Chapter 203: Another Inheritance

As the girls began to leave, Cortana lingered.

She noticed several loose sheets of paper scattered across a nearby desk and, out of simple curiosity, began to read them.

Her brow furrowed almost immediately. She could not understand a single thing written on the pages—no algorithm, no root, no fraction, no curve, no decimal, no sum. Nothing made sense.

"Peter, what is this?" Cortana asked, loud enough to draw the attention of the other girls. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw what she was holding.

"Equations," he replied simply.

Cortana huffed in annoyance. "I know what they are. What I cannot understand is what they mean."

She read the pages again. Susan had now joined her, equally baffled. "Every page I look at feels like I am staring at random symbols. I cannot understand anything that is written here. What on earth does 3X2(9YZ)4A¹ mean?"

"I do not understand any of it either," Susan admitted. "Could it all be wrong? Is that why nothing makes sense?"

"The calculations are correct," Peter said with absolute indifference, not looking up from his work.

"And what you are holding is the formula for near-omnipresence."

The room went still.

For several seconds, both women’s hands trembled from the sheer weight of what those pages represented. Their boyfriend had derived what might be the most dangerous equation ever conceived—and had left the papers scattered across an unprotected desk like grocery receipts.

"What?" Cortana whispered, barely audible.

"3X2(9YZ)4A is the formula for near-omnipresence," Peter repeated calmly. "But it is entirely useless without the key element required to make it work. It is highlighted in red. Without that component, those equations are nothing more than random numbers arranged in a particular order."

Both Susan and Cortana frantically searched through the pages until they found the element marked in red.

"Speed Force," they said simultaneously.

"Correct. Without the Speed Force, anyone who attempts to apply the formula will end up either dead or suffering a catastrophic cerebral hemorrhage. You can leave the papers on the table. They are not important."

The girls stared at him as though he had lost his mind entirely.

In their minds, they could not fathom how he had derived such power through simple mathematics, and then dismissed it as casually as yesterday’s newspaper.

Slowly, carefully, they set the papers back down and went to rejoin the others, who were in a similarly stunned state.

"I need a drink," Susan said flatly.

Every woman in the room agreed.

If there was one thing they all understood without question, it was that the young man they called their boyfriend was possibly the most intelligent person seen in decades—surpassing even an advanced artificial intelligence.

----------

Once Peter finished correcting some final errors in his work, the hairs on his body stood on end. His tattoo began to burn faintly, as though warning him that something dangerous was approaching.

He activated Brother Eye and instructed it to scan for any catastrophic threat.

Then he walked over to a machine positioned at the far end of the cave. He connected himself to it and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was standing in a desolate valley. A lone figure sat meditating before him.

"Raizō¹," Peter said.

"Peter," Raizō replied, opening his eyes and rising from his meditative state. "I see you have arrived early for your training."

"I decided to get a few things done ahead of schedule. I will be occupied with research soon."

"Good."

A sleek blue bow materialized in Raizō’s hand.

The desolate valley around them shifted and reformed. In its place stood an ancient Japanese estate surrounded by towering sakura trees in full bloom.

"I present to you Hanamura Castle¹," Raizō said, before vanishing entirely.

Peter knew exactly what he had to do.

He walked toward the castle. The moment he crossed the outer threshold, the sky shifted from bright sunshine to oppressive darkness. At the entrance, he found an assortment of weapons laid out alongside a combat suit. He equipped everything methodically.

"This is going to hurt," he muttered, activating the stealth techniques Raizō had taught him as he began his hunt through the castle.

Thanks to his training, it did not take long to find his teacher. Raizō sat in a candlelit room, burning incense.

Peter was accustomed to seeing this. According to Raizō, it was his way of apologizing to those who had died because of his failures—a ritual born from bitterness and melancholy that hung around him like a second skin.

"We will need to work on your stealth further," Raizō said without turning around. "I could hear you from the moment you entered the castle."

Peter’s expression went blank. He lowered himself into a combat stance.

"Strange place for our confrontation," Peter observed.

"This used to be my home," Raizō replied quietly. He seized the bow at his side and spun with blinding speed.

The arrow launched. Peter shifted his body to the side by a fraction. Another arrow followed immediately, curving through the air. He ducked beneath it, then threw himself sideways to evade the barrage that came next.

"You will not always be on the defensive, Young Parker," Raizō warned.

"I do not plan to be."

Peter jerked his head to the side as an arrow punched through the wall beside him. He ducked again as another nearly pierced his shoulder.

Seizing a brief window between arrows, he drew three shuriken and hurled them in rapid succession. Raizō raised his bow and deflected all three into the wall without breaking his rhythm.

"You sacrificed an attack for safety," Raizō observed.

"Fragile security only breeds false hope," Peter replied. "And that is worse."

Raizō smiled and nocked another arrow. Instinctively, Peter drew his katana and positioned the blade directly in the arrow’s path.

The impact was devastating—the sheer force behind the shot hurled him backward. He crashed through a wooden railing and fell from the second floor.

He recovered quickly and looked up. Raizō had nocked a different arrow—one unlike the others.

Without thinking, Peter charged forward. Even with his speed, he could not avoid the trick arrows entirely. Several embedded themselves in his body. Using his katana, he deflected the majority of the rest.

"Damn it," Peter hissed through gritted teeth. "I hate this place. My powers are completely useless here—all I have is the body I built through training."

He yanked the arrows from his flesh and felt warm blood running down his limbs.

Leaping upward, he dodged the next volley, sheathed his katana, and retreated deeper into the castle to formulate a viable strategy against the greatest ninja assassin who had ever lived.

Raizō arrived at the spot where Peter had been standing and examined the trail of blood. He found nothing.

’He is progressing,’ Raizō thought.

"I hope you will teach me how to use a bow soon," Peter’s voice echoed from the shadows. "It looks dangerous."

Raizō shifted left and fired an arrow. It embedded itself in the wall—inches from where Peter’s voice had originated.

The ninja smiled.

"I am grateful for the training, Master Raizō," Peter said, his voice now coming from a completely different direction. "I never thought I could accomplish this much."

"And I am proud to have such a diligent student," Raizō replied, slowly drawing two arrows. "Perhaps, with enough experience, you can become what I once was."

He fired.

Peter brought his katana upward in a fluid motion, striking the arrow with the flat of the blade. The sound of metal clashing against metal rang through the castle.

"I hope you are prepared for your next teachers," Raizō said.

He adjusted his grip, pulling the bowstring in a distinctly different configuration, and released a single arrow aimed directly at Peter’s heart.

Peter stared at the incoming arrow with absolute focus. Letting out a single controlled breath, he stepped forward. At the last possible instant, he shifted to the side and, with a precise swing of his katana, split the arrow cleanly in half.

"You have learned well," Raizō acknowledged. "Ahhhh—"

He charged.

Raizō leapt into the air and brought his bow down in a devastating overhead strike. Peter raised his katana just in time, catching the blow.

The impact sent shockwaves through his arms. Raizō struck again—harder this time—and the force drove Peter backward. He stabilized himself just quickly enough to keep his guard intact.

Peter jumped at the exact moment Raizō attempted a sweeping strike, but before he could land, Raizō was already in front of him. Peter contorted his body sideways, narrowly avoiding the blow. He raised his katana in the same motion, missing his teacher’s neck by centimeters.

Pushing Raizō back, Peter pressed the offensive, delivering rapid, precise cuts aimed at Raizō’s flanks.

The ninja used his bow as a defensive weapon, redirecting every slash. When Peter failed to find an opening through bladework alone, he flipped backward and delivered a powerful kick that sent Raizō crashing into the wooden railing.

Before Raizō could recover, Peter lunged and drove his katana downward—but Raizō deflected the thrust with his bow at the last second.

"I am starting to hate that bow," Peter muttered.

Every strike he threw was either dodged or redirected by the weapon.

"A weapon is not only useful for one purpose," Raizō said calmly. "It can serve in countless ways. Only a wielder with the right mind can extract its full potential."

"Fine. Then I will put this katana to good use once I have—"

Peter never finished the sentence.

Raizō shifted to the side, destabilizing Peter’s footing. In the same fluid motion, he looped his bow around Peter’s neck and hurled him across the room. Peter hit the floor hard, looked up, and saw Raizō sprinting toward a fallen arrow.

He scrambled to his feet and assumed a defensive stance.

"Let us see how much you have improved with Chi," Raizō said, nocking the arrow.

Peter’s eyes widened as he recognized the technique. He cursed internally.

"Ryū-ga, wa-ga te-ki-wo, ku-ra-u,¹" Raizō intoned. "Let the dragon consume my enemies."

When Raizō released the arrow, two enormous spectral dragons materialized and surged toward Peter. He felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead.

He drew his katana, gathered every ounce of chi he could muster, and redirected it simultaneously into his vocal cords, his body, and his blade.

"Ryūjin no ken wo kūrae¹," Peter commanded. "The dragon becomes me."

He swept his katana through the air, and a green spectral dragon erupted from the blade. He directed it toward the twin blue dragons and linked all three together. Slowly, painstakingly, he began to rotate and redirect the combined chi constructs. His hands trembled violently. Sweat poured from his forehead as the overexertion of maintaining and controlling three dragons simultaneously pushed him to his absolute limit.

Once the redirection was complete, he sent all three dragons roaring back toward Raizō.

The ninja simply smiled.

"You have learned well," Raizō said quietly. "Too well. But you still have a very long way to go."

He formed a series of rapid hand gestures and locked his eyes on Peter.

"KAI!"

The blue dragons detonated. The resulting shockwave obliterated the green dragon as well, and the combined force slammed into Peter with catastrophic intensity.

----------

Peter gasped violently.

His lungs burned. His entire body screamed. Every organ felt as though it had been struck by a sledgehammer.

He coughed, sighed, gasped again—and then vomited a considerable amount of blood onto the floor.

"Damn," he wheezed, collapsing onto his back. "Chi is more complicated than magic."

He lay still for several seconds, staring at the ceiling of the Spider-Cave.

The clock on the wall told him he had roughly one hour before he needed to pick up Liv.

"I will take... a short... break," he murmured.

His eyes closed.