13 Chapter 12 - Confrontation

"He seems to be leaping up, but is still in the deep"—if he advances, there will be no error.

---The Book of Changes

"When a country is well-governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of."

---Confucius, The Analects

///////

Spade entered Kajio's apartment, noting the look of forced calm on the man's face. Behind him, Joyce seemed utterly unfazed. It would be nice if she could find some goddamn middle ground between whining on the couch and not giving a shit, but at least the latter was easy to deal with.

Joyce flicked out a finger and a spirit zapped out from behind a dresser and disappeared. "Someone left a wind-spirit here," she said.

Kajio smiled wryly. "Probably Pania then."

Spade eyed the handsome man cautiously, keeping a loose grip on his sword. Not that it would do much if Kajio was a quick shot, given the handgun tucked neatly in the man's belt.

"Did you come to a decision that fast or was Selva just really good at his job?" Spade asked.

"Both, really," Kajio sighed, the friendliness draining from his demeanor. Spade planted a foot in front of Joyce to stop her from walking any closer. If things went down the wrong way she needed to be in a good spot to run.

"So what's a dead man doing in Canton?" Kajio asked calmly. Spade's blood ran cold.

"As you probably understand now, I'm not a shaman," Spade said, "I'm a swordsman."

"A spirit," Joyce added helpfully.

"You said I would have to kill you to keep you out of this, and I'm only just seeing how you're right," Kajio continued undeterred, swerving onto his next topic like a driver drifting across three lanes on the highway. That didn't sound good at all.

"Will you then?" Joyce asked. She showed no indication of being bothered in the slightest.

"Could I? Even if I tried?" Kajio shot back. "Given the importance they've placed on you, Jia Xu and Taeyun would let you get away with murder."

"Then don't. Help us. I don't want to destroy Canton by accident, but that won't be easy if I keep reacting by instinct. I need someone neutral and political-savvy, and not in the back-stabbing, mistress-strangling, child-kidnapping way," Joyce said.

"You shouldn't have come to Canton in the first place," Kajio allowed the open hostility to seep into his voice.

"So it's fine if I fuck up the rest of the country?" Joyce tried to step out from behind him, and Spade shifted again to place himself staunchly in the middle. "You know in places where there are fewer shamans, I actually become a lot more obvious, right? And if you want to stay safe, you have to hide where it's most dangerous. Didn't Confucius say something about that?"

"He didn't, but if we hadn't come here, there's no way we could have escaped being dragged into a conflict. And would you rather a warlord have a spirit-sent on his side? Canton wouldn't be any safer, just safer for a little longer, and then no one would have a chance against an experienced spirit-sent." Spade interjected. Kajio didn't look convinced.

"I doubt I need to explain the not-my-backyard mentality to you, considering you were shot for intruding on private property," Kajio said, unappeased in the slightest. Spade bit down on a sharp retort, given that they were the source of Kajio's headache.

"I got better," Spade said instead.

"He did," Joyce chimed in.

Kajio sighed, exasperation clinging to him like a wad of bubblegum in someone's ponytail. After a long stretch of Kajio's silent annoyance, the man sat down at the table and gestured for them to do the same.

"You may as well sit, there's a lot to talk about," Kajio said. Spade moved to let Joyce pass him, sliding into the closest seat. Kajio was looking at them as though he had never seen them before, or rather as if he were examining a newly discovered species.

"Masquerading as the Flying Dragons was a bold move," Kajio wryly glanced at the insignia on Spade's clothes. The golden four-clawed dragon on Spade's robes had been hand-embroidered decades ago but looked as good as new even now.

"Can't really call it a masquerade when that was what I was raised to be," Spade said. "We left Hong Kong to go to Siberia and see what we could make of the things I left behind forty years ago, I had hoped the warlords would be scared off a little by the name so that we could have a better run of it. Turns out not many of them even recognize it."

"I thought the Flying Dragons disappeared with the Qing," Kajio said, seemingly to himself.

Spade sighed. It actually was awkward to talk to someone who knew you were a spirit, or at least someone other than Joyce. Most spirits never made it to humanoid form, and even then they couldn't stay material for long, but Joyce had no trouble keeping Spade material 24/7. It was probably also the reason why no one had even considered the angle of Spade being the spirit-contract.

"You know this changes everything, right? Taeyun and Jia Xu used to be evenly matched, but now whoever gets you on their side can crush the other without any trouble, and I honestly don't know if that's a good thing," Kajio ran a hand down his face.

"We're not siding with either of them," Spade said. Kajio openly laughed at that.

"You think you have a choice? One man with a suitcase of money and two days of time managed to root out your little secret, and there are many people whose instincts are just as good. This won't just resolve itself. Even if they don't suspect you right away, both the factions want you to either ally with them or quietly die in a back alley! If you want to live, you only have two options. Taeyun or Jia Xu," Kajio said bitterly.

Spade breathed in deeply. "But you told Selva to withhold the information. I would think that we want the same thing, don't we? To keep the peace."

Kajio only shook his head. "You just want to protect your shaman. I want to protect my city. I only told Selva to hold onto that because I didn't want you to feel cornered and lash out, god knows what that could do."

"What would happen if I sided with one of them?" Joyce asked, abruptly stopping Kajio from forming his next sentence.

Kajio sighed deeply, pausing as he ran the scenario through his head. "You'd only have to make yourself known, do something extravagant, and people on the other side will defect. Whatever loyalties they have, those will fade if they realize they don't have a chance at all. Your ally would just crush the other side then. Probably wouldn't even need your help."

"So what happens after they take Canton? Are they going to head North?" Spade asked. They hadn't cut through warzones recklessly just to be dragged onto the battlefield. Joyce had racked up a kill count of precisely zero so far and he hoped to keep it that way.

"You and your allies will, yes. It won't be too hard if Joyce just deals a lot of damage two or three times, the warlords will crumple easily enough."

"Deal a lot of damage, you mean like...human damage?" Joyce asked. Kajio looked at her as if she was a high school student who turned around and failed a first-grade math test.

"Of course. It's the most efficient way with a lower death rate overall if you prove yourself to be...what you called a weapon of mass destruction," Kajio said.

"Wow, ok, you think the best option is to pull a whole Hiroshima and Nagasaki on people," Joyce said doubtfully.

"I don't know what that means, but if it fits the description, yes. After all, extended battles will kill a lot more people than if you just destroy a few fortresses in the middle of the night," Kajio said flippantly.

Spade felt a rush of heat go up his neck. This fucking bastard. After they'd done everything to stay hidden this fucker wanted a teen to become a mass murderer so some politicians could have their way. It was exactly what he should have expected—people would always throw others under the bus so they could protect their own interests.

"Fuck this, let's go," Spade snarled, standing up fast enough to knock the chair over. Kajio glared at him with a mixture of alarm and anger, hand already reaching for his gun. Joyce ignored both of them.

"Spade wants me to do no harm and Kajio wants me to murder people in their sleep," Joyce mused in an amused tone. Both of them winced a little. She continued without so much as glancing at either one of them, "I feel like one of those Christian dudes who have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other."

"Joyce," Spade began, even if he didn't know what he should be saying.

"I'm only speaking the truth," Kajio said, not looking at the girl staring at his face.

"That's why I need both of you. I'm serious, I'm digging the whole M for Manly Honor thing with Spade and this whole Sexy Machiavelli Kajio's got going on, and I feel like with the two of you around I could actually avoid blowing up half the city," Joyce said cheerfully.

Spade shook his head in exasperation at the more ridiculous parts of her statement. What the hell was a Machiavelli anyways?

"Are you threatening to hold the city hostage?" Kajio asked in alarm. Joyce blinked and looked at Spade for help. He not-too-subtly shook his head.

"No, I didn't even think of that. Huh. Well, that does relate to my point. My point being..." she paused to think for a second. "Shit, I nearly forgot. Anyways, my point is, if I can do that to a warlord, don't you think I can do that to those two factions?"

Kajio only looked more alarmed. "You would take on both of them rather than take a side?!"

Joyce actually smirked. This damn brat..."Hey, if you'd believe it, don't you think they would? Let me just ask you one thing: What would happen if I stayed neutral by threat of force?"

At Kajio's frown, she made a peace sign. "Like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, three legs make a sturdy foundation or whatever, what do you think would happen if I tried to wrangle my way into that?"

"Three Kingdoms?" Kajio asked.

"You know, at the end of the Han Dynasty when China split into three kingdoms?" Joyce pressed.

"The Han was overthrown by the Wei. The country never split into three," Kajio looked at her as if she were crazy. Joyce stared back as if Kajio were crazy.

She threw her hands up. "Fine! This world didn't split. Wait, so you guys don't even have Zhuge Liang? Dude that's a loss of cultural heritage! Does that mean I get to steal all his tactics?"

Joyce had recounted some particularly interesting tactics Zhuge had used to Spade, including summoning lightning spirits to electrocute enemy marines at the Battle of the Red Cliff. Too bad this world didn't have someone like that.

"I don't care who that is. The thing you're proposing won't work," Kajio began.

"Do you really think so?" Joyce pressed. Kajio frowned but continued without reproaching her.

"Even if you are the equivalent of a walking large-scale natural disaster, you'd be in trouble if they teamed up on you. We're talking over 43,000 shamans between the two of them," Kajio said.

"Thought there were over 50,000 shamans here," Spade said.

Joyce had mentioned as she washed the bowls that the remaining 8,000 shamans were like Independents who didn't want to vote Democrat or Republican, and even though he didn't know what any of those were, the analogy was accurate enough.

'I should just run as an Independent,' Joyce had said. 'Even if I'm underage. Damn, I need to brush up on my non-existent campaigning skills.'

Kajio glared at him. "You were the one who didn't want to stir up a mess, or did you forget that already?"

Spade glared back. "I'm not going to encourage her to murder people in cold blood, no. But you honestly think that we would just wait around until someone kills us?"

"Kajio, just think about it. This wasn't something I was going to bring up if you thought I had a chance of staying neutral. But if I can't, what's the least bloody way I can make this go down? It's not siding with Jia Xu or Taeyun, that's for sure," Joyce leaned forward, looking at Kajio with wide eyes.

Kajio glared at both of them but only managed a harsh sigh. At least he seemed to be considering it.

////////

Selva tried to keep from suspiciously sprinting down the street to Kajio's door, but he was already suspiciously sweating like his pores were portals to a hidden dimension full of saline solution. He finally got to the door, pounding on it with one hand on his gun.

Kajio swung the door open, a deeply resigned look on his face.

"The fool and the child will be the death of me one day," Kajio said, sounding more tired than angry.

"Don't jinx it," Selva said, hurriedly tapping his knuckles on the wooden door before pushing his way in and closing the door with a resolute thud. He whirled as Joyce flicked her fingers, sending a hidden tracking spirit barreling out beneath the door.

"Feng Xia's," Joyce offered. Behind her, the tall blonde swordsman who evidently brings swords to gunfights shifted the grip on his sword.

Selva gulped nervously, all the self-righteous words he had prepped flying out of his brain at the sight of the very material spirit before him.

Since when had dead people even been able to become spirits, and why was the only one around a goddamn swordsman? Selva almost thought that the gods must hate him, but he didn't want to commit mental blasphemy.

"Against my better judgment, I am choosing to ally with them for now," Kajio said. "Against the risk of wide-scale destruction and bloodshed."

Selva gaped. He hadn't lied to Jia Xu's seemingly all-knowing gaze for this kind of decision. The Chairman had smiled like she was about to go to his house in the middle of the night and steal all twelve of his nonexistent cats, and maybe that was just his nerves but still.

"You can't be serious," Selva pleaded at Kajio. Kajio nodded at Joyce's direction.

"Did you get her what I asked for?" he asked as if he hadn't heard Selva.

Selva reluctantly pulled out the English translation of the Shaman Council's official history of shamanism. Joyce quickly took it over, finding the bookmarked section on the spirit-sent with remarkable ease compared to her struggles with Chinese texts.

"Your worries are understandable," Spade said, hand still on his sword. "But I assure you that they will be resolved soon enough."

Selva glared at Joyce as she read the lower half of a page. "We can't just hand our lives to a sixteen-year-old!"

Joyce stared back unfazed. "Technically, I'm uh..." she glanced down at the book, "the reincarnation of the previous spirit-sent, so I'm like a thousand and sixteen."

Selva adamantly shook his head. "A sixteen-year-old reincarnation," he insisted.

"A thousand and sixteen," Joyce insisted back. She turned a few pages forward, "It is an...unbroken cycle that connects the Spirit Realm to our own," she read out loud.

"You're just reading from the book," Selva snapped. Joyce shrugged, flipping another few pages.

"Don't sweat it, bro. How about this? You're my godson now. That's the..." she squinted at the faded words, "the highest honor a spirit-sent may grant to any shaman." She looked up. "Or non-shaman, I'll just add that in right now. You're fucking welcome." Spade let out a bark of laughter.

"I don't want to be your godson," Selva grit out.

"I don't care," Joyce said patiently.

"Don't talk back to your mother," Spade chimed in.

Selva threw his hands up in exasperation. "You're just reading the book as you go and you expect me to think I can trust you?!"

Joyce looked back impassively. "That's the official narrative the Shaman Council's using. If I claim this to Jia Xu's face before a few hundred shamans who were taught using this, you think she would deny it? Of course, I wouldn't be reading it off my hand then."

"She would and they would believe her," Selva shot back and looked to Kajio for help. Kajio's face was twisted in amusement.

"Loyalty can allow people to twist the truth to fit their limited perspective so that probably won't go too well. But things change if you can shatter their beliefs of what is and isn't possible," Kajio said. Selva gaped at him.

He had been asking for backup, not for Kajio to go turncoat, thank you very much. And Kajio had switched gears so quickly Selva's head hurt from the whiplash. Was it even possible for Kajio to change his mind so quickly? Had Joyce bewitched him with her spirit powers?

Kajio ignored Selva's increasingly concerned look, already hurtling into a brainstorming session.

"If, you were to perform an act that was otherwise impossible, and it would have to be very publicized, preferably with a large live audience, and then declared yourself the spirit-sent...You would have to badly frighten a very large population, but you could make it difficult for either Jia Xu or Taeyun to make a move on you.

They'd have to resort to assassination, but if you're careful enough you'll just have something to hold over their heads. Of course, this is just the ideal version, nothing ever happens by the ideal."

Kajio's eyes focused on a spot three feet behind Selva's shoulder as he spoke, giving Selva an unnecessary sense of spookiness.

"First off, you'd have to move before everyone gets used to the idea of the gateway being open. Once they're jaded it won't hit as hard, and then there's the chance that none of the factors will align or allow us to engineer them to fit..."

Joyce and Spade nodded rhythmically, looking at Kajio with identical expressions of innocent curiosity. Selva spun back towards Kajio in outrage.

"Kajio!" he sputtered, ending on a snorting noise.

Kajio looked back with an expression that would call for theme music if it were a drama. "Listen to your mother," he said, a smirk slowly spreading on his face. Selva raised his eyes to the imaginary guitar riff coming from the heavens.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he lamented out loud. "Why can't the soap just stay in the dramas?"

///////

Helang finished the last of his takeout, glancing at the clock. The meeting had dragged on for almost six hours now, and they'd covered everything from evacuation logistics to suppressing an internal rebellion, to the current topic of recruitment and assassination.

"I want eyes on the Flying Dragons at all times," Taeyun said. "The Salehrad house too."

Helang looked around the room. Everyone was frazzled and tired already, and dragging it on any longer would get people curious about just what they had met for. In either case, Helang wasn't going to be the one to let this kind of information like this slip to 20,000 or so shamans.

"Why don't we call it a day? If anyone thinks of something later, we can just send it through the secure channel," Helang suggested. Everyone quickly murmured their agreements. Taeyun dismissed the meeting, and the room slowly emptied out.

Pania hung back until everyone else was gone. "Just one last thing...the spirit I left in Kajio's house is gone. The ones in the neighborhood are all gone as well. Chairman, Vice-Chair, I think the Flying Dragons are a bigger threat than we believe them to be," she said.

Taeyun nodded slowly as he spoke. "I see. Don't worry, I'll take that into consideration," he said. "You've done well today. Good job." Pania smiled, a bright glow making it onto her face as she took her leave.

Helang nodded at her as she left, and turned his eyes back onto Taeyun. Taeyun turned towards him. "I think they're worth more dead than alive," Taeyun said casually. "What do you think?"

Helang took a short pause. "I agree, but it's probably best not to make a move until we have due cause," Helang warned. For some reason, the suggestion alarmed him more than it should have, and it wasn't the part about killing a minor.

"You were right. When they came here, remember? You were so mad too, because I wasn't taking it seriously, and now you're calling for restraint." Taeyun whined. This was a side Taeyun never showed to anyone else, with no mouth filter, a lot of bad ideas, and the maturity of a ten-year-old.

"I was right, wasn't I? But we're not the only ones with eyes on them. When dogs are fighting for a piece of meat, it's not the fastest but the most patient one that will take home the prize," Helang said. Taeyun nodded slowly, frowning at a spot three feet above Helang's head as he ignored being compared to a dog.

"You're not wrong," Taeyun said. "But I'm worried about what they're concocting with the Salehrads, I can't help but feel like it'll be a serious concern later."

"Moving arbitrarily could still cause a serious concern," Helang said patiently, falling into the familiar rhythm of talking Taeyun out of a bad idea. Taeyun's cell phone promptly interrupted him like that one socially inept relative who could never read the room and always ends up cracking a joke at bad times.

Helang watched as Taeyun read the message attentively. "What is it?"

"Our guy in the Shaman Council says Selva found something. Apparently they came up from Indonesia to Hong Kong, stole a sword from a mansion, and went up to Russia via Tianjin," Taeyun smirked. "Does that sound right to you?"

Helang raised an eyebrow. "That's what he stopped at the Salehrad house for?" He didn't think anyone bought that.

Even if the sword was expensive, there were no extradition laws between Hong Kong and Canton and he doubted the Flying Dragons would be scared of a local mob. Plus, a robbery wouldn't be enough to make the investigator beeline to the Salehrad house as soon as he got to Canton.

"He probably told Kajio more than he told Jia Xu," Taeyun mused. "After all, he's different from the refugees, he was born here. Of course he would side with his own."

It was just like how children with loving parents didn't make good shamans because their parents were never alright with the brutal training, people with a community didn't make good recruits because they had divided loyalties.

"I'll get our guys in Indonesia and Hong Kong to take a look," Helang said, already typing out a message.

"We should focus on Hong Kong, I doubt they really came from Indonesia. See if they can get in touch with the sword's ex-owner. Either way, whoever gets the information first will have the greatest advantage and we've already lost in that edge to a neutral party." Taeyun didn't look too displeased at that.

"Don't move against the Salehrad too rashly," Helang warned. The last thing he needed was to talk Taeyun out of another bad idea before they'd even gotten off the first.

"I won't. This just means we have to actually look at the Flying Dragons as an autonomous faction. I didn't actually think that for a while since they only have two shamans but it looks like we can start counting them as a potential rival faction for real. The main problem is still the game of chicken with Jia Xu, but we'll have to keep our eyes out." Taeyun actually looked a little pleased, even if Helang couldn't see what was pleasing about this situation.

The situation with Jia Xu was concerning enough when they only considered the gateway, and while both sides had to keep the information quiet for as long as possible to buy time for control measures, whoever released the information first would make the other side look less competent in comparison. It was, as Taeyun described, a game of chicken.

But if whatever was going on with the Flying Dragons had to be counted as part of the game, things were going to become that much more complicated. Helang shook his head with a heavy sigh. For better or for worse, things were going to get heated around here.