Chapter 114: 183. Vessel

There were two Heians. Well, there had always been two Heians, but Jia wasn’t counting the displaced greater spirit stowing away in her ring. The little Heian—her Heian—appeared to have spawned her own little fragment, behaving exactly as she would in her cat form. ‘Appeared’ being the operative word. Lee Jung wandered over, her concentration having been broken rather easily by Heian’s display.

“Jia, what am I looking at here? I think I’m a bit too young to be a great grandmother yet.”

Jia knelt down next to Heian and ruffled her hair, eliciting a pleased giggle.

“I don’t think Heian spawned a new spirit. The cat form is still you, isn’t it?”

Heian nodded excitedly, holding up the strange paper tiger talisman—actually a panther, in hindsight.

“Mhm! I copied Uncle Hattori, see?”

Jia reached down and scratched Heian’s cat form between the ears. Inspecting it through her domain, Jia saw the truth of what Heian had done. The panther kitten curled up at her leg wasn’t a distinct spirit from Heian, like she was to her own progenitor—in fact, it wasn’t a spirit at all. Like the manifestations of Hattori’s shikigami, Heian’s cat avatar was a simplified version of her true nature. Made of the essence of darkness, rather than shadow, and feeding itself off of a constant supply of mana coming from the origami talisman Heian was holding. She was simply channeling the same kind of spell that allowed the Shikigami to project their power from the safety of their paper vessels.

“That’s amazing, Heian! You figured it out all by yourself?”

Heian shook her head.

“No, I listened to you talking to Big Brother Dae! Now I can help protect mommy!”

Dae chuckled.

“You know, at first I was skeptical of your attempts to raise Miss Heian into a person, but I must say I am more than convinced. Since when has she gotten so articulate? Last I remember you could scarcely coax her into saying a single word!”

Jia scratched her cheek, frowning.

“Uh, well this is the most articulate she’s ever been. I think merging into Lee Hei has had a pretty big influence on her.”

“‘Lee Hei’?”

Eui grinned, wrapping her arms around Jia and Heian’s shoulders.

“That’s what they call it when the two of them fuse together. You remember when she beat Bai Lin? That was Lee Hei.”

Dae’s face turned a bit red and he averted his eyes bashfully.

“Ahem, that is not something I am likely to forget anytime soon.”

Jia felt her face heating up as she recalled the way that she had behaved like a cat in front of an entire audience of people, including wiggling her butt before pouncing on Bai Lin.

“Please try to forget it! Erase it from your mind!”

Dae just blushed and turned away, refusing to meet Jia’s eyes. Lee Jung raised an eyebrow curiously.

“Is there a story there? Jia, you never mentioned this before.”

Jia waved her hands and shook her head in vehement denial.

“No no no! Nothing! Please forget you heard anything.”

Eui let out a cackling peal of laughter.

“I’ll tell you all about it later, Jung.”

“Eui, no!”

Before Jia could tickle her traitorous girlfriend into recanting, she was distracted by a faint sense of distress coming from Heian. Yoshika’s attention snapped to Heian all at once, speaking in chorus as she knelt on either side of her daughter.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Heian was shaking slightly, and her cat projection had begun to waver.

“I—I don’t know. I’m stuck! I can’t hold on, but I can’t figure out how to stop. What do I do mommy?!”

Yoshika accelerated her thoughts and focused on the essence flowing between Heian and her talisman. Technically, Heian was a part of her domain, so she could sense the flow of Heian’s essence as keenly as her own. Heian was channeling herself through the origami talisman in order to create the panther kitten avatar, but the constant flow was more than Heian could keep up—at the rate she was going she would end up putting her entire being into the spell.

Returning her thoughts to normal speed, Yoshika whirled on Hattori, speaking sharply but keeping her voice level.

“What’s happening to her?”

The old Onmyouji stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Erm, I’m not entirely certain, but if she copied my shikigami talisman directly—well, they are meant to be vessels for kami, you understand?”

Yoshika frowned, but quickly focused her attention on the talisman itself. The origami panther was building up a supply of light essence, while projecting darkness in the form of Heian’s cat form. She guessed the problem quickly—the talisman was meant to be a vessel, to hold essence without releasing all of it. That was why the shikigami manifested in more simple versions of themselves. They held half of their essence back, and recovered their projections. Presumably, Heian would also be able to project a light version of herself as well, but the talisman was a trap. The more she used it, the more of her it would absorb, until it became a substitute for her body.

For most spirits, that might seem like a good thing—they naturally sought vessels to hold their beings, after all—but for Heian, that was a nightmare. She was trying to defy whatever strange mandate the gods had placed on the spirits of this world and create her own body, and she couldn’t do that while trapped in a paper vessel. Acting quickly, Yoshika snatched the paper panther out of Heian’s hands and tore it neatly in half. Unable to sustain its magic any longer, Heian’s essence was released in an explosion of light, and her cat form dissipated into uncontrolled essence.

Yoshika gathered up the loose essence within her domain and carefully fed it back into Heian, who hugged her tightly, trembling in fear.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

Jia stroked Heian’s hair and hushed her gently.

“Shh, it’s okay sweetie, you didn’t do anything wrong. Just a little mistake. We’ll fix it next time, okay?”

Heian nodded emphatically, squeezing Jia and Eui tightly as she focused on trying to recover her lost essence. Dae, who had watched the entire event in silence, cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Ahem, um, my apologies but what just happened?”

Jia looked around and realized that the crisis had attracted the attention of everyone in the room.

“Um, not a big deal. The spell just needs a bit of work, that’s all. Heian is made of magic, and it was trying to use everything she had—everything she is—to power it.”

Dae nodded in understanding.

“Ah. I can see how that might be a problem. Well, I’d be happy to work with you to try to fix the problem as long as you’re still in town.”

“Thanks Dae, I’d really appreciate it. Heian too, right honey?”

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Heian nodded.

“Thank you, Big Brother Dae.”

Dae scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously.

“Ehehe, you know, Princess Haeun called me that as well—despite her sister’s admonishment. Your unusual way of using magic reminds me of her a bit. I think you should try to see her once you get to Songdo—I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you again.”

Jia opened her mouth to ask about the little princess, but she was interrupted by Hattori Koji stepping forward and bowing deeply.

“My greatest apologies! This incident is entirely my responsibility. I underestimated Miss Heian and didn’t expect her to copy the design of my shikigami so precisely. The perception of a kami is truly formidable.”

Eui narrowed her eyes at the onmyouji.

“You knew this would happen?”

“Not exactly, no. But the vessels are designed to hold the shikigami within. I didn’t think it would be a concern, and it was my insistence of secrecy that led to this crisis. My apologies.”

Before either Jia or Eui could respond, Heian stepped forward and patted him on the head once.

“It’s okay uncle. Thank you for teaching me.”

Hattori rose back up and coughed once.

“Erm, yes, well. Any time, Miss Heian.”

Lee Jung clasped her hands together and beamed down at Heian.

“Aww, what a good little girl. Jia, Eui, you must have raised her well.”

Jia chuckled and ruffled Heian’s hair as Jung fawned over her.

“We did our best, but she’s developing a lot faster than I expected. She’s less than three years old, you know. I think she’s picking things up from my memory.”

Dae perked up at that, cocking his head at Heian curiously.

“Hmm, that gives me an idea...Miss Heian?”

Heian turned away from Lee Jung’s attention and looked up at Dae.

“Mhm?”

“Miss Heian, do you remember the magic circle back at my place? Could you sense it extending into the world of spirits?”

Heian’s face scrunched up in concentration for a moment before she frowned. Jia could feel her frustration as Heian turned to pout up at her.

“Words are too hard! Mommy, can I just tell him?”

Jia understood what Heian meant—in part because she expressed the concept directly at the same time as she said the words. She wanted to try communicating with Dae as spirits did.

“Alright—you’ve been very good today. If you think you can do it, then go ahead and try—he might not understand you, though.”

“Okay!”

Heian stepped toward Dae and pointed a finger up at him. After a moment of nothing happening, Dae chuckled awkwardly and glanced at Jia.

“Am I supposed to do something or—?”

Before he could finish, some of Heian’s essence coalesced at her fingertip and she reached up to poke Dae in the forehead. For a moment, Jia clearly felt what Heian had shared. It was a memory—a snapshot of the world as she saw it, as clear as a memory that Jia had kept with her Absolute Awareness technique. To Jia it was alien and familiar at the same time, the spirit world and the physical overlaid on top of each other in a beautiful, but confusing kaleidoscope of conflicting senses. In that memory, the magical circle that Dae had drawn in his apartment was like a beautiful sculpture, weaving between the spiritual and physical in a delicate dance that defied description. A shape that existed in more dimensions than Jia knew how to properly perceive—it hurt her head to think about it for too long.

Dae reeled from the touch, clutching his head and groaning in pain. After a worrying moment of being doubled over, Dae shook his head and righted himself.

“Gaah! A little warning next time. Miss Jia, is that what it was like when you communed with the spirit up on the mountain back then?”

Jia sighed and nodded.

“I’ve kind of gotten used to it now—maybe I’ve gained a few things from Lee Hei as well—but yeah, that’s pretty much what it’s like. Actually, Heian was being pretty nice—she included memories and context. Her greater aspect just bombarded me with raw concepts that I didn’t have any way to interpret.”

Lee Jung glanced between Dae and Jia with a confused grimace.

“This is going over my head—what just happened?”

Dae bowed politely to Lee Jung before answering.

“Miss Lee, Heian just shared an entire memory with me—one that I’m afraid I lack the experience to interpret in its entirety, but I was able to get the gist of it.”

He turned back to Heian with a complicated expression.

“You know, a simple ‘yes’ might have sufficed, young lady.”

Jia knelt down and put a protective arm around Heian’s shoulders.

“That wouldn’t have cut it, Dae. I don’t know how much of that memory you understood, but I saw it too. There was so much more to that formation than just extending into the spirit world. How did you even draw that?”

Dae scratched his cheek awkwardly.

“Eh, as I said, I’ve mostly just memorized how to do it by rote. I understand the meaning and I know how to draw the symbols—that’s enough. My master never got around to teaching me the full understanding of the principles behind it all.”

Jia frowned. That wasn’t really the answer she was hoping for.

“Well, we’ve got until we leave for Songdo to figure out as much of it as we can—for Heian’s sake if nothing else.”

Dae nodded seriously.

“It will be quite the challenge, but then you always did have a way of finding the most intriguing problems, Miss Jia. I suppose we had best get started!”