9 – Always Stand Again

There was a lake only a modest distance from the clearing. Well, pond was perhaps a more apt descriptions, but the locals had taken to calling it Tiode Lake.

In those gleaming waters, lit by the sun as it pierced the clouds above, Yamato stared at his own distorted reflection. Somehow it was less ugly than his usual mug.

He tilted his head, examining the scars that lined his flesh. The deep gash that had been sliced into his cheek, exposing the teeth below. That blind eye, the socket rimmed with scar tissue.

When he'd been younger, before he'd even properly started to cultivate, Yamato's status had allowed him unlimited access to the sect's archives. In doing so he'd read stories and historical accounts that a lad his age probably shouldn't have been able to.

In doing so he'd read a historical account about Empress Jiadan of Cathayan, a woman so cruel that people believed her to be a yokai in human skin. Jiadan had known a famed bard, who had previously claimed he would die if he lacked the hands with which he played his shamisen.

She'd had his hands removed to test his statement and, sure enough, the bard had taken his own life soon after. Yamato felt he understood that bard now more than he ever had in his youth.

A swordsman down an eye was like a bird down a wing. Having half your sight missing left you as a liability, someone who could easily be taken out by an attack he couldn't see coming.

Yamato quietly worked his jaw as he stared down at his distorted image. It was more than that, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to say it aloud.

Truth was his confidence in himself was completely shattered. It was one thing to lose a fight, but it was another to be destroyed so utterly. To have never had the faintest sliver of victory, forced to watch as everything he knew and loved was turned to ash...

After that, how did you bring yourself to fight again? Could you bring yourself to do so? Was there any point in trying to rebuild yourself, when you could be smashed back to rubble again?

Yamato flexed his fingers a few times, almost reached for a sword that wasn't there.

"Someone's sulking."

Yamato spun about sharply and looked up to see Yomi sitting on the branches of a nearby tree. She sat with a relaxed, feline grace, peeling the reddish rind of a sum.

"If you have a problem with me being out here, take it up with Amon," he said.

Yomi shrugged, plucking a rind from her sum and chewing on it. "Amon's a good warrior. Hells, probably one of the best I've ever known. But he ain't a man who knows much in the way of technique. If you want to know how to compensate for your lack of an eye? Well, that's something I can handle." She turned, spitting a pip into the soil. "Assuming you don't find the teachings of an assassin sect to be beneath you."

There was a time he would have. Now, Yamato had a hard time finding anything that was beneath him. If he had any pride left in him, it was perhaps on par with that of a drunk in the gutter.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked with some reluctance.

"Ah ah." She held a finger up as she popped a second wedge into her cheek. "Say please."

Yamato stared flatly up at her. "Please," he said.

"Better." She hopped from the branch and landed silently on the grass. Yamato had heard talk that members of Yomi's old sect could walk upon frosted ground without cracking it, or dash through fields as incredible speed while somehow not disturbing the grass in their passing.

Other sects did not like them, viewing assassination as a dishonourable tactic. Yet those same sects still respected them, well aware of how dangerous and skilled they were.

"Bats," she began, spitting another pip out, "are blind."

"Yes?" Yamato eventually replied, staring at her with one brow raised.

"How is it, then, that a completely blind creature can fly and navigate in pitch black, through the cramped confines of caves and caverns?" She popped in another wedge and chewed upon it, loudly slurping some of the juices.

"I..." Yamato frowned, considering this. "Well, I don't know." He'd never spent much time on the study of nature.

Yomi grinned, and there was some mad glint in her eye. "It's quite simple." She turned and spat another pip, this one splashing into the pond. Yamato grimaced, watching the ripples of the water as they made for the shore. "They see through their ears. In that dark world they inhabit, they see sound in how it bounces off the world, outlining everything around them."

"And your sect... can do the same?"

"We have a technique that works on a similar principle. We tended to work in complete darkness, after all."

Yamato considered the implications of this. Seeing with his ears? The two of them were still in one piece, at least. And he’d always considered them sharp. Part of the Snake Flower’s training regime had involved excellent spatial awareness, and great hearing was a part of that.

Still... was it possible to have a sense of hearing that pronounced?

“Close your eye,” Yomi said, folding her arms. “Feel your qi as it cycles through your meridians. See yourself in your mind’s eye, the totality of your being.”

And so he did, closing his eye and letting darkness overwhelm his vision. He saw himself, a spectral silhouette of his body at least, and the pale lines of his meridians alive with circulating luminous lines of his qi.

“Now, while you are doing this, direct your power toward your ears.”

“I have to burn my own qi constantly to make the technique work?” Yamato asked.

“Only a little bit, relax. And anyway if you practice enough, it’ll become second nature to you and you’ll barely feel the change in your qi when you use it.”

Yamato sighed, qi rising up in his body and settling in his ears. At once he felt his hearing grow sharper, enough that he could easily hear the steady thudding of Yomi’s heart even though she stood several meters away.

“Now, direct a tiny pulse of your qi outward. Just a thimble’s worth.”

Yamato did so, a tingle racing through his nerves at the small pulse. That image of himself, once alone in a voice of darkness, was suddenly surrounded by a hazy and indistinct recreation of the world. He faintly saw he tranquil edge of the pond, the edges of the nearby trees, even a crude rendition of Yomi’s body.

It was only for a few seconds before the image vanished again.

“Whoa,” Yamato said, blinking his good eye. It was a little disorienting, admittedly, seeing his body as an outsider. But having 360 degrees of vision was undoubtedly a very good tool.

“Yeah.” Yomi gave him a lopsided grin. “Practice at it. The more you do it, the more refined the image gets. And the longer you’ll be able to do it. In my experience, the technique can cover a lot of distance. The trick is to learn to control the range of it, and to block out sounds that distort the echoing soundwaves.”

Yamato felt his heartbeat quicken. Something that could compensate for his new disability?

“When I was younger, my first instructor at Shadow Lake was a woman by the name of Lady Ruolan. She was a raging cunt, but she did say something that stuck with me for my whole life.” Yamato turned, watching her as she spoke.

“Everyone gets knocked down. Even the greatest warriors. What matters is... if you can bring yourself to stand up again, or if you’re just gonna stay down.”