Karma#2 crouched behind a tree-strewn summit, closely observing the crow-embroidered banner atop its flagstone. The four deacons of the Abyssal Clergy stood sentinel at each of its corners, their eerie, hooded aspects frozen in statue-like stillness.
"Tell me when," he transmitted to Karma#1, using an Ouroboros vortex as their means of contact.
"One moment," Karma#1 replied, "busy."
A cascade of muffled thuds pattered from the other end, punctuated by Anlîthëma's abysmal assessment.
Hm, seems I've got a moment; might as well take a peek ...
Karma#2 circulated a portion of his spiritual energy through the semi-transparent Tabulator about his wrist.
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Fourth Culling Tabulator [Bound]
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Personal
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Name: ???
Culling Merit: 81
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Event
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Time: Hour of the Rooster
Location: Mu Piao Woodlands
Opponent: Cittamātra Sect
Format: Banner Capture/Protection
Teleportation(Y/N): Y
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#1's been busy, I see. That's—what?—20 Merit for the early-stager, 40 Merit for the mid-stager, and 10 Qi Formations on the side?
"All set. I'll handle the males if you handle the females?"
"Sure."
Akin to a hydra's severed head, the Ouroboric link dissipated into the knolls of his inner world, heralding the birth of its two successors.
The pseudo-Karmas acted in sync, congealing their most potent recollections of invisibility: the constant aliases—never his name, his unrecognizable appearance, and—most egregiously—the golden threads' eternal failure to reach him.
Forever him, and only him.
None can see me.
Heedless of my will.
You four are exceptions.
The concoction split, pouring into each Ourorboroi's vertex.
I forbid your gaze.
I muffle your ears.
Karma#2 brazenly crested the ridge's apex, ambling down its steep slope.
To others, I am Faceless.
To you, I am Nobody.
Karma#2's sure-footed steps ferried him to the stonework podium upon which the banner fluttered.
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The deacons bore witness to Nobody's approach.
Fulfilled their duty in surrendering the banner to Nobody.
Made certain that Nobody escaped with their imperative.
Watched Nobody's disappearance into a clot of weeping willows.
They had seen Nobody, heard Nobody.
Just as Nobody asked.
**
Karma#1, inheriting Nobody's mantle, strode—unmolested—unto the Cittamātra Sect's banner dais.
Four Warrior Monks sat in loti positions with their backs turned to him. They paid Karma#1 no heed as he bundled their silken, Dharmachakra-stitched banner and stowed it in his spatial ring.
"I silenced the interloper at your southwest," rang Karma#2's fatigued tonality.
Karma#1 nonchalantly turned to the pudgy-cheeked monk, whose eyes were frozen in abject horror.
He had seen Nobody.
He had known Nobody.
He must become Nobody.
Raising a hushing finger to his lips, Karma#1 languidly trudged down the short, mud-brick steps leading to his spectator.
And walked right by him.
His hushing finger veered to its side, idly grazing the monk's neck.
Nobody had left.
Nobody had died.
Nobody had killed.
**
"Admittedly, not the proudest Culling Merit we've collected thus far."
"Agreed. Perhaps the most necessary, however."
"Agreed."
**
Karmas #1 and #2 reunited beneath a curtain of deadened foliage.
"Ready?" asked Karma#1.
"Release," answered Karma#2.
The thunderous, harrowed shouts were immediate.
"I order all Abyssal Crow disciples: march forward! A thief makes off with our banner!"
"Hear me, Cittamātra brethren: the banner lies within unenlightened hands. Go forth! Be the adjudicators of Buddha's wrath!"
Heaven and Earth were besotten by enclosing stampedes. Ferocious cries, drums, and growls overwrought the somber sky like storm clouds stirring from their docile slumber.
The ensuing clash rent bloodshot eyes and ringing ears akin to the clap of hallowed cymbals.
War made man of men, one of many.
War made an army of soldiers.
Embryonic Inquisitors met in soaring collisions above; the woeful losers were swiftly felled, made sanguine tears of Heaven in their plunge. Yet, to the pitched battles below, their battered bodies were but over-large hail to dodge and strafe.
For brutality was the battlefield's greatest equalizer.
A measure, not of power, but blood spilled.
And, whether above or below, blood spilled in gallons.
**
Pat.
Pat.
Pat.
Karma's languid steps cut through the entombing din, for he was the conductor in a symphony of his own.
Severed limbs and disemboweled torsos littered his wake, whereas grappling warriors and recouping fallen helmed his fated passage.
His pointer-finger-crowned arms gesticulated wildly, befitting his post as maestro of music. Slice and Speed made up his notes of choice, slashing to and fro to the orchestra of one.
Irrespective of the color of their robes, the beggared pleas, or the wrathful roars, all were gifted a taste of his melody.
So beautiful was its crescendo that men and women invariably stopped to listen.
Stopped in mind and body.
Dismantled in gory heaps.
When Karma#1's limbs wearied and his spiritual energy exhausted, his co-director—Karma#2—would take his place, shouldering the burden of a song that never ceased.
Step, slash, step.
Step, slash, step.
**
Sunlight tried and failed to illuminate Karma's lonesome figure.
There was too much blood.
Far too much.
Jnori and the four deacons glared at him from the western cloud bed.
Their Cittamātra counterparts did the same from the lucid-cerulean east.
"To which side do you belong, faceless one?" demanded Jnori, his once-shaggy blond hair now a slicked-back, crimson mullet.
"Why ask? Buddha cannot forgive this butcher's crimes. We must join palms and slay this cancerous tumor."
Karma's scarlet-drowned visage craned upward, sparing neither group a lick of acknowledgment.
"I take no side but my own," he grated. "You deem your actions just and mine sin because I practice the justice of another. Ask yourselves—"
His body began flecking into ethereal motes, melding with the sun's punishing rays.
"If the sum of another's justice and your own is negative, what is your justice worth?"
Soon, he was Nobody once more.
"Was it ever?"
Nobody left.
**
"Hey, Anlîthëma, wanna bet on what'll happen before I drop them? Winner decides our next destination," queried Karma#1, no longer sodden red.
"That depends. Have you divined it?"
"Nope! I can't win it for my sect—that would focus their investigation—and I don't want to give up free Culling Merit."
"In that case, I'll bet it's a tie with 0 banner-capture bonuses."
"Logical, logical. I'll also bet it's a tie—but with double the standard banner-capture bonus."
"Okay, on three," declared Karma#2.
"One."
"Two."
"Three."
Simultaneously, both banners were mounted on their opposite platform, evoking a mass teleportation of all Tabulator-holders—alive or dead.
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