Fated Meeting

"You rarely fight me," Arahabaki spoke as Kanghui glanced down at the noisy crowd watching and cheering them on.

He followed her gaze to the crowd. Ants, all of them. Pathetic ants he could crush. The thought brought a smile to his face. Until he heard someone betting a draw on their fight.

"Which idiot will bet a draw?"

"Da Siming," she replied. "Just give them a show."

A show, Arahabaki thought, wasn't that simple. Da Siming is one of the few who could foresee and reveal all future major events which could threaten even a planet. His kind was rare, and highly prized in each faction.

The primeval beings in Takamagahara shared the talent of foresight amongst all, but Da Siming outmatched all of them.

Even amongst the Xitian beings, according to Takamagahara, Da Siming is of a reclusive legend. His existence was as the bogeyman of the ancients and a former great god to the inhabitants of the ancient Chinese civilisations.

To Arahabaki's knowledge, Da Siming seldom made an appearance or intervened in the affairs of other beings unless a cosmic event is coming.

Why did Da Siming bestow such a presence on him?

Yet there Da Siming was, among the betting crowd, stirring up their atmosphere with his betting choices.

And they call me a troublemaker while they revere you as a saint, Arahabaki chuckled at that thought.

Arahabaki wondered why Da Siming went to such trouble to create the fight as a ruse for the message passing via Kanghui. He couldn't care less about the complex relationship and history between Takamagahara and Xitian.

The actions and decisions of Takamagahara never really mattered to Arahabaki. He was the pariah, the untouchable primeval since time immemorial, despite his prowess.

"A change which will also affect your territory," she said as Arahabaki felt the increasing pushing pressure against his reddish aura from the dramatic swirl of her blackish aura.

Two could play the game. He concentrated his energy to force back against her aura, while looking at the heads of the minions watching below.

Fools, all of them.

"What's going to happen?"

"A virus," she answered with a sudden release of a powerful force, which shoved him straight into the nearby mountain peaks.

Arahabaki gritted his teeth at the worthless relayed information as he flipped backwards in mid-air, crashing down into the mountain's rocky peak.

A virus? All these energy wasting farce to pass a message about some nano-sized dust speck.

Why would he, Arahabaki, care about millions of human lives? Izanami, the ones in charge of deaths in Japan, had plenty of space for the souls in holding and Avici would be busy.

With his ire and might, his foot pushed upwards against the surface of the rock on the mountain, sensing him straight into her.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" He roared in fury at the unexpected action as he flew straight like a targeted missile targeted at her.

She wasn't playing as he had assumed.

She dodged as her blackish aura dissipated to create a parting. "Temper, temper."

SHIT, he cussed as the chains wrapped around another peak, with enough momentum to swing him back around flying towards her direction.

***

Murmurs increased among the excited crowd as heads turned or bobbed up to watch the fight. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about the jinx who bet on a draw.

"Damn it, my soul stones," Yata cussed loudly as some of the neighboring beings growled at him in irritation.

"So bet a draw," Alex whispered, afraid to trigger the crowd, which outnumbered them.

Yata wrought his head in despair. "You can't make a counter bet. The soul stones will just bounce and hit anyone who tries."

"So, is that jinx gonna get beaten up if the crowd finds him?"

"Do you see them beating him up?" An irate Yata asked. "The oni are stronger than me, but we haven't spotted action from them. They are too busy watching a fight."

"So none of them really care?"

Yata pushed Alex's temple with a finger. "They do, but he sure can hide. Must be high up the food chain - a strong ancient or a primeval to elude this crowd."

A burst of light in mid-air and the enthralled crowd chanted in their lust for violence.

"FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT."

Alex watched two gigantic spheres of blackish and reddish aura clashing with each other and swirling.

"This isn't what I expected," Alex muttered.

To Alex, it was no more exciting than watching fireworks.

"Uhhh. You expected WWF fighting? A few boxes, a throw down and a bloody nose," Yata retorted with his arms akimbo. "Humans like to draw blood so much, do they?"

"It's just… colours of red and black aura flitting about the skies," Alex replied innocently.

A huge slap landed on the back of his head without mercy.

"No. Look closer, you idiot," Yata pointed to the tremendous burst of reddish and blackish aura above them.

Alex rubbed his head as his eyes squinted hard to make out where Kanghui and Arahabaki were.

A blink and he saw the ball of the blackish aura entwined around a glowing red dog-like shaped shadow.

Both were wrestling for control of each other. Twists and turns of red and black. The dog-like shadow seemed to attempt to bite into the body of the snake.

"Are those their true forms, one snake and the other a large dog?"

Yata palmed his face. "Not a dog. A wolf - one of Arahabaki's many forms."

"I think that it's too slow. Almost like they are conversing during the fight."

"Come on, don't jinx me, I am gonna lose my soul stones," Yata groaned.

"He is right," a deep voice spoke gently from behind, but low enough to escape the crowd. "They are passing messages."

Yata and Alex looked behind to spot a young looking man of a genteel expression.

Dressed in the style of an ancient Chinese noble, the newcomer fanned himself like those many scholars in the Chinese period dramas which Alex used to watch.

"And who are you?" Yata retorted.

"Da Siming."

Yata's mouth moved, but no words came out. Unlike Arahabaki's recital of commands aloud, Alex realised that Da Siming had just simply muted a heavily agitated hand waving Yata.

It really wasn't the spider's day. Almost seemed to Alex like the primevals enjoyed tormenting Yata.

"You're observant," Da Siming lifted Alex's chin with the now folded fan and continued, "… and familiar."

Amidst of the cheering by the crowd at the fight, Alex swatted the fan away as Yata grabbed his arm.

"Don't," Yata whispered to him while lowering his gaze at Da Siming. "Without Kanghui or Arahabaki, we can't deal with him."

"Another one of the primeval beings?" Alex whispered back while they both retreated through the moving bodies away from a smiling Da Siming, who merely stood there watching them.

"I heard of his name. Jiuwei is shit scared of him too," Yata said as they squeezed past the crowd. "He is more dangerous than Arahabaki."

"What about your soul stones?"

"My existence is more important! I can earn soul stones back but…" Yata snapped as he turned back to glare at Alex.

Alas, his shoulder hit another body. Turning around, Yata groaned at the sight of a smiling Da Siming. Alex froze.

How did Da Siming get to them so easily?

"How did…"

"A spider usually scurries away from its web when it fears for its dear life," Da Siming said calmly, and pointed the fan at himself. "Was it me whom you feared?"

Yata nodded, flabbergasted at his escape thwarted.

"Don't worry, I am not interested in you. Just your friend over there," Da Siming pointed his fan at Alex and pushed Yata's left shoulder with it.

"Hey, don't…" Alex blurted out as Yata gave way to Da Siming's approach.

Darn Yata was saving his own skin, Alex cussed within as Yata fled the scene.

"Hush," Da Siming lifted his fan to his lips. "I can forego the faux pax but I would like to look into… your soul."

"W-Why-y-y?"

"While your soul is primarily quite human, a piece of a puzzle lies within you," Da Siming said. "Yet you are a learned scholar in your past human life."

"You are not here to ask about an archaeological dig, are ya?"

Da Siming shook his head slowly, still smiling, while Alex looked around sheepishly, wondering if his own words sounded stupid.

"Heard of this saying: When a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another?"

"That's chaos theory," Alex replied, aware of the computational method.

"You are the wings of that butterfly," Da Siming said. "Insignificant, yet a wild variable in the things which will come, and to come. The small sliver of chaos itself."

He came up close enough to Alex to gaze into his eyes.

To Alex's surprise, he didn't feel danger, unlike in the presence of Arahabaki.

In those dark, glimmering irises of Da Siming, Alex wandered about in the cosmos. A colourful nebula cloud of red and blue luminescence flew past him until Alex's mind stopped before the vast void to marvel at the twinkling constellations.

He was not in space - that much Alex knew. Probably in some illusion of the mind.

"Fate ties everything," Da Siming's voiced echoed out. "Even primeval beings. Remember… you have something within that ties you to your marker."

"What do you mean? Kanghui was the one who marked me?"

"No," Da Siming's disembodied voice replied. "Sometimes, things we lose return to us."

"I marked myself?" Alex pointed his finger to his now crunched up nose.

How can it be? Alex was only human as far as he could remember. Then again, something Arahabaki said after sniffing Alex - about being familiar, which made him uneasy.

Was he someone else before he was Alex? A sea of confusion rushed into his soul with many thoughts rushing in like a deluge, rendering him unable to process. Flashes of his life flew past like a blur until he saw a large, glowing bubbling magma chamber in its glorious glow of yellow and red.

"Too many questions, too many variables, too many outcomes," Da Siming's voice lamented. "Even fate determines this meeting."