Aberration

Chapter 8: Stung by a Bee

Night had rolled in as the clock ticked time away. The three Exorcists congregated in front of the school courtyard. Arash and Yukimura both wore a red band around their arm whereas Ami wore a blue band, indicating their positions as Exorcists for anyone who may appear in the blockaded area. Arash took the opportunity to stretch, circulating both his blood and Ki thorughout his body. Without preparing much beyond a few simple leg warm-ups and thrusts with his spear, Yukimura stared off into the distant void of the cage that sealed away the many souls who had no clue they'd already died. Ami, on the other hand, had been sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, her attire unchanged aside from a pair of tennis shoes and something like a kimono's sash securely tied around her waist.

"Swallow your fears. Swallow your fears. Swallow your fears. Ahhh..." She whispered a mantra to herself over and over, actively gaping her mouth as if speaking the words into a physical form she could see and hold. Holding her hand in front of her mouth, she opened wide and swallowed hard, clapping her hands together. "Alright! I'm ready!" She shot up, full of ecstatic energy. "Alright, alright. You good, Yuki?"
"I'm fine. Let's just get it over with... can you sense where the hostile Aberration is?" Arash nodded his head, raising both hands and forming a mudra: something most Mediums saw as superficial. "Um... Haito-senpai?"
"Just call me Haito."
"What's he doing exactly?"
"He's using something like heat-vision, but with spiritual heat. Those hand signs that he makes? Some ancient martial arts schools enforce hand signs called kata or mudra. They're supposed to help with spiritual performance by promoting better control of Ki through the chakras."
"That... makes... sense..."
"I'll use simpler words. This one-" he raised the index and middle finger of his right hand, then gripped them both with his left. "I believe this one is the 'Rat' hand sign... it may or may not help him focus. He thinks it does, so I try to respect it."
"Oh. I see. I've always kinda been oblivious to this type of stuff outside of anime and manga... it's pretty surreal to experience this stuff firsthand..." she nervously chattered, but clapped her hands against her cheeks, bringing her back to an energetic state "For normal people like me, I couldn't even see ghosts a month ago, so being able to participate in an actual exorcism is crazy!" Ami's red face was filled with a smile that wasn't quite forced, but hypnotized into her mind. Against her true fear, she endeavored to be strong and did everything in her power to achieve that inner strength. "I asked you about your martial arts discipline earlier. In this field, it's more likely than not that Mediums will know at least one martial art style because it's the best way of combining your spiritual strength with your physical strength in a practical manner. Even I know hand-to-hand combat even though I use a spear."
"Oh. Uh. Okay... Kali, like I said."
"What degree have you achieved? I heard you're from a removed-noble family... Even though you don't have the money or namesake as real nobility, your name still holds weight, so I'm sure you were trained by an excellent master. Kali is a knife-based martial art, right?"
"Y-Yeah..." Ami began to fidget, rubbing the tips of her fingers together "I uh... practice in my bedroom using internet videos..."
"You're joking, right? You've never gone through legitimate training? Where's your knife?"
"It's in my sash." She reached behind her, touching the wooden hilt of a blade hidden within the kimono sash. Slowly, she pulled it out to reveal a small sword: a short-sword, to be exact. A traditional short-sword katana called a tantō, technically a sword while being used practically as a knife. As she unsheathed the blade, its fresh glimmer and sharp edge was evident of a completely new sword. "Arash bought that for you?"
"Well..."
"I figured. Is it a Conduit?"
"Mhm. It's supposed to help me control my Ki. Basically, I just have to push some of my Ki into it and-" a flare of extremely potent white aura erupted from the blade, flooding the atmosphere with something akin to a spiritual humidity. Pressure flew from her soul to the blade and pushed back Yukimura with enough force to knock any normal person down. He raised his guard immediately, pushing with all of his strength just to stay upright. "Put the sheath back on, Ami!"
"Sorry!" She did as told and the output dropped back to nothing. The pressure that fluctuated in the air disappeared and settled back into Ami. "Uh... see what I mean? It helps pull out my Ki and maintain it in the blade, but since I've got terrible Ki control, well... I can't control how much it poured into my knife... heh..."
"You have a monstrous amount of Ki... and none of that was the Aberration's." The wave of Ki left his heart fluttering like he'd just gotten off of a rollercoaster. "How the hell have you not displayed any signs of being a Medium until now?!"