“If you can understand what I am saying, reach out and touch my left hand.”

The presumably sentient blob of slime did not respond to Jia in any meaningful way. Elementals were supposed to be intelligent, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to get this one to communicate. At the very least, it seemed relatively harmless as it followed her around everywhere. It was a first stage cultivator, which theoretically made it dangerous to any mortal, but it hadn’t shown any hostility so far, and she was confident that she’d be able to stop it if it tried anything. It still made her a bit uncomfortable having it around her mortal family members, though.

Jia gave up trying to understand the mud elemental for now, as it was almost time for her to return to her training. After the ‘visit’ from the elementals, Jia had renewed her focus on getting stronger. She had fallen into a bit of a rut since she had already reached the peak of the third stage along with Eui, and mastered most of the techniques that they had access to—but that was just complacency. There were plenty of ways that she could get stronger without breaking through.

To that end, she had spent the last few weeks constantly studying formations, practicing Kaede and Rika’s techniques, and trying to manipulate divine essence. Her friends’ techniques didn’t come as easily to her as she’d expected. Jia had gotten reasonably good at creating illusory projections, but struggled to give them substance like Rika did. Likewise, while she could alter her weight a little bit, it took a great deal of concentration, and she could only manage it if she spent some time altering the flow of ki in her body to match the element of Gravity.

Her martial arts master, Ienaga Yumi, had once demonstrated to her total mastery of several different techniques with completely different elements, instantly switching between them without any sign of effort on her part. Jia longed for that same flexibility—to have a tool for every occasion. There had been many times where her lightning had been insufficient, or Eui’s destruction too overwhelming or dangerous. After two years of studying every technique available to her, Jia understood Jianmo’s suggestion. The more tools she had, the more difficult she would be to neutralize entirely. She’d been applying that principle to spiritual arts—but been neglecting martial arts and magic in the process.

Finally, there was one other aspect she’d been neglecting. A small thing which had nevertheless proven extremely useful over the years. Her personal artifact, the Claws of Heaven and the Fist of Earth, remained incomplete, and while she wasn’t certain it would ever truly be finished, Jia had thought of a few ways to improve it. Which was why she was meeting Rika and Eui in her training courtyard for another joint meditation session while Ja Yun watched over the elemental.

“I’m surprised, Yoshika. After last time, I thought you two were too weirded out to try this again.”

Eui shrugged dismissively at Rika’s comment.

“Eh, it was weird, yeah, but weird is sort of what we do at this point.”

Jia nodded in agreement.

“Besides, that simulacrum technique has a ton of potential, but I haven’t been able to make any progress with even your normal Hundred Mirrors technique.”

Rika covered her face and groaned.

“Please don’t call it that. I regret the name already.”

Eui grinned sardonically.

“I dunno, I think it’s kinda cool.”

Jia shook her head as she interrupted.

“We’re getting off track. The point is, we’re ready to try again if you are. I think there’s still a lot we can learn.”

Rika flashed her a thumbs up.

“Sounds good to me!”

A few hours later, Yoshika sat in meditation, her three bodies sitting in a circle with their hands joined. She regretted not coming up with a better name for this particular triumvirate version of herself a little bit, but if this sort of joint meditation with her friends ever became commonplace, she’d probably drive herself mad, coming up with names for every different version of herself. For now, the fact that Rika had come up with the name Yoshika in the first place was good enough for her.

Yoshika had two main goals for this session, and as fate would have it, she could do both at the same time. The first goal was the improvement of her personal artifact, which was easier said than done. Since Rika wasn’t fully integrated into their nature as a gestalt entity, Yoshika could only maintain her current state through constant meditation—not exactly ideal for doing a bit of craftsmanship in the meantime.

Luckily, that was a problem she already had a solution for. Her second goal was to delve deeper into her simulacrum technique, so that she could hopefully learn to replicate it—or parts of it, at least—without being in triumvirate form. Thus, the plan was to recreate her simulacrum once again, and use that simulacrum to enhance the gloves.

It took her a moment to unjumble her memories and piece back together the snapshot of herself that she had originally created. That memory had been split between her three aspects, and while Rika had been trying to practice Absolute Awareness a bit on the side, she hadn’t made much progress with it yet. Ja Yun had been very helpful in guiding her through the mental training, after a bit of coaxing.

Yoshika’s faces all heated up a bit at the thought of just what kind of coaxing Rika used on Ja Yun. She regretted the thought immediately—it felt like a violation of privacy, but even worse, it triggered a variety of associated memories. She recalled Jia pushing Eunae to open up to Rika about her feelings—something she hadn’t intended to discuss with Rika—and now realized how irresponsible that had been, considering her burgeoning relationship with Ja Yun.

Suddenly, Yoshika’s thoughts were such a confusing mess that her joint meditation was nearly disrupted entirely. The one thing her aspects seemed to agree unanimously on was that Jia was in need of a stern lecture on privacy. She tried to put aside thoughts of attractive girls, relationships, and the various intersections between them in order to focus on her original purpose.

With a few calming breaths, Yoshika called forth the mental snapshot of herself. It was a shallow, half-baked thing. Though Jianmo had said it was easy to copy a mind, she had clearly been exaggerating. The mental snapshot barely scratched the surface of who she really was, and probably wouldn’t even be able to function properly if left to its own devices in a simulacrum. The trick was that as long as she maintained a connection to it, the simulacrum could draw on that connection to fill in the many missing pieces of itself until it was completely indistinguishable from a perfect copy.

The mind prepared, Yoshika next focused on the body. Rika’s Hundred Mirrors technique created complex fusions of illusory Mist and solid Force as the basis for her doppelganger bodies. They required a significant investment of essence, and a piece of her foundation in order to remain stable. Once created, she could summon or dissipate them at will, keeping their essence stored inside of her dantian. It made them less expendable than one might think. Since they required pieces of her foundation, the doppelgangers would set her back significantly if destroyed or otherwise cut off from her. During their last joint meditation session, Yoshika had made one for herself.

As she had before, Yoshika brought forth her simulacrum body and combined it with the imperfect copy of her own mind. She paid close attention to the process, as the body came to life and connected its senses to her own. Unlike when Yoshika practiced the technique without Rika, this body had a full suite of senses, including touch, smell, and even its own mana sense. While the simulacrum was autonomous, if Yoshika focused enough she found that she could access its thoughts—it wasn’t entirely separate from her.

“Okay, so we have a body now. Let’s get to work!”

Yoshika produced the pair of gloves from within Jia’s ring, summoning them directly into the hands of the simulacrum before also bringing out the various tools and materials that she used for leatherworking and tailoring. She puzzled over them for a moment, frowning.

“Normally we work on both gloves at the same time, but we’ve only got one body. Well, we did them one at a time when we had to borrow Yue’s pin, so I guess we don’t have to. It would be nice if we had a second body to work with though...”

With that thought, Yoshika brought out another part of herself. One of Rika’s prepared doppelgangers, which she still had access to. While the simulacrum was partially autonomous, the Rika clone couldn’t move at all without Yoshika’s explicit direction. The difference was stark now that she experienced both at the same time. While Yoshika was naturally very good at multitasking, the amount of concentration required for each of her two illusory bodies was like night and day.

With the barest thought, the simulacrum took a needle and thread, preparing to expand on the formations on the glove before having her own second thought. Instead of the thread, she plucked a few strands of her own hair to use in place of thread. The strands were made entirely of essence—but so were many of the ‘threads’ she’d used in the gloves over the years.

The Rika body followed suit, but only with Yoshika’s full attention. Where the simulacrum moved as easily as breathing, everything the Rika clone did was the result of deliberate effort and concentration. Like tracing a specific pattern on sight, rather than simply repeating a movement she’d done thousands of times. The simulacrum wasn’t perfect enough to truly think for herself—not by a long shot—but it was a dramatic difference, and already Yoshika was imagining ways that Rika might be able to implement the effect in her Hundred Mirrors technique without having to completely master Absolute Awareness.

She set aside those thoughts for later, as she focused on the task in front of her. The Claws of Heaven and the Fist of Earth were, in their own way, a part of Yoshika. They encompassed who she was, and who she wanted to be. They represented the ways in which she was both a collection of individuals, and a single comprehensive whole. Already the complex formation woven into the gloves had aspects of Jia, Eui, Heian, and Yan Yue. The power that they granted reflected each of those aspects—channeling lightning and destruction through vessels not normally prepared for the volatility of those elements, and combining opposing forces into a unified whole.

But that was far from the totality of what made Yoshika who she was. Her hands moved on their own as she expanded the pattern to include Rika’s competitive streak, her desire to grow past her peers and have them pass her in turn. Pushing each other to become stronger. Rika was kind and gentle, but also brash and forceful. She broke herself apart in order to bring people together.

At the same time, another pattern that had been stirring in Yoshika’s head emerged. Dae. Yoshika’s memories of Dae were all over the place. She had liked and trusted him, been jealous and envious of him, occasionally angry at him, and at times even pitied him. The one thing that all of her aspects could agree on, however, was his genius. Dae was as brilliant a mage as they’d ever met. A scholar and a duelist, loveable and loyal, and almost concerningly selfless.

He had shown Yoshika that there was more to formations than just patterns and understandings. That the world of the spirits wasn’t just another layer of reality overlaid on top of the physical realm. With his insights as a basis, Yoshika began to see how the physical and spiritual worlds existed in harmony with each other. Not truly separate worlds at all, but simply unseen dimensions of each other.

The patterns of his brilliant formation made up the basis for the new additions to the embroidery, but neither Rika nor Dae were simply being appended to the pattern. With each stitch it became clearer that each piece empowered the others—every addition expanded on the principles of what it meant to be Yoshika. The threads weaved in and out of each other in a tangled web of relationships, yet each piece had its place and purpose—each stitch fit together in a purposeful pattern.

By the time Yoshika was finished, the artifact practically thrummed with power. She wouldn’t know what the gloves were capable of without experimentation, but her mind was swimming with possibilities.

“Yoshika!”

She was snapped out of her reverie by the urgency of Kaede’s voice calling her name. Hadn’t she left Kaede back at the embassy? What was going on? She blinked up at the red-haired princess in confusion, realizing that her sister and parents had also gathered around her with expressions of concern on their faces.

“What? What’s wrong? How long have I been working?”

Kaede rubbed at her face and sighed with exasperation.

“About a day, but that’s not the problem. Look.”

Kaede pointed up at the sky, and Yoshika followed her gaze. She didn’t see it at first, but on closer inspection the tiny speck in the sky grew more and more obvious. Her blood ran cold as she looked even closer. High up, impossibly high in the sky, an ominous thundercloud hung, slowly gathering power. On some intuitive level, she could feel its focus on her—a heavenly tribulation just waiting to unleash punishment for her actions.

What had she done?