This city is… a lot!

The last place that Jin was at with this many people was the trenches of the fortress city, and even then, there was a sort of restraint there that he doesn’t find here.

His master encouraged him to go out, to take a walk, and Jin found himself surprised at just how much time he’s spent both indoors and carving in the recent past. He’s used to being in the outdoors every single day, and his time traveling through the fourth ring has mostly been from inside Raika, at least for the last week or so. He was asleep before that, so it doesn’t count, but he can feel how that time worries her too.

It’s not exactly a sacrifice to go and explore a brand new place, especially not with his master’s presence in the background to protect him, so he obviously said yes. Since then? The world has been a riot of colors, enough that he’s stunned as he looks around.

The fortress city was a riot of different cultures, each contained to their own section and growing in the trenches like flowers between roots- or like barnacles? He’s not sure he’s ever seen a barnacle, but some of the villagers that would travel to other towns would talk about fishermen and their boats, and how barnacles would grow all along the hulls and match the exteriors. Singheart isn’t like that! Every single piece seems distinct, each and every building following its own aesthetic sensibilities. Some have gardens, some have basements, some have little fields around them, some have multiple stories and stones while others are made exclusively of plants or crystals, spread wide or into complexes. Every corner feels almost completely distinct from the next, the streets formed from necessity, habit and happenstance more than any form of planning, and only the ever-shifting hues of the light of the prism above ties everything together aesthetically.

And in spite of himself, Jin realizes he can’t see much Death here.

It’s still present, and if he focuses, he can even find it in people’s bodies, leaking into the shape of the death in their bodies and the most likely Death to come. Part of him was afraid- from the fortress city to the wilds, Death has been ever-present, part of a constant cycle, and he’s only really been safe from seeing it inside his Master’s constructs. But here?

The whole city is unabashedly alive. The Deaths from butchery, farming, harvesting, garbage, all of it feels like a small part of the life of the city rather than a reflection of the city. The yin and yang of the city aren’t in perfect balance- the life here is fed by death, and the death is merely a part of life, rather than a consequence of it. Left unchecked, this place feels like it could live and spread forever, the death leading to far more life in turn.

He’s not sure if it’s supposed to be balanced, but it’s beautiful. Entering the Foundational realm has changed his senses- where before he could only taste and feel the Qi entering his body and the strange visions thereof, being in the Foundational realm means his body has begun to grow in tune with his cultivation. His senses are more refined, his body reacting more easily, and he already feels stronger than he used to, but he’s fairly certain that his cultivation means that above all else, his connection to Death has grown stronger, and his particular style of visions and dream-sight has gotten much sharper.

Enough so that he feels a pulse of something, off to one side, a few hundred feet away.

He turns his head abruptly, sharply, and in an instant, his master is by his side.

“Everything alright, kid?”

He turns to look at her and-

He blinks. She’s carrying… what must be nearly a bag of silver’s worth of lunch meats and products. The city is so diverse that they’re not having too many people stare at them, but a few do turn and follow her as she carries what looks like a potted sapling, a dead pig, a bag with what look like a dozen different fish, with an extra set of limbs just to hold skewers and disposable plates of what looks like a bowl of noodles and a heavily spiced bun of some kind.

She follows his gaze, looking down at herself and then back up. “What? The food here is crazy fresh, and I got a good deal on the tree. I can use it for stuff!”

He snorts, but doesn’t comment. Not like he’s going to complain that the person who cooks for him is stocking up on supplies. The very idea of it is ridiculous.

“I thought I saw something, over that way,” he says instead.

“Mmh. Danger?”

“No, or… I mean, not to us? I just felt like a bunch of deaths got way closer to the people they’re from?”

She stares at him for a minute. Takes a bite of some sort of fried takoyaki from one of the skewers. “Ok, you’re going to have to walk that back and explain what that means, please.”

“Oh, sorry, it’s-”

He briefly explains what he started seeing back at the fortress city, how people’s deaths are, in and of themselves, a kind of shape in the depths of things. Not quite the shape after, like with echoes or wraiths- these come before that.

She nods, taking it in quickly. She takes another bite, pulling a chunk of roasted chicken off of the cheap wood, and turns to look where he pointed.

“...huh. I… don’t think I see it. I can still see the echoes, though, if I squint… maybe it’s an effect from your cultivation? Or you have some sort of bloodline perception ability? Hmm…”

She continues eating as she thinks. Despite not wanting to interrupt, his eyes turn back to where he saw the ripple.

There it is again. Minute, but… like clouds of clay at the bottom of a pond, all stirred up. It’s all shades of dark, but you can still see the movement in it, even when it’s really faint.

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“Do you want to go there?” his master asks.

He turns to her, surprised out of his thoughts- but then nods.

“Yes, master. I… it seems interesting?”

She snorts out a laugh. “Damn good reason to go, then. Up and at em, kid; you guide us there.”

He nods, taking off, trusting that she’ll be right behind him. The city’s architecture remains weird and intense, spiraling and full of nooks and crannies, but he follows the ripples, tracking them as they keep happening. It doesn’t take him long- every time he looks around, trying to find his bearings, his master is there, ready to point in a given direction and raise an eyebrow.

And then- there it is.

One last ripple, like a push of something growing and falling, and he finds what he’s looking for.

He turns a corner to the sound of fists hitting flesh, and stops just in time to avoid a kid not much older than him falling on the ground at his feet.

The kid has a startlingly wide mouth, full of fangs, but at least two of them are notably broken as if by a punch. He shakes himself, looking around, disoriented- before snarling and getting back to his feet, grabbing at the wall and Jin’s robes as he drags himself up.

“You fuckin-”

Before the kid has a chance to finish, a fist is in his face and punching his teeth in.

“Ha! Gotcha-”

Both of the fighters are plucked off of the ground, held a good few feet above the ground by a new set of arms, much longer and less human than his master’s usuals.

“If you’re going to fight, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fall all over my student in the process,” she says, her voice friendly but deep.

Jin stares up at them, stumbling back from the confrontation and turning to see the rest of the alley.

It’s an alley in name only. More accurately, it’s a weird little place in the infrastructure of the city, one of probably hundreds, where a bunch of buildings and raised ground made it so that what was once a walkway or paved path is instead a dead end. It’s overshadowed entirely, too wide to be an actual alleyway, too much hanging over it to be a proper road- but even still, it’s absolutely full of people.

Kids, to be precise. A few adolescents, but for the most part, everyone there is under or nearing the age of puberty. There are all sorts of mutations and shapes in the crowd, everything from multiple eyes on pale skin, brightly glowing antlers from red and black hair, patches of metal skin, fur and tails of all sorts.

But as one, they look exactly like kids doing something they’re really not supposed to.

“So!” his master says, her voice bright and her eyes sparkling. “What’s all this, then?”

For a few moments, there’s a long, painfully drawn out silence. She turns to the two young men she’s holding, turning them both upside-down and getting a yelp out of both of them.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a fight club back here would you?”

“None of your business!” yells the kid with the mouth full of snake fangs.

“That’s true!” Jin’s master replies cheerily, much to the confusion of the hellion. “A very good point. Jin? What do you think?”

Jin gulps, feeling a dozen pairs of eyes turning to focus on him. He takes a tentative step back, ready to bolt, but…

He looks back at his master, waiting patiently, even as her captured victims squirm. Then back at the kids all around. Then at the scuffed area in the middle of them all, where the fight was evidently in its final phases.

He remembers what he sensed. Death, ebbing and flowing, not blooming but… maybe becoming more likely? Flowing in and out of what’s real as the fight went on?

…He wants to see it.

He looks back at his master, and then again at the kids. Then, he takes a deep, loud inhale of breath and steps forward.

If there’s one thing he’s learned living on the streets, it’s that if you’re going to run, you should run, and if you’re not, you need to make them like you or be scared of you, fast.

“My name is Ka Jin!” he says, his voice coming out a bit louder than he expected. “You guys seem strong! I want to fight too!”

He hears a cackle come from behind him, followed by the thud of two small bodies landing on the ground. Raika takes two steps back, making her steps louder than they naturally are, and both of the would-be fighters scramble back and away, towards the rest of the crowd.

Jin stays right where he is, his chest a little puffed out, doing his best to wear an expression that he thinks is serious, but not too serious.

He sees their eyes dart to him, and then to his master, and then back to him…

“Sorry, honored one,” says one of the two fighters. Unlike the snake-fanged boy, he’s got bright purple coloration running up and down his skin, contrasted with a dark tan, and he’s not quite so stupid as to not recognize how quickly he got snatched. “Our game would surely only annoy the likes of you. We wouldn’t want to-”

Jin steps forward further, into the arena, trying to channel his master’s brashness. “I bet you five silver coins that I can beat you up!”

He hears a rough bark of laughter behind him, and instantly his face colors a bright red. He turns to face his master, ready to apologize for-

Oh. She’s waving, and walking away.

“You kids have fun! I’m going to go make dumplings with this little piggy here,” she says, jostling the five-legged pig under her arm. “Whoever has the coolest-looking battle scar in an hour gets as many as they can eat! Jin, no cheating, no getting beat up just because you want a bigger portion.”

And with a wave over her shoulder, she’s gone, back the way they came.

Which… he probably couldn’t find his way back through.

Jin turns back to the twenty-odd kids, all looking at him, all both already beat up and with eyes bright, now that his master has left.

He takes a breath. Pauses. Goes to say something. Stutters instead.

Then the kid with the snake teeth steps forward, his mouth perpetually wedged sort-of open and looking like a mean snarl.

“You’re real funny-lookin, huh?” he says, his voice bright and clear in spite of the fangs in the way.

Jin blinks, then frowns. He looks down at his robes, grey and bland, then at the backs of his hands, which, yeah, they’re kind of pale, but still.

He looks back up at the kid. “Well… I think your teeth look cool.”

The kid with the fangs tilts his head back, making a face of confusion, and… then he punches Jin in the face.

“Ow! What the-” Jin spits, feeling red from one of his gums. “What was that for? They’re cool!”

“Well yeah. Duh. That’s why I punched ya. You said you wanted to fight, right?”

Jin stops, and then laughs. “Haha! Yeah! Can I use my Qi?”

The kid scoffs. “It is the right of the strong to do as they please! But if you’re going to use your mana, then I will too! You better be ready, or I’ll hit you with my Ultimate Perfect Final Lightning technique!”

“Perfect! That way my friend can play too!”

“Your-?”

But Jin has already pulled a sandal made of black obsidian from his pocket, holding it between his hands and circulating his Qi. In moments, a sort of vague, wispy shape has begun to take form, pale off-white Qi spiraling into a form a little taller than Jin but even skinnier. Its face doesn’t quite appear, remaining a sort of vague, amorphous thing, but it does begin to grow a faint green hue, like fresh-trampled grass, and it brings with it a smell a bit like tangerines.

“This is my friend! He doesn’t really have a name anymore, but he’s super nice. I can only make him appear for a little while though, so-”

Before he’s finished speaking, the apparition has stepped forward and punched the fang-mouthed kid in the face.

The fist it makes dissipates almost on contact, turning back to mist, but not before it rocks the kid’s nose back.

For a moment, there’s silence in the arena.

Then the fang-mouthed kid laughs, loud and bright as hell.

“Now this guy gets it!”

And then three more kids jump at Jin and his friend, throwing themselves into the fray as the alleyway descends into a prepubescent melee of cheers, screams, and the sounds of wrestling.