The clearing burned.
Flames crawled across the grass, licking upward into the pale morning air. Steel rang again and again somewhere behind me as Lady Alvie continued her quiet war with the cultist. The sun had not yet fully risen, and the battlefield lived in that grey hour where light and shadow refused to choose sides.
Mist gate, I considered.
But I dismissed it.
Too uncertain. Too many unknown observers.
"She's not doing anything," the female twin said, tightening her grip around her sword.
Her voice carried the casual irritation of someone denied entertainment.
"Then I'll motivate her."
She charged.
I stepped forward, gripping my naginata with both hands and cutting a wide arc meant to keep her distance. At the same moment she flicked a finger.
A sphere of white qi shot toward me.
With the butt of my weapon I knocked it aside.
The grass where it landed ignited instantly.
Fire.
A cultivator.
The realization stirred something complicated in my chest. Excitement, perhaps. Or dread.
"I see," I murmured, resetting my stance.
I made sure to keep the man in view.
He still hadn't moved.
"Mother, she's a water cultivator!" the woman said happily. "She's a water cultivator!"
She raised her sword again.
"Aren't you going to explain why you're attacking?" I asked, circulating qi slowly through my meridians.
"No," she replied cheerfully. "Can't do that."
She glanced back toward the man beneath the tree.
"Isn't that right, mother?"
My attention snapped back to her as she attacked again.
I struck first.
"Scaling Torrent."
My blade cut downward.
"Wow," she exclaimed.
The edge barely brushed her leg, but the contact burned her flesh.
She jumped back instantly.
"Interesting."
Her twin approached calmly and placed a palm against the wound.
The burn vanished.
A healer.
I inhaled slowly.
Fire cultivator. Water cultivator.
"Round two," she said brightly, raising her sword again.
"Oh—sorry. My name is Morgan," she added suddenly.
She gestured lazily toward the man under the tree.
"And that's Logan."
Logan still hadn't moved. He sat cross-legged beneath the tree, calmly circulating qi as if the battlefield were nothing more than background noise.
Yet his gaze never left us.
"What's your name?" Morgan asked.
Her blade remained raised, but her posture was relaxed, almost friendly.
"Why should—"
I stopped mid-sentence, shifting my footing.
I glanced down at my naginata briefly, wondering if a sword might have been easier.
"Heiwa."
Morgan smiled.
"Heiwa," she repeated thoughtfully.
Then she pinched her thumb and index finger together.
"Heiwa, I call this… Solar Flare."
Qi surged.
A concentrated beam of white-hot fire exploded from her fingers, screaming through the air like a cutting torch.
I didn't try to block.
I ran.
The beam carved through earth and stone behind me as I moved out of its path, Morgan chasing after me with delighted laughter.
By the time the attack faded, we had moved far from the others.
"Hey!" she complained. "You didn't even try to parry it!"
"Why would I?" I replied.
I gathered qi into my left hand.
Then flicked my finger the way she had earlier.
The ground beneath her froze instantly.
"Nice," she said, leaping away before the ice reached her feet.
"We should be friends."
She dropped into a runner's stance.
Then vanished.
She reappeared in front of me in a flicker of motion.
I barely blocked her strike.
The path she had taken ignited in flames behind her.
I countered immediately.
My blade whipped across her chest, drawing a deep cut before she could retreat.
She landed several paces away.
Instead of attacking again, she clasped her left hand over her right fist and drove her sword into the earth.
Then she inhaled.
Deeply.
Qi surged into the blade.
She exhaled.
A thick cloud of dark ash erupted outward—flecks of blue light flickering within it like dying embers.
The air darkened instantly.
Vision vanished.
The smoke burned my eyes.
I leapt backward, creating distance.
Somewhere inside the choking darkness Morgan's voice drifted lazily.
"Let's see how well water sees in blue ashes, Heiwa."