Yoriichi paused. The face that looked back at him was young, handsome in a sharp way, but twisted by a rictus of ugly emotions—hatred, humiliation, and disbelief. There was dried blood at the corner of his mouth and a nasty bruise forming on his temple.
This was Xiao Ning.
"Who are you?" Xiao Ning snapped, his voice cracking. He stood up, stumbling slightly as if he were still injured. "Are you... are you one of the Hall of Law enforcers? Did Xiao Yan send you to mock me in hell?"
Yoriichi blinked, his expression unreadable. The language the boy spoke was strange, yet Yoriichi understood it perfectly, as if the knowledge had been grafted onto his soul.
"I am Yoriichi Tsugikuni," he answered simply, bowing slightly at the waist. "I do not know this... Xiao Yan. I merely woke up by the water."
Xiao Ning stared at him. He looked at the strange haori, the earrings, and the sword. A sneer curled his lip, a defensive mechanism for a boy whose pride had just been shattered into dust.
"You look like a barbarian from the countryside," Xiao Ning spat, though there was no real bite in it. He slumped back onto the jade bench, clutching his chest. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. I'm dead, aren't I? That bastard... he actually killed me."
Yoriichi stepped closer, his gaze softening. He recognized that look. He had seen it on demons before they disintegrated. He had seen it on his brother's face. It was the look of a soul consumed by envy and regret.
"You are in great pain," Yoriichi observed quietly.
"Pain?" Xiao Ning laughed, a wet, choking sound. "He humiliated me! I am the grandson of the First Elder! I took the Qi Gathering Powder! I should have crushed him! He's trash! He's a cripple! How did he... how did he possess that kind of strength?"
Xiao Ning slammed his fist against the jade bench. "Xun Er... she saw it all. She saw me get beaten like a dog. I can't... I can't rest like this."
Yoriichi listened silently. He did not judge the boy. He saw a child who had been misled by pride, a child who equated strength with worth.
"Strength is not everything," Yoriichi said gently, his voice cutting through Xiao Ning's rant.
Xiao Ning looked up, glaring. "What would you know? In the Dou Qi continent, strength is god! If you are weak, you are nothing! I was supposed to be strong!"
"I was the strongest swordsman in my world," Yoriichi said. He didn't say it to brag; he stated it as a dry fact, like saying the sky is blue. "And yet, I failed to protect anything I loved. I died an old man, full of regrets. Strength alone does not bring peace, young one."
The quiet conviction in Yoriichi's voice silenced Xiao Ning. The boy looked at the samurai—really looked at him.
Suddenly, Xiao Ning gasped. He scrambled backward on the bench.
"Your... your soul," Xiao Ning stammered, his eyes widening.
To Xiao Ning, whose perception was fading but still attuned to the laws of his world, Yoriichi didn't look like a normal human. Standing there in the aurora light, Yoriichi's soul burned like a condensed sun. It was terrifyingly vast, a boundless ocean of spiritual pressure that was completely, utterly calm. It wasn't the violent, jagged Dou Qi of a fighter; it was the overwhelming presence of a force of nature.
"What are you?" Xiao Ning whispered, fear replacing his anger.
"I am just a man," Yoriichi replied. He looked at the boy with profound sadness. "It seems your time here is short. Your spirit is unraveling."
It was true. The edges of Xiao Ning's body were beginning to turn into particles of light, drifting away into the colorful sky.
Xiao Ning looked at his hands, watching his fingers turn to dust. Panic set in. "No! I can't disappear! I haven't had my revenge! I haven't... I haven't told Grandfather I'm sorry for losing. I haven't appreciate anything my sister has done for me since child."
The boy began to weep again, the bravado completely gone. He was just a scared teenager facing oblivion.
Yoriichi moved. In the blink of an eye, he was kneeling before the bench. He reached out and placed a warm hand on Xiao Ning's fading shoulder.
"Do not be afraid," Yoriichi said. "Death is not the end. It is merely a change."
Xiao Ning looked into Yoriichi's dark red eyes. He saw no judgment there. No mockery. Only a deep, infinite kindness that he had never experienced in the cutthroat Xiao Clan.
"I don't want to go," Xiao Ning sobbed. "I hate him. I hate Xiao Yan. But... I don't want to die."
"You cannot stay," Yoriichi said softly. "But your feelings... your memories... they must go somewhere."
The lake began to churn. The auroras overhead swirled faster, creating a vortex of light directly above them. A powerful suction force began to pull at them both.
Xiao Ning's body disintegrated faster. He looked at Yoriichi, a sudden, desperate realization hitting him. This stranger—this powerful, strange soul—was solid. He wasn't fading.
"Take it," Xiao Ning hissed, grabbing Yoriichi's wrist with a hand that was half-mist.
"Take what?"
"My life. My name," Xiao Ning said, his voice echoing as if from a great distance. "If you are going back... if you are taking my place... don't let them look down on us! Don't let Xiao Yan win!"
A flood of information assaulted Yoriichi's mind.
Images flashed: A stern grandfather scolding a child. A beautiful girl in green robes looking at him with cold indifference. A young boy once called a genius, now called a cripple. The burning taste of alchemy pills. The humiliation of the arena. The sensation of a foot smashing into his chest.
The memories of Xiao Ning flowed into Yoriichi, anchoring him to a world he did not know.
Yoriichi accepted them. He did not put up a barrier. He let the boy's life pour into his own vessel.
"I will take your name," Yoriichi vowed solemnity. "But I will not take your hatred. Hatred is a fire that burns only the one who holds it."
Xiao Ning looked at him one last time. A bitter, sad smile touched the boy's ghost-like face. "You're a weird one... samurai. Show them... show them what true strength is..."
With a soft sound like a breaking glass, Xiao Ning shattered into a million points of light. The lights swirled around Yoriichi before shooting up into the aurora.
Yoriichi was alone again.
But not for long.
The vortex above descended. Gravity, heavy and brutal, grabbed Yoriichi by the soul. The beautiful lake, the jade bench, the starry sky—it all twisted, warping into a tunnel of blinding speed.
Yoriichi closed his eyes. He felt his "young" body being compressed, squeezed, and molded. He felt the phantom sensation of his katana dissolving, its essence merging with his spirit rather than his hip.
He was falling. Falling away from the dreamland. Falling toward pain, toward noise, toward the smell of medicine and the sound of angry voices.
He was falling into the Dou Qi Continent.
Michikatsu... Uta... Yoriichi thought as the darkness swallowed him. It seems my journey is not yet over. I have been given a sword again.
This time... I will protect.
The sensation of the void vanished, replaced by the crushing heaviness of a physical body.
Pain exploded in his chest. His ribs ached. His head throbbed.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni opened his eyes.
He was no longer by the lake. He was staring at a wooden ceiling, and the air smelled of bitter herbs.
The second life of the Sun Breather had begun.