Why are you doing this?
A jerk reflex, Ko'atal grasped at the nearest source of heat and found a small wrist in his larger hand.
Didn't realize how tiny your hands are, Hanzo.
His thoughts faded as the world jarred him away with a tug and the sound of the woman that he accosted.
She had tan skin, veiled by white silk beneath a kasa, a conical hat the veil attached to, with lettering across the front he could not understand.
She pulled her wrist free when he lightened the grip, shocked at the sight of her, and the world around them. No grey sky, cracked earth, but an old mud and wood home, caked in white wash and small, even for her. No hearth in the center, just enough room for the fur bed he laid in and perhaps four more if needed.
She knelt beside him on the straw floor and looked him over.
"Where am I?" Ko'atal pondered.
"The Nether Realm." She responded, busy with his wounds.
"How long have I been here?"
"In what terms?" She looked back at him, uncertain how to move forward.
"Earth Realm."
"A month." She added, "time and physics work differently here in the Nether Realm. It's not like the other living realms."
He realized that would have meant only days in this realm. Time was of the essence now, and the longer he spent in the depths of hell, the further from the living realms he was.
"Lay down." She held him back as he tried to gather himself. "You feel a great height, but fortunately physics is not the same here as it is in your realm."
He pushed up on his elbows and braced for her resistance, but as he tried to gain momentum to pull himself together, he was surprised to find this smaller woman was much stronger than he thought. She held him down again.
"I can't stop you from hurting yourself, but you really should rest a little while longer." She pulled away and exited the small home.
The glimpse he had of the outside world was red sky and the heat from the ground made the bed humid and near unbearable for him. How she looked so comfortable and cook in her ghostly white kimono baffled him. With no regard for her suggestion, he pulled himself up and with what little strength he could muster in his worn and bruised legs, he followed the woman outside.
"You don't listen." She looked back with a sharp glare.
"Never have."
The skies were read with darkened clouds, a near blood red that stretched like leather across the whole of the realm. Beneath him the ground looked like bedrock, black, grey, red and clay textures and colors barely coated here and there with dull dead thatch of branches and leafless foliage.
"Where is Jade?"
She couldn't understand, the name meant nothing to her and his request was beyond her answering. She sat by a wooden bench close to the entrance and stared out into the sparse village.
"I've been looking for two people myself, but this realm is big and there are dangers in every corner. You'll have to be more specific, I guess."
"I must return my wife to the realm of the living."
"Specific enough." She looked back at him, "highly unlikely that you'd succeed, and that's assuming you'd reach her."
"I must."
"She would be id the deepest depth of the Nether Realm, it looks like a cliff that goes down for nearly an eternity. No one comes back." She added a thought after such a blunt and defeatist explanation, "well, usually."
"Who are you?" He stared her down, turned toward the white adorned woman and scrutinized her eyes as she replied.
"Ashrah, a native to the Nether Realm."
"You're a demon?"
"All born here are demon of some kind, otherwise you wouldn't be able to survive long."
"Why help me?"
"Though demon, I am an agent of light. It's what I do."
He pondered this, that even in the depths of hell would be those that fought the normality of expectation. He didn't think anyone would love being here, but he never gave it much thought either. Still, he didn't plan to stay long, and as he moved to leave, took a second take of her. A sword was strapped to her right hip. It was elegant, white, and glistened even in the dull red atmosphere.
"You are armed?"
"The Kriss. It slays demons, it will help me ascend out of this realm." She paused, then said with a flat tone, "you can't have it."
"Not my desire, but if you can help me escape from this realm, perhaps I might assist in helping you find your two lost ones." Ko'atal bargained, but without certainty of this woman, no weight carried his words until he would know she could be trusted.
"The Kriss must slay a great evil for me to escape."
"Another demon?"
"Perhaps, but I've been seeking two non-demons with great power in this realm." She described them, "a wraith of shadow that has stalked this dead realm for many years. Its aura brings absolute dread and fear into any living creature that beholds it. This wraith is not native to the Nether Realm and has destroyed much of its population." She added, "the second, a vampire from Vaeternus, yet another alien of these parts."
"You don't like foreign visitors?"
"You're one, but I don't see the need to strike you down. It's not because they are foreign to the Nether Realm, but because they are entities of greater evil than I have seen in this realm."
"So, you seek evil for the sake of redemption and freedom? I seek the dead for the same purpose."
She offered only silence. Already too much had been said to this alien to the Nether Realm and with no further word spoken, she gathered herself and offered a path through the village in the direction he sought.
If you do not truly understand that which you seek, you will fail, or worse, doom us all.