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CC: Chapter 69
🕑 Added 2024-06-07 14:30:02 +0000 UTC“…Tell me once again, Brother. Slowly.”
XJ-V blinked in amusement as he watched Feng play with his metal kitten. Looking at the boy these days reminded the metal man of how his friend had been when they first met.
They had come to sit upon the library of Gira in a fashion not too dissimilar to that adopted by XJ-V and Ori’un when the latter explained his dark history with Feng. That darkness had since been lifted by, of all things, an inanimate creature of steel.
Or maybe just the thoughts of the other steel-clad creature that made it.
“I am…a vessel,” XJ-V explained again, mulling over the details from his visions – details that still swam before his mind with inconsistencies and irrationalities. There will still pieces of the puzzle the Dao hadn’t allowed him to see. Yet.
“A vessel for Yuwa Himself,” Feng continued with a little impressed whistle. “You have the power of a God inside you. Now, if you ask me, that’s just cheating.”
“That’s partly why we must keep this between us, Brother,” XJ-V replied with a light shove.
“What?” the boy asked, feigning hurt. “You think we would treat you differently? If anything, the Disciples would simply venerate you even more than usual. You know, the new recruits are whispering of your – and my – prowess in battle in the wake of our victory.”
“I do not wish for their veneration,” XJ-V replied. “Their respect is enough.”
“Speak for yourself, good Cog. I fully intend to milk this devotion for all it is worth. After all, I’m finally moving up the ranks, in no small part thanks to you.”
“It was your own will that led you after me, Feng. I played no part in that.”
His mind cast itself back to the ‘victory’ Feng was speaking of – of the vicious blade that had pierced his skin and shredded his chassis apart with as much effort as a child tearing the legs off a pregnant spider.
“It is funny,” Feng said as he stroked the wiry whiskers of his pet. “Yuwa was supposedly the most egotistical of all the Old Gods of the pre-Sundering Pantheon. Isn’t it strange that his divine essence flows in your body, and yet you couldn’t be more his opposite?”
XJ-V considered this as he looked out among the crowd of Cultivators making final preparations for the impending tournament. He should feel excitement. He should feel adulation at the chance to prove himself. But in truth, he felt unease. Because he knew what this tournament really meant.
“Sometimes I think I can feel him, Feng,” he whispered. “His anger. His rage. In moments of frustration, I feel like he takes over me and runs amok in my mind, showing me what I could do if I let him out. It is only the Dao that halts his fury. Only in my Dao-walks do I truly feel free of him and yet,” he added with a sigh. “Even then, he watches. He waits for his moment to escape before I dump him into the remains of his brethren.”
Feng nodded along with his Brother, staring up at the clouded sky that heralded dense storms still to come.
“We know why that evil bastard wanted you now,” he said. “That Xu’Jan – Sheloth – and his poisoned blade.”
“More than that,” XJ-V whispered back. “He knew about me. He told me the Order had been searching for me, possibly even since my flight from Hensha.”
Feng rolled over to look up at his friend’s pensive eyes.
“You don’t think he came to that village to –“
His friend’s question was lost in a sudden flurry of light, and a little ball of energy shook its incorporeal ears between them.
“Hah!” Arha shouted. “You thought you could hide from Arha, did you? Well, she is not so easily duped!”
“We came here for a bit of piece and quiet, Arha,” XJ-V wheezed. “How is it you always know the best moments to interrupt my train of thought?”
The Huli gave a haughty hmpf! and began pawing at Feng-Lung’s cat, which the latter quickly removed from her grip.
“You will be pleased to know that Arha has spread the good word of your name, XJ-V. You too, Feng-Lung.”
“I don’t know if that’s something that should please either of us,” Feng replied with a cheeky grin.
“The indignity!” Arha howled to the hidden moon. “Two Cultivators with a beautiful Huli serving them, and neither one of them appreciates her work! Why, I have half a mind just to – oh….ohhh…”
XJ-V had begun stroking her chin, and she curled up in his lap, totally comatose.
“You certainly have a way with spirits,” Feng observed.
“Ah, Feng-Lung, they are not so different from you or me. It is like fighting – find one’s weak spot and the opponent will fall.”
“Arha…is…mighty,” the Huli cooed. “Arha…will…not…give in!”
“Perhaps that too is a result of your Creator’s invention,” Feng continued, eyeing the paralyzed fox-spirit with casual detachment. “This man.- this Doctor Janus? – I wonder what kind of person he was.”
“Longhua seemed to know of him,” XJ-V replied, recalling his Master’s fond face as he had spoke of Janus. “I believe he called him an ‘old goat’.”
“Coming from Master Longhua, that is a term of endearment,” Feng smirked. “He must have been an impressive man indeed.”
“I think he was, Feng. I just wish I could remember if he is still among the living.”
Both Disciples sat in silence for a time after that, letting the statement hang as the wisps of sunless night encased Ramor-Tai and the lanterns of the night watchmen came out in force. The stars were hidden behind a blanket of sulphureous clouds, but still, both men seemed to be appreciating the same thing in this moment – the serene silence and beauty of their home.
“XJ-V,” Feng suddenly said. “I am no orator. I cannot offer you a unique epigraph to this chapter of your life. But, if you are to leave us soon, know that you will not be forgotten.”
The Cog stirred, his fingers stopping abruptly as Arha cooed for more pats. He looked beyond the battlements and fortifications of the monastery’s bounds for the first time he could recall, doing so with the same dreamy state of disillusionment and hope that Feng had displayed when they had first met in the courtyard that now sat under them. He looked for the four corners of the world that were bound to his destiny, and knew that his future would bring with it more pain, and more suffering, than that which he had already endured. He knew too that the other monasteries may not welcome him with even the tepid approval that Longhua had eventually shown him. It was a sobering prospect – the notion of starting over again. It did not help how many times he was told he was the hope of this entire world. Such a revelation did nothing but add to the burden he already felt on his shoulders.
It was hard enough just being himself.
“If I do succeed,” he told his Brother. “If I am to leave and walk this earth again, I would prefer not to make the journey alone.”
Feng smiled out the corner of his mouth.
“Whatever happened to being a ‘unit of one’?” he snickered.
“Words that were spoken by another,” XJ-V replied. “They may have come from my mouth, but the sentiment behind them was not mine – it could never truly be mine. I have grown to like this place which you call ‘home’, Feng-Lung. In truth, I would prefer to stay and continue my training with you all. I would prefer to watch you all grow with me. I would prefer to one day live by my own thoughts – thoughts formed with the world rather than against it.”
“Well…” Feng hesitated, seeing his Brother thus engaged in a philosophical diatribe that would do him no favors in the duels to come. “You’d have the Planeswalker with you. Ori’un certainly won’t leave you alone.”
“I would have him as a teacher,” XJ-V said. “Not as a friend.”
“A friend…” Feng murmured. “Two Cultivator friends on the open roads of the wastes, battling monsters and slaying demons like in the old tales of Qingua’s Empire,” he mused, a knowing smile forming on his face. “Isn’t that a thought?”
The Cog nodded with a smile of his own. “Isn’t it just?”
A sound like a thundercrack roared from beneath the roof of the great library then, shaking both Disciples from their vantage point.
“HOW MANY TIMES!?” Gira the Gui’po screamed from the bowels of her dominion. “EVER SINCE YOU AND THAT MEDDLESOME PLANESWALKER CAME UP HERE, I’VE BEEN THROWIND DISCIPLES FROM MY ROOF EVERY DAY!”
“I suppose that’s our cue to take our leave,” Feng chuckled.
He extended a hand to his Cog brother then as the latter buried the frightened Huli in his palms.
“Whatever happens, Brother,” he said before they flew from the rooftop. “You made your mark on this place. There is little else one can hope for than that.”
