Study Party

In college there are always parties. I know that the western world sees the Japanese as industrious and studious to a fault. Which is true. But we have always had our ways of balancing out. The businessmen who work endless hours for the company, cut loose in wild drinking binges and terrible karaoke. And in college, there are always study parties.

I studied hard, but I never really partied, not as Agito Tsubara. Miko would sometimes drag me down into the dorm common area, but I found the music and the talking and the crush of people distracting from my books. Maybe I was letting my books distract me from the music and talking and the crush of people. Miko got good grades too, but she knew how to laugh.

Sometimes I wonder why she ever loved me.

I wouldn’t call my learning now a study party, though some of it comes close. Seven Beasts takes me to bars and clubs and teaches me how to seduce, how to lure and entice. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I will keep trying. But much of my new training isn’t much better than the merciless, but calculated, beatings of Terrible Thunder Talons-san. In the bamboo forest carpeting the hills behind the Court there is a range for shooting. I learn how to hold and shoot a gun, though my aim is slow to improve. I am also given kendo lessons, and again and again I am disarmed, cut and stabbed by my fellow Dragons.

It’s not all torture. Seven Beasts and my fighting sensei teach me what I need to know, and seek out my strengths and weaknesses. Each night the katana feels more comfortable in my hand. When I was young I was never swept away by the romanticism of the samurai, but now I think I agree that every boy dreams of being another Musashi.

There are also the disciplines to learn, the supernatural powers of which the Iron Mountain is only the beginning. Already my demon art has been brought out, but now I am ready for the more difficult learning of the chi arts and other powers. I am the proverbial kid in the candy store. Seven Beasts reminds me that our state is a curse, and these powers are nothing more than tool left to us by the August Personage as a way to help us redeem ourselves. I am chastened, but still excited.

It is an excuse to see more of the Thousand Ri Scouts as well. Flaring Grin-san teaches me the first secrets of the Jade Shintai – the art of sensing the ambient chi of the world and letting it flow through me. A year ago I did not believe in chi save as a superstitious word for a human body’s natural electrical field. Now I can see and feel the power that can be harnessed from that energy.

I also learn the first katas of the Yin Prana from the diminutive Shard-san. She is in the middle of a transition of her own, and I must learn to think of her under her new name, Yuki, but she finds the time to share with me. Seven Beasts suggests that the Yin Prana is an excellent lesson for understanding chi. Kyo-san disagrees with her, of course, scorning the motions designed to harness Yin chi. But I have learned much from the Yang Prana, and much about chi from the Jade Shintai, it seems that I should at least expose myself to the Yin Prana. And, as Seven Beasts tells me, it is at least a way to harmlessly dissipate excess Yin Chi.

I am delighted that learning the Yin Prana (the first katas only – though I continue to look for those tantric postures) is not the only time I get to see Yuki. More than any of the Scouts she seems interested in studying with me. Of course Yuki has just begun her own studies as well, so in a way we are students together.

A couple of times a week she comes to the Court, bringing her books. There’s a sadness to her that I know comes from the recent death of her lover, the geisha Kiku-san. She has had to endure the death of her lover twice now. Once when he lover was murdered, then when she passed into the Shadowlands she was slain again by the Empire of Jade.

Sometimes she cries. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never been good with people, never let myself get close enough to really know someone. Maybe not even Miko and Taka. But I try. I listen to her, and hold her. I don’t tell her not to cry, or not to be sad. Her love for Kiku was passionate and powerful, and that should not be denied, but experienced.

But she is gaining a new strength as well. Unveiled Mirror Shard discovered that she had reached the limits of enlightenment listening to the Song of Shadows. Not that it is a dead-end path, just that there are lessons there that she can not learn, and that another road is calling to her; the Way of the Resplendent Crane.

Selfishly, perhaps, I’m glad. She is a passionate girl and that trait would have died inside the Black Metal Egg. Now she can pursue her passions in the betterment of herself, society, and creation. Not the path that I walk, but one that seems to suit her better. Yuki, the name she chose for herself means ‘snow,’ but it also means ‘smile.’ I like it.

We each have our studies, Yuki-san with her Crane texts and me with my volumes of Dragon teachings. But often we can share our knowledge, reading and discussing passages from the ki chuan that all dharma’s study. And Yuki seems almost eager to share knowledge all her own. Information and lore about the spirits on the Yin and Yang worlds, the cosmology of the great Wheel, and all the secrets of the shen she has learned. It’s a wealth of knowledge and I benefit from the instruction she received from the Bone Flowers, who know so much about such things.

In return Yuki-san wants to know everything that I do about math, science, and more mundane knowledge. Given the knowledge she holds I am not sure why she finds such things fascinating. When I ask her a silence descends and it is clear that she still remembers enough of the Black Metal Egg to hide her feelings well. But slowly and quietly she tells me about her first breath, how her mother raised her only to pretty and a good servant to a husband, despite her obvious intelligence. She was even removed from school. Now she has a doctor to question, so I do my best to satisfy her craving.

And I find myself subject to cravings of my own. Not that my needs are not satisfied in my training, but my partners in bed are more like sparring partners, even the mortals that I am learning to clumsily seduce. My interest in Zhizu-san as drifted to the background, an acknowledgement of her beauty and my desire, but it is no longer something burning in the fore of my mind. It’s not that Yuki-san is like Miko was. They have their similarities, but no more than any two, smart, women do. But Yuki is an intelligent women, the kind I like best. When we’re studying I feel myself drawn to her, aroused. I have never shared myself this way with anyone before. It is something like the deep camaraderie and respect I have for Flaring Grin. They are my friends.

My attempts to seduce Yuki aren’t as successful as my pass at Flaring Grin-san. She certainly notices, and I make no effort to hide my arousal, but she shows interest only in her studies. I act with confidence and take the risk of seeing to my need right then and there. I’m not entirely surprised that the sight doesn’t make her jump me, but I am surprised that she neither chastises me, nor leaves my presence. Ignoring it is the one response I hadn’t anticipated. Interesting.

I’m not upset that she ignores me, I’m happy to share my schooling and to enjoy the fruits of her knowledge in return. I’m happy to leave the confines of the Court and enjoy the city with the Scouts. I’m happy to be learning, and making myself ready for the Fire and Water test.