February 19th: You - 100 words - I like you. No, not you, you! (Who is also you.)

They barrelled through the small crack that was their front door and into the cave. Without thinking, Chiaotzu lifted his hands and pulled a number of rocks to them, covering the door in an apparent landslide. Then he put up both hands and dropped a glimmering shield around them, hoping it would be enough. Behind him, Ino lowered his head and Tien slid bonelessly to the floor. Curled into a ball. Buried his hands in his face. Started to sob.

Chiaotzu lowered his hands, watching with narrowed eyes for any flicker or falter in the shield, then, satisfied that it was secure, turned his attention to Tien. Approached with slow cautious steps and held out his hands, hovering them uncertainly over shaking shoulders. "Tien?"

When his hand gently brushed against a trembling arm, Tien recoiled, curling into an even tighter ball. "What did I do? Why did I do that?" His voice broken and cracking between his sobs. Another brush of Chiaotzu's hand and Tien flailed with his left arm, the empty sleeve flapping. "Don't touch me!"

"Okay, okay." Chiaotzu backed away and sat down, crossing his legs. Averting his eyes and chewing on his lip as Tien wailed to the cracks in the ceiling. He could remember his early days in the Crane School. Long nights of crying himself to sleep, of unblocking the dam of emotions in solitude to process the enormity of his sadness, his isolation. When Tien had grown into a toddler and would insist on hugging his crying brother, Chiaotzu had had to allow himself to learn how to be comforted.

It would take time for Tien to remember that too.

So he waited. For the tears to stop, the storm to pass. Tien had been so brave, so strong to go against the Crane for a voice he had only been hearing for a few months. For a person he didn't fully remember. Talking to someone over great distance was not the same as growing up with them, the same as knowing them completely, with their whole heart. Tien had sacrificed everything he'd ever known for a voice in his head.

Eventually, the sobs settled. Wound down into gentle whimpers, sniffles and the occasional huff for breath.

"Are you ready to talk, Tien?" Chiaotzu asked, keeping his voice gentle and soft. The whimpering didn't stop, but when Chiaotzu turned, Tien was now sitting up and using the heel of his right hand to scrub at his eyes. He looked exhausted. Eyelids swollen, red and heavy. Shoulders slumped. The weight of the world resting on them. "Thank you, Tien. Thank you for trusting me."

"He's going to kill us," Tien said in a low, flat voice. His eyes dropped, gaze fixing on the ground in front of him. "He'll kill us both."

Chiaotzu flinched. Thought about reaching out and pulled his hands back to himself. Folded them in his lap and interweaved his fingers into a tight fist. "He was coming out here to try and find me." Chewing on the inside of his lip. "I don't know why he brought you. I couldn't leave you, once I knew you were there. I had to protect you."

Tien glanced up for a moment, eyes dark and veiled, then back down. Watching his right hand fiddle with the the sleeve of his left sleeve. Pulling the empty fabric taut and teasing threads loose. Rolling them between his fingertips. "I think I was bait."

The word closed an icy hand around Chiaotzu's stomach. Squeezing and twisting. "Bait?"

A brisk nod. "He doesn't see me as useful anymore, I think. I'm not as strong as he wants me to be. He must have known you'd show yourself if I was there. He's been looking for you."

That didn't actually frighten Chiaotzu as much. It gave him the faint stirring of hope instead. If Shen was resorting to using bait, that meant he was getting desperate. He wouldn't have tried such a gambit otherwise. To stoop to using a child as a lure, that reeked of frustration.

"We got away," he said. "He doesn't know where we are. I've put up a shield that even his telepathy will just skate right past. We're safe here, Tien."

This was clearly a foreign concept to Tien. He fidgeted and groaned as the sleeve of his surcoat tore with a soft purring sound. "Now what? We can't stay in here forever. He saw us. He knows we're around here somewhere."

Chiaotzu's lips set in a thin line. A grim, determined smile. "Then we're just going to have to get strong enough to beat him." Tien shook his head. Face drawn in a miserable, hopeless grimace. "Did Shen teach you any new tricks? Anything over the past few years?"

For the first time, a light shone in Tien's eyes, a crazed sort of excitement. He nodded and hopped to his feet. Chiaotzu repressed a little flare of nausea at the sight of the empty sleeve. "He did! I just learned one! Can I show you!? If I tell you it'll spoil it!"

The sudden enthusiasm surprised a laugh from Chiaotzu, who nodded and clapped his hands. Tien pulled off his surcoat, the heavy fabric crumpling into the dust, revealing a thin, white singlet. His arm was fully revealed for the first time, and Chiaotzu felt a now familiar twist of guilt at the sight of that thin upper arm ending in a stump just below the bend of his elbow. Chiaotzu caught sight of some red lines over Tien's shoulder, but didn't press it. He remembered the whippings clearly enough. Tien crossed his right arm over his chest so his fingertips brushed his cheek and his palm faced outward. His left arm was positioned similarly, though of course there was no hand there to mirror. Concentration cramped Tien's face, his eyes staring and his mouth straining at the corners. Chiaotzu blinked and rubbed his eyes, staring hard. For a moment it looked as though Tien's outline was…blurring. Fading. Doubling? Watching with open mouth and shocked silence, he watched as Tien's body replicated itself and doubled out. And then again, the two Tiens doubling over so there were four standing there, grinning and glancing at each other.

"I… I don't understand."

"It's the multiform technique!" the Tiens said in unison, their voices overlapping perfectly. "I'm four now."

"I can see that." It was like the mirror image technique, in a way, except instead of speed tricking the eye into seeing double, or quadruple, or octuple, he could clearly see that Tien was firmly planted on the floor, his feet not shifting in the slightest. "How do you…?"

"It's like multitasking." One Tien lifted his hand and made a fist, another propped it on his hip and the third made a finger gun and pointed it at Chiaotzu. Still in unison they said, "I'm just…split a bit."

"It's kinda creepy," Chiaotzu said. "But very impressive."

"Oh, oh and that's not all!"

The four Tiens started to concentrate again. This time pulling their fist close to their chest and hunching forward. Chiaotzu watched, still open-mouthed, as each Tien in turn, sprouted an extra pair of arms.

"See, Chiaotzu," they said, laughing and waving. "I manage just fine with three arms."

Chiaotzu laughed. "Okay, okay, this is great but maybe we need to whittle it back a bit." He grinned. "Four three-armed brothers is more than I can handle right now I think."