Makoto stood over the grave of his son and remembered. Life had been different for him, once. There had been music in his home, and laughter, and thoughts of a future for his line. Kiyato had been his joy, and the joy of his wife, and the time he had spent at the border had been a burden, for it had kept him away from them.

Now the border was all he had. Spaces of silence that lasted for days or weeks or months. Visitors from the Tree of Heaven were common enough that someone had to take up the duty of guardian, but it was a quiet existence. Most of what came across the flags at the border was not worth remembering. Slavering monsters, nightmares that spawned upon the surface of the tree and came in search of the rich spirit energy of the world soul.

By the time they reached him they were usually starving and weak. The men of iron had been exceptional in that they had been travelers from another world upon the tree, rather than mere beasts from the spaces in between. That made them all the more dangerous, because ultimately, their desires were the same as those of the beasts, but they could pursue them with the weapons of cooperation and invention.

All the visitors were the same in the end. They came because they wanted to steal mana from the soul of the world, or else they wanted to make Hollow their home, and they had to be put down before they upset the balance of the Blessed Lands.

There were scripts written into the flags to alert the guardian whenever a visitor was nearby. A mana tattoo on his covered arm would grow warm whenever the script was triggered, and there was a similar ward in place around his home.

He felt it when someone crossed his threshold, and instantly activated Saffron Ascendancy. Mana suffused his limbs, and he rushed across the rocky plains that led from the border to his home, his feet barely touching the ground. Miles passed under his feet in a matter of minutes, and he soon found himself at his own doorstep, entering soundlessly.

When he saw that the intruder was Shishio, he released the Ascendancy technique. The demon was rummaging through his scrolls, and had already collected a few under his arm. It was still strange seeing his own youthful face, but he had grown better able to recognize the differences. Whatever means the demon used to copy his features, they were an approximation, not a perfect replica. Like a son.

“Those are too advanced for you,” Makoto said, and he was gratified to see Shishio freeze in place, as if he were a thief caught in the act. Shishio turned and gave a bow, his manner in every way like someone who had spent a lifetime in the Blessed Lands instead of a couple of weeks.

“I have made improvements, elder. I believe I am ready.”

“Impossible.” The demon was overconfident. Many new cultivators were, but this one was starting at a deficit of training that put him at the level of a small child. If he practiced the foundational meditations dutifully, perhaps he would be ready to select a path in half a year’s time. Out of curiosity, Makoto stepped closer, forcing mana into his eyes until he could see the boy’s meridians more clearly.

It wasn’t a technique, exactly. Any three-star cultivator could see the flow of energy inside other artists to one degree or another. Makoto had taken enough steps down that road that he could do the same, if only temporarily. It helped that saffron and gold were adjacent on the mystic wheel, and with a little effort, he had no trouble examining the demon’s meridians.

"What have you done?" Makoto did not raise his voice, but inside, he was seething. The change in the demon’s core could only have come about one way. There was no alchemist in Fringe Town handing out pills and elixirs to turn novices into adepts in a day. Raw Soma could have a similar effect, but the Jin family wouldn’t have shared their meager supply with Shishio, not when they believed he had a broken core.

"I was just borrowing more scrolls," Sunwhisper replied, not picking up on the undertones of the question. Makoto had previously granted permission for him to borrow scrolls, so his presence in his home was not in itself a transgression.

"The spirit fruit. Where did you get it?”

Shishio paused, expressionless, and for a long moment, he said nothing. Then he came to a decision.

“I stole it from the village stores. How did you know?”

Makoto tugged sharply on his beard. "How did I know? Idiot! I examined your meridians when we first met, did you not think anyone would be able to tell you had recently eaten a spirit fruit? What were you thinking?”

“I needed it to advance,” Shishio said.

“I have given you my name!” Makoto raged. “Do you not see how anything you do reflects back on me? I heard what you accomplished in the Reaping. That was well enough. But this risks both our lives. If the First Elder examines you too closely, he may realize that you are not what we have claimed. Even if he never discovers you are a demon, there are still too many questions to be asked. The Starfox Guild has no record of you, deviation or no. An investigation cannot be allowed!”

Shishio allowed the tirade to wash over him, unaffected. “It was the only logical choice. I can’t afford to spend years as a ward of the Jin family. You have already expressed that you approve of my desire to advance. I was not caught. Why don’t you support this?”

“You have violated the trust of the village,” Makoto snapped. In truth, that was hardly a concern. It was understood that a true cultivator would do what he had to in the pursuit of strength. Promises were broken, and laws were ignored, what mattered was the result. But the demon’s actions could have consequences for him as well, and he didn’t want him acting out of turn.

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"We have both violated the village's trust, elder." It was not an accusation, merely a statement of fact. "When you allowed me to live, that was a violation, wasn’t it? I am trying to become more than what I am. Is that not the dao?"

Makoto considered striking him dead at that moment. "You know nothing of the dao, demon.” At least he had not tried to lie to him. And there were no marks on his arms, which suggested that he had found some way around the First Elder’s wards. Makoto could not clearly articulate, even to himself, the reason why he continued to allow this demon to live. The fact that he had stolen his face was hardly a mark in his favor, all things considered.

“How did you do it?”

Shishio nodded as if he had been expecting this question, and was gratified that they could move on from the more unproductive segment of their conversation. “I wore a disguise created from a sample I took from the Gomen family. When I learned that the wards would mark me, but not actually hinder me, I reasoned that the molecular reorganization involved in my transformation would be enough to dissolve the tattoos.”

“You reasoned, but you did not know.” How reckless was this demon?

“That’s correct.” There was no hint of apology in Shishio’s reply. No hint of pride, either. He was merely relating the facts.

“You should have come to me.”

“Would you have approved?”

No, he would have told Shishio to wait, to meditate, and to beg for generosity from the Jin. Makoto could have provided him with a few slices of Soma fruit from his own larder, but that alone wouldn’t have resulted in the change that he sensed in him now.

“Wait here.” Makoto went up to the second story of his home, disabling another script ward before entering his sleeping chamber. He picked up the message folio on his desk, a sheaf of papers bound with mana enriched threads that bound it also to an identical folio in the home of the First Elder.

He read the message, closed his eyes, and fell into a calming meditation. The situation was worse than he had thought. Downstairs, Shishio had unrolled one of the elemental path scrolls from Makoto’s collection and was staring at it intently. The Path of the Annealing Method, metal aspected, an appropriate choice for the demon.

“You took twenty fruits?”

Shishio looked up from the scroll, his expression quizzical. “No. I took four, why do you ask?”

“Twenty fruits were taken from the village store.” Makoto didn’t think he was being lied to. The demon had admitted to his crime without hesitation, there was no reason for him to balk at admitting to the quantity. Either the First Elder had chosen to use the theft to enrich himself, or there was another thief who had acted on the same night as Sunwhisper. The first was more likely, and the second more interesting. Did the demon know anything about it?

Makoto considered him for a long moment. "I believe you, but that presents a problem. There was another thief, one with more ambition and skill. Perhaps one that knew what you were going to do, and used your actions as a cover for their own. Did you tell anyone what you had planned?"

Sunwhisper shook his head. "It was barely a plan. I did not know myself what I would do until I did it."

Makoto looked over the scroll still open on the table. “You think you can manage this?”

“I do.”

"Good.” He meant it. There was something about the chaos of the situation that excited him. He had been stagnant for so many years, after all. A second thief, assuming it was not the First Elder himself, would be very convenient. Then again, with Yuyu’s visit approaching, maybe it would be better if Shishio was branded a criminal. He could be gotten out of the way before Yuyu had a chance to ask any difficult questions. “I am curious to see what you are capable of, now that I know you are capable of something. Perhaps you will be able to have your revenge one day."

"Elder?"

"Nothing, nothing." He waved the comment away, his mind was running in too many directions at once. An embarrassing situation for a saffron artist, who should strive for balance in all things. "Keep your distance from the warehouse and the elder’s wood, you may have gotten away this time, but I warn you not to risk more. If you want to be a cultivator, work hard. But I forbid you to use your abilities this way again. You risk my life as well as yours if your true identity is discovered."

"I understand," Sunwhisper bowed. "But I have a question. What did you do with the bodies of my fathers? Did you tell the other elders about them?"

"I took them to the demon graveyard. They were not the first visitors to transgress. You may visit them if you wish. Young cultivators sometimes travel there anyway to pick over my leavings."

A look of dissatisfaction crossed Shishio’s face, possibly the first sign of genuine emotion Makoto had seen from him. He had no idea what it meant, and it was gone almost as soon as it came.

"Thank you,” the demon said, “I will do so."

Makoto returned to his patrol on the border, walking the flagstaffs from one end to the other. It was a journey of many miles, but that meant little to him, and the walking helped him think.

Not for the first time, he questioned why he had allowed the demon to live. The shock of thinking he had seen his son again, that was a part of it, but there was a deeper reason, one he was loath to admit. Makoto was bored. After Kiyato’s death, he had largely given up on his own advancement. He was the second most skilled cultivator in Fringe Village, and somewhere along the line, that had become enough for him. It was the curse of living on the edges of civilization, the failure of ambition.

He felt no guilt for slaying the other men of iron. They had killed his fox, and its fur rested at the foot of his bed. If he hadn’t done it, they would have survived long enough to be interviewed by the First Elder, but in all likelihood, the old man would have come to the same conclusion that he had. A group like that could not be allowed freedom in the Blessed Lands.

If they had learned to access the soul of the world, there was no knowing how powerful they might have become. The same was true of Shishio.

The demon had spoken of a divine mission given to them by their creator. The idea that there was a single source of magic, of mana, was a strange one, and Makoto did not believe it himself. Mana was in all things and had no source. But Shishio was convinced that whatever he searched for was real. Just as the last group had been.