Two waited outside the building, three were inside. The discussions were short but the air was stiff and the mood tense. He had to change plans multiple times, make preparations when new information came in and brought more people to back up than intended but it was necessary for the end, if he had not he could have endangered his life.
The heavily tanned man was older than him and seemed to have strong opinions about their country as well as him. Zed had to use a lot of persuasions to have him agree on the deal and even by the end he wasn't sure if they would hold up to it. One prisoner for immunity of Ionian traders.
They really wanted Jhin, he saw one of them smirk with delight as he had proposed the deal as if the man already imagined the violence they could do to him. He also discovered that they already had plans once they caught him, apparently a lot of their leaders agreed on having Jhin on display for the gladiator fights. Multiple rounds of five people battling each other and the last would have the honour to fight Noxus' most famous executioner, Draven, who apparently requested having Jhin in his arena the first time he had heard from him.
But what to give in exchange? Noxians barely made prisoners of war and all of those landed in the pits. The invasion would not stop because Ionia turned over a hitman that killed many of their important figures. Zed had many demands but in the end, they could only agree on one. The trading routes.
Since the first invasion, Noxus had crippled Ionian's trading business between the isles and with the mainlands, causing a lot of shortages of supplies and even food. If Zed would trade Jhin away, once they caught him, it should at least benefit their country as a whole in more ways than denying his murders.
"There were more men than announced, they tried to surround us."
"Obviously." Zed exchanged a look with his acolyte. "We don't trust them but they also don't trust us. I took a great risk by asking for an audience"
He quickly checked his weapons and then signalled the rest to leave with him. The bargain was over but the meeting was not, Zed feared, so he had sent two ahead to scout the area further. Kayn had waited outside the house and followed him onto the road, checking their back every few minutes.
"They are still here," Kayn whispered.
Zed nodded silently. No, the meeting wasn't over yet.
At the dead of night, two healers were occupied in mere seconds after he had come in. While the wound wasn't bad, everybody recognized who had caused it, many feared long-lasting effects if not treated, some feared poison for reasons unknown but generally, they just were concerned. Not many survived those bullets.
"Don't tell me...!"
Myu, one of the oldest healers of the Kinkou order rushed to hold Shen's hand.
"My dear, what happened? Could you stop him?"
"No, but I survived. He caught me by surprise once again." Shen spoke softly.
The woman led him away from the entrance back to their infirmary, Shen obviously knew the way by heart but he would never deny Myu's caring nature. Once he was seated the other healer, a young acolyte named Garou, cleansed the wound of any magic remains while Myu prepared herbs into a paste. She concentrated on the ingredients but never stopped the conversation.
"Tell me what happened."
"I followed a lead the spirit of the southern storms had given me. I might even have found what I searched for but I couldn't continue."
"I believe so. Look at you, my dear, covered in dirt and blood as if you had to crawl through thorny morass!"
Shen chuckled. "You are not wrong. I had been buried under stones for some time."
The made her gasp and she looked up from her paste. Shen smiled at her as convincing as he could to tell that he was okay while he was searching for the right words.
"I found a temple near the sacred grove. You know, what they called the 'Heart of the World', somewhere beneath is a cave system that led me there. Large structures enchanted with strong magic and possibly for scientific use, I believe it predates to our first settlers."
He kept explaining the hall to her but Myu cut him off mid-sentence.
"That is nice and all but I don't think that leads us to the end of the story."
"Of course."
Shen smiled at her still. It may sound noisy but he knew that Myu was just concerned about him and also that Shen loved talking with her, had they known each other since he was born. His father had told him that she even had been his midwife, staying at his side since the first breaths. She was the closest to a mother he had since his own died.
"Jhin had been in the hall. I don't know when or how he got there but he was at the top of the cliff announcing his presence. I tried to chase him down, I used everything I had but the structure's enchantment weakened my magic. Thankfully, the bullet meant for me missed because the earth was shaking again."
"Nature is on your side, my dear, it will protect you."
"Or it was just dumb luck."
"That is not what your father taught you."
The mentioning of his father let his smile drop for a moment. "The earthquakes happen frequently now and I understand more of the reason behind it. Nothing of it is in my favour."
Shen's face turned into a frown when Myu massaged the paste onto his wound as well holding back a hiss from the burning pain it caused. Garou placed fresh bandages over them and they quickly went over all over his other wounds after.
To some degree, Myu was right. The earthquakes had helped Shen handle the situation and survive Jhin's deadly attacks from a great disadvantage, but they also caused most of the damage to the temple – only one shot was needed to make it collapse on top of him. He thought of this while returning to his bedroom and made a mental note about sending some of his own acolytes to the temple to salvage the remains for study. That magic barrier had caught his interest as it had weakened his magic abilities by a great amount, but Jhin's magically enhanced bullets had stayed powerful. Was it because he was outside the barrier, Shen wondered. Maybe he could find the answer soon.
For the next objective, he would need to rest, as he had to travel quite the road to reach Zed at the ports. A one to two-day trip with a wounded leg would be nothing to smile about. Hopefully, Zed had not met the Noxian informant yet, their ships were usually not on time after all.
The next morning the damage of the previous day finally caught up on him, his body sore from all the scratches, bruises and his leg burned around the wound. He would need some new paste to cool it down and went for the infirmary as his first stop.
A quick bath. A meal. Mediation. And with that, the morning routine was through.
Shen returned to the main door with a new burlap sack, fresh supplies and additional medication for his wounds but before leaving he stopped by the newest trainees packing and stacking small crates and letters, bringing more in from the outside.
"Where do those come from?" Shen asked.
"The old monastery I believe. Everything that was sent for us after Master Kusho had died was brought back to the mail hub in Weh'le and they started to deliver it back to this place over the last weeks."
The young man handed him some letters that were addressed to old Masters of their order, most of them had died by now. A few of them were for his father and Shen stopped in his tracks, fumbling with the paper in his hands.
It had been years. He took a deep breath and opened the first one.
'Dear Master Kusho,
your request for our blades honours the weaponsmith but I fear we won't be able to make the amount in time...'
That should have been a few months before his death, Shen remembered that an acolyte accidentally lost the new weapon shipment to wild beasts and Kusho had sent multiple requests to get replacements. He opened the next one.
'Dear Master Kusho,
the preparations for the wedding ceremonies ...'
The letter was closed and put behind the others. Next.
'Dear Master Kusho,
we can offer twenty blades by the end of the month. The payment...'
Another reply to the request. Next.
'Dear Master Kusho,
your ideas intrigued me and the stories of Ionia fauna is something I would love to personally experience one day.'
That letter was different, Shen noticed that it had no visible handwriting other than the signature on the end, everything seemed to be written mechanically.
'I have received your detailed studies of the being you called 'Demon' and while we do not master magic in Piltover, we surely can make use of it. I have developed multiple prototypes that I hope are to your liking and included them in your next shipment.'
The following text was incomprehensible for Shen, with too many words and phrases he had never heard about along with sketches of what looked like handheld machines.
"Young man, did this letter belong to something else?" Shen turned to the acolyte.
"Oh, many letters come with crates and packages. Please, let me see."
He took the paper and inspected its backside for the stamp, then went through the packages and crates to see if anything fit.
"Here, Master Shen, this should be it."
The package was heavy but not bigger than most of the others, Shen held it in both hands and turned it over to see anything that could tell him more about the inside. Only the stamp of the creator was on top of it, the rest was wrapped in brown leather. When he opened it he immediately noticed the hard surface beneath and within seconds he held a device that he had no idea about.
"What would my father want with this?" Shen asked out loud.
Something slipped out of the remaining leather and Shen caught the paper, flipped it over to read.
'The Auron Demon Trap is designed for the fast and secure seizure of magic or magically enhanced creatures of all sizes. The crook on the top can aid a leash. Prepare the trap by charging the appendix with any person's magic, then release it by pressuring the pin on the bottom onto the surface body of the target.'
Shen looked at the machine and tried to find the parts the paper spoke about. Why his father would want to trap a demon was a sudden and odd mystery to discover and none he would solve anytime soon. Frankly, while looking at the device he got reminded of Jhin's bombs that he had once found and destroyed before a festival.
He put both letters next together and read them through again to find any hint of what and why Kusho requested but found nothing. Then he found something else.
"This is old. Did they fail to send this for two decades?" Shen mumbled to himself.
The dates on both letters were days apart but the year they were sent were of his teenage years. Then, it struck him.
There was one particular demon they had hunted for too long and never caught without great effort. They had spent years, agonizing years of his early life until they had finished the hunt, only to discover that the demon had been a mere man.
This trap was meant for Jhin.
Shen looked back at the machine and wondered if it could have helped him back then, if it would have made a difference. Possibly not, since it was designed for actual demons and not material beings, but he would have definitely tried. And he understood, Kusho had become desperate to catch Jhin after all these years, so it made sense that he would request help even outside Ionia.
The more he thought of it, the more he could make sense of it. Maybe Jhin had delayed the shipment himself and even stole the blueprints, the machine had actual similarities with his bombs after all. A charger, the hook on top but with his bombs they had been connected with a wire from the inside and the bottle in the middle that looked like a glass scroll. Every time they almost caught him, every time they had met Jhin, he had these prepared for his escape.
Shen gasped and stuffed the trap into his burlap sack, whistled to get the acolytes attention and waved him over.
"Tell the others that I will be away for the next days but I won't be going for Zed. Sent five of us to find him instead and bring him here."
The young man nodded and rushed to deliver the message to the other ninjas of the order, while Shen left the monastery in a hurry.
Climbing back into the cave was even a bigger hassle than before, most of the path was blocked by rubble and the air was still dusty. He tried to avoid the temple hall at first and searched for an alternative route for what felt like half an hour before he finally found an opening leading him upwards. It was narrow and the ground couldn't fully support his weight, Shen struggled to keep silent while climbing up. When he reached a good spot he cast magic covering him. It wasn't an optimal spell but the best he knew to stay hidden.
The sunbeams moved over the broken temple ground as time flew by and Shen wondered if he did a mistake. Was his assumption wrong or had he been too loud? The magic was cast a few times to renew the effect and the body beneath did its best to refrain from movement and noise. When it started to get dark, Shen became nervous, hunger and thirst started to bother him and his leg wound burned.
Then he finally saw him.
The ninja waited for a bit more to watch his doings and where he moved, after Shen was sure that he stayed unnoticed he made his move. From above the Eye of Twilight hailed down like one of the large boulders of the earthquake and landed right next to Jhin with a loud bang, shattering all tiles beneath. Surely enough the ninja startled the killer who stood next to the drop-down leading to the faint red magic.
"You didn't expect me, didn't you?" Shen yelled while charging at Jhin.
The latter grunted and instead of fighting Shen right ahead he rather jumped down. Both reached the bottom of the dark pit after seconds of falling and the hunt continued with little light. It was hard to make out his opponent, even less his movements but their surroundings were more clear than before.
Vines held everything in place like a net and the plants had red glowing blisters all over them. Not enough to light the room but enough to let everything appear ominous. Just like the next movement Shen observed, he couldn't trust his eyes when he believed to see how Jhin took off his mask while running towards the unknown. The path led them even further down the earth into a room that was bright enough to illuminate the darkness in pure red.
He found the killer standing in front of the altar or rather what was left of it. Thin pillars all reached the same spot but most of them were broken so the item they were supposed to hold laid on the ground next to it. A large round and red glowing ball, the surface shimmered like it was made out of glass and the insides were in turmoil like a sea at storm. Jhin was about to reach for it.
"Stop! You don't know what you are doing!"
The first thing Shen noticed was that Jhin still had his mask on, but the black fabric beneath was missing. When he turned to speak back the ninja saw that his right eye was uncovered now and despite popular belief, it seemed to be a perfectly functional eye.
"Am I, Shen? I think I know exactly what I'm doing." Jhin chuckled while stepping closer to the artefact. "This will help my performance by a great margin, don't you think?"
A sword missed the hand reaching for it just by a mite and embedded itself in the ground. Shen reached for his other blade and used the short time window to close the gap between him and the killer.
"This is not yours to take."
Whisper aimed at his face and the ninja let out a gasp. The spirit blade laid next to the other throat and Jhin huffed.
"I shoot faster than your blade can slice."
"Then why don't you do it?"
That reply made Jhin's eyes glisten. He tilted his head a bit while observing Shen's stern face, then after a few seconds, he puffed out air through his nose like an enraged bull.
While their eyes locked, Shen had already reached into his burlap sack with slow and silent movement before turning to act lightning fast. Jhin gasped as something piercing his hand holding Whisper, Shen ducked and threw himself at him right as the shot came and went over his shoulder. The demon trap was in place and activated.
