In the courtyard, a tree as thick as a man's arms stood alone. At its base lay scattered withered flowers and weeds, and its branches bent now and then beneath the forceful wind.
Minamoto Soujun and Mishima Shiko were sparring.
Or rather, Shiko was attacking while Soujun only dodged.
Her blade struck fiercely, enclosing him within a storm of sword pressure. Soujun tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and spread his arms as if to embrace the sky. His body leaned, pivoting on heels or toes, turning lightly as her strikes swept past, not even stirring a corner of his clothing.
He remained rooted at the center, each slash grazing within a hair's breadth, each strike barely missing.
After some time, Soujun still moved with ease and freedom, while Shiko was already gasping for breath.
"No more, I'm done!"
She raised her hand to stop.
Lately, whenever she felt progress, she would seek Soujun to spar. Defeated again and again, yet battling once more each time—each defeat left her with a little gain, pain mixed with joy.
Soujun halted, the wildness fading from his face, replaced once again with calm courtesy.
Pity, my progress still outpaces yours.
He nodded to her and said, "You need to learn to control your strength. Every swing—how much force above the baseline is just right? One part too much and it's excessive, one part too little and it's lacking. Different enemies call for different adjustments. You must find the balance."
As they walked back to the living room, Shiko listened intently, occasionally discussing the shifts in techniques with him. Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a familiar curse—the locust-headed womb sitting in the corner. She paused, startled. "That's… the cursed womb from before?!"
She approached, voice laced with doubt. Somehow its build looked familiar… very much like Soujun?
She examined it closely, then suddenly pinched its chest. The locust head spoke: "Don't touch me."
It was Soujun's voice.
After a moment's thought, she realized. With a sudden grin, she spun back and smashed a fist at its chest.
The instant her fist struck, the body twisted—and Shiko felt her punch land on air. Eyes wide, she glanced at her arm and quickly realized: this cursed womb's technique must be space-related.
In that instant, it slipped into the void, shifted aside, then returned once her attack passed.
The speed was so great that visually, it looked like a flicker—she punched, the cursed womb blurred, and she hit nothing.
She sat back on the sofa, hugging her knees in silence, her face twisting with frustration.
Every time she sparred with Soujun, the same sense of powerlessness welled up.
If her strength couldn't keep pace, if she couldn't even be of use as support, wouldn't he eventually abandon her to act alone?
She refused to be a burden, dragging others down.
If that happened, she could only leave.
With another sorcerer, she'd likely be forced back into her old role as a mere assistant, repeating the same bleak cycle.
Yet lately had been so joyful. Fighting curses had made her realize more clearly than ever—she was a sorcerer.
Her expression wavered.
Because it had been so joyful, she was unwilling to let go.
After a long silence, her lowered head gave voice to a whisper:
"What… is a technique?"
Soujun, sensing her turmoil, thought a moment, then pointed at the tree in the courtyard:
"A technique is like a seed. At awakening, it breaks the soil. With use, it grows roots and sprouts. Sorcerers feed it with experience until it becomes a sapling. When it grows into a tree, the trunk is the base technique, and the branches are its expansions. If talent is sufficient and one masters the reverse technique, then another root may break free, growing into a second tree. When one tree becomes a forest—that forest is technique reversal. At that point, a technique's power multiplies."
He stepped closer, lifted her face gently, and with a spark of blood-red light at his fingertip, formed a star-shaped eye.
He pressed the eye into her brow. It blinked twice, and a tear slid down.
Soujun quickly wiped it away. It was his first time attempting such a thing, and he was still unpracticed.
Placing one hand at her temple, keeping the star eye linked, he whispered, "Close your eyes."
Confused, Shiko obeyed.
A strange vision flooded her mind.
First came clarity. The world sharpened, colors multiplied, details emerged: the wind outside, the clouds in the sky, the flutter of a butterfly's wings on a flower.
Next came vastness. The sky stretched higher, the land spread wider. With her at the center, everything from the school grounds to the mountains beyond lay clear before her eyes, as long as sight was unobstructed.
Then came delay. Apart from herself, it felt as though the flow of time in all things had slowed.
…
Overwhelmed, her mind reeled from the flood of information. Dizziness set in. Her last glance fell on Soujun—even in this hyper-detailed sight, his face was flawless, not a pore to be seen.
A pang of envy struck her.
Then her head pitched forward toward the table.
Soujun caught her, brushed his hand across her brow, and the blood-red light dimmed. The star eye slowly closed and vanished, leaving only a faint crimson mark that quickly faded.
Shiko felt like a severely nearsighted person whose glasses had been ripped away.
It took a long while for her to readjust and recover her normal sight.
So… that's what a technique is?
"Compared to that, fists, sword forms, weapons—they're just leaves or branches. With cursed energy control, they're nothing more than weeds beneath the tree."
Soujun knew how to console.
Roundabout as his words were, the meaning was simple: a technique is a talent, a natural ability. What mattered was how it was used.
His view differed from most sorcerers. "Eighty percent of a sorcerer's strength comes from talent"—he never believed that.
Most people never even reached the stage where talent truly mattered.
No technique? Then so what? One could still reach Grade 1, still become the strongest.
Unfit words, perhaps, from someone like him—but the truth remained.
In this world, one-in-ten-thousand geniuses numbered in the tens of thousands; one-in-a-million geniuses still numbered in the dozens. Even if you were the first genius of an age, there would always be another wave to eclipse you.
Comparison was human nature, but drowning in it—always needing to be the best, always needing to surpass—was meaningless. Wasn't it better to focus on oneself rather than on comparisons?
When one truly reached the limit, then seek a way to break it.
To become a sorcerer, yet still believe destiny is fixed?
Soujun's gaze carried disdain.
"What's with that look?"
Shiko's emotions flared and faded quickly. She leapt to her feet. "Again!"
She strode toward the courtyard, then paused at the door, flashing a grin: "Don't tell me you thought I was crushed?"
"You're underestimating me."
Out under the tree, she laid her palm against the trunk.
She wouldn't let "techniques" bind her mind. Enough weeds could still choke a tree.
"And you—those eyes are creepy. Find a way to hide them."
Drawing her blade with a sharp shing, she added:
"They set off my trypophobia."
Soujun didn't care.
She had seen nearly the entire process of his compound eye reconstruction.
Most of the time, he disliked narrowing his eyes to conceal them. Whether other sorcerers noticed—that wasn't his concern.
Watching Shiko brimming with spirit again, Soujun smiled faintly. He'd never truly seen her crushed before; she always radiated a positive energy… well, except when drunk.
And in truth, though techniques couldn't be replicated, if one found the right method, their effects could still be achieved.
Take puppet manipulation, for example.
The techniques of Principal Yaga and Madam Iori were obvious examples. Techniques were innate and couldn't be learned—but after so much exposure, Soujun had gained a deep understanding of puppetry.
Shifting the perspective: weren't his crimson threads equivalent to puppet strings? Weren't assimilated curses as external limbs under perfect control the same as puppets?
Wasn't this, in fact—his very own puppet manipulation?
…
Back in the courtyard, the two faced off again. This time Soujun attacked while Shiko defended.
Though hard-pressed, she still held her ground. Even for Soujun to defeat her, it required effort.
Their sparring was always at full force. As long as they didn't kill each other, any wound was minor.
In truth, Shiko was very strong. Her quasi-Grade 1 ability already placed her near the top of the sorcerer world.
Soujun drove her back with a heavy strike, his ferocious follow-ups pressing forward.
She retreated step by step, barely blocking.
Once caught in Soujun's rhythm, the outcome was inevitable.
Soon she could retreat no farther. One kick dropped her to the ground.
Propping herself with her blade, she smiled through clenched teeth, forcing herself upright again. Raising the weapon high above her head, arms forming an "X," she fixed her gaze under her wrist at Soujun—an overhead stance meant purely for offense.
"Ahhhh!"
With a shout, she stomped forward, each step building momentum. The blade grew heavier, its pressure forcing Soujun's hair back as she swung down from above…
Soujun merely tilted aside. Her strike turned horizontal, but he leaned back, letting it brush his clothes. Then his palm chopped her wrist, sending the sword flying, embedding into the earth.
"Huff… huff… I lost."
Meeting Soujun was misfortune… yet also fortune.
Soujun looked at her, and a thought stirred: if she wanted a technique, perhaps he could find a way to give her one.
One of his many eyes shifted, glancing at the locust-headed curse… Techniques could not be replicated, but they could be borrowed, even transferred.
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