60 A Different Man For a Different Stream

The group of men slowly surrounded Shura. By now the man he had seen when he woke up also made his way out of the house and was joining his neighbors in surrounding him.

Some held pitchforks, other knives and any tools they could get their hands on. Others were unarmed. They all made erratic and twitching movements with their bodies.

A weird thought ran through Shura's mind: 'Were these men or beasts?'

They had the shape of a person and were carrying tools, but their skin were unnaturally pale like that of corpses and their eyes were dim and bloodshot. Their movements had a dull feeling to it. They did not speak the human tongue but made sounds like animals to communicate with each other.

But what did it matter if they were man, beast, or monsters? In killing others they would be killed themselves eventually. What can be killed can die. What can die was not formidable.

Shura eyed a gap between their encirclement and rushed through it. His small and agile body was able to move through them with impunity. He knew it was more about HIM rather than any intrinsic quality of the body itself. For if it wasn't the case, why was the previous owner of the body waiting to be slaughtered like a livestock and did not choose to flee?

Shura's movement appeared fast compared to the dull and uncertain movements of these 'people'. Their response could not catch up with Shura.

Shura arrived at pyre in the middle of the village. He ran up the makeshift wooden steps and picked up the baby out of the fire and held it against his chest. The baby stopped crying as soon as the heat of the fire no longer bothered it.

Shura quickly surveyed his surroundings. He didn't have a lot of options. He could only run out of the valley from either sides. Both paths were obscured by fogs, but at least it was better than staying here and wait for god knows what to happen.

But why should he run away? For the public order of the land to be in such a state that a group of madmen would burn a baby to death, there would be no peace for him even if he fled here. No… he won't run away. These things wanted a piece of him, so he'll make them into pieces. And if this place wasn't just an exception, but the norm, then he'll bathe the ground with their blood whenever he came across them.

It was after this train of thought that he realized he wasn't alone. He was carrying a baby with him. A young and defeenseless baby with needs. He shook his head and ran away.

Shura quickly ran away into the mist. Shura ran without stopping or looking back. He neither tired nor became fatigued. He just kept running. When he finally turned back to look, the fog-covered valley was far behind him, or at least that was what his intuition told him. For his eyes only saw a thick screen of fog.

Shura turned his attention to the child in his arm. He checked if she was okay. The child was a little thing. The baby had a frown on her face as if she was in pain. Shura pressed his palm against her forehead. Her forehead felt burning hot to the touch. It was a heat of unusual intensity

This heat was unnatural, was it even possible for a child to be this hot and survive? Shura did not have any options to make her better.

"The fate of this child has been changed by you. Are you going to take responsibility for her life?" A man's voice sounded around Shura. It felt as if the voice came from a distant place, yet it also felt like the speaker was right next to him.

"What are you talking about?" Shura said.

"This child has a cursed fate. The destiny of overturning nature and opposing the fabrics of reality itself. 'Heaven' cannot allow her to live. She has been inflicted by a most powerful sickness. If she did not die to the fire today then this 'sickness', the malignant energy within her body, would make sure that she did not live for another day.

"There are some like her throughout recorded history, these 'Children of Destiny'. One in a hundred million are born like her. It is a common knowledge, and their parents would consider it nothing more than a mild misfortune. No such child survive through infancy. Since all of their parents didn't care, why should you?"

Shura was silent as he listened to the disembodied voice. There was no one around them at all. The voice was being projected from somewhere else. How far away Shura did not know.

"I can ease her pain and give her time, but I cannot completely cure her. Since Heaven is responsible, only Heaven can decide her fate." the voice continued.

"Do it then."

"Although I have some accomplishment in the healing arts, I can at most let her live for a year or two, anymore then that would be beyond anyone's means. Unless, of course, you are willing to destroy 'Heaven' and undo its influences. Only then would she be truly saved."

"What must I do?" Shura asked. Calm suffused his face and a potent force coursed through his small body.

"What I refer to as 'Heaven' is nature, the world. This 'Heaven', this 'nature', this 'world' is alive. In fact, the ground beneath you, the sky above you and this entire world that surrounds you is one such living, 'breathing' Heaven, what the ancients called an Origin World. There are ten of them. Ten makes one. They are the primordial form of existence and from them countless places, peoples, and things are given birth to endlessly for all time.

"They all have 'names' and their own unique characteristics. In order to defy them and nullify their combined malignant energy within the child's body, you must overturn the concept and characteristics of their core being.

"They are ten and they have names, their names define them and grant them power. There are legends and myths of their existence, but not of their names. And thus, no one was able to oppose them."

The voice became gradually quiet and invisible but palpable stream of energy materialized from thin air and entered the body of the baby in Shura's arms.

Shura didn't know what that invisible energy had done, but the baby instantly relaxed her cute and chubby face and her body began to cool down. Her breathing became easy and even again.

"Although I said all of that, it is only hearsay passed down. Defying heaven is an impossible task. No one has ever seen what the true form of Heaven either."

"Wait," Shura said. "Those people in the village valley. What were they? Would I have to deal with such unpleasant thing again?"

"Them? These cultists worship their malevolent gods and perform strange rituals, ingest substances and plague the defenseless commoners who live in remote places. The result is as you have seen. If the Ministry of Rites found them they would be purged in fire to cleanse the heresy, if not they would hide away and continue to plague people and places far away from the eyes of the Ministry."

On reaching here, the voice sounded like he had lost interest. Shura waited for the voice to continue but in the end he waited in vain. The voice had not said anything again, and the speaker was gone.

It was good to know that the earlier bizarre experience wasn't the norm that the average person experienced every day on waking up.

As for the matter regarding these Ten and their Children of Destiny, there was nothing impossible about it. He would make the impossible possible.

"Nothing is impossible," Shura murmured in a soft voice as he held the child in his bosom and smiled at the little one.

The information that the voice had given him was sparse, but it was enough to get him thinking. He could already see how things would develop.

These ten Origin Worlds were complete and whole worlds. They were intelligent beings that was not given birth to, but nature given life. Whether it was a planet, a galaxy, a universe or a cosmos, Shura wasn't sure. But each of them were one singular 'something'. They have a name and a core characteristic that was intrinsic to their name and being. As long as Shura discovered what it was and somehow affected it, he would be able to nullify whatever they were doing to the child.

Just like water becoming muddled through adding soil, as long as he identify what the 'water' of these Ten were, he would be able to add 'soil' and destroy their influence. If Pure Water was one word and also a name, and it was no longer 'Purewater' because soil had been added and became dirty water instead, then it would have changed. And if the name of the Origin World changed and their pure nature adulterated, then their influence would weaken or cease. This was the idea that Shura had.

The Ten had names and an intrinsic nature that was vital to their continued existence. These names must correlate to something. Since these Origin Worlds weren't beings but a sort of sentient force of nature of an entire world, there must be a clue to what they really are somewhere within this world, and as long as he knew what it was, he would be able to do something to affect and oppose it. Finding out this piece of information was his first task.

"Why should I care?" Shura said as played with the baby's hands.

"Of my 110 years of life, 90 was spent thinking, thinking, and thinking about what is the right thing or the wrong thing to do. What I should or shouldn't do. Whether something is true or false.

"I have seen and done many things. But on looking back, all of it was transient and meaningless.

This time I won't ponder or think. I'm saving this little one. And if I have to go through heaven or hell, I'd gladly do it. Why? Because it is so.

"I've lost count of people who said that killing is evil, and that saving lives is good. Well, then I must've done much evil and few good. So here is a chance to do good, and since it is here, I won't turn it away."

…

No man went through the same stream twice. Although he was in a familiar situation where he knew nothing, It did not affect Shura at all.

He already had an idea what the 'names' really meant and how it related to the Ten. He only needed to act and ascertain it.

The sun was high in the sky now and Shura had traveled far from the valley. The previous eeriness was nowhere to be seen. Shura roamed around until he finally found some signs of normal civilization: a road and signs. Following it, he finally reached a city.

The city wall was four to five times a grown man's height and made with thick grey stones. With what he had seen earlier, the wall was surely a neccessity in everyday living for the common people.

Shura entered the city without any incidents. No one would think that there was anything suspicious with a 14-15 year old boy carrying a baby.

Shura knew what he had to do. He was ready to find out the name and nature of this Origin World. He was thinking of the long term, but in the short term he really needed to care for the baby. He had no experience with child-caring at all.

How does one care for a newborn? Where? What? Who? These questions succeeded after each other in Shura's mind. But the way forward was not dark or obscured at all. He calmly continued walking deeper into the city.

Surely someone in this large city must have experience with caring for a child. He just needed to find them.