The tall brown-robed being stood in the middle of the large courtyard. The hefty tome he always carried with him was closed and under his arm. “It is done,” he said lowly, but he had a powerful voice.

The young girl looked up at her older brother with a broad grin. “You changed fate?” While the man dressed plainly, she dressed flamboyantly in colored robes of purple and pink and dyed hair that matched the robes.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” she told him, still smiling.

The tall man grunted. “They brought this on themselves. Thinking they could play with the fates by moving their pieces as if they were playing chess. I am the master of fate, and you do not play with what has been written just because you don’t like what the book says.”

Around them, as they spoke, were old women tending to the gardens and shrubbery. There were only old women here, previous Mothers who had died and been accepted into the Gardens to help keep them. It was an honor among them, and Daichi didn’t choose them lightly. Most of them just went along to Lilith’s lands, as most people do. As of a few days ago, he also had a new Mother in his gardens tending them.

She was close to the pair of them, trimming some hedges, trying not to listen. Though she knew everything they were speaking about. The kami had said to her before he took her, and she agreed she would do anything he wished of her. It was her job, too. She was chosen to read the fates, after all. Little did she know how impactful that vision she saw of the small fishing village at the base of some mountains would be.

The younger girl looked at the crone closest to them and grinned widely, giving the old woman a small wave. “You did good, dear mother.” The girl giggled before looking back at her older brother. She then wrapped her arms around his midsection, hugging him.

The old woman who was addressed instantly fell to her knees, kowtowed in front of the pair, and exclaimed, “I am not worthy! Thank you!” She pressed her forehead into the dirt and cried at being addressed.

The man held out his arm, pushing his hand into the young girl’s forehead. “No,” stopping the hug. He then looked at the old woman, who was bent down. “Return to your work,” he commanded faintly. The old crone, of course, instantly, not wanting to be cast from this place.

The young girl giggled at being denied the hug from her older brother. “All of you guys are so serious all the time.” She skipped down the pathway and disappeared in a bright, swirling rainbow light.

__________________

Elsewhere on a different plane of existence sat twins on a large overstuffed couch. One of them was consoling the other. The one doing the consoling seemed like they could be male or female, running a hand through their sister’s hair. The girl was the one being consoled. Her head was sobbing in the other’s lap, her face buried toward the other.

“Shh now, dear Minako. It’ll be alright. There’s no need to be upset. Everything is going wonderfully,” they spoke, whispering in the troubled girl’s ear.

“No, something is going on. I can feel it, our siblings. Something is happening,” the girl stammered, not lifting her head from their lap.

They sighed. There was no helping Minako when she was like this, Misumi knew, but she was their twin, after all. They had to console her. She spoke softly, “I know, dear sister, I know. It would be best if you remember, though, we have our work to do. What our other idiot siblings do is of no concern to us. Let them wage their wars among them. As long as we have each other, we don’t need them.”

Minako looked up to Misumi, looking them in the eye, and sniveled a bit before shaking her head. “No, this is different. Something is going on. Something will make us get involved, I think, no, I fear.” Minako stammered before her head fell back into Misumi’s lap.

Misumi gave a soft sigh and kept running their hand through Minako’s hair. At least she stopped crying for the time being. That would have to be good enough.

__________________

After trekking through the city, he arrived at the castle gates. He dragged his hammer the whole way, unable to bring himself to lift it or even put it away. This gave him some dirty looks, and then others just looked curiously. No one said anything to him, however. Just his physical strength and stature made him a bit intimidating to those who were not cultivators. Finally, though, he found himself at the gates with two guards staring him down. Each was standing in leather armor and helmets that covered their faces.

“What do you want?” One of them took charge and questioned Silas before looking at the hammer he dragged.

“My name is Silas Zhao. I am looking to speak with Elias Zhao.” Silas spoke confidently. He needed to deal with royal guards like these two. If he showed any doubt or hesitation, the guards would tell him to go away and that he had no business there.

The guards seem to miss a step at either Silas’s surname or who he was asking for. They hesitated only for a moment. “What business do you have with the advisor to the emperor?!” The one who took charge answered, demanding. They both seemed to tighten the grip on their halberds as if they were just looking to cut Silas down.

Silas sighed and slumped his shoulders. “He’s my father.”

If the guards didn’t hesitate a moment before, they did now. It took them a moment to recompose themselves before the lead guard called over another. This one didn’t hold a halberd. Instead, he had a simple straight sword on his hip. They exchanged hushed words for a moment, and the sword holder left hurriedly.

The head guard then looked to Silas, “we’re going to sort this out. If you aren’t who you say you are, we’re going to throw you in the cells underneath the castle.”

Silas nodded and lifted his hammer, leaning against the staff. Silas stood there patiently waiting, however, a smile on his face while he could feel the guards glaring at him. Secretly, though, he was sweating. He didn’t leave here on the best of terms, and it was quite possible his father would send him to the cells himself or have him run through.

It seemed to take forever, but the swordsman guard returned, and he exchanged words with the leader of the duo. Silas realized the other guard said nothing, just stood there and took queues from this man. Finally, the leader looked at Silas. “Fine, Master Zhao will see you. Follow him,” he gestured to the swordsman, who must be a runner for the guards, and they opened the gates.

A few moments later, Silas was through the gate, which closed quickly behind him, and he walked through the courtyard. The courtyards are still as lovely as ever, full of flowers and water fountains. It was a perfect spot for a small child to come and run around and play, not that he ever could. He remembered coming here as a small child before going to the Jade Mountains School. He was never allowed.

Guards lined the various walkways and entrances into the castle proper. Some of the wait staff gave Silas dirty looks as he dragged some mud and muck inside and dragged it along the shiny wood flooring of the inside. A pair of servants followed him with a broom and a mop to clean up the mess. Silas looked back once he realized.

“I’m sorry. Forgiveness, please,” Silas spoke to one of them, the one with the broom sweeping after him. He’d grunt a moment and lift the hammer, hoisting it on his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” The guard stopped and looked back at Silas, who had stopped a moment to speak with the house cleaner. He sounded like he was in a hurry and that he did not want to be escorting Silas. Silas bobbed his head and caught back up to the guard.

They led him through some turns and around some hallways. Everything was well decorated and beautiful, as one would expect from an emperor, not only an emperor, but the richest and oldest of all the kingdoms on the continent. Pyanza was also the largest and probably the only one that could really call itself an empire.

He was led to a large, black, simple door. A guard was standing next to it with a halberd standing at attention. “You’ll need to leave your hammer here with him. We can’t let you take it inside,” his initial tour guide told him.

The guard gently knocked on the office door and then waited for an older voice. “Come,” was all it said, and the guard who brought him here left to return to his position at the main gate.

Silas sighed and set the head of the hammer down on the ground, leaning the staff against the doorframe. “Take care of it,” was all Silas could say before he opened the door and walked inside his father’s office.

The office was dimly lit, and a large oak desk was in the middle. It only had a few small candles on either side of it and a fading fire in a corner behind the desk. At the desk, however, was an older man. He had slight wrinkles and graying short cropped hair. The man had dark, powerful eyes that focused on Silas. He wore black robes and a frown, looking at the figure who had just entered his office.

“Silas. Sit down, shut the door.” He didn’t ask, he commanded. Silas obeyed. Closing the door after he entered, he moved to one of the two dark red chairs in front of the desk.

“What brings you back here? I never thought I would see you again.” Elias didn’t sound like he was asking Silas a question, more that he found it curious that Silas bothered coming back to where he was born.

“I…” Silas paused and thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to say or how to tell his father what had happened.

“You what?” Elias prompted Silas, now staring at him expectantly. He wasn’t known to be a patient man. He even set down the pen he was holding. With the scrolls laid out in front of him, it was clear he was busy working before Silas had gotten here.

“You’re busy.” Silas frowned, looking around at all the paperwork. He shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake to come here. His palms started sweating a little as the nervousness grew.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

His father sighed and rubbed at his temples. “I am always busy, and you knew that before you came here. Now, what is it?” Again, he didn’t ask what Silas wanted. He demanded to know.

Silas looked up into his father’s eyes. “The village I lived in, at the base of the Jade mountains. It was attacked by….” Silas paused again. He wasn’t sure how to tell his father what had happened.

The pause again only caused Elias to sigh once more and clench his fist a moment before leaning back in his seat. “Well, you are….” Now it was Elias’s turn to pause. Silas could feel his father reaching out to sense Silas’s spirit and get a feel for him. “...or were a powerful cultivator. Now, look at you.” Elias frowned and clenched his fist once more.

“It was a demon or something,” he rushed to answer when Silas saw his father’s anger once more. “I don’t know what happened. That’s why I’ve come here. Everyone was gone when I woke up in the bay. I received a vision when I was leaving. There was some kind of demon with large wings, horns, and teeth.” Now dazed off, Silas remembered the terrifying creature that attacked and apparently stole everyone in Kyoto.

“Well, I am very sorry to hear about that, Silas. That sounds like a problem for the king of Okuhama, however. It does not sound like something for the advisor to the emperor of Pyanza to deal with. Why are you here?” Elias now stood to his feet, staring down at Silas.

Silas sat there looking up at Elias and began to sweat. “I need help. I’m looking for one of the old oracles. I think you spoke to her before, when I was young. She said something about how you sent her away and didn’t believe her when she gave you a warning when I was young.”

Elias still looked down at Silas. Elias was built much differently than Silas was. He was tall and thin and belonged to the Shaolin Temple, the snakes. He was actually the patriarch of the sect, and while no one outwardly said it, they were the ones really in charge of this Empire. Everyone knew the Emperor of Pyanza was a fool.

The royals were incestuous, and it was finally catching up with the gene pool. It wouldn’t be long before Elias probably ruled this Empire in name and practice. “You expect me to help you? You’re a shell of what you’re supposed to be. Running off and joining those idiots and then that god-forsaken School.” Elias shook his head and slumped into the chair.

“How well did people treat you when they discovered your last name? My name. You don’t deserve to call yourself a Zhao.”

Silas expected this. Silas left or was driven away from home when he was very young. His father had everything laid out for him, the best cultivation training he could have hoped for a position here in the castle when he was old enough. Silas could have done whatever he wanted for the Empire. Elias didn’t know what Silas knew, though. He couldn’t.

“You sent me away, sent me to a school. It’s not my fault that’s where I wound up. Everything that happened with me joining The Divine Body sect is because you sent me away from here.” Silas sniped back at his father, remembering the day Elias traded favors and secrets for his son, sending Silas away from his family and home.

Elias buckled and fell to his seat with a soft sigh. He was shaking his head into the palm of his hand. “Go to the Royal hotel down the street from the castle. Tell the innkeeper I told you. I will send someone if I find anything out.” Elias looked at Silas with hard eyes once more. “Now go, get out.”

Silas stood straight and looked down at his father, staring hard at him for a moment.

Elias didn’t wait any longer before jumping to his feet again, slamming his fists down on the table. “GET OUT!” He screamed in Silas’s face, the desk crackling and turning into fire kindling under the power of his blow. He began yelling obscenities now as he kept telling him to leave. “I HAVE NO SON!”

At the first yell and the minor explosion of the desk imploding, the door to the office opened. The guard stood ready with the halberd, grabbing Silas by the arm and dragging him out. Silas didn’t fight it. He was prepared to leave, anyway.

“Get someone in here to clean this mess up,” Elias spoke to the soldier as Silas grabbed his hammer. He hefted it onto his shoulder before Elias brushed past them, walking deeper into the castle.

Silas stayed a moment, watching him leave with a soft smirk. He was one of the most influential people in the realm, and he sent him away like an angry toddler. Guess it didn’t matter if Silas was a broken-down Sacred Artist. He could still do some good in the world. The guard pushed him from his mental victory and gave him a shove.

“You heard Master Zhao. Get out,” the guard commanded.

The guard held onto his shoulder, gripping it roughly, and escorted him from the manor the same way he had come. Once they reached the gates, the guards from before opening them, and Silas left without another word. The gate slamming shut behind him. He let his hammer fall to the ground once more. Silas looked up and down the street to see if he could find this Royal Hotel.

He might as well sleep in an actual bed and get a bath on his father’s dime if he was paying for it. He stopped someone and asked which way the hotel was. The person looked at Silas like he was an idiot, either for not knowing where a very obvious place was or because he was dragging his hammer behind him. Silas wasn’t sure, but either way, he got his directions and walked in the direction a passerby told him, dragging the hammer behind.

It didn’t take him long to get there. He stood across the street from the hotel and looked at it as the wagons and people pushed carts in each direction. The hotel was rather significant and pretty exquisite looking. It was a stone building with banners next to the large double door with the Empire’s crest on it. The crest was an old bear sitting back on its haunches wearing glasses and smoking a pipe. The Pyanza Empire wanted to be known as wise but ferocious, so Silas supposed it worked.

Once there was an opening, he crossed the road to the hotel and entered. If it looked well kept on the outside with its perfect shrubs, it looked immaculate on the inside. As nice, if not nicer, than the palace itself. It even had a small indoor fountain in the lobby area between the entrance and the front desk. Silas whistled to himself as he approached the counter.

"Hello, my name is Silas. Elias Zhao told me I could come get a room here," he spoke to the innkeeper at the counter and smiled when he was greeted and called over.

The guard smiled and nodded. "Yes, we received word just before you got here.” He then looked up at Silas, and the keeper’s eyes seemed soft. It was almost like the man was looking at Silas with pity in his eyes. The innkeeper then looked down at the note they sent him and wrote some things in a book next to it on the counter.

“If you’d like, you can have a bite to eat. Your room is right upstairs, room 201,” the worker told Silas, gesturing to the left. There’s a tavern with a full kitchen in the next room. There was a large opening. Silas could see some tables, wooden stools, and a bar on the same wall he was facing now. The tavern area was about half full, and some women served the patrons.

Silas nodded and thanked the man before walking towards the tavern, still dragging his hammer behind him until he heard a cough from the innkeeper. “Uh, sir. Would you mind lifting your hammer and putting it in your room before going there? We wouldn’t want the dirt dragging throughout the hotel and tavern.” The innkeeper smiled, looking at him apologetically.

Silas looked back when the man spoke and gave a simple nod. He used as small as possible of madra as he could use to activate his storage ring and send the hammer inside of it. Silas then continued into the tavern area with a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He sat at the bar counter and looked at the man behind it.

“Some ale, please, whatever you have and whatever the cook is making for dinner.” Silas smiled at the large bearded man, who was wiping down the bar and cleaning mugs.

“You got it,” he answered in a deep gruff voice, then set about getting the things together for Silas. It didn’t take long before a warmed mug of ale was sitting in front of him, and the barkeep left Silas to his thoughts. What if Elias sent him here and was paying for the room so that he would know where Silas was? So he could send someone to kill him? Elias knew Silas wasn’t powerful at the moment, and it’d be easy to get rid of him. Silas took a pull from the mug and thought. It was something Elias would do. Silas was sure of it. A few moments later, there was a delicious stew in front of him. As he tried to convince himself that he wouldn't kill him, he ate.

Silas ate the stew slowly. Elias looked defeated before he went into that fit of rage. What would he gain from killing Silas? Elias had other children, though they were all daughters. Would he kill his only son, even if he disavowed him? Either way, he decided he would stay at least the night here. It’d be nice to sleep in a proper bed, and he needed the rest and a bath.

He stayed in the tavern for a while, drinking ale and speaking to the locals about the area, seeing if they knew any of the oracles around the room. He discovered that there was one in town, close by, who actually had a small shop in the downtown area of the city where the caravan was set up. It was too late to go now, but she was there bright and early in the morning with her personal guard.

Finally, Silas resolved to stay. He was stubborn and sure that even in his weakened state that if they tried to kill him while he was sleeping, he’d be able to take care of himself. He finished eating, and night fell behind him in the windows. The workers lit fires on either side of the tavern, and Silas headed to his room. He carried himself up the stairs to his room, realizing how tired he truly was. Sleeping in that wagon and the dirt the past week in that caravan did not help him get the rest he desperately needed. He pulled the hammer from his ring once more with the tiniest bit of madra it would take and left it resting right against the bed.

The room was pleasant, with lovely oak walls and furniture, an oversized plush bed in the middle. There was even a separate room with a chamber pot and bath area off to the side. He had told the wait staff before he came upstairs, so they had it filled with warm water. He disrobed and climbed into the water slowly, trying to let the stress melt away as he tried to relax for a bit in the tub.

It didn’t take long before he gave up and just washed with the soap sitting there to use. He stayed in the bath awhile longer, scrubbing himself clean and washing away all the dirt he could before he climbed out. Once he was out, he stood there dripping wet and found a delicate towel to dry up with, then looked at the pile of his clothing and pack. The clothes would probably never be appropriately cleaned again, and they were more fit for burning than anything else.

Lifting the pack from the clothing, he went to bed and opened it. Finding some extra robes, he laid them out on a chair. The spare food he received was long gone on the journey, and since he only had one set of spare robes. He never changed into them because Silas didn’t want to soil both groups that he had. Finding some undergarments, he put them on and laid down, relaxing in bed. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

Down in the tavern, however, there were still patrons. One was sitting there the entire time Silas was eating his dinner and trying to drink his worries away. He was dressed in all black, was missing a shirt, though you could not tell, and wore a blindfold over his eyes, trapping some of his long black hair. He wore all black and was mostly ignored by the staff unless he spoke to them directly first.

He sat there leaning back in his seat, deep in thought. So deep it seemed he didn’t realize a new person who was not a waitstaff approached his table, “brother, what is going on?” They spoke, startling Kenji, who looked up at the being.

Kenji looked up to Misumi and gave her a smile before speaking in that cracked, worn voice, “well, well, if it isn’t one of my favorite siblings. Have a seat and tell your older brother what brings you to the mortal realm.” He gestured to the seat next to him.

Misumi sat and leaned back, folding their arms. “Minako is in my realm throwing fits of sadness, and according to her, it’s all our siblings’ fault this time.”

Kenji feigned a look of surprise. “My dear Misumi, whatever could I be doing to upset our most precious sister?”

Misumi pounded on the table. “Don’t play games with me, Kenji. I’m not one of your nightmares or whatever to play with. Tell me straight, what is going on?” Their voice sounded stern and not as delicate as normal.

Kenji dropped the look and frowned. “To be honest with you, I’m not sure. Genki is up to something, and I’m still trying