Chapter 8 – Sparring
Nuwa stands with newfound confidence in Azula’s gym practicing with her hookblade and armguard. She practices extending her soul fource into the shield and finds that it doesn’t really fatigue her to do so. ‘It must drain my soul force depending on how big the attack that I block is.’
“Wait a second, [System], what’s the difference between chi and soul force?”
*Chi is a form of energy that flows through a mortal shell and allows it to interface with the soul. Chi reserves, intensity, and speed of flow can be increased by practicing special techniques and strengthening the mortal shell. System has been guiding host to have greater chi reserves and speed since host has begun exercising.
Soul force is the usage of energy directly powered by the soul. Once host leaves the Avatar Record, host will be unable to keep your current mortal shell. Chi may not exist or may be too weak to make a difference. Weapons and techniques that utilize soul force are applicable to all Records and are exceedingly rare.
However, as a level 1 soul, prolonged expenditure of soul force could fatigue your soul resulting in soul unconsciousness. System estimates that, with host’s present soul force reserves, the shield can block a force of 2 tons a single time before host’s soul shuts down.*
‘Seems like my soul is fairly strong, but I’m positive Ozai and Iroh’s souls are stronger. They’re at level 2, but I doubt they have something cool like a [System].’
Azula enters the gym and checks out Nuwa’s new gear.
“I see you’ve got some new stuff and some new confidence, but it won’t be enough!” She immediately starts a fire dance. Azula’s style of combat centers around pinpoint control of firebending with her index and ring fingers generating and throwing flame. The rest of her fingers are flattened against her palm. Nuwa assumes this dance is some kind of perfectionist style of manipulating her internal chi with all of her muscle groups factored in.
Fire dancing is a bending art that maximizes power output while minimizing internal strain. All bending dances are supposed to look elegant due to the fact that bending itself is a process of attuning oneself with nature. Sadly, Azula’s looks like a domineering display of savagery. Spiritual experts have tried to reattuning the teaching of firebending to its true nature, but Ozai and his supporters suppress them all and continue preaching that firebending should come from anger and tyranny.
Azula firebends small bullet-sized fireballs at Nuwa and in her vicinity to control her approach.
Normally, Nuwa would dodge all the fireballs while keeping her distance so that she has enough time to react and dodge other fireballs. Afterwards, she looks for a gap in Azula’s defenses to swoop in and try to chi-block.
This time however, she has her [Wakandan Retractable Shield] up. She deflects the small fireballs to the left and right with ease and approaches 5 meters of Azula.
Now being chi-blocked is a harrowing experience for anybody and depending on which acupoints, it could cause full body paralysis with the victim retaining full awareness. Out of instinctual fear, Azula fires the biggest fireball she has produced in her life.
Azula fearfully shouts, “No!” Thinking she might have lost her best friend and sparring buddy. She surely doesn’t think a little armguard can stop the 2 foot wide ball of fire.
Nuwa widens her eyes as she feels life-threatening danger. She drops her fist down on the floor, and quickly entrusts her safety to the armguard as she extends it as far as it can go while tilting her body such that it’s fully protected by the shield. The fireball miraculously splits in two halves like a wave parting upon contact with the shield. It does however scorch the floor in a V shape around Nuwa.
Azula looks dumbfoundedly at the undamaged, beautiful shield and still sizzling floor. Nuwa says “I’m ALIVE HAHAHA, that was fun!”
Azula gets angry at how calmly Nuwa is taking the situation as she orders, “Nuwa, you dolt! You’re not allowed to put yourself in danger, you’re my first friend. Why didn’t you roll out of the way? I know you could have dodged it!”
Nuwa whimpers, “I just wanted to try..”
Azula shouts with veins on her temple bulging, “IDIOT, you could have told me and we could have tried in a controlled setting.”
*Host is definitely an idiot.*
Nuwa deflates her excitement as she realizes her recklessness, “Sorry Azula… do you want a hug?”
Azula crosses her arms and looks away, “Humph, you say that as if that can make up for the fact that you’re an idiot.. ah! Release me you useless pleb. Hahaha, stop that tickles.”
Nuwa smiles widely, thinking that Talk no Jutsu may not have worked, but Friend no Jutsu did!
Future spars would result in Nuwa taking the advantage as she becomes accustomed to use of the hookblade and shield combo. Nuwa never uses the hidden blade functionality of her hookblade, so all the military’s attention is on the shield. The ‘legendary armaments’ excuse worked surprisingly well for Ozai and the generals.