Black and White III
Swishing your wodao casually from side to side, you stand carelessly, smirking at Bai Jiutian.
“What are you waiting for?” he demands.
“I’m waiting for you to make me use everything I have, like you said. Is your memory failing you?”
He responds to your flippant remark by lunging forward, his sword held out in front of him in a powerful charge. Narrowing your eyes, you swiftly snap your sword back into its sheath and raise the scabbard in a pinpoint block. The strength of his thrust drives you back several feet, your boots dragging in the ground. As you reach out to grab his sword-arm, he bends it arm and elbows your hand away. Now freed from Bai’s blade, you lash out with the wodao’s scabbard, aiming for his face. He evades it, leaning back as the wooden sheath passes a mere inch away from his nose. His foot comes up, striking your arm before you can react, and with a quick circular motion, he brings his sword back to the fore, slashing towards your chest.
With your free hand, you hurriedly gather your qi and push forward in a defensive Xianglong move: The Fierce Dragon Crosses the Great Rivers. The pressure generated from your palm strike slows down his blade before it reaches you, enough that you are able to slip the back of your hand against the flat of his blade and knock it aside with a swift blow. Following up, you attempt to grab him with a Diving Eagle Grip, but with a sudden burst of speed Bai Jiutian darts into the blind spot of your left eye.
“You’re too slow!” His sword shines silver as he shouts, launching two consecutive slashes in a cross that force you back and tear up the ground with cutting qi. Having put you on the back foot, Bai presses his advantage with a relentless sword dance that almost outpaces your ability to defend against it. Even though you successfully block or evade his attacks, he is never discomfited – his poise remains perfect and he lets slip no glaring errors in his swordplay which you can exploit.
Of course, Bai Jiutian cannot keep this up forever. As the dance comes to a close, it is your turn to move. His sword slows for just a fraction for a second, signalling the end of the move, and you dart forward. His expression changes ever so slightly as he tries to reverse the direction of his blade to slash at you – it arrives, but not so fast that you cannot parry it. Blocking his attack, you draw the wodao in a swift counterattack. The blade leaves the scabbard with a high-pitched ring, arcing towards Bai. His jaw clenched, he throws his body sideways, dodging your slash by a hair’s breadth. The sharp edge of your blade trails across the front of his clothes, leaving behind a cut so fine that it is almost invisible.
“That is some quality silk,” you say approvingly. “It parts smoothly.”
“I’ll wring the payment out of you, Xu Jing,” growls Bai Jiutian.
“Tally it up after I’ve finished cutting your clothes off of you.” You go on the offensive, performing the Leaf Dance of the Azure Dragon as you move around him gracefully in a series of quick and precise slashes. He deflects each and every one of your attacks expertly, his brow furrowed in concentration.
You halt for half a step, seemingly hesitating, and Bai Jiutian grabs that opportunity without thinking. He lunges forward with a quick little slash that would have disarmed you had you not been expecting it. You parry and pull away from his sword, allowing his momentum to carry forward. Making use of it, you spin and throw a Returning Wind Spear at him. He grits his teeth and scowls; this attack of yours is too fast and powerful for him to block cleanly. He kicks off of the ground, avoiding your kick with a jump that propels him high into the sky.
Just where you want him.
You give chase; leaping after Bai Jiutian, you take the fight skywards. Your feet cut through the air as you unleash a powerful sequence of kicks at blinding speed – the Shadowless Thunder Breaker. This will end it.
He dodges every single kick effortlessly.
“Wha-“ Before you can complete your exclamation of surprise, he brings his sword down upon you with a powerful two-handed slash while you are vulnerable. You realize, with a sinking feeling, that the sheer force from this attack will easily cut past your guard even if you block it.
There is no helping it. You drop the scabbard, letting it hang from your waist, as you quickly mimic his grip.
His blade swoops downwards, yours rises up.
The swords clash, edge meeting edge with a high-pitched clang that echoes throughout the gorge.
When the two of you land, further apart than when you jumped into the air, there is an expression of barely restrained triumph on Bai Jiutian’s face. “Is that it? Is that what you have been hiding?”
You shrug lazily, smiling, and beckon at him with one wagging finger. “Why don’t you find out more, to be certain?” You can feel your qi already dissolving back into chaos; it will take a short while before you can fully employ Wuxiang Qiankun again.
Bai Jiutian raises his sword in a salute and chuckles confidently. Then, he resumes the fight. You cross blades with him, parrying desperately as he speeds up his attacks.
“What’s the matter? Why aren’t you using that move again?” he calls out, flicking his wrist as his sword snakes past your guard, making a light cut across your forearm.
“You need to make me use it, no?” you grin.
“As you wish! I’ll let you have a taste of Huashan’s Zixia Swordplay… let’s see if you’ll continue to be stubborn even then.” A powerful swirl of qi – almost tangible to the naked eye – spirals through Bai Jiutian’s sword-arm as he raises the sword in a high stance that is clearly bad news the way Vairya’s special stance is. You lower your own stance in response, your right hand hovering above the hilt of the wodao as you dig your feet into the ground.
With a shout, Bai Jiutian strikes. His sword gleams with a shade of crimson akin to that of clouds at dawn.
Your hand lightly touches the hilt.
The red blade swims through the air faster than your eye can follow.
It is not sight that you need to use now, however.
You close your eye.
Your fingers close around the hilt.
You wait for the last possible moment… the moment when your opponent has committed to the attack and will no longer be able to change his trajectory.
On sheer instinct, at the edge of death, you draw.
Your wodao leaves its sheath to meet its foe.
Metal strikes metal. The sound is clear, like the chiming of bells.
Your fingers give way, the hilt slipping from your grasp as the force of Bai Jiutian’s Zixia Swordplay flings the wodao away.
But you are already moving forward.
Your eye snaps open.
As Bai Jiutian prepares his follow-up attack, your left hand has already plunged into the front of your robes. With a flick of your wrist, you pull the Yuchang Sword from its hiding place. Your pace becomes faster – more predatory – as you return to Bai Jiutian his Huashan sword dance.
Taken by surprise, he barely has the time to return to a defensive position. Still, this is his technique– he knows it well enough to read your next moves. You take the next step before he has fully recovered. The flow of your qi begins to surge forth into the Yuchang Sword as you raise it high, the blade gleaming red.
“A gift for a gift. Here, have this back!” you shout.
Bai Jiutian’s eyes widen even though he had surely been expecting this. Your sword plunges towards him at a speed faster and more powerful than any technique you have in your own repertoire.
Suddenly, the look in his eyes changes. The blade of his sword blurs; it seems to sink into a deep shadow as he moves in a way even your Wuxiang Qiankun cannot grasp – there seems to be a strange transformation in the flow of his qi, taking a soft, imperceptible yin tone. The bastard still had something in reserve.
You stop your attack, the point of your blade a mild tremor away from nicking his eye. His own sword is held just under your chin.
“I think,” he says carefully, eyeing your sword, “we should call a truce for now. Then we can talk about this like gentlemen.”
“I agree. We can do that the moment you lower your sword. Be a good boy now, Tian’er.”
“I don’t think so. You should be the one to put your sword away first.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about this. Alright, we’ll do it at the same time. On the count of three?”
“Agreed.”
The count reaches three, but neither of you budge.
“You can’t be trusted, can you?”
“The same goes for you. Alright, let’s try this again.”
It still doesn’t work.
“You really should cooperate. My arm is getting tired. I might poke out your eye.”
“I might give you a very close shave.”
You hear a shuffling movement. Turning your head slightly, you spot Zhang Manxing crawling away out of the corner of your eye. He has the vitality of a cockroach, it seems. He raises his head slowly, turning around to look at you.
His gaze meets yours and Bai Jiutian’s, and he freezes up.
You move your sword away, nodding at Bai.
He breaks away from you without a word, his attention now turned towards Zhang Manxing. With a desperate shout, Zhang tries to make a break for it, scrambling to his knees and pushing off the ground with his one good arm. “I’ll kill you! I swear, I’ll kill you! I’ll get my brother to violate and destroy everything you hold dear!” screams Zhang in a mix of anger and fear. He does not get far before Bai Jiutian’s sword is buried in his back, piercing clean through his body.
Zhang stumbles forward, screaming, before Bai can remove the sword. As he goes after his shidi to retrieve the blade, a cloud of thick yellow mist greets him. It looks like that pouch wasn’t the only surprise Zhang kept on him. Crying out, Bai Jiutian strikes at Zhang reflexively, pushing him away.
Zhang Manxing slips, totters on a rock, and falls, plunging down into the depths of the gorge. Hopefully, that is the last you see of the bastard…
“How are you feeling?” you call out cautiously as you edge towards Bai Jiutian. The mist has cleared quickly, leaving him prone on the ground. If it is what you think it is, you can’t really do anything for him anyway. You wouldn’t want to, to be honest.
As you draw closer, you see Bai Jiutian clawing at the ground with his fingers. He is breathing heavily, his face flushed. “Go away!” he screams, his voice cracking.
“Do you know what you just breathed in?”
He does not reply, glaring up at you.
A second later, his eyes roll up in his head as the effects of the drug prove too much to bear – this appears to be a lot more potent than what Song Lingshu had endured. Bai Jiutian falls unconscious, beads of sweat lining his face. You go in a little closer and nudge him with the tip of your boot. He’s still out like a brick. Kneeling down, you take his pulse. Your initial guess was right – the drug was a lot more concentrated this time. It is beyond your skill to stabilize with any treatment other than the easiest way, and you do not have time to move him anywhere.
Then, something perplexing happens.
His face changes – you recognize the technique, having seen it once before in Guizhou; it is the Wudu Cult’s acupuncture disguise. The shift in his features is subtle but pronounced, his brows growing more delicate, his jaw less pronounced, and even his stature appearing to shrink slightly as his shoulders narrow.
“Whoa,” you say.
Bai Jiutian’s eyes open again, consciousness returning slowly; the gaze of those eyes is clouded as thin, elegant fingers clutch at your leg, tightening their grip. The only sounds in the gorge are of the swift flowing river below, and a heavy panting.
***
A. There is no choice. You’ll have to cure Bai Jiutian the old-fashioned way. You might be hated for this, but it is a risk you are willing to bear.
B. You can’t bring yourself to do this; Bai Jiutian's fate is really none of your concern anyway. You leave and flee down the mountain.