GxG 8
"What do you want to know ma'am?"
I am so out of my depth. I thought I was strong enough to deal with whatever mess I kicked up. Lightbulb guy, Kunou, and the kappa were all about as strong as me, so I got cocky and thought I could handle it.
"Why did you get involved? You have no reason to. You're here on vacation as well, so laying low would make more sense."
Ah, she's double checking my motives. Fair enough, some rando saving a princess could always be some triple layered scheme.
"I sensed a scared kid being chased by a grimy old dude, and so I helped. I did want some information on the supernatural so it was slightly selfish, but I didn't expect, you know, a princess." I said, waving my hand towards Kunou at the end.
"Sensed? Sensing of any kind is a skill that takes years at the minimum to be usable." I guess that means my motes have been putting in the work then.
"Yeah, sensed. Kunou was like a little ball of sunshine while that creepy kappa was like a swamp or a stagnant corner of a river. You're like staring at the sun and frankly terrifying."
Yasaka covered her mouth behind her hand to chuckle in a very polite and ladylike manner.
"Thank you, I'll take that as a complement." Yasaka let the conversation lull for a moment before having her disposition shift to a slightly more businesslike fashion.
"So kid, who's your teacher? I can't think of any notable senjutsu users in America off the top of my head." Senjutsu? Is that what this lifeforce stuff is called?
"Uhhhhh I don't have one?" Why would she think I have one? Yeah my motes make me pretty skilled but a normal person should be able to figure this out if they really try.
"What do you mean you don't have one? Just the level of sensing you showed indicates a minimum level of instruction." Uh oh, maybe I'm better than I thought. I know I'm good but maybe I'm pushing it for a wild 5 year old?
I thought for a moment before making my decision. If I can spin myself as a really talented kid to this walking supernova who doesn't want to smush me, I can hopefully get some good information. Kunou liking me is bonus points towards not dying as well.
"Yeah, when I was like 3 I was at the park and there was this mist everywhere. I got curious and touched a bit of it, and it got absorbed super fast and then I got suuuuuper sick. After that I had this heat inside me that I've been playing with ever since. I don't have a teacher."
I thought I was downplaying what happened enough, I didn't even mention my motes or some of the weirder things my motes have done. Apparently I did not downplay enough.
Yasaka has obvious surprise on her face, but controlled it well. Kunou on the other hand has no such experience.
"Ehhhhhh? You absorbed natural energy!? I can't even do that yet, and I'm a nine tailed fox! A whole divine nature spirit!"
"I mean, it was only a little wisp, and I did almost die. Why is that natural energy stuff so angry?"
"That is because natural energy is influence and coloured by emotions." Yasaka explained
"Ok, but those emotions were extreme. I have never felt anything like that." Extreme is an understatement. It was maddening in the way outer gods are describe as.
"Yes, because you do not know war, child. Any positive emotions imprinted into natural energy are overwhelmed by all the hate caused by war. Millennia of mortal and supernatural war has irreversibly tainted the world for the worse."
"The supernatural had wars? How did they hide that? Wouldn't it be common knowledge?" If 'the supernatural' refers to more people like Yasaka, how has the world not been glassed yet?
"There hasn't been a large supernatural war in hundreds of years, and information suppression was easy back when nobody could read and messengers took weeks." ah, that explains a lot really.
"So the supernatural wars caused the natural energy to be like that?"
"Surprisingly, no. Mortal wars are much worse. Every sage and senjutsu user could feel the world crying during world war 2. Millions of agonizing deaths was bad enough, but the nukes that were used damaged nature in ways it still hasn't recovered from." That also made a lot of sense.
"Thank you for the information."
"No problem, but we are getting distracted. What's up with your Ki, boy? That purity and concentration are that of a veteran warrior, not a 5 year old."
"Awww I thought I was hiding that better."
"Heh, to a lesser senjutsu user maybe, but I've been weaving leylines for hundreds of years. I give your suppression a 5/10. At a quick glance you seem like a normal child, but if anyone with any skill at all looks at you your quality of Ki is obvious. Comparing you to a normal human child is like comparing a brass statue to a golden one. It may look the same at very first glance, but it's not." Oh damn. I totally forgot about that, but it makes so much sense.
"Hehe I forgot about that. But it's kept that creepy lightbulb guy in my town from noticing me."
"Lightbulb guy? A fallen angel perhaps?"
Angels exist? I'm starting to think I'm a very itty bitty fish in a large ocean. With that thought I started looking at Yasaka with even more gratitude for not murderizing me.
"So, seriously, what is the deal with your Ki? You don't have a sacred gear since your soul isn't lopsided, so it's not that."
What the hell is a sacred gear. Also, souls exist? I mean I've been practising Ki but hearing a confirmation for stuff like that is nice.
"Um, well if you put your hands like this." I showed her, clasping my hands together so my palms are flat on each other
"And you crash your Ki into itself like so" I did a little bit, with Ki moving through each arm until the two streams collide where my hands are "then the density grows a little bit."
Yasaka had stopped moving and was staring straight at me, but I didn't notice and kept going. It was so fun to actually talk about all this stuff I've been keeping to myself.
"And then if you keep your hands the same and concentrate ki into them, and the spin it in opposite directions you will increase the purity." I said as I followed along with a demonstration.
I had learned how to do these two things from my Ki mote. While I usually just let it grow my purity and density in the background, my mote training does give me the experience of training as well as the result.
It has to, or else the more knowledge based and skill based motes would not work.
Yasaka just stared at my hands, clearly baffled by what I had just done.
"How have you not shredded yourself? The strain from moving Ki around like that should mulch your internals, not to mention burn through your ki to actually perform." Yeah I thought of that too actually, but I got solutions.
"I know that, I was super careful when I started moving my ki around. The trick is in the hands. I have not figured out how to project my ki outside my body, but when I clasp my hands I can form a bridge between them, and I use the small gap in between to do the compression and grinding. No way in hell I'm trying that near my organs."
I was super proud of that trick too. Figuring it out caused my Ki mote to greatly increase the speed at which it functioned. I think it was because it did not have to emulate mutilating myself anymore, which decreased the efficiency.
My motes are much better at training something I can personally do, so figuring out how to do something that was being conceptually trained by a mote in the real world boosts its speed by manyfold.
Yasaka was still slightly losing her mind.
"How has nobody thought of this? It's so simple! No, that's it. It's too simple. By the time someone has the level to control needed to do what you just did, they are already moving onto more complex techniques. They had no time to even think in that general direction, and any that might have had similar thoughts would have done it internally first and hurt themselves terribly."
She was going into a minor tizzy. This might have been more important than I thought. I hope I don't get kidnapped or something.
Her eyes snapped to me "do you have any idea what you have done?" Wow she was getting intense.
"Given a wonderful gift and started a long lasting friendship?" That seemed to make her laugh which calmed her down.
"You sure know how to talk for a little kid."
"Thank you ma'am, I learned from my father." when in doubt, say you learned it from dad.
"Speaking of your father, your parents are almost back."
Moments after she said that the doors to the room opened revealing my parents dressed in a bath robe and looking very relaxed.
"Did you enjoy the bath?" Yasaka was acting like she wasn't just freaking out, but this wasn't the last I was going to hear of it.
"Yes, it was very nice. Thank you for extending your hospitality Yasaka." My father replied politely.
"That's good. It is getting late and I need to put Kunou to bed. I'll see you three tomorrow."
Kunou of course protested.
"I'm not tired at all mama!"
She was promptly ignored and dragged out of the room by Yasaka who gave my parents one last polite bow and closed the door. You could still hear Kunou's muffled complaints.
I just went to my parents side before we started walking towards the door they just came from to go back to the guest wing to go to bed as well.
I might have over shared today, but hopefully that puts me in the 'great ally' category and not the 'kidnap or remove' category.