Fear is jade. That was the very first lesson the little boy learned when he began his new life. The days and nights that passed in the lonely darkness of the wooden shed without company were those he enjoyed the most. They were those he dreaded the least. His four walls couldn’t hurt him- couldn’t hate him the same way as the lady in jade did. The ropes around his ankles and wrists burned his skin whenever he tried to wriggle free, but he hadn’t so much as tugged at them after the day he had arrived.

Back then, some thin veil of shock had held him above the murky depths of despair that he had come to know so well. In the wake of the world’s end, when thorns had come for him in his home and the valley had cracked like an egg, he awoke in captivity, roused from a long sleep by a woman he had never known.

“Where am I? Who are you?” he asked among a swathe of other questions. Every word seemed to pass straight through her. The green of her hair was much like the green of her dress, and even in the dimness of the shed they shimmered like gems. Her radiant face was strangely solemn.

“My name is Kiyoshi Yanami,” said the child. “What’s yours?”

“No,” was all she gave in response.

“That’s your name?”

“No. You are no one, just a body to be used,” she answered sincerely. He felt the softness of her skin as she took his hand in her own. It was so comfortably warm. Next came a feeling of sharpness as she pressed a long metal nail into his palm. The young boy cried out and tried with all his strength to retract his hand but the woman refused to relent, pushing harder until the metal point sank deep between the bones of his fingers.

In the following months Kiyoshi learned far more than any child could endure about the hardiness of the human body. Deaf to his cries for mercy, the lady in jade taught him diligently the many places that could be pierced without causing severe injury. He pleaded to know why he was being treated so terribly, but she spoke only with pain.

Each and every day in the dark was an agonising wait that was broken solely by sleep. If he wished to relieve himself, he did so where he sat. By then, he didn’t know how long it had been since he had last walked in the sunlight, or at all for that matter. It had to have been a year at least, though it was difficult to tell. Memories of the past were obscured by time and torment.

Her visits came less often after winter had passed. By the following autumn, anything more than twice a week was a rarity. Bringing enough food, water and medicine to keep him alive, she returned each time with a single nail that would find a bed within his flesh. The visits stopped completely during the spring. Kiyoshi could hardly believe his luck when the lady in jade had told him about her upcoming absence. A whole month alone, he repeated in his head for however long he was awake. His imaginary celebrations were premature, for the bowls of fruit and cooked meat he had been left with spoiled faster than he had thought. Their flavour had become sickly and sour. After a few days of avoiding the food, however, the gnawing pains of hunger numbed his taste buds. He slurped upon mottled strawberries and gorged himself on thin cuts of slimy, rancid meat.

Illness set in soon afterward. He wore his own waste above and beneath his filthy clothing, it permeated his skin and coated the nails still buried within. Still he ate. His body became weaker than he had ever felt before and with each coming day he knew that death was creeping upon his shoulders, yet it never came.

Slipping between states of semi-awareness and restless sleep, he often dreamt of the woman that had inflicted such a vile state of hell upon him. She haunted him like a spectre in the night, her emerald glare ever piercing the darkness. There had been a time when he couldn’t understand why she hated him so deeply. Now he no longer tried. His hatred left no room for curiosity.

The month of solitude came to a feverish end. Kiyoshi could hardly meet the woman in jade’s disdainful gaze as she examined his body and administered what he truly hoped was an elixir to grant him freedom in death.

“This medicine isn’t without its side effects, but it’ll keep you alive,” she told him.

Kiyoshi could only manage a single hoarse laugh. “Do you want me to thank you?”

“Not particularly. You’ve gotten yourself into quite the sorry state while I’ve been away. I won’t have you harming that which doesn’t belong to you.”

Kiyoshi’s only wish was to wrap his hands around her neck.

Summer arrived once more. The sweltering heat brought with it a host of flies that swarmed the nest of human filth coating the shed floor. Generations of maggots hatched, lived and died throughout the season, squirming and feasting in the putrid gloom. Maggots and flies were not his only company that summer, however. For the first time in years, Kiyoshi laid eyes upon another boy. The jade woman carried the sleeping child in her arms and bound him just as she had Kiyoshi before leaving without a word. Thin shafts of sunlight shone upon his bedraggled hair and bony face. Kiyoshi was almost certain the stranger was already dead until a high-pitched whine echoed upon the walls that shook him awake.

“He’s starving to death,” said the lady in jade, stooping over Kiyoshi. “I found him unconscious in the valley, probably a stray from the neighbouring town. Do you think he’ll live?”

“Doesn't matter to me.”

She waved a finger in his face, “It matters to you more than you might think. Your new friend needs food, and I'm running short on supplies. Do you see the problem?”

“Why did you bring him here then? Why not leave him outside?”

“Not… outside,” the newcomer blurted suddenly, “Townspeople… angry. But please, not here. Smell… bad smell.”

“Do you hear that? He’s on the run, probably an orphan turned thief, who will look after him if not you?” the jade woman asked.

Kiyoshi pulled a face, “How can I help him?” He felt her hand brush against his own.

“Like this,” she said softly, before running something sharp along the base of his thumb. The blade passed cleanly through the joint before any sound could leave his throat. She took his index finger next, followed by the remaining three digits of his right hand. When all five of his fingers were collected in her palm and Kiyoshi lay cradling his bleeding stumps, the jade lady glanced at the newcomer before rising to her feet. “I suppose I’d better cook them first. How do you think I should do it? Fry them? No, there’s hardly any meat on them. I could boil them though? How about making a broth? It’ll be gentle on his stomach.”

Kiyoshi glared through streaming eyes at his enemy. He wanted to rip and tear at her flesh, to sink his teeth into her throat and swallow the warm red liquid coursing within. Fear replaced that feeling when he witnessed the newcomer gulping down a broth made with his fingers. He clenched his jaw in disgust, something that became a habit in the following days as piece after piece was pruned from his body and fed to the foreign invader. Even as Kiyoshi starved, that stranger thrived upon his fingers and hands, his toes and his feet, ever complaining about the filthiness of their living conditions. It wasn’t long before the child’s mere presence filled him with anger. His skin was pitted with metal and burned with terrible sores. His stomach cramped as if someone had wrung it like a cloth. The miasma swamping the shed dizzied his mind. Everything, anything, all compounded in his chest until it could no longer bear the staggering pressure. Something broke within.

Lin fell to her knees. Grief weighed upon her entirety.

“Kiyoshi…” she sobbed, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for all of this, for all I’ve done. I didn’t know. I didn't…”

“How do you know that name?” Sio’s voice came from behind. Her words stuck like spines in Lin's ears. “I asked you a question. How do you-?”

“He told me it himself,” Lin replied. Her fingers traced the warped curvature of his claw.

“That boy is dead. He has been for years.”

Lin whirled with a fire in her eyes, “His name is Kiyoshi! I know what you did in Solace, I know about the living nightmare that you forced my brother to endure. Twelve years! For twelve years you kept him in a hovel, knee deep in his own filth!”

“Lin Ko- I-”

“I had a name too, once. That was before you stole it from me, like you did with so much else. Do you even know it? Do you know who we would have been without you?”

“Rin Yanami. That was your name before Shōren and I found you here. It was chaos that night, your older brother would have likely died if we'd left him here alone.”

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“You sick, psychopathic bitch. Do you honestly think that what you put him through was even remotely better?” Lin snarled and unslung the rifle from her back. Snapping open its breech, she thumbed a bullet and black powder into its chamber. “I should kill you for what you've done.”

Sio stared listlessly down the barrel of the gun as Lin poured priming powder into its flash pan. “We should talk before you do anything. Especially something as foolish as firing that weapon.”

“No, we shouldn’t. You won’t get the chance to spin your lies again,” Lin said with a tone as harsh as acid. She clutched her rifle so tightly that it trembled. “I’m going far away to start my own life. Even if I can’t be Rin Yanami, I can still be my own Lin Ko. I don't want your ‘gift’, and I don't want any part in your saviour's plan.”

“We both know things could never be that simple. You seem to have recovered a great deal of your memory in the time I’ve been away, so you should remember why it is that I did what I did.”

“To make a point, right? And for that, you had to torture my brother?” Lin challenged.

“Your childhood was spent fighting the spawn of Xia’an. The fiends filtering into Solace were drawn like insects to honey because of the demon I created, and they are the least of what our enemy is capable of. Some of these creatures can kill you with a thought, the part of them that exists within your own mind- the Ideas of Heaven. They attacked the shrine at Hema when I showed you the Storm’s Eye. You cannot run from this. My gift is protecting you for now, but it cannot halt the Ideas forever, not until its maturation is complete.”

“What does that even mean? How can blood mature?”

“All things born from Xia’an into this world must change in order to remain here. That is maturation. The demon that slaughtered the residents of Yangwa used the bodies of its victims in order to be reborn. You’ve seen the result.” Sio slowly raised a hand to her neck. Turning her head, she pointed at the base of her skull. “Hosts are created by mixing the blood of humans and Heavens, but the blood they receive is already matured. You… are different.”

A droplet of sweat rolled over Lin’s cheek. “What did you do to me?”

“Along with my blood, I implanted you with an immature fragment of the Second Heaven. Shōren entrusted it to me when we met in Yizhou. The Heavens exist across this world and the Xia’an Abyss. Partially here, partially there, but not complete in any one place, and only here do they begin to change.”

“But why?” Lin asked. “Why me?”

“My aspect of Heaven makes me a mere servant. Yours makes you a blank canvas, a source of infinite potential. It is shaped by everything you see and experience. With your upbringing, you are strong enough to survive this, but you cannot withstand the Ideas of Heaven. If you want to carry on living as you say, I need to suppress your memory.”

“Cloud my mind, and make me forget all that you’ve done? Not a chance. I never asked for any of this, certainly not to be poisoned with your blood.”

Sio narrowed her eyes. “My blood saved your life. One day it might save millions more.”

“An experiment. That’s all I am to you, the great Lady Sio, who tortures children to create the very enemy that she fights against.”

“You aren’t listening. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for our sake.”

“No, Sio. My only enemy is you.” Lin’s finger found the trigger. “And once you’re gone, I’ll finally be me.”

The woman in jade disappeared behind a flash of light and smoke. The bullet burst through the back of her hand and ripped messily through her cheek. Gunpowder lingered thickly in the air.

Lin staggered forward. Her breath was heavy, her heartbeat achingly fast. In a moment, the strength had left her hands, and now she could barely hold her rifle. Who was it that I fired at? she wondered, looking upon the weapon in disbelief. Who did I just shoot? As the hunched-over woman faced her with those emerald eyes, the answer to her questions became very clear. The dividing line that existed in her mind between the mother that had raised her and the monster that had warped her faded in an instant. Sio had never been anything other than herself. She was a host of Heaven, and there was nothing remotely human left in her heart. Lin loaded her rifle with another lead ball.

Sio started toward her. “So that’s what it was,” she said, her words garbled by the gaping hole in her cheek. “I see now that I’ve treated you too softly. Thank you, my daughter, for showing me where my weakness lies. I can afford you no further bias.”

Another shot rang out, yet Sio did not flinch. Smoke and shadow suspended the bullet inches ahead of her forehead. Lin swore, slinging the rifle across her back. She drew her sword and held it forwards. Sio looked upon the weapon with a visible bitterness, though she said nothing more. The time for talk had clearly passed.

Although her march was against a seemingly unarmed enemy, Lin couldn’t contain her feelings of anxiety. She knew all too well the devastation the host was capable of. Seeing her stand so calmly still was more warning than should have been necessary, but Lin pushed on regardless.

The rapid beat of her heart sounded in her ears. Heat wrapped her face like a mask. Her breath was fast and heavy. When the time came for her to strike, a deafening roar rushed from her chest that shook even her bones.

Sio evaded the first swing of Lin’s blade. The polished edge brushed past the woman’s emerald locks, trimming it of a few stray hairs. The second tore cloth, and on the third, Lin swung the sword intentionally wide. Her opponent didn’t take the bait. This isn’t going to end if I can’t commit myself to what needs to be done, she knew. It was my choice to end things. This is my fight. The thoughts fueled her convictions and gave strength to her strikes, but the longer they remained in her mind, the less convincing they seemed. Vines tore apart the ground at her feet. She hacked away at them with her sword, ensuring she never lost sight of her enemy. Thorns fell away like leaves at Lin’s touch. Sio could no longer hide the weariness in her face. A dark grey underlined her eyes, and still they appeared strong.

For each moment I spent with her, my every action was designed by her will. At this end, this bid for freedom that I've chosen, just how much was decided by someone other than myself? The circumstances that brought us together again, my very reason for being here…

Lin thrust herself forwards, cleaving through the space ahead of her.

How much of my choice was really my own?

Steel met with skin. The sword split the woman’s hand to its centre, but before Lin could pull it away, the blade became trapped. Sio wrapped her fingers around the bloodied metal. There was no hint of pain across her face as she prised it from the remains of her hand and remoulded the ruptured flesh with a swirling darkness. Lin leapt back instinctively and struck out with a spectral fist. Sio slashed through the conjuration, dispelling it effortlessly. A single thorny tendril crept from beneath the burning rubble and ensnared Lin’s leg. She inhaled sharply at the stabbing pains, and as she reached out to free herself, Sio swung the sword once more. Lin fell back onto her rear. Tears welled in her bulging eyes. She couldn’t contain her scream any longer.

The cut hadn’t been deep enough to completely sever her wrist. Blood ran like water from the wound; a steady red stream baptised the land she had claimed as her own. Her vision blurred and her head became dizzy, and when the bottom of Sio’s foot came soaring toward her face, there was little she could do to stop it.

What came afterward, Lin saw only through a veil of delirium. Strike after strike shook her body, rattled her mind, each time pushing her a step closer to the void. Every dull thud and crunch and crack and squelch marked another blow, another break, another crushed or mangled bone. The emerald glare behind those ruined fists had lost all sense of familiarity.

From the clouds of ash and smoke approached the sluggish shape of a man, lumbering slowly toward them. He threw himself into a heavy shove that knocked Sio onto her side. When she stood, her fingers trickled blood.

“I don’t need to threaten you, Kanamori, we’re equally aware of that. Tell me why you’re interfering.”

“Stop and look at what you’re doing. You’re killing her!” Kana accused, kneeling at the side of her battered body.

“Am I?” Sio asked dully. Retrieving the sword she had tossed to the ground, she thrust it into Lin's undamaged wrist. Something like a scream gurgled inside the girl's throat.

“She won't survive any more of this! You said you needed her!”

Sio stared at Kana, mulling over a reply. “What we need might never exist. Lin was a gamble from the beginning. Failure was always a possibility.”

“Failure is all you'll have if she dies here. Whatever you've done to her, whatever you've made of her, I doubt it's so easily replaceable.”

“She rejected our ideals. Creating another canvas isn’t so difficult.”

“If that's true, why haven’t you already done that? Why choose Lin over anyone else?”

“It wasn’t my choice to make.” Wiping the blood from her face with her forearm, Sio released a drawn-out breath. “You seem awfully concerned for a girl you tried to murder. Have you already fallen in love with my daughter?”

“Love?” Kana echoed. “She couldn’t hate me more.”

“Yet you cling to her so.”

“I care about her. I’ll even love her if it means she can live. If you kill her now, you'll lose two of your precious playthings.”

Sio’s red-stained mouth twisted into a joyless smile. “Then I leave her with you. Keep her safe long enough for her to fulfil her purpose. That is your seventh and final order.” The host presented her upturned palm, and upon it, her thickening blood converged to form a small, solid pill. Then, after fishing a brass pan primer from Lin’s ammunition pouch, she emptied the gunpowder from within and replaced it with the sanguine trickle from the deep split in her hand. “Grind a few drops of this with the crushed flowers of foxgloves or wisteria, and then feed her the mixture. Once a week should suffice.”

Kana shook his head, “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t need you to understand, I just need you to do as I say. Her life depends on it.” Placing the pan primer in Kana’s hand, Sio moved past him and leaned over her daughter, parting her lips. Lin gagged as the warm, jelly-like bolus rolled over her tongue. Bile rose from her stomach, though was pushed back down by some unknown force, and so the pill slithered down her throat unopposed. Her body seized painfully as it tried to reject what it had ingested, but Sio’s grip held firm. Sparkling lights danced across Lin’s vision. The colour faded from her eyes. She saw the evening sun upon her mother’s back, a shimmering gem risen from ruin, as she trod steadily along a path of fire and thorns.

Sio’s inferno died down at dawn. Lin woke with wounds bound in blue cloth. Wandering alone in the ashen valley, she sat herself upon a dew-kissed foothill, and when the day’s warmth rose with the soothing breeze, she allowed herself a quiet smile.