Chapter 6

No one said a word. There was only the rustle of paper, the sound of brushes touching inkwells, and quiet exhales. The black-haired students bent over their kanji.

It seemed to me as if someone had turned off all the other sounds. All the students were fully absorbed in their work.

I cast a quick glance at Misaki. She was painstakingly drawing lines, her brows furrowed, not for a second distracted. Behind me, Kyoko was huffing and puffing. I turned and saw that Haruka was also terribly focused; she was completely uninterested in what was happening around her.

Satu's gaze, however, was fixed on something in front of her. But she was clearly not looking at the backs of her classmates, clad in black fabric. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly, as if whispering some kind of spell.

"What spell?" I chided myself. "Here, even remembering a simple rule is better done by writing it than by saying it out loud."

It turned out that my hand remembered new hieroglyphs faster than my brain. Even visually, the kanji were easier to perceive than to understand. And that was a bit frustrating.

I moved on to writing the second column. While the other girls were sketching different options, I was writing a coherent text. An excerpt from the "Chronicles of the Shenghai Clan." My hand seemed to know what to write on its own. My fingers were sweaty from the tension; the brush was about to slip out and fly straight to Koji's feet.

I lifted my head; he was looking directly at me.

What? What is it?

I was just sitting quietly, minding my own business, so why all the attention?

True, both he and Tehiko were watching everyone, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. But for some reason, I had this strange feeling that they were waiting for something from me. And it wasn't a good thing. Was it just paranoia, or was it intuition? After all, I could understand the teachers. No matter where they sent me, Koji always had to deal with the consequences later.

"Oh, wow," Misaki breathed out almost inaudibly. "How did you remember all that?"

I glanced at what I had written. Okay, there wasn't enough space. I would have to flip the sheet over.

"Aska, this isn't an essay," my friend whispered.

"This is a direct quote," I said, unbothered.

Misaki's eyes widened, and they seemed to say, "She's gone crazy again. She was normal for a little while."

I shushed her and pointed to her own sheet. Write and don't get distracted; we'll see later.

Considering that I felt an excited tickle inside, it was clear that I was moving in the right direction. I had a vague idea of how it would all work out; the scale I was imagining was not small, but the images in my mind were vivid.

At one point, Tehiko went over to Koji and whispered something. He crossed his arms over his chest, listened, and gave a short nod. Her reaction didn't seem to satisfy her, but it was clear that arguing was useless.

A strange feeling came over me that both teachers were waiting for someone. But who? And also that they... were a lovely couple.

The last grains of sand fell in the hourglass.

"Time is up," Tehiko said loudly. "Please make your final stroke and think one more time about what exactly you are ready to show us."

She walked to the center and waved her hand; a trail of jade light shone after her long fingers.

"The Ze-u Clan counts the stars," a line surfaced from my subconscious. "Stars... The color of their ryoku is green... Does Tehiko belong to the Ze-u Clan from the Region of Stars?"

Lost in these thoughts, I almost missed how Tehiko, as if playing, easily drew the lines of hieroglyphs right in front of her. They glowed so brightly it was painful to watch.

The kanji hung in the air; the space around it seemed to be dusted with shimmering motes. For a moment, the hieroglyph lines came to life, intertwined, and flashed in all the colors of the rainbow. And then, a phantom temple of the Weaver hung right under the auditorium's ceiling. The walls and windows glowed faintly, and the neat doors were wide open. The temple was, of course, just an illusion, but it was so beautiful and mesmerizing that I wanted to jump up and reach out to touch it.

"Detailing, volume, airiness," I immediately noted. "To sculpt pagodas from kanji like that, you need to study for twenty years."

With the naked eye, it was clear that only a drop of ryoku had been used, but thanks to her experience and ability to maintain the right lines, it looked like it was ready to come to life at any moment. Although... I had no doubt that if Tehiko wanted to, another temple of the Weaver would grow right here.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"How does she do that?" someone next to me breathed out.

"A Master..." someone else's reply rustled.

"Are there any volunteers?" Tehiko asked.

I almost raised my hand, but I stopped myself in time.

The students were cautiously silent. After the teacher's example, no one wanted to step forward and look incompetent by comparison. And the contrast would definitely be there.

"Then we will call you up," Koji said, his face not changing. "It's a shame. Those who showed initiative would have received a reward."

What a bastard.

Someone sighed in disappointment. But I knew perfectly well that initiative was punishable. So it was better not to rush into battle. This was no longer intuition; it was my brain suddenly deciding I should use it.

Tehiko looked a little disappointed and headed for the teacher's table. Her reaction was a bit strange. Did she want someone to bravely rush into the fight? Why? To reward them or to get under Koji's skin?

"Yumi White Lotus," the name of a girl from my group rang out.

A quick girl in a purple keikogi stood up and walked toward the teachers. We were neither enemies nor friends. But what did "White Lotus" mean? If I wasn't mistaken, it was a nickname, as there were two with that name in the group.

We held our breath.

Yumi raised her hand and began to draw a kanji in the air. One second, two, three—nothing. My mouth went dry. Could it really not work?

The kanji flared with a green light and... A few seconds later, a seagull soared in the air. Its right wing was a little tattered, and its beak was partially invisible, but overall, she had succeeded.

A collective sigh of relief swept through the rows. Tehiko nodded. It was clear that the mistakes would be analyzed later. The main thing for now was that it worked.

"Misaki!" her voice rang out.

"Good luck," I whispered to my friend.

She bit her lower lip, shook her hair decisively, and walked toward the teachers. I clenched my fists and was nervous for Misaki. So when a silver flower bloomed, I almost clapped my hands.

The girls went one after another. Some were better, some were worse, but everyone managed. Haruka created a real naginata—a mix of a long sword and a spear. I couldn't swear that the weapon was executed according to all the rules, but it looked great.

Misaki sighed quietly beside me:

"What an idiot. Why didn't I think of that?"

Well, yeah, she wanted to become a Blade Master. On the other hand, it wasn't a given that the kanji would have obeyed her. So it was better to create a beautiful lily than an unfinished sword.

"Aska!" Tehiko's voice was a little sharper than before.

Or maybe it was just me imagining things; outwardly, the teacher seemed calm. But she kept glancing at Koji. May a tsumi take his sour face.

The students from both groups were looking at me. The black and purple keikogi merged into one, frozen like brushstrokes on a huge painting. I knew that nothing might work. But it... it would work.

I raised my hand. Slower than my predecessors. Someone audibly exhaled. I didn't care; accuracy was important to me. And as soon as the first dot was placed, so would the speed. Because the ryoku had to flow into the finished kanji, not bring a part of it to life.

I took a deep breath. My blood seemed to race through my veins. Someone stirred behind me. Koji? Tehiko?

A flourish. A straight line. A second. A third. Break both with a perpendicular line. A zigzag. Erase it. A square, a cross, erase the sharp corners and immediately connect them with a slanted line.

A silence hung in the auditorium. Everyone was tensely staring. The kanji flowed from top to bottom; the inky-violet ryoku descended from one hieroglyph to the next, filling them.

The first column, the second, the third... My hand was starting to go numb. I should probably practice writing with my left hand too—I would have more options.

"Aska," Tehiko called to me, "that's enough."

"Just a little more," I assured her, quickly finishing the last kanji.

That was it. It was done.

The hieroglyphs hung over our heads, shimmering with violet ryoku. Nothing happened. I frowned slightly. Something was wrong. Was it not working?

A snicker came from the back row.

"Aska decided to make a hieroglyph from a hieroglyph, not an object from one!" Satu's voice rang out.

More snickers. Misaki was looking at me with concern, and Haruka was frowning.

The kanji flashed and then fell to the floor like ashes.

F-f-fantastic.

Koji's gaze was burning my back, and Tehiko was silent. Damn it all... How could it...

The ground under our feet began to tremble.

The girls spun their heads around. The floor was visibly turning into dry earth and cracking. A rumble came from somewhere, as if a herd of horses was galloping.

And then...

The window glass shattered. Hands with torn flesh appeared from the cracks and grabbed the girls' ankles. Screams and cries could be heard.

A hurricane-force wind blew from all sides, preventing us from running. From the wall behind the students, riders in ancient armor flew into the auditorium. Their faces were covered with masks; in their hands were axes, spears, and long swords.

The wind howled; someone knocked me off my feet.

The roof disappeared, but a blazing white sun and circling vultures could be seen.

The screams of the dying rang out.

The smell of blood, iron, and death hit my nose.

Red banners waved; violet ones laid in mourning; white ones lay on the bodies of the dead.

More and more cracks appeared on the ground. The earth split; the wounded groaned; the advancing army shouted. And then everything shook so much that people fell from their horses, and the horses, with a wild neigh, fell into the cracks. And slowly, very slowly, as if waking from a long, long sleep, curved creatures rose from the cracks. They also wore armor, but it was rotten and time-eaten; no faces remained, only the entire abyss of Timelessness in their empty black eye sockets.

They had come at someone's call. Bony hands pressed against their chests where the clan's emblem was drawn on their armor. And then the sound of a war horn was heard, and all those who had climbed out from under the earth rushed at the warriors.

A triumphant howl was heard, as if those who had long been held captive by the earth had been freed.

And then everything shuddered. Once, twice, as if a huge hammer was striking the sky. Golden kanji and crosses flashed from all sides. Stop! Stop! Stop!

"Aska!" Tehiko screamed. "Recall the ryoku!"

A crazy laugh was rising from somewhere inside me. Recall it? I've only just begun!

"Aska!!!"

The gold merged into a single stream; it pushed back the warriors and creatures; it destroyed the sun and muted the war horn.

Strong hands grabbed me and gave me a good shake. I lost my concentration.

And then a torrent of horrible ryoku erupted, black and viscous, ready to destroy. It was darkness. Terrifying, endless, impenetrable.

The world shattered into pieces, and I would have fallen to the floor if I hadn't been held up.

"What's going on here?" someone's voice rang out.

Before I blacked out, I managed to understand two things: the voice was unfamiliar to me, and its owner was furious.