"Do you think I'm strange too?"
Broken Rainbow was still smiling when she asked.
But Jin'en noticed her fingers curl slightly against the tabletop, then relax, as if it were some unconscious little gesture.
He thought about it.
"No." Jin'en stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed before continuing. "Strange people don't ask other people whether they're strange."
Broken Rainbow blinked twice, then snorted with laughter, showing her pointed canines.
"You talk in circles."
"Mm."
"But you weren't lying." Broken Rainbow hopped off her chair, her long white hair tracing an arc through the air. "Come on. I'll take you to watch my sister train. You've got nothing to do anyway."
Jin'en really did have nothing to do.
He followed Broken Rainbow out of the dining room and deeper into the mansion along a corridor he hadn't taken before.
It was narrower than the main corridor, with fewer wall lamps. The light was dim, and something like the smell of rust hung in the air.
The farther they went, the stronger it grew.
"What's that smell?" Jin'en asked.
"Blood," Broken Rainbow said without looking back.
Jin'en's steps slowed for half a beat.
"Just kidding." Broken Rainbow glanced back at him, her green eyes full of mischief. "It's iron sand. The sand on the training ground has a high iron content. It starts smelling like this after a while."
She paused, then added, "There's blood too, of course. Depends on when."
The training ground was underground.
The stairs were steep, the stone steps worn shiny. Jin'en kept one hand against the wall as he descended, his fingertips brushing the densely packed gouges in its surface.
He lowered his head to look. The gouges varied in depth and length, as though something sharp had scraped the wall over and over.
Blade marks.
Broken Rainbow walked ahead with her hands in her pockets, her steps so light she hardly seemed to be going down stairs.
"We're here."
The underground training ground was much larger than Jin'en had imagined.
The whole space was about half the size of a sports field, with a high ceiling and several rows of industrial tube lights overhead. Their stark white light made the entire place look like an operating table.
The floor was dark gray and hard underfoot, paved with iron sand mixed with cement, just as she'd said.
A dozen or so wooden posts stood in the center, all of different heights and thicknesses.
The thickest was wider than Jin'en's waist, wrapped in layer after layer of sheet iron. Slash marks covered the iron, and some spots had been cut clean through, exposing the dark wood beneath.
And in front of the posts, a figure in black was swinging a blade.
Jin'en had seen blades before.
There had been a kitchen knife in a drawer in the orphanage kitchen. Its edge was chipped, and even cutting potatoes took effort.
Later, while living on the streets, he'd also seen gang members with machetes tucked at their waists, but he'd only glimpsed them from a distance before running away.
The blade in Daffodil's hand was unlike any he'd seen.
It was about half as long as she was tall, dark silver throughout, with black cloth strips wrapped around the hilt and a short length of chain dangling from its end.
It made almost no sound as she wielded it. Each slash was clean and crisp, as though slicing through air. There was only a swish, and then another fresh cut appeared on the post.
She moved fast.
So fast Jin'en's eyes could barely keep up.
But it wasn't her speed that truly stunned him.
It was her expression.
Daffodil looked calm, almost exactly as she had while drinking milk at breakfast.
But when she swung, Jin'en saw her gray eye, the one exposed beyond her bangs-its pupil slightly contracted, her gaze nailed to the post without a blink.
Jin'en had seen that look before.
While living on the streets in the Bridge District, he'd seen feral cats watch rats, motionless as stones, yet with every muscle tensed.
Daffodil was that cat now.
"My sister's practicing slashes today." Broken Rainbow crouched beside him, resting her chin on her knees. "After slashes come thrusts, then blocks, then moving slashes. Then she switches to her left hand. Does the whole thing again."
"She does this every day?"
"Every day."
Jin'en said nothing.
He noticed that Daffodil's left hand, the one wielding the blade, wore a black fingerless glove. He could just make out the outline of bandages beneath it.
Her right hand was gloved too, but the bandages around her left were thicker.
"Is her left hand injured?"
Broken Rainbow tilted her head to glance at him.
"You've got sharp eyes."
"Is it injured, or-"
"The recoil from her blade hurt her left hand once. Three cracks in her wrist bones." Broken Rainbow's voice suddenly grew much flatter. "Mother said not to treat it. Let it heal on its own. Once it healed, she had to keep practicing. No stopping."
Jin'en: "..."
For a long time, the training ground was quiet except for the swish, swish of Daffodil's blade. The rhythm was utterly steady, the interval between each stroke almost identical.
Jin'en counted. She made forty-seven cuts.
Every cut struck the same post, landing almost exactly where the last one had.
The sheet iron had curled back under the cuts, revealing the wooden core, cracked by the impacts.
Then she stopped.
Not because she was tired.
Because the training ground door had opened again.
The sound of high heels came from the stairway, neither hurried nor slow. Every step landed squarely in the middle, exactly like the sound Jin'en had first heard last night.
Inanna.
Jin'en's back tensed almost instinctively.
The woman wore a fitted black dress today, her silver-white hair still hanging to her waist. She now carried a long, slender crop, like something used for riding.
As she entered the training ground, her gaze swept around, settling first on Daffodil, then Jin'en, and finally Broken Rainbow, who was crouching on the floor.
"You're here too." Inanna's tone was indifferent.
Broken Rainbow stood, with none of her earlier languor in the dining room, nor the coaxing affection she'd shown while clinging to Daffodil that morning.
She stood straight, her hands at her sides.
"Mother."
"Did you finish your basic footwork yesterday?"
"Two sets left."
"Make them up today."
"Yes."
Inanna looked away from her and turned to Daffodil.
"Give me the blade."
Daffodil offered it with both hands around the hilt, its tip pointing down. Her movements were as precise as though she were performing some ritual.
Inanna took the blade, turned it over, and ran a fingertip along its spine.
"The seventy-third cut was four millimeters off."
Daffodil offered no defense.
"Another hundred cuts. Start counting from forty-seven."
"Yes."
Standing there, Jin'en felt as if he were watching an entirely different play.
Inanna turned and walked toward him.
Jin'en instinctively took half a step back.
"Don't be nervous." Inanna stopped in front of him and looked down.
Under the training ground's lights, her red eyes looked especially pale, like diluted blood. "I only came to check on you."
"Check what?"
"The cracks on your hand."
Jin'en: "?"
Inanna reached out, and Jin'en reflexively pulled his right hand behind his back.
"No need to hide it." She tilted her head, exactly as she had when she first met him in the abandoned apartment. "I'm not going to cut your hand off."
"What do you want?"
"An assessment." Inanna withdrew her hand and tapped the crop twice against her palm. "Your ability is Space Manipulation, and right now it's completely out of control. For children training under me, 'out of control' isn't an option."
"Do they train like this too?" Jin'en tipped his chin toward Daffodil.
Inanna followed his gaze.
Daffodil had already begun swinging again, counting from forty-seven this time.
Her movements were exactly the same as before, and so was her rhythm, only slightly slower, as though she were correcting that four-millimeter deviation.
"Do you think her training is harsh?" Inanna asked.
Jin'en said nothing.
"She's more talented than you." Inanna turned and slowly paced toward the center of the training ground. "But she doesn't know it yet. She thinks she's nothing more than an obedient tool."
She stopped in front of the thickest post and laid her palm against it, as though stroking something alive.
"Most children can't endure the trials." Her tone was utterly level. "They get hurt, get scared, cry and beg me to stop. Some begged for three days. Some for three months."
"And then?"
"Then they stopped crying." Inanna looked back at him. "Do you know why?"
Jin'en pressed his lips together.
"Because they realized crying was useless." Inanna took her hand off the post and walked toward him. "The same goes for you. Your space won't stop going out of control just because you're afraid. The more afraid you are, the faster it collapses."
She came up to Jin'en and bent down.
"So starting tomorrow, you'll begin training too."
Jin'en stared at her.
"Training in what?"
"Control." Inanna straightened and lightly tapped his right wrist with the crop. "Your spatial rifts can tear reality apart and sever connections. But if you can't even make them shut up, you're no different from those children who cried for three months."
She left.
The sound of her heels receded, climbed the stairs, and disappeared beyond the training ground.
Jin'en stood where he was, feeling a layer of sweat on his palms.
"Has she gone?"
At some point, Broken Rainbow had crouched beside him again and was looking up at him.
"She's gone."
"Then why do you still look so awful?"
Jin'en looked down at his right hand.
His cuff covered it completely, but beneath the fabric, he could feel the crack growing faintly hot.
It didn't hurt, but it was very hot, like someone holding a lit match against his skin.
"I don't," he said.
Broken Rainbow tilted her head and watched him for a while without speaking.
Once again, the only sound in the training ground was Daffodil swinging her blade.
Jin'en found a corner and sat down.
Some odds and ends were piled there: a few bundles of bandages, a bucket of iron sand, and several army-green canteens filled with water.
He took a canteen, unscrewed the cap, and drank a couple of mouthfuls. The water was cold, with a faint metallic tang.
Daffodil was still swinging.
Jin'en counted. She had already reached one hundred and eighty-seven.
"Aren't you going to train?" he asked Broken Rainbow.
Broken Rainbow sat cross-legged beside him, picking apart a braided cord.
She unraveled the white strands, braided them together, then unraveled them again, over and over.
"In a bit. I'll go once my sister finishes the first half of her set," she said. "Training feels awkward when Mother's here."
"Why?"
"She watches." Broken Rainbow pulled a strand free. "When she watches my sister, my sister's fine. When she watches me, I feel uncomfortable all over."
Jin'en thought about it.
"You're afraid of her."
"It's not fear." Broken Rainbow wound the strand around her finger, then unwound it. "It's... when she looks at me, I feel like I'm not a person."
Jin'en didn't press her.
The training ground fell quiet for a while.
"You're starting training tomorrow too?" Broken Rainbow abruptly changed the subject.
"Mm."
"The training Mother has planned for you is bound to be even harsher than ours." Broken Rainbow's green eyes lit up, as though she'd thought of something fun. "Your ability's spatial, right? I've heard training is especially awful for people like that, because one slip and they can slice themselves apart."
"Could you not sound so happy about it?"
"Hehe." Broken Rainbow chuckled, looking like a little fox again. "How about I watch while you train? If you slice yourself apart, I'll call my sister for you."
"Your sister knows how to bandage wounds?"
"My sister can do anything," Broken Rainbow said as though it went without saying. "She can even braid my hair. Though she's terrible at it."
Jin'en glanced at her.
Broken Rainbow's long white hair really was a mess. It wasn't even tied back, draping over her shoulders like a wad of cotton batting fresh out of the washing machine.
"...I believe it."
"Believe what?"
"That your sister really is terrible at braiding hair."
Broken Rainbow froze for two seconds, then threw her head back laughing and nearly fell to the floor.
"You." Her shoulders shook with laughter. "You look so quiet, but it turns out you can tell jokes too."
"I wasn't telling a joke."
"Yes, you were."
Jin'en stopped arguing with her.
He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
The iron-sand floor of the training ground was uncomfortably hard, but he didn't care much. The cold wall against his back actually made him feel grounded.
The swish, swish of Daffodil's blade continued, like some kind of metronome.
Jin'en didn't know when he fell asleep.
An unusual vibration jolted him awake.
The training ground had changed.
Most of the lights had gone dark. Only the two at the far edge still cast a dim yellow glow. The wooden posts stood in the shadows like a row of silent sentries.
It took Jin'en three seconds to realize where he was.
He looked down at his right hand.
His sleeve had somehow rolled up, and the fissure on his wrist was glowing.
Silver patterns spread outward across his skin, several times brighter than they had been at breakfast. Tiny points of light like shards of broken glass floated in the air around the edges.
The spatial distortion was spreading.
The air within a radius of roughly twenty centimeters around his right hand was beginning to behave abnormally.
Jin'en could feel the structure of space within that area twisting, as though someone were slowly wringing his surroundings into a rope.
"You're awake?"
A voice came from beside him.
Jin'en whipped his head around.
Daffodil sat beside him, about half a meter away, with her blade laid across her knees.
"You-"
"Don't move." Daffodil's voice was level. "That thing on your wrist started glowing half an hour ago. I cleared everyone else out."
Jin'en froze.
Half an hour.
He had slept for half an hour, the spatial fissure had been spreading the whole time, and Daffodil had been sitting here all along.
"Why didn't you leave?" Jin'en's voice was a little hoarse.
Daffodil didn't answer. She simply stared at his right wrist.
"That crack," she said. "It's the same as the one on my left hand."
Jin'en looked at her.
Daffodil took off her left glove.
There was a crack on the back of her hand, much finer than the one on Jin'en's wrist. It had faded until it was almost invisible, but under the light, a close look still revealed those irregular patterns like shattered ice.
"It appeared three days ago." Daffodil put her glove back on. "I asked Mother. She said it was residue left by spatial interference, and that it would disappear on its own after a while."
"..."
"But yours won't disappear, will it?"
Jin'en turned his wrist over and looked at the still-glowing fissure.
The silver glow pulsed twice, as though responding to something.
"No," he said.
Daffodil fell silent.
After a while, she spoke.
"Can you control that thing?"
Jin'en thought for a moment.
"I don't know."
"Then you need to practice." Daffodil stood and secured her blade behind her waist, her movements fluid, without a trace of wasted effort. "Starting tomorrow, I'll practice with you."
"Why?"
Daffodil paused mid-step.
"Because Mother won't practice with you," she said, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible. "She'll only tell you when you should be finished."
Then she left.
Her footsteps were steady, each one landing right in the center.
Jin'en was the only person left in the training ground.
Along with the fissure on his wrist, still glowing faintly.
He stared at the fissure for a long time, then slowly pulled his sleeve down and pressed firmly against it.
The silver light dimmed a little, but didn't disappear completely.