There is a moment of genuine fear in the scent. The scalpel-scent is almost reminiscent of Zhoulong’s, of the way his Qi reeked of vivisection, and there is a moment where the thought that he’s tricked her, used that slight change she made to escape, makes her genuinely afraid. It’s not just the ramifications, the fact that he could undo so much of what’s happening, but the fact that he crawled back out, that he’s entirely real, that her madness burst out of her skin-

But no. No, it’s not the same, and the second thought she has, behind the fear, is a sort of bone deep exhaustion. The fear of madness leaves, and the fear of disappointment crushes her with its weight for a moment.

She tried to stay away. To keep them safe. To keep Taurus and the rest away from her, to keep them unimportant, and now they’re here. But then, she should have expected as much. She should have known a thing like her couldn’t keep them safe.

“You’ll see me again,” Li Shu had said, so many months ago when they had last spoken. “I don’t know what I’ll be, and I don’t know who you’ll become, but you are my first patient, Honored Raika the Undying, the Unbroken, the Unburnt, and you don’t get rid of me that easy.”

The weight of those words had almost broken her when she’d first heard them. Hearing them again, even in memory, is nearly enough to finish the job.

The mask takes over, letting her thoughts and feelings spiral and scream as it looks for the source of the scent.

She’s there. Barely halfway up the stands, in the section on the Stone Divers Sect side.

She looks… healthy. More traveled than before, a bit more confidence in her stance. Her robes look worn from the road, but serviceable still showing the white and red of a healer, and she carries a satchel, bulging with items and scents Raika doesn’t recognize. Her form is much the same, perhaps a bit less skinny, armed now with lean muscle, but the long black hair is still tied up in a bun on her head, her skin turned slightly darker by time in the sun.

The mask holds firm, thinks to itself of the best way to handle this, how to balance handling this with the performance of the arena and their victory, and-

Her hands toss aside the still-bleeding flesh cultivator, uncaring as he patches his wound and as the medics approach them. Before she can come to a proper decision about anything, instinct and desire take over, and legs rebuilt into armored machines of flesh launch her out of the arena.

The energy barrier lights up, runes exploding back to life, but the fight was over, and medics needed to get in, and there’s not enough time to close it properly now that it’s been opened. Not enough time to stop Raika, at least. It sizzles as it comes up behind her, but by then she’s already out and in the air, armored body leaving a trail of blood in the wind as she falls and lands.

Half a second later, she’s broken the stone in six different spots as she sprints up the stairs to stand a few feet from Li Shu.

And then there is a sound not unlike thunder, and the ground all around and between them is shattered into shrapnel as seven exo-armored Imperial Guard land, crackling spears wreathed in lightning planted like a cage around her.

Raika doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even move. She is perfectly and entirely still as she looks at Li Shu.

Li Shu, for her part, impresses. Raika can smell the scent of Qi, wrapped around Li Shu like a blanket or armor, deadening the impact of Raika’s arrival and the spears thereafter. Barely a heartbeat later she’s hit with a wave of Qi, smelling of ozone and magnesium and clean-burning flame.

Qen Hou stands just to the side of Li Shu, pulling her back a bit behind him, his Qi manifested as a single burning sword he grips tightly. The concentrated plasma of the purple-red flame shapes itself to a sharpened point, and while he doesn’t quite raise it, neither is it at his side.

They look so alive. Healthy. Whole.

The mask and the flesh war for a while, in perfect silence and utter stillness, as they try to think of what to say or do.

It is a blessing and an agony that Li Shu speaks first.

“Raika?”

The word carries the scent of uncertainty, of resolution, of soft and delicate flowers arrayed with stainless steel edges. And it is enough.

“Hello, honored healer,” she says.

Apparently, that is enough to break the sort of detente the Guard surrounding her is in, and she recognizes the scent of Pai Jin as he steps slightly ahead of the others, spear still arrayed around her as part of the cage.

“As an envoy of the authority of-”

“Yeah, yeah” the mask says, brushing him off. Bones begin to crack and flow like water as her body reshapes itself, falling back to the inefficient and messy thing that is humanity as she speaks. “Sorry about that. Just got excited to see old friends is all. Didn’t mean to worry all you fuddy duddies. You can stand down.”

For a moment it looks like they might not, but in the end Pai Jin nods. The stands around them have more than cleared out at this point, but Raika still laughs softly as she hears the sound of coins changing hands as the guard lower their weapons and Raika stands tall before them, once again a few inches above even the armored and enchanted warriors.

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She turns to look at Li Shu, the mask smiling as warmly as it knows how. “It’s good to see you, honored healer. It’s been too long. Sorry about jumping over here, I just didn’t expect to see you here. And Qen Hou! Senior brother, it has been too long. You look well!”

She smiles wide at both of them, enjoying it a bit as they both have to crane their necks up at her, but frowning in confusion as Qen Hou douses his plasmic flame and covers his eyes with one hand. Beside him, Li Shu blushes bright red and gives an exasperated sigh.

“You also look well, Raika. You’ve gotten… larger. But while I understand being excited to see someone, you don’t usually run up to them stark naked until after you’ve said hello properly.”

Raika looks down at herself, stark naked in front of a crowd of thousands.

She laughs, sharp and sudden, like she just heard the stupidest joke ever. With a thought, she alters her skin and bone again, having them emerge into something approximating a binder and calf-length skirt made of bone spikes and darkened skin.

“Sorry about that. Didn’t even notice, really. Hard to tell sometimes.”

“Hard to tell?” Qen Hou asks. “I knew you to be brazen, Raika, but god damn. And you definitely didn’t look like that last time I saw you.”

“What can I say, I just think “8ft goliath-woman” suits me well.”

“Are you okay?” Li Shu asks, interrupting the two.

Raika goes to speak, the mask seamlessly taking over for microexpressions and- stops.

Freezes entirely still.

For some reason, deep inside, there is an absolute certainty that in this, to this person, she cannot lie.

The mask, for the first time since Taurus triggered something in her, goes quiet.

Raika’s face falls to a perfect, near-slack neutrality. There is an instant where Li Shu actually takes a step back from the sudden change as Raika’s conscious control of every muscle ceases to be for a moment.

Without the mask, what crawls out is a smile, sad and quiet.

“Nah.”

She takes a breath, a long inhale before either one of her old companions can say something, before she can really allow herself to notice the look of concern on Li Shu’s face, the confusion and worry on Qen Hou’s.

She can smell them clearer, now. They’ve both grown. Capable in their own rights, as proven at least by Qen Hou’s new plasmic manifestation of flame, but in their cultivation as well. He’s advanced… maybe past Foundational? And Li Shu seems to be reaching higher into it. That’s fast growth, serious advancement.

But it’s not enough. And they don’t deserve to hurt like she does.

The smile feels wrong on her face, but so much feels wrong nowadays it’s hard to notice.

She misses Maen. Saw her just a half hour ago. Misses her anyways.

“Well!” she says, the Mask crawling back out stronger than ever and twitching her face back under control. “Genuine joy to see you both. What a wonder this world is! I mean, honestly, what are the chances, right? Crazy stuff. Anyways, joy and all, gotta go. Got the ol honor guard here breathing up my spine, not in the fun way, and I’ve got more fights to get ready for. Learned a lot trouncing the meat-puppet guy, whatever his name was. Who knows, maybe he puts in a good word for you somewhere Li Shu? Best of luck with that. Wish you all the best, bye now!”

Before the roiling revulsion in her gut has a chance to claw its way out again, before any truth that hurts can become more than a deserved punishment and attract her would-be allies again, she’s turned to walk away.

Pai Jin, bless his officious, shitty little heart, doesn’t need to be told what to do. He is an Imperial soldier, dressed in the gold and mechanical regalia of a Guard. He twitches his Qi and the scent of lightning and sharp edges lights up the space around his armor and that of his squadron, and two of them move to fully block the stairs between her and her-

Fuck. Her friends. It shouldn’t be hard to say. It shouldn’t hurt to think it.

There is a little voice, between the blood and the mask, that is crying and telling her that things are not ok.

But that’s fine. Right? She can survive it. And it’s her fault still. She’s earned it. She keeps earning it. It’s fine.

Li Shu yells her name, shock and concern warring. Qen Hou does the smart thing, as he so often tends to do, holding her back a bit as two towering armored Guards block the path between them and the rest fall into a close cage around Raika, keeping her movements limited. He says something, whispers to Li Shu, and Raika tries not to hear, she really does.

“Not here,” Qen Hou whispers. “We need to talk. She’s not right.”

Li Shu doesn’t say anything back, but her heartbeat is clear, and the scent of stress and fear are loud.

The Mask stays on very, very firmly as Raika starts walking back towards the Imperial section under armed guard.

Surprisingly, they don’t make it very far before someone else interrupts.

Green, brown and red, woven into robes of simple but functional robes, and a woman beneath them that Raika does not recognize. Still, the scent is familiar. Whoever the woman is, if her colors and sect insignia didn’t make it clear, she smells of soft earth, of loam, of long, grasping roots and slow growth made solid.

Pai Jin stops the procession, looking down at the short woman who stands in front of them now. It’s one thing for Raika to leap outside and surprise everyone, forcing their movement, and quite another for a random cultivator to block the path of Imperial Guard like this.

Still, the woman bows deeply, showing respect to them, and Raika keeps the Mask polite and pleasant, still smiling faintly. Pai Jin looks to her, and she shows nothing.

“Honored Raika, formerly Raika the Bloody of the Hungering Roots Sect!” the woman says, still bowed. “Honored Guard, of noble bearing and holy purpose! This lowly one greets her seniors, and asks only a moment of mercy, that I may deliver a message to her former sect member.”

Raika still gives nothing away to Pai Jin, moving the muscles to cock an eyebrow at the Guard leader as he looks for recognition to flash across her features. Not seeing anything worth noting, he turns back to the cultivator before them.

“You’re free to reach out through official channels to arrange a meeting or deliver a missive, junior,” he says. “I’m afraid that our charge has tarnished the grace of Imperial reputation with her display of improper decorum. Please step aside, that we might return to the proper proceedings.”

The cultivator drops to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor. “I apologize, senior! I swore an oath to deliver this message as soon as it was possible, and am deeply afraid that such a small thing as my own pursuits will be lost in the face of the immensity of your own deeds and thoughts. My senior brother, who could not come to this blessed tournament, begged of me to deliver this, and I can only show my dedication through this. I have already been turned aside three times before the Imperial authorities, and know no other way to ensure my message reaches the hands of its intended recipient. Please, sirs. Simply take the letter.”

Still pressing her forehead to the ground, the woman pulls something out of a spatial ring, holding it up in both hands.

A letter.

The scent of the Qi on it isn’t familiar, but the scent of sweat and skin on it is.

Hisheng.

Fuck.

Before Pai Jin can give another prim and proper refusal, Raika has already pushed aside one of the guards. It’s easy. They keep forgetting how strong she is, now.

Six spears are around her throat an instant later, but she is already kneeling, and taking the card into her hand.