Thank you to my new Patrons who make all of this possible: gra gra, Bob Smith, Kunta
-/-
No matter how much Jin tried to extend the time in his mental workspace, the day, and then the hour until his next match, it came with the same kind of inevitability as a case of diarrhoea.
No matter how much you tried to avoid it, you'd get it eventually. Probably at the worst possible time. Like at the get-to-know-you lunch with your partner's parents, while wearing your most expensive suit.
In a Michelin-star restaurant.
With a partner who had severe germophobia and OCD.
And the waiter was currently pulling out your chair to seat you.
While a camera crew was filming a live-air episode of Chef's Kitchen in the background.
With your own parents watching.
And also your ex.
And her parents.
Jin repressed the memory with the practice of a narcissist forgetting the concept of causality when they were in a situation in which they could benefit more by being the victim.
"What do you think?" Elder Flower asked in the dojo which the other disciples had been training in before they'd all lost their first match miserably.
Jin wished that he'd been among them.
He looked down at the ornate beige robe he was wearing.
Special, this time.
It seemed that getting to the semi-finals was quite the feat.
Enough that most of the sect leaders and people of actual importance only appeared for the day in which the semi-finals and the finals took place.
That meant better clothes for Jin. Clothes he'd get to keep. Alongside the spirit stones he'd won until this point.
If he survived.
If being the most important bit of that sentence.
"Sect Leader Chung is in attendance, as is the sect leader of the Purple Cloud sect," Elder Flower attempted to say calmly, but her energy screamed nervously.
It was nice to see that there were people in the world who caused Elder Flower the same anxiety she caused to Jin…
"You'll win, right?" the woman asked, usually flawless, lush black ponytail askew by a millimetre.
"Uh," Jin started awkwardly.
Two hands suddenly appeared on his shoulders and gripped them strongly enough that he became afraid for his blood circulation.
"You'll win," Elder Flower said again. "Right?" The intense look she fixed him with could have caused a bout of explosive diarrhoea in a weaker man. But Jin wasn't willing to go down that path ever again…
"I wi- will do the best I can," he eventually managed to squeak out. "And if that leads to a win, then I think we can all go home happy."
The Elder's gaze intensified. "I don't like that answer. If you don't have confidence in yourself, then your qi won't respond to your thoughts as quickly, nor will your body move with the urgency befitting of the situation. Say it again." She let go of him and put her hands at her navel, palms up, before taking them up along with her chest. "Say it again, with more confidence," she urged, before pausing. "Maybe rephrase the question," she mumbled. "I know you have a sense of pride," she vaguely waved in his direction, "hidden somewhere in there at least." She squirted her eyes at him. "Really, really, really, deep." She coughed into her hand. "Anyway! I'll ask again if I tell you to get into that arena and win. Would you lose?" she asked.
Jin stared at her, somewhat offended. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He was throwing that match harder than Elder Flower would throw him if she knew that was what he was thinking. The purple cloud fuck actually wanted to kill him. Did she really think he'd risk his life for some bullshit honour code?
But, well, if he told her this, she'd kill him before he even got to that arena.
The scam, the scam of being able to say that he'd really tried, started now.
He needed to collect all his wisdom and knowledge to answer in a way that would make her believe he'd try his hardest.
He opened his eyes, made them sparkle with qi.
He turned around and headed for the sliding door leading out of the dojo.
He put his left hand on the door, above his head and his other hand into the pocket of his robes.
Then he slid the door open and steeled his face. "Would I lose?" he asked in a cocky voice, still not looking at the Elder behind him. Then he turned his head just enough to see her out of the periphery of his eyes as he took a step forward. There was an infuriating grin on his face.
"Nah, I'd win."
A tear slid down Elder Flower's face, and she pumped her fist after her student had fully left the room.
"He's finally starting to believe," she whispered.
-/-
The jeers hit Jin's face like a punch from Mike Tyson as he appeared in the arena.
He looked around from the contestant's platform and saw the circles of stands essentially floating in mid-air over the battle arena.
"Did they add more stands?" he asked, confused, wincing.
"Obviously…" the female Blazing Fire Disciple next to Jin answered. She'd already been here when the Illusion Room entourage was here.
Her arms were crossed, and she was looking dead ahead at the arena in which she'd later fight the treacherous three scythe-wielders. Her red robes were billowing in the wind and flapping behind her wildly. She, too, was an experienced aura farmer.
"Thank you, female Blazing Fire Disciple," Jin replied idly as he sighed.
"Xin Erwa," the girl grunted cooly.
"Bless you," Jin muttered in response, his thoughts already on other things.
"..."
Jin ran a hand through his hair and looked at the stone arena.
None of the trees from yesterday are all gone.
He looked up at the crowd collected in their chained stands, looking down at him with scorn, booing him.
He shook his head. He was probably just imagining it. The crowd was just excited.
"They're booing you," a voice said from his left.
Tian Xuan, the purple cloud disciple.
"They're booing you," Jin replied with an irritated voice.
Tian remained unaffected by his witty response.
"I've been watching your pathetic fights," he hissed quietly. "If you think a visual illusion will be what stops me, then you're delusional. Today, your sect will pay."
Jin had had just about enough of the kid.
"Maybe you will fall for it, how would you know!? How old are you even, were you alive when the thing happened!?" he exclaimed, threw up his hands in disgust and turned around to face the boy.
Tian's youthful face pulled itself into a rictus of hate. "I'm fifteen years old, and as for knowing what happened…" he looked to the left.
Jin followed his gaze.
The sect leaders had gathered. Those whose disciples would fight today, and those who were simply curious about the up-and-coming talent.
Jin could now see where Tian got his facial expression from. The purple-clad man, whom he could only assume was the sect leader of the Purple Cloud sect, was throwing Elder Flower the same look.
"As for what happened," Tian said again in a low voice. "The sect leader is my honoured ancestor, and I was made aware of all grudges we held with other sects from a very young age."
"You literally are at a very young age," Jin said dismissively. "As for knowing what happened. Maybe you can fucking enlighten me, because I haven't been clued in!"
Jin's gambit of pretending he didn't know that Elder Pangzi had sent the Purple Cloud sect leader the horny version of the Monkey King room failed before it could even develop.
"If you think I'll speak of that atrocity in front of so many people, then forget it," Tian spat. "As for knowing or not knowing… You can die ignorant. Face can be regained even with the death of those who know little of the transgressions caused."
"No moral nuance," Jin complained. "Quite frankly, if that's how your sect leader thinks as well, then maybe he deserved… whatever happened to him!"
Tian ran red in the face. "You dare!?"
Jin, who was going to jump off the platform in surrender after throwing a few powerful-looking strikes, shot back immediately. "You think I don't fucking dare? I'm not taking shit from a guy dressed like a half-digested plum! In fact. Not only am I going to cut off your head and shit down your throat, I'll also wipe my ass with your robes, sect crest first. You little bitch, I am literally going to go up on that platform and shove my lance so far up your dick you'll be pissing splinters for the rest of your very short life, you should-be-abortion cum-swallowing fetal-alcohol-syndrome-looking motherfucker!"
Tian's eyes had shot open, and his mouth was making a big O, but nothing came out.
Suddenly, a very loud voice resounded from above.
Weirdly enough, it said the same thing Jin had just said, which was really just very odd.
"You think I don't fucking dare? I'm not taking crap from a guy dressed like a half-digested plum! In fact. Not only am I going to cut off your head and shit down your throat, I'll also wipe my ass with your robes, sect crest first. You little bitch, I am literally going to go up on that platform and shove my lance so far up your dick you'll be pissing splitters for the rest of your very short life, you should-be-abortion cum-swallowing fetal-alcohol-syndrome-looking motherfucker!"
Silence.
The kind of silence that dragged.
The kind of silence that echoed.
If the boos that had been thrown Jin's way earlier had been raindrops, then what came now was a waterfall of abuse.
The world exploded in hate.
Jin looked up.
There were tens of thousands of people screaming down at him.
His qi-enchanced eyes could make out every screaming red face.
And they could also just about make out the large orbital projection showing his and Tian's faces to the stacks of stages going all the way up to form a half-ball around the arena.
He slowly lowered his gaze to look at the stand where all the sect associates were seated.
Sect Leader Chun was looking at him with the wide eyes of a deer about to get hit by a truck.
Elder Flower was looking up, tears rolling down her cheeks.
A man in a black robe was laughing so hard he looked like he was going to puke.
The purple cloud sect leader was so red in the face he could have been used as a main ingredient in a Caprese salad.
"Uhhh, looks like things are heating up between the contestants!" a voice suddenly said, reverberating through the wide space.
Jin woodenly turned to the arena, where a sweating Blazing Fire Elder was speaking into his glowing finger.
"How about we have the contestant step up before it comes to blows in the stands, eh?" He seemed unsure about that, as if he didn't want to share the stone platform with Jin's foul mouth.
Tian Xuan, as if he'd been waiting for that moment his whole life, hopped onto the black chain holding up the platform and ran to the middle of the arena. Once there, he turned, looking at Jin expectantly, and angrily, couldn't forget the anger.
Jin, for his part, walked slowly, as if he was walking to his own execution.
He left like that white-wigged guy in that one film that Jin had seen in that one cinema when he'd been walking slow-mo through the sinking of his own ship. Or something.
"Are both contestants ready?" the officiating Elder asked.
Jin opened his eyes, not knowing when he'd closed them.
Tian nodded like a dog in heat.
More boos. A crescendo. A few broken phrases from the song about Jin, the one about his rotten grin.
"Oops, I said that out loud," Jin muttered to himself before nodding.
The Elder disappeared, and the fight was on.
Unexpectedly, the first thing Tian did was not attack with the sword at his hip, but retreat backwards.
The answer as to why was immediately revealed as a small black flag flew out from his wide sleeve and flew to plant itself at the very edge of the stone platform.
Jin recognised a formation when he saw one. The only thing was that formations were bothersome and difficult to set up; that was the whole point.
He sincerely doubted that an outer disciple had cracked how to set up meaningful formations during battle. Probably the formation had a minimal effect, such as allowing the usage of a certain technique. Anything else would require preparing the field earlier, or the sacrifice of vast quantities of qi.
Nevertheless, Jin had to make it look like he was trying, so he enlarged the lance and charged forward, swiping down with the blade.
Tian dodged to the side, and another small flag flew out of his sleeve and landed on the rim of the platform.
A few more exchanges and suddenly there were seven flags.
Most meaningful formations required eight, so this was probably a good time to just give up.
He could tell Elder Flower that he didn't understand formations very well and that he thought something dangerous was going to happen.
He opened his mouth, going for the verbal surrender since he felt too lazy to jump off the arena.
No sound came from his open mouth.
He tried again.
"Trying to surrender?" Tian, opposite him, slowly drawing his sword, letting the edge rasp on the scabbard. His other hand was held up in a prayer motion, glowing in a black light.
"I'm sorry to say that you lost the ability to do so. A tricky formation, not many uses for it. I sacrifice half my qi, but you can't run away from a fight. Verbally, or physically. It's only good for cornering cowardly rats, but that's exactly what you are, isn't it?" the boy said sadistically, sword now fully unsheathed.
Jin was already discarding the words. The boy didn't have to tell the truth after all.
All formations had more than one weakness. The less skilled the user, the more weaknesses they would have.
Unfortunately, he'd never studied formations very closely, which meant he would have to improvise while fighting for his life against an enemy who felt comfortable dumping half their qi to trap him.
After this, he was kicking Elder Flower between the legs. Woman or not, Elder or not. Some things were just unnecessary, and this tournament was one of them.
-/-
AN: This arc is closing out in a few chapters, then we move on to the second and final half of Skyrim development. Patreon will soon be on Chapter 100! Btw I offer a week-long free trial for tier 1 where you can read 6 chapters ahead on this story and other stories :)