Lady Su

Daiyu had only gotten one room. Safer to stick together, she told him, gesturing he turned around so she could change her clothes.

He fiddled with a loose thread on his robe as his mind wandered back to the bandits who discussed how they were going to find him and deliver his battered body to the capital for the bountiful amount of 70 spirit stones. Truly, Zero was unsettled.

Behind him, the lady undressed behind a screen in the corner. Her silhouette was sharp against the patterned paper screen. A cool breeze blew in through the windows, making the lights flicker, making the shadows dance.

"Had you ever been outside your village before?" She asked, stepping into the sheer inner robe and knotting it around the waist.

The boy did not answer. She peeked from the edge of the screen, seeing his head lowered, facing the open windows. He seemed to be deep in thought. Daiyu took the outer, light blue robe and put it on without knotting. She pushed the screen aside and walked up to the young man.

"Kid..." She started, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He flinched before she could make any contact and backed away, eyes widened. He immediately looked away from her seeing she was half dressed.

The inner robes did not exactly cover much. It was not like Daiyu minded that much. A small smile tugged at her lips and she knotted the robe. "You've never been outside your village?" She asked again, knowing he had been drawn from his thoughts.

Zero frowned and looked back to her tentatively. "No. I have not."

The lady lifted an eyebrow, expecting more than a monotone, cold response. The boy had turned away, leaving her to ponder. She had so many questions. He was not ordinary and it was highly unlikely that a wilderness like Qiqi would produce a prodigy out of the blue.

She had never even heard of the place in all her years of travels and missions, proving how unknown it was.

Zero could not bother starting any conversation with Daiyu. His mind was heavy and he was hyper at this point. Through the windows, he could see the night sky and the many clouds that clothed her. The moon was almost full, twinkling at him from behind the firmaments.

All this put him on edge immensely. There was also the case of his new vagabond status.

"You should get some sleep. Tomorrow, we find a healer and set off. Go—"

"What do you know of Hell?" Zero suddenly asked, desperate. He was afraid to sleep. Afraid to dream— to see the horrific and twisted faces of those he had killed. To hear their cries and to know he would forever hear them.

The inn had no true beds, only cushions and fur mats. Daiyu who was spreading out her mat and plumping her cushions, froze at his sudden question. She raised a hand, brushed off a lock of hair that tickled at the sensitive burnt right side of her face.

"Hell?" She asked the boy who did not answer for a while.

Zero sighed and nodded. He did not turn to look at her; did not want her to see as he fought with the thing crawling under his skin. The whites of his eyes were darkening.

He had been fine. He had been in control of it. Up until the bandits' conversation. That was all it took to give the eye the upper hand. His steely resolve had collapsed and he had found himself truly questioning if it was worth it, fighting so he could not be seen as a monster.

The eye had capitalized on that moment of self doubt and the boy found himself itching from the inside.

"What do you want to know? I am no expert, however." Daiyu said. She was plumping the cushions mindlessly, doing it again and again and staring into it like she had lost her mind. Her voice was shaky. Zero did not notice this.

"C-can someone be...cursed by Hell?"

To this question, Daiyu let out a sharp laugh. It was like the clear ring of a new bell. "Cursed by Hell? What nonsense? Hell itself is a curse. But it is a cycle that operates on Karma."

She paused, plumped the cushions.

"Infact all the realms do. But it is only hell that actually uses the Karmic laws to deliver... judgement? I'm not sure. It is much more complicated and—"

"Just TELL ME! Tell me how to get it off my back! I-I just want to live...in peace..." Zero did not know when he had fallen to the ground on his knees, head bowed and on the verge of tears.

Daiyu watched this with confusion. For a second, she had heard an internal raging voice scream at her. It was like a pent up explosion that had been restrained to a tenth. The voice of a boy in severe agony.

What hell had to do with him, she did not know. Maybe he was just uneducated and mistook the Mutation he was facing for an actual curse from hell.

If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that hell had lost its power. How would an entire fractured realm have the resources to even consider cursing a country bumpkin? The Piece she was currently in search of, was one of the many broken pieces in the entire Chu Empire and in the lands beyond. So far, her faction had gathered 20 of the hundred pieces, with one goal in mind— to restore the Key to Naraka. The legendary obsidian stone sword.

To do that, they needed a host. A host in the perfect mental state.

She sighed internally, got up, walked over to the sobbing boy and knelt beside him. When she touched his shoulder in comfort, he flinched, as though scorched by fire. She withdrew her hand and sat with him in silence till he calmed.

"Hell is not in the best state to curse you, kid. And even if it was, you'd have to be dead before Hell would have any power over you."

There was a slight pause. Zero scoffed internally. He was dead, she just didn't know.

"You're letting things get to your head, Zero. Mutation is not easy, I know that part, believe me. " A wry chuckle came out her lips and her empty eyes stared at half his bony face.

Zero turned to look at her, hollow silver eyes meeting bottomless dark ones. Was she a Mutated?

As though she could hear his unasked question, she answered with a wide smile, "I was delivered." That was all she said. All she needed to say. He turned his gaze away and the woman rose, went over to her mat and lay down.

Zero was all on his own now. There was no cure was there? He had lost his composure and spilt a little of his secret. She did not believe him, of course. Imagine saying an entire realm on another plane was against him. Wasn't it too far fetched?

And if she had never heard of a curse from hell, who's to say there was a way to curb it? Was there still any need to journey with Daiyu now?

The boy pondered these things with an absent mind. He did not bother to lie down, deciding to go on a walk instead.

He raised his cloak above his head and went back down the stairs, scrunching his nose up as the smell of pork, sex, vomit and blood hit him. He subconsciously glanced at the table where Pisser and his friends were supposed to be at.

They had gone. He sighed. He really wanted to go for a walk, however, he trusted Daiyu's reasoning. If a powerful woman like herself had to settle for this foul inn for a night's rest to be safe, then who was he to head out at this hour?

He instead chose a seat at a corner. There was a jug of rice wine sitting on this floor table. The young man sat, and poured himself a drink, not bothering who owned it or not.

If there was one thing he needed now, it was some form of nerve relaxation. He had come so far. He just had a few more days. He knew he could find something before then. He just had to control these urges he was having.

As he sipped from the cleaner end of a slippery mug of the rice wine, the doors to the circular Zhū inn were flung open.

A familiar person came stumbling in, riddled with gorges in their skin and smelling of the dead field.

It was Lady Su. From the Bao inn.