The shadow was going to strike. The telltale shudder of violence coiled tight in its frame. Monkey Boy slid into position before me, staff raised and unwavering, a living bulwark against the oncoming onslaught. His head tilted just slightly in my direction, a gesture so subtle it could have been a trick of the dim light. He didn't turn to look at me—he didn't have to. His focus was on the shadow, his message clear as a bell toll in a silent room despite the subtlety of it.
Go back.
"Yes, yes, I'll return," I muttered, catching on quick. I wasn't so dense as to miss the unspoken order laced in that tilt of his head. And as much as it chafed, I knew he was right. Stay out here too long, and I'd be a thread ready to unravel everything.
And I? I refused to be anyone's loose thread.
When the clash of fists and fangs echoed, you'd find me where I belonged—inside the stone. Safely stowed, neatly tucked away, and most importantly, out of Monkey Boy's line of concern. He already carried enough weight on his shoulders without me draping myself atop it like an ill-fitting cloak.
Not that I didn't know how to fight. I'd spent enough years under my father's sharp-eyed scrutiny at the dojo to learn how to move, how to strike (even if actually striking someone made me sick to my stomach), how to endure. But yaoguai? They played by rules written in, well, myth. They fought like chaos given claws.
And besides, I didn't have magic. In this world, that was as good as walking barefoot across shattered glass and calling it bravery.
I retreated to the stone without a second thought, no pride lost, no hesitation earned. The world around me bled away, and in its place, his world became mine.
Monkey Boy's eyes became my eyes. His breath, my breath.
His staff remained stretched before him, unwavering as a compass needle locked on true north. He moved in a slow orbit around the shadow, every step deliberate, every muscle coiled with quiet threat. Alone, he circled it, the only two beings in the temple-like arena (where did the other inhabitants go?) He didn't rush. He never really did. Not when he knew the first strike could make the difference between predator and prey with an unknown enemy.
And after his first blow slipped clean through that seething mass of darkness, I couldn't blame him for waiting.
How do you strike something that isn't there?
My heart pressed up into my mind's ribs, an anxious staccato drumming in my chest that seemed to echo in the safety of the stone. Could he even touch it? Land a single hit? Can a fist catch mist? Can a staff hit a whisper?
Doubt it all you want, but there he stood—defiant, unyielding, and reckless enough to try.
Maybe… he should just run.
The thought flickered like a rogue spark in dry brush, quick and wild. But it wasn't like I could voice it now. Not with him locked in that predator's orbit, his steps slow, precise, eyes sharp as flint, no doubt. I could only watch from within the stone, breath tight in my minds chest as Monkey Boy completed his circle around the shadow.
That was when it moved.
No warning. No flourish. Just raw, brutal instinct. The shadow lunged, its right arm a slab of darkness cutting down with the weight of a falling mountain.
Monkey Boy spun left—not away, but in. He twisted at the waist, his momentum sharp as a blade's edge, slipping just past the swing. His dodge wasn't clean—it never was. It was raw, reactive, dangerous, but it worked. In the space of a single breath, he shifted from target to hunter.
His staff came up when he was at the shadows side. Fast. Relentless.
A sharp, clean arc cut the air, the force of it carrying all his strength behind it. The end of the staff soared like a scythe made of raw strength and iron—
And cleaved straight through the shadow.
For one breathless moment, stillness hung in the air…
The kind that happens right before something worse happens.
The darkness unraveled at the point of impact, its form fraying like thread snapped from a loom—only to pull itself back together in an instant. Fluid. Effortless. The shadow reformed as if it had never been struck, the same arm that should've been destroyed now lashing out like a whip.
Monkey Boy barely managed to throw himself back as it swatted at him, the air behind it hissing with the speed of its swing. The sound hit like a crack of thunder right beside his ear, sharp and violent.
I could see it now—the shape of this fight.
It wasn't going to be won with brute force.
Not when the enemy could wear death like a second skin and slip free of it whenever it pleased.
The shadow went for the strike again.
A blur of black sinew and clawed malice, it lunged with the ferocity of a beast unchained. Monkey Boy ducked low, his staff spinning in a tight arc above his head, the shadow's swing missing by a hair's breadth, bouncing off his spinning staff. The force of it sent a sharp whoosh of air past his head, but he didn't flinch. No wasted movements. No second-guessing.
Monkey Boy drove forward when it looked like it staggered from his parry.
His feet hit the ground with enough power to crack stone, launching himself into the shadow's side. The end of his staff rammed into its ribs--if it had ribs--with what I thought was a thud that seemed to echo like a drumbeat from the abyss (or maybe I just imagined it in the heat of the battle). His staff then spun like a wheel in his hands, striking low, then high, then low again, a blur of ruthless precision.
Left cheek. Rib. Knee. Temple.
Each strike was fast, sharp, deliberate. Every blow should have broken something. Should have. But the shadow was no flesh and bone, and Monkey Boy's strikes passed through like slashing through smoke. Wisps of darkness tore away with each hit, swirling around him like unraveling threads, but it never stopped. The pieces reformed, sliding back into place, whole and unbothered.
Monkey Boy growled, actually growled, and I half wondered what fierce face he was making, all bared teeth, no doubt. He flipped his grip on the staff and went back on the offensive. His feet moved like a dance--forward, back, side, twist. His staff an extension of his body, every movement more fluid than the last, every strike faster than the last. A rapid-fire barrage of blows came crashing down on the shadow, the air alive with the whistles of his strikes.
The shadow reeled, or acted like it did. For the first time, it staggered from his blows, like a beast caught off guard. It swiped at him in an attempt to regain the high ground, claws that used to be hands cutting through the air in broad, heavy swings, but Monkey Boy was already gone. He darted to its flank, staff spinning at his side, waiting for his opening.
The moment came when a large arch of a swing came down and missed.
He lunged forward with a shout, his staff a lightning bolt in his hands, cracking up from below in a perfect upward strike aimed for its center. The blow struck true, snapping its form in two like a clay pot dropped from a great height.
Finally.
The world slowed for a heartbeat as the two halves of the shadow floated apart, pieces of it scattering like ink in water.
Its…
Over…its…
The pieces surged back together. No warning, no pause, no delay. The black mass snapped back into its full shape like a slingshot loosed, its body more solid than before.
Monkey Boy's eyes widened in that single, awful moment of realization.
The shadow's arm was already swinging.
A wide, brutal arc from his blind side, faster than he could twist away. He spun, sensing the strike, but was too slow. Far too slow.
Crack!
The impact was thunder, sharp and deafening.
It hit him square in the ribs. Not a glancing blow. Not a near miss. A full, punishing strike that sent him hurtling back through the air like a stone flung from a catapult. His body twisted, limbs weightless in front of his eyes, eyes then clenching tight, cutting off my own view as a ragged cry was torn from his throat. Pain, raw and sharp, echoed in that shout--pain that rippled like a wave.
Monkey boy!
He hit the ground hard, skidding across the dirt in a tangle of limbs and dust. His eyes flew open from the impact, enough to see his staff clattering away, a hollow, empty sound. For the first time, he didn't spring back up. He stayed down, breath coming fast, sharp, and uneven. His hands clenching and unclenching in front of his face.
His eyes then dragged down to his side where he moved his right hand to clutch his side, fingers curling tight over his ribs.
Was that…blood?
A scarlet bloom unfurled at his side — lush, lethal, and spreading like ivy with nowhere to climb but in.
It wasn't blood, though it bore its color. No, this was sharper. Hungrier. Jagged-edged crystals clawed their way on the surface of his skin, thorny petals of dark crimson erupting in wild flourish. They splintered beneath his hand, curling around his fingers as if to claim them, too, their chill unmistakable even from where I stayed hidden within the stone. My minds breath snagged. It wasn't just his stomach.
His feet.
His monkey feet bristled with them too, ruby-red shards jutting out like some grotesque mockery of nature's roots. They clung to him with fierce possession, the same as before, as if they had found something too precious to let go.
No. No, no, no.
Panic cracked through me, sharp as the crystals themselves, and Monkey Boy's gaze jerked toward the shadow. It stood there, unmoved, unbothered, but the ground beneath its feet told another story.
Wherever it had stepped, those same blood-raw crystals had taken root, a trail of red frostbite. And just beyond its feet, a deeper red pooled — rich, wet, and uncomfortably familiar. Like a wound unseen, weeping freely. Each drop hardened into crystals the moment it touched the ground, and when it moved away, leaving behind a pool of shards, blooming with wicked beauty, a garden of razor-blade roses growing in its wake.
A thing of horror wearing the guise of something beautiful.
The crystals — it was its blood.
Realization struck with the subtlety of a blade between the ribs, slow to register from the shock, impossible to ignore. Those jagged blooms of red weren't just mindless manifestations. They pulsed with something alive. Thick and raw, they bled their way into being — not spilling, but solidifying, every shard a crystallized heartbeat.
And the color…
My minds breath hitched inside my stone sanctuary, sharp as splintered glass.
The…same color as my hair.
That burning, blood-bright red. Familiar in a way that made my scalp feel too tight, like I'd been wearing someone else's fate without knowing it. It wasn't just red. It was my red.
Fate had a cruel sense of humor, it seemed. And it was laughing the loudest now.
The shadow loomed overhead, its form shifting, flickering like a fire struggling for air. It tilted its head, gaze locked on him.
It wasn't done.
Get up, Monkey Boy…
It moved. A single, deliberate step forward. Shadows fractured and reformed around it, its shape never quite still, every splinter of its rage sharp enough to cut the air.
Monkey Boy's eyes darted to his staff off to his right — forgotten, discarded — and then back to the shifting black. Two points. One choice.
He rose slowly, all breath and bruised pride, eyes never leaving the shadow. It charged, all jagged speed and ruin, and Monkey Boy's instincts kicked in. He rolled to the side as the shadow careened passed him, body tight as a coiled spring, his path carving a line straight for his staff.
Fingers met wood when his feet hit the ground again. Finally.
He spun, fluid as the turn of a tide, and his staff sang through the air in a wicked, whistling arc. But before he could taste relief, I saw it — the shadow already behind me.
My heart stuttered, a breath that didn't exist in my stone sanctuary caught halfway to a scream.
No, no, no—
But Monkey Boy was already moving, faster than my panic, his staff a streak of bronze light cutting through the dark. It connected. Solid. Precise. Perfect.
And yet again…
The strike passed through its head, harmless as a breath of smoke.
How the heck do you hurt this thing?! Stop it from attacking!
The air shifted. The blow came fast and hard and everywhere, and Monkey Boy was sent careening back with a grunt — no, a yelp — sharp with immense pain. He hit the ground hard, yet again, coughing out something between a growl and a wheeze.
He didn't get up right away again. I knew that sound. It wasn't pain alone that kept him down.
His gaze dropped, slow and deliberate as he lied on his back, as if he already knew what he'd find but was hoping the world would prove him wrong just this once.
It didn't.
The red came in full, violent bloom. Crystal shards tore through his chest like wildflowers forcing their way through flesh, each one sharp enough to pierce the breath right out of him.
He coughed. A horrible, wet sound that sent a jolt through me like a struck nerve. Every hack felt like something inside him was breaking, something essential. Something heartbreaking.
The shadow lunged. Fast. Unstoppable. A storm with teeth.
Stop…
Stop it…
…STOP!
"Monkey Boy!"
I screamed.
Not a thought.
Not a prayer.
It ripped out of me like a tangible, physical thing, raw and ragged, and the world heard it.
I heard it.
But not through my own ears. It rang from his ears, sharp and disorienting, like I was suddenly living in the hollow of his skull and not in the sanctuary of the stone.
He heard it too.
His flinch told me that much. Barely a twitch of his fingers, a crack in his resolve. But I saw it. I saw it as clearly as the blood-red crystals cutting their way across his chest.
He heard me.
The shadow moved with the precision of a predator that knew the hunt was already won. Each step was a strike, each strike was a storm, and Monkey Boy was caught in the eye of it.
He barely had time to stand back on his feat, each movement had him making a pained groan, steadying himself before it was on him again. Black claws sliced through the air, a scythe cutting through grain. Monkey Boy raised his staff, the bronze gleam catching the dim light like a flare of hope—but hope wasn't enough. The blow shattered his defense, the impact reverberating down his arms, sending his staff into his chest. His feet skidded back, kicking up dust and loose shards of red crystal as he fought to stay upright, stumbling back as he skidded across the ground.
Another swing. He ducked. Too slow. He was still trying to regain his footing from the last blow.
Why was it so strong?
The edge of the shadow's strike grazed his shoulder, and the red bloomed. A shiver of sharp-edged flowers erupted from his skin, thorns of crystal puncturing his flesh with ruthless precision. His snarl was sharp and guttural, half-pain, half-defiance, but there was no time to recover.
The shadow did not stop.
A blur of black and crimson, its movements too wild to predict, too fast to counter. Monkey Boy swung his staff in tight, desperate arcs, each strike sharp enough to fell trees — but it was like trying to cut fog. His staff passed through nothing but air. The shadow flickered behind him after one swing had it ducking behind him, copying his dodge from earlier, its arrival marked only by the sudden cold breath at his back.
A cold breath I felt, too.
I barely had time to understand what it had done before it struck.
Crack!
The blow hit his spine with the force of a falling boulder, and Monkey Boy's body folded. He crumpled forward, eyes wide with shock as he hit the dirt face-first, his staff rolling from his grip like it had given up on him too. His breath punched out in a broken gasp, his chest heaving with the effort to pull it back in.
Gasping for air…
"Get up," I whispered, my voice reverberating again, but there was no time to marvel at this new discovery. "Get up, Monkey Boy!"
But the shadow was already on him.
One clawed hand gripped his ankle, yanking him backward like prey being dragged into the den. He twisted, snarling, kicking at it with his free leg, but the shadow's grip only tightened. The sharp crunch of something breaking filled the air. Monkey Boy's yelp was raw and too human, his voice cracking under the weight of it.
He lashed out, his nails raking at the ground like he could claw his way back to solid footing. But there was no solid footing. Only red.
Red and shadows…
Another bloom. The crystals spread like fire over his leg, encasing it from ankle to knee in a prison of jagged red. They glittered like shattered rubies…
Cutting deep into him.
He swung his arm out when it dragged him closer, looming over him, his swing wild and reckless, catching the shadow in the side of its head. For a moment, it flickered, form destabilizing, and I dared to hope. But then it reformed, whole and seething, and its answer came in the form of another swing.
This one hit him square in the middle of his chest.
Crack!
The air left him in a soundless gasp. His body twisted with the force, arms cradling his side as he upper body hit the ground once more.
The crystals crawled up his sides, jagged little parasites latching on wherever they could find purchase. His fur that freed itself through his now torn clothes bristled around them like it, too, was trying to push them away, but there was no stopping it. His breathing was sharp and shallow now, eyes darting to the staff — too far away to reach. His gaze flicked up to the shadow instead, watching it still loom over his prone body with the slow certainty of something that knew it had time to savor the kill.
And he knew it too.
But still, his fingers twitched over the blooming crystals on his chest. Barely a movement, a silent promise that he wasn't done, even as more red crept up his chest like frost claiming a windowpane.
Don't give up. Don't give up.
Was there anything I could do without getting in the way!?
I could hear my heartbeat louder than anything else, louder than the crunch of crystal, louder than the hollow thud of shadow fists meeting flesh. My voice rose, sharp and desperate, until I couldn't tell if I was thinking it or screaming it.
"Get up, Monkey Boy! Get up!"
His eyes suddenly flicked left and right like he thought I had suddenly appeared next to him. But when he didn't see me, I heard him grind his teeth. Actually heard the grind.
Then, his hands gripped the ground, claws digging into the dirt with newfound force. With a groan that shook from his core, he lifted his chest, crystals still clinging to his ribs like armor made of agony. His gaze locked on the shadow figure as it twisted its head from left to right, like a dog, watching him.
Monkey Boy was a war-torn shrine of flesh and blood-crusted crystal. Each shard dug deep — jagged rubies wedged into muscle, tendon, and lungs that refused to surrender.
He wasn't going to win this.
And I—
I wasn't going to let him die. Not like this. Not now.
The shadow loomed, all terrible grace and finality, head tilting with eerie deliberation. Its arm lifted slow and sure, like it knew there would be no second swing. This was it. The end sharpened to a single, perfect point.
The killing blow.
But I was no longer just watching through Monkey Boy's eyes.
A hook of force yanked me from the sidelines — snatched from fate's gallery and dragged into the fray. An arm coiled around my waist, taut and unyielding when I suddenly appeared above Monkey Boy, an arm that tried to pull me away. From between him and it. Monkey Boy's startled snarl reached my ears, all sharp, rasping panic.
But I was already moving. Already there.
The shadow's arm came down like a judge's gavel, all certain of its sentence, but my hands were already up, braced and bared to catch it. To hold it. To break under it, if need be.
It recoiled. Hard. Harder than what should be allowed from a shadow creature that didn't seem to show any emotion past rage. Its body jolted, a tremor so sharp it might've been a shiver. Like an eye snapped wide in the face of something it wasn't ready to see.
It…feared me.
Feared striking me.
But it was too late. Its momentum was a runaway beast, and the strike still fell. Unstoppable. Unrelenting.
Contact.
The world shattered red — a wild, searing bloom behind my eyes. Blood, light, pain — I couldn't tell where one ended and the next began.
It had struck me.
And it had regretted it.
Too bad. I didn't.
The cold was an unyielding tyrant, reigning over every inch of me with merciless precision. Not the distant, numbing cold that dulls everything to gray indifference. No, this was sharp, seeping cold — a sly invader worming its way through skin, sinking into muscle, and rooting itself deep in the marrow of my bones.
It didn't just exist. It hurt.
God, did it hurt.
Movement was a forgotten concept. Sight, a distant memory. I was a prisoner to it, shackled in frostbitten chains. Every instinct in me screamed to move, but I might as well have been encased in stone.
No, not stone. Ice.
And completely aware of the amount of pain I was in…
All I knew was the cold. The cruel, torturous cold.
And then — warmth.
A whisper of it, featherlight on my cheek. It wasn't much, just a flicker of sensation against the vast freeze. But it was enough. Enough to make me want to chase it, to drag it closer and bury myself in it like a half-starved beast.
I tried to turn toward it, tried to breathe it in, but my body wouldn't listen. It wouldn't—
SLAP!
A sharp, stinging bloom of pain snapped me back to myself. The world crashed in like a landslide — air, weight, breath, gravity. My eyes flew open as a gasp ripped from my lungs. And there he was.
Light brown eyes stared down at me, wide with something that looked suspiciously like concern.
"Monkey Boy?" My voice sounded wrecked, like I'd gargled gravel and chased it with splinters (that image was…unsettling). His face hovered close, too close, his gaze scanning me like he was searching for…something… his mouth slightly agape… I could feel his breath on my lips…
And the cold was gone. Just like that. Along with the pain.
"W-what happened?" I croaked, already feeling the stirrings of dread behind my ribs. Memory clicked into place with a jarring lurch, and I bolted upright, heart pounding against my ribs.
"Wait—!" Monkey Boy flinched back, ducking just in time to avoid my forehead colliding with his. I swore I heard him hiss something under his breath (!), but I was too busy trying to piece myself back together to catch it.
The cold was gone, but somehow, I wasn't sure that was a comfort.
My eyes swept the temple grounds around us, heart pounding a brutal cadence in my chest. The shadowy thing — the thing wearing clothes from my world — was gone. Vanished like a bad dream at dawn.
But the crystals… they remained.
Most of them.
Scattered like jagged stars across the ground, still humming with that strange, otherworldly bloody glow. Some had begun to hiss and sizzle, melting back into the stone like embers snuffed out by rain. The silence that followed was thick. Oppressive. The kind that made every creak and shuffle feel like a shout.
And then when my eyes swept over Monkey Boy…
My breath lodged in my throat, sharp and sudden…
Monkey Boy…
He crouched nearby, one leg propped up, the other tucked underneath him as he put all his weight on one knee, every inch of him wrecked. Blood dripped in sluggish rivulets from the shards embedded in his skin, into his flesh, all over him, tiny rivers trailing down to pool on the stone beneath him, staining his clothes. The crystals hadn't disappeared from him like they were beginning to from the ground. They clung to him like parasites, jagged edges biting deep.
He didn't even flinch. Just stared at me. His wild, sharp eyes darted over me with the same frantic precision I was using on him. Searching for damage. Checking for wounds. His face was tight as he fought off the pain.
But he was the one bleeding.
"Why…" My voice cracked. I shifted to my knees, hands moving before I could think better of it. "Why are you looking at me like that? You're the one…"
His gaze snapped to mine. His eyes narrowed.
He growled low and fast. His right hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my shoulder with an unyielding grip. Not painful, but unmoving. His eyes locked on me with a ferocity that made my breath stutter.
Not like he was scolding me.
Like he was pleading.
Like I was the one hanging by a thread.
The blood still dripped from his wounds, steady as a metronome. I could hear it hit the stone. Drip. Drip. Drip.
He didn't seem to notice.
But I did.
My hand shot up, fingers curling around his on my shoulder like I could anchor him in place, like I could hold him together by sheer will alone. My other hand gripped his forearm, feeling the taut cord of muscle beneath blood-slick skin. It was basically the only part of him not littered in those stupid crystals. My eyes refused to stop moving, cataloging every wound, every shard of crystal burrowed into him like thorns in a flower stem. His right leg was the worst of it. Almost completely encased.
"Did you drink from your gourd yet?" My voice cracked, tight and trembling at the edges. "Why haven't you healed?" My chest burned with the effort to keep my breathing steady. "You're hurt!"
He was so hurt.
I released his arm, fingers flying toward a jagged mess of crystals embedded in his left shoulder. The shards jutted out like the cruel points of broken glass, one of them punched clean through to the other side. The sight made me feel sick and desperate all at once.
"What can I do—"
His grip on my shoulder vanished. For half a second, I thought he was giving in. Letting me help.
Stupid, stupid.
He swatted my hand away, firm but not harsh. Just enough to make his point. His eyes found mine, dark and steady as an anchor. His lip was split, a thin line of blood trailing down his chin and into his fur, but he didn't wipe it away. Didn't even blink.
That look hit me harder than any slap.
Stop.
Don't touch me.
Don't hurt yourself trying to help me.
I swallowed hard, my throat raw like I'd been screaming. He was protecting me. Even now. Even with blood dripping from every inch of him. Even with his body riddled with those vile, hungry crystals.
I glanced down at his foot.
I shouldn't have.
My breath stuttered, sharp and painful. His one foot was completely encased in crystal. Not gone in the literal sense, but the flesh and skin I knew should have been there had been devoured by the red-glowing infestation, consumed entirely. It wasn't just clinging to him anymore. It had claimed him.
His foot was a war zone of torn flesh and crystal rot, each step he'd taken while fighting the shadow carving deeper into him, each movement grinding those shards deeper into his bones. The blood hadn't even clotted. It dripped steadily, mercilessly, painting the stone beneath him in glistening crimson trails. A different type of red against the crystals…
And he stood on that like it didn't matter. His other foot probably no better.
Like pain was a thing that only happened to other people. He was good at hiding it.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, hot and furious and useless. I blinked hard, trying to push them back, but my chest felt like it was splitting apart. My heart thrashed, loud and wild, like it was trying to claw its way out.
He was breaking, right in front of me.
And he still wouldn't let me help. Because those same crystals that were hurting him could hurt me, too.
And he didn't want that.
My hands dropped uselessly to my sides, fingers curling against the stone like I could squeeze strength from it. But the moment my palms hit the ground, Monkey Boy made a sound. Low and sharp, halfway between a growl and a gasp as his eyes widened at my hand. His right hand darted out, snatching up my left like I'd done something reckless.
I blinked at him, confusion flickering through me like a struck match.
His brow furrowed with something too sharp to be called concern. His fingers turned my hand this way and that, scanning it with quick, precise movements. His gaze cut to my other hand, his grip on my left tightening as his eyes locked onto the right.
My heart stilled. No.
I looked down.
Then I gasped.
My right hand had landed square in the middle of a cluster of red crystals. A whole bed of them, sharp and jagged like shattered rubies. They should've torn into me. Burrowed into my skin like they had his. I should've felt the bite of them, felt the burn of them tunneling into flesh.
But they didn't.
Instead, they recoiled.
The shards quivered, pulling back from my hand like I was something untouchable. Something dangerous. They sizzled and melted away as if my touch had scalded them. As if I had become the threat.
The air in my lungs thinned to nothing.
My gaze flickered to Monkey Boy, his eyes already pinned on mine, wide with concern, and question. Mimicking mine, no doubt.
The shadow figure. It had done the same thing, hadn't it? Fled from me the moment I reached for it. Every time I'd reached for it, it had recoiled away like my hands were dipped in poison, or tried to.
My breath shuddered out of me. It feared me.
Not my strength. Not my speed. Me.
It feared my touch.
I moved before thought had the chance to catch me.
Before Monkey Boy could react.
Before I could question it.
My hands shot forward, fast and unyielding, straight toward him. Straight toward the mess of crystals burrowed into his skin. I didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. It didn't matter if he snapped at me, didn't matter if he shoved me away. This time, I wouldn't stop. Even as his body recoiled away from me, another noise of concern escaping his lips.
My fingers found his shoulder first. The jagged cluster of red shards jutted out. I pressed my palms against them, and the moment my skin met crystal — hisssssss.
The sound was sharp, wet, wrong, but exactly what I'd hoped for.
They melted.
Right there beneath my palms, the shards sizzled and dissolved, twisting into vapor as if they'd been lit from the inside out. They didn't burrow deeper. Didn't bite. They fled, crumbling to nothing but the ghost of themselves.
Disappearing entirely like that shadow…
Monkey Boy sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, a hiss that might've been pain but wasn't. His eyes squeezed shut, his whole body tensing for the briefest moment—then he melted too. Shoulders sagging, hands slipping from their outstretched braced position on either side of me like he wanted to push me away, only to fall limply at his sides. His head tilted forward, his breath rattling out in a slow, long exhale. Relief.
He knew it now.
I knew it.
I could do this. I could melt them out of him without having them do more damage than they already were doing. I could melt them away like sun on frost.
I could help.
My throat tightened with something thick. I blinked hard, but my eyes still stung, and a few tears slipped past before I could stop them. They carved warm paths down my cheeks, but I didn't bother wiping them away. He couldn't see them right now, anyhow.
But I didn't stop.
My hands moved with purpose, gliding over his arms, his shoulders, the brutal latticework of crystals webbing down his back, his chest, his left arm, leg. A leg that was broken… Each touch was a spark of destruction for the shards, each pass of my fingers reducing them to steam. One by one, they fled.
I felt him relax with every piece that vanished. How he seemed to lean into my touch.
The lines on his face eased, the sharp pinch of pain at the corners of his eyes smoothing away bit by bit. His breathing slowed, each exhale softer, more steady than the last.
I kept going.
Even after the tears continued falling, I kept going.
When the last shard of crystal flickered out of existence, he stayed still — eyes closed, chest rising with each slow, deliberate breath. I moved behind him, fingers curling around the gourd strapped to his back. The webbing-like material gave way without a fight that held the gourd in place, and as I slid it free, but something caught my eye. A familiar small shape, half-hidden in the temple's gloom, sprawled in the center of the stone floor.
I ignored it. Priorities first.
The gourd was light, worryingly so. I gave it a shake, the faintest swish of liquid responding. Uncorking it, I pressed it to his lips, tilting it just enough for the last dregs to flow. He drank greedily, throat working with each swallow, and I watched as the magic of it began. Flesh rethreading itself into wholeness, fur sprouting back through blood-slicked skin. The seeping wounds quieted, sealing shut as though they'd never been there at all.
Only when the gourd ran dry did I pull it away, stuffing the cork back in with a satisfying squeak. His eyes cracked open just a sliver, sharp as ever but softened by fatigue. He watched me, golden eyes tracking my every move as I looped the gourd back into its place, my hands brushing the muscles of his back.
I didn't stop there. Couldn't. My hands hovered over his shoulders when I righted myself in front of him again, fingers testing the freshly mended fur. Warmth, rough texture, and the crusty flakes of dried blood. My fingers moved slow, methodical, wiping away the grit. Searching. Feeling for anything left behind. No gash. No tear. Just fur, soft and stubborn as ever.
And he watched my every move.
My gaze dropped to his left arm — the one that had been strangled in that lattice of crystal. My fingers brushed the length of it, slow. No jagged remnants. No shards hiding beneath the skin. Just fur and the sticky residue of blood. I scraped some away with the tips of my fingers, still searching.
Still not trusting it.
I moved lower, hands gliding over his ribs, his chest, the curve of his side, his once broken leg now healed. Searching. Hunting. What if they're still inside him? The thought had teeth. What if they'd sunk deeper? Hidden in bone, clinging like parasites?
"Do you hurt anywhere at all?" My voice felt too thin, stretched tight between calm and dread. I needed him to answer, but I didn't want him to. Not if it was the answer I feared. But I needed to know.
His gaze settled on me — steady, unreadable, and far too tired to play whatever game he thought I was up to. For a heartbeat, he just watched me, his eyes scanning mine. Then, with a slow, deliberate shake of his head, he answered.
No.
"Are you sure?" I pressed, sharper now. I trusted him deeply, but he could be saying no for my benefit only.
Another nod. Slower this time. Patient, like he was humoring me.
Still, I didn't stop. My hands moved on instinct, gliding over the places where his wounds had been deepest. My palms flattened against his chest, his sides, his arms over and over again— fur, fur, fur. No cuts. No ridges. No hidden shards ready to burst out like splinters.
But I had to be sure.
His hands moved before I noticed. Large, calloused, and so quick they snared both of mine who were moving against his chest for the third time. He tugged them away from his chest, his grip gentle but absolute. Our hands dropped to my lap, his weight pressing them into my thighs, pinning me there with a kind of quiet finality.
He sighed. His whole body sank with it, a long, world-weary release of air that scraped past his teeth. His eyes met mine, still heavy with exhaustion but sharp with something far more cutting — enough.
The look said it all. I'm fine. Stop fussing.
His gaze lingered on mine for a moment longer, like he was daring me to argue.
I didn't.
But I hated how much I wanted to.
Because the truth of it — the cold, unrelenting truth — was this:
It was my fault.
Every claw-scratch of it. Every blood-soaked inch. Every wound that had ripped him apart. All of it.
That thing… whatever it was… it was somehow tied to me. I didn't know how. Didn't know why. But the not-knowing gnawed at me, hollowing out the spaces between my ribs with every second it lingered unanswered.
Frustration flared hot in my chest, sharp and choking, but I forced it down.
"This is my fault," I muttered, barely more than a breath, but I knew he heard it.
I didn't look up. Couldn't. Not with his hands still pressed over mine, warm and steady like an anchor I didn't deserve. My eyes stayed locked on my lap, on the way his fingers curved over my own.
"Whatever that thing was," I said, louder now, bitterness creeping in with every syllable, "it's my fault you got hurt. Maybe if it hadn't seen me —" my voice cracked, and I hated myself for that — "maybe it wouldn't have come out at all."
Silence pressed in. Heavy. Stifling. I clenched my jaw, bracing myself for whatever he'd say with those expressive eyes of his once I looked back up, whatever sharp-edged truth he'd toss back at me.
But, I couldn't look up.
Only the weight of his hands on mine. Steady. Unyielding. Unmoving.
His fingers pressed down, firm but slow. Not a squeeze. Not a tug. Just weight — heavy enough to be felt, soft enough to be deliberate.
I went still. Breath caught halfway up my throat. My eyes darting over his hands that caged mine, the rough bristle of his fur brushing against my skin from his wrist. His touch was warm, not just warm but steady, like stone left too long in the sun.
He didn't speak, not like he would in the first place.
He didn't have to.
The silence between us shifted. Not sharp or cold, but thick with the kind of certainty that couldn't be argued with.
His thumb dragged once, slow and absent, over the back of my hand. Not a fidget. Not a twitch. Just a quiet, quiet no.
I blinked, breath unsteady now, something raw climbing up the back of my throat.
He wasn't arguing with me. He wasn't scolding me. He wasn't telling me I was wrong.
He was just being there.
Watching. Waiting. Not as a mirror for my guilt, but as something far, far harder to face.
Refusal.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, enough to taste iron, enough to feel something sharper than that slow, steady drag of his thumb. My chest tightened, lungs fighting themselves, and I hated myself for it.
He didn't agree with me. Wouldn't let me sit in it. Wouldn't hand me the guilt like a sword and say, Yes, this is yours. Take it. Wield it.
No.
He just held my hands in his, so certain that none of this was on me.
And somehow, somehow, that was worse.
God, I was selfish.
Shamelessly. Brazenly. Selfishly selfish.
And I knew it, too — wore it like a crown of thorns I'd fashioned myself.
"You're too nice for your own good, you know that?" I said while looking back up at him.
He blinked at me, his brows furrowed in concentration. Slow. Long. Painfully deliberate blinks.
Then his head tilted — just a fraction — his look changing to one like he'd caught sight of something deeply, profoundly stupid in the distance and was giving it his full attention.
One brow lifted, his lips thinned as he gave me that look.
Was he…was calling me an idiot…
I could feel it radiating off of him (how am I so attuned to his emotions? Was this the stones doing, too?).
He was calling me an idiot!
And more silence. Pure. Deafening. Full of judgment.
I squinted at him, heat crawling up the back of my neck. "Don't look at me like that."
His other brow rose to join the first. Oh, so now they're a team. He was doubling down.
I shook off his hands and threw up my own, huffing out a breath. "You're so insufferable sometimes!"
He smirked. One of those lazy, lopsided grins that practically begged to be wiped off his face.
I huffed again, louder this time, just to make sure he heard it, and pushed myself to my feet. He followed, of course, standing up with me.
I didn't face him fully — half-turned, arms crossed, eyes flicking to him in quick glances like I wasn't actually watching him. But I was. Of course I was. Searching for the wince, the stiff movement, the flinch that would prove he wasn't as "fine" as he claimed to be.
But instead, he just dusted himself off with all the urgency of a cat cleaning its paws. Casual. Thorough. Pointless. He flicked at a tear in his sleeve, poked a few holes in his shirt like he'd only just noticed them.
There were holes all over his clothes…
Damn, was the hairy…patches of hair broke free from every tear in his clothes.
Oh, he's gonna need new clothes. I half-wondered if he'd make the same ones or try something new.
Something with more armor, perhaps?
Then the one thing that caught my attention before appeared back into view when Monkey Boy shifted.
My arms fell to my sides, and I stepped around him, eyes locked on the center of the temple grounds. It was small. Unassuming. But it hadn't been there before. I knew that much. It would have been damaged or pushed to the side as Monkey Boy fought that shadow…
I crouched low, fingers curling around it as I picked it up. Solid weight. A smooth surface. It sat heavy in my palm, but my mind was somewhere else.
"By the way," I called over my shoulder, eyes still on the thing in my hand. "What happened to the shadow anyhow? Where'd it go?"
I straightened slowly, turning to face him.
Monkey Boy was staring at me. Not his usual stare, either — not the one full of snark and how-are-you-this-dense energy. No, he was focused. His eyes moved over me like he was scanning for something that wasn't there.
Then his hand lifted, slow and deliberate, and tapped his chest. Right over a spot that didn't have fur, just smooth skin…
I blinked. What?
He rolled his eyes so hard I could practically hear them shift in their sockets. Before I could ask, he was moving toward me, purposeful strides that ended with him tapping my chest.
Not a shove. Not a push. Just a tap. Right over my heart.
He stepped back like that should've been obvious, but I was still two steps behind. My gaze dropped to my chest, brows furrowing hard enough to ache. I tapped it, mimicking him, slower, more unsure.
And then it hit me.
"It… disappeared into my chest?" I said it like a question, because it had to be. No way…that was real.
He gave a single, sharp nod.
"...Oh."
I didn't know what to do with that information. How to feel about it. I didn't even know what "it" was.
How? Why? Did it really disappear in me, or did it go somewhere else? But voicing those questions wouldn't get me anywhere.
So, I did the only thing I could to get my mind off it, because how the heck was I supposed to act or say with that?
I looked back down at the object in my hand.
It was... a notebook.
Leather-bound, worn in that well-loved, carried-everywhere kind of way. The kind of thing you'd expect to see tucked under someone's arm on a rainy day, not lying in the middle of a forgotten, haunted temple.
A journal, maybe?
Curiosity curled its claws into me. My fingers moved before my brain could catch up, thumbing the edge of the cover before peeling it open. The leather creaked softly, and I turned to the first page.
And froze.
My breath hitched, sharp and sudden, like I'd stepped into cold water.
Because there, scrawled across the page in clean, familiar strokes, were words.
Words I knew.
English.
Modern English.
The kind I grew up reading. The kind that belonged in textbooks, on menus, in the subtitles of my favorite shows. It stared back at me, calm as you please, like it didn't just rewrite the entire logic of my world in one turn of a page.
I just… stared at it.
Wide-eyed. Breath stuck halfway up my throat. Mind doing that lovely little thing where it spun and spun but didn't land on anything.
No way. No way.
But it didn't disappear. Even as I reached for the ring on my hand that translated my words into Chinese, and vice versa and removed it, the words didn't blur or shift into something ancient and unreadable. It stayed exactly as it was.
English.
Clear as daylight. Impossible as a dream.
I flipped one page. Then another. English. Every crisp sheet bore words I could actually read, a small mercy in a world so hellbent on being indecipherable. But that mercy didn't stretch far. Ten pages, maybe. Then—nothing. No grand finale, no cliffhanger. Just a sudden blank, uninked pages. Stark white, blank pages.
But then — oh, but then — something happened.
The eleventh page breathed. Not with lungs or breath, but with ink. It seeped up from the paper's marrow, curling into lines and edges, like a sketch artist's hand moving unseen. Stroke by stroke, it carved out something familiar and foreign all at once. Letters crowned the top of the page like a royal decree, and what it had written read:
Elder Jinchi.