Kisrin?

  Is that…a name?

  It strikes a chord, like a master musician plucking at strings, the tune is so…familiar. He looks up from his wheel, staring at the man through the window that is his eye, and the sight of him brings a strange warmth to his chest. He’s a large man, with long flowing hair and a body marked with so many wounds.

  This man…he’s seen him before.

  Where?

  “Yorin” a thousand thousand voices say, “wonder child, Jubokko, protector. I know you, I have seen you.”

  The man takes a step back, seemingly in shock at the many residing in one.

  “What happened to you?” Yorin says softly.

  The thing uses his face to give the man a sad smile, but not answering, regarding the man named Yorin with the same patience one might give a slow child. It’s gaze turns to his spear, a simple thing, but he knows every inch of it, years of intense training-

  Training? Was he a thing that trained?

  “Thank you,” it whispers, “he’s finally starting to wake up”

  He…he’s wearing the robes, just like all of those the thing has hunted, was he some form of warrior then? Kisrin…who is that? His memories are a fugue since…how long has it been? He doesn’t know, the thing hasn’t dignified him with sleep or food, simply moving from one slaughter to another, and everything is such a haze.

  Who is he?

  I was just a boy.

  What?

  I liked cheese and games, papa called it mischief, but papa’s boring and only thinks about the fields. He worked in a biiiiiig field, super big, biggest in the village, a lot of people work there, made him grumpy though. Mama’s more fun, taught me the stars and all their funny little stories! Draconis Major is my personal favorite.

  “Good” the thing sends the spear…somewhere, “but not enough, he needs more”

  “Yorin?” The woman coughs, “who is this?”

  “He’s a friend,” Yorin says slowly, disappearing his own weapon, “isn’t that right Kisrin?”

  “Yes,” it chuckles a cities worth of mirth, “you were one of the closest, it will hurt him, what I have to do”

  “Wha-”

  But the word doesn’t have the time to escape his lips, a fist crashing deep into his guts, causing him to double over. Then it grabs him by the hem of his robes and throws him through a wall of wood.

  It looks sadly at the building and sighs, before ducking slightly as something of wood and obsidian flies above him. He doesn’t even turn to the woman, simply backhanding where she should be, feeling the weight of flesh on his fist as the thing walks slowly to the building.

  Yorin staggers to his feet and stares at Kisrin wide eyed.

  “When did you get so strong?” he says amazed, almost happy even, that innocence strums another chord in…Kisrin? He’s seen this naivety before.

  “You’ll need your weapon,” the thing says.

  “What are you talk-”

  It interrupts him again, this time kicking his ribs.

  He coughs heavily, falling to his knees as the thing just watches him. The lady's back, but the thing doesn’t see her as important, just annoying. It twists out of the way of her strike once more, this time punching her directly in the wound on her chest, causing her to cough out a series of blood and spittle.

  It grabs her head and squeezes.

  She screams in agony as her skull is on the verge-

  A weight on his back as he’s tackled to the ground.

  “Kisrin, she's a friend, don’t hurt her!”

  “No,” It says, “you are a friend, she serves no purpose.”

  The confusion in his eyes is almost endearing, he doesn’t know what this thing does, what this thing has been doing for as long as he can remember.

  I saw a fight today, two cultivators with flashy techniques and strange daos. I could barely tell what was going on, two blurs clashing in messy combat. Seeing something so amazing is a once in a lifetime thing in his village…so why do I feel scared? Maybe it’s because of the man’s head that exploded, so casually, like how a grape might pop between your teeth. No one seems to care that the duel had a casualty, and that feels wrong, so today I'm going to ask around the village to see if I can get his name, if only to keep him in my memory.

  The thing pushes off the ground, forcing Yorin off of him as they both stand to face one another. The man still doesn’t seem to get what’s going on, holding onto something that’s holding him back.

  That’s a bad idea.

  “Kisrin I don’t want to fight you,” Yorin says, “I don’t know what’s happened to you but clearly you can still think.”

  “So foolish,” the thing sighs, “take out your weapon, protector, I don’t know how to hold back.”

  “I think you should do as the freak says,” the lady spits out a glob of blood, “he clearly doesn’t want to reminisce, whatever relationship you two had.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I’m not fighting him,” Yorin says adamantly.

  The thing just shakes its head and dashes in front of Yorin, this time the man blocked the fist coming for his stomach, but still flinches in pain at the sheer force in the blow. It grabs him by the collar and smashes Kisrin’s forehead into his face, throwing him aside as he sidesteps a swing from the woman.

  Turning, it sends a kick to her temple which she surprisingly dodges, if barely. It’s enough to grant her an opening though, and clearly she’s a seasoned warrior because she takes full advantage, digging into his leg and releasing blood of violet to stain the cobble. She brings down her sword/thing again and this time it stops her, grabbing the handle of her weapon as it punches her face, sending her head rocking back.

  Yorin tries to intervene, he truly does, and Kisrin is starting to think the man is an idiot because he still doesn’t have his weapon. He tried to tackle the thing again, but it’s long since been done with being generous, so it simply grabs the woman by the hair and slams her head into his.

  I got accepted into a sect! Granted it’s a sect I’ve never heard of before but still, a sect! I’d be reveling in the excitement if his godsdamned recruiter wasn’t forcing me to run for so fucking long. Honestly, I’m a child, show some mercy! At least the other two with me get to suffer the same fate, so I’m not alone in that but damn, are we going to keep this pace until we reach the sect? Seems kind of extreme.

  They both sprawl to the ground, clutching at their heads in what he imagines is excruciating pain, but they need to move because the thing won’t give them time to recover. The woman seems to know this and dashes away.

  Yorin stays there, and is kicked heavily in the stomach, taking him off the ground slightly as he vomits out bile. The thing grabs him by the hair and leans down to his level.

  “You need your weapon,” the mouth of many repeats, “you can’t survive me with such lackluster conviction.”

  “Kisrin” he coughs, “why are you doing this…what’s wrong?”

  It sighs, then drives it’s knee into his face, then it does it again, and again and-

  He steps away as the woman swings down and digs her weapon into Yorins shoulder, her eyes go wide and it looks like she’s about to utter an apology.

  In the middle of a fight.

  These two are idiots.

  It grabs the woman by her throat, picks her up and smashes her against the ground. Then he straddles her and punches her hard in the face. It brings up his right fist as she flails in her disorientation and crashes it into her nose, crunching cartilage under knuckles comparable to a hammer. She tries to bring her arms up to block the next strike but it just pulls her them aside as she struggles futility and brings down his skull unto her face, it can feel the bones fracturing as it prepares to cave it in her skull with another strike.

  Of course this is when Yorin interrupts, tackling him again and distinctly not using his weapon.

  We finally made it, weeks of excruciating exercise and we finally made it. The woods they passed were pretty cool, if a little scary. Forests don’t exist so close to the Expanse, and seeing them on their way here was wondrous, truly the world is a beautiful place. Shame that the sect was pretty lame though, it’s smaller than my village! Where are the famed sect cities?!? Well, beggars can’t be choosers, and it’s not all bad. I saw a pretty cute girl at initiation, I’m thinking of challenging her to a duel! That’s how cultivators profess their love right?

  Right.

  “You’ll die,” it says, “I will kill you”

  “No you won’t,” Yorin insists, “we’ve been friends for so long, I refuse to believe you’d do that.”

  Watching Yorin gleefully swinging around his new weapon was…nice. I’ve never really had many friends, other than my brothers, but they were too young to really be equals. So having friends…is nice. Tantra seems pleased as well so that’s a plus, but I think I would’ve chipped in even without that.

  Yorin’s cool like that.

  It grabs Yorin around the waist and tosses him far across the cobble, it just stands there as it watches the man get back to his feet, he spits blood and stares down the thing as it looks at him with plain pity.

  Then staring straight into his eyes, the thing grabs the woman off the ground, and shoves his hand into the wound in her back, she tries to scream, but his hand is in her lung. It squeezes the trees of bronchi in her lungs and pulls, tearing it out into the open air as Yorin stares wide eyed.

  She coughs out so much blood onto the cobble.

  It grabs her hair and smashes her face into that same cobble, bringing it up, bringing it down. All the while maintaining eye contact with the man as he charges and summons his guandao.

  Everything…gone.

  My family, my home, all burnt to the ground. What’s the point in all this? Why cultivate if the end result is to bring suffering to the world? I don’t…I don’t understand.

  It’s all so painful

  The dropping blade slows until it stops.

  “You’re finally awake” it says in all the many whispering voices.

  “What are you?” Kisrin asks, “why are you doing this?”

  It appears in the wheel a thing of grey deformity, three arms on one side and only one on the other. It doesn’t have a head, just a face between its shoulders as it stares Kisrin down with eyes of a vibrant purple.

  “I am Unity,” It says, “I am the final wish of a dead man, saturated in suffering until it was all I could bring unto the world, and you are Kisrin. A child left destitute, a man who takes the waves of pain like a placid beach, ebb and flow, ebb and flow.”

  “What do you want?” Kisrin spits out.

  “To be something more, Unity isn’t meant to bring suffering, yet it is all I am capable of, isn’t that sad? My purpose has been twisted into this thing that grabs fragments of souls and traps them in my personal hell, so that we might suffer together.

  I hate It.

  You, you’ve suffered like I have, I could feel it when I was brought to this city. You have suffered yet you don’t bring suffering, how? How did you become something more than what defined you?”

  “That makes no sense.” Kisrin says, “why would I make the people around me suffer like I have, why would I want that?”

  “I don’t know!” It wails, “It is just what I am! I was born as an ideal and was twisted into this thing after so many transformations…I want to be better, but I can’t. It's an impulse to hurt, an obligation to bring tears.”

  “Why are you telling me this? So that I feel bad for you after all that you’ve done, so that I might pity you after you kill one of my closest friends?”

  “Because you can help me,” It says “I absorb fragments, and with each I change, but it’s not ENOUGH, I need more than fragments. I need proper souls to merge with my being.

  Souls like yours.

  If you accept my contract, your friend will live, they’ll live!”

  Kisrin is silent at the offer, “and what happens if I refuse?”

  “I will hunt down all you hold dear, and then continue my rampage until eventually someone kills us.”

  Kisrin snorts, “not much of a choice then, is it?”

  “No,”

  Kisrin looks through the window of his eye at the guandao coming down for his skull, so this is where it ends? He didn’t expect it to be so dramatic, nor that he’d kill so many, though that wasn’t technically him.

  The thing could dodge, Yorin is probably counting on it to dodge, if only to save the woman. He’s…nice like that, always thinking about others, always looking to bring a smile. It’ll be so cruel to stand still in this moment.

  “Alright,” he says, “I accept.”

  The thing squeals in delight with a thousand voices, gratitude radiating into his soul as time starts to flow again, the blade completing its descent.

  So it is that the wheel turns one last time.