Yangyang: Xuanling

Voices of Azure Plume

[Resonance Assessment RA2710-G] Compared with previous assessments, the Resonance Spectrum Pattern fit remains extremely high. The Rabelle's Curve shows no significant change, though a steady upward trend is present, ultimately settling into stable oscillation. The result confirms a Natural Resonator classification. The subject can resonate with surrounding air currents and gather them into energy fields. Beyond this, she can condense her Resonance power into "Azure Plumes," which can neutralize and restore the frequencies they contact, as well as erase the Resonance powers and effects imprinted on living and non-living matters. According to the subject, she received a frequency from the "Xuanling Bird"—a Remnant creature from the distant past of the Land of Xuanfang—during an encounter within the Censure Court of Xuanfang Hold. This event reportedly altered her Resonance Ability. However, Resonance assessment reveals no significant change in the subject's source of Forte. We therefore conclude that no secondary mutation has occurred. "Resonating with a Xuanling Bird... It's an intuitive guess, but the data doesn't support it... Your frequency hasn't so much changed as it has been 'completed.' To put it another way, it's like an amnesiac recalling their past. Perhaps this ability has always been yours, and only now have you come to recognize it. That said, this remains speculation." — From a conversation with a medic of Huaxu Academy

The subject's waveform graph shows elliptical fluctuations, with occasional needle-point spikes. Both peak values trend upward, with no abnormal waveforms observed at present. Resonant Criticality: Lower than the results from previous reports. Stability remains high, but latent risks of Overclocking warrant attention. Resonator Yangyang has a prior history of Overclocking. Maximum Overclock rating: Moderate. The subject experienced sensory overload on multiple occasions within the Land of Xuanfang. Irreversible feather growth at the ends of her hair has worsened, and further spread should be watched carefully. Regular physical examinations are advised. Psychological counseling is currently deemed unnecessary.

Three days had passed since she told her mother of her ambition.
That evening, an extra pair of chopsticks sat on the family's table.
"I hear your child wants to join the military? Which one is it?" Over after-dinner talk, the guest sipped her tea and put the question to her parents.
"Mm... clear eyes, a pure heart. The sort who can endure hardship." The guest studied that still-childish face and smiled. "Seems you have some grounding already. Where did you learn it? A training hall? They teach no true craft there. If you want to take the field against an enemy, what they teach is not enough."
"Come, show me what you've learned so far." The guest rose and stepped down into the courtyard. "I can't enjoy your mother's cooking for free."
"All right." With her parents' nod, she drew out the wooden sword she used for daily practice, came before the guest, and took her stance.
Who the guest was, she didn't know, only that she was a friend of her parents. But sharp as she was, Yangyang understood why the woman had come to dinner that night, and why she'd offered to test her.
Her parents stood behind her wish, but they would have her see, too, how many trials still lay between her and its fulfillment.
She threw herself at her first trial, like a fledgling beating its wings for the first time, reaching for the open sky.
...
"Good spirit. A shame your talent is ordinary, nothing like those one-in-ten-thousand prodigies. On the path of the martial arts, you could give your whole life and still never reach the end."
The instant she sank to the ground, she felt as though she'd returned to her very first day at the training hall.
Knowing nothing. Lost and adrift.
"Your mother's spoken to me of your other gifts. Take up her craft instead, and I have no doubt you would surpass her in no time." The guest picked up the wooden sword she'd dropped. "Even so, do you still want to keep on?"
She nodded, reached out, and gripped the hilt held out to her.
...
After that, every dozen days or so the guest would call at Yangyang's home, and never left without offering Yangyang a pointer or two, now of swordplay, now of strategy. She wouldn't let Yangyang call her "Master," insisting she was only a guest cadging meals, driven by some strange whim to tutor a friend's child.
"If I may ask... when will I know that I'm ready?"
"Hmm... let's do it this way."
The next morning, a wooden post stood in Yangyang's yard. Black-gray through and through, its surface hard as iron. Even a real blade would struggle to leave a mark.
The guest took up Yangyang's wooden sword and swung it lightly. A fierce gust passed, and the blade had bitten three inches deep.
She pointed to the deep gash. "When you can do the same without your Resonance Ability, you'll be ready."
...
The seasons fled. Two years went by.
The girl's face had shed its childhood softness, and the post bore cuts beyond counting, deep and shallow alike.
She held her breath and squared her stance. The flash of the blade was like wind, lifting a carpet of leaves from the ground.
"..."
The stroke, freighted with two years of perseverance, sank scarcely a tenth of an inch past the surface.
Today was the day she'd agreed with her parents to leave home for Jinzhou.
She hadn't met the mark her "Master" had set before setting out, but set out she did.
She bowed deeply to the post and left the wooden sword behind in the courtyard.
After farewells to her parents and sister, she walked past Mingting's walls. Just as she was about to pass the first checkpoint, she caught sight of a figure in the distance.
"Forgive, Master. I failed."
"And what if I told you that you might never do it, not in a lifetime of trying?"
"Then I think... I'd grieve a little while."
"But that would not stop you, would it?"
"No."
"Good." The "Master" patted her head and turned away toward the city. "Know that this world holds things you'll never be able to do, and then..."
"...walk on, all the way."

The walk from Mingting to Jinzhou cost her a long, long time, long enough to feel like a lifetime apart, long enough that everything she witnessed and endured along the way could shatter everything she'd thought she had built within herself.
She once believed she had glimpsed the "truth." She once believed she knew, clear as day, for whom her sword should be raised. That she could weigh "right" against "wrong," tell "good" from "evil." That a measure lived in her heart. But the more places she walked, the more she found that measure could not be taken to everything in the world.
Some held pure goodwill at the start of their paths, yet had everything ended in tragedy. Some were steeped in sin, yet sheltered the happiness of others with that very evil. The world was too intricate, so intricate that a whole life might not be enough to fathom it.
And then there came a time when she let go even of fathoming.
It was in Yuezhou. A mother had begged her help in finding the child stolen from her.
The ones who took the child were a local faction that worshipped an evil god, a pack of maniacs whose hands were drenched in sin, creatures no longer fit for the word "human."
When she stormed their stronghold alongside the local Ministry of War, what met her eyes was the very definition of hell.
In that moment, every thought burned away in her mind. All that was good and fair, she flung far behind her.
...
It was only when the soldiers of the Ministry of War had finished clearing the field and clapped her shoulder that she realized it was over.
She heard a faltering drip, falling from her the tip of her sword where it bit the earth. Unbinding her hair, she found the ribbon her mother had given her soaked in a red too stark to bear.
She couldn't clearly recall what passed in that stretch of time. Had she taken a life? And if not this time, then so long as she walked this road, the day would come.
She knew that if she would not face so plain a truth, her sword would hold no true strength.
Still, the taste of it was bitter.
Setting out again, she washed her ribbon clean of its stain, but not the gloom from her eyes.
Even with that mother's heartfelt thanks, even having guarded the joy of the innocent, she couldn't return them a single honest smile.
Carrying that broken heart, she came alone into Jinzhou, and stood at the heart of a square that looked out toward the City Hall. She knew where she ought to go next, but her feet felt cast in lead, and she could not bring herself to take that one step.
...
"Hey—why're you standing here by yourself? Are you lost or something?"
"I'm Chixia, a Jinzhou Patroller—well, 'trainee' Patroller. Anything I can help with, just say the word! Oh right, are you hungry? Listen, when you're in Jinzhou you have to try Panhua's Restaurant..."
...Until a frank, easy girl her own age struck up a word with her. Until that girl took her hand and pulled her off toward all that she hadn't had the chance to know.

"Yangyang, this is Baizhi, a researcher from Huaxu Academy. During your evaluation, she'll be providing technical support while you look into the newly formed Tacet Field near Jinzhou."
...
"Greetings. My name is Baizhi..."
"—Yangyang! What's for lunch today? Auntie called us over to try a new dish she made. Oh, but those Wuthercakes we had together last time were..."
"Pardon me, but the investigation begins this afternoon. I'm afraid there won't be time for the two of you to eat."
"Even an army marches on food. Whatever it is, it can wait till after we've eaten... and, uh, who are you...?"
"..."
That day, when those verdant eyes met the flame-red pupils for the first time, the very same thought likely rose in both their minds at once: "There's no way I'll ever get along with this person."
"Haha..." Two utterly different temperatures flanked her on either side, and yet, strangely, she felt neither awkward nor ill at ease.
It was as if she had known all along this meeting would come; as if it was written that the three of them should come to know one another just this way.
Tense as the air between them was, she thought, they were still looking at each other.
"Well then. Let's buy something to take along and eat on the way." She clapped her hands lightly and offered a middle path. "Baizhi, fieldwork takes stamina too. You can't head out on an empty stomach."
"Mm... a fair suggestion."
"Then let's try that place that opened last week... No. Yangyang, you decide."
That was the first time the three figures—blue, white, and red—walked side by side down the streets of Jinzhou.
...
"Yangyang, this is a new remedy Huaxu has just developed. Take it to Chixia, would you? A dose of this and her cold will clear up in a day or two."
"I can, of course. But Baizhi, won't you bring it to her yourself?"
"Mm..."
...
"Oh, Yangyang, Auntie Panhua fried up some dishes. Take them along. Isn't Baizhi working late tonight? These can be her midnight snack."
"I can, sure... but Chixia, you could bring them to her yourself, you know."
"Uh..."
...
And so the days went by, one after another. No memories cut to the bone, no dramatic turns like something out of a play.
Across countless days, plain as water, they came slowly to know one another, by ways direct and indirect.
"Baizhi, about the investigation coming up... Chixia happens to know that terrain well, so I made a point of asking the Patrol Station to lend her to us for a while."
"Ahem... for Yangyang's sake, that is. With me leading the way, nobody has to run all over the place, and the job goes quicker too..."
"Understood..." Baizhi closed the file in her hands and shut her eyes a moment in thought. "So then..."
"...What's for lunch today?"

"Ta-da! Yangyang, congratulations on becoming an Outrider! Baizhi and I picked this out together. Do you like it?"
"You'll find yourself often roughing it in the wild being an Outrider, and your hair's a handful to manage. This hat should keep some of the wind and rain off. I think you'll find it quite practical."
"None of that matters, not a bit. What matters is—Yangyang's going to look lovely wearing it, right?"
"Thank you... Baizhi, Chixia."
She took the gift from her friends' hands and put it on her head.
And in that instant, she felt like reliving a scene from many years ago.
...
"...What is it, Yangyang?" At a temple fair ablaze with lanterns, her sister noticed her halted before a stall, gazing spellbound at something on the shelves. "Ah, is it that hat you want? Mm... not bad at all! Look, look, it's even got a little bird stitched on it."
"But it's so expensive..." She glanced at the price on the shelf, looked down at the coins clutched in her hand, and edged back a step. "Come on, sister. We said we'd go buy maltose candy together..."
"Mm! Knew it'd look great!" Before she could even come to herself, the hat was already sitting on her head.
"Sister...?! You can't just take what isn't yours..." She fluttered for a moment, then saw Suisui draw a pouch from who knows where and dangle it before her eyes.
"Hehe. Yangyang, you've got no idea how deep your big sister's pockets run." Suisui grinned slyly, coins jingling in the pouch. "It's just one hat. To my little treasury, that's a drop in the bucket."
"But that's money you worked so hard for..."
"Oh, what's the harm!" Suisui caught her hand and pulled her off toward the livelier stalls. "I'm your big sister! What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine too, of course..."
...
To her, from the very moment of her birth, having a "big sister" was simply something she took for granted.
She took for granted the laughter and the roughhousing together. She took for granted the sharing of every little thing. She took for granted... her constant presence in each day of her life.
Not until she made that decision did she realize she was about to bid farewell to everything she'd once taken for granted.
If she didn't take that step, she could never become the "self" she longed to be. And if she did take it, every bond she knew and leaned on must be remade into something new.
She sealed everything about her sister away in her home in Mingting. And one day, perhaps, when the time came to leave Jinzhou, she'd seal away everything in this place too?
She didn't know. But she did know that...
...Right here, right now, the warmth coming down from atop her head was no different from all those years ago.
She knew she was no longer the little girl who'd run after her sister through the temple fair.
She knew her sister's next letter would arrive next month.

That encounter, that day... Was it chance? Or was it fate?
When you first awoke, you had forgotten everything. Yet those golden eyes of yours tell me that what you carry, what you've lived through, may reach far beyond anything I can imagine.
You always rush to the front of everyone without hesitation. You're always set on putting yourself at the eye of the storm.
Is that a choice you make? Or has it already become instinct?
You always... take a bigger step than the rest. And no matter how many once walked at your side, you always... end up where none of us can follow.
But I don't believe there's any such thing as a soul fated to be alone.
Maybe I only want to do this for my own sake.
I just want to protect someone... well... someone who knows so little about protecting {Male=himself;Female=herself}.
Though the time we shared may be, against the whole of your journey, no more than a single wave on a boundless sea.
Still, this feeling, this impulse... It has nothing to do with worthiness or with time.
It's simply my own... extravagant wish.
I hope that, in joy or in sorrow, through fair days or foul, when you need someone to lean on, when you need someone to confide in, I can be standing at your side.
I hope...
...
Her pen tip came to a stop.
She stared at the half-written letter, reading it over, silently, again and again.
In the end, she folded the sheet, slipped it into an envelope, and tucked it away beneath her drawer.
She drew out a fresh sheet and began to write again.
Rover, how have you been lately? Is everything going well?