Balance

I withdrew my hand from under his, though my gaze never left his face. He shifted uncomfortably for a bit before gesturing to the instruments – which I now realized were scales – which flew back to him, landing at his feet in a neat pile. The gentle clinking of the bells reminded me of my interest in them, and I reached my hand out towards them. Quickly withdrawing my hand, I asked him, "May I?" He nodded, and I gingerly picked one up, studying it from all angles. I frowned as my fingers touched the cold metal; I could sense the essence of Mononoke within them. I looked at him again.

"Where did you get these?" I asked him urgently.

"I made them," he replied simply. I inhaled sharply. "I bought the scales from the local craftsman, and after your battle with the Mononoke that I witnessed, I found some leftover fragments of the Mononoke's essence left on the ground. The fragments seemed to attract each other, so I wanted to see if I could find a way to alert myself to the exact location of the Mononoke. I made up an enchantment of sorts to bind the Mononoke's essence to the metal, and while the fragments no longer attracted each other, they are still attracted to the non-bound essence of a Mononoke. Apparently it even works with your essence, even though you are not a Mononoke. The scales tilt in the direction that the Mononoke is, which is helpful to me because while I can sense the presence of a Mononoke, I cannot actually tell its position."

I was astonished at how resourceful and clever the boy was. He understood the Mononoke almost as much as I did. I handed the scale back to him, and he packed it with the others into his basket.

"Why do you do this?" I asked him.

"I want to know," he answered simply. "I want to know what killed my parents and why they were killed. I want to know if there are other Mononoke out there. And I want to know if I can stop what happened to me from happening to anyone else." I was humbled by Aia's selflessness and maturity; instead of dwelling upon his own misfortune, he wished to know if there was any way he could prevent his misfortune from befalling others. Knowing this made me feel incredibly guilty for not finding the Mononoke that had stolen from him a better life. I felt that I could at least give him some answers.

My gaze had dropped to my feet, and I finally lifted it back up to his face. He did not flinch as my amber gaze bored into his ice blue eyes. "I can help you with your answers," I whispered.

"I do not know if you know this about Mononoke, but they come back to this life in order to avenge themselves. Sometimes their quest for revenge is justified, but more often than not the correct form of justice has been so warped by their anger that they involve innocents in their quest for revenge. Hence why I bear the Sword of Exorcism, to sever a spirit's ties to this world. A word of caution, though: the blade does not exclude a spirit within a mortal body. My spirit is excluded since my spirit is unlike the human spirit, which has the potential to turn into a Mononoke.

"With the Sword of Exorcism, I do my utmost to protect people like your parents who are the targets of Mononoke. Unfortunately, there is only one of me, and there are many thousands of Mononoke. It has become difficult over the years to keep the balance in check, and I find myself outnumbered in many cases. However, I must keep fighting; it is the balance of things."

Aia was looking at me in awe. "So you are a warrior, too?" he asked. I looked at him in slight confusion. Upon seeing this, he launched into his own story.

"I don't know how old I was at the time, but like I said, my parents were killed by Mononoke. The village I come from took it as a terrorist attack, and as a victim I was offered charity. I was hospitalized for a long time since they believed I was hallucinating; I know now that I was merely experiencing the aftereffects of whatever the Mononoke did to me so that I could now sense them. My hallucinations eventually died away, and it was as if I woke up from a dream. Once they saw that I was all better, the villagers enrolled me in the Warriors' Temple since no family was willing to take me in and I had no means of supporting myself. I have been training as a warrior ever since, but from time to time I still sense the Mononoke. I've tried to tell the Father – he's the chief warrior priest at the Temple – about it, but he dismissed it as the ravings of a lunatic. I don't really tell anyone about what I sense anymore, except for the other boys I stay with; even then, some of them still make fun of me."

He gave a small pause before continuing. "I don't want to be a warrior, though. I mean, not the kind of warrior that I am expected to be. At the Temple, we are training to protect our village. We used to be attacked on so frequent a basis that we were forced to become militarized; we don't necessarily have to train at the Temple, but at least one boy from every family is expected to join the military. Since I was the only one left in my family after the attack, I was forced against my will. What I really want to do is study medicine." At this he blushed and continued talking, albeit more quietly. "I know that it is helpful to have the training that I have, especially since this area can be quite dangerous, but it is not what I want to do with my life. I can't desert; I would be hunted down and killed. Thus I live at the Temple."

"If the area is so dangerous, why are you out here alone?" I asked.

"We are expected to survive for three days on our own here in the wilderness, no matter what level of training we have," he said. "The last time I saw you was the third day in our most recent excursions. We have them once every month."

A month! My head reeled. It was not possible that I had stayed asleep that long…yet, here was Aia, inadvertently telling me that it was so. That meant that for a month, more and more Mononoke had been coming into this world…and those left in this world had had a month to grow in strength. Aia saw the alarm on my face.

"What is wrong?" he asked urgently. But at that point in time, I had more important things on my mind. There were Mononoke coming right to where we were.

lol, please don't hate me, but I do love cliffhangers...get ready for chapter 7! What will happen if the Golden Warrior can't get Aia away in time?