Words are Wind (so I herd you like writing???)

[Garchomp]

So, uh, my only real talent in life is writing stuff! Though that is arguable when I get into my bouts of whining about its quality buuuut that is not important right now.

I write fanfiction sometimes! Though I haven't uploaded anything in a year. I also do character drabbles occasionally, whiiich I will post here. My original stuff I usually keep to myself but if you ever want links to the TERRIBLE NOVEL I AM WRITING for this month/the following year and maybe the rest of my life bluuuuuh I can supply them!

And my most recent writing project for a Homestuck ARG: I wrote land requests! People would get a randomized land from Homestuck, such as the Land of Steel and Warmth or what have you, and I wrote up descriptions for them. I was to nervous to do characters and stuff, though...

So, uh. Here they are. More stuff to come, maybe??? why did I think posting this was a good idea aaaaa



Land of Bricks and Pollution

It takes you a moment to reach the top of the crumbling wall you find right outside your home. The wall is made of bricks, and though it looks solid enough, parts have fallen in or out, forming rough slopes and pits for an easier climb. From the top, your land can be seen – a mess of jutting buildings and walls, towers, arches and industrial ruins, all made from brick. The construction appears to be haphazard – ruddy and red bricks are mixed with brown, new with old and moss-covered with grimy, without any real connection to where they were placed. The actual ground is often hidden, the foundations all hidden in an ever shifting fog of dubious origin. The sky matches the ground, and there appears to be no break in the cloud cover, giving the whole land a rather forlorn, gloomy appearance.

There is a wind, though it doesn't ever shift the fog much, and with it comes the hiss of steam and the swollen gurgle of pipes bearing more than water. Like rarely glimpsed bones in some great fossil buried in the sand, metal dots the landscape, pipes and tubes stretching between buildings, supporting arches and walls, and sometimes serving no apparent purpose whatsoever.

If you squint, you can see a vast brick monolith, a reservoir or shaft of enormous size that descends deep into the ground. Whatever purpose it once served has long been lost to time, but the pipes are easier to see here, running through it without pause and often large enough to stand on. The air there is stagnant, and tainted by ancient fumes, but occasionally the air in the shaft stirs entirely, as if some great being exhaled in its depths.



Land of Tunnels and Rivers

It's not what you see when you first set foot onto your land, it's what you hear. The sound of rushing water is everywhere, impossible to pinpoint even though at first glance, there's no river in sight. Only once you approach the apparent cliff you've arrived on do you find the rivers. They surge forth from holes in sheer rock faces, or drop suddenly from tunnels in the ceiling, only to fall into natural aqueducts that lead deeper in. The land itself is carved by their passage, the dark rock made smooth and gently carved into immense corridors and halls that seem to go on forever. Some passages are dangerous, the pathways narrow and the rivers they follow unpredictable and wild. Those tunnels roar with the surge of water, but others are almost soothing, vast ribbons that wind on into the depths of chasms.

The constant movement prevents any plants growing on the riverbeds, but moss grows almost everywhere else, softening the otherwise oppressive darkness of the stone. Other plants grow as well, if not quite as common as the moss, and produce tiny spheres of light that glimmer in various shades of blue. Their glow is faint and quite honestly isn't the best light, but they're certainly very pretty.

Each river has an end. They all have a purpose, some path each must take that it has always taken, and there are whispers of a great cavern, a lake or ocean where every river connects that hides treasure, or a secret. However, the rush of water is quieter than it should be. Many of the tunnels are choked with water, and even the wider ones are sealed off. From the look of it, only the bare surface of the land can be reached – anything deeper is flooded almost completely.



Land of Oil and Melody

Your land is one of contrasts, and parts melding together seamlessly. It is a land of harmonies and counterpoints. You step out onto a vista of grass which quickly fades to dirt and stone. Black spires of rock jut out from the ground and spread like antlers, and the ground around them forms deep pools. Each branch drips oil at a sluggish pace, slowly filling the pools. The colour of them varies, as some shimmer with silver or faint iridescent shades, while others – those that have stood for longer – are muddier, the vibrancy of the oil fading. That alone does not make the pools remarkable.

What does are the chiming sounds that go up and down the scale every time a drop of oil hits the surface. Sometimes, a row of pools weave together to make a melody, and at other times the notes echo by themselves, but your land is never fully silent.

There are no caves or ruins here, no apparent depth to the world at all, but if you hit any of the spires, they ring like a bell – not just one, but all of those near by. They are connected, impervious rocks running through the land and supporting it, harsh bones for a world whose blood is song. So maybe it would be wise to notice the ones that have fallen and cracked, oil bleeding out into the ground. The area around them is silent, a little like a graveyard.

[Garchomp]

So this was going to be crack and then it became sad (Descartes had a daughter, Francine, who died of scarlet fever at five and he took it pretty hard) and then wow it turned back into crack hahaha. Also rushed, what is pacing??? I still like the premise, though. Descartes has a badass cape in his magic costume, and he uses a hammer because he breaks down dubious knowledge and then builds it up again! Also, rambling about the nature of entropy according to Madoka physics, Kyubey and Wikipedia. Probably not accurate in the least. Anyways, here we go.



“The world isn't fair, is it?”

It was a dissonant voice in a day full of tiny disarrays, all leading up to the fact that there was a small, still body in a coffin. René could not bring himself to ignore it. The voice was that of a child, perhaps, young and cheerful despite the words. He closed the door to his room, gently, and turned around to face the window, and the red eyes of the creature that sat upon it.

- time unwinds -

It was a fine day, the sun shining down on the roofs of the houses around him. The sunlight, or the greenery that was moved by the ceaseless wind, did not interest him, though. The letter – dripping with seals and official proclamations – was the only thing he could bring himself to care about, and he retraced the words again, frowning. Galileo's condemnation was a weighty matter, and if the Church took such a stance against him....

Well, his own publications were doomed. He would have to write a letter himself, and request his work be withdrawn before the Church turned its sharp gaze on him. He had so many things left to write, so many ideas, half-drawn out arguments that only needed to be finished and spread through Holland like wildfire.

The world was on the cusp of a new age, old traditions being transformed and purified by reason. It was heady enough to drown in, the thoughts of new systems, rational thinking sweeping throughout all of Europe – so when a cat sat down on the windowsill, he ignored it easily.

Of course, even the heaviest of arguments on the nature of reality could be driven out of one's head if the distraction was potent enough.

“So you're René Descartes!” He looked down, expecting a child, and met the eyes of... a cat. No, not a cat – it was larger, something like a fox or a weasel... but a cat as well. The red eyes were weasel-like, at least, but no animal he had seen looked so... angelic. It had strange wing-like ears – or perhaps wings attached to its ears, it was difficult to say – and it tilted its head as he stared down, its tail moving in a hypnotic, boneless motion. “You're becoming quite renowned, aren't you!”

The mouth didn't move but it was talking to him. He was certain of it – or at least, fairly certain that his senses were not deceiving him in this matter.

“What manner of creature are you?” he asked, and the head tilted again, ears twitching.

“I am Kyubey!”

-

“This is... all of what you're telling me, of the world and worlds beyond it decaying – can it possibly be true?”

“Can it?” the creature parroted back at him, curling its tail neatly around its paws. “You are well known for your deductions and clear reasoning among the philosophers of this time.”

He cast his mind back, cleared his thoughts as best as he could, pushing away the whirlwind of demons and strange pacts, the very concept that the universe he knew was constantly in danger. “I cannot simply rely on what you are telling me. There must be some proof of this.” Kyubey twitched its – no, his, for he clearly had intelligence – ears and leaped up from his spot on the floor, landing on the low table and pacing its length soundlessly.

“Do you drink tea, René?” he asked, waiting for his nod before continuing. “I will give you your proof using it, then. You have a cup of tea. This is the universe, and the heat is its energy and life. As long as you continue to pour in hot water, it remains hot! But once you stop, the tea begins to cool, until it is completely cold.” He did that strange wave of his tail, back and forth like a pendulum but with all the fluidity of water.

“That does not explain anything,” he pointed out, not bothering to wonder how Kyubey could speak perfect French when his mouth was closed all the time. Or how he could speak French. Or speak if he really felt like measuring the absurdity of the situation. “The world has the sun. Why would it suddenly grow cold and die?”

“The sun is a ball of heat and gas. It will eventually flare up and then burn itself out. All things have their ends! The universe subsists on energy. However, that energy always costs more than it produces in turn, and rather than being a cup of tea with water constantly added, it is a cup left alone. Eventually, the energy will dwindle to nothing, and the universe will grow cold. All life will wither and die!” It was a chilling explanation, made more so by Kyubey's utter lack of inflection. He could have been giving polite discourse on the weather.

He shook his head. “But the existence of God –”

“Oh, I was wondering if you could explain why you still cling to that. You are relatively progressive in your arguments, after all.”

The previous statements had been confusing, or shocking. This was... a little more than that. “I'm sorry?”

Kyubey swished his tail at him again. “This belief in an infinite being that is the root of all knowledge and does not lie. It seems pointless to assign such empty characteristics to a supposed being outside of time and space. If one existed, why would it have any interest in your world alone?”

And perhaps that was what finally made him truly wary of the strange creature – not its tale of entropy but the epiphany that behind that flat, red gaze there was a cold, vast intellect – and one that did not see the point of the deity or religion that his own arguments was founded on.

-

“Why do you keep coming back, Kyubey?”

“Because you are an interesting person! Is that not reason enough?”

“I can hardly consider myself interesting when we have debated the same points a hundred times over.” But all he received in return was an enigmatic look and a polite congratulations on the reception of one of his works.

-

“Some people have potential energy,” Kyubey confided once, on those erratic visits – sometimes choosing to appear in a room with a closed door and no window, as if purely trying to baffle him. “And many acquire more as they go through their lives. Someone like yourself is constantly collecting it!”

“And what does that potential fulfil?”

“It means that you can see and hear me, when most people can't. It also means you can fight the decay of the universe!” But when he pressed, Kyubey proved to have the same skills as a weasel in getting out of a tight spot, and once again he was left with questions and doubts.

-

“Kyubey,” he said, heavily.

“You have a wish, René.” He paused, and then leaped down from the windowsill. “I can grant it.”

He stared, unable to muster up surprise, or shock, or anything other than leaden grief. “Bringing back the dead cannot be done.”

“If it is your wish,” Kyubey said, “it can be granted. You must make a contract with me, and in return... I will bring your daughter back to life. You will be able to share in her coming years. Is that not what you want?”

And it was.

So he wished, and found himself marvelling at the strange trinket he held after the pain had receded, a strange silvery gem. There were other things to marvel at – the hammer he could wield, and the monsters he found himself fighting. His daughter, alive and full of joy and mishaps and the eternal energy of a normal five year old. His work, arguments and philosophy that should have changed the world, was left alone. There were more important things than words and reason, now.

The silver of his soul tarnished, slowly, an inexorable process no matter how many demons and strange monstrosities he slew. In the end, it killed him, and through it all Kyubey watched, witness to the harvest of a man's hopes, and reaper for what came after.

His ideas gathered dust, and history tidily collected itself and continued onward.

And no one ever had to write essays about Descartes. Ever.

[Garchomp]

Land of Steel and Frogs - For Ross!

The cold seeps into your skin as you leave your home. It is not the biting temperature of snow and frost, but a monotone chill. There is no wind to drive it away or make it colder. The very air is dead, with a metallic tang to it. Fitting, considering the vast structures that rise above your head. Skyscrapers and bridges of steel tower everywhere, with no signs of rust or decay. Pillars spring up from hills, twining together or branching out in strange, sharp patterns, all edges and hard lines.

The ground itself is packed earth, nothing special. Rolling hills and valleys are everywhere, and the soil at the bottom of the valleys is darker and looser – but just as barren as everywhere else. There is no real colour to be found, and the sky is veiled by grey clouds that lurch slowly onward. A closer look at the steel structures shows an oddity, though – from the peak of every other hill stands a long, curving arc of metal. Its joins with others over the valleys, and beneath every such meeting hangs a delicate-looking lattice of a cage. Inside each cage, a number of frogs slumber. The metal is too strong to bend or break.

If you keep walking, you will eventually come to a strange sight – a mountain in the midst of the gentle hills, cracked open and a dome of steel showing through the hole. Inside it are branching tunnels, clean and shining with the same dull sheen as the rest of the world, all leading to the same thing. A Forge, awaiting the one who would light it and bathe the world in heat, to be tempered anew.

[Garchomp]

Land of Storm and Peak - For Fail

Your land buffets you as soon as you step out, the wind whipping past your face and stinging your skin. There is a tang of rain on the air, faintly visible in intermittent showers that never last very long. It's a good thing, as the rain when it falls is heavy and cold, almost vicious in its assault. The sky above is a constantly roiling surface of alien shapes, the clouds heavy and never a solid colour – sometimes dull grey, or brilliant white or deeper, dusky colours illuminated by lightning. The lightning is everywhere – flashes of it striking, sometimes unfolding in blazes of pronged light that hammers down on the peaks of the mountains all around. Rarer are the vast curtains of it that light up the sky, branching from cloud to cloud, and the shimmering balls of it that hover like stars brought down to earth.

In the moments when the whole sky sets itself on fire, you can see everything, and it is a rather impressive sight. The land isn't just mountainous – it is entirely composed of mountains, the ground either rising up into a steep incline or dropping away beneath your feet. It's a harsh place at first glance, with no vegetation and stone sharp enough to slice skin, but a closer look shows hardy moss twining itself in delicate patterns everywhere. It glows faintly when it's dark, and grows thicker away from the wind and the rain – forming vague, meandering roads that lead into the mountains themselves.

For all their impossible height, the mountains are filled with tunnels, some vast and echoing and others barely wide enough to squeeze through. They are all lit by the same luminescent moss, and in the larger caverns more plants grow, delicate glowing flowers that seem at odds with their surroundings. There is water, if you search for it – still, serene lakes and streams that eventually plunge out of the caves and back out to the surface, cascading down from peak to peak. Your consorts speak of a time when the rain and wind and lightning will all be in time with each other. And then, they say, the land will shine.

[Garchomp]

Land of Ghosts and Shadows - For Bawb

The silence presses in as soon as you enter the Medium – every sound within the house, every footstep is amplified by the complete and utter lack of anything to contrast it. The land outside is dark, even the grass and trees cast in perpetual shadow. There is vegetation in abundance – low-growing trees with bent trunks form eerie forests, lining the remnants of stone roads. Stone is everywhere, covered in moss or vines or ivy, and the paths through the forests are straight and clearly once had some kind of order, before they were overgrown. The deeper in you go, the more you see – faint glimmers of light form shapes that drift to and fro. Some try to speak, making echoing noises that remind you of the sound of waves on a distant shore, while others simply make the trees groan and the leaves rustle in a rush of sound.

Further in there are vast courtyards leading up to ruins, where fountains run freely with more of the dark plantlife. Tiny balls of fire – cold and in many different colours – perch here and there, moving when they sense your approach. The fly like flocks of birds, taking shelter beneath the larger ruins, which look more like temples or castles. The highest ones can't even be seen properly. They cast shadows that overwhelm the land around them, keeping you from seeing anything except spectres, and here you finally hear more sound – water trickling and footsteps of people who were never here to begin with.

The spirits speak freely in the shadows, sharing memories of distant gilded and shadowed worlds they had never been to, and wonderful songs that can only be heard in the darkness. They will tell you stories of doom and hope. Flowers always lead to secrets, they say, but they will ignore the questions you ask, because there was never any time to answer.

[Garchomp]

Land of Gardens and Stars - and our session is complete!~

You step out onto a road, smooth cobbled stone leading straight from your house to an elegant courtyard. There is a formal quality to it – the sky above you is dark, without any stars or moon to light the way, and everything seems shadowed as a result, cast into fierce contrast by the small, brilliant lights that float everywhere. It takes a while to figure out that they are stars – fiery globes the size of your head float in ornamental cages like incredibly fashionable lanterns, while tiny ones drift everywhere, sparkling and somehow not setting everything else on fire.

Your world teems with plantlife – there are bushes and trees with spreading limbs, willows that overshadow the roads with ethereal, glowing leaves. The stone roads are neat, with dark, lush grass growing thickly as soon as the paths end, and everywhere there are narrow, tightly furled flowers, each in a darkened spot, as if their very existence draws the light out of the area. Each road leads to another courtyard with more lights and trees and sprays of buds that refuse to open – but if you keep going, eventually all the roads converge, leading up to a vast temple. It's the only thing taller than the trees, and there are no hills or mountains to block it from view.

Stepping inside plunges you into almost complete darkness. The tiny stars that fill the air are still here, but the larger ones are completely absent. The temple itself holds many secrets, but the biggest one is the massive circular hole in the ceiling of the central chamber, open to the sky. The walls are engraved with designs that might be flowers or stars – it's hard to tell, with no light – and there is some sort of pattern on the floor, marked out in lighter and darker stone. The sparks cluster around it, sometimes giving off enough light for you to glimpse a curl of a vine or a petal. Your consorts tend the gardens constantly, and they say the sun was stolen and buried by Norn, split up into tiny fragments that glow beneath the earth, caught in the roots of a great tree. The witch will dance and open the sky, they say, and then everything will burn.

[Garchomp]

Land of Globes and Tangents - For Chrome! OCStuck time~

You can't stop staring, when you first walk out onto your land. There is almost too much to look at – giant spinning orbs are everywhere, some with lines etched onto them like ancient maps and others ribbed or curved oddly, and some just smooth-surfaced and gleaming like metal or gems. They spin at different speeds, some in different direction, and some even drift back and forth a little – but all of them take strange, coloured lines and spray them out in vast curves across the sky and the strangely blank features of your land. The lines themselves you could look at for days on end – they're strands of vivid colour at first, but once spun out by the globes, they form flickering images, like a scene from a movie stuttering back and forth quickly. Sometimes they freeze on one image, staining the area with a memory, and then slowly fading away.

Some of the memories don't seem to be yours, or even memories at all – occasionally you catch glimpses of a black and white field, and gleaming towers, both dark and bright, and other worlds, clouded or clear and incredibly distinct. You are the first to know what the other lands of your session look like, without a need for prophetic clouds or sleeping – it is your land's gift to you.

Perhaps to not distract from the orbs that constantly weave out scenes when you approach, the rest of your land seems almost lifeless. The ground is dark and smooth, with occasional curved ridges of metal or stone breaking out of it like seamless waves, frozen in an instant. There are no hard edges here, but also nothing else other than the memories and the globes that make them. In some areas, there are small holes, with smaller globes resting inside them, and the curved lines that appear everywhere stream back and forth so quickly that at first sight, it's almost blinding. The larger spheres pick up the strain of spinning them out – but some of them are cracked, and the memories they make fade too quickly, or shudder and distort like glitches in a game. Your consorts tell you to make every orb bloom with memories – but of course, it's up to you to figure out how that would work.

[Garchomp]

For DNA~

Land of Castles and Acid

Your land? Your land is awesome.

Or well, that could be said of the towers and soaring turrets, with walls and improbably pristine fortresses rising out of the rather hilly ground. It's not just European-style castles either, with their forbidden moats and palisades cut neatly in half for consorts to wander in and out of. Every hill is crowned by some manner of castle or palace – domes or tiered roofs rise up on the horizon, though the castles themselves might not be completed. Some are cut away, as if to better show off the spiralling stairways and the labyrinths of rooms, while others are in ruins – most likely because of the one small detail that keeps your land from being impressive and regal and super cool for all sorts of princely shenanigans.

The acid.

Some of it is a virulent shade of green, bright and glowing at night, and it shows up in still pools and winding streams which bubble dangerously when you get too close. Other than making the whole area smell foul, it isn't the worst. Both the castles and the hills themselves are riddled with places where different acids have eaten away at the ground, leaving weakened spots and sudden drops. There are entire patches of bad air, wastelands where colourless liquids pool in a hollow and make the whole place dangerous to traverse. The worst are the ones you can't quite see until it's too late. However, by nature or some grand loop in the design of Skaia, the largest patches of acid are somehow always in the dungeons of the various castles, creating vast underground rivers that all flow into the next, like some lethargic and exceedingly dangerous network.

The castles are still cool, though.

[Garchomp]

so I herd you liek descartes - also I fail at explaining the mind/body problem so here have Kyubey simplify it like a boss

-

It was another of those days. Days when he could sense the demons gathering at the very edges of his mind, prickles of sound meshing together into discord, but all he really wanted was to buy his daughter a doll and sit and think and write.

It was on those days that he got visits.

Kyubey appeared from somewhere, though his study had no boltholes to crawl through, and announced himself by leaping up onto the desk and sitting down like an ordinary cat. He never blinked, though, and only seemed uninterested when René had pointed out that and his apparent ability to go for hour without breathing. He had even picked him up once, and Kyubey had dangled in his arms like an almost weightless doll. His fur had been incredibly soft, far more luxurious than any animal he had encountered, but Kyubey himself hadn't acted lie a cat would, or even a lapdog. He had barely moved, and only asked how long René was planning to hold him.

No, Kyubey could not be called ordinary.

He also had an unnerving sense of timing, as René had just set pen to paper.

“Hello, René!” he said in that curious, almost toneless voice – like a child's and yet without any particular enthusiasm to it. He reflexively glanced at the gem he kept on his desk, like a paperweight and yet always very close to hand. It shone brightly except for the edges, which were darkened and blurred.

“Hello, Kyubey,” he answered, and he knew enough now to be cautious, even as the creature licked a paw daintily. “Has something happened?”

“There is a small gathering of demons forming at the edge of the city,” came the immediate reply. “They should emerge at nightfall.”

“It is at least six hours until then,” he said, and then began to write. Ignoring Kyubey was an easier task when he thought of his daughter, and her delight to see him around the house this morning. Not that Kyubey really pressured him into doing anything – he just had a tendency to show up when René was determined to rest and ignore the pressing call of demons. Silence fell, and at length, Kyubey jumped on his shoulder to take a look at the page. He did his best to not jostle too much – he had gotten used to this sort of thing months ago. Kyubey did not seem to think personal space was a sensible concept, and certainly did not honour any sort of boundaries. But then, he did not mind when his own were violated – he hadn't even cared when René had shaken him a little.

“What are you writing?” Kyubey asked, balancing on his shoulder with perfect grace.

He coughed. “I was thinking of the soul and the body, and how it seems the world must be divided between two states. There is the material, like this desk, or my body, which cannot think, and then the mental, such as my thoughts or myself... or my soul.” He waited, but Kyubey simply stared down at the page. “Our souls return to the heavenly Father when we die, and all we see is the material, left behind by our true selves, which survive past the death of the body.”

There was a faint rustle as Kyubey's tail twitched, and he hopped back down onto the desk. “An interesting hypothesis, René! But I would like to show you something.” He reached the soul gem and placed a paw on it – it instantly lit up from within, its glow intensifying, and René felt a sudden ache in all of his bones, not the sharper and consuming pain of a wound but something pulling.

“What –” he began, but Kyubey seemed to be in the mood to explain, for once.

“This is your soul gem. Your soul gem contains your soul in it, to better preserve it if you are injured.” He made a faint noise, of protest or confusion, and Kyubey ignored it. “The soul can be separate from the body, as you can see. I took the mental and moved it from one material state to another. But if it is separate from your body, how can you feel this, at this very moment? And if your soul is now in a gem, rather than connected to your body, how it is that you will disappear when your soul gem goes black?” His challenge issued, he sat back and the gem faded. René reached for it unthinkingly, holding it close.

It was, without a doubt, a fine gem, without facets and yet so brilliant in colour. It remained the same now as it had been before Kyubey had touched it, but....

“My soul. My God, could it really hold it?”

“If one was to take the gem from you, your body would be unable to move or function. Your new abilities are because of your soul gem, after all,” Kyubey answered.

“You didn't tell me!”

“Does it matter? Your daughter is alive and you have new duties, René. Would you really have refused, knowing this anyways?” That made him pause, and Kyubey flicked his tail in that seamless, flowing gesture again. “It is, as I said, interesting for you to have thought of such a system, but it is easy enough to disprove. I look forward to your next discoveries. But remember that the demons will rampage soon!”

Then he was gone, slipping out somehow, through some trick of the light. René looked out at the slowly setting sun, and then at his soul, only lightly stained and still beautiful, and did not move.

[Garchomp]

I had a lot of Hao muse and because I don't have enough posts with Abby yet, I can't actually spill it out in a million posts so uh I wrote this instead. It's feelsy and kind of steeped in Shaman King terminology wHOOPS. also read shaman king pls the art starts out bad at the beginning but eventually it becomes really awesome and the story is great and the characters and fUCKING HAO

-

He had always marked time with fire.

The strength of the sun’s rays, how long it took for incense to fade, how low a candle sank – and now, how long until his life was snuffed out.

But not forever.

Hao Asakura studied his opponent in this last round of the Shaman Fight. An onlooker would have called them similar, but then, many of the Asakura line looked similar to their ancestor. He wore the traditional outfit of an onymouji – but what interested him was not his opponent, but rather the spirit he was using.

A two tailed cat, who refused to meet his eyes.

“Hello, Matamune,” he said, keeping his voice light and gentle. He couldn’t show how much this one betrayal hurt. Yohken’s resolve to kill him burned in his mind, calm and implacable. Clearly, facing the man who had led the family to greatness five hundred years ago didn’t weigh on him. As for Matamune… he was glad his reishi could not read the hearts of spirits. He had endured enough pain from the ability already. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Have you been keeping yourself well?” Matamune looked down. Ah, but it was good to see him again, even like this. Even on opposite sides, he could not help but feel affection for the spirit who had been his sole and trusted friend in his first life. He had grown so much from the stray he had found, a lifetime ago.

“Hao,” Yohken interrupted, and his eyes narrowed. He didn’t want to listen to this man, with his own fearsome skill. He had more important things to do. “You who took upon yourself the name of Patch, and have returned to this world to sow your evil will… we are here to kill you.” Such an admirable way of putting it – that was how they skewed it, was it? That he was evil? They were all just blind.

“Are you?” he asked now, tilting his head to consider the shaman. “Surely you understand how little that will accomplish. In five hundred years’ time, the Great Spirit will manifest once more to choose a saviour of this world, and the Shaman Fight will be held. In that time… I will reincarnate, and once more enter the tournament.” One death, and still Yohken’s furyoku was stronger than his. But that didn’t matter, in the end. He had the Spirit of Fire, stolen painstakingly from the Patch tribe, and it would follow him into his next life.

“Do you believe you can deny me this?”

He heard the sudden rush of thoughts, the anger that they could not seal him away forever and be done with it.

Always.

Always when someone encountered the unknown, what they could not possibly understand – they tried to take it away, to kill it, to keep it away from them. It was what he had felt from the humans surrounding him, all the time. He had tried so hard to help them – and they had lashed out in return. And now… even other shamans couldn’t understand.

“So, Yohken – kill me. Rid the world of my hatred for five hundred years. Buy yourselves some time to prepare for my return. You know the rules – I’ll just be stronger.” He tilted back his head, and smiled, deliberately making it careless and cheerful. A direct defiance to Yohken’s stoic expression. “But first… I’d like to talk a little with my old friend. It’s been so long, you know.”

“Hao-sama,” Matamune said at last, quiet. His heart clenched, just a little, at hearing the hushed plea. “You have fallen into darkness. I stood by and watched your hatred consume you, and could do nothing.

“This is my atonement.”

Hao’s smile softened. “You should be happier, Matamune. I walk a path where you cannot follow… you have the freedom to go where you will. You are free of me and my ideals.”

“I never wanted that.”

This would go nowhere better. He let the smile fade. “Well, the battle has long since started. I’m sure the Patch are most anxious to be rid of me. Let’s get on with it, shall we? Fulfil the duty given to you by my clan.”

Matamune’s reiryoku still held an echo of his own power, that he had given him as a cat dying of old age. More than a trace of it remained, even after five hundred years. The blade Oversoul formed, a massive spike of light, barely contained within the confines of a sword’s shape.

All was in place for his next revival. He knew what he would do. And five hundred years in hell would be a welcome change from this slowly dying world, and the fearful humans that plagued it. Every time the fire went out, it would return stronger. He would come back, and become Shaman King – and then, cleanse the world of humanity, so that it could live free of the future he had foreseen.

The sword rose, and fell.

But for now…? Now, his friend would grant him rest. Just for a little while.

He already knew they would never see each other again.