AN: This chapter should have been out months ago. Unfortunately I got a little too nit picky on how it was going and rewrote it about twelve times. I was at the point where I needed a break and posted All that Glistens ahead of schedule and went so far as to write notes for a fluffy family AU where Yang and Weiss are raising their biological daughter, Neo. I'm on the fence about going through with it, but the notes exist so who knows? Anyone who has any thoughts on that feel free to share. Quick PSA before I leave you to the chapter.
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Lie Ren, a young shinshoku of Shi, panted heavily as he leaned against the statue of his goddess. He was newly trained in the rites of worship at the shrine by his parents, intending to take his father's place as the head priest of the shrine. The matching pair of kodachi clutched tightly in his fists were red with blood. The faint drip of the life giving liquid dropping to the rough stones of the small courtyard echoing in his ears. Being newly ordained, he had performed his first funeral service that morning, and now tonight he had taken three lives. The bodies were splayed out before him on the ground. Two were curled into a ball a short distance away after he'd disemboweled them. One was at his feet, a pair of long, deep slashes ran across his chest from shoulder to hip.
I know this isn't what you wanted of me, Lady Shi. He thought, as tears trickled down his face mingling with the blood that had spattered onto him.
He could feel it soaking into his green and white kimono making it stick to his skin, its copper scent invading his nostrils. A fourth and last was a red haired samurai wearing a black kimono and a mask of Hachiman, leaning against the small gate of the shrine still barely clinging to life; just as the priest wanted him. This last assailant had opened his mother's throat with a broken katana, the blade snapped two feet from the hilt, as Ren returned to the shrine with his family's supper.
"For a priest...you sure fought like a Grimm. H-How did it feel boy, those blades cutting through us?" The man wheezed, his hands pressed to his abdomen trying to slow the draining of his blood.
Lie Ren pushed himself away from Shi's shrine and slowly walked over to the dying man. The weight of the short blades felt heavy in his hands, almost dragging along the stonework of the courtyard as he tottered toward the assailant. "Why?! What was to be gained by doing all of this?!" The green and white robed man spat as he reached out and tore the mask of Hachiman from his face, casting it over his shoulder.
"To send a message. T-That the gods don't deserve our worship or their power." He chuckled, a faint spray of blood filled the air as the chuckle turning into a wheezing cough.
The shinshoku struck the assailant across the side of the head with the pommel of one of the kodachi, knocking him to the courtyard floor. "You bastard! You would murder people just to spite the gods?! People who did you no harm?!"
Pulling himself back up into a kneeling position, the man continued to chuckle until it changed into a cackle. "You don't understand, boy. People like you, who would willingly give themselves over to the yoke of the gods, people who are willing to endure what the gods give them, make me sick. This was as much to keep me from wreching at the thought of your existences as it was to send a message!"
The rage that had been coursing through Lie Ren faded, replaced by revulsion at the still cackling creature before him. "You surely are damned. Go to the torturous afterlife you so richly deserve." He raised both kodachi to bring them down in a final cut at his neck. The blades struck hard, the force vibrated through the blades and into his palms, but they didn't bite into the exposed flesh.
Backing away quickly in surprise, Lie heard the sound of bones cracking and reforming. The samurai continued to cackle, even as his skin started to split and tear as his arms stretched, and long spurs of bone sprouted from his back. He began to writhe on the ground, tearing his kimono from his body. His nails turned bone white and elongated into claws. The samurai quickly began to tear at his own skin as if trying to release something trapped within his body. As the scraps of skin fell away it revealed thick muscle, black as a moonless night. The bones of his face cracked and reformed into a long beak, piercing through the skin that remained on his face. The wretched man's arms and legs continued to snap and break with sickening cracks and reformed into powerful, beastial legs. Black feathers soon sprouted along the bone spurs on his back, giving shape to dark wings.
With a final mad cackle that rose to an ear shattering shriek, the thing that was once human stopped its writhing, stood on it's thickly muscled legs, and looked hard at the young man before him. His head, now appearing like some great bird of prey, cocked inquisitively as his burning red eyes watched him from underneath a new mask of hard bleached bone. A thick, long, black tail, with spikes of white bone at its tip, twitched and waved as the four legged, winged beast prowled closer to the shinshoku.
Lie Ren backed away quickly, the blades in his hands fell weakly from his grasp. He knew now why they hadn't harmed the rogue samurai. The man had been consumed by a Griffon, one of the many Grimm that fed on the souls of the living and hated the gods above all else. "Oh Shi, hear the prayer of your shinshoku, the Grimm are in your house. Please protect those who come after me, grant me safe passage to the far shore of the Underworld, and cleanse this place of their taint."
"Oh, praying now are we? Have no fear shinshoku of Shi, I will not take your soul." The voice didn't come from the Griffon, but echoed in his mind. It was harsh and grating, like a quarry worker grinding rock into gravel. "No, I will just take the souls of your family. You deserve to suffer a lonesome eternity in the Underworld." The Grimm lunged faster than Lie could move. It's claws tore easily through his kimono, tearing deep furrows into his chest.
Giving the dying man one last look, the Griffon turned and prowled into the small home of the Ren clan to feed on the corpses of the dead and devour the souls that still lingered in the mortal world. When it was sated it would destroy the shrines.
"Nora! Where are you!" Seikatsu shouted as she and her sister arrived at the shrine, coughing as the smoke flooded into her mouth. The fire was already starting to die down, it had burned fast and hot through the old wood buildings of the shrines of Shi and Seikatsu. The Goddess of Life had the inkling of an idea on how it started. The cloying scent of blood, viscera, and sweat was just barely masked by the smoke.
"Over here!" The shrinemaiden coughed. She was by the statue of Shi, now toppled to the courtyard floor, trying to lift it. "There's someone under the shrine statue!"
Shi started sprinting toward her at her shout. The person could only have been from the Ren clan, as Ruby and Nora were the only ones who tended the shrine of life. "Grab hold of him, I'll lift the statue." She ordered, grabbing the still smoldering wood and lifting, straining against the weight of it.
The first thing Nora saw as she dragged the body of Shi's disciple out from under the statue was the blood. It ran along the grooves and cracks of the cobblestones, the crimson fluid had pooled underneath the man as he bled. "No, no, no, no." The shrinemaiden turned the man over onto his back, her eyes widened in shock at the sight of the four jagged and deep furrows carved into his chest. "W-What c-could've done this?" She asked casting her questioning gaze from one goddess to the other.
Shi did not reply, her voice was lost to her, though she recognized the young man. Like her sister Seikatsu, Shi also took pleasure in tending her own shrine alongside her disciples. The Ren clan had known her as Yang Xiao-Long, Lie Ren had been one of her only friends in the mortal world. The only person who had never worshiped at the shrine out of fear or purely as a sense of duty.
Ruby answered her shrinemaiden's question, her hands shook as she knelt by the body of the priest, "A Grimm. Griffon by the look of it, nothing else has four claws. Probably a young one, most likely finished devouring the soul of one of the bastards who attacked our home," She said, looking at the nearby, savaged corpses. "It fed on the souls of the freshly dead and then left when it was full." Placing a hand on his forehead and one over his tattered chest, the goddess of life closed her eyes and focused on the body before her. Her eyes snapped open as quickly as she'd closed them. She could just see the faint shimmering white of his aura, his soul, a small smile curled her lips even as they were surrounded by the death of the mortals she cared for. "His soul still remains! We need to get to Sasuri!"
Shi finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper as tears trailed down her cheeks. "We need to bury the dead and kill that damned griffon."
The crimson and black robed goddess looked at her incredulously as she picked Lie Ren up, his blood soaking into her kimono. "Shi! Did you not hear me?! His soul still remains. You know what we could do!"
"No, no, I couldn't." The Goddess of Death looked at her friend, held firmly in her sister's arms as if anchoring him within the mortal world. Or could I? I...I'm so tired of being feared and alone.
"I know what's in your heart, sister. Deny his passage." She replied firmly.
"But the law..." The blonde haired goddess trailed weakly. She wanted nothing more than to keep Lie Ren at her side, even as a fateless one, but some small part of her mind still clung to the law of her father.
Nora realized what Ruby was thinking, Sasuri could heal the wounds that the priest had, and if Shi denied Lie's passage to the afterlife then the goddess of life could bring him back to the mortal world. A storm started brewing in her turquoise eyes and she snapped, unable to understand why the orange and gold robed goddess wasn't willing to go through with her sister's plan. The shrinemaiden's hand cracked once, hard, across her cheek, "Damn it, Shi! Forge your own path! What is it you want in your life?!"
Shocked at what the silver and pink clad woman had done, Shi swallowed, her voice was unsteady "I…I don't want to be feared, I don't want to be alone because of who I am…" Her hands clenched tightly, as she steddied her voice, and looked from the shrinemaiden to her sister and settled her gaze on the savaged priest. "I don't want to lose the one mortal who never thought of me with fear, the one person who understood why I have to tear families apart and cause pain."
"Then let us go to Sasuri. We can return to bury the other dead after." Ruby said gently.
"A-Alright, Seikatsu." As the two goddesses and the shrinemaiden turned to leave, Shi noticed something that had escaped the worst of the smoke and fire, a white and red porcelain mask of Hachiman. Her eyes hardened, she knew of only one person who wore that mask, and had hated the three goddesses, Seikatsu, Shi, and Sasuri. Adam Taurus...You will be punished for this, whether you are a Grimm or a man. She brought her heel down onto the mask, shattering it with a loud crack, and hurried to catch up to her sister and Nora.
Weiss and Blake were sitting by a small pond within the shrine, still looking at the moon and stars, when the loud hurried pounding at the gate disturbed them. Weiss stood first, motioning for her patron to stay. "I'll get the gate, Lady Sasuri."
"Blake, I told you my name was Blake when we met on the road. Blake will be fine between us." The goddess of healing and comfort said, giving the alabaster haired woman a smile.
The healer bowed slightly, before hurrying to the gate, "As you wish, Blake."
She's so formal, just like her mother was. The goddess chuckled, only for Weiss' startled shout to catch her attention.
"Blake! Come quickly!"
Hopping to her feet, the goddess sprinted to the gate of the shrine, her eyes widened at the sight of Shi, Seikatsu, Nora and the body of Lie Ren. "Seikatsu, Shi?! W-What happened?!" She didn't notice the lack of surprise on Nora's features at hearing the names of the goddesses.
Ruby looked briefly at Weiss, noticing the snowflake that filled her irises, as she walked into the courtyard of the shrine. Another fateless one? That will soon make three, father won't be able to ignore our actions. Hmm...Weiss Schnee, well Sasuri, at least you chose someone with a good head on their shoulders.
"Our shrines were destroyed by a Griffon. But...that's not why we're here." Shi replied, her voice was weak, unable to manage more than a whisper as her emotions started taking over again.
"You...You want me to heal the harm caused to your disciple, Lie Ren." Blake started, looking at the grievous injury.
"Please, Sasuri. I beg of you to help." She said, bowing to her friend, her eyes clenched shut as if awaiting refusal.
Blake looked at Ruby, and then glanced at Nora. She could see the storm clouds of emotion raging in her turquoise eyes. Hmm...seems I'm not the only one to take a fateless one tonight, those are the eyes of one who has been removed from fate alright. Blake placed her hands on Shi's shoulders and gently lifting her upright. "You understand what this will mean?" She asked, searching her burning crimson eyes for any hint of uncertainty, she didn't find it.
"Yes!" She said, her voice still a whisper but she was certain this was what she wanted to do.
"Alright then. Get him over to the shrine." Blake ordered, before looking at Weiss. "Could you go into the house and retrieve the bag by the door?"
"Of course." The white and blue clad woman said, turning and sprinting for the small dwelling, her mind was whirling with questions. The sound of her heart filled her ears as she ran until she could hear nothing but it's beat. Seikatsu and Shi's shrines…attacked by a Grimm… There has to be more to this.
Blake could sense the thoughts clouding the healer's mind. She closed her eyes and focused on calming the storm of questions within her new student. "Yes there is more to this, Weiss. And you will learn all of it, I assure you."
"B-Blake?" She knew her patron was out of earshot, and yet Weiss could hear the goddess's voice clearly, though it echoed in her mind. She could feel her words stilling her mind and slowing her racing heart.
She continued calmly, she needed her disciple to be calm and collected for what was to come.
"Retrieve the bag and return to the altar, we'll need it to help Shi's priest. The three of us will answer your questions, and the questions Seikatsu's shrinemaiden must have, once we are finished."
"Y-Yes." She stammered, picking up the bag and running back out to the altar and statue of Sasuri's shrine.
Blake took the bag from Weiss and rifled quickly though it, pulling out talismans, potions, needle, and other items that they would need. "I need to close the wounds or else his body will not accept the return of his soul." Passing the alabaster haired healer a few of the potions, she continued, "While I do this, these will need to be mixed into a pot of boiling water following process measurements. Do you think you could manage that?"
Weiss shook her head, she couldn't read the strange shapes and lines that were written on the bottles or the note for the doses. "Let me close his wounds instead, I'm no good dealing with potions and poultices unless I've made them myself."
"What do you...oh that's right." Blake blinked in realization, the blue eyed woman had no frame of reference for written language, shapes, or even color. Her sight was still new to her. "Take the needle and thread then, close his wounds as neatly as you can."
After a short time Weiss had closed the wounds that stretched from Ren's shoulder to his hip. With a final knot she severed the thread and Blake walked over to the altar, setting a small pot onto it. Thick multicolored clouds flowed over the edge of the pot and onto the floor of the courtyard.
"It's time. We must meet with him on the mortal shore of the Sanzu to bring him back." Blake said, holding one hand out to Ruby and the other to Weiss, "Weiss, you need to take part in this if you wish to learn everything."
With a hard swallow, she nodded taking the raven haired goddess' hand in her own. "Teach me, Sensei."
Ruby likewise held her free hand out to Nora, "What do you say, Nora?"
"I felt powerless tonight when I was attacked on the street. You saved me, you've always been there for me, ever since I was little. Show me what this new life may bring me, Ruby, so that I can stay by your side." She said, taking the red and black haired goddess' hand firmly in her own. The goddess of life found herself smiling at Nora's words.
"Are you ready, Lady Shi?" Nora asked, holding her hand out to the goddess of death, questioningly.
"You know we'll be seeing the far shore, correct? Are you ready for that?" She asked, looking from Nora to Weiss.
Both women nodded emphatically. Weiss wanted nothing more than to heal and learn at Sasuri's own hand, if a trip to the Underworld was what it took she would not waver. Nora had pledged herself to Seikatsu when she was just a child, her trust in the goddess had been made over the course of her life and only strengthened with tonight's events. Nothing would keep the shrinemaiden from her side. Snowflake patterned eyes, and storm filled turquoise met her gaze with a determination that Shi had hoped for.
"Yang. Lie Ren always called me Yang. Please use that instead of Shi. Now let us go retrieve my priest." She said, her gaze rested on Lie Ren's body, as she took Weiss and Nora's hands in her own. "Weiss, Nora, whatever happens do not let go. Always keep a hand upon one of us or you may become lost."
With that final word of warning, Blake started to chant. Her voice rang with authority and smoke began to glow and surround them. It poured into Lie Ren's mouth, filled his still lungs and deeper into the freshly sewn wounds on his chest. A moment later the goddesses and the two disciples disappeared into the clouds of smoke that poured from the pot on the altar, bound for the river that divided the mortal world and the Underworld.
Nora and Weiss had walked with the three goddesses through the mists, talking about what would now happen to them after the events of the night. As they'd walked, the two disciples had seen shifting shapes in the mist, the souls of those who had not come to the pier at the Sanzu River but were drifting lost in the mortal world unable or unwilling to rest. They would need to be guided to the river and it would be one of the duties they would help the three goddesses with. More than once a dark shape darted from the mist, only to be cut down by Blake or Ruby, or simply broken by a swift punch of Yang's fist or turned to ash at her touch. Grimm, demons, that had crossed the Sanzu River onto the mortal shore. They'd walked for what seemed like hours, though the goddesses had assured them it had only been a few moments, before the small pier on the bank of the Sanzu River came into view.
Lie Ren was standing on a pier looking out over a river of black, slowly flowing water. A small boat was tied to one side of the pier, bobbing softly in water of the river. Try as he might he couldn't see what lay on the other bank of the river as it was shrouded in a thick, impenetrable fog. He wasn't sure how long he'd been on the pier but he knew he couldn't stay.
"Why am I here? The last thing I recall was pain." He said to the softly shifting mist that surrounded the pier and the shore he was on.
"You're here, Lie Ren, because you died." A voice replied sadly.
Turning swiftly to where it came from, the last member of the Ren clan could see five figures, emerging from the mists. The speaker continued, she was robed in a red, silver, and black kimono, patterned with roses, a pair of red and black kama tucked into her sash. "You were attacked by a Griffon. One of the Grimm of the Underworld. I am Seikatsu, I was the one who gave you your life in the beginning."
"W-What of my family? My mother and father?" Ren asked, uncertain he wanted to hear the answer, as the memories flooded back into his cloudy mind.
"I...I'm sorry, Lie. Their souls were devoured by the Grimm that attacked you." A woman dressed in a pink and silver kimono said, her hands clasped, tightly in the Goddess of Life's hand.
"Who are you? Have we met?" He asked, confused at the woman's presence.
"I'm...I'm Nora Valkyrie, Lady Seikatsu's shrinemaiden. We have met on occasion."
Another figure spoke next, she was clad in an orange and gold kimono, patterned with flames. "I am Shi, the one who would guide you across the river to the far shore of the Underworld. You stand upon the mortal shore still. But I would have you return to the living, I will not ferry the last of the Ren clan to the afterlife."
"L-Lady Shi? Why, what have I done to have you refuse my passage. If I am dead and my family gone, then why would you have me return to the living?" He asked in shock, stepping toward her, before falling to his knees.
The goddess knelt in front of him, taking his hands into hers, "B-Because, Lie, you were the only person that never looked to me with fear. You always understood why I did as I had to." She said softly, tears dripping down her pale cheeks to the mist shrouded ground at her feet. "I can't lose the only person who ever looked at me with kindness and understanding to this dreary place."
The realization filled his mind, lifting the cloud that covered his memories, as he let his eyes meet hers, they'd lost their crimson shade, replaced with soothing lilac. "Y-Yang?" She nodded at the question. "What of the Grimm?"
"It was gone before we'd returned to the shrines." She replied, lowering her gaze at delivering the news that the monster that had murdered his family was still alive.
Lie Ren gently pulled one of his hands from her own and raised her gaze back to his. "You want me to return because I understood why you were needed, because I was person who was kind to you, because we were friends?" She nodded against his hand. He sighed, and then nodded. "Then I guess my family isn't gone entirely gone. Family isn't just blood."
"Lie?" She asked, looking into his eyes, they were a vibrant bright pink. They'd been blue when she'd seen them that morning, he was marked now as a fateless one.
"Yes, Yang?" Prompting her to continue, he smiled a little at calling her by that name. The familiarity of it helped ease the loss of his parents.
"T-The Grimm…" She trailed, unable to voice it's continued existence.
"Needs to die," He continued for her as he stood up, and helped her back to her feet, "But I know I can't fight it. I need to learn about it, about life, death… And everything else." He said, looking from Ruby to Yang, and finally the two figures who had yet to speak.
"It seems you've made your choice to return, Lie Ren." The raven haired woman said, finally speaking. "I am Sasuri, Goddess of Healing, but you may call me Blake. This is my student, Weiss Schnee. Though I suppose my priestess would be more fitting, given she seems fit to follow her mother's path."
"My Lady, that would require me to learn the rites." Weiss replied, bowing slightly to Ren, before arching an eyebrow at Blake.
"And you will, along with your letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. You have more to learn than Ren and Nora do, my dear Weiss." She assured her, chuckling a little as she tallied off the different topics of study.
"We'll all be helping with that, eh, Ruby?" Nora said, bouncing in place a little. The small statured shrinemaiden was even smiling a little despite the circumstances that had led her to this point in her life.
"Indeed." Ruby couldn't resist returning Nora's smile with one of her own, "And besides, it's not like you won't have an eternity to learn it all."
"Laughter on the banks of the Sanzu. I never thought I'd hear it here." Yang said smiling as she shook her head incredulously.
A short time later the smoke of the ritual that had taken the goddesses and their followers to the banks of the river Sanzu dissipated. It colessed into their shape, before finally solidifying and they found themselves back at Sasuri's shrine. After a short moment they watched as Lie Ren took his first breaths in his new life, the three goddesses and their fateless had helped guide his soul through the mists and back to the waking world.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Lie Ren." Yang said, carefully helping him up into a sitting position.
"You'll need to take it slow for few days. The power of that smoke healed the worst of your injuries and allowed us to guide you back, but you're still not fully healed." Blake informed him, handing him a small cup of water.
Ren winced as he lifted his arm to take it. "H-How long was really d-dead for?" He asked, his voice harsh and cracked. As if he were unused to it.
"Hhmm… It was around the ninth hour of the night when we noticed the fire. So an hour or two I would guess." Ruby said, tapping a finger to her lips in thought.
"An hour or two?"
"More than that has passed, it looks like the sun has started to rise, the moon is going to its rest." Blake said, nodding her head at the celestial bodies. "How long till your father takes notice of tonight's events?"
"I'm sure he already knows. He may just be trying to figure out what judgement to pass." Yang replied, taking the cup from Ren's hand and carefully pouring the water between his parched lips. A surprised look filled his eyes at her actions. "Don't give me that look. We're all in this together now and are going to have to look after one another, that means decorum need not matter between us." She said, her lips curling into a smirk as she arched an eyebrow slightly.
As he swallowed the water, the priest nodded his head as he replied, "Thank you, Yang." She simply nodded, her smirk turning into a smile, before sitting next to him and watched as the sun rose on the new day.