21 – Manifold Fangs

Though he was still early in his years as a cultivator, having only passed a few minor breakthroughs and milestones in his training, Yamato’s qi was still refined enough that he could rapidly recover from minor injuries. The bleeding, the cuts and bruises from his fight with that foreign ape, they had all healed fully in the span of a day without a hint of injury left behind.

Unfortunately the wounds on his pride had not healed, and those who knew the young master best doubted that they ever would be.

He’d been seething for weeks at this point, channelling all his energy into his training. When he struck training dummies he envisioned they were the foreigner, and when he meditated he used it as mental training to imagine defeating the westerner. Even when he ate, and when he slept, all his thoughts were fixated upon revenge.

Of course he and his friends had been tight lipped on what had happened. If word got out that a foreigner had bested him, humiliated him, it would cast such shame on the Snake Flower Sect. Better to have the grandmaster and the senior disciples believe it was some mysterious wandering cultivator.

Indeed, not many questions had been asked. With the Path of Five Swords Tournament on the horizon, those in charge of the sect had their priorities elsewhere. And that served Yamato just fine.

He walked down the misty mountain path, ignoring the chilly breeze as it blew against him. Behind him loomed the walls and pagodas of the sect, lit by the glorious golden glow of the morning sun. If he listened he could hear the shouts of exertion from the younger disciples as they went through their morning kata.

Yamato had a more personal form of training in mind, keeping a firm grip on the weighted scabbard of his katana.

He hated to admit it, even if it was only to himself, but that embarrassing incident had only highlighted his own weakness. The Snake Flower, he would begrudgingly admit, was not the strongest sect in Tsukio. Perhaps not even in the middle of the power ranking, in truth, but he considered himself at least near the apex of strength in the southern reaches of the island.

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“And then that bastard blew in from across the sea,” he muttered under his breath, setting his jaw in a tight grimace. He doubted anyone from the sect was following him, but it was always wise to be mindful of what one said when on Mount Gruai. The mountain had ears, the senseis of the sect like to say.

‘Amon.’ That was the name that peasant girl had called him. A strange name, for a strange man. And Yamato could tell, at a glance, that he was a man with a history of violence. Part of him wondered what he had done out west, what had moulded him into a being so strong, but that prideful part of his brain told him not to dwell on it. Whoever or whatever he was, it was a level of strength Yamato would surpass.

He reached a frost-crusted clearing on the mountainside, from which sprouted a few gnarled trees and an assortment of large boulders. “Right then,” Yamato growled, “let us begin.”

He tossed the weighted scabbard aside, and it landed on a small bank of stones. The sheer weight of it flattened several rocks, shattering them into gravel. The sword in his grasp was heavier, treated with meteorite ore that had rendered the steel both impossibly sturdy and dense.

Yet, even so, Yamato gripped and spun the blade in one hand as if it were made entirely from cotton. He pressed on toward a nearby boulder, one that stood over three meters tall and very nearly as broad. Slowly, he took a breath through his nose and channelled his qi through his meridians. Power burned through his muscles, a shimmering heat haze radiating around him and dissolving the nearby hoarfrost at his feet.