Divine Apostasy Book 12 - Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Ruwen, Sift, Echo, and Ash sat facing each other, the ground still warm from their earlier battle.

"What’s balance?" Ruwen asked Ash.

Ash answered immediately. "The only truth, and the key to everything.”

“That’s what your Sisen told you, but what do you think?”

“I've meditated on it, but to be honest, if I don’t see something right away it’s really hard for me to grasp.”

“You and me both, Brother,” Sift mumbled.

Ruwen turned to Echo. “You told us earlier that Ash’s lack of progress was your fault. Why did you say that?”

“Because I wrongly assumed I understood the situation and environment. My arrogance kept me from exploring how Ash uses his chakras for everything, including his Steps. That filter is the real issue he needs to address.”

“And why did you want a sparring demonstration?”

“So he could see how the Steps should manifest. Pure and unencumbered.”

Ruwen considered how to handle the next part of the discussion. It worried him he might push Echo too far. That her pride would fiercely protect her in front of her Sijun and destroy all the work she’d done inside herself. Ironically, he was mirroring the exact issue Echo had, and he immediately stopped thinking and trusted his gut.

“Why did the Step Clan put you in charge of Ash’s training instead of someone that reflected Ash’s learning style like Sift.”

Echo’s emotions roiled inside her, but Ruwen admired how so little of it leaked into her expression and body language. She had firm control of her body as befitted a Grandmaster. Still, the question poked at the heart of Echo’s insecurity.

“I’m not sure. Perhaps they wanted me to fail or maybe wished Ash to fail. It doesn’t make sense to put me in charge of his training. We do things completely different.”

“Because you’re a thinker,” Sift stated.

Echo gave a small nod. “I never considered that until you mentioned it, but it resonated with me and matched the facts.”

“Which of the three Sisters do you think wanted you to do this?” Ruwen asked Echo.

“Probably, Thorn.” Echo turned to Ash. “You probably don’t remember from your Journeyman’s Trial, but Thorn is the head of the Viper Grandmasters. She’s my Sisen.”

“Do you think Thorn wants you to fail?” Ruwen asked.

“No.”

“Do you think Thorn values you?”

Echo shrugged.

“Oh, come on,” Sift said. “You had to notice the gleam in Thorn’s cold serpent eyes whenever you came up. Talk about a teacher’s pet.”

“I was not,” Echo snapped. “Are you manipulating me?”

Sift wiggled his eyebrows and summoned a bag of jellybeans.

Ruwen picked up a shard of hot glass from the ground and tossed it at Sift, who dodged it without any apparent effort.

Ruwen turned back to Echo. "When did you start to understand balance?"

Echo remained quiet for a moment. "On the beach during the Sixth Step. After you fixed techniques I thought were already perfect. When I stopped trying to master the Steps and tried to understand why they existed. When I realized they weren't about being perfect—they were about being."

"Not helpful," Ash muttered in frustration, then caught himself. "I apologize, Sisen. That was—"

"Honest," Echo interrupted. "Which is good. Politeness won't help you here."

Ruwen studied the young man. Pride, frustration, genuine desire to improve—all warring beneath a carefully controlled exterior. He reminded Ruwen of himself years ago, when he'd thought the Steps were about fighting.

"The Seven Steps of Balance," Ruwen said, "aren't about learning seven different things. They're about understanding one truth from seven perspectives. You're trying to climb seven different mountains when you should be circling one mountain, finding the seven paths that lead to the summit."

Ash frowned. "But the forms—"

"Are a language," Ruwen interrupted. "Master Pine taught you the words. Grandmaster Echo taught you perfect pronunciation and excellent grammar. But do you understand what you're saying?"

The frustration in Ash's eyes deepened. "No, I don’t. I don’t understand how I can do something perfect but it still be wrong. Thinking about it makes it worse.”

“It’s easy to trust your intuition when you don’t care about the outcome,” Ruwen said. "Intuition is your natural state, and you filter your actions through the lens of your chakras. This process has stalled you at the very end of your Master’s training, because to take the next step you need to grow. And to grow you need to understand balance. And one can only find balance if you’re free from the forces that act on it, and your chakras impact everything you do.”

Ruwen pointed at Echo. “It’s the same reason Sister Thorn made Echo your Sisen. While you benefited greatly from this, the real motive in my opinion was to give Echo an opportunity to grow. She’s also ready to take her next step. She recognized her rigid ideas had combined with her arrogant assumptions to blind her about your chakra reliance.”

“So let me summarize,” Ash said, “I need to trust my intuition which should be easy because it’s what I’m naturally good at, except it didn’t work and now I’m overthinking everything which is making things worse. Grandmaster Echo has had a breakthrough here and soon lots of questions are coming about my chakras which I’ve used and trained with my whole life but you all think is inhibiting my ability to progress past my current point which you already said is better than any of the other Masters you know.”

“Exactly,” Sift said. “You’re overthinking it.”

Ash’s frustration was evident and Ruwen leaned forward.

“You understand balance here," Ruwen said tapping Ash’s head, "but not here." Ruwen placed a hand over Ash’s heart. “Your chakras are a gift which will integrate with your Steps later. What you require right now, though, is found beneath those chakras. You need to return to the place your chakras protect.”

Ash rubbed his eyes. “How do I find something I don’t recognize? I don’t even know where to look.” He turned to Echo. “How did you do it, Sisen.”

Echo’s gaze grew vacant as she relived those moments on the beach. “Fun,” Echo whispered. “I freed myself of all the responsibility and pressure and everything. I just had fun.” Echo’s eyes snapped open. “Go get it.”

Ruwen wanted to jump up and down, and he sensed Sift’s barely contained excitement, but they both managed to keep neutral expressions.

“Get what?” Ruwen asked.

“The thing Blapy made him,” Echo said. She faced Ash. “There are probably better ways to find your inner balance. But I discovered mine the same way Grandmaster Ruwen did. I’m sure he has some fancy philosophical quote, but for me it was about soaking myself in something my inner self recognized. I used that to push out everything else affecting my balance. I’m guessing any fundamental emotion will work, but the one I tapped, and the one I witnessed Grandmaster Ruwen use when he performed the Steps on nothing but air, was joy.”

Echo turned to Ruwen. “Why are you still here? Go get it.”

Ruwen couldn’t suppress a smile any longer and gave her a small bow. He couldn’t resist a little showing off, and didn’t bother to stand.

“Is this what you mean?” Ruwen asked.

A first-sized circle formed in front of Ruwen, its outline radiating the brilliant white light of Soul Power. Five tiny gate runes formed down the center of the circle. When he’d studied the item Echo wanted earlier that night, he’d absently recorded its location.

Ruwen stuck his left hand through the small Soul portal and as soon as his hand contacted the metal, he pulled it into his Void Band and withdrew his arm. With a flick of his wrist, he retrieved the item from storage and tossed it into the air. He dismissed the portal and admired his handy work as it slowly rotated above their heads. The entire process took less than a second.

Ash gasped and jumped to his feet, followed by Sift who studied it with wonder.

“Ducati Superleggera,” Ash whispered, his voice full of reverence. He reached out but didn’t touch it. His eyes gleamed as if drugged or hypnotized. “I’ve never seen one outside of a magazine. They only made five hundred.”

“It’s colored like a fire drake,” Sift muttered. “Red and black and sleek.”

“When’s the last time you did something fun?” Echo asked Ash.

Echo frowned and slapped Ash in the back of the head.

Ash rubbed the back of his head as he focused on Echo. “Sorry, what?”

“Fun. Do you ever have fun?”

Now Ash frowned before shrugging. “Fun is for others. Duty and responsibility already take up the hours of my day.”

Ash tried hard to focus on Echo and not on the rotating motorcycle above them. He resisted three times before he broke down and shifted his gaze back to the bike.

Ash and Sift remained mesmerized and Echo turned to Ruwen. “Do you think it’s safe?”

“Not even remotely,” Ruwen replied.

“Do you think it will kill him?”

Ruwen considered that for five seconds. “I’m going to go with probably not. Blapy obviously has a soft spot for him. But she has one for Sift, too, and I don’t know how he’s survived this long.”

“And you,” Echo said. “Your blind if you don’t see she loves you.”

 “It doesn’t feel like that.”

“It rarely does,” Echo whispered to herself. After three seconds she continued, this time louder. “I’ve got to admit I’m drawn to it.”

Ruwen shrugged. “Looks dangerous. I’ll keep Vex.”

Echo snapped a finger near Ash’s ear to get his attention. “How does this machine work. Does it fly?”

Ash shook his head, confused. “No, it’s made to race on a track. On the ground.”

“Race,” Sift said, suddenly brimming with excitement. “Let’s race!”

Ruwen heard a neigh in the distance, and Echo glared at Ruwen. “Was that your horse?”

Ruwen shrugged. “He has a mind of his own. On second thought, maybe I should turn him in for one of these.”

The neigh came again, this time from a different location.

They all stepped back as Ruwen lowered the motorcycle to the ground.

Identify triggered and Ruwen decided maybe he did want one of these.