Chapter 31: The Resurrection

One not-so-beautiful morning, I woke to the lustful giggles of a balding, mustachioed Chinese man in a green hat, who was photographing me from the ceiling. And what scared me most was that I'd woken up to the click of his camera, not to outrage, but to fear.

But then I remembered — Hayato had told me about his friend from China. The infamous, lecherous head of the Phoenix Order, the largest martial arts school in the world.

Since my morning was already ruined, I decided to ruin his in return.

"I have two questions for you, may I?" I asked, putting on my most charming voice.

"Of course, dear, anything for you!" Oh, you old pervert, you're in for it now.

"Do you know that in China, a green hat is a symbol that your wife is cheating on you?" I asked innocently. The man frowned, but kept snapping photos. So I continued, dropping my voice to a deep bass and tossing the blanket aside. "And also, that I'm a guy?!"

You should have seen it! He jumped, fell, somersaulted over his own head, and bolted for the yard. There, he ran to a rain barrel and began furiously washing his eyes, wailing:

"How, how could I be so wrong? How can I live now?" Heh, serves you right for barging into people's rooms, waking them up, and taking photos without permission.

"What happened?" Black appeared at the door.

"I think my old friend will be a little more careful from now on. Come on, I think you're ready for the next level of training." As always, the giant appeared behind me without a sound. But I was used to my teacher's eccentricities by now. "If you were any dumber, I'd set up a test for you, but I see you know what you want and won't kill for power, like my former student."

"You had a student?" I hadn't known that.

"Yes. He was a promising young man." Furinji's face darkened. "Ogata Isshinsai. I thought he'd become the successor to my martial art, alongside my son. Then I learned he was killing in underground no-rules fights, just to hone his skills."

"My condolences, sensei," I said sincerely. I wasn't a true follower of the 'life fist' — I thought it barbaric to let people live who'd tried to kill you, and would have killed you if they could. But the 'death fist' was just as distant to me. If you want to develop martial arts, develop them — why kill? All you do is reduce the number of masters. And if an opponent is too weak for you, maybe his student will be stronger.

"Don't worry about it. Now, I'll teach you three of the 104 combat techniques I know. The rest are too complex for you, or don't suit your fighting style."

"My fighting style?"

"You don't notice it, but you're already weaving martial arts techniques into your spells. Remember your apparition behind my back? That was unexpected." It wasn't quite apparition — I'd finally managed to partially repeat my old floo powder trick, and the work on the piercer hadn't been wasted. The idea was to push through not into a needle's eye, but into a full-fledged portal. Since it's so short, the mana cost is low, and the disorientation is minimal. Body saturation with energy and mind magic compensate for the rest. I called this technique blink.

"That was blink, I told you. And it still didn't help against you, sensei," I grumbled. I still had phantom pains from the kick he'd caught me with.

"Of course. But I'm more experienced and stronger. If you'd fought an equal, you would have won at that moment." Hayato disagreed with me. But I wasn't proud of his praise. My goal wasn't to beat mages or masters equal to me, but to reach much greater, distant peaks of magic. Still, I knew every long road begins with a single step. "But we're getting distracted. Masters' techniques aren't just ordinary strikes. All of them use ki to some degree. The first thing I want to teach you is the steel barrier."

"That one?" I remembered the moment Furinji dodged all my strikes and charms.

"Yes. It'll help you not only dodge and block attacks, but also sense any movement and the slightest ki fluctuations. It'll be almost impossible to catch you off guard."

"Almost?"

"There's always someone stronger or more experienced — someone you won't notice until the moment they hit you. The second technique is the iron shirt."

"Is that the one you used to catch all my spells with your hands?" I guessed.

"Exactly. By releasing and controlling ki on your body's surface, you create a universal barrier that protects you from both physical attacks and charms. Of course, it has the same drawback as all universal shields…"

"Cost?"

"Exactly. But after proper training, you'll be able to summon it instantly, without incantations or waving that wand of yours."

"It's a magic wand," I protested.

"Doesn't matter," he said, waving it off. He never liked magic, just like most mages don't like martial artists. But that didn't concern me or Black. "And the third technique, hmm…"

"Is there a problem?"

"No, I just forgot to name it." The giant smiled. Maybe I was a bad influence on him. Or maybe he'd always been like this. "If you want, name it yourself later. The technique is a sharp release of compressed ki to enhance your strikes and break through shields."

"From the hands?" I asked, meaning where the mana should be released.

"From hands, feet, knees, elbows, anywhere. Just don't use your head, unless you want to become a fool. As you know, modern mages have plenty of shields, often specialized against charms or physical impact. This strike has both effects at once, which those shields really don't like."

"So you're giving me what I was missing? Dodges, a universal strike, and a shield against such a strike?"

"I knew I had a clever student."

***

After a little theory, training went like this:

Steel barrier. Training was, unsurprisingly, with attacks. Hayato came at me with two huge clubs. From the outside, it looked like a terrifying murder attempt. But in reality, the clubs were much softer than his fists, and their size made it easier to predict their path. Of course, with my teacher, nothing is ever simple — he ignored the laws of physics and inertia, changing direction at any moment.

Iron shirt. Same thing, but I didn't dodge. He hit me, and I had to minimize the damage by compressing and distributing mana throughout my body. The better I did it, the less it hurt. Simple, but brutal.

And the nameless strike, for now. My hands were wrapped in thick fabric, and I had to release compressed mana through them, destroying a wooden makiwara — but without damaging the fabric. That was just the start. Then came a steel pillar, then plush bears on my hands that also couldn't be harmed. And finally, a titanium-tungsten wall protected by a magic shield, covered in runes and enchanted. I really shouldn't have told him about that alloy.

***

"Maybe we should tell him that this wall is impossible to destroy at his level?" Black asked his friend.

"Youngsters sometimes do impossible things," Hayato replied. A sharp, unpleasant metallic sound rang out, followed by a triumphant shout. "When they don't know it's impossible."

"Damn you, Hayato. Always with your Eastern philosophy. You could have just said you knew he'd manage."

"That's just it — I didn't know. I thought he wouldn't." The two friends looked at each other and laughed.

***

Three months later, while I was learning with Phineas to compose charms from scratch, Hayato appeared before me, holding in one hand a loudly crying bundle, and in the other, a bloodied woman with a gaping hole in her stomach, her internal organs visible. The woman was barely recognizable as Shizuha.

"Black, come here! Check the baby, quickly!" He placed the bundle on the tatami, and my teacher began casting charms with frantic speed. Even in battle, he'd never cast so many spells so fast.

I approached the woman — I'd seen her a few more times after that first visit. She was always happy, in love with her husband and unborn child. I checked her pulse.

"Useless," the giant called out, looking frightened for the first time. Not for himself, but for the innocent child — his granddaughter. He was also in a rage, barely restraining himself from destroying everything around him. "Found her near the gates. Saiga… I felt he was changing, but who could have guessed he'd go this far?"

"Sensei, don't judge before you know the truth," I said, running through options in my mind. "What if I told you I could resurrect your daughter-in-law?"

For a moment, both men froze, eyes wide, refusing to believe what I'd just said. Hayato was the first to recover, instantly appearing at my side.

"What did you say? Say it again!"

"You have the best hearing in the world, you heard me. I can try to resurrect her, if not too much time has passed and her soul hasn't gone on to reincarnation or the other world."

"That's impossible!" Black exclaimed. "I've never heard of such magic!"

"Phineas, our student has already done the impossible." For the first time, he said "our" student — and meant it. "What do you need? Sacrifices, bloody ritual circles?"

"Would you go that far?" Seeing his head shake no, I continued. "That's not needed. I just need a spacious, open place where no one will disturb us. If the charms go wrong, anything could happen. I've only tried them on dead rats."

"Let's go," Black said, pulling a portkey from his jacket and grabbing me with one hand, levitating the girl's corpse with the other. "Let's try. You stay here, Hayato — the baby is fine, but she needs watching."

Furinji jerked, but then waved his hand. Even with his emotions overflowing, he understood that testing some of the most complex charms I knew wasn't the best place for his granddaughter.

"Salt Lake?" I asked, as we appeared on a snow-white plain, flat as a table.

"You're well-educated."

"Just good teachers." The third charm in my wand was a "normal" doppelganger charm. My copy wasted no time, picking up the corpse and apparating away with it. I'd learned to use them better — I could give them commands at a distance and see through their eyes.

"You didn't say you could do that. What kind of charms are those?"

"Doppelganger charms. I haven't had time to tell you about them yet. Teacher, please put up shields."

"Which ones?" Black asked, just to be sure.

"Whatever you know. Last time I used them wrong, only apparition saved me." Brr, not a pleasant memory. And the worst part was, it wasn't an explosion, but some purple gas that killed everything living and dissolved magic shields like a hot knife through butter.

I switched to the doppelganger's vision and ordered him to begin chanting the resurrection charms. I poured two-thirds of my reserve into him, so even with the copy's reduced reality, he should have more than enough mana.

He began singing a long appeal to Inanna, asking her to resurrect an innocent soul. But this wasn't apostleship — just the verbal component of the charm.

My doppelganger began to glow with power, and that glow, after the chant ended, transferred to the girl. Now, either it would work, or the body would be irretrievably destroyed, as in my first attempts with rats.

Seconds dragged by like molasses, freezing both my and Black's nerves, when suddenly, through the doppelganger's eyes, I saw the nightmarish wound on her stomach heal, and a heavy sigh filled the air…

***

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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!