BOOM—BOOM!—the boulder, half as tall as a person, burst in an instant into fist-sized rubble, most of it clattering down into the lake with a rush of splashes.
"Ah—hic—uh—" Stick swallowed hard, his voice gone dry. "That—that's no worse than the Iron Fist. What do you even need the Iron Fist for?"
"Feel my arm again, old man."
With that, Maya thrust her blood-soaked right hand out in front of him. She'd deliberately left it unhealed by Medical Ninjutsu.
Stick extended two fingers and lightly tapped his way along—her fingers, the back of her hand, her elbow, her forearm. "Fractures in twenty-five places, fifty-three muscle fibers torn, capillaries ruptured across a wide area, five breaks in the skin including one long gash. Grim. Truly grim!"
(Author's note: In the Naruto canon a clone is supposed to vanish the moment it takes damage, and by the logic of Chakra Enhanced Strength the arm ought to get hurt—yet after Tsunade's clone uses her super-strength, it's plainly none the worse for wear. I don't know what Kishimoto was thinking; I'm not having that nonsense here. As I've said before, Maya's Shadow Clones aren't like Naruto's: they last a long time, share a mental link within her sensing range, and can pass chakra back and forth. By the Hansen Transformation Technique: Three Stages, you can think of Maya's Shadow Clone as chakra transformed into Maya. And because it's her own self, this transformation goes straight to the third stage. Anyone curious can look back at chapters 62 and 63.)
Seeing the steep price Maya had paid, Stick—for reasons he couldn't name—felt considerably lighter. That punch a moment ago had been terrifying enough to rattle the old man's very Dao heart; but seeing his disciple in such a sorry state at least meant his own one or two hundred years of training hadn't all been for nothing.
He stroked his beard and sighed. "A demon art. A demon art indeed. Maya, you really ought to cut back on—er—uh—hold on. What's going on? Why do I feel like your injuries just healed in an instant? Did my blind eyes lead me astray?"
Halfway through, Stick yanked two hairs clean out of his beard and burst out in a most unmasterly fashion, hollering as he seized Maya's forearm, stroking it and tapping it by turns.
In the end he even pressed his ear to her arm, muttering in bewilderment, "Marrow and blood clear and flowing, bones unharmed, muscle taut and knotted, muscle unharmed, the sound of the blood crisp and unobstructed, vessels unharmed—what am I even doing? What just happened?"
Seeing Stick on the verge of qi deviation, Maya had to pull her hand back. "Ahem—Master, you weren't mistaken just now. Well—you can't see, but your read was dead-on. Look, there's still blood on the arm. Chakra Enhanced Strength on its own really can be called a demon art. But I also developed a Medical Ninjutsu that heals injuries fast—and it's only when you combine the two that you get the complete Chakra Enhanced Strength."
And she walked Stick through the principles of Chakra Enhanced Strength in detail. Naturally, she didn't breathe a word about her System. She just chalked it all up to her own clever head and independent research.