Chương 19: Chi

Having already changed into his everyday clothes, Kurisu waited as Kenji pulled a hoodie over his head.

"During the mathematics class, your reaction was commendable," Kurisu said, the phone in his hand decoding the audio. Looking away, Kenji rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah, I almost punched you. Sorry. It just happened." With a grunt, Kurisu gave a short nod.

"Come to my house." Kenji frowned.

"Your house? Why?"

"For training, of course. The wolf inside you is drunk. It requires additional guidance." Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Kenji let out a sigh.

"Great. My inner wolf is a drunk. Fine. But if you make me run laps, I'm leaving." Kellevra sat perched on the patio steps with a juice pouch clutched in his hand, his eyes wide as he watched the two older boys step onto the grass.

"Are you guys gonna fight?" Kellevra chirped, his voice high with excitement.

"Are you doing Kung Fu or Taekwondo?" Glancing from the younger boy to Kenji, Kurisu frowned.

"Kung Fu? Taekwondo? What manner of things are these?" Kenji blinked, pausing in the middle of the yard.

"Dude, you don't know? They're martial arts. Fighting styles. I'm a black belt in Taekwondo." Processing this unfamiliar terminology for a moment, Kurisu gave a slow nod.

"Demonstrate." Shifting his feet, Kenji settled into a bladed stance, his hands held high and his knees slightly bent. Pinching his chin, Kurisu slowly made his way around the boy. Stepping in, he poked Kenji's shoulder, then his hip, before delivering a kick to Kenji's calf, just hard enough to make him stumble.

"Inadequate. Tepid. Weak. You lack foundation. Your center sits too high. Sink deeper." Regaining his balance, Kenji crossed his arms.

"Oh, so you're a Taekwondo master too! Well, how do you do it? What do you use, Mr. Perfect? Karate?" Kurisu shook his head, the words meaning nothing to him. Widening his stance, he dropped his weight into a low squat, settling his hips and anchoring his center of gravity." Ryūshuhō."

"Ryūshuhō?" Kenji asked, tilting his head.

"Where's that from?"

"It is the martial doctrine of the Nodaichi clan. It encompasses all bujutsu, the mastery over nature's elements, and the process of converting Chi into Ki." Kurisu pointed a finger toward his own navel.

"Previously, I spoke of the Tanden. This is where we gather and house our Ki, as I told you before." Nodding slowly, Kenji replied.

"Right, yeah. The muscle I have to keep under control."

"Just so," Kurisu confirmed. Moving his finger upward, he pointed at his chest.

"Next, we have our hearts. Within our heart resides our Chi."

"Chi?" Kurisu pointed at the grass beneath them, then at an oak tree, and finally gestured at the air they breathed. Covering the phone's microphone with his thumb, he spoke in his native tongue, stressing the core syllables." Chi wa inochi. Chi wa ketsu nari." He removed his thumb, repeating the phrase for the device to translate.

"Chi is life. Chi is blood."

"Now, pay close attention," he said, his voice lowering. Ensuring he had the boy's undivided attention, he continued.

"We borrow vitality from the world. We harbor it within our bodies. Once spent, it returns to nature."

"Yet, you must exercise absolute caution. Should you draw too heavily from your surroundings, the land perishes. Should you exhaust your own vitality... you will join it." Tension visibly tightened Kenji's jaw.

"Okay. Borrow and don't hit zero. Got it."

"And only a small amount!" Kurisu nodded. Closing his eyes and centering his spirit, he settled back into his horse stance, his palms bent face up at his sides. Kurisu inhaled, drawing a smooth, spiraling current of scarlet energy from the air and the soil. He slowly lifted his hands from thigh height to his waist as the light moved up his spine, pooling like mist at his shoulder before flooding down into his right arm where he clenched his fist." Senretsu!" He drove his knuckles straight down into the earth.

The lawn detonated. Dirt and grass geysered upward, reaching several feet into the air. Kellevra jumped up from the steps, nearly dropping his juice pouch.

"Whoa! You made a hole! The phone said 'Flash of Lightning'! What's a Flash of Lightning?" Brushing the dirt from his hand, Kurisu stood up and pointed at the smoking crater he had left in the sod.

"It is a Chi technique passed down through my lineage. One of our fundamental techniques." He then pointed at Kenji.

"Now, your attempt." Staring at the hole, Kenji's eyes widened.

"Mrs. Miller is going to kill you." Kurisu waved a hand dismissively.

"I shall mend it later. Take your stance." With a sigh, Kenji dropped lower, mimicking the posture Kurisu had shown him. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Close your eyes. Look deeper. Peer beyond your Kaki and your Kōki. Search within your chest." As Kenji closed his eyes, Kurisu tracked the boy's Keiraku through his extended Zanshin. The light of Kenji's Kōki mingled with the heat of his Kaki, obscuring his core.

"Deeper," Kurisu guided, his voice low.

"The scarlet orb." Kenji's face contorted, sweat beading on his forehead as he pushed past the surface turbulence to find the red sphere of energy housed within his heart.

"I see it," Kenji whispered.

"Draw it forth, from your chest into your hand." Watching the internal struggle, Kurisu saw the visible tension in Kenji's jaw as the boy mentally gripped his Chi. However, Kurisu noted that as Kenji dragged the energy through his pathways, the boy's control over his Tanden slipped, leaking some of his Kaki into the flow of Chi. As the energy traveled down Kenji's arm, it began to vibrate and change in hue just before the boy let out a sharp shout, driving his fist into the ground with a soft fizzing sound.

Keeping his fist pressed into the dirt for a moment, Kenji felt a wave of warmth wash over his hand, like opening the door of a hot oven, though it didn't burn him. It felt comfortable, toasty even. Pulling his hand back, he found the grass beneath his fist incinerated. A circle of gray ash lay where his knuckles had connected, the edges still glowing with the faint light of dying embers. Kenji stared at the ash, flexing his hand in wonder.

"It got hot," Kenji muttered, sounding slightly disappointed.

"But... no fire? Just ash?" Walking over, Kurisu performed a clinical inspection of the incineration, looking up at Kenji.

"Conjuring open flame is not the initial step in the mastery of your Kaki. Heat must always precede the fire."

"Then why didn't the Senretsu work?" Kenji asked.

"A failure of isolation," Kurisu explained, pointing to the scorch mark.

"You contaminated the Chi with your Kaki."

"You must clamp down on the Tanden and flex the Keiraku independently. It is not unlike the act of swallowing, however the scope includes one's entire form; you must force the energy down in a sequence, squeezing the pathway shut behind it so the surrounding flames cannot bleed into the channel." Kurisu shook his head, dismissing the failure with a wave of his hand.

"However, pay that no mind for now. Diligent practice shall rectify this." He looked around the yard until his eyes settled on a fist-sized rock near the flowerbed. Walking over to pick it up, he weighed the stone in his right hand before motioning for Kenji and Kellevra to come closer.

"The primary purpose for revealing Chi to you is this." He knelt beside a flat landscaping stone and placed his left hand upon it, splaying his fingers. Cutting off Kenji's attempt to ask what he was doing, Kurisu raised the rock in his right hand and brought it down with a crack of stone. The rock in Kurisu's right hand shattered into dust and fragments upon impact, while the landscaping stone beneath his left hand split into four irregular pieces.

But the wet pop of his finger caught in between caused both watching boys to grimace and turn their heads away. Kurisu dropped the debris from his right hand. His left pinky bent the wrong way; the bone had been crushed, and the skin split wide open, oozing dark blood and white pulp against the cracked stone.

"What the hell, man?!" Kenji screamed, jumping back in horror.

"Dude! Are you crazy?" Kellevra gasped, covering his mouth with both hands as his eyes went wide.

"You smashed it to a pulp!" Gritting his teeth, Kurisu held up his right hand, palm out, silencing them both as a single bead of sweat rolled down his temple.

"Observe." Drawing a centering breath, Kurisu drew upon his Chi. This time, however, instead of channeling it for an explosion, he guided the red river with a gentle, soothing intent. It flowed up his shoulder, down his left arm, and pooled around the mangled pinky, glowing softly around the injury. Then, with a click, the bone snapped back into perfect alignment. Open-mouthed, the boys watched as the bruising faded in a matter of seconds.

The split skin knit itself back together, stitching up as if an invisible needle were at work; within moments, the finger sat perfectly straight, the skin smooth, leaving only a faint smear of dried blood as evidence. With his hand outstretched for display, Kurisu flexed the finger experimentally.

"Restored." He looked up at Kenji and reached down to pick up a shard of the rock he had just destroyed. The remaining edge was jagged and would serve well enough to slice through human flesh. He paused, ensuring the phone transmitted his next words with precise clarity.

"I am capable of mending my own flesh. Furthermore, I am capable of mending yours as well." Standing up, Kurisu stepped toward Kenji, proffering the sharp stone.

"Use… Cut…" Scrambling away, Kenji hid his hands behind his back.

"No! No, no, no!" Kenji yelled, shaking his head frantically.

"I believe you! I'll take your word for it! Put the rock down!" Kurisu dropped the stone as the back door slid open. Ace ran out.

"Is everybody okay? What's going on?" He stopped short, his eyes locking onto the hole in the ground.

"Mom—" Ace began with a choke.

"Mom's going to murder us. She just filled in that sod." Grabbing his backpack, Kenji backed away toward the side gate.

"Correction," Kenji said, pointing a finger at Kurisu.

"She's going to murder him. I was a bystander. A victim of peer pressure. I have to go study. Calculus. Very important." Kellevra jumped excitedly.

"He smashed his finger! He put his hand on a rock and smashed it flat! There was blood everywhere! Then he fixed it with the red light!" Turning pale as he looked from the crater to Kurisu's hands, Ace asked, "Dude, what? Kurisu, did you hurt yourself? Do we need to call 911?" Kurisu held up his left hand, flexing his unblemished pinky finger.

"There is no cause for alarm; the injury is already mended."

"Oh," Ace dragged out.

"That's not weird or anything. Okay. I don't want to know," Ace said, looking back to the hole.

"I really don't. But we have about an hour before Dad gets home and two hours before Mom gets back. If that hole is still there, we're all grounded until college." Kurisu eyed the divot; it made sense. His own mother would have scolded him, or worse, for destroying her kiku.

"Repair," Kurisu nodded.

"Understood." He knelt down, placing both palms flat on the grass at the edge of the crater. Vibrating with a low hum, the ground beneath their feet shifted. The soil flowed back into the divot like liquid, filling it as if nothing had ever happened. The torn roots of the grass entangled and pulled themselves upright. Within ten breaths, the hole was filled. Kurisu stood up and dusted off his hands.

"Done."

"Sweet!" Ace yelled. Staring at the patch of ground where the hole used to be, Kenji looked from Kurisu to Ace with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"What the fuck, man?" Hitting his limit, he shook his head, his voice rising.

"The Hadouken fist was one thing. But you broke a finger! You snapped a bone! And for what? To show off? You could have just scratched yourself! A papercut! And now this?" He threw his hands up, exiting through the gate.

"Nope. Too much. Too much for a Tuesday. I'm out." As the gate slammed shut, Ace walked over and poked the ground with his toe.

"Dude," Ace whispered.

"You have to teach me how to do that. I hate mowing the lawn." With a frown, Kurisu tilted his head slightly.

"Mowing?" he repeated the word clumsily. Kneeling beside the ash circle, he pressed his fingers against the scorched earth, coaxing a fresh sprout of green grass to push through the gray soot before blowing the soot away with a flicker of his will.

"These disciplines exist for the sake of survival."

"Survival for what?" Ace asked.

"For war."