35 — A CHINESE TALE

The bright green grass of the Rozan peaks was especially beautiful at that time, the trees gnarled in their trunks with pretty leafy frames. The mighty waterfalls scattered across the mist-free rivers at that time of year. Serpentine smoke escaping from a small chimney of a pagoda erected in the middle of a distant peak.

And within, a deepest darkness.

The vibrant colors of the surrounding red privets and maples were lost in the doorway of a sliding door. The door ran and out came an old man very wrinkled, walking in difficulties with the help of a cane; his beard almost touching his knees was the only thing to see under a huge bamboo hat.

The house lost even more color when the old man left it. In the kitchen, a girl happily worked, whose voice was still the only color a very sick person could appreciate, sunk in her lost pit.

She heard, night after night, the voice of her friends calling her; her hands falter, groping the emptiness, stumbling over her mistakes and anguish to almost always wake up startled from a nightmare. Panting. Sad.

"Shiryu." said the voice. "Have you had another nightmare?"

It was Shunrei, the only color she could still see.

She didn't answered as she knew Shunrei was always worried about her sleepless nights.

"I need to change your bandages."

Inside, Shiryu felt very bad for her, because since returning home, Shunrei, very moved, sought knowledge in neighboring regions; she read guidebooks and antiques day after day looking for anything that might help her. But to no avail.

And there she was waking up for another day. Shiryu put her hands behind her neck and untied the carefully placed sashes Shunrei had made.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you."

She had eyes still, different from the Compassion bodhisattva in the story she told to Saori; but her eyes, if they couldn't see at all, certainly caused her a lot of discomfort, as they were still very sensitive after the surgical procedure. She was always under a lot of pain.

Deep down, she knew Shunrei was looking for a way to make her see again. It was not just alleviating her pain that she sought, but giving her back all the colors.

The pain she felt, really was something that Shunrei could ease and for that Shiryu was very grateful.

Even though she couldn't see anything, Shiryu couldn't explain it, but she was sure that, knowing that her dressings and herbs had worked, Shunrei was smiling. As if the air moved almost imperceptibly when the girl was excited.

"Today I'm going to the small lake of Luhua." she said. "They say that there are herbs growing in there that can help you."
"Shunrei..." Shiryu began. "I am very grateful to you. But…"
"Don't start this again, Shiryu." said her friend, moved.
"Not even the Old Master knows how it would be possible to cure my eyes. You know that too."

She heard Shunrei's breath falter. The wooden board creaked, and Shiryu knew this happened whenever her friend walked in and out of her room; she didn't left quickly, angry, but calmly, curled up. She came back, more firm.

"Don't give up!" she said. "Xiaoling and the others must be expecting some good news from you."

Shiryu remembered Xiaoling, who had brought her to her house; the whole trip talking nonsense, making her laugh, pulling her hand in the traffic and, at the last moment, also explaining with great pain what had happened to her to both Master and Shunrei.

"You can't give up just because it looks hard." said her friend at once.

She felt as Shunrei approached, she put her hand on her hand that rested on the bed and brought it close to a warm mug.

"Come on, drink this, 'cause I guess you'll be less annoying for the rest of the day."

Shiryu tried to smile and felt the air shift with Shunrei's smile. Her fingers, however, groped and faltered in her grip on the mug, which fell from her hands and rolled, wetting the sheets, and finally shattered on the floor into many pieces. All of this Shiryu could only guess by the noises of the mug rolling, the water absorbed by the fabric, and then the sharp noise of the porcelain as it cracked and dried.

Shunrei said nothing, but Shiryu clearly noticed how she had been holding her breath.

She felt terrible. Sad, and her hair hid her useless eyes.

She couldn't hold a cup. She couldn't go outside, or she would fall into the river. She couldn't help herself. She couldn't even get out of bed.

She was lying to herself, but that was how she felt right then.

She couldn't pick up the pieces of her life.

Days passed and Shunrei's good mood invaded Shiryu's darkness and made her laugh every other day. The Old Master, however, as Shiryu realized, had barely left his vigil under the waterfall. Day and night after night, he was there motionless before the waterfalls like a stone. Sometimes Shunrei thought he did that kind of thing just to give life to the stories they tell about the Five Old Peaks. She took him for a stubborn old-man whenever she could and part of Shiryu's laughter was when Shunrei scolded the old man.

But she also always left a hot pot of rice and fresh vegetables beside him on the stone, which he picked up at nightfall, always empty. Since Shiryu had returned with the terrible news that she could no longer see, the Master had said little and now seemed to hide in that meaningless vigil.

"I don't understand." Shunrei said one night. "You need help and the Master spends day after day looking at that waterfall."
"I know the Master suffers." Shiryu said. "I'm sure he's looking inside of him for a way to help me too."
"I don't understand any of this." Shunrei said, placing a bamboo pot in front of Shiryu, who was overcomed by a huge hunger when smelling the delicious aroma of that rice.
"Shunrei, your food is even more delicious." she said.
"What Shiryu, do you mean my food is ugly?"
"No!" she corrected herself at once. "That's not what I meant."

And she felt like her friend gave a pretty smile that she couldn't see.

Together they dined. Shunrei, like her, had also been abandoned in the mountain region when she was still very young and the Master took her in his little retreat. Just as he had done to other children over the course of his long life, as the two of them later learned. Many of them grew up and then moved around the world, he said.

In recent years, however, his wakefulness and his old age seemed to have worsened, so Shiryu was actually the last child he harbored in that secluded retreat. Shunrei was barely older than her, and there she was when her future friend appeared. They helped each other in whatever they could and when teenage came into her life, Shiryu was very lucky because Shunrei was there to help her. Shunrei had to deal with the ancient knowledge of the desperate old Master, poor girl.

Dinner was really great, but empty, without the sweet, good-natured presence of the Master. By that time, Shiryu was already taking her plate and taking it to the kitchen sink; a simple task that, for her, took an enormity. The first time she didn't break the china was of great joy for Shunrei. And for her too.

One hot afternoon, Shunrei took Shiryu by the arms to a very beautiful low river where they used to go swimming when the weather was nice. As it was that day. The noise of leaves dancing in the trees, the birds and animals in the darkness were even more vivid for Shiryu, who discovered details that perhaps she had never noticed before. How rich the music of those peaks was.

She kicked off her shoes and sat barefoot on a rock in a river that, she remembered well, was crystal clear so that she could see all the fish that swam upstream at certain times of the year. The water was refreshing.

"Look away." Shunrei said to her, when she immediately realized the mistake. "Ah, Shiryu… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
"It's all right," Shunrei. Shiryu smiled. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

Shunrei threw water at her friend, nagging against that childish joke, and while doing so, she got undressed. Shiryu could see nothing, but she knew, as it was always like that. And her scented clothes along with a fuzzy towel, she left beside Shiryu before jumping into the water. And she jumped from there to here.

"The water is great, Shiryu!"
"Be careful, Shunrei." warned her friend.
"You should get in a little bit." she said.
"Oh, Shunrei, you're going to get me wet, aren't you?" she guessed.

And, indeed, Shunrei came out of the river and hugged Shiryu, leaving her all wet, under protests and smiles. They missed each other so much.

"It's going to be okay, Shiryu."

Shiryu thought it would be. She felt the kiss on her cheek from Shunrei before the girl broke the embrace and jumped back into the river. She was cold, Shiryu guessed, hearing the girl shiver slightly before the water spread with her dip.

"Don't you want to go out?"
"Just a little more." she said, pulling away to swim in the river.

Sitting, Shiryu reached with her hands at her side to prepare the towel for Shunrei, when she felt in her feet submerged in the water, some leaves tangled in her heel. She didn't care so much and placed the towel over her lap. A branch then tangled itself between her fingers and Shiryu put her hand in the water to get it out. The current seemed strong.

And then she realized that she could no longer hear her friend's dips and games.

"Shunrei?" called Shiryu. "Shunrei!?" She called again now more concerned.

She was silent to seek in the darkness of her eyes for any sign of Shunrei's voice, her plays, or any disturbance in the water.

"Shunrei, I hope this is not one of your pranks!" Shiryu was already worried.

She stood up taking her feet out of the river, calling out to her friend at the top of her lungs. Bravely, Shiryu entered the water and walked along that stretch of river that hit her thigh high; her hands sought out Shunrei, in the vain hope that she was playing with her to get her into the river. She already hated the prank.

Then she heard someone diving into the river with a great flurry; Shiryu turned to the direction she had heard and again called for Shunrei. No one answered her, but she listened attentively that just as someone had dived, someone had come out of the river and was walking towards her.

Shiryu turned to the shore and, groping with her arms, also managed to get out of the water.

"Don't worry about Shunrei." said a young voice, but with grimaces very familiar to Shiryu. "She's just unconscious, but she'll be fine."
"Dohko?" asked Shiryu. "Is that you, Dohko?"

The boy didn't answered and Shiryu guessed, by the steps and the weight, that he had left Shunrei lying on some nearby slope.

"Yes," he said again. His voice was young, but much more mature than the child's voice he had in the past.

Dohko was an old rival of Shiryu from her childhood days, also trained by the Old Master.

"What brings you back?" Shiryu asked, remembering his unfortunate departure circumstances, but then realized that she needed to thank him first. "No, forgive me. I need to thank you for saving Shunrei, Dohko."
"There's no need to thank me, Shiryu."

Shiryu felt then a malice in that voice she knew so well, although now it had more hardened contours. Clearly, in her darkness, Shiryu noticed that in front of her Dohko ascended a strong and hard cosmos. She put herself on her guard.

"There's a rumor going around that the Sacred Dragon Cloth is vacant." he said menacingly. "Well, I came to have what was to be mine. Have you forgotten your promise, Shiryu?"

She put herself on guard and stared into the void ahead of her.

"If you're not going to attack me, I'll start, as usual!" said the boy's voice.

Shiryu clearly heard that his cosmos cracked some stones around him; all she could do was put her arms out in front of her before being swept away by a gigantic gust of wind to slam hard against a wall behind her. The pressure of Dohko's cosmos, which Shiryu could not guess how it manifested, pressed her into the stone.

She thought it was the first time she felt fear.

"Stop this!" she heard Shunrei's voice cry. "Stop it! She can't see!"

Inside herself, Shiryu felt angry, but she couldn't even ask Shunrei not to say anything. She felt how Dohko's cosmos softened, causing her body to leave the bottom of that rock to fall to the ground; inside her mouth, the metallic taste of blood.

"What did you say?" asked Dohko.

Shunrei ran to Shiryu, hugged her to the ground and tried to wipe her blood from her mouth. Shiryu heard Dohko's footsteps come to her.

"Shiryu. Her eyes…"
"No," protested Shiryu. "It doesn't matter. Why did you stop, Dohko? It's not finished yet!" she said. "Don't you feel sorry for me!"
"You're wrong." said Dohko. "You are not the Shiryu I once knew."

Seized with revolt, Shiryu wanted to erase that from her chest; if her eyes could see nothing, her heart could feel everything.

"Your Cosmo started shaking even before we started fighting. You lost your fighting spirit." said Dohko. "We don't need to go on, as we already know how it will end."

And he clearly heard Dohko turn to leave.

"No, Dohko! Wait!" asked Shiryu, in vain. "Don't go, Dohko! Don't you dare feel sorry for me."
"Stop it, Shiryu. Please stop." Shunrei asked in her ear.

But she didn't even need to ask, as Shiryu was unable to get up. And she wouldn't be able to find Dohko if she could.

She wept, defeated.

With the sun above their heads on a very similar afternoon, Dohko and Shiryu were at the edge of that same river. The boy punched stones left and right, destroying them with some ease and inviting Shiryu to do the same, as if he provoked her.

"It's a piece of cake!" said the boy. "Come and try, Shiryu!"
"Right. Now it's my turn." replied the excited girl.

The touch of a cane on the stone, however, caught the attention of the young kids.

"Stop you two." said the hoarse voice of an old man. "Don't do this."
"Master?" Shiryu got scared, immediately stopping what she was doing.
"We just want to test our strength. I can't believe we can't even do this as well."
"Why, but we don't need our fists to break the stones. You can use a chisel or even a hammer…" the Dohko boy immediately lost his temper.
"Oh, here comes another one of your sermons." complained the boy, getting in the river to cool off.

He drank from the fresh water and then kicked the river flowing, bored. The Old Master let out his thoughtful hoarseness before speaking again.

"If you want a challenge so bad, young Dohko, why don't you try to divert the course of the river with your fist?"

The boy looked at the old man, confused but excited.

"It is impossible to divert the river's course, Master." said the girl beside her Master.
"Impossible, is it?" sneered Dohko, looking at the waters that flowed below him. "Well, look at this."

Dohko walked full of himself to the middle of the river, in a shallow but strong current.

He looked at the clear waters around him and punched with the force of one who could destroy stones; the water squirted, but its course was unchanged. Shaken, but not for an instant out of its flow. The water spread out and soaked it all over him. From the bank, Dohko heard the old man burst out laughing.

"That was just hitting the water." said the aged voice.

Dohko bared his teeth and tried four more times, each time with the same result, getting more and more wet. The old man then looked at Shiryu with a smile on his face.

"We've already managed to get him to bathe for the week." he said, and then he offered the girl his cane. "Shiryu, Dohko's fist can destroy the rock, but it can do nothing against the course of the river."

The old man got in the river; he has the same height as his disciples, already aged and shrunken by the years, and went to stand beside the drenched Dohko.

"It's impossible to do that." said the boy, looking at his strong fists.

The Old Master passed him and went to a point on the river where the two of them could see him clearly. Dohko and Shiryu saw how a solar aura enveloped the Old Master's aged body; he lifted one of his outstretched hands and simply placed it near the surface of the water in front of him. The water simply began to avoid a small area formed by his hand, so the river's flow slowly deviated from it.

To such an extent that the Old Master bent down, sinking his hand into the rock at the bottom of the river, and the current simply avoided him completely, forming a gap in the middle of the water. Dohko and Shiryu looked surprised and amazed.

"There's a hole in the river." Shiryu commented.
"Shiryu. Dohko." called the Old Master. "Don't be too proud of the strength of your fists. You still need to find out where your true strength lies."

And then his aura went out and the river returned to its normal current.

"You still have a long way to go." he said, laughing in the middle of the river.

Another day dawned in the mountains and Shiryu didn't even wait to change the night's bandages; a sleepless night, as she couldn't close her eyes for a second. At the end, it didn't matter whether she left them open or closed. All she remembered, seeing no color at all, was Dohko's pity on her. It was forgetting who she was.

So in the morning Shiryu thanked Shunrei for her concern and marched resolutely out of the house.

"Wait, Shiryu. Where are you going?" asked her friend, holding her before leaving.
"Shunrei. You do everything for me, but I can't even protect you from anything." she whined.
"It doesn't matter, don't think about this." asked Shunrei.
"It's not just that." she continued. "Dohko was able to feel what I was most afraid of. It's a shame living like this."
"Don't say that, Shiryu. I beg of you." Shunrei asked, hugging her from behind. "Forget the fights. Forget all of that and have a quiet life like other people. I'm sure Xiaoling and the others will understand if your eyes never heal. I will be your eyes. Forever. Please Shiryu."

Shunrei asked in a heartfelt way, and even though she couldn't see, Shiryu helt her tears on her neck. But in her mind, Dohko's harsh voice spoke repeatedly. You are not the Shiryu I knew. She wasn't the same anymore. She had a cosmos that trembled.

Dohko was right.

Shiryu broke away from Shunrei's embrace and, alone, stumbling and groping in the air, walked decided on a path, from which she knew every inch, as far as she knew her old Master was.

"Old Master." She said without seeing him, but with the absolute certainty that he was there, because she could always feel him.

At first, only the waters were heard in that huge waterfall. But then he spoke.

"I'm here, Shiryu." His voice was very deep and extremely hoarse, as if he hadn't said a word for a long time.
"Dohko has returned." she said.

She heard her Master's heavy breathing, but he said nothing more.

"He challenged me for the Dragon Cloth." Shiryu continued. "And I believe his challenge is fair."
"Then it's done. Give him the Cloth." said her Master very seriously, and those words tore at her chest with sadness.

She gaped at him, swallowed her words and stumbled back to the pagoda where Shunrei was waiting for her in the doorway.

"Shiryu." She began when she saw that her friend arrived very sad. "You have a visit."

Shiryu stopped before entering her house, thinking that there was the end of her destiny as an Athena Saint.

In a grove of tall trees, Shiryu practiced her punches and kicks against very thick trunks; she jumped from branch to branch and tested her strength against nature. Two trees trembled so badly with her strength that they fell farther away.

"Awesome."

Shiryu looked back and saw that Dohko was watching her training against a tree with a lollipop in his mouth.

"Are you training under the Master's guidance?" he asked. "Aren't you good enough already?"
"The Master has warned you many times, Dohko." she said, coming closer. "You went to town again to make a mess, right?"
"It's so much better than standing here punching and kicking trees." said the boy. "Remember, Shiryu: Trees don't fight back."

Shiryu took a deep breath, tired of how much the boy got into trouble and turned to continue training. The boy then spat the lollipop onto the grass and approached her.

"Let me show you how strong I am. Come on, Shiryu!"

But the girl didn't even get into battle stance and said calmly.

"We cannot fight without the Old Master's permission." The boy rebelled.
"But again with all this!? Always this story, Shiryu! He's not even here! We can do what we want." and then put his finger to Shiryu's nose. "Or may be you are just afraid of me?"

Shiryu then took that finger and, lightly, bent it so that he moved away. That further increased Dohko's scolding with her and, with agility, the boy hit Shiryu twice in the face, left, right, and turned a powerful kick that stopped inches from the girl's nose. He held the kick in the air, showing tremendous balance.

"Are you done?" Shiryu asked with a trickle of blood running from her nose.

Dohko then retracted his leg, annoyed.

"You are so annoying!" he said and left.

They met again late that day, in front of the waterfall and the Old Master. Shiryu had never seen her old Master so angry; his voice, which was deep and sometimes husky from years of life, was now firm and angry with Dohko. Over and over again he had been warned to avoid causing trouble in the town, but time passed and the boy would go down and beat up boys his own age and even older ones.

Dohko would never imagine what would happen. Until it happened.

"What do you mean, I'm banned from the training?!" he asked, disgusted, to the old Old Master. "Why?"
"You should ask yourself." said the Master with his back to them both.
"Did you tell on me, rat?" scolded Dohko to Shiryu.
"Shiryu said nothing about you." said the Master, taking the floor. "Because everyone in the town already knows you very well. The only one who doesn't know who you are is yourself."
"Well, I'm going to go down and beat up all those kids who keep telling me off!"
"Silence!" asked the Old Master.
"Then why? Do you think Shiryu is better than me? That can't be. She always loses to me! said Dohko.
"You may be stronger than Shiryu, but that's not enough!"

Dohko was trying to understand why.

"No matter how hard you train, you won't be able to use Dragon Cloth." said the Old Master mysteriously.

The boy rebelled and, as if speaking against a stone wall, called the old man names, cursed, accused Shiryu and the old man himself before leaving that place running in deep revolt.

Far away, on the steps that led to a large wooden bridge to leave the monastery territory, Shiryu caught up with the boy and stood in front of him. She saw the tears that he had cried from his eyes as he descended the mountain.

"Dohko."
"I'll be back, Shiryu. One day I will come back. And on that day I will challenge you for the Dragon Cloth!"
"I'll be waiting for you." she promised.
"It's a promise. A promise between two warriors." swore Dohko.
"No. Between two friends." she corrected.
"I will not forget!"

And crying, he left Shiryu in the mountains for a lifetime that would open up before him.

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I love Shiryu x Okko in the original animation and I wanted to bring this test of courage to my story. I called Okko as Dohko and the next chapter will explain why. =)

NEXT CHAPTER: THE HEART OF ATHENA

Saori shares with Mayura and her friends her mysterious encounter at the Sanctuary. She also wants to know from Mayura how she found her so many years ago.