In the night sky, the cart soared over the Southland desert with Epsilon, Samson, Cygnus, Brax, Kofi, Musique, and Kitsune in tow. The rims of the vehicle were dented and dirty, its Minokawa symbol faded with cracks in the crown, although the functionality of the machine was usable, to say the least. Each of them took turns imbuing the control orb with their energy so they could make it back as fast as possible and attempt to preserve their vitality while doing so. And while the intention may have been to get sleep and conserve energy, not a single one of their anxious souls could rest. With the first tides of war making their way to the shores of the world and great storms just beyond, what person could?
Of course, that wasn't the only thing that weighed upon their minds. There was something else. Something that weighed on Brax in particular, for he felt like he'd lost something incredibly valuable. A treasure forgone in the sandy winds of timeless eternity.
Brax hesitantly turned to Kitsune, whose faint glow gave the night some white shine. She looked at him, eloquent and divine in foxen-human form.
"Is she… is she really gone?" Brax managed to ask, though his voice was almost inaudible. His fists were clenched, wet on the inside, and shaking. He knew the answer, yet he denied it with all his being.
"Yes. The mortal known as Xinyu Ma has passed," Kitsune said. "I will not dulcify that fact. For your sake, and for hers."
"I didn't want to believe it either," Musique said, a melancholic, yet accepting look on his supple face. "She saved my life, and I never got the chance to repay her. I'm not sure I even thanked her. I didn't know her for long, but she was the first other human I ever talked to, and my first friend."
"You didn't find a body," Brax said. "She's alive. Ain't no way she isn't. She is."
"She's not," Kitsune said.
"She is," Brax said.
"She's not," Kitsune repeated curtly. "I'd grown fond of her as well, but if you don't accept it, you'll never be able to move forward. Do you really want to be stuck in place, unable to see the path to the future she paved? Is that not a direct opposition of what she stood for?"
"Heroes ain't supposed to die," Brax said, slamming his fist hard on the metal rails. "I never read a book before where the hero dies at the beginning."
"This isn't one of your books," Kitsune said. "From the day she arrived in my domain with a smile that challenged the heavens, I watched her run towards death. Though she never stopped grinning, I couldn't help but notice that forlorn stare in the back of her eyes. As the one closest to her, you surely saw it too. The pain she carried."
"So what? We've all got a sob story to tell," Brax said. "She had so much more to do. She wouldn't die without-"
"That's not true. She'd done all she set out to do and ended her story on her own terms," Kitsune said. "She fought against fate and won. Do you get it, mortal? She worked so hard and subverted my prophecy. That itself shouldn't have been possible. Don't you think she deserves to rest now?"
"She didn't have a choice," Brax said. "She was going to die regardless, right?"
"She could have survived, but she chose to die," Kitsune said. "It was my plan to have her escape fate, yet she chose to stay for humanity. No, that's not right. She chose to stay for you guys. She killed a god for you. Can you even begin to understand the implications of that? Not even I, one of their great creations, knew that death was a possibility. I doubt she knew definitively either; she probably just had a feeling."
"You're saying she did it on a whim?" Brax asked.
"Who knows?" Kitsune asked. "But not even my prophecies were capable of foreseeing that outcome. And now, the era of divination is over. It seems she'd somehow steered humanity from its original fate into a timeline of uncertainty. Of chaos. Whether it's for better or for worse, it's up to us, those who are left, to pick up the pieces. The pieces she, the Merchant of Joy, shattered the world into and entrusted to us to rebuild. And the world, mind you, is still falling apart as we know it. Soon, war will encompass all, and whether we brave it or succumb to self-destruction is solely up to whoever chooses to rise up. We can't get hung up on a single death. Isn't that what you've done, all your life?"
As Kitsune trailed off and her words turned to thoughts, Brax didn't say anything. Instead, Musique got up, walked over, and sat beside Brax. He seemed to be weak in nature, but at heart, he was a boy who simply wanted to do what he thought was right. A kind soul.
"I really wish we could have seen a Seren concert together like we agreed," he lamented, looking off into the endless nothing yonder. "Honestly, I don't want to believe she's dead either. Like a shooting star across the midnight sky, she flew fast and burned even faster. In that time, she showed me what courage was. After all, I never would have gotten this if she hadn't shown up."
Musique brought out the golden flute from the underground city. It had a bird engraved as the mouthpiece and perfectly pierced holes going down its body.
"Say, I think that voice called this thing a phoenix flute," Musique said. "And if I'm not mistaken…"
"Yes, it can bring back people from the dead," Kitsune said before he could finish the thought. She turned her head and began gazing out of the cart, languidly looking at the desert that was dark as the ocean at night. The stars may have shone from above, but below, there was only dunes of black.
"The voice said it had one use left, so maybe…" Musique started, then paused.
"Musique," Kitsune said. "I know you'd figured its purpose and were looking for a chance to suggest we use its last usage on her."
"If you knew, then why did you wait so long to say anything?" Musique asked. "It's rash, but doesn't using it to bring back the only one who could slay gods back to life seem like our best option?"
"We can't because it's not an option at all," Kitsune said. "Brax, you know best. What kind of magic did Xinyu use? She told you to keep it a secret, but it's okay to reveal it now. The dead don't have any secrets worth protecting."
Brax hesitated, but realizing all eyes were on him, he gave in. He thought she'd hardly care if she truly was gone.
"She used god magic," Brax said. "Stolen magic from Eastland gods, I think she said. I s'pose that's why she was so strong. When she told me, I wasn't sure if I believed her for certain, but I can say that I didn't think she was lyin' either. Course, after seein' what she'd done, I know for sure now."
"That's the type of magic she dabbled in?" Cygnus asked in astonishment. His eyes were wide with that wondrous, curious stare. "I never would have imagined a mortal could use god magic! I knew something was strange about it, but that's not what I was expecting. If I knew, I would have asked many more questions, like how she was able to do such a thing and-"
"Mortals can use the same magic of the gods if they are taught," Kitsune said. "Musique has his own form of divine magic, but it's not any more special than humankind's fire spells or physical enhancement magic. The difference between the magic of humans and gods is the quantity and quality of their magic. First of all, gods have virtually limitless magic compared to humans. Secondly, the feel of divine magic is different. It's similar to how humankind's magic is different from nature's inherent magic."
"If you're that versed in the magic arts of gods, then you should have known that the gods held destructible bodies, no?" Cyngus asked.
"No, I never could have imagined," Kitsune said. "I always thought of them as inherent properties of the world's infinite magic, not users of it. Magic properties that could be rebuilt no matter what. Many of them held elemental powers, so it would not be so odd to consider them embodiments of such. It appears that the theory was wrong."
"Still, that doesn't change the fact that there ain't no one else with the power to fight them," Brax said. "Dragons and ants can both be killed, but ants don't really got a chance of killin' a dragon. If there were an ant that could, wouldn't it be a good idea to bring them back?"
"Would she really want to be brought back?" Kitsune asked.
"Does it really matter? She's the only chance we've got, isn't she?" Musique asked.
"I'd be inclined to agree, had I not known the truth behind her," Kitsune said. "She did not have magic of her own. She alone was the only living being in history to be born without innate magic; a genetic mutant, if you will. That defect should have rendered her the weakest, yet somehow led her to become the strongest."
"A being without magic?" Cygnus asked. "That should be impossible. All living things have magic. It's our very life force. If that's the case, it would demolish many modern theories on biology."
"It's strange, but true," Kitsune said. "The odds of something like that happening are so marginally small, yet it was bound to happen someday."
"I never knew she was fighting against such odds," Kofi said.
"She had an ability that transcended all of us," Kitsune said. "And now her story is done. Even if we brought her back, we'd only end up soiling her legacy and wasting this one-shot item on a fleeting emotion."
"How can you know that for sure?" Brax asked. "Isn't she the one who said she'd return if we needed her?"
"Not long before Sango arrived, I had a personal conversation with Xinyu," Kitsune said. "And it's for that reason that I know reviving her isn't in our interests, or hers."
"Just what're you tryin' to say?" Brax asked.
"See the visions of my own memories, and you shall see why Xinyu Ma is not the chosen one to be resurrected by the flute's song," Kitsune said, her prophetic magic seeping into her allies' minds with a recollection from several weeks prior.