42. Foundation

  Sora nervously touched the crystal and infused it with Qi. Not too much, the grownups who had told her to do that had promised that it didn’t take very much Qi to work and that she only needed to send a little bit. Not enough to weaken her.

  Although since the boy-Atla had healed her, she hadn’t been feeling as Qi starved as before, when she’d first come to this world. That was good, she felt much more at home now. She couldn’t quite figure that one out, except that she’d gone to a healer and the healer had confirmed that the boy’s promise, and the cramps she’d felt at his magic, had actually worked.

  She could be a mother when she was older.

  If she wanted. She didn’t have to, but now she could.

  That changed everything, and it also changed nothing. After all, she needed to pick a boy for a father if she were to go down that path, and all of the boys she knew at the moment were stupid. Some of them were cute, but it seemed to her like the cuter the boy was the dumber he was and the smarter he was the uglier he was.

  It wasn’t a hard rule, she admitted, but it seemed that way sometimes.

  She stepped out onto the sands and made her way to circle six, where her opponent waited for her. He was an older boy, twelve or thirteen she thought, but in a fight like that that only meant that he had a bit of reach on her.

  And he was Majeeshan, like her.

  She nodded. A lot of the Atlian competitors had been eliminated in the first round. Not all of them, but on Majeeshan, this sort of tournament happened every week or so. So the children from Majeesha had naturally fallen right into old habits and felt right at home.

  The boy looked at her, and he scowled.

  “I know you,” he said. “You’re the one who kept me from advancing to the twentieth floor two years ago.”

  She blinked. “You got beat by a seven year old when you were, what, ten? Eleven? Wow, that must have been embarrassing, no wonder you remember me.”

  He scowled, but she grinned. An angry opponent made mistakes. Goading an opponent was usually a good move.

  They took their stances, and the judge—not the laughing man from the sky but someone else entirely—announced the start of their fight.

  The boy abruptly dashed forward and she caught his knee strike with her elbow. He tried to punch her but she blocked him with her other arm, then delivered a kick right to his exposed groin.

  “Three points!” the judge announced.

  She grinned. Boys might be a little bit stronger, but they had one definitive weakness that she was so glad she didn’t share. And one that she’d learned to exploit whenever possible.

  She caught one of the screens doing a replay of the blow and laughed at the audience’s reaction. But she thought that it would be sportsmanlike to allow the boy a moment to recover, so she stepped back and entered her stance.

  “I’m going to kill you,” the boy threatened.

  “Whatever. Let’s fight,” she said.

  He dashed forward again, and they exchanged blocks and punches for some time. Neither were at the stage where they had much Qi for a proper technique, and this was only the second round. There would be one more fight after this for the winner, and they were both planning to win, so they were both fighting conservatively.

  At least, that was her thought, right up until the boy formed a claw and swung it at her. The Qi claws cut her throat, and she gasped in surprise, clutching the wound as she began to bleed from her severed jugular. She realized that he hadn’t been joking, he had really intended to kill her all along.

  Then suddenly she was standing in the center of the ring, a smile on her face that she didn’t feel. It quickly changed to match the horror she felt in her soul at what she had just experienced, but when her hand went to her throat, she found that it was whole.

  “Challenger Errant is disqualified!” the judge announced. “Reason for ejection, Lethal Force was used in violation of the rules of the tournament! All participants, please exit the coliseum, re-attune yourself to the crystal formation, and re-enter. Points will be carried over from before the reset.”

  Then the judge turned to her, even as two other adults came and dragged the resisting boy who had killed her away. “I’m sorry. I should have stopped that but I didn’t realize he would go for a lethal blow. It must have been terrifying for you.”

  She nodded, and she began to cry.

  “You’re advancing to the next round by default,” he informed her. “But I think everyone would understand if you felt it necessary to withdraw.”

  “No!” she said. “I just, I just, is there somewhere I can go to be alone until my next match?”

  “If you think that’s best,” the adult said, concern in his voice. “Let’s go. I’ll let you into one of the rooms that the judges sleep in during the tournament. It should be empty. Just don’t go to sleep, because you might miss your next match. If you don’t show up in time, then we’ll consider it a default, whether you meant to withdraw or not.”

  “I understand.” She smiled weakly at him. “Thank you.”

  He led her into the coliseum depths, and to a small room where there were several beds and not much else. She sat on one of the beds and her hand went to her neck.

  If it wasn’t for the magic of the coliseum, she would be dead, she thought to herself.

  She curled up on the bed and cried for twenty minutes before she began to feel better. Shortly after she had stopped crying, there was a knock on the door and a young woman came in.

  “Hello, sweetie. What’s your name? Mine is Taimei,” the woman said, her voice clearly showing that she had no idea how to actually talk with children and was overcompensating.

  “What do you want?” Sora asked flatly.

  “I, well, I wanted to tell you that I know better than almost anyone else what you’re feeling right now,” Taimei said. “I know the magic that Master Little Bug is using to protect the combatants, and I know that it’s still traumatic even if the wounds miraculously go away. So what you felt, and what you’re feeling, they’re real feelings. You don’t have to deny them, and it’s better if you don’t.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Sora said, although the woman’s words actually did make her feel better somehow. “I know that, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” Taimei said. She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m going to be a mom soon, and when I saw what happened to you I thought ‘what if she were my daughter.’ But you’re Majeeshan, and so I shouldn’t have expected you to just welcome me—”

  “What does being from Majeesha matter?” Sora demanded. “What, you think that Atlians are better or something! Who said I’d even want someone like you as my mom anyway! I’m better off alone.”

  Taimei was silent for a moment. The she pulled out a small sheet of paper and handed it to her. “If you really feel that way then that’s just the way you feel, and that’s okay. I’m not trying to become your mother. But I am opening a school, and with how many of you young kids came to this world from Majeesha, I think that for the next few years a lot of the students will also be Majeeshan. If you’d like to apply, then have an adult you trust tell us how to find you in the future by writing the instructions on this card and delivering it to the post. We’ll take things from there.”

  Taimei stepped out of the room, and Sora kicked the wall in frustration. She looked at the sheet of paper in her hand. It was fancy, and sort of beautiful, and one part of it was written in Majeeshan.

  “The Plum Blossom Lovers, Taimei and Polkluk, whose union is blessed by the Worldfather himself, are opening a school based upon their wisdom found on the journey with Little Bug! Apply now!” she read.

  She almost tore the paper into shreds.

  Almost.

  She put it in her pocket and waited for her next duel.

  She would not be making the same mistake again.

  “Hey,” A boy said, and she jerked in surprise. It was THE boy, the one who had healed her, and he was just suddenly there.

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  “What do you—how did you get in here?” she asked.

  “I’m everywhere. I told you before, I’m actually the world. I am Atla. Father calls this my Eidolon, but it’s really just something I use to speak with people because it’s more polite than randomly asking them questions that they confuse as their own thoughts. And it’s harder for them to ignore me too,” the boy explained, sitting on the bed across from her. “I’m going to make that boy’s nuts shrink and he’s never going to have babies, you know.”

  “He couldn’t have babies anyway,” Sora said.

  “I’ve been healing boys too,” Atla said. He bounced on the bed a little. “I healed him. But now I’m going to make it so that he doesn’t make the things that make babies. Because he doesn’t deserve to be a father I think. And unless he changes my mind, then that’s it for him.”

  “Oh,” Sora said. And she began to realize that the boy across from her wasn’t joking. He was deadly serious. “Thank you for doing that.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve done something like that, to be honest,” he admitted. “I didn’t tell my father, but there are some people I think shouldn’t be parents. So I make it so that they can’t be parents. It’s really easy, if you’re me, to do that.”

  “Okay,” Sora said.

  “Taimei is going to be a great mother, I think. And a great teacher too. You’ll be happy in the school, if you choose to go,” he said. “Father says I’m not supposed to influence your path, but I think it would be stupid if you didn’t go just because you were mad when she offered you the opportunity and took it out on her.”

  “I’m not—that’s not—I didn’t,” Sora stammered, realizing even as she protested that was exactly what she did. She hung her head. “I’m sorry. How do I tell her sorry?”

  “I can tell her if you want. When I’m a girl she braids my hair.”

  “You turn into a girl sometimes?”

  Atla shrugged. “I’m a planet. Planets aren’t boys or girls, so I have to make my mind up.”

  “If you’re really the same thing as the statues everyone is putting up everywhere, then everyone is pretty sure you’re a girl,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why most of the time, I’m actually a boy,” he said, smiling.

  She giggled. “You’re weird.”

  “Yeah, well, you try being normal when you’re literally a planet,” he challenged. He smiled at her. “I like you, Sora. I wish that you were born on me so that I could know you better, but you seem like a good person. I’m glad we met.”

  “Okay,” she said. She considered how to respond for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad we met too, Atla. I’m not sure I believe you about being the world itself or not, but you’re funny and fun and cute. So yeah, it was nice to meet you.”

  “You should go now, if you’re going to fight in the next match,” he told her.

  She looked at the door, then shrugged. “I’m not going to win the tournament anyway. I know that much.”

  “You won’t know unless you try.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. Then she abruptly leaned forward and kissed him.

  “For luck,” she said, and that was how they both found out that planets could blush. She laughed and dashed out of the door, feeling much better than when she’d entered the room.

  She’d talk with Taimei again, if she could, and try to find out more about this school. Sora had only barely been able to make it into the Six Mountain Sect, but she wasn’t confident that was the best place for her.

  Too much structure and rigidity had been carried over from Majeesha.

  Maybe that was what some of her friends needed, but Sora…

  Sora wanted to soar in this new world. She smiled. Yeah. That would be the first technique she worked on when she reached bronze.

  ~~~~~~~

  I was very displeased that my restoration formation had been used in the duels of the foundation realm contestants, but I was also extremely glad that I’d had it active so that it was there when it needed to be.

  It worked on a combination of soul-magic and space-time techniques. It was more developed and many-layered than the technique I’d used while dueling my disciples six years ago, but also more limited. When the match began, or ‘matches’ in the case of the foundation realm juniors went, the arena was cut off into it’s own timeline. If one of the combatant received a fatal blow, then I would activate another formation would would grab the combatants’—and the judges’—soul, then return it to the start of the match, creating a separate timeline.

  It was a very simple timeloop that those outside the arena didn’t even notice, since I was effectively dragging the past into the present and putting the souls of the present into the past. It’s complicated, but I understood how it works, which was all that really mattered.

  For everyone else, let it just be a miracle.

  Atla popped up next to me. “She kissed me,” he told me.

  “Who?”

  “Sora. The girl who didn’t die.”

  “Oh. You went to see her?”

  “Yeah. I’m feeling some ‘complicated things.’” he said, looking embarrassed.

  “Do you want me to split off an avatar so that we can talk about them?” I asked.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said. He looked out at the arena, where the next round of matches was taking place. “I know that the main you needs to be here in case something bad happens again.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder, patting it with paternal pride. “You’ve been growing a lot since you manifested your Eidolon, Atla. I’m proud of you.”

  He smiled up at me, then I split off an Avatar and they went to discuss matters in the privacy of another room.

  “It must be difficult, raising a child that’s also a world,” Tonilla said. She had a look on her face, and I realized that she was remembering her own daughter, who had perished during the invasion of the necromancer, Ant.

  “Have you thought of having another?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have the time, and it’s not worth the heartache,” she said. “Better to leave that to Di Ram’s love wife, I think. I’ll fulfill my role as his first wife, and let our heir be born from the same bloodline as Po Guah.”

  I sighed, wishing that she wouldn’t pronounce it that way. She knew better by now.

  “So,” she said. “How exactly does this miracle which heals any injury work?”

  I sighed again, and began to explain it in great detail while she took careful notes. She deserved the truth, but I was very confident that the official version of the formation’s capabilities would be described as being significantly different than the summary I gave her. I left that in her hands, as the chairwoman of the tournament committee.

  It took a week for the foundation realm matches to conclude, as while the individual matches were brief, it was also the largest of the tournament brackets, with twice as many applicants being allowed for every faction that was participating than the bronze realm, which was likewise twice as large as the silver realm, and then twice as large as the golden realm, and finally there were only nine participants of the diamond realm. That didn’t work perfectly with the tournament setup, but we had decided to go with a round-robin style for that bracket, while everyone else would face elimination.

  To my surprise, it was Sora, the young girl who had died on the first day, who ended up winning. She stood on the victory podium with pride, and she waved at the cheering people in the crowd with a smile on her face, paying special attention to the crystals hovering nearby, which were capturing her smile just right because of her efforts.

  The people loved her.

  My avatar walked up to her and looked around. “I congratulate you all of performing so well. I am very proud of all of you, and while I wish that I could give out the grand prize to everyone who participated, that is not how a tournament works. The grand prize for winning this bracket is a Dao impartment from me, personally. Unless you choose to receive one of the lesser rewards, Champion?”

  “No,” she said decisively. “I want the grand prize. How far will it take me?”

  “It won’t take you anywhere,” I admitted. I sighed, thinking of how to explain it to her. “I am imbuing within you a dao avatar. It will serve as a silent guardian until you reach the silver path, at which point it will become your teacher until you are ready to progress further. After the golden path, it will dissipate entirely. If you are ever in great danger, it will manifest to protect you, but that will weaken it and it will be less of a teacher in the end if you rely on it in that way very often.”

  “But it will help me set upon the golden path sooner?” she asked.

  “Perhaps not sooner, but better,” I said. I shrugged. “How you use it is up to you. It’s your prize, so if you want to risk your life at bronze and rely upon my protection until it’s gone that’s your decision. My avatar will not judge your path, but only seek to understand it and guide you from another vantage that you might not see for yourself. If you’d rather take one of the other prizes, then that is your prerogative--”

  “I accept your impartment, Worldfather,” she stated, interrupting me.

  And with her consent, my avatar turned into mist and took its residence within her body, ready to emerge the moment that she was in danger. Or in quiet moments of solitude, when she sought my guidance.

  It was a small sacrifice on my part. A tiny sliver of my whole, nothing compared to the avatar that I’d sent to Majeesha. But if you shave the coin too much, eventually the vendors will notice that the weight isn’t right. I could give away thousands of impartments like the one I’d given Sora, but eventually, the true me would begin to be affected by these small sacrifices.

  From the box I shared with Tonilla, I abruptly cut off my connection with that part of me. It would return to me in time, eventually. Even if Sora never reached the golden path, then when she died of natural causes it would separate to rejoin the whole. It was a far more handsome gift than she likely realized, as I was literally giving her a small part of myself.

  Which is, of course, the reason why I couldn’t give away such gifts freely.

  The crowd cheered and the announcer shouted out the remaining prizes. The remaining contestants made their selections, as just as with the first tournament the champions were allowed to select from the entire list of prizes rather than having them fixed rank.

  When that was over, there was a parade, since the people of Mer’cah loved parades, and then a three day celebration preceding the beginning of the bronze tournament.

  ?