"Why am I so hungry?" Janna spoke through a mouthful of rabbit stew. It was her second bowl, and she was really the only one eating it, as Karasu and Ogumo preferred raw meats, and Sunwhisper could consume almost anything.

With two sacred beasts in the party, hunting was effortless. Karasu would spot potential prey from the air with her superior vision, and Ogumo would run it down. They both enjoyed the sport, and they had no complaints about providing an extra small mammal for Janna as needed.

"That may be my fault," Sunwhisper said. His Aura of the Bleeding Heart was still relatively weak, but he could still pick out its influence on others. While it was a passive ability, meaning it did not require a mana investment, its effects could wax and wane depending on how attuned he was to his own emotions.

The more he focused on a given feeling, the more it was shared. The focus did not have to be deliberate, preoccupation served as well. So when he had concentrated on projecting a sense of calm to the examiner at the Star Fox guild, it had been at work, and similarly, when he went in search of sustenance to appease the spider’s hunger, his companions felt an echo of that as well.

It meant little to Ogumo, who was accustomed to enduring the full strength of his hereditary curse, but Karasu and Janna were both eating more than they otherwise would have. Part of the reason his mental battle with Wen Lambo had been so effective was that though his River of Agony technique had not been efficient enough to completely rid him of the pain he shared with others, the feelings he could not rid himself of bled through his Aura.

If he had not been feeling a portion of what Wen Lambo had been feeling at that time, Aura of the Bleeding Heart might have been less expensive. It was something to think about as both abilities improved. He could suppress the Aura with "a concentrated effort of will," which when translated into practical terms, meant that he could turn it off with the investment of a relatively small tax on his mana pool and attention.

The technique that was connected to Aura of the Bleeding Heart had become available while they were on the road.

<<<>>>

Echo of the Inner Heart

A heart, no matter how schooled, cannot hide its secrets from you. While this ability does not allow an artist to read another’s thoughts directly, it lays bare their intentions, making lying futile, even those lies we tell ourselves.

<<<>>>

It was a useful technique, but not something that would shine in combat. The note about “lies we tell ourselves” seemed somewhat ominous to Sunwhisper, but it might have just been flavor text. He was accruing techniques extremely quickly for someone who didn't have access to any new manuals or scrolls, and he had enough training to do without worrying about whether he could use a technique on himself to read his own intentions.

Sunwhisper tried out Echo of the Inner Heart on his companions, and to his surprise, discovered that Ogumo was sad. It wasn’t something he had noticed through their bond, because it was a minor ache compared to the hunger, and the emotion had not been present when he initially activated Hand of the Gentle Sage to absorb the spider’s pain.

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Despite his superhuman EQ, it was still very difficult to read the emotions of a creature without a proper face.

"What was your brother’s name," Sunwhisper asked his eight legged companion.

The spider was faster than any of them without the aid of an Ascendancy Technique, and he had gotten into the habit of zigzagging ahead of the rest of the party, as much for the joy of his freedom of movement as to spook potential prey. The brick marked with his seal hung from Sunwhisper’s waist, and he could range about fifty meters away from it before it harmed him.

Ogumo, having just reached the closest point of his orbit around his new master, paused. He was capable of deathly stillness when he chose it.

"Ogumo," he said. The rasp of his inhuman voice carried an unusual tone, one that Sunwhisper suddenly recognized as regret.

"Isn’t that your name?"

"...our brood."

"All the children of your brood had the same name? How did you differentiate…" Sunwhisper trailed off, "no, that doesn’t matter. Did you have many brothers and sisters?"

"Many…yes. The beast man killed them…the ones that were left. Our lives…we are all killers. Many do not survive…"

"You are much like cultivators then."

"I am the last."

"The last Ogumo."

"Yes…"

"I’m sorry for your brother. You both helped me against Wen Lambo. I was better able to gauge his limits after you attacked."

"You freed…we fought…it is nothing." The spider rubbed its mandibles together in a gesture that suggested indecision, the motion was accompanied by a wordless buzz.

"Thank you, Ogumo."

The spider bobbed its body in the arachnid equivalent of a shrug before setting out on its circuit again.

Their journey had brought them to the foothills of the Jigoku range, and they used the cover of the forests there to proceed. Sunwhisper was developing a sense for woodcraft as he went, becoming better at spotting animal trails, as well as their own. In the evenings, he practiced martial arts forms with Janna while Starscream detached and went about business of his own so they couldn’t share skills.

The group further discussed what their route should become after they collected what they could make use of from the demon graveyard. Starscream wanted to return to his lair in the mountains.

(I spent weeks constructing a mana battery out of webbing. It would take us just as long to set up anywhere else. If it doesn’t look like anyone is after us by the time we get there, I want to jimmy a proper workshop. Your fathers didn’t upload a good enough skill set for you to be a proper mad scientist, but together, I think we can figure out a way to make use of our technology in spite of the entropy problem.)

{That’s an attractive prospect, and I am open to any possible advantage we might gain over the natives. But I am concerned we would be too close to Fringe.}

(As long as I’m plugged into you, I don’t need to keep eating cores to stay alive. I do it for the experience boost, and because I like it, obviously. But what I’m saying is, we could keep a lower profile than I did as the Red Spider. As far as anyone in Fringe knows, we’re on our way to the Middle Kingdom by now.)

Their indirect route meant that the journey to the graveyard took another two days, but during that time, Karasu didn’t perceive any sign of pursuit. By all appearances, they were free.