Chapter 21
One Last Job
Royal Precinct, Tianjing
It had been a couple days since the Empress' suicide and Yasuko was back to training with Yung. They were sparring with wooden practice swords. The were doing more weapons training lately, but Yung seemed to prefer hand-to-hand. It didn't mean he was any less proficient with a weapon in his hand, though.
After exchanging a few blows, he told her, "Your movements are faster. That is good. But you are fighting too defensively. You must seize the momentum if you want to win."
Before she was too aggressive to the point of recklessness and now she'd managed to dial it back too much. It was hard finding the right balance, to take the offensive without losing your head, both literally and figuratively.
Yung cracked her on the collarbone, then said tersely, "Stop."
Yasuko did.
"You are too lax," he said. He held up the practice sword. "You are treating this as just a stick, which is all it is."
He snatched Yasuko's practice sword from her and went over to the weapon racks, returning with two real swords.
Extending the hilt of one of them to her, he said, "It would seem I can only get genuine results from you under genuine conditions."
Yasuko took the sword and tested the edge with her thumb. It wasn't blunted. It was 100% the real deal.
Yung put a couple paces between them, pointed his sword at her and said, "Come at me, Miss Yasuko."
Somewhat uncertainly, Yasuko advanced with a slash to the head that Yung easily blocked. Her next few swings were similarly parried with little effort.
"Your advance is too shallow," he said. "Come at me like you mean to kill me."
The only problem was that Yasuko didn't mean to kill him. She tried swinging a little harder and more aggressively, but she knew she was holding back and more importantly, so did Yung.
"It would seem I must show you how you must fight."
With a sudden burst of speed, Yung went on the offensive. True to his word, he attacked with all the ferocity you would expect from a lethal duel and it took everything in Yasuko's power just to keep him from carving her like a roast ham.
At one point she managed to intercept his blade and the two sides locked, but it was soon clear that Yung would overpower her, so Yasuko moved to the side to redirect his inertia around her. Even for someone as skilled as Yung, he was momentarily taken off balance.
"Good," he said as he recovered. "You realized that you are not strong enough to be the rock, so you become as water. Yes, you must flow as water if you wish to find victory. But you made a grave mistake. You did not exploit the opening you made."
As if to punish her, Yung sprang at her and attacked even harder and faster than before. She was able to keep up at first, but then she started to lose ground. As Yung gained the advantage, Yasuko couldn't find a way to turn the situation back around. She made a clumsy parry and wasn't able to recover her defenses in time. Yung's sword was coming right at her face when a voice said, "That's enough."
It was Prince Sturla. Yung's blade stopped a mere hairsbreadth from her skin. Would he have really kept going if Prince Sturla hadn't stopped him?
Yung lowered his sword and bowed to the Prince.
"You're getting better, Yasuko," Prince Sturla said, "but you still haven't grasped the wisdom of the old maxim, 'Train like you fight, fight like you train.'"
"She is improving, Your Highness," Yung said, "but I do not think she is ready."
"It can't be helped," the Prince said. "Time's running out and we need to remove the final obstacle."
"What's the final obstacle?" Yasuko asked.
"Surely you remember the order of succession," Prince Sturla said. "Between Wupeng and myself is the late Emperor's brother, Prince Wusheng."
"The Steel Dragon..."
"Ah, so you've heard some of the stories, have you? Yes, he won't be like anyone you've faced before. He's getting on in years, but he's a legendary warrior. You'll have a tough time of it, I imagine."
"What am I supposed to do? Besides killing him, obviously."
"You'll infiltrate his flying fortress, find the right opportunity and send him on his way."
"So what are you sending me as this time? A maidservant or a whore?"
Prince Sturla laughed.
"That wouldn't work, Yasuko dear. The man might as well be a stone. Hasn't touched a woman since Wuzong became Emperor. Didn't want to raise up any potential rivals for the throne. Hasn't touched any men either from what I understand, so I can't cut your hair shorter and pass you off as a catamite. No, you're going to have to take more direct action this time, but I imagine that will go better with your personality."
It was true that Yasuko preferred a straight-up fight to some scenario that played to the Prince's voyeurism, but to go up against a man of Prince Wusheng's reputation... Seeing her uncertainty seemed to amuse Prince Sturla.
As if to twist the knife on her, he said, "You'll probably have to fight through half the garrison to get to him and the other half to get out, but I'd like to believe you're up to the challenge. Oh, yes, I almost forgot."
Before Yasuko even realized what was happening, Prince Sturla swept her off her feet and spun her around. He held her like they were dance partners, but her feet were left hanging several senches off the floor. He was quite a bit taller than her, after all, and he was holding her chest to chest so that their eyes could more closely meet. (He did, of course, keep his eye level above hers.)
Though she should've been used to such antics from him by now, she found herself blushing. She really hated herself for it, but what could she do about it? Prince Sturla, as always, was enjoying every moment of it.
"I never did thank you for the wonderful work you did with my grandmother," he said. "It seems that I may have been mistaken all this time. You do your best work when I play to your strengths. Perhaps I shouldn't have worked so hard to get you to expand your horizons."
Is that what he called trying to turn her into a whore? The bastard.
"Oh? You're making your angry face again. You probably won't want to hear that I find your anger to be a turn-on."
He was right. She didn't want to hear that. It only made her angrier, even if it meant turning him on more.
"One day you're going to be honest with yourself, Yasuko, and then we can have some real fun."
Maybe not entirely out of conscious effort, Yasuko tried to turn her sword toward him.
Glancing at her hand, he asked her, "And what are you trying to do with that?"
He squeezed her wrist, tightening his grip until he made her cry out and drop the sword.
"Yasuko, Yasuko," he chided her, "you make me think you enjoy the pain. I'm not one to begrudge anyone their proclivities, but our relationship could be so much more pleasant if you let it be."
He set her down on the floor and twirled her around Not thinking about the consequences, Yasuko threw a punch at Prince Sturla as she came out of the spin. She hit him in the gut to absolutely no effect. She would have done just as well to punch a brick wall. She didn't stop there, though, throwing everything she had at him. He just bore the blows for a while, then he started to block and parry, laughing as he did.
"You really are improving," he said appreciatively. "A little more and you might even make a decent sparring partner. Whatever it takes to get you in the mood."
If Yasuko had any sense, she would have stopped. Now that he wasn't just letting her hit him, none of her blows were connecting. She couldn't hurt him, much less beat him. The longer she kept this up, the more she risked wearing out his patience and getting sent back to the infirmary.
He started fighting back, albeit greatly restrained. Even when he beat her half to death, he was holding back. It was proof of just how outclassed she was. Despite all her training, despite all the progress she had made, she was nowhere close to his league.
When he was done toying with her, he said, "That's enough for now, Yasuko," and delivered an expertly measured punch to the solar plexus that pushed her back and knocked the wind out of her but didn't shatter her sternum, something he was perfectly capable of doing as he'd done it before.
While Yasuko was down on one knee, clutching it her chest and gasping for air, Prince Sturla said, "That was good, Yasuko, but you'll have to step up our game when you face Prince Wusheng. Yung, make the necessary arrangements. I want Dr. Hadad to work on her today and the training to start tomorrow morning."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Wha... What arrangements?" Yasuko asked, still not quite able to catch her breath.
"Oh, I was joking about the catamite thing, Yasuko dear," the Prince said, "but I will be making a man of you."