81 Moving Forward

Attempting to swallow down the lump in his throat did nothing to alleviate the vomit that rushed up. Trying to steady his breathing did nothing to ease his burning eyes. "Ahng..." he tried to say something, but all that could come out was a strangled noise.

One step forward.

It was a difficult step to take.

As if his legs were weighed down with lead.

The second step was even more difficult to manage as limbs numbed and trembled. On the third step, he stumbled. Yet even as he fell to his knees his eyes never left that godforsaken corner.

Her pale skin was without a trace of rot and her beautiful lavender locks gleamed vibrantly. If it weren't for the fact that her gentle ruby eyes stared off sightlessly, without even a trace of life, one could be fooled into believing she was merely, quietly, resting.

Her eyes...

"Ang..." tears began to spill over.

Hadn't she suffered enough? Why couldn't he close her eyes? Why couldn't they let her rest, even in death!? How could she leave without grievances if she was forced to continually watch this wretched world!?

By sheer force of will, he stood and ambled toward her corner. Each taken breath burned, each tear that slipped out left an icy trail, as the continued and unavoidable sight of her death pierced and squeezed his heart.

Paoxiao reached out trembling fingers to force her eyes closed.

Her skin was still warm.

Though he tried to block his breaths that were coming out in uneven puffs by biting his lip, though he tried to swallow back the torrent of emotions that swept through his trembling frame, leaving him enervated, it all came tumbling it out.

"Ha... ha... ha... haaAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Paoxiao dropped to his knees and threw himself into his sister's lifeless embrace. Though it was warm, as if she were still alive, it was also cold. The cold seeped into his flesh, into his bones, but warmed his eyes with a fresh set of tears.

In the past, when he would throw himself at her, she would hug him tight and wipe away all his woes with her gentle, kind, and patient love.

He would never feel it again.

She couldn't embrace him anymore.

He would never again get to hear her say, "Xiaoxiao, come and hug your sister and tell me what happened. Sister will make all the sad things go away."

The trembling arms around Xianmei's waist tightened. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, sister." Paoxiao's shoulders shook as he mourned with all the strength of his sadness. "If I had been stronger... he wouldn't have been able to take you. If I didn't listen to the elders, I could have gotten to you sooner. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry.. ha ha ha Aahng."

Nastasia's nails bit into palm flesh as she clenched her fists while feeling extremely helpless. She understood what it felt like to have a loved one die. There wasn't anything anyone could do or say to make the pain go away.

It was something that could only numb over time, but it would never fade.

Even though she understood this, she still opened her mouth with the hopes that Paoxiao could communicate with Xianmei, through her. Before the words could come out, a loud shriek careened about her skull. The heavy, piercing sound nearly caused Nastasia to cry out.

DON"T TELL HIM!!!

'Why?'

The voice of Xianmei didn't respond. Even though she didn't respond, Nastasia could feel the voice resting weakly in a hard to pinpoint spot of her mind. As she puzzled over why Xianmei would refuse to share some last moments with her brother, Hui Se Ying made a move.

As he watched the demon fall to such strong emotion, Hui Se Ying felt envious. Beings of all sorts could feign feelings for one purpose or another. They would walk through the motions to make it easier to live as they wished, but rarely did one feel to this level.

At least in his experience, it was so.

Hui Se Ying admired the single-minded devotion Paoxiao maintained for his sister over the years. He envied the broken soul that fell to piece upon finding her corpse, upon realizing her death. He couldn't feel those sorts of things, because such feelings always felt so fake to him.

Every time he seduced someone's wife, he always chose the ones that put forth a view of such harmonious love and devotion. Every time he swooped in, speaking his flirtatious words while adding in seductive little touches, he wished with all his might, to be rejected.

However, he was never rejected.

Because love was only a moment's lust and sibling affection could only persist so long as the sibling wasn't in the way.

He knew that all too well.

Being the son of a powerful family, how could he have the leisure to hope for such fantastical emotions. Or rather, that's how it should have been. He never should have hoped for them. If he hadn't, the disappointment wouldn't have been so severe.

The woman he loved, his fiance, left him for his brother after he told his father he would rather give up his right for succession than to destroy his brother for it. All the claims and assurances she gave after he confided his desire to her, meant nothing.

Apparently, his sacrifice touched their father, because on his deathbed Hui Se Ying had been named successor despite his giving up the position. The woman that left him and married his brother, shortly after, during the banquette arranged to celebrate his being named, drugged him.

They were found naked and in bed together.

The woman was in tears, claiming that she had been forced. The elders of the family, appalled, had invoked the family laws to have him banished from the family. It was a few years later that Hui Se Ying discovered everything was a plot by his brother to take the family head position for himself.

The woman his brother used to frame him, his own wife and Hui Se Ying's former fiance, had died during his absence. From a little digging, it was discovered that he hired someone to kill her soon after the deed he forced her to perform. Quite unwilling to keep a woman that may have been touched by someone else.

Once he had found out about these deeds, Hui Se Ying felt such hatred. A burning need for revenge. To have the sweet feeling of justice served, he returned. However, once he returned to Jing Ang country, his brother couldn't sit still. Living in constant fear that his return meant he came back to steal the position of the family head, his brother struck first.

So swift and deadly was the strike that Hui Se Ying had been killed before he could even decide on a move to make. Honestly, his soft and hesitating heart, that was stuck in the days of their youth, was at fault. He never should have entertained it.

His brother certainly hadn't.

So, as he watched Paoxiao sincerely mourn, he also couldn't help feeling envious of Xianmei. Seeing this display of pure and untainted emotion, Hui Se Ying put aside any negative thoughts he had towards Paoxiao.

Therefore, as he reached forward, placing his hand on the demon's quivering shoulders, he said carefully as he could. "I wish I could allow you all the time you need to mourn, but we don't have it right now. If you want to take her with us and not leave her here, you must pull yourself together. This is enemy territory. We can't be sure of when the enemy will come... if they come.

"If you use your ability of creation to make a coffin from the wood of Ice Firs and add these arrays," he pointed toward the wall the Xianmei's body leaned against, "then we should be able to keep her body preserved even after taking her from this room."

Paoxiao loosened his arms as he pulled back from his sister's body to look at the spirit with his copper eyes that glistened as tears flowed over his bottom lashes. "I don't want to leave her here, I won't ever leave her again."

Though that statement, with the current state of her body, was an impossible promise to keep, Hui Se Ying didn't voice it. Instead, he walked over to free Nastasia from her bonds. "Good," he said as he looked away while she fixed her disarrayed clothing once she was freed., "then you need to pull yourself together and get to it. As I said, we may not have long to accomplish it."

Having come to this agreement, Paoxiao finally managed to swallow back his sadness. He couldn't leave his sister here, nor could he risk her being snatched from him again. These thoughts made it easy to stand back up again despite the pain that cut at his heart and sapped his strength.

Patting his sister's arm reassuringly, with a silent vow to bring her back home, Paoxiao immediately got to work.

-----------------

The rain came down in intermittent sheets. The downpour was accompanied by crackling booms and awe-inspiring light shows. The weather was hardly fit for travel, but this was where the gate randomly threw them.

There wasn't much of a choice.

So, trekking through the muddy terrain, dotted in various types of foliage, in sodden down robes and squelching boots wasn't something that could be helped. Though it was extremely uncomfortable, a place of shelter had yet to be located.

As they walked Tongchuu glanced around while trying to guess their current location. The view was ordinary and quite similar to any other sparse forest they had ever walked. With the sky being so overcast, pinpointing the exact spot they stood, would have to wait.

It wasn't until some time had passed that Tongchuu began to notice an abnormality in his master. Though he was generally a quiet fellow, this wasn't a time his master would fall to silence. Thus, as he turned to find his master's preoccupied visage, he dared to question:

"Master, is something wrong?"

Mikhail said nothing for quite a while, his thoughts turning over in his mind as he tried to travel down the broken and fragmented pathways of his memory. However, even as he thought and thought, he could not stumble upon the answer he sought after.

"Why do you want to make a gate..."

That question kept bouncing around his brain.

"... or rather, where is it you're wanting the gate to connect?"

It wouldn't leave him alone.

However, even as he dug through his brain for the answer, he couldn't uncover anything. He needed it and since he couldn't find it himself, he decided to ask Tongchuu. This spirit, who had been with him the longest.

"For what reason am I doing all of this...? Where exactly is it, that I'm trying to go?"

Faced with this question while his bald head was being pelted by rain, sending icy rivulets of water down his back, he was uncomfortable and entirely unwilling to waste time talking. Yet, it was his master's question and he couldn't ignore it in favor of searching for a shelter out of the rain.

So, without the slightest hint of any of those feelings, Tongchuu calmly replied. "When I met master, you already had the mind to do these things. The reasons for them, you've never said and being that I am only a subordinate, it wasn't my place to ask."

"I see..." though he was disappointed at not finding the answer to the question ceaselessly careening about his skull, he didn't dwell on it. Instead, he walked over to a large Dawn Redwood to lean against its wide trunk. Though it offered a little protection from the rain, it wouldn't make a good shelter for long.

"Tongchuu, while I rest here, go find somewhere out of the rain to rest for tonight. In the morning, or when the rain lets up, we'll figure out where this is."

"Understood master."

Tongchuu's specialty was research. Though he knew a bit in the ways of martial arts, his ability wasn't anything worth mentioning. So, unlike most of the spirits working under Mikhail, his exit wasn't made in a spectacular fashion. It was no different than a normal person walking away after a conversation was through.

Alone, he was left to his thoughts. The question never stopped it's want to be answered, however, he had no answer to give it. He could only twist his brows as it continuously whispered about.

"Why do I want to do what I am doing...?" Mikhail asked himself this as he tried to lose his mind in the sounds of the rain rather than in what he couldn't remember; tired of trying to grasp what couldn't be grasped. As he did so, seconds, minutes, and hours passed by with no signs of Tongchuu returning.

Though the Dawn Redwood blocked the rain by a good margin, he was still constantly misted by a fine layer of water as rain splashed through the dense leaves. His body was drenched, uncomfortable, and cold. Finally fed up, he stood away from the wide trunk to find his own shelter rather than to continue waiting.

As he took a step forward, shrieking laughter ghosted past his ears. This caused him to pause and look around for the source. If there were people around it meant there was a good chance of finding shelter nearby.

However, if that were the cause, Tongchuu shouldn't have been gone for so long.

The laughter came again.

It came accompanied with the image of a little girl as she joyously ran passed him to splash about the rain, making it her mission to jump in every puddle in sight. Red hair twisted about like a tail as she moved and her blue eyes arched upward like crescents.

Such a beautiful and happy child.

She twirled about to face him, shrieking again happily as water splashed with each hop. "Papa, papa," she cried, "it's raining, it's raining!"

Her reckless running was beginning to cause him to worry. Stepping out from beneath the reaches of the Redwood's branches, Mikhail walked toward the happily playing child.

"Be careful-" he started to warn, but it was too late. She already slipped in the muddy puddles, landing on her rump and dirtying her dress.

Large tears began to slide down her plump cheeks, causing his heart to ache. He wanted to race over to her, lift her in his arms and offer comfort after checking for wounds. However, with the call of "master," the girl vanished.

Now that she vanished, Mikhail began to feel a bit hollow inside. Even though for some inexpiable reason, he found himself feeling this way, he was able to quickly stamp over it and put it aside. "You found shelter?"

"Hn," the spirit replied, "it's an abandoned hut."

"Then, lead the way."

That child, though it was probably an illusion made by a trickster, wouldn't leave his mind. Instead of trying to banish it, he pressed it into a bundle to be forgotten at the back of his mind while he focused on his next move.