Born a Monster

By the time Shi Xinyi landed atop the Rice Gate, we had our own problems.

“Damn those archers!” Meng Wa shouted, crouching behind the crenelations.

“If we had a bow...”

“I have a bow right over there!” she shouted.

Well, I mean... how much skill did it take to loose an enchanted arrow? I waited until a volley fell around us, and sprinted toward it.

No, my powers weren’t back yet. I don’t mean I activated Fleet of Foot; I mean I pumped my legs with all the effort and speed I could muster, burning through a fatigue meter I couldn’t view.

I mean, really, I’d almost rather have my broken System than no System and a legendary weapon. But really, what weapon of legend would have me?

But the bow hero I was not, even if I found the monstrous thing ( a daikyu, meant for adult males) easy enough to string.

.....

I mean, the arrow probably knew better than I did.

The arrow knew better than I did, I should trust the arrow.

I called Shadow mana forth from my soul to my eyes, but it did not help me pierce the night. Of course, it wouldn’t. I couldn’t very well use Mystic Vision without my System, could I?

But within what sight I could use... the arrow glowed brighter at some points than other. Left to right, then up to down. I moved it until the arrow radiated brightest.

I say this calmly now, but I assure you the process was less than a breath, counting the draw and the release. And then, like a coward, I hid behind the crenelations.

I know the arrow hit, because the mana drain did physical damage to my body, blinded my right eye for a minute or so. Kismet had managed that once, with a roundhouse blow.

Even that hadn’t resulted in me coughing up blood.

The vision of my good eye swam, and I lost my mental grip on the Mystic Vision. Have you ever wanted to stand atop a wall with history, to see all the deaths that ever occurred there? Perhaps, to have the dying people, who turned their heads to look at nothing throughout the decades, to have them turn their heads and look instead into your eyes? To watch them plead silently to you just to GRAB THEM, as they slipped forever from the mortal coil.

Oh laughing gods! If only I could have saved even one of them... would I have done it? Could I have gotten beyond the look in their eyes that I was something LESS just because I wasn’t human? I have stood the wrath of fire, but that sheer level of hate...

I’m not certain. I’m not certain I would have tried; I’m not certain I could survive the wave of rejection they would raise instinctively against me. I just ... I will never know, and I was actually glad not to have the power to pierce that veil between the living and the dead. Glad to be caught in the time people agree is the NOW, and not to be able to move through it.

But the Shadow had one more immediate thing for me before it returned me to the rest of my cost at having invoked such magics.

“Gods of vengeance,” a female voice called. I shouldn’t have been able to hear it. Not over the other sounds of battle. The horns, the arrows, the curses – all of it together is very loud. And yet, I heard these words, this curse plainly.

“Gods of vengeance, I know not your names, and you do not know me. I am Uzomi Chisato, pearl diver and lifelong friend to Yabuto Juro, who is struck down by this cursed arrow in his face. Aid me, and I swear I will serve you, your sting of death. Just let me strike down the fiend who made this. The rest of my life, vengeful gods, I swear it!”

I reached out with... well, with parts of me that have no limbs to go with them.

“Or you could just stand up, take an arrow to the face now.” The spirit replied. “Save so much time and effort...”

“What, I look like a surgeon? I’m an angel of vengeance, I can only guarantee it’ll hit you in the face. And live or die, this cycle of vengeance will be over.”

“Sixteen... Ugh, what did you SWEAR to? Look, whatever. Just stand up between the crenelations.”

It gave an emotional shrug. “Makes no difference to me. Okay, let’s DO THIS! FULL CYCLE VENGEANCE NIGHT!! YEHAH!! WOOOoooo...”

I scrabbled over to where Meng Wa was, unstrung the bow, and laid it at her feet.

“What did you DO!? They’re pelting us with EVEN MORE arrows! This is YOUR fault. I hope YOU get hit in the face with an arrow, just like Tang Ning was!”

As a coincidence, that was when the whooping spirit yelled at me.

I tried to make it look natural, standing to take a look at incoming fire, but I think I flinched just before Tang Ning’s Vengeance returned to me.

I can’t swear I’ve never been in greater pain, but taking an arrow up the nostril left me shrieking. Even if I’d had my vocal cords, I don’t know that I could have made intelligible sounds just then. I lay there, thrashed, and tugged softly on the arrow so as not to dislodge the head inside me.

Meng Wa turned her face to the sky, to a particular constellation with no cultural value to me. “Song zi Guan Yin, Songzi Niangniang, any other goddess of fate, if you are looking upon me on this moment, please affect me with any misfortune necessary to ensure that my child grows into a strong and loyal warrior, like his father. Any favors I have earned with the fates, I bequeath unto him at the moment of his birth. Please, hear and honor this plea! Incense always at whatever hearth I keep, I swear it!”

Sure, sure. I was fine. I HAVE AN ARROW INSIDE MY HEAD, BITCH! I wanted to scream at her. But the moon reached a thin spot in the cloud at that moment, bathing her with pearlescent light. Yes, in the Daurian mythos, the moon is usually in the charge of a male god.

I whimpered and kicked and screamed and SOMEHOW got that wicked little bit of magic out of my face before I ...

...didn’t pass out?...

And if I hadn’t, why was it suddenly daylight?

“Because I wish it, of course.” Sobek said. He walked upright, sun disk on his forehead, ankh in one hand and staff in the other, bedecked in chains of gold and silver. “Salatis told me to watch you tonight, and I almost told him where to stuff it. I am so glad I didn’t.”

Was I being reprimanded, or complimented? At least when he was screaming and threatening to bite my head off, I knew where I stood with the vengeful god.

“Many, in your position, would not have asked about the soul of their... their... what is that mortal’s name?”

“Chisato?” I asked.

“Ah, yes. Uzomi Chisato. Most people, in your position, would have whined about promises of vengeance and blood and sacrifice, just don’t hurt THEM. Why didn’t you?”

“First, I honestly didn’t think after this many months, you were in a forgiving mood.”

He chuckled. “Indeed, I am not forgiveness. I am vengeance, specifically upon those who abuse their powers. It is a pity that you are unconscious; the fighting this night in that place... that one arrow could have seen so much more, become so much more. But, there is what we want and what petty things mortals can do.”

“So, you are... happy?”

He whipped his head around to the left to look at me over his right shoulder.

GODS! Was THAT what it looked like when I did it? No wonder it creeped people out.

“I am less angry, and less likely to kill you out of hand. I’ve not forgotten that YOU OWE ME A SHRINE. A shrine which, I remind you again, that you have yet to deliver upon. And worshippers, also pending delivery.”

He tapped my chest with a single claw, and it penetrated scales and skin with ease. “I am a god of justice, but not of patience. This is my command to you: deliver what you owe.”

His lips pulled back, exposing his teeth. “SOON.”

I am told that I clutched that arrow in a death-grip, even as they realized I wasn’t bleeding as profusely as I should, and shunted me off to a waiting room until after dawn.