Holy shit I'm back. What the hell is this nonsense? No really though, I mostly just want the attention. I love attention. Attention is the best. So yeah, on with the show, The only things I really got out of XC are that Narrative Magic isn't cool when it's used unknowingly and a plot bunny that wouldn't go away. Enjoy kiddos!
No One Would Know
It would be so easy. All he would have to do was walk away. No one would ever know, there was no one else there and it was a hazardous situation. He could say that he hadn't gotten there in time or there was a freak magma plume and everyone would believe him.
He'd seen the future and the Crystal Glasses told him exactly what he could be saving if he did this. Walk away and he would prevent so much suffering. Walk away and he would save the world a thousand times over. He knows what will happen if he doesn't, knows what he will become if he doesn't, knows all the people he will hurt if he doesn't.
Nobody would blame him. It would destroy Guan, but even he wouldn't blame him. It would be an accident after all. They were on the summit of a volcano, the boy slipped and was now clinging to the ledge with his fingertips, falling was well within the realm of possibility. Nobody would know. They would all mourn, because they didn't know what he knew, they would all try and comfort him, because they'd all think he'd done all he could to save him, but they wouldn't know what he did. They never knew what he did.
Once he'd seen it, he'd kept the future a secret, held his tongue about events only eight years to come, he'd forbidden the other monks from using the Crystal Glasses. Nobody knew. At the time, he'd questioned the wisdom of that choice, after all, if he told someone, he might be able to prevent those events, but now, now he knew he'd done the right thing. If they knew about the future, they'd know what he was about to do.
Even if they knew, they likely still wouldn't blame him. He would be saving countless lives after all. They would still know what he'd done though. He could live with himself knowing, he knew he could lie to himself, he could convince himself that it was an accident, convince himself that it was necessary. Even if they thought he was justified, he couldn't live with others knowing. If they knew, he wouldn't be able to forget that, no matter how justified it was, there was still blood on his hands.
He told himself he wasn't killing a friend, he was eliminating an enemy, a monster at that. The truth was, he'd never killed another person before, he would always imprison them, monsters though, he'd handled monsters before. They were an almost daily occurrence for him. This was just another creature of darkness, threatening to upset the balance of good and evil. Just another day of work. There was nothing personal to this, just business.
Just as he was about to turn away, he heard a frantic, terrified, almost sobbing voice, "Dashi, I can't hold on…" and he knew couldn't do it. Chase wasn't a Heylin warlord, he was a short, skinny fifteen year old boy with too much hair and no sense of when to leave the library and go to bed. They'd gone on so many adventures together, saved each other countless times, he couldn't forget that. He couldn't forget that Chase wasn't a draconian warlock. He was a scared kid who was still convinced his friend would save him.
"Don't worry, I got you," he said, reaching down and pulling Chase onto solid ground. Slowly, Chase sank to his hands and knees, shaking and panting, but relieved to be safe. Dashi would never forget the look he gave him though, for one split second, Chase knew he hesitated. By the time it passed, he'd already written it off as a trick of an adrenaline fueled mind and forgotten it, but for one moment, he knew.