37 — CROUCHING TIGER & HIDDEN DRAGON
At Jamir, Shun emerged from the valley that housed the Cemetery to the stone bridge that would take him to the rock where the white stone temple of Mu stood. He crossed the bridge confident of himself with his Bronze Urn on his back; the boy remembered the stories he heard on the Isle of Andromeda. That Master Mu's skills were known in repairing Cloths was something almost every Saint of the World knew about. But he remembered his Master correcting an injustice, for he said that Mu was not a mere smith of the Sanctuary.
"Cloths has a life and a will of its own." said his Master. "And If that's true, then Mu is not just a blacksmith, but an extremely good healer. People seek Mu only to repair their Cloths, not realizing that she is, in fact, a fabulous healer."
In front of that white and dirty temple, Shun dared to wonder if she wouldn't know some way inside the universe that they were part of to return the sight to his friend Shiryu. And with that hope in his chest, he noticed with surprise that the temple had no entrance to its ground floor.
He saw from above, however, that a stone was rising, floating in the air impossibly, when he was startled by a child running from behind the temple towards him.
"Andromeda!" shouted the child's voice, hugging Shun immediately.
It was the little girl who had fought him. It was Black Andromeda. But there she was wearing a green shirt that was too big for her little body, shorts that fit her shins and big boots on her feet. She walked with difficulty, as clearly the clothes did not appear to be hers. On her forehead, she had two small, crooked marks.
"Oh, I'm so happy. You brought your armor. Can I see it, please, please, please? Oh, you don't remember me? I'm Lunara! We had an amazing fight in the valley, remember? I almost beat you."
"What are you doing here in this place?" he asked sincerely.
"Ah, Master Ikki brought me here! She said I could learn a lot of cool stuff in here. And she was right! I've even created my own Armor! Come, let me show you!"
She pulled Shun, but the Kiki boy teleported beside them.
"Hey, you brat, we receive visitors by throwing stones at them in here. You didn't let me finish my entrance!"
"Ah, Kiki, it's Andromeda. We are friends!"
"His name is Shun!" scolded Kiki.
"Oh, what a beautiful name!" marveled Lunara. "Was it Master Ikki who gave it to you?"
"No," Shun replied, embarrassed, but with a smile on his face.
"Oh, and how is Master Ikki?" asked Lunara, as she kept talking.
Kiki pushed her to the side so that he could face Shun.
"Forgive this pest, I still can't believe Master Mu let her stay here."
"Master Mu adores me!"
"She hates you!" accused Kiki.
"Take it easy, both of you." asked Shun. "Where is Master Mu?"
"Oh, Shun. Have you come to repair your Cloth? Unfortunately Master Mu is not here and will not be back anytime soon."
"I can fix it!" Lunara shouted absolutely excited, Shun laughed and Kiki ran after her, who had already gone inside the temple to get her tools.
"Calm down, Lunara." asked Shun. "My Cloth is fine. But I wanted to talk to Master Mu. Where did she go?" he asked.
"She went to China!" replied Lunara excitedly.
"Be quiet, he asked me!" scolded Kiki.
Shun was relieved a little, because maybe Mu already knew about Shiryu's condition and had gone personally to try to repair his friend's eyes.
"Well, in that case, I'm starving after the long trip. What will you have to eat?" Shun asked good-naturedly to the two.
"Oh, that's up to Kiki." said Lunara wearily.
"Now it's up with me, right? Your slacker! You don't do anything, you just mess everything up. And you better take off my shirt, I already told you a thousand times not to take it."
Shun followed the two into the temple, laughing at the children.
Shiryu gathered within herself the strength she needed to leave her Sacred Dragon Cloth with Dohko. It was a sad day, for all her life she had trained and her own identity was intimately linked to the hard path taken by her to become the Dragon Saint. And now she would have to leave all that behind.
Before she got in her house, however, a voice greeted her coming out of the door.
"Who are you?" she asked, as the voice held no memory.
"Come on, Shiryu, you cannot possibly have forgotten about me."
Shiryu noticed a strange sensation inside her, felt a slight movement in the air and instinctively defended herself from a punch, stepping aside.
"Look at that. Very well, Shiryu."
But she still couldn't remember that voice. She tried seeking the depths of her memory for whom that voice reminded her, since her eyes could never tell her sho that boy was. Then it finally dawned on her all at once. And that punch she avoided was the one that actually triggered the memory for her.
"Black Dragon?"
"You remembered." he said.
"You are the brother of the Black Dragon, aren't you?"
"Yes. But I'm no longer Black Dragon, Shiryu. You can call me by my name, Shinadekuro."
"Shinadekuro." Shiryu repeated, but then her guard dropped and she asked, serious. "Why are you here?"
"Well, I heard the Dragon Cloth is vacant. I came to try my luck."
There was a slight mockery in his voice and Shiryu felt ridiculed.
"I may not see it, but if I could, I'd say you look disappointed. After all, is the Dragon Cloth vacant or not?"
"No," Shiryu replied. "You will have to fight for it if you want."
"Very well." replied the boy excitedly.
"Not with me." turned Shiryu, heading to the entrance; Shunrei came to her aid by putting her arms around her. "The name of the person you must challenge is Dohko."
And she walked home leaving the boy there alone.
"Is that it then, Shiryu? Are you really going to give up?" Shinadekuro asked, now from behind her, as she guessed. "You don't look anything like that brave girl who faced us in the valley."
"I'm not that girl anymore." Shiryu said sadly.
"And what has changed?" he asked insistently.
Shiryu stopped and thought that maybe he didn't know the illness that was affecting her, after all he couldn't see anything either.
"If you say that what has changed you to become this coward is the fact that you are now blind, I will be very offended." he said again. "And before I beat this Dohko guy, I'll have to beat you here too."
She didn't say anything and gaped, although only Shunrei could clearly see what was going on.
"It was your unshakable will that gave my brother the opportunity to die with a smile on his face. Abandoning his bitterness even if for just a moment in his last breath. And for that I am eternally grateful to you." he said. "But if what's left of that warrior is what you've become…"
Shiryu felt humiliated. But a spark inside her, maybe pride, stopped her from the slow march to her house. She left Shunrei's arms.
"Shunrei." she asked. "Stand away."
"Shiryu, forget about it. Don't let him..."
"Shunrei." she interrupted. "Please. Step aside."
She felt her friend trembling, but she backed away until she was close to the doorframe. Shiryu turned to where she imagined Shinadekuro was; she put herself on her guard and took a deep breath.
She would fight.
"I'm here, Shiryu." he said, and Shiryu barely managed to dodge a punch to her left. "Not bad, but it could get better." said the boy.
He then delivered some blows towards Shiryu who, with difficulty, tried her best to get away, although the pain invaded her, as she didn't exactly have much practice.
"Remember, Shiryu." said Shinadekuro. "You cannot see. It's not a possibility. And that's what you need to get into your head. I know you are still trying to find any detail in your blindness that might guide you through the darkness. A figure, a shadow, anything. But that won't happen."
Shiryu was panting, listening to Shinadekuro's voice.
"Remember that you have other senses at your disposal. I know you're guided by the sound of my voice, but what happens if I shut up?"
And she was silent, but his voice wasn't the only guide she had. She could still hear his footsteps clearly and thus guide her body. She felt attacked; she didn't know exactly which sense warned her, but Shiryu defended herself from a kick.
"Very good, Shiryu." said the boy, and completed. "You have a much more formidable training than mine."
"Tell me, Shinadekuro, how can I improve my perception?"
She heard very softly his laugh of someone who finally may have seen a shadow of that will he has seen before. That was the Shiryu she remembered.
"Girl! Shunrei, is it not? Tell me. Do you have fish inside your house?" he asked a very strange question.
Well, they had.
Shinadekuro took a bucket of fish, a pestle and along with Shiryu they veered along a path to a stone bridge. The girl asked him countless of questions; how he knew where to walk, the direction, how he guided himself and everything Shinadekuro answered in the smallest details.
"Sight is but just one of our senses, Shiryu." he said. "And the perception of someone with all of them available is distributed among them, but it is very strongly anchored in the sight. Without our sight, however, our perception is evenly distributed among all the other senses. So powerful that we can feel that there is a wall in front of us, a tree, a person, by the attention we give to the other senses."
Shiryu listened very carefully.
"Especially you, Shiryu." he said.
"What do you mean, Shinadekuro?" asked the girl.
"You've spent years developing something beyond your five senses. Your Cosmo."
She then clearly remembered how, while not seeing anything, her glowing cosmos had guided her to somehow feel or see where Argol was to defeat him in battle.
"A trained warrior like you, a warrior with a deep knowledge of the cosmos like you. All you have to do is forget that you can see. Overcome your sight. And finally realize that your other senses are much sharper. Come."
They arrived at the destination Shinadekuro wanted; which was amazing, since he has never been in that region. But Shiryu felt a breeze in that place and realized that it was a very open place.
"Watch out, Shiryu. There is a huge drop ahead of you." Shinadekuro warned.
The girl marveled at the boy's ability to guess those things just by the resistance of the wind, the vacuum of air, the propagation of the echoes around. She heard that the boy seemed to smash the fish into the bucket with the pestle with strenght, reducing them to a paste with small pieces of fish. She mixed, mixed and called for the girl.
"Take off your clothes, Shiryu." he asked.
She hesitated. And he laughed.
So did she, because she remembered that he couldn't see anything as well.
She took off her clothes, getting naked.
And she felt the bucket with the fish reduced to a paste being thrown on her head.
"Spread it all over your body."
She froze for a moment, surprised but not quite. She was taken by the terrible smell of fish, mixed with strong herbs; she spread that folder all over her body not quite understanding what it was for, but trying to trust Shinadekuro.
"What does this means?"
"You'll know soon." said Shinadekuro. "Pay attention. Focus. Don't try to see. Feel."
Shiryu then clearly heard the pieces of fish running down her body, the swaying of trees in gusts of wind a little closer, but also a wind blowing far away, echoing trees; she guessed that that was how Shinadekuro knew they were facing a fall from a cliff. He then heard the singing of birds in the sky, as if a flock had migrated. But the chirping of birds approached.
One of them pecked her arm, taking a piece of the fish.
Finally she understood.
And on top of that rock, Shiryu spent terrible minutes trying to avoid all sorts of birds that advanced on her looking for a small piece of fish that was in her body. She was very fast, but so were the birds. She was not taken at once, as Shiryu's movement prevented them from flying all over her
"Don't use your cosmos all at once." Shinadekuro asked a little farther, guessing that Shiryu could obliterate those birds with a flicker of her fist. "Use it in every move you make. Have these birds look for food elsewhere."
And Shiryu dodged, parted, flicked, redirected birds from all sides. Using her arms, her hands, her neck, her legs.
At first with great difficulty, accumulating nips all over her body, but as she continued, more easily and quickly she could sense the arrival of a bird. Shinadekuro was right: all she had to do was match her cosmos with her movements. And listen. Not just hearing their squawks, but feeling them. The displacement of the wind with its small wings, the vacuum in the air that replaced its swoops.
When the last bird finally gave up on snapping the fish off her shoulder, Shiryu fell to her knees, panting.
"Very well, Shiryu!" celebrated Shinadekuro.
Nights in the mountains can be cold. And in the heart of a beautiful forest far from the summit of the Five Peaks, surrounded by wild bamboos, Dohko baked his dinner over a beautiful fire skewered with fish crossed; he sitting on a felled wild log. Before taking his first bite of the fish, however, the boy realizes that he was not alone that night.
"Who's there?"
He looked around and finally saw the small figure watching him in the darkness.
"Is it you, Master?" he asked.
The Old Master, with his cane and bamboo hat, walked into the firelight.
"What do you want here?" he asked sharply, turning his attention to his dinner.
The old man walked and sat down beside him.
"Dohko, you're fighting very well."
Between one bite and another, the boy tried to laugh, mocking.
"How many years have you waited to tell me that?" he added. "Why did you call me back, Master?"
"Well, Dohko. These old ears of mine keep hearing a lot about you."
Again Dohko laughed.
"And you called me to give me another lecture? I think I'm too old for this."
And it was the Old Master's turn to laugh.
"For what I hear now seems unbelievable. Tell me, Dohko, is it true that you now face the greatest criminals minds in the city? I hear you have a special outfit and everything."
"Your ears really are old." lied Dohko. "That's nonsense."
"I don't think it is, son." said the Master. "I remember very well that you saw with your own eyes the cruel fate of your parents. It couldn't be that different."
Dohko then stopped eating to look at the sky.
"I still wasn't worthy to have the Dragon Cloth." he wailed in the darkness.
"The force of vengeance can be powerful, but it can also be very treacherous." said the Master.
"What about the pain of being exiled?" he asked, looking at the Master in the darkness.
"Oh. This pain really is painful." said the Master. "That was one of the saddest days of my life."
"What a lie." Dohko disagreed, looking away in disgust. "You always liked Shiryu more."
"You're wrong again, because the one I always liked more is Shunrei."
Dohko looked at the old man and found him smiling.
"I called you here because you wanted a chance to wear the Dragon Cloth. So here's your chance."
"I don't believe you." said Dohko sharply. "Actually, you called me here so I could bring her back, didn't you? In the end this is still about Shiryu."
"And you're wrong again."
"Don't fool me, Master. I know what you want. She is blind. She shrank back like a wounded bird. I could feel her cosmos trembling as we fought." said Dohko. "But me and her made a promise. And I will have the Dragon Cloth as soon as I beat Shiryu and get my revenge for when we were kids. But the one next to Shunrei is not the Shiryu I once knew."
"And this one here next to me is still the same young Dohko."
The Old Master then got up to leave.
"Dohko." repeated the boy to himself. "When I got here, I asked you to give me a new name, as I would no longer want to be that child who had let his own parents die in front of him. Tell me, Master. Why Dohko?"
From his back, the boy could clearly hear how the Old Master laughed in a hoarse and unrestrained way. He took a deep breath for air and confessed into the night.
"I called you Dohko because you reminded me so much of what I was like when I was your age. And here before you again, I'm still frightened as it looks like I'm looking through the glass of a mirror." he said deeply, looking the boy in the eye again. "I gave you my own name."
The Old Master smiled and departed at last.
At dawn the next day, Shiryu was bathing under a huge waterfall.
It had been the first time she had been afraid. When she had been hit by Dohko's fist and nailed to the rock. She had lost her confidence. He was right. The result of the fight was defined even before it started. Since she had lost her sight, she had also lost an essential part of what it means to be a Saint. And she needed to get it back. It didn't matter losing or winning, it wasn't about that. It was about trying.
Late that day, she appeared before the Old Master who, as usual, watched over the unchanging falls of Rozan.
"You decided to fight Dohko." he guessed, with his aged voice.
She left the Bronze Dragon Urn beside the Master.
"Yes, Master." she answered. "If I really am worthy to wear the Sacred Dragon Cloth, I will come back for it."
The Master paused in a long silence, which Shiryu so well understood and faced throughout her years of training.
"Well, I suppose there is no doubt in your heart." he finally spoke. "And yet, you can't beat Dohko if you don't remember why you do it. Why you fight. If you don't understand this, you won't be able to summon the most powerful force in your cosmos."
And then he fell silent.
Shunrei was grinding herbs with a pestle at the foot of the entrance to her house, as if to alleviate her worry. She was preparing another tea, as she wanted to be sure that Shiryu would come back to her.
Shiryu mourned for Shunrei, but had finally understood that she had lost not only her sight, but her fighting spirit. Her cosmos. She had forgotten the reason she was fighting.
She found it in front of Dohko, who was already waiting for her.
"Dohko, I came to fulfill my promise and fight you. If you beat me, you will be the worthy Dragon Saint." Shiryu announced.
"Very well." he said only.
Shiryu clearly heard how the fabrics came loose from Dohko, and then pulled into a tight knot. She realized that the boy in front of her had blindfolded himself.
"This will make things fair." he announced. "Are you ready, Shiryu?"
"Whenever you want." she returned.
And they attacked each other.
Shiryu found Dohko's sharp claws a few times, feeling the blood trickle down her arm, but as she struggled, she was more aware of her former friend's movements. It didn't take long for the battle to become even between the two. Shiryu needed to jump back so that she could escape from what she assumed was a flying kick.
Behind her, she noticed the flow of water echoing off walls a little way off. She seemed to be approaching a fall. She needed to take care of herself.
"Are you still fighting the trees, Shiryu?" asked Dohko. "Because I've had to face terrible people all this time. It's quite different."
He advanced on Shiryu, who knew she could go no further than she had already walked away or she would fall into the river. She blocked Dohko's two claws, only to find herself trapped in an armlock that locked her defenseless.
Shiryu then did the unthinkable and swung her entire weight back, throwing herself on the cliff, taking Dohko with her.
Their bodies crashed against the face of the deep water, drifting forward into a brief waterfall, where they found themselves again in the low river they had trained so many times when they were children. Where Shunrei had hugged her and lost herself in the waters. The same place where Shiryu had felt fear for the first time.
She got up as soon as she touched the riverbank and turned, panting, trying to guess where Dohko was. Almost imperceptible, but to her very clear, she noticed the movement of the water fastened. She guessed it was Dohko, but he was quick and took her by the neck.
Shiryu felt herself being lifted until her feet were no longer touching the water; he had outgrown her, she reflected.
"You won't escape the tiger's clutches." said Dohko.
But the girl braced herself with her free arms on that tree trunk that looked like Dohko's arm, swung like a pendulum, and landed a knee in his elbow. He scolded in pain and dropped Shiryu, who fell into the water.
"Even if the tiger has a broken arm, you still have no chance of beating me, Shiryu."
"I'm not interested in beating you, Dohko." she said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'm not interested in winning. What I want is to rejoin with who I am."
"Bullshit, and what good will it do you if you lose?"
"Then Rozan will have a great Dragon Saint in you. And I will die knowing that I died for what I believe."
Her Cosmo then burned. She felt the water moving violently, guessing that, on the other side, her enemy was also covering himself with his powerful aura. It was the final clash. The river water diverted its flow where the cosmos of those two young warriors touched it; not only did it avoid their cosmos, but also rose from the river in turmoil.
Remember what you fight for, Shiryu remembered her Master's words. But much more than that, she remembered what Shunrei had done for her or how Shinadekuro had helped her find courage again. The blind warrior also reminded her of something even stronger. From her fight against the Black Dragon. Friendship. Love.
"Come, Shiryu!" yelled Dohko in front of her.
The cosmos finally raised the waters; Shiryu could see nothing, but she knew that her will had not only separated the flow of the river, but raised a Tiger and a Dragon to fight each other in that river.
"Try this Dohko, the Rising Dragon!"
"Great Tiger Hurricane!"
Shiryu remembered that terrible fist, a fist that had frightened her. The explosion in the water threw her back to the wall, where she soon found the stone floor in front of her, bleeding.
She heard her heart beat. Hitting again.
Her name was called from the margins. It was Shunrei's voice, worried about her.
Her beating heart brought her peace.
Shiryu got up and walked into the river; she searched the low bank and found her friend's injured body, which she took in her arms.
"Dohko." she called.
"Excellent, Shiryu." said the boy in a broken voice. "I lost."
"No," Shiryu interrupted. "If your arm wasn't broken, I wouldn't stand a chance."
"You're wrong again." said Dohko, impersonating the voice of the Old Master
Shiryu tried to smile with Dohko in her arms.
"No, Shiryu." he spoke again. "You won, because your strength comes from the reason you fight. You don't fight to get revenge or to be the strongest."
Dohko looked, for only he could look there, and saw that on the banks of the river were the Old Master, Shunrei and Shinadekuro.
"You place your incredible strength to fight for what you believe, for the people you love." said Dohko, pained. "You are worthy of wearing Dragon Cloth."
He coughed blood into the water and Shiryu held him tighter.
"Dohko." the two of them heard the Old Master's grave old voice in the water. "Now you understood. I have been waiting for this for so many years."
He also joined the river to be beside them.
"That's why I called you here." the Master finally confessed. "You are my apprentice again. And that's the last teaching I have for you two, my beloved disciples."
Shiryu experienced crying.
"Thank you master." said the two, one at a time.
And, in the middle of the river, Shiryu could not see, but within her darkness she saw the Old Master's aura splitting the stream of the river. But seeing might not be the best definition. Just as she hadn't actually seen Perseus in her battle, she couldn't see her Master's Cosmo either. But no doubt she felt it.
And she wouldn't want to be anywhere else in that moment that wasn't beside her Master and her old friend.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I told you not to forget Black Andromeda Lunara, she came back. =) And beyond that, I really wanted to explore the fact that Shiryu went blind, but faced a blind Dragon Saint in battle against the Black Saints. It would make perfect sense to bring him back to show her that all was not lost just because she couldn't see. The idea of calling Okko Dohko comes from the fact that the root of the two names is the same: tiger. It's a bit silly that they have different names, so I came up with this idea that Dohko gave him his own name. I think it's cool, hehe.
NEXT CHAPTER: THE POWER OF HATE
Shaina is filled with hatred and violence against Seiya, who finds himself hospitalized again when they are surprised by a Golden Cosmos.