Sword and Snow

I dashed around the room, harried by Emery’s flying weapons. They were more agile and obnoxious than they had ever been before under the control of her Domain. As the blades assaulted me from all sides, it took all of my concentration to fend them off with my Dancing Snowflakes. And even then, I was still entirely on the back foot and unable to do anything except barely scrape by.

Just over a minute into the struggle, one of Emery’s blades flew straight through one of my Snowflakes, point first, and shattered it entirely. Emery turned the blade aside at the last moment, scoring a shallow slice across my thigh. Thankfully, it wasn’t too deep and would be easily healed.

“Stop!” Vale called. “That’s a solid hit. Take a minute and recuperate, both of you.”

Emery nodded, let out a held breath, and let her Domain drop. The air around us seemed to lose the charge that always came under Emery’s Domain.

I sat where I was in the training hall and began treating my thigh, as Emery walked up.

“You’re okay, right? I didn’t mean to -”

“I’m fine.” I said, smiling up at her as my Qi went to work on the minor healing technique I had. “You turned the blade away at the last second. If I hadn’t been so slow to react, I may have avoided it entirely.”

I met her eyes then, continuing. “Fighting in your Domain is a pain in the ass, Emery. I hope you realize that. There’s something almost suffocating about it, like the air itself is a knife poised at my throat. It’s unnerving and very distracting.”

She looked away apologetically. “Sorry. My control over it is still lacking.”

I shook my head. “Don’t apologize. I don’t like fighting in it myself, but it’s sure to be an asset on the battlefield. And it’s all part of training, right?”

Vale made his way over then, and bent down to inspect my thigh. “Learning how to fight inside another’s Domain with your own suppressed is difficult, and both of you are doing pretty well. You’re regularly lasting a full minute or more, which is a good start. And your leg looks alright, Avuri. Just finish your healing.”

“It’s not good enough though, is it?” Emery asked. “It doesn’t matter how long we can last before taking a hit if we can’t disrupt our opponent to get our own Domain back up.”

“You’re both right and wrong.” Vale said, as he stood and turned to address Emery directly. “Yes, if you’re locked into a fight with someone who has somehow taken over the space with their Domain, you’re as good as dead if you can’t disrupt them enough to get your Domain back in place.”

“However,” I picked up, having heard this whole spiel several times already. “If we’re in a situation like that, running away and getting outside their area of influence is likely the better option. Especially if we’re fighting as a team and can cover each other’s retreat.”

Vale nodded, looking pleased. “At least one of you listens.” He said, eyeing Emery carefully. “Even in the situation I’m having you both train under, eighty percent of the time, you’re going to be in a fighting retreat to escape the enemy’s Domain rather than fighting to disrupt them. It’ll almost always be easier to cover a retreat than fight against a Domain without your own.”

“Of course, we should really just do our best to make sure our own Domains never go down.” I said tartly, thinking of the pain endurance training we had been undergoing the last couple weeks. Trying to toughen myself to the point where significant pain didn’t disrupt my concentration was some of the worst training I had ever undergone.

“While you’re right, sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it and your Domain will be overpowered. Training for those situations is important, too.” Vale said. “Thus this exercise.”

“At least this isn’t all new training.” Emery said.

“For you maybe,” I interjected, “I’ve never undergone any sort of pain endurance training. You may make it look easy, but it’s really hard on me.” I let my hands fall away from my now healed cut, and my face fell as well. “I’m just not used to it. And I’m not good at it, either.”

Emery took a step closer, and crouched down, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Trust me, Avuri, I may be good at pain tolerance, but the way I built it up isn’t something I would wish on anyone. Least of all, you.” I could hear the smile in her voice, but didn’t look at her.

“I get that,” I said, bitterly. “But it doesn’t change the fact that my concentration is probably too easily disrupted for me to be an asset in whatever fight we’re about to pick. I’m going to be a liability if I go with you at this rate.”

“I don’t think that’s true, actually.” Emery said, then she chuckled awkwardly. “I had actually worried about that before. I had thought I’d need to convince you to stay behind or otherwise work in a support role, but I’m not so sure about that anymore.”

“How do you figure?” I asked, finally meeting her eyes. She looked oddly determined. “Building up a tolerance to pain takes time. Far more time than we have. There’s a chance that if I take a single bad hit I’ll lose my Domain. And that would be dangerous for both of us, given we both know you would fight to defend me.”

Emery’s counterpoint seemed to come from nowhere. “I think we’ve been spending too much time focused on training, and you’ve forgotten how live fights work. And what your strengths are.”

I just stared at her, confused. “Meaning?”

“Vale?” Emery turned to face her father. “Can you come outside with us to the playground? I need a lot more space to make my point, I think.”

Vale’s eyes seemed to light up. “Sure. Lead the way.”

With a nod, Emery took me by the hand, helped me up, and led me out of the house’s training room and toward the large playground outside. She chattered as we walked.

“We’ve gotten too focused on what amounts to white room math and not actual combat. Yes, it’s all been very important lessons as well as very useful training. However, we haven’t gotten to actual live combat practice, and I think that’s been severely to your detriment.” Emery spoke quickly as we walked.

“There’s two main things we haven’t touched on yet. And I think they’re going to be your greatest strengths - at least until you’re more used to pain tolerance training and all that, yeah?”

I just nodded dumbly as she pulled me along, trying to process what she was saying. It didn’t take me long to at least realize that, yes, everything we had focused on up until now was so all-consuming of my thoughts that I had basically put blinders on when it came to actual combat skill. The long days of training and lack of rest and relaxation had seen to it that my mind was not functioning at its best right now.

“First off, we’ve been so focused on our ability to fight in single combat that we’ve more or less ignored everything else. And on top of that, it’s only ever you and I fighting - and I’m a very poor match up for you. In a one on one fight, many of my abilities are nearly direct counters, or at least direct matches, to yours. My blades are quite literally made to cut through defenses, so your armor and snowflakes are things I’m well equipped for, and your Blizzard Dragon is too large an attack for you to utilize in the space we’ve been fighting safely.”

Emery just kept on talking as we approached the playground. “And I think the second advantage you have is one that we haven’t been able to see in practice at all yet, given the small practice room.” Emery smiled widely as she dragged me to the center of the playground. “I don’t actually recall if we’ve even mentioned it to you.” Then she motioned me forward. “Avuri, call your Domain. And I mean fully.”

Then she stammered. “And by that, I mean fully extend it. Don’t try to freeze us all to death.” She said with a chuckle.

I tilted my head questioningly, but closed my eyes and did as she said. With a thought, my Domain burst forth, rushing out to cover the two of us. Then the whole playground. And it kept going.

Vale walked up then, eyes closed. “Your standard range without extra effort is close to a hundred meters, Avuri.” He was smiling warmly. “The average coverage for a newly minted Sky Realm Cultivator is about thirty meters.” He stood proudly, with his arms crossed. “And just to be extra clear, even with dedicated training, a hundred meter range is strong, even into the Heavenly Realm.”

I was struck dumb, only able to listen as Emery picked up where he stopped. “That range of yours is a huge asset on the field. It must come from your expanded Qi coverage abilities.” She walked over to me and put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. Though she had to stand on her tiptoes to do so. “You’re going to be an absolute menace, as long as we fight together. I’ll be your sword and shield. You just need to swing me at the right targets, and I’ll keep you safe.”

I took that in for a moment and processed all of that. Then I laughed, and shoved Emery playfully. “Oh, that was bad, even for you.” I said through my laughter. Emery took the shove well, just smiling back at me warmly. “But thank you.”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet.” She cautioned, turning to Vale. “I had a terrible idea in mind for us to practice, and I’m pretty sure we’re both going to hate me by the time we’re done.”

I followed her gaze to Vale, seeing him stretching out his neck and limbs.

“You want to practice your teamwork, right?” He said, lightly. “I’ll keep myself roughly around your levels to give you good practice. I’ll make it harder as we go.”

“Just to be clear,” Emery said, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Vale is a terrible match up for both of us. He knows practically all of my tricks and forms, and his fire Qi is a good counter for your ice, given he’s just simply stronger than both of us.”

I swallowed, steadying myself for this fight. “So? What’s the plan?”

“Generally?” Emery asked, with a big shit-eating grin. “You get in his way as much as possible. Hamper his movement, throw him off, do whatever you can. I’ll stay on top of him and keep him pinned. With you giving me openings as much as possible, we might have a chance to at least impress him.”

“No chance we can win, huh?” I laughed.

“Not a chance in hell.” Emery responded, her grin growing wider. “But it’ll be fun. And good practice.”

I stretched a little to limber up, and settled my concentration on my Domain, solidifying its existence in the area. As I did so, I felt Vale’s Domain erupt from him. It ripped open a hole in my Domain, allowing his Domain to take over the area around him, despite mine still surrounding it.

“Well…shit.” I said, as I actively made room in my Domain for Emery’s to coexist with it.

She looked back at me, her wide grin replaced with a goofy, lopsided one.

“Try not to let me die, please?”