A Lesson in Two Parts

[Matsu Xiangu]

​

At first glance, a mentalist and sorceress imparting knowledge to a woman who mainly chased more physical disciplines seemed at odds. What richness could Matsu possibly share as a Master when the extent of her knowledge when it came to a lightsaber was how to hit someone with the burny end?

The Sith Lord found it inconsequential. [member="Aria Vale"] was not the first warrior she would train and she doubted she would be the last. Disregarding Matsu’s close ties with some of the Galaxy’s finest combatants and brawlers, the Atrisian thought she had something more invaluable. When she’d been younger she’d been lucky enough to stumble across Jared Ovmar - in a bar of all places, an establishment anyone who knew the old bastard would not have been surprised to hear tell of his trawling. In the end he’d turned out to be the sort of Master that few had the privilege of learning from, and it had nothing to do with the lessons in mentalist’s wisdom and practice that he’d shared. No, Jared had taught her about life, about how to win without trying, about the Force in general so that Matsu could form her own opinions and use it how she was meant to...not how someone told her to, and how it had to be. She thought so fondly of very few people in the Galaxy but he was one.

It didn’t matter that Matsu was not exactly the sort of Sith that Aria might become because the path was irrelevant - it was simply being guided to understand the Force in one’s own way that mattered.

And so the Atrisian Lady found herself in one of many training rooms sprawling through the Unit. It was easier to train here so her apprentices didn’t feel held back by the worry of destroying something important in the city - not that it wouldn’t have impressed Matsu. Hell, [member="Jacob Crawford"] had blown up her beach and she’d only been more interested. But those things aside, the room they found themselves in was large, quiet, the architecture as modern as Matsu’s usual tastes though the lighting was more dim. She walked slowly around the perimeter with her hands clasped lightly behind her back, looking at the Knight as she considered her lesson.

So far Vale had kept her word and proven she wasn’t weak in any sense of the word. That was what led to today, to Matsu considering sharing more.

“Do you consider starting as a Jedi a blessing or a curse?”

 

[NightSister]

"Both."

​

Gaze met Matsu's as Aria thought how best to expand.

She thought a lot about her Jedi past, in truth. Some things simply liked to plague at her mind. It hadn't all been painful, of course - she had a number of fond memories of Voss and of the Jedi, enough at least that she'd made it a point to work through them so they wouldn't haunt her further along. That particular endeavor hadn't worked out quite like she'd thought it would, but it hadn't failed either.

There were parts of those five years that had truly been awful, though. She looked back with shame on the days when she'd been made weak by her anger, when mere emotion had been a misery simply because it was what she'd been trained against. It was no way to live, following codes that made humanity her foe and rewarded her with weakness - when she looked back on those memories, she was truly ashamed she'd not seen it before. Reversing the teachings she'd once strived to make her entire way of being had been and kept on being an ongoing process; Aria was constantly reminded of her past, of how long it would take to sever it from her present.

But how could she feel the utter freedom that was breaking away from the light, if not for having been within its constraints before? How could she understand what a gift emotion was if not for having denied it a presence so very long? She'd been in the wrong, been trapped by her beliefs - now she wouldn't repeat her mistakes again. The Jedi way had caged her and she was ashamed she'd let it, but now Aria realised what it meant to be free.

"A curse because the light held me back. A blessing because I know now never to let it again."

​

- [member="Matsu Xiangu"] -​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

“A good answer,” she responded, continuing her casual walk around the perimeter of the large room.

“But I would posit that it is a blessing in another way however. The Jedi teach to suppress emotion, totally. I don’t have to tell you about that though,” she said, sensing the thought that had gone in to Aria’s answer. “The Sith teach passion, using the emotion as fuel. And that is true. But imagine you start a fire, and you have only gathered so much wood. Say you throw all the wood you have in to that fire as soon as you light it. You’ll be rewarded with something fiercely hot at first, something that is sure to destroy anything that touches it...but the wood burns up, and the fire goes out as quick as it started. Or...you can light the fire, and feed it one log at a time. It will take more control, more patience. But it will burn just as hot as the first fire, and it will burn for hours…”

Matsu stopped her pacing, moving in from the track she’d made to stand in front of Aria, her hands still behind her back. “The Jedi gave you at least one invaluable lesson, and that is control. The Force is a gift but one that must be commanded. It is our choice whether we elect to do so with deadly precision, or in clumsy displays of brute force. I see so many Sith choose the latter, destroying planets and making big shows of themselves. Instead of suppression, think of the Jedi’s measure as a method of control, bending and molding the Dark to your own means.”

One hand snaked out of the gentle grip Matsu had her hands in, lifting from behind her back as if dragging the sith illusions she created up out the ground by physical will. She molded, pressing shape through sorcery to the two opponents she created for Aria. One was Twi’lek and one was ancient Sith, male and female respectively. Created through her connection to the dark side they were as flesh and blood as her and Aria for as long as Matsu fuelled them.

“Instead of letting your passion - your anger, your hate, your excitement, your lust, your love - overwhelm your senses and make you some brute monster...push them somewhere, like the Jedi taught you. But not out of sight. Together. Right in the center of your chest, right in the middle of your head where you can see them - make them white-hot, dangerous. And draw from that center.”

Matsu stepped away from the two warriors she’d created and they brought up their sabers as if that had been permission enough to kill Aria Vale.

“I will help you,” Matsu said quietly just as the Sith woman lunged forward, swinging the saber in her right hand towards Aria’s knees as her left came up in a guard to catch Aria’s should the Knight go for her face or chest as she dipped low.

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

A nod here, a smile there. Aria listened to Matsu keenly and without interruption, staying as silent as was her nature. Words at present would be needless - any who knew Aria could say she didn't tend towards needless words.

Widened eyes were all the surprise Aria showed as the dark side brought two illusions into being. They both faced Aria, and Aria faced back, guard up and stance wary.

Control. That was the word Matsu'd used; that was the point here. Her gaze didn't leave Matsu's creations but her mind was racing, senses alert as the sith held up their sabers. Quickly, Aria.

Push them somewhere -

your anger-
your hate-
your excitement-
your lust-
your love-

yours

Yes, they belonged to her, and they were hers to control. Emotion - Aria knew how to control emotion through suppression, though she'd abandoned the tactic when she'd abandoned the Jedi and attempting now to block it out was something she not only refused to do but would likely prove quite incapable of. But that wasn't her aim now. Now everything that she felt drew itself to her mind's centre, becoming a fire, burning brighter, brighter, brighter.

make them dangerousdangeroussss

Brighter, brighter. She had full control. Thoughts, memories - her most heated moments, her most pained - simmered, seethed as though they were tangible, as though they could scar.

She outstretched a hand (stop), carefully directing the energy brewing from the depths of her mind, sending it arcing downwards through the air immanifest until it hit the saber that the Sith woman had swinging inches from her knee. It stopped short, the momentum of the swing almost palpable in its struggle against her.

For a moment she held the conflict, the lightsaber at a standstill as it tried to push through an invisible but unmoving barrier (patience, patience). Aria was had to appreciate what fun it was feeding the unseen clash, seeing just how much she could exercise her will, just how perfectly she could hold the blade in place.

But then she bent her wall into a wind. The energy forced the saber backwards but still wouldn't let up, chased after the woman wielding the blade, and pushed, pushed, until the Sith was moving backwards too, pushed, pushed, until she was picking up speed faster than anyone would consider safe, pushed, pushed - until she shot backwards, slamming into the wall at the other end of the room.

- [member="Matsu Xiangu"] -​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

“Good,” Matsu said quietly as one of the Sith went flying. Precision was a beautiful thing. After all, it was easy to wipe out a few opponents with a wild display of the Force. But what about the day Aria found a building full of enemies, an entire battlefield that had to be destroyed? Untrained moves would only serve to get her killed, showy displays to tire her until again - she was killed. It was a trap many, many Sith fell in to and Matsu though it valuable to share...a better way.

“A full mentalist is rare,” Matsu shared quickly as the woman peeled herself from the floor, disoriented. “Most train in more basic tactics in conjunction with some other discipline, just enough to give them an advantage. They will try to distract you on the battlefield, most commonly with sounds as they’re easiest to create. The goal is to scare you, or distract you enough to open you up to a killing blow. The key is to realize it isn't real.”

It sounded so simple when she put it that way.

The Twi’lek male gave no thought to his companion’s predicament, knowing only the urge to kill that which it was created to kill. It did not lunge or use its sabers, instead letting out a massive blast of telekinetic power at the Knight’s feet. It might have been assumed this was its primary attack but instead it was a feint, meant to chase Aria in to the most reasonable move of jumping up over the blast. Almost immediately he threw another higher, in the direction of her waist if she’d taken the bait and jumped. If well-landed it would throw the woman backwards as she'd done to his Sith companion.

And then was when Matsu created a hideous, deafening shriek in Aria’s mind. It would sound like some poor girl was being tortured right next to Aria’s ears, each begging scream layering over and over and over until it was enough to drive one mad. The Lord had used sound distractions to advantage on the field, though as her power grew she left them behind. They were, to the more seasoned fighter, a distraction that could be shrugged off more easily than elaborate illusion. Should Aria do well, Matsu had something far more difficult in mind. But this was practical, and useful.

“It is just a sound.”

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

Aria prided herself on her mind, and other days it would've worked fast enough to know the Twi'lek was feinting. But she was distracted (trying to understand, to guess - it isn't real) and by the time her focus could switch to the wave of energy rolling towards her, the only think she could think to do was exactly what she'd been supposed to do.

She leapt, graceful as the first blast continued on smoothly beneath her.
And then she instantly collided with the second in its full force.

Oh, feth-

The screech was horrific, the sound of madness, piercing her skull with a startling loudness. She went backwards at the same time; she could feel herself stay airborne as everything sped up. It wasn't real, her mind tried to insist - but oh, it felt so real, almost as though it could suffocate her thoughts in how very real it was.

She was still moving with unnatural speed - the wall seemed so close - it would hurt to slam into it, she'd done the same to the Sith woman moments ago and it hadn't sounded pretty - she had to get out of this predicament - but oh Force, the noise, I can't think, I CAN'T THINK-

It is just a sound.

At first it was the most utterly useless advice she'd ever been given (yes, and falling is just flying, isn't it?) but she was bright enough to think harder than that. It wasn't real. It was just a sound. A hideous, hideous sound, but a sound.

Over the years she'd fought her fair of fights - with the Jedi, against the Jedi, alongside various darksided groups who'd caught her interest however briefly - and she always fought the same. She fought smart, calculating, fluid and unflinching as she chased her prey, wearing a small smile that somehow never reached her eyes. She never returned from her battles unscarred, but she always returned alive.

Here she was fighting with her mind as much as her sabre, but the principle was the same as far as she was concerned.

Inches from the wall, Aria fired out a blast of energy backwards, forcing the blast through the blockade in her mind. She'd not expected it to be enough and it wasn't, but when she knocked into the surface behind her the impact was missing that awful thud. Instead she was winded and wouldn't have minded a minute to recover but would easily survive without.

More than likely that minute came closer to a few seconds.
The shriek inside her mind went on.
She would have to use them wisely.

Quiet, she told her mind. It didn't oblige. Out of my head. She didn't like having thoughts, even sounds in her head that weren't her own. Her mind was never peaceful, but it belonged to her.

Out, she insisted, and now she took the tone she'd heard before so often - fight harder, Aria, fight stronger.
Out.
O u t.

Slowly, the noise turned muffled, like she was hearing it through a radio with bad static rather than having it flood her head.

Her footing evened out and she walked evenly towards the Twi'lek.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

As soon as Aria managed to quiet the screeching to a low, annoying buzz...it stopped.

“Good…” came Matsu’s purr, pleased. “These half-mentalists abound, insubstantial and paltry,” she continued, her tone turning to obvious disgust at the description. The Twi’lek was advancing, and the Sith woman had managed to gather him limbs and wits and join her partner. “But what of a real mentalist? What of someone who trained in just the mind, and nothing but the mind?”

The Twi’lek raised his saber, sweeping in for an attack just as his Sith sister started a sprinting charge to catch up and complement him. For a moment it seemed as if they might truly get the chance to strike but without warning they froze, as if they’d hit some sort of wall that had formed in front of Aria. The sound of sucking wind as they choked filled the room, their sabers deactivating as they dropped them to the floor and reached for their necks. They dropped to their knees just in time to reveal the man who walked around the corner of the doorway, one arm raised with fist clenched to choke the life out of the two assassins.

Connor Harrison.

Ostensibly, he could have been there. He’d traveled to Maena more than once for one arrangement or another and...more recently things have gotten even more interesting as he moved further from grace. Truly, it was possible. He wasn’t an illusion...was he?

The Twi'lek and Sith fell to the ground, dead. The fallen Jedi cast them aside, their corpses crumpled heaps against the far wall outside of the path he took towards the Sith Knight.

Matsu pumped out uncertainty - a ghastly, sickly, sticky feeling that stuck cloying to every surface. Connor was easy to fabricate. She’d run in to him enough times, had enough fights and debates and long conversations about the philosophy of life that he was simple to make without ruining her ability to challenge Aria. He would feel so undeniably real because of her own knowledge that it would be...a masterpiece.

What was real?
Was any of this real?

Rain beat against Aria’s face, heavy sheets that made it hard to see for trying to keep her eyes open under its onslaught.
Connor walked closer, lightsaber snapping to life.
The sky over the landing pad was the most complete slate gray one could imagine. They’d stood together under that sky. He’d said terrible things under that sky.
“I told you if you stayed with me you’d be fine. But instead you find some Spider and her web. You think she’s going to teach you? She’s going to let you believe I’m an illusion. And she’s going to let me kill you.”

It was that new Connor. The one who’d died.

But he retained fire. That thing he bent with alacrity. It bloomed out of his free hand without warning, cascading over the ceiling and walls in a wide, yawning maw to consume Aria. And he would cleave apart whatever didn’t turn to ashes.

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

She had a hand above the ground ready to call her saber to life, eyes fixed on the pair of warriors, seemingly unfazed as they came closer, closer. Easy - too easy. Saberplay was far from unfamiliar territory for her. Aria could swing here, jab there, could-

But what Aria could've done would have to remain a mystery.

Vacant confusion lined the sharpness of her features until she realised the two figures were choking. She blinked once, blinked twice. Matsu wasn't choking them - but nor was she - but then. . .
Aria spun on her heel as sabers hit the floor and her expression changed. Disgust, exasperation. Utter uncertainty.

"You're not real," she said breathlessly. "You can't be real, you're not..." but she trailed off there.

He had to be an illusion. Connor couldn't be fool enough to still be chasing after her, not after everything.
Could he?

Real or not real, real or not real. He knew where she was, he knew that she knew Xiangu. He'd been to Maena before; once just to try to speak to her. And he was deluded enough to find a way to convince himself he ought return. (But she'd told him to leave. She'd been stronger and he'd known it and she'd have killed him but she told him to leave, hissed the promise to finish the task if he dared return. He must have known she could do it, must have known he was alive solely because he wasn't worth even the effort of killing. He wouldn't).

But if she was wrong. . .

Plasma blade shot out as Connor ignited his saber and Aria forced the debate from her mind. Illusion or not, it was only Connor, and Connor Harrison had become near impossible to fear.

She's going to let me kill you.

Aria was ready to sneer at him, amused contempt - but laughter died on her lips unbidden when she saw the fire.

No.
That wasn't right.
That couldn't be right.
That-
What are you waiting for?

Aria was a spiteful creature by nature. She was driven by her past, driven by vengeance; but above those, above everything else she was driven by her fierce determination to defy whatever limits were put in front of her. It struck her in that fraction of a second that illusion or not an illusion, real or not real, Connor Harrison could kill her.

Her mortality was a permanent truth, and Aria knew it. She would die one day. And when she did she would accept it, meet her end gladly with the knowledge that she had lived her life for herself.

But not at Connor Harrison's hand.

It was that moment, that instant where she realised that Connor would kill her, that the last thing she'd see was Connor Harrison's face through the flames that she exploded, pure defiance and determination. A shield burst from clenched fists and it pushed outwards, pushed against anything in its way. Flames would blow backwards, Connor himself would crash against the wall - even Matsu would be sent reeling if the Sith Lord didn't think to protect herself beforehand. She couldn't remember to think about her teacher, couldn't think about anything other the fact that he wouldn't kill her, he wouldn't kill her, he wouldn't kill her.

Everyone inevitably died sooner or later. Pretending otherwise was ignorance. And Aria wasn't blind enough to think herself any different. But not today. Not like this. Not at his hand.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She had known that presenting Aria with the perfect illusion of Connor would be - in one way or another - explosive. There was history there, painful history, and even had the man not unleashed a fiery blast Matsu was sure things would have gotten ugly quickly. Such was the way. Thus, she was more glad than ever for the shielding Ashin Varanin had once taught her, the swift movement of her hands as if in prayer erecting a barrier around her as Aria fabricated one of her own.

Something like electricity crackled as Matsu was caught in the small shield, Aria’s power roaming around her own and cresting like two magnetic poles.

Harrison, for his part, doubled down on anger as his fire cascaded over Aria’s barrier like a wave against some sudden rocky shoreline. It scorched the walls and ceiling, burned molten patches in the floor, but it didn't touch HER. The sound of expensive tile flooring snapping from the heat cracked repeatedly through the room, the smell of burnt plastic sick and cloying.

“I see you've grown more powerful since the last time I saw you,” he growled, lines forming on the bridge of his nose as his expression crumpled to angry frustration. “All to beat me. To show me I was wrong. Truly unworthy of your...respect. I'll show you!” he screamed, truly unhinged as his eyes coiled down the drain to some darkness. Flames once more coiled in his fists but this time it was no great wave. This time it was well-formed, pointed spheres of molten flame about a foot across. Fuelled by rage, they pooled from his palms, building and dripped fat strings of magma that fell to the floor and burned through it (like her flesh, DESTROY HER!). They came rapid-fire, the first slamming in to Aria’s barrier hard enough that brilliant, shattering cracks spidered up its sides.

And more kept coming.

“A true Master will find your weakness and exploit it. They will find the details, choose the things that will make sense for where you are. No master worth their salt would place a Wampa in the desert, for example,” spoke Matsu in to Aria’s mind. “Why? What have I already taught you? If you realize it's not real, truly know it is not real, it cannot hurt you.”

Connor’s concentrated flames were coming faster now, anger and frustration ample fuel.

“In battle, there is no time to think. How can you realize something is not real if you are too busy fighting for your life? Sith fight with their passion. Jedi find strength in peace and calm. Passion is the truth. But the only way to protect yourself in your mind is calm. Think. Use your head. What is wrong here?”

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

She'd head the adage to know your enemy a hundred times over, and when the illusion of Connor Harrison had walked into the room Aria had been certain this was one enemy she knew all too well. The last time she'd laid eyes on the fallen Jedi he'd been stripped of his connection to the Force, still in the stages of recovering his ability to tap into its vastness. As far as she knew - as far as she could possibly have known - Harrison was easy prey, easily defeated.

To see him wield fire like there'd never been a time when he couldn't had nearly stunned her immobile.

But she'd pressed on, and she knew that he would too. It was one of few things they had in common anymore; he was stubborn, persistent, determined he wouldn't give up no matter how much he should, and it was how she knew even before he spoke that she couldn't let her guard down just yet. Knuckles went white, clenched with the strain of feeding energy into her shield. His wave of flame became spheres of fire, one after the other flying into the barrier, sending jagged lines up and down the translucent wall that divided them.
Under her breath, Aria cursed.

She heard Matsu in her mind and she flinched at first at the sensation, but she listened through the fire and alarm and sensation of someone else inside her head.

It wasn't real.
The fire was.
It couldn't hurt her.
Flame had scorched the room's interior already.

Calm.
Calm.
She could just be calm, and she'd know what to do.
But how?

This wasn't Connor.
The real Connor Harrison was too much the coward to try and earn her respect in any way other than declaring himself a man changed, blaming everything he'd done to lose it on the old Connor as he pleaded for another chance.

The real Connor Harrison was most likely holed up somewhere in Dosuun, doing whatever it was that he did as he worked for the First Order - because the Sith were blind, he'd said, nothing but preachers.

The real Connor Harrison couldn't fight her.
This wasn't him.

It wasn't enough to calm her, but it at least slowed down the frenzy filling her mind.

One last fiery missile and her shield splintered, shivering into fragments that seemed to dissolve as soon as they didn't comprise a wall. But Aria didn't yet look afraid. She hadn't once yet looked afraid.

His flames were concentrated and now so was what formed against it. The layer of energy that formed between the two was so rigidly formed it manifested, opaque. But it wasn't made to protect her - it was made to attack him.

Her wall launched past the fire and towards Connor Harrison, as though it were tangible, a crate she'd lifted and thrown.
The crate, she presumed, would hurt less.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

What Matsu had truly wanted was the realization she felt bloom in Aria - the ability to reason even as the world was attempting to destroy her. It wouldn’t always be so easy, or in as nearly a controlled environment. A truly skilled mentalist would weave something nearly impossible to discern as a lie, buried within distraction and enough truth to make the question too large. But the point here was for Aria to see what happened when she saw the lie.

The wall burst outwards towards Harrison, his flames crashing like molten lava and dribbling tar-like down the sides of the barrier without breaking it anymore. Fear suddenly changed his features, his expression mutating from something assured to complete and terrifying uncertainty. He backed up, pressing a barrier of his own that melted in the face of Aria’s vehemence. “Stop! You can’t kill me! Not after everything I’ve done for you! You ca--AAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAA!” The screams went on and on as the barrier met him, engulfing and dissolving flesh. Matsu let it go on, a hideous and grotesque show more satisfying than anything she’d witnessed in the same vein in a while, before letting it go.

Connor disappeared.

Suddenly the room was deathly silent.

The sound of stretching, bubbling plastic crackled in the air. Sizzling heat buzzed. But otherwise the great chaos that had just engulfed the room completely ceased to be. Matsu let it sit a heartbeat, letting Aria regain whatever breath she needed before dispensing the final part of that lesson.

“Well done,” she said quietly. “What you must understand is that mentalism, on its own, cannot create something that will truly hurt you. A mentalist can weave powerful illusions to break a mind, but they dissolve the moment you touch them. That…” she said, motioning to the charred outline on the floor of the thing that had masqueraded as Connor Harrison, “was no mentalist’s illusion, but Sith Sorcery. And that can hurt you. It can burn you. Touch you. Speak intelligently. Kill you just like the real thing. The only way to stop it is to spot the lie.”

Matsu considered Aria, thinking of all her own lessons back when she’d been the girl’s age, the people she’d learned from both intentionally and unintentionally. “I was taught that early on by a very powerful woman, a woman that led Empires. But it was much harder the first time I had to face it when it wasn’t in a room like this one. It was the reason I lost this arm,” she said, slightly raising the left cybernetic. It was far more sleek than the first model she’d worn. Her tone quieted, a strange memory fluttered across her mind. “So if you learn nothing else from today, remember: try to find a lie. If the Jedi taught you anything, it was not to let your rage blind it. It’s powerful, and the key. But it can hurt you if you let it. Tell yourself if it doesn’t make sense. Find the flaw.”

She sighed, pushing aside the searing memory of Krius Syonis looming over her as she sliced off her own arm with a piece of metal. Decades ago. And yet in a way it had changed everything. “Any questions?” If not...she was going to have to inform someone some new upholstery was needed in the training rooms.

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

There was some satisfaction in watching him die. Aria knew now that he wasn't real (and even the real Connor didn't mean much to her one way or another) but it was undeniably more fun to watch Connor disappear than if he'd been another nameless creature she'd kill and forget.

Force knew she'd cut down enough of those in recent years.

A smile curved her lips as she caught her breath, gaze travelling across the room surveying what remained. She had to appreciate the damage Matsu had created through her illusion; the fire that had swallowed up the room was artful and its smoldering aftermath certainly something to look at, to say the least.

Then Matsu spoke and Aria turned her attention back to the Sith Lord, eyes curious. She had the capacity to pick up ideas quickly, to require little depth, but she always listened carefully to her teachings. Partly because they were interesting; partly because they were useful. After all, Aria had shared a battlefield with Matsu Xiangu once upon a time, seen firsthand the extent of her power when she wielded it against enemies. It was very clear in her mind that it was worthwhile paying close attention to her lessons.

Aria was a stranger to mentalism and sorcery both. She'd come across each a few times; neither enough to constitute understanding. But she liked to think herself able to use her mind amidst mayhem. Enough that she could trust herself to see through illusions in the haze of battle? Not at all. But it was a start. The Knight was hardly without her frequent opportunities to test her abilities in battle, after all.

Any questions?

A brow lifted. "How did you lose your arm?"

The words were measured, evenly curious. She was never quite certain how Matsu felt about Aria's dislike of tiptoeing behind the formality of training (not that she was ever quite certain how Matsu felt about anything - she wasn't half as easily read as Aria and Aria wasn't half so good a reader) but she worried less about it than she might've done if the Sith Lord was a stranger.

Once she'd decided it wouldn't get her killed, at least, she'd managed to loosen up.

| [member="Matsu Xiangu"] |​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

These days, Matsu rarely thought of her arms as anything other than just that. That neither of them were flesh and bone anymore rarely occurred to her. If anything, the phrik-laced plexisteel was an advantage over the weaknesses of the human body.

“Which one? And which time?” she joked, though she knew what Aria wanted. “I have lost both numerous times. I suppose I'm not very good at holding on to my limbs. But the first time…”

She closed her eyes and the world seemed to shrink down to a point between them, utter blackness surrounding them before it opened back up to reveal a world much different than the room they'd left behind. Grasslands beneath a towering mountain range blew in the breeze, near peaceful save for the screams and cries of two beings fighting each other for their lives. The earth was torn and scorched where Krius Syonis battled a Matsu a little over two decades younger than she was now. Free of the demonic sharpness that sculpted her features now, this Matsu seemed near a child. In her memory, her hands balled in to fists as she yanked bolts from the hull of a small, burning ship and pulled them to bury in Syonis’ back.

“When I first left home, I just traveled the galaxy. I hopped rides on transport ships, stowed away in cargo where no one could see me. I saw a lot of what was out there, studied people and aliens, learned their quirks and expressions. I thought it would be enough to know how they ticked, to be able to see when they were lying, to read subtle body language. I lived on the streets for five years, stuck in the alleys of Nar Shaddaa for two. One fateful day I ended up on Utapau, and it was there I ran in to Krius Syonis.”

Krius, recovered from the previous attack, was barreling towards Matsu.

“He had delusions that the Light and the Dark side were both folly, that all Force users were meant to go their own way. And that that way involved worshipping him. For a time I was willing to overlook his...eccentricities, for he was the first person to teach me anything of the mysterious power I'd felt all my life.”

The Matsu of old fell to her knees in the snow in front of Krius as he attacked her mind, ripping in to it and crafting an illusion that she was surrounded not by snow, but fire. And the fire was crawling up her arm. Matsu spoke over her younger self’s distant screams.

“When I expressed concern, disbelief in his vision he...took it poorly. I told him I had run across someone from a group called the Lords of the Fringe who had offered to teach me and that he took even worse. He attacked my mind, forced me to believe I needed to mutilate myself to survive.”

Bright red blood gushed on to the snow, melting it around younger Matsu as she collapsed on to her back, shivering and retching as the vision disappeared and she realized what she'd done. Syonis turned, boarding his ship and barely taking off in to the blue sky. Such a brutal tableau to leave behind...

“He left me there. To die. In a way, he taught me more than he probably hoped. He taught me it wasn't enough to read a person, but that I must hear and feel their thoughts and know what was in them without doubt. And that no one...would ever touch my mind again.”

The memory dissolved, leaving them back in the same training room.

“My Master, Jared Ovmar, found me and brought me back to the Fringe. He had a cybernetic placed and began my training in earnest. Since then I have lost an arm fighting and killing the Republic’s Jedi Grandmaster during the One Sith’s invasion of Manaan, another to a Tarentatek, and again when invading Dromund Kaas. I suppose it's led somewhat to my philosophy on pain and sacrifice and the road to power.”

She paused, rolling her tongue in her cheek before finishing.

“I suppose the lesson is that no matter what happens, you succeed by improving from it. Krius Syonis took an arm, and the safety of my mind. But in doing so, he also made my mind the safest in the galaxy, and freed me from the shackles of fearing for my body. And...I murdered him under the same mountain he tried to kill me beneath. Patience is a good lesson too.”

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

She smiled, but then she watched.

When darkness parted there was a Matsu Xiangu who seemed strange in her lack of strangeness; Aria's perception of normal was extremely subjective, and the Matsu with glowing dark eyes and knife-sharp features had easily slipped into her idea of how things were. This one was unnaturally natural - but the contrast in appearance was hardly the most unusual thing this memory held.

A Matsu who hadn't had the Force. Her first teacher. Madness, delusions of grandeur. A Matsu with her mind invaded. Aria had never once imagined how it would look the other way around but she was shown all the same. Then a Matsu left to die, and the past disintegrated into the present.

Aria looked back to the Sith Lord, intermingled intrigue and surprise. She wasn't certain what she'd expected (truthfully, she was partly surprised to have received any answer) but Matsu's story had piqued her interest.
And Aria couldn't help but appreciate the ending. Revenge was long a concept that the Knight favored.

Her features wore a bemused interest and involuntarily, eyes ticked to her arms as if suddenly wary for them before Matsu finished speaking.

Gaze shifted back.

"I've never been too good at patience," she mused. "When it's essential, perhaps. And I'd be patient waiting for revenge." She still waited for her revenge, though it was low on her list of priorities. And time hadn't lessened hatred, but it had pushed further away over the years - regardless. If she got a chance at vengeance she would use it all the same. She could wait.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​