Tekeshi looked the woman up and down. He was amazed that she seemed so, calm. She had been in almost lethal pain just a couple of hours earlier, and yet she was speaking normally already.

"Are you ok," he asked.

Candace took a deep breath before she answered, "I think I am. I, this is so weird to me. I didn't know that sound was, so beautiful. I, didn't know how my own voice sounded."

"It is a very beautiful voice. It is such a welcome sound compared to the emptiness that I have dealt with over the months I have been here," Kuyo said as he offered her a bowl of the stew.

"Thank you, for the food and the kind words. Where are we Husband, why are we here," she turned her head to Tekeshi.

He didn't want to answer immediately. He didn't know how she was going to react when she was confronted with the undeniable proof. In a way, it was going to be just as cruel as it was merciful to her, and he didn't know just how strong she was mentally.

"We are in a place called the Valley of the Dragon. Specifically near a place called Vampiris. The place where, Shinso was born. Where he died," he replied to her after a moment.

Candace looked down at the food she had taken a few bites of during his silence, "Why are you keeping this up?"

"Because it is the truth. I know that you don't want to believe it. Who would, because it can't be anything but painful. This power you feel, was passed on to me. He was ready to be done with it, he had been for a long time. I, don't even want it. I want to be back at that school, with the women I love, just living my life. I don't want to be the reason that vampires even exist. I just want to be a teenager. I don't have that choice though, and I think the only way that you will really understand, is if... you see his grave," he sat his bowl down on the ground and rested his forehead on folded hands.

"Grave? I know you. I have seen knights charge you and splinter warlances against your bare chest. I watched you catch a mace head mid swing, and you shattered it just with your bare hand. You're invincible. You're immortal. He, never lost," she closed her eyes as tears started to form in the corners.

"Miss, I am not entirely sure what the full story is, but if it is over the fate of Shinso, I can confirm that he met his fate. I will, allow you two to speak. My food reserves need to be built up more before winter comes. If you leave before I return, it has been good to speak with you again," Kuyo stood up and grabbed a rifle from just inside the door of his hut before he walked off into the valley.

Tekeshi barely looked in the direction the yoko walked off into. He didn't want to know how hard it was on her to start to realize it. How was he going to feel when Utsuki passed away? Even shinsos didn't live forever, only him. How long would he have her? Would he one day lose his mind and find someone that felt like her, and fixate like this woman had.

"Would, you like to see his grave," he asked after a moment..

"Yes."

"It's, a bit of a walk. It is on the other side of, Vampiris. There isn't anything left here that will be a threat. Are you, feeling ok?"

"I, am still a little uncomfortable. Everything seems so loud. I just, I never, I didn't know what I was missing not being able to hear. You, I... I really hope that you are lying to me, because, that would mean... that I never hear the one voice I always wanted to hear," she looked off into the distance as she finished speaking.

It took them about an hour to reach Vampiris on foot. Tekeshi considered just stepping through to the village, but he still dealt with a great deal of discomfort, even if he had gotten more used to it due to the constant use of it during his assault on the hospital in Northern Ireland.

"Candace, I have to wonder a little. You were born mute, right," he asked as they took a rest on the outskirt of the village.

"I was."

"How are you able to speak so easily then? I literally restored my Grandmother's body, and it took a long time for her to be able to speak again, and she wasn't mute."

Candace looked annoyed, obviously wanting to say something about him not having a grandmother or something, but she humored him this time, "It wasn't that I don't understand speech, I just couldn't speak myself. I was actually born psychic, so I was able to understand people very early on. I, knew what those..."

"The mercenaries, I saw the memory. You don't have to say anything about what they did to you."

"Right. Obviously you could hear me before I was able to speak, but I did have to learn what words meant, to be able to speak mentally with others. If I didn't know how, I don't think Simona would have been all that useful to me," she said as she reached down to work one of her boots off.

Tekeshi nodded, "That, does make sense. If, I'm telling the truth, what do you plan to do?"

She didn't answer. He wasn't in a hurry to make her either. It wasn't a simple question, because at that point it was literally making her question her whole concept of reality. She didn't want to stop thinking that the man she loved was still alive, and he still couldn't blame her.

"Go home. What else would I be able to do? To be honest, I don't even know what I would do then. I don't know how to do anything, after I married you, I, was always just a pampered woman. I just laid around as a decoration, and had a lot of sex with you. Occasionally I would cut someone's throat. I, played with our children, and fed them when my breasts started to ache. None of the nobles seemed to care that much I existed, nor did the clergy. You were the only thing I lived for," she looked at the piece of footwear in her hand, not meeting his eyes.

"Candace, if I am telling the truth, that means you are my great, great grandmother. You are still family. You will always be welcome, my parents will back me up on that. I have an aunt who mostly just laid around anyway, before we all knew that she was sick," he suddenly went quite as he thought about it.

He hadn't been told about her being sick until very recent. When he had asked her why she was in a wheelchair, she hadn't hidden anything from him. He wished he knew more about how to use all the powers that he had been given, or if any of them could be used to help her.

"Sick? That isn't something common. Do you know what her sickness is," Candace perked up a little as she pulled her boot back on and took the other off.

"No. It is so rare, that there isn't even a name recorded for it. Apparently it is genetic, or familial if that makes more sense. She can't walk anymore, and is starting to have issues using her arms. At some point, she is going to, just have her body shut down. It stunted her growth whatever it is," he told her.

"Stone bone? That isn't that big of an issue. All she needs to do is bathe in a mixture of quicksilver, extremely purified gold, and cow blood. The gold will dampen healing which will make the body more permeable. The quicksilver will cause slight damage that the nutrients in the cows blood will help start repairing," she looked down in the boot and pulled a lump of lint out of it.

"You know what she has," Tekeshi looked up.

"It used to affect children mostly. That is why we used gold, it tended to have milder effects than silver did. Silver by itself could do worse harm, and there was a metal that was brought up from the far reaches of Africa that could kill even an adult vampire. Iron is hard to purify enough to be useful in the mixture. It mostly comes about by not getting enough blood as a toddler, or drinking really poor blood. I think most of the cases were seen in Cathay, though it wasn't unheard of in the far reaches of Kievan Rus. Occasionally we would see it in Wallachia, but I only know of two personally," she pulled her other boot on.

Tekeshi's mind went into overdrive trying to parse what she had said. It wasn't common in Wallachia, but was in Kievan Rus, and Cathay. Kievan Rus, would have been Russia and Ukraine in the modern day, along with Belarus, and two or three other countries. Where was Cathay though? He wasn't immediately familiar with it.

"Candace, where was Cathay located?"

She looked up for a second as she tried to think, "I think, you call it China now."

China. Akua was half Chinese, and had lived her early life in China. There was a chance that a better treatment method could be found, but there was a chance that she could be cured. Take that modern knowledge, the past often held answers that no one else could find.

They started back on the Trek to Shinso's grave without saying anything else, as Tekeshi was doing his best trying to figure out a way to treat his aunt that didn't require her to soak in a tub of animal blood. The idea of bathing in beef blood turned even his stomach.

He had to admit though, for someone who was supposed to be a spoiled brat by her own admission, Candace wasn't having any trouble keeping up. In fact it almost seemed like she was enjoying the hike.

"I thought you said you were a display piece, how are you having this easy a time marching over rough ground like you are," Tekeshi asked her as they stopped in the middle of the devastated village.

She didn't respond. Candace found herself looking at the field of grave markers. She felt Shinso's power lingering on them. They were something that he had willed into existence, she could tell from the feeling. She didn't understand why though. Why would there be anyone in this far off valley that lay somewhere she wasn't aware of.

"This was where he was born. They were, his people, though far separated- from him really. None of them ever met him, but he was remembered, and they left a message for him in death. I helped him bury them, before we fought," It didn't take Tekeshi much brainpower to figure out what was in her head.

"This... I... Why does it feel different to you, yet, I know this feeling," she asked.

"The grave is still further on."

They started walking again. Tekeshi didn't try to ask Candace anything. He wouldn't have known what to ask her. He had a feeling that she was really starting to understand that he was telling the truth, and what that really meant to her.

"He, was, born here," Candace stopped next to one of the buildings that was still mostly standing, ironically the one where Tekeshi and his mother had found the message left for Shinso.

He took a deep breath and looked at a gladius that had once leaned against the wall of the building, but had fallen in two pieces from rust and neglect, "Yeah. He left at some point, and the late Roman Republic, or the early Roman Empire attacked the place, and killed everyone who couldn't leave. It laid as a tomb for millenia, until the battle that he died in."

"You, killed him? I can't believe you aren't him. You have to be toying with me, you have to be," she fell to her knees, "I can't have lost him."

'Tekeshi, I think, I should show myself,' He heard Jakkasu speak in the back of his head.

'That is your choice. As much as you call me your master, I will never try to control more than the blade in my hand. If you want to show yourself, it's up to you," he replied.

A bright white light seemed to fill the area. Candace didn't seem to notice at first, still abosorbed in the realization that she possibly would never see her husband again. A warmth filled the air, different from the moist cold that was natural to the area.

"Candace, he is gone," the bell like voice seemed to wake her up.

The woman turned to see the form that Jakkasu took, "Who are you?"

The goddess seemed to take a deep breath, "I, how to truly say this? I was the only who bore Shinso into this world, and took him from it."

Tekeshi decided that it would be best to step to the side and let them talk. He sat down on a fallen wall, and laid the blade across his lap.

"What?"

Jakkasu took a few steps to kneel next to her, "I can't tell you a name, but I fell in love with a man, a mighty warrior in this village. I bore him a son. I was confined to that blade as punishment, and was wielded by the man I loved. Soon he died, at least to me it was soon. I am the one that told Shinso how to awaken his divinity, and cursed him to what he became."

"Cursed? What curse? Shinso has never complained about what he was. He never talked about his birth, but I am sure he would have said something if his mother was made of light. I...," Candace fell silent as she tried to make sense of things.

"I wasn't then. I used to have real boobs, instead of whatever this is. I, was punished before he was old enough to remember. I could only get glimpses, but I saw some of his life. He tried to be a good child, he was kind, and he tried to be fair. He was a pacifist, until he had a reason to not be. When that happened, and he took me up, I told him how to take the blood of one of my equals, and told him to drink it."

"You, made him, what he became? What are you? You have to be some form of trick, or something. I...," she went quiet, tears starting to flow down her cheeks.

Jakkasu took her in a hug, "My prison was the tool use to give him peace, from the burden I cursed him with. What ever you think, as much as you want him here, just know that I am the same. As much as you want your husband back, I want my son back. I don't want him back to suffer what he did for those thousands of years."

Candace looked up to Jakkasu's face, "Why would you kill him?"

"Because, I had to make up for what I had done to him."

"Jakkasu, we should get going, it looks like a storm might be coming in. You two will have time to sit down and talk again," Tekeshi looked up toward the eastern sky while the women had been talking.

"Yes, I guess there may be. Mourn him, but don't cry over him. He wouldn't want to see tears on your face. He hated seeing people cry," a finger made of light came up to wipe a tear from Candace's face.

A slight smile twitched on the woman's mouth, "He always did."

She hadn't seen Tekeshi stand and walk over next to her, so she was startled when he held a hand out to help her stand. She looked up, almost hoping to see a pair of cold eyes she was so familiar with. They weren't there, the eyes she saw were warm, and seemed much kinder than she could ever remember.

"It should only be about twenty more minutes to reach the grave," Tekeshi said quietly.

Candace looked up at his face. She searched for any sign that her husband was there. The high, heavy cheek bones, instead of the finer ones on the boy's face. The hard set mouth that seemed to have a slight disaproval of the world, over the light smile that crossed Tekeshi's face. The barely controlled hatred that he would let loose against anyone that offended her, or himself. Even that was absent, instead a warm kindness was there.

"You really aren't him. There isn't any part of him in you. Even though I feel his power roiling around you, you, aren't anything like him. You, there is a part of me that wants to yell at you that you took him away from me, but, I don't know how he could have been beaten if he didn't want it. Everything I saw him do, he was invincible. Why, did you kill him?"

Tekeshi looked up from the woman, off into the distance where he knew the cairn that marked Shinso's body lay, "Because he was the one that declared that only one of us would be able to live through the battle that he called me to."