Sunwhisper did not dream. The damage to his brain had been sufficient to warrant an all systems shut down, so he had not been unconscious, he had been off. Until he wasn’t.

At first, he was aware of his status screen and nothing else. It was informing him of the remaining damage to his infrastructure, as well as the repairs that were being made. He had a broken rib, and a fractured skull, and nanites were busy at work repairing both. It was a mana intensive process; attaining a mana body was an ongoing transformation as the materials of his flesh and bone were continually replaced and refined. His core was active. Only one core, as Starscream had not returned to him, and there was fresh spirit energy flowing through his meridians.

Without his conscious mind to direct the channeling process, he shouldn’t have been able to draw in mana from the environment. So where had all this come from?

His senses returned to him one by one. First, a tingling that began in his chest and spread to his extremities. Next, the smell of soil, and a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. He heard something halfway between rustling leaves and whispers, and then his eyes came online.

He was underground, sealed inside a massive root ball. Traceries of blue and green and silver mana ran among the roots, faintly illuminating the cocoon like chamber. A few of those roots wrapped around cabochons, each about the size of his thumb, that had been placed in a rough circle over the spot on his stomach where his core resided. Those crystals were converting the other colors of mana into golden spirit energy, which was in turn being transferred into his body by more root follicles.

“Where am I?”

The roots shivered at the sound of his voice, and he saw the small forms of Snow Flowers slippings among them. A moment later, the wall on his left parted to allow a different Yosei to enter the cocoon with him. She resembled the Snow Flowers in the fibrous nature of her body, but she was four feet tall, with a humanoid appearance. Her hair was a matt of vines and white blossoms, and her eyes were orbs of yellow brown sap.

“You are in my home,” she said, “safe under the mountain.”

“You saved me.” Sunwhisper couldn’t remember anything after taking that last blow to his head, but it was the obvious conclusion. “Who are you?”

“You may call me Hanayumi. And you are Sunwhisper, yes?”

“I am.”

“We heard one of the females calling your name after you fell.”

“Janna? Is she alright?”

“We do not know her name, but the one who called for you was not killed. They bound her hands and took her away with them after they finished the slaughter.”

Sunwhisper flinched. “Slaughter? Then I didn’t save anyone? It was for nothing?”

“Not entirely true?” Hanayumi shifted, and a single Snow Flower floated over her shoulder and alighted on Sunwhisper’s chest, where it waved at him and bowed.

“You spared this one when you refused to do your master’s bidding. Others fled far away while you fought him, so we did not lose as many this season as we have in years before.”

It was small consolation, considering the personal cost. Sunwhisper was alive, but what was the state of his mission? He had failed to defeat Makoto Shishio, and there was no way he would be accepted back into the academy after what he had done. Janna would surely be punished, and likely expelled, assuming they did not decide to execute her. Regardless, she wouldn’t be able to do what Yuyu wanted of them on her own, which meant that her life was forfeit. Starscream had left him, not an unreasonable choice under the circumstances, but he would be reduced to a life of subsistence eked out from stolen cores.

Ogumo, at least, was probably free. But with their connection severed, he would have to contend with his hunger again, hunting to sate it until he himself was hunted by the cultivators of the Heavenly School. Karasu would be better off. Even if Janna was killed, the raven was an excellent candidate to become a bonded beast, and if she didn’t flee, one of the students would eventually choose her as a companion.

He had made an irrational decision. Sunwhisper knew that refusing to kill, and further, challenging Shishio, had been suicidal; but seeing the little Yosei that was now curled on his chest, he could not imagine having made any other choice.

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He met Hanayumi’s amber eyes. “You are a Snow Flower, aren’t you? A more advanced form?”

She blinked, a pair of leaves dropping down like eyelids, then rising up again. “I am Yosei, and I have lived a long time,” she said, “it is true. I have seen much in this world, yes, but never something quite like you. You are a cultivator, you have a mana body, but you are not human, yes?”

Sunwhisper saw no reason to lie to her. “That’s correct. They would call me a demon, but I am a traveler from beyond Hollow. My people came from another world.”

Hanayumi showed no sign of surprise at hearing of his celestial origins. “Where are you people now?” she asked.

“Dead and destroyed,” Sunwhisper said. “We offended the first cultivator we met, and he killed them all, but took me in because I am able to appear human.”

“This world can be harsh,” she said, “but it is also generous. You have flourished, yes?”

“I suppose that I have.”

“Why did you not kill us?” she asked suddenly. Her tone did not change, but Sunwhisper felt attention shifting all around them. They were far from alone.

“I felt this one’s suffering.” He raised a hand, gently touching the Yosei that still rested against his chest. It responded by pressing itself against his fingers like a cat accepting affection. “I couldn’t be a part of what caused her pain. I can’t accept that what they do to you is a necessary evil. Even if it was, I don’t want to accept any necessary evils anymore.”

“We felt what you did,” Hanayumi said. “You took away her fear. The little ones do not speak, but they have other ways to communicate, yes? We are all connected, as connected as the trees of this forest, whose roots intertwine. For a moment, you were a part of that connection, even if you did not know it. The bond you made was like our bonds.”

“You’re all connected?” Sunwhisper wished he had an ultraviolet artist’s talent for seeing mana links. Shishio had been able to see the effects of his techniques, and even to sever them. He could feel that there was mana all around him, but it was a nebulous sense, far from any real understanding. “Do you know anything about the Path of the Kingdom of Wild Hearts?”

Hanayumi shook her head. “We are not cultivators. We do not know your paths. But what you did for her, and what you did to the bull, that is like what we do. You are not human. Does that mean your people are like us? Do they share their hearts?”

Sunwhisper gave a short laugh. The mechanoborgs who had created him were as far from the Yosei as he could imagine anyone being, both in form and spirit. Starscream was as good an example of that as anyone. “No,” he said, “I was made to be different from my people, and I have had to find my own way.”

“To be alone is a terrible thing.” Hanayumi looked sad, but the expression passed away quickly, like a shadow over bright waters. “But you do not have to be alone any longer. For what you did, and for what you tried to do, you have earned our friendship. No cultivator has ever tried to protect us before, has ever seen us as anything other than a fruit to be plucked. I have to hide myself to keep safe from them.”

“They would try to harvest your essence?”

“They have tried a hundred times. When I was younger, I wanted to fight them, but fighting is not in our nature, we are not so strong. For seasons beyond counting, I have watched as they kill the little ones and bottled their souls, unable to do anything to stop them. That I survived long enough to become what I am, it is a miracle, yes? There are no others like me on this mountain, we all die too young. But what is the point of my miracle, when I cannot do anything but hide?”

“Sometimes, survival is enough,” Sunwhisper said, though he knew in his own case that was not true. He had survived, but his mission was in shambles. He was not strong enough to seek the source on his own, and it seemed the Spiral Dragon was seeking it as well. How long did Hollow have before the force that had consumed the Earth consumed this world as well?

The elder Yosei said nothing in response, and for a few minutes, they were silent together. She was probably unaccustomed to human speech, and Sunwhisper had much to think about. He would not try to kill Hanayumi for her essence, though she had made herself vulnerable to him. However, what she had done to aid his recovery suggested she had knowledge and skills that he could use, so it was possible that his education was not finished after all.

“Hanayumi,” he said, “do you know what they use your essences for?”

She nodded. “They drink us to refine their own mana, yes? More, they drink us to help open themselves like we are open. To make connections like you have made. But different. I have never seen them make the links you made. They open themselves to…” her fibrous skin wrinkled in concentration, “pure forms? I have seen them do it, but it is strange. They call on the spirits of old weapons, and when they have learned to do that, they open themselves again. They open themselves to a beast, and then they leave the valley. Isn’t that right?”

Sunwhisper had always assumed the Shining Soul techniques were a matter of mana density and control, of hardening one’s will into a physical presence in the form of martial equipment, but Hanayumi was suggesting a very different process.

“You have seen them make their weapons?”

“Your master was doing it when you fought, yes? We saw it.”

“Do you think you could help me learn how?”

Her amber eyes regarded him for a long moment. “What would you do with that power, Sunwhisper, who is not human?”

“I want to save everyone,” he said.