Chapter 19: Unpleasant Conversation
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A trio of people were gathered in one of the halls of the manor. Tai Li sitting on her knees, Master Piandao standing opposite her, and Butler Fat holding a sword and a pair of sai daggers forged recently. All of the weapons were forged from a recently fallen meteorite. The resulting metal was particularly black in colour, with remarkable strength and sharpness, which was achieved by the special blue fire and the forging skills of the master. However, such a rare metal could not be seen due to the expensive and full of sophistication of the scabbard. There was enough meteoric metal for a gift for the apprentice, and there was still enough left for the teacher to spare. The master did not skimp on a single detail, using all of his skills to create the perfect weapon for the brilliant student.
- Lee. When you first came to me, I noticed your talents immediately. But during our training, it wasn't your fighting skills that impressed me," the master takes the sword from the butler's hands, exposing the most beautiful and deadliest meteoric steel. The black metal barely glistened in the sun. - No, not them at all. You've shown much more than that. Resourcefulness, wit, determination, intelligence and a drive to reach the top. These are the qualities that define a fighter. These are the qualities that define you. The meteorite fall only confirms your speciality. This sword is my finest work, accept it from my hands as a symbol of your graduation. Such a masterpiece is worthy even of an emperor," the master makes a couple of trial swings of the sword and puts it in its scabbard, holding it out to his apprentice.
- Thank you, Master. I will match this weapon," the girl accepts the sword from the master's hands.
"Don't forget about the daggers. Was it for nothing that I put out a fire and then dragged a space boulder up the hill to the castle half the night?" - the spirit makes its presence known.
He was the one who spotted the meteorite fall. It happened late at night when the spirit was enjoying the beauty of the starry sky. The meteor that flashed by and the sound of the explosion that followed interested him. Going to the place where it fell, the spirit put out the fire with fire magic and dragged the celestial stone to the smithy, wanting a weapon made of this metal.
- Do not rest on your laurels. In time you will be able to surpass anyone and leave your own mark in history," after these words the master makes a bow to his equal, thus recognising the apprentice's skill.
"How pathetic, but he is definitely right about something," the spirit does not allow himself to be forgotten.
- I will always improve my skills. Thank you again for teaching me so much," the girl bows in return.
With that, the farewell ceremony ended. Azula slung her sack of belongings on her shoulder, fastened her sword scabbard to her belt and her sai daggers to her sash, and set off for the city. All the belongings had been packed as early as yesterday. A hawk had been sent in advance, she had received a reply. Her personal ship was waiting in the harbour. There were no long farewell ceremonies, she and her master had already discussed a lot of things lately. With peace of mind she left the manor, heading for her ship.
However, as soon as she was outside the castle gates and had walked a few dozen metres, she was called out.
- Wait!" the girl stopped and turned around and noticed Fata, the butler, running towards her.
"I wonder if you've forgotten something?" - the spirit wondered, trying to remember what they might have forgotten.
- 'The Master has given you this. So you won't forget about him," Phat runs over to Tai Li and hands over the pouch containing something unknown, before bowing goodbye and heading back to the manor.
"Hmph, what could it be?"
Loosening the drawstring, the girl slides her hand in, pulling out into the light....
"Pai-sho chips, curious. Piandao is very fond of this game," the spirit notes thoughtfully.
- White lotus, what would that mean? - Azula also spoke thoughtfully while looking at the white lotus chip. The girl even started to guess something, casting a glance at the gates of Piandao Castle, she thought about the meaning of this flower. The doors too had the image of a white lotus on them, as did many parts of the castle she had lived in for almost a month.
"I can give you a hint," the spirit offered with a chuckle, hinting that he knew something that had escaped the princess's gaze.
- How would you know such details? - Azula questioned hesitantly.
"You're guessing it yourself. I just did it a little faster. So, shall I satisfy your curiosity?" - The voice in the girl's head continued to snicker.
- Speak up already.
"It's an ancient secret order with dubious aims but strong personalities who are surely masters of one or another conquest of magic. The white lotus chip will help you open doors and get you information in some special places. As you should have guessed by now, its members love the white lotus flower. Remember his special tactics for playing Pai-Sho?" - The spirit smugly explains, proud that he realised it before the girl did.
- Of course.
"It's probably the password, perhaps you'll need it in the future. Save those chips, we'll get a board and play sometime, I hear it's a very popular game in the world of the living. You know, I just remembered, we haven't played chess in almost three weeks!" - The spirit began to nostalgise admiringly about the not too distant past when they used to spend time playing mind games.
- 'As soon as we get back to the ship, we'll definitely play,' Azula replies, walking down the road....
The girl who had been introducing herself as a stranger for almost a month left the manor. She walked calmly to the city. Azula felt great. The princess had longed for the luxurious life in the palace and a personal staff of servants with a personal manicurist, but most of all she longed for the spacious hot springs. In this, the spirit was in solidarity with her.
From the city the girl headed straight to the harbour, wanting to be on her ship as soon as possible, she didn't delay for a second. However, never reaching the harbour, she decides to stop halfway and suddenly walks from the road into a field.
"I thought we were going to the ship? Or are you up to something in secret from me?" - The spirit was quick to notice the strangeness in the girl's behaviour.
- 'Yes. It won't take long, I want to check something out,' Azula replies briefly as she continues walking through the field.
After walking almost half a kilometre, she stops amidst a vast expanse of grass. With a circular motion, she burns a small circle in the field with a blue flame. After that she sits down in lotus posture on the scorched ground, intending to meditate. The girl's breathing was accompanied by the release of large jets of fire. The bursting flames quickly surrounded Azula, encasing her in a ring and rising and falling to the ground in time with her breathing.
- I think it's high time we had a talk. I remember someone promised to tell me more once I finished my training with Piandao. In all the time we've known each other, I didn't even recognise your name, I think now is the best time to rectify that.
"That's how... Yes, you're right, I did say something like that, but..." - The spirit calmly began to reply as he was quickly interrupted.
- Our relationship has long been one of friendship. Now it would be highly unethical to harbour your desire to hear poetry from me," she besieged the spirit, remembering his idiotic idea of forgiveness in poetic form.
"Yes, you're right, I think it's about time I told you a bit more, ask questions, I'll do my best to answer each and every one of them," replied the spirit meekly, that he had been expecting such a development for a couple of weeks now. And his previous excuses had been looking faded and strained for quite some time now.
- Your name? - Azula asks decisively, going to extract as much information from the spirit as possible.
"Ah, what a cliché. My name... the name given to me at birth. When I was still an ordinary human. It has no meaning to me now that I'm already dead. Honestly, I wish you'd give me a new name, but to be honest. At my birth, I was given the following name "Own the World"(It was written in Chinese, I was told it was forbidden.). That's what it would sound like in your language," the spirit calmly explains, causing the princess to be greatly surprised.
- Somehow that's overconfident. Overconfident even by my family's standards. What kind of ego and narcissism do you have to have to give a name like that? Or was someone trying to compensate for something? - The girl suggests snidely.
"You wished for a name, I gave you one. I would be grateful if you could think of a new one for me, I don't like my old one, and it only belonged to a man, when now I am something more."
- Yeah? It doesn't sound like you're anything more than human. Maybe less? You can't even leave my body.
"We all have our faults. Ask your next question," the Spirit replied in a tired voice.
- 'Okay, I want to ask you a lot of things...'.
Afterwards, the princess began to ask the questions that interested her. During their acquaintance with the spirit, they had accumulated enough of them. And now, she had chosen the right time, found the right arguments and learnt the character of her body mate enough to shed light on all the secrets.
Her unwilling housemate's goals were simple - he badly desired a new body. The spirit with the extremely pathos and pompous name was also very interested in magic and inner energy management. He was interested in many things in the world. He planned to take a little trip to the lands of the Fire Nation, to gain wisdom and see the human world along the way. And since he was trapped in her body, he was going to travel with her and see the world through her eyes.
Somewhere their goals coincided, and somewhere not. However, the girl was in no hurry to express her opinion, pulling long-awaited answers from her disembodied acquaintance.
The spirit was reluctant to talk about himself, but he did. Azula only learnt that he was an ordinary man, well versed in spiritual practices and had performed a special ritual. What he did, what status he had, when he was born and what nation he belonged to, the spirit chose to keep silent about all of this. It was the ritual that allowed him to retain his memories after death, whereas normally memory and identity are lost first after the body ceases to function. The spirit did not tell her more about the ritual that granted immortality, but she did not insist.
Azula saw the disadvantages of such immortality in the spirit's example. She thought it was better to live a short life as a ruler than to be immortal and live a miserable existence as a disembodied creature. She was not interested in either the ritual or such an image of immortality.
She had learnt the nature of the spirit long ago, so she didn't waste her time. Instead, the girl wished to know the details of what the spirit was and how it came to be in her body.
The spirit told her that after the ritual he had lost the ability to feel all human feelings and realised that he was in the spirit world. Another spirit, who looked like a white monkey, told him that he was not in the human world. In that world, few people liked to talk, and it was terribly difficult to navigate. Travelling through the spirit world for an unknown amount of time, her roommate came across a passage to the human world.
From that moment on, he began to explore the human world in search of a suitable body, as he wished to regain his feelings. Only spirits have no place in the human world. The world itself tries to drive them away, preventing them from simply being in it. Her companion had been in the human world for too long, and he had no time to go back. Flying over the palace, he was in the right place at the right time by accident or fate. Because of the fire lotus ritual, he was simply sucked into Azula's body. Since at that moment, all of her chakras were most likely open.
"That's how I ended up in you without wanting to. I don't know how to get out of you, but I think it's a matter of chakras. Open all the chakras and I can leave your body. You can also do the fire lotus ritual again, maybe that will help," the spirit ends his long story with a little reflection.
- Too many coincidences," the girl remarks at his speech.
"I tell you briefly, I can go into all the details if you have a lot of free time. But if it'll make you feel better, I was planning to inhabit some admiral's or general's son. Who no one pays attention to or cares about, but has a potentially good position in society and money," the spirit calmly explains the information closer to the truth.
- I have a few more questions...
He learned about Piandao from rumours he had gathered while visiting the human world. The spirit wanted to reconcile with Azula, so he hastily came up with a simple plan to force the girl to leave the palace, to stop any attempts to get rid of him. As soon as she left the palace, the spirit's behaviour changed and he began to mend their relationship. At these words Azula grinned venomously, remembering that she had been living with an extra personality in her head for almost a month now.
Afterwards there were a couple more questions about little things. The princess needed to put her interlocutor's guard down before asking the really important questions. And so when Azula sensed the right moment, she asked:
- You have repeatedly demonstrated more advanced knowledge, no one knows games and even stories with sayings. Maybe I don't know everything in the world, but how do you know all this? - Concentrating, Azula begins to take careful control of the Qi within her body.
''It's a bit more complicated than it may seem. I wouldn't want to answer that question'' replies the spirit calmly, feeling safe.
- 'That's right, what if I insist? - Also calmly continues the girl, realising that the interlocutor has not noticed her manipulations.
'I don't think this topic is... Ar-r-rrrgh" the spirit's calm phrase was interrupted by a painful growl.
After that, there was only silence...
- Spirit? - the girl couldn't believe that such a small thing could rid her of the parasite.
"What did you do?" - after a little while, the spirit inquired in a wary voice with painful notes. Previously, the princess had only guessed at the efficacy of such a method, but now she had direct confirmation. She could hurt him!
- I just took control of my Qi, directing it to the chakras in my head. How's that?
"Unpleasant... How long have you been able to do that?"
- It doesn't matter now. I just wanted to show you that I can do it," Azula replies calmly, with a hint of authority, feeling her superiority.
"So you were able to hide your Qi control abilities from me. Figuring out where I was hiding, playing a beautiful game. Huh, and I told you, you're a fine actress. I seem to have let my guard down. 'You beat me again, Azula,' the spirit replies in a quiet voice, realising more and more with each passing second that this is his defeat.
- I told you before: you're a bad actor. Answer me where you got this knowledge from and maybe I'll have mercy and keep you as my servant.
"I know how you treat your servants. I do not need such a life, I too have ambitions and desires. I refuse to tell you... Argh..." - Her interlocutor's defiant speech was interrupted by another painful groan. The girl once again used her Qi control to hurt her interlocutor.
- After all the threats, insults, humiliation and other things you've done to me. Are you resisting my favour? Unheard of impertinence. Perhaps because of your meagre intellect, you can't fully realise the dire straits you're in? You continue to exist only because of my desire to get more information out of you," the princess continued to press.
Demonstrating her power over the fate of her interlocutor, Azula wished to hear a note of fear in his voice. But there were none. The spirit wasn't afraid of her at all, even in great pain. This greatly angered the princess, who was used to causing fear in everyone in the neighbourhood.
"Oh... Unpleasant sensation. It's like dipping into a boiling spring. I'm sorry to hear you say that, I was hoping we were getting pretty close to each other," the spirit said with pain in his voice.
- You're a fool if you think I need friends. I've been forced to lie and pretend to you to keep your guard down and get more information out of you. Everything between us was just another one of my games, nothing more.
'You lie too well,' the spirit reluctantly admitted.
- 'Surely you have more useful information, I'd like to get my hands on it. Where are you from? You don't come from the spirit world, your name is too unconventional. How can you have so much knowledge? Answer me!
"I won't, we both know what you'll do to me once you've got what you need," to his reply, she once again channelled more Qi, to her head. The interlocutor didn't scream in pain, no. He simply fell silent.
- You should think more about the present than the future. Answer me, I'll still get my way...''
The princess began to torture the spirit again, repeating her questions. However, the spirit began to show remarkable stamina and persistence. It remained silent, or else it tried to snicker. What's more, he could piss Azula off masterfully. After each use of Qi, the spirit remained silent for longer and longer. But the princess was no longer willing to tolerate its presence in her body.
- Why are you resisting? Just give up, your resistance is futile and useless! Why are you so opposed to becoming my servant? So unwilling to share your knowledge?! Why all this resistance?! - shrieked the girl, impressed by his stubbornness and persistence.
"No-no," a weak, pained voice was her answer.
- 'Then just disappear! Spare me your voice, your presence, your acrimony! Disappear!!! - Azula raged, beginning to torture her interlocutor even more than before.
"Ava-Hr-r-r-r-r..." - The spirit was about to say something else, but only a croak came out.
Silenced soon after, it no longer answered her and did not react in any way to any of the princess's actions.
- Spirit? - Only the howl of the wind was her answer.
Azula tried for about half an hour more to get a response from the demon, but it remained silent. Once she was sure the parasite would no longer bother her, she stood up from the lotus position, stretched her shoulders and inhaled a full breath. She was finally rid of it! It had happened after all, she had won, outsmarted the incorporeal demon, only becoming stronger. Except it hadn't exactly happened the way she wanted it to.
Taking one last look at the scorched spot in the field, Azula felt a kind of longing. Things could have ended differently.
Quickly banishing silly thoughts with unnecessary feelings, the princess went to her ship. A familiar life of wealth and luxury awaited her, one without the chatty parasite...
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