PreCursive

  In.

  And out.

  In.

  And out.

  Honoka of Kawamara breathed iher of Vereden, cycled it through the meridians she had so painstakingly fed over her long life…

  And breathed out Ki.

  It was early in the m, and like she’d done for nearly five turies now, she was meditating. It had been a long habit of hers to greet the rising of the sun with a session. And not o tthen her.

  No, these m meditation sessions were only meant to ter her.

  Honoka hadn’t needed much sleep for a very, very long time now. The strength of her own Ki was more than enough to sustaihrough sleepless nights. On a lower tier person, the way she forsook sleep most of the time would damage them over time.

  Not her.

  Instead, she teo work through the nights. Sometimes it felt like the only reason she did so was so she could have one of these m sessions. It had bee one of her little vices with how much she e. Especially with how different the Aether of her home ‘tasted’ during the green period alone.

  Speaking of…

  It was the m after she had assisted Grey’s young appreh his surgery, and the green period of the m was at its height. Honoka took a deeper breath, in order to savor the almost electrifying feel of m Aether. Whe out the resulting breath of Ki, she took a moment to pte the procedure.

  That had been damn odd. Possibly one of the oddest surgeries she had ever performed, and that was truly saying something.

  Not quite as odd as the time she had operated on a giant talking spider perhaps, but certainly up there. It hadn’t been the procedure itself that had been a tiny bit uling, however. No, it had been the boy himself.

  In all her years, Honoka had never seen the like of what the boy had pulled off. She had initially been incredibly skeptical that he could maintain focus through the agonies of perf such a procedure on himself.

  That is, until she watched the boy grow cold as ice. Before they’d begun, the emotion had drained out of the boy like a hole in a bowl. Through her aura sight, she had seen his spirit grow distressingly numb. And not just to emotioher. In that state, she could have broken the boy’s jaw and she doubted he would have felt it.

  The boy must have one hell of a mental trol skill to mahat. Honoka had seen skills that before.

  They rarely ended well for the user.

  She hoped he wasn’t abusing it. Maybe she o have a talk with Grey about his apprentice. She wasn’t his master, and had nht to interfere with his training. Grey and her had had squabbles like that in the past, and she had no wish to return to those years.

  For many reasons.

  Speaking of apprentices…

  She could feel the silvery presence of dear Sylvia watg her from a distance, under one of her little illusionary cloaks. She hid a smile. It was cute that the girl thought she could hide from her at all. So freshly past her first Trial, she just didn’t uand what it meant to be a Cultivator yet.

  But she’d learn. And she’d learn under her.

  She hadn’t actually petitioned Grey yet for the right to take his daughter as her apprentice, but she was sure he k was iually. She’d caught the old goat watg the two of them with a familiar patient amusemehat told her all she o know.

  She wao say that he was just needling her in his own way, but…

  She didn’t know how Grey was finding the time to teach a nerentice who wasn’t even past his first Assio.

  It wasn’t the right time. Things were too unstable right now.

  The Kingdom was too unstable for her to take a formal appre. As soon as the main host of Grey’s little Uprising reached Silvercrest and linked up with them, she was sure she would be taking over the Healing division. She wouldn’t suffer the normal x standards of military Healers, if she was going to be involved in this.

  And she was going to be involved. She owed these damn Loyalists more than a little repense for how they had dared to treat her.

  And Leonard.

  A small fme escaped the fines of her soul to ighe grass nearby, at her sudden spike of fury. Ruthlessly, she squashed the fme, but allowed the rage to fester at her core.

  All of those long days of being ed to that impudent brat’s wall. The despair of being branded as a sve, and cut off from her Cultivation. The blindness of no longer being able to feel the world, as she did now. The rage at his mog amusement, from how low he had brought her from his betrayal.

  That bastard may have escaped justice at Caer Drarrow, but she had her fotten nor fiven.

  She felt the green period begin to wao her slight disappoi. Still, she k would be baorrow.

  The sun always rose again.

  Honoka opened her eyes and rose to her feet in one smooth motion. Not b to hide her amusement, she directed her gaze to the Sylvia and waved her closer. Her dear girl didn’t bother to preteher, and dropped her cloak to meet with Honoka. She was pletely unashamed of her ‘spying’.

  As she should be.

  Sylvia dipped her head when Honoka reached her position. “Good m,” She said softly, smiling at her.

  Honoka smiled back at her, starting the walk bato camp. The two of them were on one of the nearby hills, with a perfect view of the horizon. Honoka let a disied gaze sweep across both the weling party that she could see gathered outside the camp, and the mass that she could see a few dozen miles out.

  They weren’t important right now.

  Honoka smiled at Sylvia teasingly. “Did you learn anything watg me?”

  “Possibly,” was the surprising answer from the Sculpted woman. Honoka felt her eyebrows raise at that. She hadn’t actually expected Sylvia to piything up from that.

  “Go on,” Honoka said curiously.

  Sylvia gazed at the approag main host of the Uprising ptively. “I had been w for days now,” She started slowly. “Why I had yet to begin produg my own Ki. But…that’s a misnomer, isn’t it? A cultivator doesn’t create Ki from nothing. We don’t produce, we process. Don’t we?”

  Honoka felt a proud smile stretch across her face. “Close,” She heless corrected. “Very close. Ki isn’t something natural to people, in the way Aether is. As the goal of Cultivation is personal truth, so too must you be true to yourself. Therefore, we take the Aether from both ourselves and from the enviro, and burn it in the fe of our souls. From this, Ki is born. The first Trial, the first Assion, is about turning your soul into that fe. Every breakpoint after that is about better direg that Ki, by purifying the body and creating your meridians. As I’ve told you, you are now sidered an Iron cultivator.”

  Sylvia ughed slightly, raising a hand into the air. The weak light of the m reflected off of her Mithril skin, sparkling. “Is that right? Iron…”

  Honoka dipped her head. “The irony isn’t lost on me. As an Iron, you’ll have difficulty in direg your Ki to flow through your body. You have no meridians to aid the process. Which means that for now, we’ll o focus more oernal Arts.”

  During their versation, the two of them ehe camp proper. All around them, Sculpted soldiers were tearing dowents and pag things into crates in order to move when the main host reached them. Teams of Sculpted were pag supplies into the wagons in order to be ready. Luckily, Honoka didn’t think that anyone itle party she was currently traveling with had a great amount of belongings to load up.

  It made for a freic air.

  Honoka didn’t care though. She just kept chatting with Sylvia as the two of them approached the front of camp, where everyone else was waiting. Honoka saw the familiar form of Grey he front of the weling party, along with Nocture and Woodrick. She heaved a sigh when she realized that she was likely going to o go stand with them.

  Meanwhile, Honoka saw as Sylvia brightened ever so slightly at the sight of her own panions standing some ways off to the side. The boy Nathan and the dwarf Azarus were standing around with the fox, while that odd Spirit Wolf lingered around its master's feet. It looked to her like the boy was demonstrating the range of movement that his new arm had, and drawing a not insiderable amount of attention from the soldiers around him.

  The sight of the new prosthetic had apparently caused a bit of a stir in camp. The idea of a ‘fleshie’ with a decidedly not flesh arm was iing to the Sculpted soldiery. Even now, she could see baffled looks being thrown the boy’s way. Not that he seemed to be paying them any mind.

  Honoka s the small smile she saw growing on Sylvia’s face. She elbowed her potential apprenti her metallic ribs slightly. “Him? Really? I don’t know what you see in him.”

  Sylvia started slightly, and then shifted awkwardly at Honoka’s words. She was sure that the girl would be blushing up a storm, if she had the blood for it. She didn’t respond to Honoka’s implication, though.

  Honoka rolled her eyes, and made a shooing motion. “Go on then. Run along with the others. I o speak to the reprobate.”

  Sylvia dipped her head at Honoka’s dismissal, and hurried off to join the younglings. The boy noticed her first, visibly brightening as he waved her closer. The dwarf and the fox both greeted her girl as well, weling her into their circle.

  Despite herself, Honoka smiled slightly. It was almost bittersweet, the sight of a young group of Magi and Cultivatathering together. They were even clustering around a young human man, in a nostalgic call back to aimes.

  Honoka sighed. She had lied to Sylvia. She supposed she did see what Sylvia did. Grey’s apprentice reminded her of how the old man had been when he was a much, much younger man.

  They were both shifty little blighters. Shifty, but noble in their own way.

  Gods, to this day, she still couldn’t believe that she had lost to the moon of all things. She still didn’t know how that worked.

  Nobody did.

  Honoka shook her to clear it of useless thoughts, ing to stand alongside said shifty old blighter. Her oldest still surviving friend spared her a brief smile and a nod. With a gnce, she could see that he was all dressed up in his bat robes, with Stelrum sheathed at his waist. She was surprised to see, however, that he was also carrying his staff around. Honoka eyed the monstrously powerful staff warily, as if it was deadly viper liable to reach out and bite her.

  Even after all these years, she still wasn’t used to the terrible thing.

  She knew what Erux represented, after all.

  “Recovered enough for that, have you?” Honoka said lowly, eyes drifting to the approag host.

  Grey nodded slightly. “If only just barely,” He whispered back. He cut her a qui return. “And yourself?”

  Honoka grimaced. “Not as much. I’d say I’m at about sixty pert.” She may have boasted to the boy back at the isnd about how a Cultivator could take the spiritual trauma of being magically ensved, but….

  That had mostly been a lie for Sylvia’s sake. She had pushed herself far too hard just after being freed, and hadn’t helped matters by taking out that ship either. It was going to be a while yet until she was back to full strength.

  Hopefully, it would be in time to handle Leonard.

  Speaking of…

  The main host had finally reached their position, and were pulling up to stop in front of the camp weling party. Riding out in front of the host was Leopold, dressed in his full pte like usual and astride an absolutely massive warhorse. He stopped the horse in front of them, and jumped down in order to greet them.

  Grey csped Leopold’s forearm iing with a nod. “Well met, my friend.”

  “And you as well, Grand Marshal,” Leopold rumbled. He cut his eyes over to the rest of the weling party and smiled ever so slightly. “I see your mission was a success. Good day to you, Lady Honoka. Woodrick.”

  While Woodrick returhe greeting, Honoka crossed her arms, stony faced. Sensing something was wrong, Leopold met her eyes silently iion.

  Honoka obliged him.

  “It was Leonard,” She said bluntly. Slowly, Leopold’s eyes drifted shut in pain. “He attacked me under false pretenses, and then branded me. He was w with the Loyalists as the Warden of Caer Drarrow.”

  A slow breath escaped the massive form of the Marshal. He opened his eyes. “I see,” He said heavily. He met Honoka’s eyes again, su e on neon blue. “And so you demand repense for his as.”

  He wasn’t asking a question.

  “Yes,” Honoka said, unflingly.

  Leopold was quiet for a moment, before nodding. “We shall see, wheime es. I must bear wito his folly with my own eyes, before I pass judgment.”

  Honoka narrowed her eyes at Leopold. “It’ll have to do, I suppose.”

  For now.