Jingyi Bo’s extended finger wavered as she realised what she had been pointing at. It had been a rabbit, as she surmised out of the corner of her eye, but this wasn’t an ordinary rabbit - this was a beast. For its part, the creature had noticed them too. They weren’t exactly being subtle, traipsing through the trees and chatting away. Bo pointing and shouting absolutely hadn’t helped.

The rabbit stood about knee high on all fours and made a soft jingling noise as it breathed in and out - every single strand of fur on its body was a fine thread of steel. It clicked its blade-like claws together as it stood to its full height, coming up to Bo’s chest, and nothing but malice waited beyond its dull gaze.

“O-Okay, nobody panic.” Hoshikawa was the first to speak up, the most level-headed of the lot despite his age. “I’ve read about beasts. This one’s probably not too strong, given its size, but its elemental affinity will make it tough to--”

“I’ve heard enough! Tatsumaki gekimetsu!” Tatsumaki leapt off the ground into a kind of spinning kick, his foot empowered with glowing ki. He made about half the distance to his target before the rabbit leapt into the air straight past him. At first it had seemed a simple dodge - Ryu landed on one side, while the rabbit had functionally taken his place. It wasn’t until Tatsumaki collapsed, blood gushing from his chest, did everyone realise the danger they were in.

Bo ran to his side while the rest of the crew took up uneasy defensive positions in between. Turning him over, she almost instantly regretted having done so. His robe was torn to shreds on the front, as well as his flesh. Thousands of impossibly fine cuts covered his torso where the rabbit had grazed him as it leapt past - looking back at the beast itself, and its blood-slick back, Bo put the facts together.

“Be careful of its fur! It’s razor-sharp everywhere! We can’t afford to touch it!”

Hizashi’s face fell - apart from her ability to cause a blinding flash, she had no means of attacking it. Amai and Hoshikawa were similarly worried, but not as much. Would their body-hardening technique be enough to defend against a thousand bladed wires? Chao, Wang and Youni were not as fussed, as their spiritual techniques were relatively ranged. The least bothered of all was the metal rabbit - scratching behind a floppy ear without a care in the world, it didn’t seem to care much for them at all.

“Perhaps we should get outta here, Bo. Just kin’a back away slowly … ?” Hizashi began to back away. Everyone jumped in fright as the rabbit turned incrementally towards her.

“W-We can’t outrun it, with Tatsumaki down. He’s quite badly injured. Does anyone know any healing techniques?” The rest of the crew looked between each other and shook their heads.

Not even one of you?! Then it’s all up to me! “Keep the rabbit away from me, I’m … um, going to try something.”

“Please, just go on without me …” Tatsumaki put on a brave face, but Bo shook her head.

“We’re not leaving you behind!”

“Please … put me out of my misery, instead of experimenting on me … What a dishonourable way to go ...”

With a groan, Bo got to work. Casting out her senses, she examined the shape of the wound and made a startling realisation - she had never, not even once, looked at a living creature like this. It was an almost sickening overstimulation, of veins pumping, organs working, fluids moving through guts and, of course, blood pouring from open wounds. Shaking off her nausea, Bo focused a bit better on simply the problem at hand. She could see the Heat element ki flowing to the wound, his natural healing factor working to close it just a bit too slow for safety. Likewise, she could sense the torn edges of flesh and how they matched together - it was a small mercy that the rabbit’s cuts were so perfectly clean, or Bo might have needed to get creative.

Flesh was not a material Bo knew how to work with. Immediately, there was a problem with this situation - a person’s flesh wasn’t a singular, concrete object. She had picked up a vague knowledge of the human body from various unfortunate incidents and a week-long stint with a battlefield medic (after one of said incidents), but nothing truly compared to what her senses could interpret here. Even just the skin was an extraordinarily complicated lattice of tiny parts that Bo couldn’t begin to explain - but she could convince them to come together.

Experimentally, Bo used the Endless Steps to telekinetically hold the torn flesh together. She watched as the heat of Ryu’s ki did the rest of the job for her - with the wounds closed, the flesh could knit itself back together. However, the simple act of holding things in place with the Endless Steps necessitated some miniscule transfer. The blood that had been on her hands seemed to evaporate away somewhere (Bo didn’t have time to check) and she was picking up tiny motes of some other unknown material. The technique wasn’t perfect, after all.

Meanwhile, the rabbit was making its next move. As it wound up for another leap towards the party, eager to finish off Ryu (or possibly prevent his recovery), the rest of the team scrambled to stop it. Hizashi channeled her natural ki affinity into her fists and suddenly opened them wide in a sunburst, a blinding flash of light causing the rabbit to abort its jump prematurely. This gave enough time for Hoshikawa and Amai to ready their techniques - The smaller cousin’s skin had taken on a metallic sheen, while the taller one’s body seemed to become coated in dust.

It leapt again, Hoshikawa sweeping out a kick to intercept it. His movements were slowed by the metal ki, but the rabbit was still recovering from the blinding sunlight. His foot made contact, slamming into the thing’s underside and knocking it towards Amai, who punched it into a nearby tree. Blood erupted from Junpei’s foot and Amai’s hand - it was nowhere near as dire as Tatsumaki’s wounds, but the cousins were left clutching their injuries in pain. The tree was faring no better, a huge gouge rent out of the thing. Evidently angered, the beast used the remains of the tree as a springboard and leapt back towards Hoshikawa.

“You’re not hurtin’ my junior, beast!” Chao shouted as he waved a hand. A harsh wind burst forth from his palm, halting the leap in mid-air. Unfortunately, Chao’s weakening winds couldn’t keep it from simply leaping again - Wang stepped forth, mimicking Chao’s technique to hold it in place for a bit longer. However Wang Wei’s ability worked, it wasn’t as efficient as just using a technique normally, his winds petering out too. However, it was enough time for Youni to finish readying his attack.

One of the basic abilities of spiritual cultivation present in Elder Qin’s teachings was a blast of qi - Generally not an efficient attack, but useful for those who didn’t have some other means of using qi offensively. Youni De’s mysterious greasy miasma expressed itself in tendrils, but they were difficult to control - instead, he had been working on a better way to deliver his disgusting qi. Floating in small, wobbling orbs around Youni were glistening packages of Miasma. Having had enough time to prepare, Youni’s eyes flashed with never-before-seen focus and, with some effort, he pointed a finger towards the rabbit.

The creature shrieked unhappily as speeding bolts of miasma smashed into it. The disgusting grease seemed to gunk up its fine hairs, and cause its feet to slip against the ground. The smell was hideous, especially to all of their enhanced senses - the rest of the group took a few steps away as Youni’s assault continued. The poor beast scratched at its nose and eyes with its sharpened claws, attempting to escape the overwhelmingly horrid sensation.

“Heh. Now! Hehe.” Youni held the miasma to it, sickening the beast. A little surprised to hear him actually speak, Jingyi Bo realised it would be up to her to deliver the final blow. There was one thing she had been meaning to try - extending her technique’s reach to just above the beast, she began to crystallize Air into Ice, forming a long spike. With great effort, she maneuvered the point to a soft part of the creature’s neck.

“I’ll hold it - someone drive it in!”

“I gotcha, Bo!” Hizashi leapt with the grace of a dancer, stomping down on the ice shard - with an evil shriek, the creature breathed its last and fell dead. Hizashi landed on the other side, nearly bowling Bo over. Youni snickered, pulling his miasma back into his body for later.

They surveyed the damage - Amai and Hoshikawa were nearly recovered, their ki awakening allowing them to recover with ease from such injury. Tatsumaki was all better too, thanks to Bo’s efforts. Between the lot of them, the limp remains of the monstrous rabbit bled a black, metallic blood.

“Thank goodness that’s over with …” Hoshikawa squatted down to get a better look at its remains. “I’d try and carve it up for materials, but … wait! Jingyi, can’t you use your technique to, I don’t know, tear it open?”

All eyes fell on Bo, who looked mildly surprised. “I’ve never, um, really done anything like that. B-But if I was able to help Tatsumaki, then I should be able to do that. Why would we need to tear it open though?”

Everyone gave her a look - some of confusion, some of exasperation. Youni simply snickered.

“To get at its core, of course.” Junpei looked at Bo as though she was an idiot - an unfair assessment, but not entirely untrue.

“So that’s where they come from … That’s kinda gross.”

Jingyi Bo knelt down alongside the body and extended her senses. It was an extremely shocking sight, compared to the inside of Ryu’s body. Instead of distinct organs being comprised of marginally different materials, or a flow of energy passing through its body, it was entirely made of Metal mana, all emerging from some small central sphere. There was the rough approximation of what Bo might have assumed were guts and organs and what-not, but it was overwhelmingly corrupted by mana. As she tried to pull the thing apart, Bo found herself accidentally absorbing that mana instead.

“W-Wait, no, don’t d-do this now … ” She tried to pull her hand away, but the flow of metal mana had linked with her technique - the rabbit seemed to unravel like a poorly woven garment, its mana-infused body flowing straight into Bo’s aura. It seemed to fill something up - a number of somethings, though Bo would have to check exactly what later. Once the unstoppable flow reached its end, all that was left was a grey orb of metal-flecked glass.

“What in the heck was that … ? That was …”

“Truly, that was quite …”

Chao and Wang had spoken nearly simultaneously, and Bo’s heart sank. She had just magically devoured this entire beast! Such a misunderstanding would surely cause everyone to hate her - she had greedily taken everything for herself, or she was some kind of all-consuming monster herself, or maybe everyone was just disgusted by her technique--

“AWESOME!” Chao shouted out loud, causing Bo to squeak in surprise. “You just kinda vwoom! sucked it up! That was crazy cool, Senior Bo! Is that part of your technique?! Did it power you up?” Before Bo could stop and reply to him, Hoshikawa leaned past and grabbed the orb.

“A Metal core, and a surprisingly good one for such a level of beast.” Junpei looked it over appraisingly, then turned back to the group. He suddenly looked sheepish. “My natural affinity is for Metal, so would it be reasonable for me to ask to keep this … ?”

A general murmur of agreement passed through the seven others. They had all equally contributed to the fight, but splitting such a thing was impossible. It only seemed to make sense that it went to someone who could use it best.

“I, uh, kinda destroyed the materials you were hoping to get out of it, so, I think this should make good recompense.” Bo bowed her head slightly. To her surprise, Hoshikawa put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. She had barely seen the boy smile once.

“I was fairly suspicious of all of you, but the way you all come together has been slowly convincing me that you aren’t just taking advantage of my cousin’s kindness. This battle, however brief, and this peaceful way you deal with the spoils has truly changed my heart. Jingyi, I can tell you didn’t mean to do … whatever it is you did. Another group might have started bickering, but not this one. I’m glad to be with you all.”

A feeling of warmth filled everyone, all their tension dissipating as their camaraderie was strengthened. It was only the beginning of their journey together as friends.

--

Elsewhere, on a distant mountainside, Izumi Makoto surveyed the remains of a battle of her own. She hesitated to call it a battle, however - it was more like a massacre. The crumpled remains of a flock of ice-coated birds littered the ground, their materials being harvested as the odd wound or two was tended to.

The Yamato group led by Hayakawa Kaede had set off early and with purpose, crushing each and every beast in their way. Hayakawa herself was a force of nature, destroying lesser beasts singlehandedly, her superlative skills allowing her to coordinate the annihilation of even stronger creatures. They were raking in beast cores and mana stones hand over fist, but at the end of the day, it was still Hayakawa Kaede doing most of the work. No one even came close to her, though it inspired them all to strive to be stronger.

Hayakawa’s leadership in this mission was like a massive storm - overwhelming, inescapable, and entirely unguided. They were simply wandering from place to place, destroying beasts in the hopes that they may eventually uncover the source of the disturbance.

“I wonder how Jingyi is doing?”

“Oh, your boyfriend?” Izumi Makoto dropped a handful of frozen feathers and glared at Minami Yuuko.

“He’s not my--! What even gave you that idea?”

“Lemme think. You’re always talking about him, wondering about him, mentioning him, sighing wistfully as you stare off into the distance after muttering his name …”

“I don’t do at least three of those things! I’m just curious, is all. That gir- guy always seems to get into trouble, as well as the rest of them. I just have this weird feeling, is all.”

“Just finish collecting up the cores off these birds and then we can follow Lady Hayakawa to the site of the next destruction.”

“EVERYONE, PREPARE TO MOVE OFF!” Hayakawa Kaede’s booming voice neatly ended their conversation - time to continue the conquest.

“You don’t suppose we’ll run into the Goryeon group, do you?”

“Huh? What’s it to you, Izumi?”

The question came too late - Izumi’s head was already buried in her notebook.