#postin mostly cuz of The Lore on how magic works in the ft universe lksgsgsjlmklds

[angstandhappiness]

SO SUPER INTERESTING I LIKE IT I LIKE IT love your lore for magic

“I want to learn how to do the shadow stuff.”

“Wrgh???” The six eared macaque gets startled by that almost enough to drop the weapons he’s been trying to collect. They got knocked over during training again. Maybe he should find them a better place than in the training hall.

Kai glances to the side, feeling awkward under his shīfu’s confused stare. “Y-y'know, the things with shadows you do like the- the weapon summoning and teleports and whatever..?”

Six Ear blinks at him.

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[spotsupstuff]

"I want to learn how to do the shadow stuff."

"Wrgh???" The six eared macaque gets startled by that almost enough to drop the weapons he's been trying to collect. They got knocked over during training again. Maybe he should find them a better place than in the training hall.

Kai glances to the side, feeling awkward under his shīfu's confused stare. "Y-y'know, the things with shadows you do like the- the weapon summoning and teleports and whatever..?"

Six Ear blinks at him.

"Xiǎotiān and also Clementine told me that over here one can learn how to wield an elemental power without having to be chosen by it or something like that?? I thought it would be best to ask *you* about it since I wanted to learn shadows and you are very cool when using them and also because you're kinda my shīfu- I thought that it was possible to lea-" he starts to regret mentioning it, feeling a tad dumb about it as he starts rambling. But then Six Ear puts the weapons down and stands up, hands waving in a pacifying gesture.

"No no- yeah, it is possible, yes. You just caught me off guard with that. Nobody has ever asked me to teach them *that* of all things." Kai's eyes light up with giddiness and an excited smile forces itself onto his features. The monkey demon finds himself snorting and rolling his eyes to dodge a smile of his own. And, glancing away, with a hand coming up to mess with his goatee, he starts thinking how he'd go about teaching Kai shadow manipulation.

The thing is that he is very much made out of those. Which means he had it quite easy when it came to learning how to control those powers. From what he heard from his siblings he actually had to learn how to *restrain* his raw strength to stop overdoing the intended moves once he figured out where his powers metaphorically lay in his body. In turn, that means he won't be able to reference his own process while teaching Kai.

The same Kai who has at some point started babbling, while pacing, about how cool it actually will be to be a ninja *with* proper shadow powers and not some weak sauce version from his own realm. That does peak Six Ear's interest, but he decides to rather ask about it later.

"Training dismissed." Six Ear informs. "You stink like a skunk, Kǎikai. Go hit the showers while I consider our options."

Kai quickly comes back in front of Six Ear, yelling out a "Yes, shīfu!" on the way and giving a quick bow to his teacher before skedaddling to yoink his duffle bag from the corner of the room. Sooner than Six Ear gets to nag the kid about proper parting post-training, he's out of sight, lost somewhere in the home part of Six Ear's kwoon.

Back to his thoughts he wanders, so.

When he had been training Qí Xiǎotiān- a faint wave of unpleasant emotion washes over him, a wicked result of his redemption. It isn't exactly guilt that he feels over it, but perhaps annoyance with his past self.

Either way, when he was training Qí Xiǎotiān, they did poke around shadow powers a little bit- mostly so the kid would be satisfied with the flashiness of Six Ear’s training over Sūn Wùkōng's. But to do that, Six Ear in a way sneaked through the back then ramshackle pieces of his and Sūn Wùkōng's yīn and yáng bond to pour his own powers into the kid and, Qí Xiǎotiān being so used to reaching into the pool of golden energy, simply took what was available and fit the description Six Ear had given him and wielded it as if it was a no brainer.

With Clementine, he was planning to teach her how to bend shadows and wield other magic through a combination of dao paper slips and dharma chants, but she ended up refusing to bring upon herself even more cold magic. Whatever Red Son uses to teach her of flames is none of his business. Especially since his favorite nephew is qualified way better to be a teacher than him. Studying under Bodhisattva Guānyīn and all.

One of those two approaches he would have to take with Kai, but first he'd rather talk about it with the kid. Hell, he doesn't even know how that "elemental" power of his works... Where does it even-

Just then Kai walks back into the room, hair fluffed up and wearing new sweatpants and t-shirt. T-shirt... that will work well for what he needs to do.

As his student comes up to him, Six Ear pats the mat in front of him. "Sit."

Kai gives him a look, one eyebrow raised, but does as he is told, putting his duffle bag beside him. "Why. What's going on?"

"If we are to work with magic I need to know how your current one functions." Summoning a shadow near the light switch near the entrance to the building, he wills it to turn off the lights. It's evening, so the gentle light of the sun setting filtering through the half-circle windows near the ceiling is the only light source. For now, at least.

"It's... not really magic," Kai tries to argue.

Six Ear gives him a look that screams 'you just spilled some serious bullshit'. "By definition of the word, it is. Now extend your hand and make a flame. A *small* one, please. And keep it steady." It's not that he doesn't trust Kai with fire (definitely not as much as he doesn't trust his own sister with the thing), but it's the simple fact of trauma existing and of shadows becoming rather erratic in movement near a flame.

Kai follows the instructions once more, offering his shīfu his left hand and then makes a palm sized ball of fire appear. Six Ear, admittedly, hoped for a smaller one and he eyes it with some distrust. The kid notices and gives a smug smirk, "What? Afraid of a little heat, all-powerful shīfu?"

If he could, Six would punch that expression off this little mortal's mug *so* fast. But he's supposed to be above that now and they also have a thing to do here. So he settles for a really mean sounding growl and a stink eye. "I could wipe the floor with you faster than you could manage to blink in *any* fight, you little shit."

A slightly nervous laugh comes out of the other before he tries and fails to make it sound confident instead.

"Now would you hold still?!" Six Ear lowly barks, making Kai straighten his back and it seems like he also stopped breathing a bit. The demon doesn't bother himself with that much, though, instead focusing on shedding the masking magic and some protection spells from his hands.

Once done, Kai immediately abandons his proper posture in favor of ogling the dark as night and smoky hands, with mostly little scars pretending to be stars glowing gold. They used to shine in pale bright blue, Six Ear remembers with a pang of pain shooting through his heart. Now they are gold, filled with his brother's own light.

"Woah..." Kai breathes out, losing the focus he held on his flame, allowing it to dance.

Six Ear replies to that with a hiss as the unstable light makes his vulnerably bare hands bend weird, if not seemingly fade out of existence for a second. "Damn it, kid! What did I *just* say??"

Recognizing now what the stakes of the situation are, Kai scrambles to hold his fire steady. "Sorry! Sorry- I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't." Six Ear says, blowing a little bit of air to the side. It isn't in an accusatory tone, though. He probably should've explained himself and his conditions. After all, this kid isn't even from this realm.

Moving to the task at hand, with a little bit of hesitation he cups Kai's hand and presses the thumb of his right hand to the center or the other's wrist. He stays there for a little bit, apparently feeling out the structure, before gently and slowly sliding his hands up Kai's arm.

Confused, the human tilts his head, noting that the touch feels like graphite dust left after sharpening a mechanical pencil, safe for the ridges of the scars and the claws. Those feel a little sharp, especially the claws that his shīfu takes care to keep largely away from his student's skin. "What are you doing?"

"I need to figure out where your magic stems from. Over here it's usually either from one or two chakras or an organ- primarily so if your power is fed by an emotion. You are easily frustrated, sometimes explosive and kind of easy to anger-" he shoots the kid an unimpressed look with a pout which makes Kai giggle a bit. The expression looks silly on the monkey's face. "-so my guess is liver. Traditional medicine and magic go pretty much hand in hand."

He moves his attention back to Kai's arm, slowly coming up to the chest. "I'm kind of following the trail of your qì that is specifically created by you making a flame out of seemingly thin air. Breathe deeper now, into your diaphragm."

Kai does so.

"I didn't really have to cast away my masking and magic for this, but it's just easier to feel out yours without mine in the way." One of his hands wanders to the upper center of Kai's chest, pressing against the bone there and Kai puts a little bit more effort in staying upright against the effortlessly strong hand.

Suddenly, some kind of realization strikes the human. "Wait wait wait- you mean to tell me-?! That the way your hands look right now is how you *actually* look all over??"

The ancient demon in front of him shoots him a sly sharp grin, making Xiǎotiān's anxieties easier to understand in that little moment. "There is a lot of things you don't know, Kǎikai. Most of which will stay like so, too." He gives a cheeky wink next, as if all that just didn't leave Kai completely wide eyed.

The hand moves down over Kai's stomach, still applying the same pressure. And after a little bit, Six Ear nods to himself and pulls away, doing whatever he needs to turn his hands back to "normal". Kai eyes the rough skin of them with burning curiosity. And then gets snapped out of that by Six Ear nonchalantly hitting his outstretched hand.

"Turn that shit off." The monkey says in a manner that Kai would simply describe as 'bastardly'. But he does as told.

"So?"

"So. I was right, your powers stem from your liver. And also the solar plexus chakra. That's going to work well, since you can use your fire powers as a sort of boost for the shadows. I also have a similar thing going on in the exact same place so I can actually help you perfect that part of shadow manipulation rather well."

"You have fire powers??" Kai asks before realizing that's probably a dumb question.

And it evidently is, judging by the bark of laughter Six Ear lets out. Shaking his head, the monkey lifts his own shirt and with one hand somewhat parts the fur of his solar plexus. All to reveal faintly golden glowing spot there. Kai leans in, trying to get a better look in fascination. It's kinda weird, but at this point anything can happen, honestly.

"A shadow cannot exist without at least a little bit of light. You already have yours, a personal one," the demon informs, letting his shirt fall. "And there is a difference between shadow and complete darkness. The latter is rather dangerous and kind of negates all shadow powers, actually."

Kai nods. "Noted."

Next, Six Ear takes a deep breath. "Alright. So if you want to know how to do what I do, you need some kind of... magic source or a tool to be able to actually wield them. I'm pretty sure that human shadow magic wielders of this world have their own perfected ways that I do not know about, but you didn't come to them with this."

"There are two options you can choose from. Either you turn to dharma chants and dao paper slips- this includes a certain dedication to those religions which I doubt you wanna do-" shīfu definitely doubts correctly, "-*or* we will mirror what Sūn Wùkōng and Qí Xiǎotiān have going on. That means you will be able to draw from my own power."

Now *that* peaks his interest. One, because Xiǎotiān is very cool and his entire power deal is very cool and he wants to be as very cool as his very cool bestie. Two, because from what he has seen, Six Ear is pretty much equal to the Great Sage which means a lot of power juice for him to master and fuck around with. Three, because... it's kind of sweet.

Sūn Wùkōng's and Xiǎotiān's bond is very nice. They are more than a teacher and a student at this point- they actually have a father and son thing going on. Kai knows that the whole shared power thing does not equal such a relationship and that the two had to actually work for a good while to get there, but the fact that *Six Ear,* the guy who obviously has some trust issues, is willing to extend a part of himself like this... It has to mean *something.*

It makes Kai feel warm, even though the power offered is ought to be damnably cold.

He smiles softly at Six Ear, who in turn looks at him kind of weird, but Kai can guess that it's some kind of not wanting to admit to caring thing rather than actual disgust. "Yeah, I think I'd like to go with the second option more."

There's some kind of painfully somber look to Six Ear's face then, combined with a very small and contained smile that would be easy to miss if Kai wasn’t looking for it specifically. Kai wonders how deprived this demon is of simple trust- how did the long life he has led and still leads treated him to be like this.

"Fine." Six Ear says. "Wipe that thing off your face, though." He points at Kai, hand idly waving in a circle. Kai answers it by sticking his tongue out at the elder and the demon tsks and grumbles something about disrespect.

"Uhhh... and how... does a connection like that happen, actually?" Kai asks a few seconds later, realizing that he actually doesn't know how Xiǎotiān got his own bond to the Great Sage. Xiǎotiān himself doesn't really know.

"Oh, right. Give me your hands. Both of 'em." Six Ear extends his own to Kai, holding Kai's firmly once the human settles them down. "No idea what Qí Xiǎotiān may have told you, but it's going to be different with me. Don't be scared no matter what happens. It will get a bit dark, but that's supposed to happen. If you start feeling really cold on the inside, well- that's supposed to happen too."

Kai eyes him warily.

"It's not going to kill you so it's fine, but you will have to tough it out until I'm done. Then we can warm you up as much as you need."

That's certainly nice to hear.

"Ready?"

Ah, right now too- Kai braces himself, squaring his shoulders and shutting his eyes tight. He trusts Six Ear enough to keep him safe through this. And to never regret taking a demon's hand.

With a singular nod, everything somehow gets darker and frost shoots from his hands to fill him whole.