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The everlasting night sky over Dovebrook, with a perpetual view of gleaming stars and the reflection of city lights, blanketed the so-called arcadia in artificial calm. Perhaps on any other planet, it would have relaxed him, but here… It unnerved him, crawling under his skin, whispering to him, carrying too far the distant echoes of horrors hidden in the darkness. The moon, in his periphery, occasionally gleamed red—and even when it blinked back to soft white in his focus, the hanging celestial body stood as an omen. It crackled with laughter; it sang of broken promises; it pulsated with war cries and howls.
Why did the imagined sounds cut to his core? He had forgotten, but like every scar, his body must remember. And if he must remember, then he must give those memories the blood they yearned for—to give the burning flesh the violence it desired—
“Hey.” A small hand slapped his arm. “Earth to Bladie. You’re totally brooding again.”
Blade blinked. The wolf howls belonged to a memory he lost. The broken promises no longer mattered. He was here, in Planarcadia, and he should focus on not succumbing to the siren calls of Abundance scattered through this peculiar planet.
Right.
Silver Wolf propped her hand on her hip. “Are you done?” Are you with me? she meant.
“I was not brooding,” he replied, a defense and an answer wrapped up into one.
“I don’t know, you were totally brooding,” that almost familiar voice cut in. La Mancha leaned against the wall with a casualness so deceptive it might be real. “Totally taking my schtick, by the way. I’m supposed to be the hardboiled detective here, hunched over a gargoyle somewhere and musing into the sky.”
“You need to actually get the case from your clients first, detective,” Silver Wolf drawled. “Brooding only comes during the mystery phase.”
“A client would pay me,” La Mancha shrugged. “This is a favor between friends, remember? Which means you have to reveal your hand before I agree to anything. So, spill.”
Silver Wolf was the one with something resembling a real script, so Blade was more than happy enough to leave the explaining to her. Besides, talking to La Mancha, after all these years… It was odd, to say the least. The Galaxy Ranger remembered him as someone else, and the man currently known as ‘Ashveil’ had his own share of new quirks. Or maybe Blade would not know what was to be expected in the first place.
It left him… unmoored. He frequently was, but the lack of grounding was even worse, when those powers of Abundance were so ready to grab him.
“Shuhu…” La Mancha’s utterance jolted Blade back to whatever conversation took place. The sharp, dual toned eyes cut into him, past Blade’s scars and straight to the cursed flesh swimming in his blood. “I knew that taste was familiar. Fine, fine, you have my attention, Destiny’s Slaves. I don’t mind escorting Yingxing to the Arbiter-General, if that’s what you want.”
That old name stirred something within him yet again. Grief. Rage. Whatever it was, it was dangerous.
“Blade will need the assist, if we want this conversation to happen without an egregious amount of stabbing.” Silver Wolf eyed Blade at this, half concern and half warning. Hm. “Speaking of which, your little collaboration will come in handy. You’ll need that dragon too.”
Dragon… Echoes of a creature, roaring above the sea, cut into his mind like a knife. No. No it was… Imbibitor Lunae, the man who carried the power of that vicious dragon and turned it into grace… who held onto another, whispering of humanity that slipped from his fingers like water. The man who sinned as a human to prove he was not a beast, to render both titles meaningless. His fingers twitched. His blood pumped. The price… There had to be a price…
Silver Wolf’s knuckle poked Blade’s arm again.
“Dragon? Surely you don’t mean the thundercoil? He’s not really the sort to travel, nowadays,” La Mancha said, casual and searching.
Silver Wolf rolling her eyes was an audible thing. A very familiar thing.
“Don’t be dense. Ugh. It’s a good thing I’ll be too busy with Pearl to deal with all this.” Silver Wolf typed something into her phone. “That Nameless already beat us to the punch anyway, storming through here with his demands like that. I just sent you his location. Take him as extra precaution that Blade won’t lose it.”
Nameless…? Right, the Nameless who confronted them about the… Wait.
Blade remembered. Dan -eng. He had been here. Why did he almost forget?
“Me?” Ashveil squinted at his phone. “Why not your partner? Geez, I don’t have the battery to run navigation…”
“Because he embarrasses me daily by living in the stone ages.” Silver Wolf was searching for something in Blade—some assurance that he might not be able to give, but… He would try. “Hey detective? Give us a sec. If you listen in again, I don’t care, but I’ll know.”
La Mancha—Ashveil—shrugged. “Fine.”
“What?” Blade asked.
“Your little rival is supposed to be the key to keeping you calm, through however the hell this Abundance business plays out,” Silver Wolf said with a frown. Out of everyone, she doubted the scripts the most—perhaps because more than anyone, she had the power to break them. “I thought it was a miracle you two didn’t start fighting the last time. I’m no Kafka, and you know it. Will you really be able to keep your calm around that Dan Heng? I… I heard from Kafka that he was the one you were chasing. Back when you were totally crazy.”
Chasing…? Right. Back when the mara was stronger, he had been searching for, chasing, Imbibitor Lunae… Dan Feng.
Who was… still here. As. As that Nameless.
(But why did Elio’s scripts, always keen to unearth the truth, always use that other name?)
The itch returned. “I don’t know,” he admitted flatly. Truthfully, he did not want to let the mara win. Fake as the arcadia was, it did not deserve the wrath of the Abundance’s madness to cleave the streets in two. Yet… Huh. Silver Wolf was right. He had been here, and Blade remembered just… Talking. To a nosy Nameless, who invoked Shuhu’s name and (rightfully) picked at that scar with nothing but words and a glare, and then… and then… That had been it.
Was it this place? Was it… that Shuhu was stronger than Yingxing’s sin?
He truly did not know. Elio’s script did not deign to tell him.
“La Mancha can stop me,” Blade ultimately decided. If calamity had not cast its eyes on this place, Blade would let La Mancha kill him where he stood. As her—as Baiheng’s friend, he deserved that honor. And most alluringly… that old Galaxy Ranger might actually pull it off.
But no. Shuhu must die. Completely and utterly. Blade will ensure this, script or no script.
Silver Wolf hummed. “...I guess we’ll see, then. Just…” She stopped herself, uncharacteristically uncertain—at least in a way she displayed openly. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back to you, okay?”
Yingxing… had been the type to make impossible promises. It almost worked for him. Almost.
“I can’t promise that,” Blade denied, even as that old spark within him wanted to take Silver Wolf’s unease and shape it to something else, no matter the natural laws that must be broken.
“This is the world of Elation—lie to me if you have to. I don’t care.” Silver Wolf reached forward, as if to grab him, and then crossed her arms again tightly across her chest. “I’m not a kid. I don’t believe promises are magic. I just… Damnit. Just try to listen to me, okay?”
Blade settled a hand over her head, and let that broken thing covered in phantom blood rest there gently. She was right. That was not the kind of promise she was looking for.
“I’ll try,” he said instead.
Silver Wolf relaxed underneath him. She punched his chest with those tiny hands, no Emanator-worthy strength in sight. “You better.”
She left to go deal with her own business here. Ashveil, pedantic about battery life for some reason, took Blade’s phone and installed something on it to get a map, and off they went. The Galaxy Ranger, thankfully, did not bombard him with questions about the past, but instead, the detective rambled about useless things like an overloaded outlet (plugging a freezer into a regular closet outlet was stupid, by the way) and a frayed charger than he never bothered to replace, after a ‘poet’ chewed on it, or something. Apparently he had a pet, or at least used to.
Between the otherwise irritating blabbering, and the transition into the day-filled Duomension City, Blade felt more… grounded. More himself. (Whoever that was.)
“Okay, here we go. What an out of the way coffee shop… I was starting to think that new chain killed the rest of them. Huh.” La Mancha glanced at the establishment and then at him. “How recognizable are you anyway, ‘Stellaron Hunter’? Or should I make you wait outside?”
“No more than you, apparently, La Mancha,” Blade grumbled. For all of Blade’s supposed notoriety, it was usually easy to walk about.
La Mancha’s mouth twisted. “Ashveil,” he corrected. “Perhaps you know as well as I that names are more infamous than faces.”
So they were.
The shop was not empty, but fairly quiet, filled with the sounds of typing and dice rolling more than a lot of chatter. Most of the chatter came from across the street, where some group prattled about happiness as if it were a sermon, making the invasive flesh within him scream. But the door shut with a soft chime and cut off that sound, external and internal. Inside, not many people paid attention to the two newcomers, except Blade could immediately feel two sharp eyes on him. Remembering his target (who… who should not be his target, today), Blade braced himself, prepared to swallow that sickly sweet mara, and found… Eyes more gray than jade, on a familiar face that almost stirred the mara and then failed to ignite it.
A Foxian woman idly cast her gaze over her shoulder, eyebrows raising. “Ha ha… You weren’t joking,” she muttered, with the air of one practiced at public composure. “There truly is some irony here.”
The pair drew closer to the table. The mara stayed quiet. Right. He had talked with Dan -eng the other day, and it was just as quiet. He forgot already. Because… Blade was more certain that something was different, but was just as lost as to what it was.
Imbibitor Lunae kept his gaze steady, challenging, even as his twitching hand betrayed him, until he closed his fist around a loose die.
“He’s not here for a fight,” he muttered back, though making no attempt to hide his words. “Or so is the idea.” Then, a little louder, he addressed them. “You must be Detective Ashveil. You have my thanks for helping my companions at Star Rail FEST.” His gaze shifted. “Blade.”
An old routine sat at his fingertips. It turned to ash before it could be realized. With no confrontation to distract him, Blade was left with the dissonance that only came from something new. That voice… Who did it belong to? His name in this life in that voice—the combination finally broke some veneer that had smothered him and brought him to the present.
Something had changed. When had it changed?
“Dan Heng,” he returned, that name awkward on his tongue.
Dan Heng’s face shifted to surprise.
“Wait, you’re Dan Heng?” Ashveil blurted. “Aw, come on! There’s nothing ‘red’ about you! Well, except for the asymmetrical eyeliner. But I hear that’s stylish, nowadays.”
The Foxian’s tension eased in favor of her very daintily smothering a laughing smile behind her hand. Dan Heng just… sighed, but there was only loose amusement in the roll of his eyes.
“What’s the ‘red maple’ about anyway? Doesn’t seem to be in Imbibitor Lunae’s thematic scheming.”
The man looked away, forlorn. “A remnant of the old me. Do not worry about it, Yingxing.”
“Birthmark,” Dan Heng corrected.
Blade blinked back to the present, the new voice guiding him back.
“And here I was going to cover for you if you ran out of eyeliner halfway.” Ashveil shrugged. “I get it, believe me.”
Birthmark… Had it always been there? No. Yes? Blade’s memory, once more, failed him. No matter.
“I suppose I should leave you boys to it, then. Send the General my regards,” the Foxian said.
Dan Heng nodded with an affirmative noise. “Will you be alright here on your own, Miss Tingyun?”
She waved her hand, glancing only at Blade once before that ease settled back onto her, at least on the surface. “This? Please, it’s hardly high stakes. Our bird friend is having all the fun over there. Oh, but one more thing.” She rolled the set of dice in front of her. “Oh my~ Double 8s and a 6? That’ll be twenty-two, my dear junior. I do believe that’ll be game over, no matter what you roll.”
As he stood up with a brief sigh, Dan Heng rolled a pair of dice for a combined total of eight. His lip twitched upward as he pushed a card forward. “I am very dead.”
“Not an omen, though, I hope.” The Foxian smiled. “Go on now, we’ll be fine.”
When the Nameless turned to them, his face flattened completely, edged with wariness. It was familiar. Too familiar, even.
Ashveil was either immune or free to ignore it, since he was not its target. Instead, he peered at Dan Heng with narrowed eyes, considering. “Hm, there’s something else about you…” He shook his head. “Nah, I’m imagining things. So, are we going to get this show on the road, or what?”
La Mancha knew Dan Feng. His face had not changed—that much—so why did he hesitate? Unless it was the voice. The eyes…? The countenance…
Blade faltered. In those years… he was sure of what he saw. Of what he hunted, in the name of debts. But back then, he had been drowned in the madness of mara—of Shuhu’s delirium. The cost of sinning against nature itself. When will the price finally be paid? When will…?
Dan Heng and Ashveil watched him. The blurred form of green and white flickered, with the glimpse of that face in his memory, lined with fear, pupils shrunken, and then it solidified into the Nameless that swore to watch him a few days ago, in the name of protecting this planet. The haze receded. Something bitter lodged in Blade’s throat.
He relished it. The Abundance was too sweet, after all.
“Let’s go,” Blade rasped.
//
Dan Heng must have lost his mind, to willingly enter a confined space in a train with Blade of all people. Ashveil with… whatever crawled beneath his skin, well hidden and yet just noticeable enough for heightened senses, in addition to the path energy of the Hunt, certainly did not help. Every cell in his body remembered all too well what it meant to be prey—to need to flee at all costs.
But nothing happened.
Ashveil heckled Blade for train fare and the surly Stellaron Hunter paid with only a pinched sigh. Then they settled in the seat quietly—Ashveil poking through a news pamphlet he picked up at the station, and Blade… thumbing through his phone. Neither were relaxed, but neither were particularly tense either. Blade really looked… calm. Huh.
Dan Heng sat across from them, the only thing keeping him from giving into the urge to fidget being Sunday’s tuning crow at his knee. Sunday was absolutely preoccupied with that Smiles Society lead he wanted to follow, but after the few days they spent in proximity, the bird lingered. Or, rather, it was always there, but Dan Heng could still see it. He did not mind. Like the last confrontation, the illusion of company was strangely helpful.
On that note, however… Dan Heng did not dare question his unnaturally good luck last time. Blade had not drawn his weapon nor did his mara flare, even when Dan Heng’s irritation finally surfaced above the fear. But maybe… Blade really wouldn’t snap at any given moment? He was not sure. Silver Wolf made it sound likely, but not because of him, which was the odd part. Shuhu, then.
Blade shifted, his red eyes roaming over Dan Heng. Dan Heng tensed and stared back, keeping his promise to himself thus far to not back down, no matter how nerve-wracking.
Blade grunted and looked back down.
Huh. That was… easy.
The Bullet Wyrm Express continued onward to Seafeld City, undeterred. As the ocean approached, Dan Heng could feel it, ever so faintly. He hoped it meant they could be off this train soon.
Blade moved again, but this time, to tilt his phone in Ashveil’s direction. “What is this?” he asked flatly.
“Er…” The detective faltered. “A mobile game? I’m not exactly in tune with the times. Ask the youth among us.”
Blade pinned Dan Heng with a stare—or tried to. Those red eyes, once a glowing beast from his nightmares, dimmed with wavering confusion. “He’s not…” Blade started, and then he stopped on his own. No explosion. No rage. Not even a sharp accusation. Only uncertainty.
It was strange, to say the least.
With no outlet for action (for fear), irritation filtered back in. After getting doted on by Tingyun all day (he sensed she was not used to being the “senior” among people from the Luofu, being under one hundred), getting called old by Blade, of all people, was laughable. (And an unsettling sign that Blade might mistake him for his past again, in a more consequential way.)
“Let me see,” Dan Heng sighed. He may not be as pop-culture savvy as Stelle or March, but he knew quite a bit—certainly enough not to have him labeled as some bygone relic.
Surprisingly, Blade handed over his phone.
There were many apps installed. Apps that looked like they belonged on Stelle’s phone, but he suspected this was not a shocking revelation to Blade’s gaming habits, because the app in question belonged to a folder, alone on the front page, labeled ‘OLD MAN LOOK HERE OR ELSE.’
Heh. Silver Wolf’s doing, he guessed.
Inside the folder was the messaging app, call app, bank app, and then… Dan Heng snorted, amusement slipping out unbidden. “Candy Crash?”
Blade stared. Since it lacked the skin-crawling focus, Dan Heng could recognize the expression as unamused incredulity. It was… refreshingly banal.
“It’s a game. With a reputation of being popular with the… ah… older folks.”
Blade’s subtle scowl dipped further into annoyance. Dan Heng tensed reflexively, but no, it was not that kind of irritation. The mara was still absent.
“Silver Wolf…” he grumbled.
“Oh, that game?” Ashveil scratched his cheek. “I hear it’s supposed to be calming, or something. Or addictive. Maybe both.”
“Hmm…” Blade looked thoughtful, but then his hand moved forward, and—
He was just reaching for the phone back. Right. Dan Heng returned it, and the close proximity did not explode into violence.
This had been easier a few days ago, when Dan Heng had come prepared for any second of that confrontation to turn ugly. It also helped that the street corner was devoid of people. Yet the more time passed without incident, the more uncertain he felt. Should he… relax more? Or was that foolishly lowering his guard? He wanted to believe that the peace was… real, or at least truly plausible, but he still struggled to trust it.
Silence reigned.
Then the sounds of Candy Crash’s sound effects trickled through the phone.
After the third game over sound, in a fairly quick succession, Blade put away his phone and folded his arms—scarcely hiding shaking fingers. He leaned against the seat and stared out the window, saying nothing.
Dan Heng exhaled slowly.
This was fine. Somehow.
He jumped out of his own skin, though, when something nudged his foot. But fortunately Dan Heng had enough sense to see it was Ashveil’s boot, and not anything else. Ashveil pointed to his phone with a raised brow.
Ah.
With Blade subdued, in a fascinating state of repose that Dan Heng never would have imagined bearing witness to, he could afford to split his attention between the Stellaron Hunter and the Galaxy Ranger.
Ashveil:
>>> you always this jumpy or is there something about our stellaron hunter friend I should know?
>>> don’t mean to pry, but since we’re in this together and all
>>> besides the Shuhu stuff. I know about thatDan Heng
<<< …His mara can flare up sometimes. Just being cautious.Ashveil
>>> he’s mara-struck??? for real??
>>> huh.
>>> I guess that makes sense, if he has Shuhu’s flesh in him. but damn.
>>> you’ve witnessed it before?Dan Heng
<<< Yes.
<<< It can be quite… destructive.Ashveil
>>> …good to know
The detective surely wanted more elaboration, judging by the way he studied him out of the corner of his eye, but Dan Heng did not particularly want to give it. The base value warning was all that was truly necessary. Because Dan Heng, truly, did not want to stir the waters of conflict—both between himself and Blade, and Blade and everyone else, until this blew over. Especially since any conflict with Blade would involve everyone in the immediate area, most likely.
Already, Dan Heng worried about Madam Yao. She could very well want Blade’s arrest and condemn anyone that spoke against it. Dan Heng, unfortunately, believed that Blade truly would be necessary in this upcoming conflict. Sunday’s investigation corroborated the word of the Stellaron Hunters. The cells of Shuhu were everywhere, thanks to the Smiles Society. And Blade… Well, thanks to Dan Feng and Yingxing, Blade had lived with Shuhu’s influence for centuries and maintained control.
Mostly.
His anger towards Dan Heng notwithstanding.
The anger now was… not absent, but much more… human? Compared to the killing intent Dan Heng had weathered for nine years, before the Express, this was downright peaceful. It sparked some hope that maybe, that prophecy would never come to pass, and danger for Planarcadia would be averted.
Perhaps there might even be a chance for Blade to have the peace he, too, had been robbed of, if the ‘death’ in that script of his truly belonged to him alone.
If Dan Heng had to defend this possibility from Madam Yao… then so be it. (Even if that provided its own share of anxiety, memories of the Shackling Prison too sharp and too close in his current, uneasy state.)
Fortunately the train rolled into the station, the passengers none the wiser to what happened the last time he and Blade were entrapped in a narrow vehicle together, all those years ago. Blade stood with a grunt and exited, and the next thing Dan Heng knew, they were all outside again.
The waves hit the dock calmly, unaffected by the tragedy that loomed. It was so enticing, in fact, that Dan Heng had to catch the seals that slipped out of his inner consciousness and coax them back into the ‘ark’ they insisted on staying in, choosing him over remaining with Terravox in As I’ve Written or scattering as data to the cosmos, for some reason. Dan Heng would not mind their excitement if he could afford the distraction.
“Does the water compel you, high elder?” Blade’s voice drawled.
Dan Heng stiffened, unaware that the silent hunter had stalked a few feet closer. But he stayed lucid. He stayed just out of reach.
“Water is not as personable as the Abundance,” Dan Heng returned, voice low. It was a question as much as it was a defense, however, and he searched for Blade’s answer.
The man twitched, expression tense. “It’s… stronger here,” he finally admitted.
Dan Heng and Ashveil shared a glance. That was what he was worried about…
“Then let’s go.”
“Did Silver Wolf send you a location too?” Ashveil wondered. “She seems to enjoy making everything into a puzzle.”
Blade eyed Ashveil this time with that narrowed gaze of his. The Galaxy Ranger shrugged it off.
“No, she didn’t,” Dan Heng replied. “But there are other ways.” The Nameless did not need to be beholden to a script to function, after all.
Dan Heng:
<<< Madam Yao? Are you in Seafeld City?<Message failed to send>
Hm. But the easy methods were not going to be available this time. Such was the Trailblaze indeed.
He tapped the crow, the way Sunday suggested. Whether it was Dan Heng’s experience wrangling the creatures of Amphoreus or Sunday’s mask strengthening his tuning even more, it was not all that hard to pluck the ‘string’ attached to it, despite the newfound distance.
‘Sunday?’
A beat.
‘Dan Heng? Is everything alright?’
Ah. Perhaps he should have realized that summoning Sunday would immediately call attention to the less-than-calm state of his mind. But it could not be helped.
‘We need to find Madam Yao. Can you direct me to her thread?’
A pause. Deliberation and then searching. A curious chimera tried to ride the current of harmony, wondering where Stelle was. Dan Heng scooped Bubbles in an imagined coil of scales and deposited them deeper into his ‘body,’ lest their consciousness become entangled in the Elation around Sunday’s or Stelle’s masks. (That chimera in particular was too good at roaming, as if they were becoming a memetic entity of some sort; he had no idea why, but he assumed it might be Stelle’s doing, somehow.) Sunday must have noticed, though, because there was a spark of amusement through the empathetic link.
‘Follow the crow. She should be close to you. Be cautious, though—I cannot sense her directly. The World in Canvas might be in the way.’
‘Noted. Thank you, Sunday.’
‘Of course. Please be careful.’
The crow stilled, the direct mental connection dulled, and then it took flight.
“Are you done?” Blade asked. Behind the impatience, there was something that showed interest. Curiosity? Dan Heng noted it, admittedly eager to associate that gaze with something other than pure hate and insanity—for Dan Heng’s peace of mind and for Blade’s dignity.
“Yes. Follow me.”
They did, without protest. Dan Heng regretted his word choice slightly when it meant that Blade was behind him at some points, but the effect was mitigated by Ashveil placing himself between them in subtle ways. Dan Heng was grateful for it, rather immensely, but truthfully it proved unnecessary. While Blade remained steadfast, for the most part, some of the twitchiness of the mara began to exhibit itself… but directed outward, towards the people roaming the streets or stationed in some form of advertisement or protest. Society members, most likely. It became far more pertinent to keep them and Blade separate.
When Blade fell a step behind, red eyes started to go unfocused towards the distance, Dan Heng caught him by the elbow by instinct. “Blade?”
Blade grunted, the sound both pained and irritated. Dan Heng quickly put distance between them, both to let Blade breathe and to be ready in case things took a turn for the worse. Yet Dan Heng could not avoid the hand that snapped out towards him, locked onto his left wrist. Heart in his throat and Cloud-Piercer now in his own hand, Dan Heng almost launched into defensive action, but… He hesitated at the last second—not out of uncertainty, but rather, observation and hope alike.
Blade breathed in and then out, slightly ragged. His grip tightened… then loosened, to something desperate instead of violent, and Dan Heng could feel the way the other man trembled, ever so slightly. Or maybe it was the both of them, for different reasons.
“...Blade? Are you…alright?” he prodded again, gentler. He did not dare dismiss Cloud-Piercer yet, but he lowered it, hoping that Blade would continue to maintain his sanity. Dan Heng did not want to fight, after all. He really, really didn’t.
The man breathed, that glazed tension slowly melting off of him. “I’m… fine,” Blade finally said, sounding almost confused by it. Frankly Dan Heng was too, but he was also grateful.
All the while, Ashveil had watched them with the careful eyes of a hunter, just close enough to intervene. “Are you sure?”
Blade deliberated, and then he nodded. “It passed when…” He paused, before doubling back with more confidence. He released Dan Heng and straightened, eyes lucid. “It passed.”
Dan Heng had no reason not to believe him for something like this. Beyond that, he could tell the difference for himself. Years of that hunt had intertwined them, somehow; just as Blade could track him across the cosmos, so too had Dan Heng gotten better at knowing when Blade approached—as well as when he was subdued and when the mara had pushed him to a full moon-rage worthy frenzy. This? This was not the Blade a younger Dan Heng had ever been acquainted with. Or rather… this was more him than he was mara.
“Good,” Ashveil said, glancing between the both of them. “Now, shall we continue following our Nameless friend’s invisible guide?”
Sunday’s tuning bird ruffled its feathers, as if Sunday caught the slight from afar. Dan Heng hummed in amusement as he folded Cloud-Piercer back into his inner space. “Let’s go.”
Easier said than done, however, when the small almost-incident was not altogether ignored, even as they took the quiet paths around the edge of the marina. Dan Heng had hoped that all of those disdainful onlookers would keep to themselves, but an orch fisherman and a woman with a clipboard approached.
“Hey, you, spear guy,” the fisherman demanded. The hostility in his scent and in his body language betrayed the lackadaisical tone. “You weren’t bothering that other guy, were you?”
“We don’t condone senseless fighting around here,” the woman said, plastic smile unnerving. “Especially from outlanders… such as the Astral Express, is it?”
What a bother. Dan Heng could handle the antagonism from the Society members. Their stilted emotion was, ironically, easier than the bitter, centuries-old hostility he grew up around. However, knowing what lay dormant within them, Dan Heng could not risk an altercation, lest it trigger the older, more potent remnants of Shuhu within Blade.
“There is no fight. My apologies for disturbing the peace,” Dan Heng said flatly. “We shall be leaving now.”
The fisherman blocked his movement. Ugh… “Hey, hey, hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
Before Dan Heng could respond, however, a hand descended on his shoulder.
The years he spent on the Express eased away his proneness towards panic at a mere touch, but the woody, spider blossom presence of Blade threatened to undo some of that. Except, the presence remained… steady. Blade’s glare was directed outward, without the glaze of delirium despite the proximity to, on paper, every target his body craved to destroy.
“He was helping me,” Blade said, like those were not the most unexpected words to come out of his mouth. “Got a problem with that?”
…What??
The two Society members faltered—whether because of the vague threat, the abrupt wrench to their narrative, or the presence of a stronger vessel for Abundance, who could say? Certainly not Dan Heng, who was rendered just as disconcerted.
Ashveil cleared his throat loudly. “Don’t mind my friends here. We were just filming a skit—costumes and props and all.” He pulled Blade out of the confrontation, taking Dan Heng with him. “Kids these days and their internet videos. You know how it is. Come on, boys, let’s find somewhere else.”
Ashveil bowled right past them, that unflappable veneer of Duomension City residents stopping any attempts at protest while they were still in range. Dan Heng ducked out from under Blade’s shadow, and he let him. The crow resumed its flight, and fortunately, the new footpaths were even quieter as they approached some sort of park.
“What were you thinking?” Dan Heng finally asked. It was a marginally better phrasing than why did you risk a confrontation? Or why did you, of all people, defend me? which were the questions more accurate to Dan Heng’s racing thoughts, but they were far too… on the nose.
Blade stared down at him. It was less of a challenge and more… scrutiny. Then he said the most bizarre thing yet.
“It’s… calmer next to you.”
……
What.
“Well that’s a lot of fog. Reckon we’re in the right place.”
Ashveil’s observation snapped Dan Heng from his stupor. Blade turned away as if he had not said something wildly out of character, leaving Dan Heng the one now out of sorts. Sure enough, though, the crow stopped by a fog not sourced from mere weather. “R-right. The guide is pointing through that passage there, but I cannot guarantee the safety of that path.”
“Oh yeah, it’s definitely some sort of puzzle,” Ashveil agreed. “Alright, even without my trusty assistant, I can be the detective here.”
Dan Heng gladly let Ashveil take the lead. He was far too dazed at the latest revelation of the Blade ordeal to focus on wayfaring puzzles—an activity he usually enjoyed.
He remembered the first time he managed to watch Blade from afar, back when he was just a hunter without a name and Dan Heng was an exile without purpose. It had been a somber and disconcerting sight to see that sword-clad figure that stalked him… listless, but ultimately benign, outside of that frenzied chase. Which meant that all of that destruction, all of that bloodshed, was just… collateral. Because of Dan Heng, and the anger he instilled in the mara-struck man just by existing and daring to be alive.
Now, Dan Heng was no longer that weary child, filled with too much primal fear and guilt, who believed it was simply his lot in life to bear the weight of everyone’s outrage and disdain, and that it was his fault if that damage spread to anyone besides himself. However, it remained an indisputable fact that Dan Heng had always been the catalyst and target for Blade’s mara-fueled obsession due to the actions of his past life, and the hatred that burned because of it.
So what changed? Something had to have changed.
Well… A lot changed, but what, specifically, triggered this? This… shift in dynamic? Obsessions that rooted in the mind like burrs did not simply vanish randomly. Dan Heng would credit the Stellaron Hunters for much, for inexplicably turning the unkempt hunter into a man again, but Blade had still ran that weighty, cracked sword straight through Dan Heng’s lungs the second he had the chance. He stayed his hand during that second meeting on the Luofu, but… Blade had still glared at Dan Heng like a stain to be removed—a vessel of Dan Feng’s sin, meant to be destroyed in the name of some justice, dipped in blood.
Or had it been Kafka, artificially stirring his mara? Had it been Jingliu, the wraith who created Blade out of Yingxing’s descent? Had Dan Heng just been unlucky? Foolish? Or maybe… Dan Heng had done something different and he did not even notice. (Was it something he could have done all this time?) He did not know.
…This was likely a fruitless exercise of thought. There were better things to be doing, and while the current result was helpful, though baffling, trying to unravel it was ultimately just a personal wish. The old scars that ached, of all the times Shard Sword cut him open, could wait for the closure. Not that it was particularly needed at all…
“Hey, I know it’s weird, but the answer is always the weirdest one. The Canvas won’t hurt,” Ashveil argued.
Blade stood next to him, arms crossed. “No.”
“And people say I’m bad with words, yeesh.”
“I simply choose not to be verbose.”
“Well, that’s— uh, you— I… ugh.”
Ashveil and Blade did not seem close to piercing the fog. Dan Heng should get his head on straight and help. Although, it was just as likely that Yao Guang would just appear next to them, the way she inexplicably did. It would almost be appreciated, except that Dan Heng still worried she and Blade would come to arms.
Something rustled in the underbrush, deeper into the woods. It pulled Dan Heng’s attention on instinct, although nothing in the atmosphere carried the sense of danger. The gait was neither hurried nor human, after all. Sure enough, when Dan Heng strayed further into the edge of the non-fogged woods, a dog lifted its head in mutual interest. Huh.
“Where is your human?” Dan Heng wondered. Surely the gold and white dog, with clean fur and a lax countenance, was not a wild animal. Neither did it seem imagenated—at least, not like the uniquely intelligent members of the local law enforcement. Not that Dan Heng could tell, when the touch of Elation could even meddle with scents.
The dog tilted its head, appraising him. Dan Heng knelt to the ground and shifted his body into something open and questioning, with a matching grunt. Thank goodness dogs and their language were often the same, no matter the planet. (Or maybe his proficiency in Luran and Verdant simply made the variations stick more easily, after the system authority and its abilities faded with the coreflame.)
The dog returned the question and then decided it accepted the companionship, in quick succession. “(Friend?)” it wondered, tail starting to wag.
“(Friend),” Dan Heng agreed, mimicking the dialect. The dog gave into excitement and trotted over.
Dan Heng wondered if its owner might be lost to the fog, which would be an important but dangerous sign, but it—she, scent now supplied—did not seem overly concerned. For that matter, proximity to the hazy wall did not seem to affect her mood; dogs and their related species were often very sensitive to these matters. Although perhaps more easily, ah, dense than some other more paranoid species. Nonetheless, Dan Heng filed away the clues silently as he granted the affectionate greeting the dog asked for.
“(Where is your pack?)” he asked again. “(Are you alone?)”
“(Mom is over there! Reading!)” she recounted, and he hoped some combination of experience and his synesthesia beacon correctly parsed that. “(I’m looking for — friend!)”
Yeah, Dan Heng definitely missed a meaning there. “(What friend?)” he asked to clarify. If the dog was searching around here, near this frontier of reality, then maybe… It could be Yao Guang. It could also be that mysterious woman that Sunday mentioned he last saw the General with, if they were still together.
The dog gave her best explanation. Dan Heng, at that moment, sorely missed the communication skills of chimeras, or especially smart dogs like Peppy, in the way of denotative language. The expressive language did well enough, though, until Dan Heng was increasingly certain the ‘pink friend’ was Evanescia, and the ‘giant bird’ was, in fact, Yao Guang. The dog might have glimpsed her spiritus instead, due to the combined effort of animalistic perception and the revealing shape of the World in Canvas.
Speaking of which… The path that the dog—a regular of this park—described to cut through the ‘human-proof cloud’ was, indeed, through the Canvas. Dan Heng had to admit he was about as thrilled as Blade when it came to using that method—mostly because of the company. (Which was to say, any company at all, save for his Express companions.)
Once again, Dan Heng entertained the idea of waiting. But not only could they not guarantee this path of return, but they could not risk Yao Guang acting without the necessary information. Also… Blade himself was on a timer that nobody here could possibly guess. They should be as expedient as possible.
He came back, the dog at his side, to find Ashveil in a tree and Blade judging him from below while coiling loose bandages from a long trail back around his wrist.
…He chose not to ask any questions.
“It’s an imagenated path of some sort, that belongs to who I assume is Evanescia,” he explained. “There’s a hidden path inside the Canvas carved by, ah, I think an impatient… water-gopher? I’m unsure as to the specifics, but we can take that path past the fog to catch up with them.”
“I knew that,” Ashveil insisted, his landing far more graceful than his excuse. “Well, maybe not the specifics, but— O-ohhh, who do we have here? Who’s a good puppy? That’s right, who’s a good puppy?”
Dan Heng had been briefly worried that the dog’s willingness to act as a guide would be diminished by the slightly unsettling undertone to Ashveil (perhaps heightened by the Mask) and the perpetual malaise around Blade. Or, maybe, it was all in Dan Heng’s head. As Ashveil (very enthusiastically) embraced in mutual, excited distraction with the dog, she remained calm. Then again, what would count as uneasy to a creature raised on the planet of Elation? Who could say. Nonetheless, it was embarrassingly helpful in easing him. Dan Heng’s instincts were sharp against danger, yes, but… Well. Post-traumatic stress did not do him any favors when it came to gauging safety.
“Why do you have a dog?” Blade asked flatly.
“She knows the way through the side path,” Dan Heng re-explained curtly. “Her owner was amenable to us ‘borrowing’ her.” Apparently it was common for pets to wander in and out of the world in canvas with the aid of owners and neighbors in Planarcadia. Dan Heng suspected the distracted owner might have thought twice if she realized he was the ‘impertinent outsider’ this community had a growing grudge for, but… fortunately she did not notice.
Ashveil coughed into his hand to regain his serious composure. “Getting all that from a pet dog? The Nameless must have access to some cutting-edge synesthesia databanks. Well, you have no objections from me. Let’s go.”
“...right,” Dan Heng agreed loosely. What Ashveil said was true, since the Express compiled language databanks from multiple sources. It just so happened that this was mostly thanks to Dan Heng’s… personal research, so to speak.
Blade glared at the tube and then grumbled, wordless irritation and acceptance rolled into one. He moved closer, toward the dog, and some part of the Demigod of Earth that remained in him grew alert in preparation, even as the very logical part of his brain insisted that no, impossibly, Blade was still calm.
Sure enough, the man simply… patted the dog’s head. Awkwardly, but gently. Then he moved on.
“(Your friends smell weird but they’re nice),” the dog decided.
Dan Heng hoped neither of their synesthesia beacons could catch that.
Entering the World of Canvas was always… odd. Now, he was no stranger to forms of shifting, but being compressed into a flat form with a different body by an outside power was a little disconcerting. Surprisingly, the process itself was not all that noticeable, and exiting was rarely an issue along the designated paths. It was just… unfortunate, that the Canvas decided one’s form for them, based on some combination of personalization and the planet’s collective obsession with cartoons.
However, his own feelings suddenly became irrelevant when he caught sight of Blade. Dan Heng nearly choked on a suppressed laugh. Okay that… that was quite amusing, he could admit.
The figure with intense red eyes and a surly expression was undoubtedly Blade. He was, also, currently a bristled, fuzzy black creature—some cross between canine and feline—wrapped in ill-fitted bandages like a child cosplaying a mummy.
“So that’s ‘Mummicat’ from the comics, huh?” Ashveil teased, a three-legged gray wolf leaning on a metal limb.
Blade’s glare lost its edge inside the Canvas, but oh, he tried. “Not. A. Word.”
Perhaps the subspace steeped in Elation suppressed the mara and whatever power Ashveil contained alike. Perhaps it was the abruptly unserious visage that softened the blow. Either way, when Blade’s gaze roamed to the furred and scaled creature in their midst, the tension amid the curiosity was easier to handle. Ultimately, Blade said nothing, despite all the staring. If Dan Heng’s (shrunken) draconic form reminded him more of the jointly made abomination of the last life rather than the watery avatar of Imbibitor Lunae, perhaps Dan Heng will blessedly never know. He would be fine if the only commentary he ever received was being called a “noodle” by Stelle or a “chibi dragon” by the rest of the crew.
“Flying must be handy in here,” Ashveil remarked lightly, to break the silence.
“A trade for short limbs,” Dan Heng replied. Nothing handy about that, certainly…
The dog, compressed into a fluffy abstract of a dog, ambled forward unbothered. She led them around the planar bends of the Canvas and stopped at an almost imperceptible ripple in the drawn bushes, tail wagging in victory. Devoid of useful hands, he nuzzled her ear in thanks.
“...there’s nothing here,” Blade remarked.
“That discoloration? Right there?” Dan Heng tried to point out.
Both Ashveil and Blade stared at him with reserved judgement—or perhaps just incredulity. In brief and rapid succession, he wondered if Stelle was somehow and unfortunately correct about his ‘shrimp vision’ (which was inaccurate and unlikely), or if in the world of imagination, only animals could see the hidden paths. He did not particularly want to think about the implications—not in present company—but he could admit there was an irony, somewhere. A beast, a hunter, and a beast-eyed hunter all gather to meet another hunter. That sounded like the start of a bad joke.
“Just follow me,” Dan Heng grumbled, or maybe pleaded.
“Lead the way,” Blade agreed without a fight.
They had to grab onto the fur on the ridge of his back to follow him through. It was wholly nerve wracking and then graciously underwhelming in sequence. As they emerged on the other side of the fog and the Canvas, on a floating path between floating islands, calm rationality settled within him once more.
There were no beasts here. No hapless prey, no faceless predators. No ghosts and no voiceless echoes, deprived of their free will. Only people, with their own choices to make.
Blade vowed to Yao Guang to put an end to Shuhu. Dan Heng found that he believed him, quite easily, but more than that… The spark of defiance in Blade’s eyes was different. Just as fierce, but a solid thing, free from haze. That fiery resolve, born out of pain, belonged to neither the mara nor Yingxing: it was Blade’s alone.
Dan Heng had a vested interest in seeing that the tragedy of the past, of love warped into disaster, did not repeat itself, just as he had a resolve, as a Nameless, to see Planarcadia make it through this disaster—whether that disaster was to be warped against its will by the Abundance or obliterated without a chance by the Hunt. Yet, he had another personal resolve to see through—to protect Blade’s choice, and his ability to make one at all.
Trust was not something to be built in a day. Dan Heng was wary of the mara, and so was he also unsure of the Stellaron Hunter’s priorities. There might come a moment when Dan Heng would place his priorities in front of Blade’s, for the safety of his companions and Himeko’s homeworld, but for now… If Blade wanted his freedom—from Shuhu, from mara, from immortality—then Dan Heng would guard his way forward.
//
“Stay close until the time comes,” he requested. Blade was not sure why he asked such a thing, but the words were his own.
Neither was he sure why the Nameless, arms crossed and deceptively calm eyes wary, agreed.
Blade disliked being crowded. It was little different than the pressure in his head, in his blood, that choked him like invasive vines around a tree. Likewise, company was a liability—whether it jeopardized his work or their safety was always a toss-up. Blade had little patience, for all that he was forced to endure for all of eternity; there were precious few people whom he trusted to stay close and not get in his way or get hurt.
Yet.
The impending disaster gave him clarity; the tactile taste of retribution gave him a goal. In this, Blade knew that he had to outlast that saboteur's plans, and so too did he need to outlast the will of Shuhu, just long enough to kill them once and for all. And to do that…
Dan Heng would help. How, he was not sure. Why, he was… also not sure, but it had to be because he was a Nameless—Elio trusted in the motives of the Astral Express for a reason. Yet, there was a dissonance there. Was this man not the same as the one who brought ruin all those years ago? The one yet to pay the price? Why should Blade ever trust him?
He was not sure. Blade searched for answers and found that most of that certainty was steeped in mara, and thus, unreliable. And that was only what remained—much of the mara-eaten memories had already been removed by Kafka. So this… Blade would have to solve it for himself. For now, all he knew was that something about Dan Heng quieted the whispers of Shuhu. It was strange. It was also very useful.
Especially since Silver Wolf still had her own mission to play out, and now Ashveil had to contend with that woman’s trap for the supplicants. Blade did not have many options.
“We should find somewhere quieter,” Dan Heng said. “There’s too many triggers here for you.”
Blade’s fingers twitched. Threads like vines tugged at his mind from every direction. Had he not once followed these threads? Like a starved thing thirsty for blood? Blade could not presently recall. But now, there were too many, and Blade knew better than to so willingly let the madness consume him.
“There is no need to tell me that,” Blade snapped. That fox’s garden had been quiet, but it had also been seeped in the Abundance. Not Shuhu, no, but Blade would be damned if he gave that forsaken Emanator a shred of power. Yet this cursed city had given themselves over to that monster freely; there was no escape from the tugging.
“Yet here we are, standing here,” Dan Heng deadpanned. He reached out, hesitated, then nudged Blade’s elbow lightly, in a pitiful attempt to stir him. Yet, the brief moment of contact snapped a few threads, and Blade felt like less a puppet needing to resist its master.
It chafed at him to need help. Especially one shaped like… like… He shook his head. It did not matter. “At your leave, then.”
To exit the park, they had to make their way through the streets. Dan Heng at least wasted no time, moving quickly (he had always been fast, as he fled retribution) past the public. Whatever force he carried rippled through infected onlookers. It sent those fake smiles into dazed confusion or stirred them to hunger or rage—if there was a difference.
Like that confrontation on the board walk, Dan Heng seemed keen to ignore it—went out of his way to do so, even. The stirring resentment, regardless of what caused it (for the heat in Blade’s blood did not as easily attempt to boil), was not unnoticed by Dan Heng. His adversary, his mind supplied, was much too keen for that. Yet an image of a proud man gliding past opposition clashed with the sight before him: of a firm stubbornness, set in the grim line of his mouth, combined with an averted gaze and drawn in shoulders. He was good at making himself smaller—he might not even notice it.
Blade’s veins itched, calling for violence. Was it within him? The voice that compelled the pathetic town to emotional oblivion? It did not matter. The itch went unfulfilled, deprived of an outlet and then subdued whenever his focus was dragged from those damned onlookers to the Nameless that accompanied him.
They grew closer to the sea, across a boardwalk devoid of shops and then down a narrow walkway by the sea wall. A dead end, perhaps, but also a blind spot.
It should be audacious, to allow the Imbibitor Lunae the access to upend this world’s sea. The thought crossed his mind, stilted, and indignation bubbled up as the precursor to rage. Then it fizzled. That inexplicable difference made itself known and made the scene… unfamiliar. The sins of the past were etched onto his heart as the very first scar; Blade let that anger fuel him for centuries. How could he suddenly no longer recognize the object of that hate? Had… the mara changed him again? He did not know. Normally, he would not care, but this bothered him—left him… unmoored, nearly… Except his drive to kill Shuhu (to kill himself) anchored, the task tantalizingly close.
Dan Heng watched him. His face, as usual, was a mask of indifference—but that was not entirely true. Pride was not in the downturn of his lips. Cruelty did not burst out from steady eyes. The careful observation was familiar, but the wariness… It was familiar too. Yet when Blade placed the location, it was on Silver Wolf’s face—that tiny girl who turned into something quiet when she ran out of indignation and bravado and chaos, who had once treated them all with a sort of primal distrust until it receded slowly in stages.
Blade was a weapon in human form. He was used to being feared. He rarely relished it. He would have only gleaned victory from the fear or suffering of Imbibitor Lunae, for the price that must be paid—
His head panged. He closed his eyes, and those fuzzy memories surfaced.
Of dull jade eyes beneath him, reduced to terrified pinpricks, framed by splattered blood.
That… wasn’t right. Was it?
The moment, yet again, passed. Dan Heng looked tenser than before, the line of determination in his expression the one Silver Wolf wore if she was on the edge of fight or flight.
Blade may be more weapon than person, but this, at least, rested untouched in recent memory.
He sat down at the edge of the walkway, boots skimming the water’s surface. He had been staring, he realized—’brooding’ as the others (Silver Wolf especially) would call it. That tended to put people on edge. He… did not actually want to intimidate this strange Nameless, an echo of Imbibitor Lunae (of Dan Feng, that name that tore open a dead part of him) and yet a mystery to Blade.
…It worked. Like with Silver Wolf some time ago, the sheathing of a blade drew one away from the edge. Or… to it, in a literal sense, since at this moment it meant that Dan Heng gingerly sat down as well, just out of arm’s reach.
Still, neither spoke.
Blade was still… calm, even as his thoughts wandered, as they often did. Much of Yingxing died, but perhaps, in addition to his rage, Blade was cursed with retaining his propensity toward problem solving too. Usually, certain trails of thought led him straight to ruin, cured only by Kafka hollowing him out again to undo the destruction inflicted. Yet, for all that this planet itched to devolve him, Blade maintained almost too much stability, to the point that once treacherous topics became both plausible and tempting.
Thus, he turned that strange person over in his head, trying to make sense of the split image of his partner in old sin and vessel for newfound salvation.
How many years had he pursued Imbibitor Lunae? Decades? Centuries? It was an instinctual chase, fueled by everything that kept him alive against his will. Yet, he had precious few memories of it. Because of the madness? Because of Kafka’s aid? It no longer mattered, but the result was mildly frustrating, for once.
He remembered getting close to Dan Feng. He remembered being enraged by the disguise. He remembered…
Blade frowned into the water. Those memories were steeped in cloying madness. What did he remember untainted by bloodlust?
So he searched further—back to those useless or obliviated memories of a life long gone. Of dedication, of carefree indulgence, of untainted optimism that used to overwhelm the anger buried deep in a refugee’s bones. He had been close in many of them, back when… when Dan Feng had been Yingxing’s beautiful and steadfast companion. Back when promises were hopeful and unshattered. The thought brought pain, and Blade pulled away before that pain turned to icy anger—the only thing that wholly remained of Yingxing after tasting death.
But the steady pull of stars, ebbed in a gentle tide, staved away the worst once again.
He studied the person carefully once more. His earlier observations were still true. Dan Heng was still… Dan Heng. Not quite Imbibitor Lunae. Not quite him. Why had Blade been so sure? The similarities were there, but sanity dulled them. The differences stood out instead, from a different voice register and tonal inflection to unexpected behaviors. He thought back to the park, right before meeting that smug General. The black and green dragon that had flew alongside the dog, a scaled and coiled beast moving in gentleness, had been wholly unfamiliar to the proud man whose grace came from his power to conquer the dragon within. Was that a fluke, or a sign? The Elation of this planet warped so much, and yet… it also bore the truth, once stripped of frivolities.
An old, repeated insistence scratched at him—of a changed name, of a claimed death and rebirth.
Elio wrote every script with meticulous detail, from the action to the casting. Lies or multiple identities were no obstacle to him. Yet… He never once used Dan Feng’s name. It never struck him as odd before, but he had also made a valiant effort to ignore it—an easy task, when Elio had insisted on letting that traitor live, and thus, hardly made them cross paths.
But now…
Something was there, at his fingertips.
(Why was he searching? To fulfill that vow? Perhaps, but the motivation… He wasn’t sure. Blade was tired. This calm was too tempting. Maybe that debt could go unpaid, so long as he killed the thing keeping him alive.)
Searching for something he could not name, his eyes slipped past that cautious observation and landed on the Vidyadhara’s bracer.
He remembered it. Blade did, and… Yingxing did. Tempered leather and reinforced alloy… Something etched into the surface with care. (With love.) It was the same. No. Nearly the same…
“That was a left-handed bracer,” he rasped, staring at a right hand. The glove was fitted, after all, and the shape of the band was meant to be perfect—to account for the contours of bone. Even if the craftsman was dead, unable to create again, Blade was certain of this.
Dan Heng startled at the broken silence. Something underneath the water—a sand ray, perhaps—fled as well, out from under a hanging foot.
Dan Heng (like Silver Wolf) schooled himself quickly. Then he sighed. “You two…” He shook his head, voice steeled. “Is that significant to you?”
Was it? Maybe. It was… It was a picture of that broken promise. Of care that no longer belonged to him. Yet… he cared now? About which arm it rested on? (About how it changed.)
“You are right-handed,” Blade settled on. This he was sure of. He and this person fought plenty, so it was not an observation that relied on distant memory. “But you are more likely to shield with your left.”
That might have been true for him too. He wasn’t sure. Memory supplied, however, that Blade had once torn the flesh of that left arm… But so too had his sword glanced off that bracer.
Dan Heng grimaced. Neither did he deny this. “I was not the one who first changed it,” he replied. “I don’t profess to have that much talent.”
Like Yingxing, went unspoken like a dropped stone, silently swallowed by the water.
It gave Blade a distraction, however. An old spark of pride in his work was the thing that demanded the answer, this time. While not his original creation, at its base, Yingxing had still tended to that bracer; it meant something, once. “Who altered it? It is tricky work. It could be unbalanced or improperly fitted.”
His remark earned him a flat look, punctuated only by a slightly lifted brow. “I think it’s fine,” Dan Heng defended, but it lacked bite. His gaze traveled downward as he deflated. “Jing Yuan originally altered it, most likely. I… never knew who gave it to me, back then, but he had access to my cell at that time. He also gave Cloud-Piercer to me, right before my exile.”
Another of Yingxing’s creations, inspired by a ceremonial blade and forged from scratch to be a force to be reckoned with. Blade recalled that razor-sharp spear had not dulled after all this time, and pride and gratitude swelled in that buried place once more.
Had Jing Yuan gotten better at tending to his armor? That kid treated his weapons well, sure, but he used to wear anything that remotely fit and call it good enough. Did he suddenly gain some experience? And then why had he, the Arbiter-General, intervened only for something as insignificant as a discarded bracer… (But had it been discarded? There had been a time… when he felt it—that freezing cold resonance, as cold as the bitterness bloomed between them. Or within Blade, at least. The iciness had been unbearable. Was that when he discarded the other…? He could not remember anymore.)
“Let me see for myself,” he spoke, giving into that curious desire.
Dan Heng froze, hesitating. His arm twitched. The Nameless searched for something in Blade before he deigned to give an answer.
“Fine,” he said, reaching for the strap. “But only because you have history with it.”
Blade almost protested. Yingxing was dead. He couldn’t be Yingxing anymore. But… damnit, he really wanted to see how something he made, once, had been changed. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Regardless, the first bracer drew itself in his mind’s eye, the details of that design once memorized with care. The coral gold and the leather of seabeasts were forged and refined by some Vidyadhara craftsman he had forgotten, yes, but Yingxing had improved upon those bracers until they were satisfactory, both to the needs of each wearer and to the overall design. Much of that design, however, was stripped. There were more differences now, from the missing or changed embellishments to the now blunted edge of the handguard. It was either impressive or offensive—he would decide as soon as he inspected it up close.
Yet the first thing he noticed, when the bracer slipped off, were the scars underneath. Thick, welted things, not created from the edge of a blade. His attention lingered there, some unknown emotion rising up, but Dan Heng shoved his folded sleeve over the old wounds and hid them from view.
Blade would not ask. He… did not have the right to, nor did he have any inclination of inciting pain. Not right now. Perhaps… not anymore.
The bracer had some wear and tear to it, but it was well maintained, to his high standards. Definitely altered, several times over. The first alteration, the one he said Jing Yuan might have done, was the most crucial. A flattened pane to the left, a new ridge to the right… As well as the fitted glove, made with the same material Yingxing would often utilize, for gloves or under-sleeves. The fitted cloth underneath the bracer, however, was a compression sleeve—nice, breathable, but a material he was not personally familiar with. That must be an even newer addition… although now Blade knew the reason for it. As well as the reason why it was retrofitted to belong to a different arm.
Turned out, the right arm needed it more after all.
The bracer suited its user’s needs, not comprising its materials to do so. At its core, this was what created quality work in both weapons and armor.
“Passable,” Blade grunted. “But you should have heat-treated the cut edge here before you greased it, whenever you made that alteration. That’s why the texture is off.”
“Ah.” Dan Heng looked sheepish, almost. It made him look young. “That was indeed my doing. It was one of the earlier repairs… I will keep your advice in the future, should it ever happen again.”
Happen again… How was it damaged the first time? “This is no ordinary leather. The Vidyadhara claim it came from their old world, from beasts comparable to dragons,” Blade recalled, the subject dragging that memory up. It was… had been… a point of pride, for Dan Feng—to present something to Yingxing, for some joint creation, that the master craftsman would not have procured on his own. “What could have damaged it?”
Dan Heng grimaced. “…Shard Sword.”
Oh.
The flicker of pride, at the superiority of his creation and his skills, flared and then fizzled out. The mara was too quiet, and thus, violence lost its flavor.
When returned, Dan Heng slipped it back onto his arm with practiced ease. “I didn’t realize the material was that old,” he said, staring into the water below. “Heh. No wonder the closest material to synthesize the repair was my…” He shook his head and cut himself off; the answer would remain a mystery, but the work had been comparable, at least. Whatever it was, the only notable difference, from a glance, was a green sheen instead of an indigo one.
“I have… a passing curiosity,” Dan Heng then said. “You don’t have to answer. It was just a question posed to me that I had no answer for.”
Was that high elder going to make demands of him again? No. The bravado was not there. Without it, the person before him only looked nervous, no irritation to shield him. Blade, admittedly curious too, grunted his assent to the question.
“The other half of the pair…” he began. “What happened to it? I never remembered you wearing it, but if it is true that they used to be connected, then… back then, was… was that what you used to find…?” He faltered, hand clenching in his lap.
Blade followed the meaning nonetheless. That chase. That period of Blade’s life filled with frenzy, and yet, the first taste of existence after who knew how long of drifting. That savored resentment faded when the Stellaron Hunters subdued his mara, yes, but it had still been… thrilling.
Imbibitor Lunae clearly thought differently. Or rather, the Nameless… the… young man beside him, who valiantly attempted to hide the way he trembled.
The mara was too calm. Blade could remember too much, without its influence; memories warped, or rather, were wiped of their embellishments.
“I’m not him,” the scraggly thing against the wall pleaded. “Please, I’m not— I don’t want to—”
“Of five…”
Blood splattered. The teen had barely had the room to dodge, but his frame was smaller than it should have been—thinner, his shirt too big—so the wound was shallow.
But the mara-struck could not be deterred. Maybe that was why, eventually, that kid with Imbibitor Lunae’s face stopped speaking, even as he trembled every time the mara-struck approached. And why horror hid behind a forcibly blank expression every time he killed the mara-struck, their blood mixed in the carnage left behind.
That bitterness returned.
…Dan Heng was wrong. Perhaps… Blade owed him something after all.
“I cannot remember,” Blade began, “…but the last time I had it, it was cold, but it was… in-use.”
Dan Heng’s expression twisted—half thoughtful, half grimacing. “Dan F—” He realized his mistake when Blade tensed. “He likely still wore it, in… the Nether Hold.” The young Vidyadhara traced the bracer’s edge idly. “Recently, I asked the General about it. He said that… he retrieved all of the items after the molting rebirth was performed. After all, only a Vidyadhara’s body turns to foam, to reform inside the egg. Material possessions are left behind. That was… centuries ago.”
“Centuries,” Blade repeated flatly. How long has it been? He avoided Xianzhou calendars whenever he could, wary and enraged by the passage of time. But he knew. He knew it had been far too long. So had he really… chased this version for that long…?
Perhaps Dan Heng pulled the question from him; perhaps he was far too used to explaining his own existence. “Eggs take a long time to incubate and hatch.”
…right.
Reincarnation seemed like its own immortality, a farce of nature, until it was broken down to its bare mechanics. But if Blade thought about that blasted subject for too long, no good thing would come of it. He bluntly swung them back on topic.
“I took it off, once, in a fit of rage. What happened to it… who knows. It is probably swallowed by the earth of some insignificant planet.” Blade then considered the next part of the question—likely the part that Dan Heng cared about. It would have been convenient to use that bracer to track his quarry, and yet… “I could sense you without it.”
Dan Heng tensed, expression going grim. “What?”
“There was…” How did he explain it? “A tug. A burning. It led me to you, whenever we were close, and the closer I was… The anger grew stronger.”
“The mara,” Dan Heng supplied.
“The rest… Hmph. I am capable of tracking people on my own.” Less so when blinded by a need to kill, to fulfill the debt, to consume—
No. That wasn’t… Was it?
Something buzzed in the back of his mind.
Dan Heng straightened suddenly, alerted by some private revelation. “It was a resonance.”
That sounded stupidly poetic. It also sounded… accurate. “Maybe.”
Resonance in the shape of insanity—of sickly sweet whispers tempered by icy hate. The first time… The first time he had… resisted? Why? Because he wanted to savor revenge, and the call for violence was sudden and impulsive and demanding—a demand for elation in the midst of despair—so he forged the madness into hate instead to… to…
The buzzing made it hard to think. The buzzing wanted something.
“…Blade?”
Why now? Did that blasted blood debt need to be paid? No, the price… The price was fucking useless if it did not destroy that monster they unleashed. The monster that—
“Blade!”
Go. Dance, laugh! Be merry!
A hand gripped his bicep, bringing with it that taste of tranquility—of stars burning peacefully after their death, of white and black clouds reflected in a watery surface. He tried to hold onto it. Dan Heng, whatever he was, brought a calmness to the mara, but this was more than mere mara, it was…
“It’s starting,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “It’s here.”
Shuhu’s awakening.
To be filled with mara was to drown in it. To be overwhelmed by it. Not even the abyss the dragon carried could erase it. THEY were the turning of the universe, but THEY were forever—the new eternity to replace the old. That sickly sweet, false perfection.
He laughed. For how laughable it was! On this precipice of madness, he remembered: that he outran the mara on hate alone.
There was a sharp string of curses, mixed Xianzhou and some language that stirred the rage of old, endless wars. It wasn’t enough. The hate, the madness, it could not be directed. It could not be swallowed or burned or controlled.
Why fight it? Why kill when he could consume?
Flesh strained beneath his fingers. That sword cut through the air, a tooth looking for a target.
And he laughed—
//
Dan Heng operated on instinct.
The sight of Blade, red eyes gleaming and teeth bared in a smile, was a frightfully familiar thing. Perhaps the only good thing about that primal expectation for violence was that when it came, he was prepared. Although experience itself was the best companion; in the throes of combat, there was no room for that fear: only certainty.
The battle itself, however, was slightly different. Instead of the endless pursuit, Dan Heng was in actuality the only thing Blade did not directly target. It was Dan Heng who put himself in the way of the sword, to stop Blade from tearing down half the city and killing anybody else.
His chosen location had bought them a little time, but the sea wall was no match for Blade’s athletic prowess. Still, Dan Heng could only be thankful that the city was sparse in this area—only that was a hollow comfort, considering the cries of violence and hysteria were all over. Countless citizens had already transformed into creatures of Abundance. Dan Heng had been forced to blow through a few, and they had already come back to life.
He could hear the dance of swords and see the flare of talismans and feathers. The familiar taste of ozone from a piercing orbital laser cut through the air somewhere closer to the tower. Dan Heng would have to leave the rest of Seafeld City to them, just as he was sure that Welt and March were handling the same outbreak in Duomension City, if it had made it there already. He had to focus on Blade; if he got too close, too frenzied… Shuhu would undoubtedly coalesce into the strongest host possible.
“Blade, stop,” he pleaded. Shard Sword clashed against Cloud-Piercer. Blade’s eyes landed on Dan Heng, but only for a moment. It wasn’t until Dan Heng kneed his ribs that the attention returned with a snarl.
Dan Heng growled back, out of frustration and instinct alike. Not that Blade would understand that language at all, especially when all attempts in Xianzhou or Qlipothian were fruitless. His synesthesia beacon likely worked fine, but the mara warped all senses and rationality.
Ha. Dragons clash in the wilderness. This was not how he imagined this fight happening, and clearly neither had Yao Guang. It was better than the alternative, of some mutual kill-or-be-killed thing, but it was still more violence than he would have liked.
Block. Parry. Push forward. Be pushed back. Repeat.
It was not at peak violence yet, rather. The shallow cut across Dan Heng’s side was a warning—a taste of past nightmares, yes, but also a promise of the ruin that would happen if Dan Heng failed. Ruin to this planet. Ruin to Blade.
He grit his teeth and held Cloud-Piercer sideways. The space turned a hazy white, water reflected in clouds and vice versa. It was an instinctual technique for the longest time, and one he used to avoid for lack of understanding it. Now, Dan Heng simply was not adept at extending it into the real, waking world on purpose. But he realized it was the key to why Blade had been calmed in his presence—especially with that once inexplicable red tree missing in his peripheral—so he owed it to Blade to try.
Blade faltered, gaze confused and hazy. Normally, this was when Dan Heng would strike, shattering the ethereal dream and his opponent’s defenses all at once, but not only would striking down Blade be pointless (and cruel), it was the opposite of what Dan Heng wanted. So instead he stretched that ethereal, draconic vision into a balm instead of a trap. “Blade? Can you focus?” Please. Please work…
“It’s…” he tried. “It’s not…”
Blade cried out, pained and frenzied. Strands of golden Abundance materialized in the sub-space world and shattered it instead. Dan Heng gasped, air punched out of his lungs, and the moment of weakness was enough to earn Blade’s—no, the mara’s—ire.
Permanence and Abundance were often conflated, but in truth, they were opposing things. It was not something Dan Heng professed to understand, once wondering about that similarity himself, but today… it clicked. Several things, really. Most prominently was the ever-mysterious power of Permanence, in its everlasting change, might actually counteract the changing stagnation of Abundance quite well.
So well that nobody, not even Dan Heng who once carried it, had realized the other consequence of that Sedition, centuries ago.
Dan Heng rolled with the blow but was denied recovery by the descending wraith that was Blade. He blocked, the attack strong but sloppy. Still, Dan Heng’s breath caught, the feeling of being pinned enough to make the fear spike. Instead of a vicious attempt to drive a sword through his heart, however, Blade slide his sword off Cloud-Piercer and used the momentum to drive Dan Heng downward and himself forward, towards his real target out in the masses. Once more, Dan Heng pursued, grappling Blade back down to the ground.
Ironically, he realized that this was the more accurate mara: blind, listless insanity. The Blade that pursued him, once, had acted more akin to moon rage, explosive and violent yet focused.
Perhaps because there had only been one target, rather than countless ones in all directions.
But the target was ultimately the same.
Shuhu’s flesh.
He used to wonder, after learning more about the Sedition, why Yingxing was the only one tainted by the ritual’s catalyst. But the answer was simpler: Dan Feng had actually been tainted as well.
Not as much—not enough to surpass the power of the high elder merged into his blood—but enough to take effect. It explained why he never invoked the arcanum again, to pass on the mantle at the very least like some of the Preceptors had wanted. It explained why Blade had so often found him in the vast cosmos, no matter where he ran. It also explained why Dan Feng, as a coalesced memory, walked into the heat of the Coreflame and invoked that faint power of Destruction to remove himself… and why the emptiness he left behind had been so tangibly peaceful.
He took that faint power of Abundance, dormant and subdued underneath the blessing of dragons, with him as he went. Dan Feng might have started this mess, but he also chose to take the first step at ending it.
So Dan Heng would honor that started remediation and help carry that forward.
…if he could snap Blade out of the frenzy, that is.
“Need a hand, high elder?”
Yao Guang appeared, in that frustratingly sudden way of hers. He was too relieved to care, though. “He was sane until—”
“I know,” she answered. Yao Guang took up the fight, but she did not change it into an intent to kill. Instead, she produced a hammer from her belongings. “Hey, Yingxing! Look over here.”
The ensuing scene was brutal but effective. Dan Heng wasn’t sure what would feature more prominently in his nightmares: the fight, or the way Blade drove those metal shards off the edge of his sword straight into his body.
Hate towards him—towards Dan Feng, rather—had once let Blade maintain just enough individuality. Now, hate towards Shuhu would be the thing to drive him. But oh, how painful it must be, to subsist off of nothing but hate.
The hammer finally fell with a slackened grip. Dan Heng knelt beside him, wincing at the deep wounds.
“Heal…” Blade wheezed, his own trembling fingers hovering uselessly over Dan Heng’s inconsequential wound at his side. “H-heal yourself first.”
Dan Heng cracked open the first-aid kit Yao Guang left behind, likely having foresaw this. “I can’t heal,” Dan Heng said, unraveling the bandages. “Hold still.”
Blade complied. The chaos raged on. Between the self-inflicted punishment, and the way Blade’s head dipped onto Dan Heng’s shoulder, utterly exhausted, the chaos did not reach his mind again.
It was sloppy work, but Blade’s body would heal it soon. This way, at least… his sacrifice would not be undone, the shards pushed out. Dan Heng’s gut panged with the unease of participating in such a cruel solution, but unfortunately, it was an effective one.
“Is… the pain okay…?” Dan Heng tried to ask, still weighted with the guilt and sorrow. “If you can’t go on, then I…”
Blade sat up with only a grunt, although Dan Heng did not expect any outward indications to reveal the inner state. Then… “Being a Nameless suits you.”
Driven to stillness in his stupor, by such a simple yet far-reaching acknowledgement, Blade pawed at the kit, taking the bandages from Dan Heng’s slackened hands. The protest died on his tongue when he realized that Blade was still focused on Dan Heng’s side.
“…thank you,” he murmured. He would have preferred to handle it himself, but Blade was so focused, he could not bear to take it away from the man… nor ignore the sentiment and its meaning. As odd as it was, for those fingers that once repeatedly choked him to be so tender…
“I… hurt you,” Blade murmured back, yet as unsteady fingertips brushing against older scars. Not all of them belonged to Blade’s sword, but…
Dan Heng swallowed. “You did.” They both meant something far deeper than this battle’s graze… but it did not matter anymore. That pain—that fear and helplessness—might forever linger in his nightmares, but given the space to heal, pain could fade. The wild dragon within him, once shackled by old sin, enduring hatred, and self-inflicted fear and restraint, had broken free to soar after years of heartache. He will always bear those scars, but they did not have to fetter him; so too could the scars left behind by a tormented man be no longer re-opened.
The past was a fact: immutable, for both the best and the worst. Yet it did not have to be a shackle, however, for the future was never set in stone. “But we do not have to perpetuate the worst parts of our pasts.”
Blade must understand the double meaning—the offered truce under a banner of trying to be better. Better than past identities, and better than the pain that forged the selves of today.
After a moment of solemn consideration, Blade smoothed down the last of the tape and pulled away, standing on surprisingly steady feet, red gaze set on the TV Tower.
“Then let us bury that past properly.”