> "Welcome a wound for a friend.

> No greater compassion there be than one in correct self-sacrifice.

> However, be vigilant and wise:

> to sacrifice yourself for the wrong thing is not virtue, it is foolishness."

> Treatise on Self and Non-self by Soreh High Preceptor Onisantapa

The moment their intention was set, Raxri felt their flurrying Inner Winds and Fires settling. They moved instinctively.

I will keep you on this earth, the mystic Inner Winds seemed to say.

Doubt is the greatest fetter. Let us strike with the speed of lightnings! the mystic Inner Fire seemed to respond.

The black-haired bandit swung his longknife. Raxri moved in a diagonal pattern. An advanced stepping technique: the Triangle Blade Steps. Not quick enough, however: the knife cut into their wrap shirt, loosening it, revealing bits of their skin.

The blonde bandit arrived, licking his lips. He unleashed a steel onslaught with his longsword. Raxri settled into meditation: they duck and wove, stepping back, maintaining perfect distance to avoid each sword strike. After the assault, Raxri kicked away the flat of the amateurishly swung longsword with their bare foot, disarming the man. That movement led into a second kick--oblique, straight into the side of the bandit's leg. It did not crack, but it bent in an unnatural angle and the bandit fell to the ground.

"Hells--!"

Raxri would not stay to watch their reactions. They bolted off, leaping over the destroyed wagon and running down the dirt path, toward the coastal region. Behind them, the men shouted: "Oi! Get her, get her! The damned bitch flees!"

Raxri ran. They ran and ran and ran. Raxri's body gasped out. "Help!" they yelled, knowing no one would come to their aid. The spirits--those that they became aware of--watched in curious interest. Their running led them eventually, down that tapering cliff, into a backdoor leading into the inside of a temple complex.

A bulging-eyed, tongue-lolling demon god cradled the doorframe. To the right of it was a broken temple section, walls crumbled, pillars visible, and the roof caved in. That must be where those graverobbers came in through, Raxri conjectured.

With nowhere else to go, Raxri dove in through the doorway. The doorway led to a section of the temple where other lay practitioners would offer prayers to various pools of lotuses, upon each a God statue. Though now the statues each had been broken and fractured.

Straight from the doorway, through a stone path choked now by white sand, was a wooden ladder that led into a wooden elevated porch, then eventually a doorway into the main worship place of the temple. "There! Get the bitch; they're in Hell King Temple!" The voices of the bandits yet again.

Hesitation was surely defeat, and so Raxri ran. Straight up the ladder and eventually into the wooden temple complex. Breathing heavily, they stopped as serenity lanced through them like a giant's arrow.

Stillness. Quiet. Pervaded the worship area. The lacquered wooden floor was dirty, now. A giant horizontal doorway allowed cold air to seep in. Wooden pillars carved with the stories of Gods, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas held up the vaunted roofs. To Raxri's left, the front of the room, was a giant sitting god sculpture, painted light blue and gold. Seated upon a lotus throne, a giant and serene-looking god, a half-smile on his face, yet eyes bulging as if in wrath. In one arm it held a long dagger with a hilt decorated with a trident with its prongs facing inward. In another hand, it held a skull. A wheel-halo hung from above it, and an aura of crimson flame was sculpted around it.

A tang of familiarity to Raxri.

Lying prostrate in front of the hell-king, however, was a feminine figure, swaddled in multicolored veils, sarongs, and robes. Her hands and ankles were ringed with golden bands. Her feet were earthen brown, but her hair laid in an almost perfect array from her face, with straight bangs creating a visage akin to that of a shrine maiden. Her arms and legs were heavily tattooed, and against it her much-too pale skin brightened even more.

As Raxri stepped in, the woman arose from her prostrated position. A black veil covered the front of her face. When she looked at Raxri, she parted her veil, revealing eyes the color of the amber of stars, and eyeshadow scarlet against her pale skin. Her eyebrows were slight, her cheekbones sharp, almost masculine. Her hair was the color of raven night.

She stared.

"In there!" The bandits' voice arose from behind Raxri.

"Hoy, think twice, Jugi. The Hell King will not take kindly to this impending violence we are to commit upon his grounds." The other bandit replied.

"I've no care for the gods. You think the gods care for us at all? No! Think you we would find ourselves in this predicament if they did? Now cease the pussyfooting and kill the bitch!"

Raxri's eyes widened. They ran to the middle of the room and turned, putting their body in between the woman's and the two bandits. I brought the bandits here. It'll be my reponsibility if this woman gets hurt.

The woman's voice resounded: "Why do you stand here?" Her voice was low, almost angry.

"The bandits," Raxri replied. "I will not have them harm you."

"I doubt you will be able to defeat them."

Raxri shrugged, scared. "Nevertheless."

The two bandits burst through the doorway, blades waving. "There! Get'em!" When Jugi the Dark-Haired Bandit saw the prostrated woman, he added: "Oho! And a second course meal too!"

The bandits lunged, blades flashing like steel serpents.

Raxri lowered themself, hands at the ready. They were going to fight, whatever it took. They made sure that the devotee was behind them. No way I'm letting her get hurt. She will be safe, even at the cost my life.

But as the bandits closed in, the woman laid a firm hand on Raxri's shoulder--her hand was deathly cold--and moved past them. The woman threw her veil in between Raxri and the bandits, occluding the bandits' vision. Then her other hand twisted into a mudra, one pointing with her pointer and ring fingers.

"O Dak Emmara Senje, King of the Hells! Aid me in my path, and forgive me for the violence committed in service to your peace. Deliver the ne'erdowells to their proper elysium! AUNG WARIL--" She pointed her fingers in front of her and pulled back as if drawing back a bow. A beat, she waited as the two bandits were aligned--quicker than Raxri could see--then she released it by flicking forward her middle finger. "--RUSAGA!"

A pin-thin point of light shot out from the tip of her middle finger, the color of breaking twilight. The light-beam skewered through both bandits in a single line: her veil was miraculously thrown to the side, just enough for the beam to avoid it.

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No blood was spilled. When the beam dissipated, the two bandits fell to the floor, a clean hole straight through their livers.

"No quarrel have I with bandits," she said, her voice calm yet angry, yet focused. "I have quarrel with men of no moral."

Raxri watched her for a moment. The woman-witch put on her shawl once again, covering her, and then turned and bowed three times before the statue of Emmara Senje. Then, she turned to Raxri. "State your objective here."

Raxri gulped. "You slew them. With magick...?"

"You've yantra tattoos around your forearm. Act not like you've been blind to sorcery your whole life."

"I-I'm sorry. I haven't... Forgive me. I am Raxri Uttara."

"Raxri Uttara." She stared. "A monk are you?"

Raxri shook their head. "No. These... these are just garments I found when I left that chasm..."

"Chasm...?" She turned and looked in the direction where Raxri arrived from. "You arose from the Vault of Souls?"

A beat, then Raxri said: "That is what the bandits have claimed it to be called."

"Then you... you are once-dead. You yet live...?" The woman raised an eyebrow.

Raxri looked down on themself for a moment. Then they said: "I haven't the faintest idea, lady! I've no certainty how I got in there, and I've even less certainty of how I got out. But... perhaps you can help me. Reorient me? I am shorn of memory..."

The woman stepped back. "Deceive me not with this act!"

"I would do no such thing! Here, you may magick my thoughts even, to see the truth."

The woman raised a delicate eyebrow for a moment, scrutinizing the vagrant. Then, before long, she said: "Very well. I am Akazha," she said, pointing at herself, "Follow me, Raxri Uttara, and pray you do not belie my trust, lest you meet certain death before long."

Raxri felt a wellspring of gratitude fountain out of them, encompassing Akazha. "Thank you. Thank you, great one!"

"I am no great," she said, rolling her eyes. "Now please, pipe down. We should get going, lest there be others on their trail--"

A voice erupted from outside. Raxri and Akazha turned, both, at the same time. "Here! Follow this path and ye shall find the Vault thither. Behind it is a graveyard. Keep to mind the command, fools: the bones and flesh and heart of those dead and even those that walk again." The voice belonged to a wheezing old man.

Akazha turned to Raxri. "You know not how to fight, yes?"

Sheepishly, Raxri bowed and shook their head. Despite this, Raxri stood a whole head taller than Akazha.

Akazha exhaled a humorous slight laugh. "Funny. I've taken you to be a warrior from your stature and stance. Death does make memory complicated...."

From within the folds of her robes, she produced a sword with a blade having 8 waves. Its handle was exquisite, decorated to showcase a tiger, and its hilt was made of dragonscale. Its steel was damascened, rippling. A kalis, Raxri knew.

Akazha was already walking out, through the large horizontal doors that led into an elevated porch area, where other shrines were, alongside a porcelain water pot right before the entrance.

"Hail!" Akazha yelled out. Raxri ran to her side.

Outside, right in front of the wooden temple was a small courtyard, pocked by stagnant ponds and stone spirit houses. This courtyard had around four men, dressed in the same bandit armor as the ones they had previously faced, save for one of them, who was dressed in a white tunic, and a brocaded sarong, and had a wooden bow in his hands.

The bandits all stopped and turned. They paled as if they had seen a ghost.

"State your business 'ere in the fine establishment of Hell King Dak Emmara Senje!"

The bandits all looked for a while. Then, the one with the bow said: "We've come at the behest of a certain wizard. Times are hard, lass, wouldn't you agree?"

Akazha's eyebrow perked up. She said: "You raid the tombs of the dead to take what is theirs. And they traverse the next life without the blessings of their loved ones. Have you no shame? What if this had been done to your graves!"

"There'll be no one to bury us when we die, madame." The man with the bow seemed like the leader among them. His headwrap flared up taller than the other three's bandanas, almost like a single horn. "This is the way of the world. I'm sure the Buddhas will forgive us."

"No forgiveness must be sought," said Akazha. "Evil deeds will be repaid with the selfsame, and tenfold. That is the way of the world."

A pause. And then, the leader said: "Then if you do not want evil deeds to happen to you, I suggest you get walking, madames. We've bones to collect."

"I refuse." Akazha moved, quicker than Raxri could've thought someone clad in such robes could move. She was like a flutter in the wind: in one second a cloth dragon, the next in front of one bandit, wielding a crossbow and only having around 3 bolts on his person. Her kalis flashed in a confident line, cutting the man's arm off completely. Then, she put her fingers to her lips and uttered a low mantra: BA SA JU KU RU.

No blood spurted off of the stump. Instead, the stump healed. A clean amputation. Of course, the man was maimed, but no disease will infect his stump. Akazha then savagely kicked the man off to the side, where they stumbled into unconsciousness.

"You curry death, witch! Strike her all at once! Even witches cannot withstand a throng!"

"You underestimate this witch!" Here, Akazha uttered a sacred mantra. Then she casually threw her kalis aside, and it floated in mid-air as if kept aloft by an invisible wire. She breathed out, and as she did her eyes burned with a certain azure fire, coloring it, giving her an almost feline look.

The kalis shot forward, faster than thought.

It sliced through the other nearest bandit's arm. The bandit screamed out, but louder still was Akazha's ululation of the Healing Buddha's mantra, forcing the wound closed. The bandit still passed out from the pain, however.

Akazha moved, leaping into the air and sailing through the winds as if lighter than a feather. As she sailed overhead, she kicked away at the other bandit, twisting and tossing him with her legs onto the nearby rocks, knocking him out. Another Healing Buddha mantra followed.

The last one, the man, tossed his bow to the rocks. "Wait, wait! Mercy! Prithee, grant mercy! Forgive me, I shall turn my leaf!"

Akazha's flying kalis shot straight toward the man, again a blur. The man winced, but the kalis only stabbed his arm, holding him fast against a rock. Akazha fluttered over and stood atop her sword, hands behind her back as if she were a dainty maiden waiting for her due.

The bandit squealed: "Ack! Please, please madame, I beg you."

Akazha raised an eyebrow. "You truly believe it? You will turn the leaf?"

"Yes! Yes. I know what maleficence a witch such as you is capable of. I will not go back on my word. I will do as I've said!"

Akazha flipped from her sword's dragon hilt, and with a flick of her wrist pulled the sword away with nothing but her thoughts. Her kalis flew back to her hands. Her other hand was on her chest, her palm facing her right as if she were folding her hands together in prayer but only with one hand. She uttered the incantations and the man's savagely torn arm was immediately healed.

Seeing this, the man scampered away like the beaten dog that he was. Raxri watched him run, away and out of the premises of the temple complex, back into the valley.

Akazha let out a breath. Then another. Then another. She was breathing heavily, chasing after air, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

"That was amazing, witch Akazha."

Akazha turned and smiled. "I implanted a curse upon him," she said. Sweat matted her skin, causing it to glisten against the moonlight.

"What for?" asked Raxri.

"So that I will know where he tarries." She raised her hand and a bundle of strands swayed within.

"You truly are a witch," Raxri said. Their hand balled up, anxiously. "That is the tool of witchery."

Akazha shrugged as if to say guilty as charged. Then she said: "You wield the blade as if you know how to use it, but you obviously do not. How interesting. I will have to reactivate the hidden potentials within you, the stones blocking your rushing Winds." A beat, then she said, "Though when it comes to your corpus, to your physical form... you seem to be completely rejuvenated."

Raxri exhaled, then nodded. "I laid within a pond of glowing lazuli. I do not know what it is... but it rejuvenated me completely."

"Medicinal Waters of Peisajekuru, the Healing Buddha." Akazha stared at Raxri for a bit more. "To think that the Vault healed you... though it did remove your memory. No martial skill at all. You are nothing... and yet...."

Raxri blinked. They weren't sure if they were going to be annoyed or offended.

Akazha sheathed her kalis into one of the folds of her robes. She took out a reed whistle and blew it. The shrill sound echoed across the night sky. After a few moments, however, a pitch-black steed came galloping into the temple complex, complete with saddles and stirrups.

"Come. It's not safe here. Not yet." As the steed came to a stop before them, Akazha pat him on the back. "Good boy Sungai. We've a new friend. Let them ride with us, would you?"