Yuyu sat on the broken stump of a stalagmite, seemingly unconcerned with the reaction her question garnered. Ogumo clacked his new claws on the ground, and Janna began innocuously assuming a flanking position. Sunwhisper, however, trusting the keenness of his newest technique, retained a relaxed demeanor.

"Is that someone I should know?" he asked.

The old woman played idly with her scarf. It was remarkable only in that it appeared to be of far lower quality than the rest of her attire, perhaps a relic from a time in her life when she was less successful, an object of sentimental attachment.

"I’m not sure," she said. "But the border guardian certainly would have known the name, and the fact that he gave it to someone else suggests something deeper, a message, but a message for whom, that is the question. There are only so many people in this world who truly care whether that man lives or dies." Her tone shifted abruptly from musing to stern. "I spoke with your family, Janna Jin."

Janna froze. "You…spoke with them?"

"Yes, that is all." Yuyu shrugged. "An argument could be made that they are as responsible for your bad acts as you are, but that sort of thing doesn’t interest me much. Why did you steal from the town?"

The thief marks were still plain on her arm, and even if they hadn’t been, there was clearly no point in trying to hide who she was from someone who already knew more than she was letting on.

"Because I wanted to advance," Janna said, "and I thought it was the only way." She didn’t sound ashamed. It was a statement of fact, and of her practical nature. Things may have not gone as she hoped, but her choices were her own.

"A common enough mistake." The old woman shrugged. "How far would you like to advance, child? What does strength mean to you?"

"As far as I can," Janna replied instantly, "I want to see the Middle Kingdom, and be a great lady, whom others respect."

"Why?" It was a simple question, asked with an air of genuine curiosity, as if Yuyu had never heard of a cultivator before, or how such individuals viewed the world through the lens of personal power.

The challenge caught Janna off guard. "Because…"

"Yes, because." The old woman laughed, and there was a tinge of cruelty in it. "Because because because because because."

"Excuse me," Sunwhisper said, "but why are you here?"

"For the same reason she is, I imagine," Yuyu’s attention was on the scarf again, "following you."

"Do you know me?" Sunwhisper asked.

"I know you are not as you appear, You smell strange, doesn’t he, Ise?"

The lobster clacked its claws for emphasis. "He does, mistress. But I am sure this is the one."

Karasu cawed uneasily. She did not enjoy being cooped in a cave in the best of circumstances, and now she looked as if she wanted nothing more than to take the sky that was denied her. "The crab," she said, “ultraviolet. He can see."

"Crab!" Ise Ebi charged, ready to cut off four or five of the offending raven's wings, but Yuyu stopped him with a word.

"Enough." Ise circled back around to where she sat. Ogumo had been ready to pounce, his back legs were flexed, and he prepared to rear. Yuyu didn’t appear to notice.

"I think you are a demon," she said, "one that the border guardian chose not to kill. You made a deal with him, I have heard that demons from the Tree of Heaven will sometimes offer gifts in exchange for their lives. You don’t look like you were supposed to look, but there are many ways to disguise one’s appearance in this world, and some run deeper than others. Ise is sure that you are the one that I was looking for, the man with a broken core. But of course, I see now that is not quite the truth."

As long as they had been in the cave together, Starscream had grown out of the habit of hiding in Sunwhisper’s storage compartment. He crouched on his shoulder, his extended tail hanging down beside them both, running back up into Sunwhisper's robes where it plugged into a port in his chest.

(I can probably handle the crab. Then you’ve got the woman outnumbered.)

{She hasn’t threatened us.}

(You don’t think this is threatening?)

{She is strong enough to hide her strength. I don’t see her stars, but if she is what I think she is, Wen Lambo will seem weak in comparison.}

(People make that assumption about us too. Maybe she just likes crabs.)

"You see much," Sunwhisper said, "and you say that you are following me. For what purpose?"

"A mystery," Yuyu said, "the mystery of a name. Tell me, Sunwhisper, why did you kill the border guardian?"

Sunwhisper kept his face blank, and she went on.

"I thought the two of you might have had some plan, that after all these years, my cousin had finally regained his ambition. Stealing Soma to eat it, now that would be a waste, there is so much more to be gained from refinement. The border guardian might have found someone to do the work for him, or maybe it was you. Maybe demons know a recipe for high-rank elixirs. I wasn’t sure. Regardless, he is dead now. You wanted everything for yourself. What I see here is not the alchemy I expected, but it is interesting, you are interesting. That is why I have not killed you."

"Makoto killed my family," Sunwhisper said. "When we met on the road, I was not in control of myself, and we fought. I do not understand his motivations for sparing me when he killed the others. He was a complicated man, and I am not sure that he understood what he was doing himself."

"Maybe not," Yuyu allowed, "his death is not important in the scheme of things. He was weak, and he died from weakness. One does not wonder at the death of rabbits when there are hawks in the air. But are you a hawk or a rabbit, I wonder."

"You said he was your cousin," Janna had finally found her voice again. "You are Makoto Yuyu, aren’t you, a representative of the Azai?" The name, and the family relationship, could hardly be a coincidence.

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Yuyu ignored her.

"I have an offer for you, demon."

"An offer?"

"Yes, but first, you must tell me what it is you want. To advance, I assume, to grow strong. But what is the reason for strength? Do you want to be a king? To collect treasures? What do demons care for in this world?"

"Not this world," Sunwhisper said. "I want to grow strong enough to save my own."

"A world of demons? How quaint. Are they all as noble as you?"

"They are heroes."

Yuyu laughed again, a sharp, jagged sound. "So be it. Then hear my offer, demon, I will give you all the power you desire, more than a little creature like yourself can dream, but you must use that power to serve me in a single task."

"What task?"

"A killing, of course. I want you to kill a man named Makoto Shishio."

Was this some kind of joke? Sunwhisper still sensed no malice from her, no violent intent. She had already intimated that there was someone else who had used that name, but what did he have to do with him? Surely, if this was the Lady Makoto he had heard about, she would have resources at her disposal that would make his own meager abilities seem redundant at the least.

"I don’t understand."

"My cousin did not tell you whose name you carried? Truly, he didn’t? A complicated man, as you said." Yuyu tugged on her scarf once more. "Makoto Shishio is an instructor at the Heavenly School of the Azai. You will have to be enrolled first, then you will kill him."

"May I ask what this man has done to deserve your attention?"

Yuyu’s jaw hardened, as did her eyes. "You may not."

"A heavenly school," Janna said quietly. "They accept only three-star pupils."

"Do you think I do not know that?" Yuyu shot her a disgusted look. "You will both have to be much stronger than you are now to serve me as I need you to serve me."

"Both of us?"

"My plan requires two, yes. A girl and her brother will work nicely."

Janna’s breath caught in her throat. "You are saying you want us both to serve you, and you will make us three-stars to do it?"

"Why do you need us at all," Sunwhisper asked, "if you are strong enough to give away this kind of power, why not simply kill him yourself?"

"You may ask questions about the mission," Yuyu said, the hardness had not left her, "you may not ask them about me."

"Not human, they will know." Karasu croaked. "I see. You see. A heavenly school will see."

"True." Yuyu removed her scarf, and for a moment she became as indistinct as a morning fog. Then she was herself again, the young Lady Makoto. "You will need a better disguise. One that paints over more than the surface."

The scarf was a treasure, and it did more than alter her appearance. As soon as it was removed, Sunwhisper’s Echo of the Inner Heart ability warned him of the change. He almost didn’t need it. This woman radiated killing intent like a furnace radiated heat. It wasn’t just directed at him, It was the beasts, it was Janna, it was the world. Yuyu was a natural predator barely held in check by her higher-order faculties. He tried to imagine what using the Hand of the Gentle Sage on her would be like. The hunger of spiders paled in comparison to this. He did not know what he would become if he tried to carry it.

If they did not agree to everything she asked of them, death was an assured result.

"This is called the Blinding Scarf," Yuyu said, " and it is effective enough to dissuade all but the most penetrating investigations. I will give it to you before you enter the school, and it should be enough to get you past admissions, as well as to protect you from casual discovery after. As long as you do not draw too much attention to yourself before you kill him, you should not be discovered. Afterward, it will help you escape."

Sunwhisper's thoughts raced.

"How do you know I will not use it to escape you instead?"

She smirked. "You are welcome to try."

(I don’t know what it is, but I suddenly have a good feeling about this chick.)

{You have questionable taste.}

(I just like her instincts.)

"Enough chatting," Yuyu said. "I am impatient, and I will have your answer."

<<<>>>

Quest Alert – What’s in a Name?

Lady Makoto has offered you a chance at true power, not only to help you achieve your next star, but to enter a Heavenly School, a necessary step for most cultivators seeking to ascend. All you have to do is try to kill a man she herself will not face. A dangerous woman, the consequences of refusal are obvious. Will you become her personal assassin?

<<<>>>

No, he would not.

Sunwhisper found his clarity in the clarity of this woman’s killing intent. He pitied her, and he wanted to help, but he knew that killing the man she wanted him to kill would not solve her problem. Her problem was not the man, for whatever he had done, he was effectively out of her life. Her problem was the pain that he had left in his wake, and there was so much of it that Sunwhisper believed simply taking it from her with Hand of the Gentle Sage would end in disaster for all of them. Yuyu’s entire existence seemed to bend around this wound in her soul, and her entire psychological structure might collapse if it was simply removed, not to mention what taking on that burden would do to him.

Here was the truth that he had glimpsed with Hago written for him again, as if the universe could not help but repeat itself. Pain was evil, and evil begat evil in a never ending chain of being. It was like a virus, or a self-replicating machine. The Spiral Dragon sought to devour Earth so that it could remake the planet in its own image. Pain was not a living thing, but it was self replicating, and it had replicated itself so thoroughly that the people of this world could not separate it from themselves.

Finding a way to help this woman was finding a way to help this world. It wasn’t his mission, he knew that. The Quintessence was still beyond his reach. But here at least, he could do something, and the metaphysical connection between pain as a self-replicator and physical self-replicators was an intriguing enough concept to explore.

Yuyu had offered to give him everything he needed to advance enough to enter a heavenly school. He could enter her service and still be acting in accord with his mission, which required him to grow as strong as possible as fast as he could. But her price was one he found he was unwilling to pay.

He had killed twice already, first the border guardian and then Hago. In killing Makoto, he had acted out his anger just as the border guardian had acted out his fury at being presented with the pelt of his animal companion. While the acts differed for many practical and contextual reasons, the impetus at their core was equivalent enough to be interchangeable. If one was evil, so was the other.

Sunwhisper had not killed Hago out of anger, he had done so to protect Janna. And yet, if he had been a little faster, a little stronger, even a little more precise in his aim, maybe he could have found a solution that did not end in death. The problem with death was that it was irrevocable. Suffering and pain could at least be brought to an end, but death was forever. When he saw the evil that cultivators did as a result of their context, their pain, it became impossible for him to wish for their death.

If he could only be powerful enough, smart enough, fast enough, then he could save everyone. Was that not his mission, to save a world from an all consuming threat? If he was able to save Hollow, wouldn’t he be able to save Earth as well? A part of him knew that he was rationalizing his feelings again, twisting and stretching the truth until it fit with what he wanted to believe. But in this one moment at least, he could move forward without conflict between his mission and his desire.

He reached two decisions at once.

“I accept.”

He would help this woman. He would not kill again.

All the things considered, Sunwhisper couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.