> The Aristocratic Dictatorship has been dismantled. Now the Bourgeois Dictatorship must be next. Or so the Celestial Shennin Society would have you believe. In truth, it is a more complicated manner in material reality: some old aristocrats downgraded into being bourgeois to continue being part of the ruling class. Some aristocracies cling on due to the nature of Power. And in some areas, the Aristocracy has not faded but successfully transitioned into being of the bourgeois class, and thus never left the ruling class. The workers of the world face unprecedented competition: the truth of revolution is that they not only have to work against the bourgeoisie, but also against the aristocracy. The proletariat have no one but themselves. Is it any surprise, then, that the Second World Revolution failed so terribly?

>

> From The 52nd Genealogy of Shen in the 11,665th Cycle

They finished their food in relative silence. Relatively... awkward silence.

"Are you hurt anywhere, Akazha?" asked Raxri.

Akazha sighed. "Somewhat. As is the consequence of pugilism. But I'll be fine. Thank you." She looked at Raxri's head. "I see you're wearing the headcloths."

Raxri smiled. "Yes. They're very comfortable to wear, especially against the heat of the sun. I thank you for them."

"As you should," said Akazha. She sighed. "You've had no large difficulty in finding me, I suppose."

Raxri forced a smile and said. "We... simply asked. You were the talk of the town."

"That was a peculiar way of drawing attention to yourself. Perhaps now they will see that our group is composed of well-versed martial artists and we will be given the appropriate jobs," Sintra Kennin said, laughing.

"That was the impetus to my departure," said Akazha, finishing her food and switching to drinking black tea as the tea-servants arrived. She asked what tea they were serving and the servants replied that it was Oxom tea from the northwest. She nodded her thanks and continued: "Unfortunately, the port chief decided to engage in a healthy bout of misogyny. My temper when it comes to such things is horridly short."

Sintra Kennin sighed. "Unfortunately such things are rampant still. The brusque and chauvinistic cling to their pillars amidst increasing chaos."

Raxri scratched their chin and said: "How do we root them out? How do we destroy such prejudice? I would think that such a way of thinking would have fallen to the wayside now, with the world having ended and all."

Akazha laughed. "You think so altruistically. No one in their right mind would be asking how to remove such a thing with such idealism. But, if you were to ask me, It must be force," said Akazha. A beat passed, then she said: "And not simply physical, mind you. I do not advocate just the killing. It requires the force of a thousand teachers and a thousand loving fathers. It is a force many do not understand is force." Akazha sighed and drank her tea. "I need a smoke."

Sintra Kennin nodded. "Let us finish up here and head for the living room."

In short order, they finished their meals and the servants helped them into their waiting area, which just so happened to actually not be the living room but rather the intricate inner garden they had made within one of the gaps of the W-shaped longhouse. They sat there upon a wooden pavilion, upon sitting cushions and elevated ledges. They watched as white egrets picked about a small pond, flanked by bamboos and katmons.

Raxri and Akazha smoked out a pipe. A dragon pipe for Akazha, the one she always had, and then a porcelain phoenix pipe for Raxri, given to them by a servant.

Raxri sat close by to Akazha. Akazha sat against the railings of the pavilion, hands placed atop the railings. She loosed smoke into the air like a tired dragon. Raxri looked at her wounds: a couple of bruises and a couple of cuts. Nothing too bad, nothing as bad as their own arm destruction, but it was still shocking to Raxri to see someone like Akazha, someone they had looked to as virtually untouchable, so banged up.

Raxri dug pulled out one of the porcelain vessels filled with healing water. Akazha saw what they were doing and shook her head. "That is last, right? Worry not--"

"No. I still have more. Let me put this on you, and then drink it." Raxri remembered the wounds she had also sustained fighting Lieutenant Jin Sat Lang. Another preventable injury Raxri was not able to prevent.

Akazha tried to fight back, but she was already trying to keep down a growing migraine with the pipe smoke. So instead she pulled down her sarong to reveal the majority of her bruises and wounds. "The wounds are not major. I'll be fine."

"Let me heal you this time." Raxri scooted in closer. They poured some healing water onto their fingers and began massaging it into her bruises and wounds, lightly. Ever so lightly.

Akazha winced at some of them, but never yelped or let out a pained groan or grunt. Raxri was exceedingly delicate with their fingers and made sure not to apply too much pressure. As Raxri moved about her body, her skin fair even against the scathing of the sun, Raxri noticed the light scars that arose from various parts of her. Many of them looked like sword wounds, a good number looked like dagger punctures. Bullet wounds. Arrow impalings. Spear grazes. Despite being a witch seemingly quiet and untouched in the Pemiwood, Akazha was covered from head to toe with war-wounds. The majority of these wounds and scars were tattooed over by her talismanic inks.

When all her fresh wounds and bruises were mended, Raxri said: "You are fiercely scarred."

"That is the way of the world," said Akazha.

"Did you heal yourself of all your wounds?"

Akazha shrugged. "Many wounds you cannot heal yourself. That is why doctors exist."

Raxri pressed their lips together. A healer cannot heal themselves. It only made sense: when one knew how to perform surgeries or othe rsuch healing unguents it would be difficult to perform such things upon one's self. One can only twist their bodies in so many ways to reach hard to find wounds, after all.

"And all that time, you have had no doctors?"

Akazha raised an eyebrow. "All that time... while I was in the wood? Well, yes. But I was rarely injured, and Jikajika was there to reach places I could not otherwise reach. As a witch, you take necessary precautions to prevent preventable injuries."

"Right. Of course." Who heals the healer? Raxri had always wondered that. "Where did you learn your healing skill?"

Akazha shrugged. "Well, I did not actually truly cultivate any specific Healing path. No mediumship, no shamanry, no medical studies. I just took all that I knew about herbalism and a bit of knowledge conveyed by vajracharya Sutasoma and applied them. Healthy dose of trial and error." She took the waters from Raxri and gulped it down. Immediately she felt her rising migraine subside, the thundering-sharp knocks trying to split her head open dulling into white cotton.

She saw Raxri deep in thought, staring at her wounds. Akazha reached out and put her fingers upon Raxri's chin; tilted their face up so that they stared at each other. Heat rose up her chest. When she spoke the next few words, she could feel her breath hot, and a fire behind her eyes. "I know that look, Raxri Uttara. Do not think of trying to become a healer."

Akazha's golden brown eyes gleamed against Raxri's own scarlet ones. Her pitch black hair, messy as her bun was, framed her face perfectly. Many chauvinists would have said that she never fit in the beauty standard of the entire Utter Islands. There they looked for soft-features for a woman. Small noses, kind and gentle eyes, tender and demure lips. Akazha had lips that looked almost bruised, eyes sharp like a prowling tiger's, and her face was like a dagger's blade. The black eyeliner around her eyes were slightly smudged. Her lip paint had all been removed. Poets would have said that she looked like a fox, but she did not. There was no sensuality to her. No, instead she looked like a tigress. Slender, hunting, slaughterous.

Not only did she look like she could kill you, she in truth could kill you, and would not hesitate if it came to it.

Raxri felt like they were choking. A single touch of her finger against their chin sent a lance of ice piercing through them. They pulled away immediately.

"A-ah! Forgive me." They scratched the back of their neck and managed an awkward laugh. "I cannot help myself."

Akazha blinked.

"From thinking of becoming a healer," said Raxri, immediately afterwards. Akazha breathed. "So many have done so much for me. If I am to become someone that can deal annihilation, then I should also be able to deal in rejuvenation. Who will heal the healer? I will."

Akazha's mouth perked up into an amused smirk. "And who will heal you?" she raised an eyebrow.

Raxri turned and stared directly at Akazha's eyes. Their face turned as serious as steel and it almost threw Akazha off. She was scared Raxri would rush in and punch her because they looked exactly like that!

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

But no. Instead, Raxri said: "You will." The steel demeanor immediately melted away afterwards when they said: "Right? Hehe." They smiled, sheepish.

Akazha rolled her eyes and allowed a smile to peer through.

After a few more dayparts of waiting--Raxri and Akazha had devolved to playing mancala while Sintra Kennin read aloud the contents of a sutra that she had brought--a servant rushed in before all the others and said: "A visitor has come to see the lords."

Akazha raised an eyebrow. Sintra Kennin looked and said: "Who? Is it time for us to see High Chief Trasan?"

"I win, by the way. I beat you with this," Raxri managed to interject. They looked up but Akazha had already risen to her feet.

Raxri looked over their shoulder.

The servant said: "No. Not yet. It is the captain of the barge Unsakatulan. Captain Ampalila."

And sure enough, the captain, clad in a more ceremonial outfit of kebayas and sarongs and salampays, wearing a steel conical hat atop her headscarf, walked into the pavilion with them. In one of her hands she carried her arquebus. Her second was nowhere to be seen.

"Captain." The three of them bowed in reverence to Ampalila.

Ampalila waved her hand. "Ease. Leave the niceties. We speak, cultivator to cultivator." She turned to the servants. "Privacy for us, please."

When the servants had left, Akazha turned to Ampalila. "Captain. Why have you come?"

"Because of what I saw of you. And what I heard about you."

Akazha gave a sheepish smile. "Ah, so you've been informed as well as to what had happened."

Ampalila smiled and took a long drag from her own pipe. "Truth be told, I stand with you," said Captain Ampalila. "And I am well informed that you are only looking for work because you have to pay off that 1000 joss debt." She sat against the pavilion's railing. She looked to the pond. A catfish now swam there.

Akazha only nodded. "This be true, unfortunately," said Akazha. "In my efforts to reduce such a debt beofre we had to leave for Blacklight Town, I was pulled apart by desperation."

"Forgive me for this," said Ampalila, sighing. "I should have told you to only pay the debt after your visit. I was in no rush to collect your due."

"Captain Ampalila," interjected Sintra Kennin. "What do we do now? Will you be able to acquit us of our charges?"

Ampalila shook her head. "I am nothing but a river captain of Pemi," she said. "Unfortunately, I have no sway over the fancy High Chief of Imos Town. But perhaps I can put in a bit of a good word. I have had some dealings with the great High Chief after all. You stay here waiting for an audience with him, yes?"

The three of them nodded.

"Very well. Seems like I will wait here with you."

As they waited, Raxri asked: "Captain Ampalila. What kind of person is the High Chief of Imos Town?"

Ampalila inhaled and thought for a while. "High Chief Trasan? Well... let's see.... He's... well he's young, actually. He is a young High Chief that does not have the demeanor of someone that were to face the great and mighty sea kings that trawl the entirety of the Utter Islands. But he does. He has learned a great many from his father, High Chief Tubang, who has now retreated further inland to enjoy the last few days of his life in peace. There is no peace, being a Sea Lord."

"I see. So High Chief Trasan seems to be one well-versed in politics?"

Ampalila nodded. "You got that mostly right. Uh... I'm pretty sure he grew up within the cutthroat sea-politics of the Utter Islands. He knows the intricate web of debts and the importance of Face in these waves. It's a constant balance, that. You know what grants Face? Mercy towards those faced with unjust charges. Isswhy many knight-vagrants become lords. They travel around through a veneer of justice."

"He seems to be a well meaning person," said Raxri.

Ampalila tilted her head to the side in only somewhat agreement. "Ha! Well, I'm not sure about well-meaning. He's a... how do you say that. Political manipulator? Whatever it takes to survive."

"I see." Raxri stared up at the ceiling of the pavilion. A 12-pointed sun was engraved upon the underside of the roof.

Akazha said: "So he will most likely listen more to power than reason."

"Yes," said Ampalila. "Unfortunately. Get used to it. People listening to power more than reason. In the end of the world, reason is thrown out of the door, when people are scrambling for protection. And what do you need to be able to protect someone? Power. Issno indictment of power, mind you. Power can be benevolent, coming from community and love. But that is the jagged, thorny way to power. Slow and hard, once entrenched, lasts. But no one wants to go through that effort, especially with debts and demons attempting to kill you. And so they chase after quicker power. Brutality. Savagery. Malevolent force. Magicks. It's how the world is."

Raxri bit their lip. "I had wished it wasn't so."

"We can only make do," said Sintra Kennin. He picked up his dakgatana and began practicing his swordplay at the garden.

"This is why, after the Revolutions that took place to destabilize the old world order, people still congregate beneath men of great violence. These violent men have taken the place of the kings of old blood. These pseudoroyalties now rule. Violence is now the Law."

"The Latter Day of the Law," said Raxri, the words arising from their soul. They did not know where it came from.

Raxri saw Akazha nod in agreement.

A few more moments passed. Raxri's churning, bubbling excitement could not be contained. They asked: "Captain, while we still have time. What is the hierarchy of lords here?"

Captain Ampalila blinked, spitting out a globule of red betel. "Here in Pemi? Or in the Code of the Sea?"

Raxri asked: "There be a difference?"

"Of course. Mandalas and mandalas intersecting and intercrossing. Pemi follows a traditional hierarchy, while the Code of the Sea is huger, greater than any of us."

"I wish to learn," said Raxri, pushing themself from their lying down position and onto a lotus sit.

Captain Ampalila sighed. "What the hell, sure. It's not as if we are in any rush. I trust you know of this, Akazha?"

"I wished I did not," was Akazha's only answer. Which was, to Raxri, a strange answer to be sure.

Ampalila made a dismissive gesture, as if to say 'That's okay, don't worry about it.' Then she explained: "Essentially, every island and region will have their own hierarchy... unless they do not. That part will be a bit of a bitch to explain so I will leave it to esoterica for now. Within Pemi's kingship, High Chief Trasan is known as a Dato, or a lord. He answers directly to the upriver River Lords of Nunuk Tree. The ancestral Nunuk Tree, which houses the memory of all who have ever lived, chooses a single Shaman-King, known as the Raya Belyan, that becomes their sole consort and the one who expresses the Nunuk Tree's Will upon the Nunuk League. The Nunuk League is then made up of five cardinal republics, each one made up of a tens of datos, or Lords, that then serve as representatives for each of their tribes or towns. Each republic has five representatives to which the datos answer to, known as their mantri. And then each mantri answers to a republic representative, known as the Punongdato. Head Dato. The Head Dato is a democratic position that you are voted into. Then, above all that is of course, the shaman king Raya Belyan. These terms are Pinemi, the lingua franca of this great island.

"Out in the seas, however, it is a different story. One could argue that the Sea Powers and the Sea Lords are the most powerful political entities in the Utter Islands. Maybe even in all of Hingsajagra! Once the greatest power in all the Utter Islands was the Shennin Empire, followed by the Bunivelzan Empire in Nilatpa, the Woian Empire in Wadzara, and finally the Bujak Empire that covered most of the southern Utter Islands. But after the Revolution and the destruction of all the empires, the one that continued to facilitate life and protection were the sea lords and pirate kings, which eventually coalesced into the Code of the Sea. That's not to say the empires don't exist, they've recongregated after the Second World Revolution, taking advantage of the 'peace' enforced by the World Bourgeois. The Bunivelzan Empire has now given way to the United States of Ressen-Nalenji, for example, which works mostly in the same way.

"The Code of the Sea is thus: take what you should take, leave what you should leave. All authority is Violence. Let the Pure Land be the Seas. Take what you should take began as a pirate code, but it eventually took on a moral dimension: should you take a life? Should you kill or take someone's agency away? The overwhelming answer becomes no. You should only take what belongs to you: your freedom, your dignity, your integrity, your ability to help, your expertise. Otherwise? Leave it. That is what 'leave what you should leave' means. It is now inseperable from the first proclamation.

"All authority is violence is an idea that arose even before the fall of the Empires during the Mahaparibhraman. This is the war of all things. To abolish all class, one must abolish authority. Authority is institutional power over the individual. Where does the institution arise from? The consent of the commons. Therefore, give no consent, abolish institutional violence. Pirates choose who to follow: they follow no authority but the expertise. This is where their power comes from.

"So you have Sea Lords who are experts of ship navigation and crew-leading, and so they become Captains. Sea Lords who are experts in violence and combat, swordsmanship, gunning, become Admirals. Sea Lords who are skilled in creating boats become valuable boatwrights. Everyone has a place in the Sea. The Law of the Sea is that there is no Law.

"Finally, let the Pure Land be the Seas is an invention by the masses who took the idea from Wokism and the Infinite Law. There, it is believed that when one dies, by chanting the name of a particular Awoken as a mantra--specifically Maitsa Nahigmata--one can be reborn in the Pureland of Ultima Bliss. The masses that lived upon the seas, the coasts, the rivers, outside of the Empires, believed that the Sea was also a potential Pure Land where one can go to to be able to practice and cultivate Enlightenment. This Law is known as Thalassic Law, a popular offshoot of Liberation Law, especially outside Hiraga Ra-Om, where Shen lies.

"All this to say that High Chief Trasan is a Port Chief according to his expertise as someone who leads and manages international trade upon Pemi. Not many respect his skill, however, as much more have been able to be Port Chiefs and harbor benevolence in their heart. But all is well, High Chief Trasan's politicking skill can be used against him. All crocodiles can be turned."

Raxri's wide eyes stared up at the ceiling again, digesting everything that had been told to them.

Akazha said: "Then our approach will not be to his goodwill. It will have to be from the place of power, if needed."

"Yes. Thus why I shall go with you."

"I thank the Captain," said Akazha. "You've helped us out in multiple ways."

"Thank my heart," said Captain Ampalila, waving her hand dismissively. "It weighed heavy upon me to leave you to your fate, knowing that you have to pay a debt to me. Consider it... securing my investments."

Akazha smiled at that.

Raxri stared again at the ceiling. "So many I still yet know..."

"It's a brave new world, Raxri," said Akazha. "Remember it well."

A few more dayparts of waiting. The sun began its dive.

Akazha asked: "Captain Ampalila, I hope it is all right to ask. Where did you learn your Gun Oracle cultivation?"

Ampalila smiled. "Why? Seek you a way to learn it and beat me at it?"

Akazha shook her head, flustered. "A-ah, no! Of course not. I was simply wondering--"

"Spare me the pleasantries and farce, witch. Wish you to learn the Gun Oracle Art?"

Akazha looked around her. Raxri Uttara and Sintra Kennin had moved to the grassy area of the courtyard and had began trading blows, performing light practices of their sword arts.

Akazha turned to Ampalila. "I do."

"And for what reason, witch?" She puffed out another trail of smoke.

Akazha looked back to Raxri Uttara and Sintra Kennin again. She said: "I wish to be stronger."

Ampalila sighed and said: "For what reason? Dig deep. You will not tame my heart and bind it to yours with such weak Reason. What is your Determination? Your Will?"

"I wish to be stronger to attain what I need to attain!"

"What do you need to attain!"

"Power to become a Wizard!"

"Hm." Ampalila leaned back. She took another drag from her smoke pipe. "So you are a power seeker? Seeking power for no other reason?"

"No. I..."

"Speak your true intentions so we don't have to go around the bullshit I have to do with everyone else. And miss me with all that seeking power for yourself. That is how empires arise!"

Akazha inhaled. "I wish to protect Raxri Uttara."