Chapter 51: Jealousy

Sparring sessions continued until we reached our destination. More often than not, the girls won, usually thanks to Azula. Mai, in my eyes, didn't stand out much from the other soldiers on the ship. She was merely a master of throwing weapons, a skill I excelled at far more than she did. Dealing with her was usually quite easy. I also started defeating Ty Lee. I simply didn't let her close the distance, and if she did manage to, I evaded all her strikes. Once again, the most problematic was the princess because she was a master Firebender and wielded the bending art better than I did. One-on-one, if I closed the distance and forced a close-quarters fight, I might have been able to defeat her, but when Azula had cover from her friends, that was very difficult to achieve. Still, sometimes luck was on my side. All three girls would end up defeated by me, which surprised them greatly even after several losses.

However, I wouldn't say the girls would have the advantage in a real fight. If the skirmish were to the death, I wouldn't hold back. In a true battle against me, Mai and Ty Lee would sustain serious injuries or even lose their lives. As for being able to defeat Azula so easily, I wasn't sure. She also restrained herself considerably during our sparring matches. Unless, that is, I could quickly close the distance with her. Up close, the advantage remained mine.

Ty Lee's fighting style was truly interesting, highly effective against benders. It prevented her opponent from using their bending. I don't know if Ty Lee did this consciously or if it was purely accidental, but she used chi in her techniques. A burst of chi would shoot out from her hands or feet upon impact. It penetrated the opponent's body like an ultra-sharp needle.

Foreign chi on its own causes uncomfortable sensations when entering the body, but Ty Lee had taken this feeling to the absolute extreme. It seemed as though she was striking pressure points, but I later realized this was not the case. She somehow knew about the places where benders had clusters… intersection points of specific energy channels through which chi flowed.

Before sparring with Ty Lee, I wasn't even aware of their existence. Only numerous sparring sessions and analyzing my own condition afterward helped me discover these very chi nodes.

For some reason, none of my bending masters ever mentioned them during my training. Either they didn't know about them themselves, or they didn't consider the existence of the channels through which chi flows to be significant.

And in the training camp where the fundamentals of Firebending were taught, the instructors engaged in partial misinformation of beginner benders. They said that chi flows through the body. Simply through the body. This was indeed true.

Now, with my enhanced sensitivity, I could tell that vital energy circulated freely in my blood, internal organs, and even the seemingly "dead" hair on my head. But the sheer volume present in these strange channels and nodes simply couldn't compare to what was in the rest of the body.

The body, in terms of chi volume, could be metaphorically called a cup of water, while these channels were an entire filled bucket. The difference was colossal.

So, Ty Lee strikes the intersection points of these energy channels. The chi "needle" penetrates the bender and… blocks their node. The circulation of vital energy in the body is disrupted. A powerful Firebender unexpectedly turns into an ordinary person who can't bend. Of course, the bender's own chi eventually flushes out the foreign energy, but until that moment, the bender becomes an easy target. That's because Ty Lee's fighting style has a secondary effect in the form of partial paralysis. It is noteworthy that this effect works much less effectively on non-benders. From this, one can conclude that benders perceive the disruption of their chi circulation much more acutely.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times I asked, Ty Lee refused to teach me her style, so I decided to master it on my own. I intentionally allowed the girl to hit me sometimes to reveal the existence of yet another chi node. Even realizing they were in my body, I still couldn't miraculously sense all of them. Some remained for which my current sensitivity was insufficient.

Despite this, the girl was not against sparring. Not just the ones involving Princess Azula and Mai, but individual ones too. I even managed to convince Ty Lee a few times to give a "lesson" to the soldiers. While she beat up the ship's crew under the guise of a training match against an unconventional opponent, I diligently memorized her every movement. Then, alone in my cabin or late at night on the deck, I practiced them. But that was no longer the most important thing. I had understood the main principle long ago: a chi "needle" into a chi node. Now, I was just trying to achieve mastery in this martial art as quickly as possible.

However, as always, there was a downside: seeing me constantly hovering around her friend, Azula started getting jealous and grew angry with me. Sometimes Ty Lee herself took the brunt of the princess's ire. She quickly put two and two together and realized this only happened when I was near her, so she consciously began to avoid me. But again, I had mastered the basics and wasn't overly concerned about that. I was much more worried about Azula's jealousy and losing her favor. I had to do something about it. The princess's trust was important to me. Without it, I wouldn't be able to access the knowledge I needed.

Late in the evening, practically at night, when the entire crew was preparing for sleep or already dreaming, I quietly knocked on Azula's cabin door. Without waiting for any answer, I opened the door and stepped inside. I found the princess herself lying relaxed on her bed, and one of her servants diligently giving Azula a pedicure. Judging by the princess's wet hair and the robe clinging to her body, which quite temptingly outlined the girl's figure, she had recently bathed.

The princess's maid froze at the sight of me. Azula first shot a disgruntled look at her, then at me.

"Get out, Long," she said with a flash of contempt and resentment on her face. "I don't wish to see you tonight."

"I wanted to speak with you, Princess," I said calmly.

"Well, I don't want to speak with you, Long!" She sat up on the bed and almost shouted. Irritation was visible on the princess's face, and tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

"I see," I nodded, then looked at Azula's maid with a murderous expression. "Get out immediately. The princess and I need to talk alone."

The maid, who had been kneeling, sprang quickly to her feet, hastily gathered all her things, and practically flew out of Azula's cabin with a pale face, as if she had seen Death itself. I locked the door behind her. When I turned back to the princess, she was already standing and moving toward me. A few seconds later, I was grabbed by the collar of my clothes.

"What do you think you're doing, Long?" Azula hissed into my face.

"Princess," I addressed her, gently embracing her waist, "jealousy is a foolish emotion. You shouldn't…"

"Foolish? What do you know?!" Azula interrupted me. I realized that a normal dialogue with her was impossible right now. Words wouldn't help here. I would have to demonstrate everything in practice.

Azula's eyes widened when she felt the first strike I delivered, which immediately turned into a series. Her body began to fall to the cabin floor, but I managed to catch her and carried her to the bed in my arms, gently laying her down.

The princess's entire body was paralyzed. I had learned the location of the main nodes almost instantly. Now, Azula could only roll her eyes, and moisture continued to gather in the corners. Soon, the first tears rolled down her cheeks. I think she misunderstood everything. Perhaps she assumed I had gotten close enough to Ty Lee that she taught me her fighting style. Or she was thinking about things even worse, like my eliminating her, but it was too early for that…

I gently stroked Azula's cheek and then wiped away the trails of tears.

"To be honest, Princess, your friend is not my type. She is too cheerful. With my temperament, it is difficult for me to be around such people. Therefore, I can assure you that you have misunderstood everything. I have not fallen in love with her. There is nothing between us. I was simply interested in her fighting style. It seemed very effective. And it is the first style in my memory that utilizes chi. I couldn't pass it up. I wanted to learn chi-blocking. Not just for personal use. I thought that with this style, it would be much easier for me to help you gain your own father's recognition." I paused sometimes to touch Azula's lips with mine. I kissed her cheeks, ear, neck, the corners of her mouth, her collarbones, and the hollow between her breasts, which opened up when her robe gaped slightly due to the loosely tied sash. Although the princess couldn't move, she could still feel my touches. Therefore, when I wasn't kissing her, my hands gently stroked Azula's body. This had a definite effect: the princess's cheeks slowly flushed with color, and her breathing and heart rate accelerated. "But your friend, as you already know, refused to teach me. So I decided to master this martial art on my own. As you can see, I have achieved some success."

There was indignation in Azula's gaze. She was displeased that I had demonstrated my "successes" on her. Running my palm from her waist to her hip, I asked the princess:

"Are you still jealous of me?"

It was difficult to tell what Azula thought about this from her look alone, so I had to hit her again with the "needle" in her neck, a point that blocks everything above. This removed the chi node blockage and the paralysis subsided.

"Teaching yourself this fighting style still doesn't excuse you. It doesn't excuse the fact that you spent too much time circling around Ty Lee," Azula replied, turning her head away to avoid eye contact with me. Her cheeks were puffed out. I could still hear the jealousy in her voice, but much less than at the beginning of our conversation.

"I understand, Princess." She looked at me with interest, and was immediately fully paralyzed again. "I will have to make an effort to restore your good humor."