It is repeated history in more ways than one.
How many times has he been speared through? How many times has he died, impaled upon Cloud Piercer only for it to never take? Every time he begs for mercy and every time he gasps, awakening anew, skin knit-over and smooth like the day he was born.
The pain is deep-seated. It sinks into his bones as he falls every time. It is more than the spear, more than being pierced through; it is also the pain of a man tortured by the past he barely remembers, memories whispered into his ears like haunting echoes. His chest lurches. His chest burns as he picks up the pieces of himself. He has no choice. He cannot lay there and pretend to die.
"I am not him." Words muttered in placid annoyance, just the same as every other time.
He is Blade, he reminds himself as he lifts his gaze, but the moment they lock eyes he becomes Ren, a man with a name, a man with a purpose, a past, a desperate need to die.
Cloud Piercer glints in the sunlight as Dan Heng flicks it to the side. "Every time I say this," he murmurs. "It is always the same and you never listen. I am not him."
And yet, that weapon.
Ren's eyes drag over it and for a moment he becomes Yingxing. He remembers the tang of steel, the hammering of metal. The ways his fingers would burn in the white-hot flames of the forge. Cloud Piercer was crafted by the man he was, gifted to the man before him in an age gone by.
Dan Heng is and is not the same, and yet he looks it. He wears the skin of a Vidyahara all the same, horns curved around his head, and his gait identical. Stiff-backed and proud. A tad arrogant. The same frown, the slight downturn of his lips.
"You are not the same, you say, and yet I stare at an old friend."
"Are you not tired of this?"
Ren's head tilts to the side, caught off guard by the question. And then he laughs, bitterly, as if the answer should be obvious. Oily aggravation sinks across his body and it takes everything within his power to hold a conversation instead of lunge.
"A ridiculous question. How many times have I asked to die? It matters not. My flesh will always heal and I'm doomed to live this cycle again and again, a curse that you imparted upon me."
"He did." Dan Heng says it not with unkindness, but as a simple statement of fact. "It was not me. And do you think I don't suffer? I walk in the footsteps of a man I do not know and yet I pay his penance. I answer for his crimes. I am spit upon and hated because others insist we are one and the same."
Pretty words for a pretty conflict. But—but— Ren has never considered this. And he doesn't want to, but for the barest moment, there is a pity that crawls through his veins. They share this, he realizes. They both stand in the shadow of a man who felt himself above sin.
Dan Heng swallows. Hesitation looks foreign on his face as he considers his next words carefully. A wrinkle in his brow as he thinks—and ah. Ren knows that look. He wears the same one when parsing through the past. Despite Dan Heng's insistence of separation, Ren knows that his molting was wrong. He pays the price for that too, a prisoner to his own curse.
Perhaps they are more alike than he would care to admit.
"You claim it is a curse, but did you not help him? Were you not a part of breaking those laws? Of committing such unspeakable sins?" He sighs, rubbing at his temple, fingers trailing the length of his horns as if the mere thought of such things brings him pain. "We all carry curses, but yours comes from your own actions."
"I…" Ren cannot refute it. But. "It is not a matter of atonement. I know my crimes. But you—you should know the pain of death. You should—"
"Isn't that what you tried to mend?"
Ren falls silent. He thinks back—thinks back to those days of old. Thinks of laughter and lunch, of sharing drinks, of terrible jokes by the forge fire. Of how Dan Feng's face would soften in his presence in a way others never saw, and those quieter moments that plague his nightmares. Of the sting of Baiheng's death and the way that everything changed.
"There's a plan." Dan Feng's voice echoes in his ears like an errant bug. "I have a plan. Will you—"
And he did. Yingxing did—
But he is not that man anymore. That man is gone, burned away. Ren is Blade, a body forged new, a body—
That cannot die. That's the point of it, isn't it? He cannot do the one thing he wishes for most. And that's the irony, the juxtaposition; his one great sin was to bring a person back and the curse he gained is not worth it.
"I just want to die," he murmurs.
He doesn't think he's ever uttered that to this man. With Dan Heng, it has always been a chase through the stars, ship after ship split apart by his hand, reduced to rubble for the chance that he might feel the same pain. But in this moment, he owes him the truth, one moment, one look beyond the lens, a peek into the brain, and those thoughts that ravish him.
"Everything I've tried—none of it works. Not even the sword of a bygone champion."
He feels it; the way his tendons weave back together, the way that his muscles grow and his skin knits itself, pink like a new scar. The way his heart still beats, thudding in his chest, his blood searing through his veins. His hatred weighs him down. He's tired, exhausted by the age, by the years, by his existence.
Had he known this would be the outcome, he thinks that Yingxing would have made a different call.
But one swift look at Dan Heng refutes that. The sight of those horns, that hair, the stern look on his face, and the straight-backed stance as he holds his hand out. Alert. Ready to strike. Ren may not remember but so much of his being does. He would never have said no, coaxed by fluttering feelings that should be long gone.
"When you die…" Dan Heng pauses, licking his lips. His eyes flicker up, meeting Ren's gaze directly. "When you die, what is it that you feel?"
Heavy. Ren feels heavy. He'll taste iron in his mouth and fall to the ground, heavy and sodden. He'll sink into the soil and it is a moment of blessed quiet where the thoughts turn off and he feels nothing. Calm. Blissful loss of consciousness as his brain shuts off and everything turns dark.
A perfect moment—but only a moment before he's back with a sharp gasp, shuddering as his limbs shake out, whole and renewed. And then the pain sinks in for he's immortal, not unfeeling.
"Peace," he says softly, a rare true moment. There is no reason to lie. Dan Heng will not hold this against him. "It is a peaceful moment. I do not often get those."
Dan Heng takes this moment to launch across the distance that separates them. Ren doesn't anticipate it, nor does he dodge as he's tackled to the ground. The tip of Cloud Piercer is pressed to his chest, just barely digging into the fabric of his clothing. Ren can feel it, the pinprick that threatens to sink deeper.
"How many times have I killed you?" asks Dan Heng as he stands over him.
"I've lost count. But every time—" Ren grunts as that spear digs a little deeper, the edge slicing into his sternum. "Every time comes as a blessing."
Dan Heng's expression softens. He stands over him like a god of death, like the arrogant high elder that he claims to not be. From this angle, they are one and the same, the shadows that fall over him obscuring his face. The outline, the curve of his spine and slope of his shoulders, the way that he holds the damned spear as if it was made for him—these are all echoes of the past, even if neither wishes for it.
They cannot escape their destiny, bound together by a pull stronger than the stars. They will meet again and again and again—and it will hurt every single time.
But. There will be a moment of peace when Ren can sink into the earth and dream as he dies. "Do it," he begs. "Just this once, I'm asking you to end it."
He knows it will not be just once. Dan Heng will kill him over and over as they dance to the same tune. But this time, Dan Heng will sink that blade into his chest with the thought that he is helping him. And when they strike against each other again, that will be what is on his mind.
Ren tells himself it will be an advantage, it will set Dan Heng off-kilter and allow for an opening. But the moment Cloud Piercer slides into his chest with a single stroke, he thinks that he might be in love instead.