A Song For The Ages

Ruan Lianhua was standing beneath a crooked arch of black stone, her form half-wrapped in shadow, her twin daggers glinting crimson in the dim light.

Feiyin offered a faint, dry smile. "I knew you'd been watching me since the ruins. I was curious when you'd finally act."

"Since we exited the ruins," she said, voice flat. Her blood-red eyes held no hatred, only focus. "I suspected you. Now I'm sure."

"And yet, you said nothing until now."

"It is my duty," she said, stepping forward. "To act when the rules are broken. To punish those who deserve it."

Her tone held no anger, but her body was already in motion. With a whisper of qi, she vanished from her position, reappearing with a downward arc of her left dagger. Feiyin stepped to the side with calm precision, her blade slicing only air. The wind from the strike fluttered the edge of his cloak.

"So tell me," he said, ducking beneath her second strike and rolling to the side, "who are you dutiful to now, Ruan Lianhua?"

She turned without pause, her daggers dancing in smooth, lethal arcs. Blood-tinged essence spiraled around them, glinting like garnet mist. Feiyin slipped between the blades, his body weaving with minimal motion.

"My master..." she began, slashing horizontally.

He leaned back.

"...cast me aside."

A thrust. He caught her wrist and spun, releasing without striking.

"Then why follow the rules of a man who saw you as disposable?"

She leapt back, breath steady, eyes unreadable. "Because it's all I know."

Feiyin exhaled, sensing the conflict behind her blank expression. He could feel it, faint tremors in her rhythm, a tightness in her grip, the way her blood essence vibrated at uneven intervals. She wasn't as calm as she portrayed.

She was lost.

"You were trained to follow. Molded like a blade. But what happens when a blade no longer has a hand to wield it?"

She launched forward again, silent.

He didn't strike back.

His oscillation sense expanded, tuning into the smallest ripples—her breath, her heartbeat, the subtle shifts in her blood as it fueled her attacks. There was no hatred in her strikes. No satisfaction. Only desperation. Her movements were perfect. Too perfect. As if rehearsed.

"You want to prove yourself to him," Feiyin said, side-stepping another lunge. "To earn your place back. But the one you're trying to please never saw you. Not truly."

Feiyin had been quietly gathering information on the inner disciples for a while now. His natural curiosity and caution made it second nature. But Ruan's case had always stood out to him- peculiar, tragic, and revealing. Granddaughter of the old devil, the sect master himself, yet cast aside like worthless scrap. That alone made her a contradiction worth understanding.

Her blades came at him faster now, edges glowing with a thicker concentration of blood-infused qi. The crimson energy clung to them like burning mist, and as she slashed, the blood coiled and solidified into jagged shapes, fangs made of essence that launched forward with each arc.

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Feiyin flowed around them, pivoting between bursts of movement. The bloody fangs struck stone, carving furrows and erupting in sharp bursts that splattered red mist across the cavern walls.

"He made you a weapon," Feiyin said, voice calm despite the blood-drenched haze, "and then called you useless when you didn't cut the way he wanted. That isn't duty, Ruan. That's slavery."

Ruan didn't speak, but her movements sharpened into something desperate. Her blood essence surged violently now, wrapping her arms in red coils that pulsed with her heartbeat.

Each strike came with force, not just precision, but an urgency born of something deeper. Her twin daggers gleamed with sharpened resentment, and her footwork lost its even rhythm, becoming erratic, driven by emotion.

Feiyin's oscillation sense absorbed every twitch in her flow, his spiritual sense resonating with the fluctuations in her blood.

She was slipping.

Not because she lacked skill, but because her heart was bleeding too fast.

He stepped into one of her swipes, as her momentum pulled her forward and he used it, redirecting her into a tumble. She rolled with it, agile, coming up again several steps back, crouched and breathing hard.

Feiyin didn't follow.

He stood firm, calm as a mountain while her aura whipped around her like a storm.

"You're not a tool. Not anymore. And if you keep trying to be one, you'll only keep bleeding for a man who never deserved your loyalty."

Ruan stood still. Her breath came quicker now. The blood essence qi around her blades pulsed.

She stared at him for several seconds.

Then she said, quietly, "Then what am I?"

Feiyin blinked.

"That's what you're meant to find out," he said. "But if you want someone to follow, someone who won't discard you the moment you falter, then follow me. I will give you a purpose."

Her blades twitched.

Feiyin stepped forward, his expression solemn. With a calm breath, he let a hint of his Saber Intent pulse outward, sharp, undeniable, and imposed on his surroundings. The stone beneath them seemed to still in reverence, the air cut cleanly by his will.

Ruan froze. The sudden pressure of his aura washed over her like a blade unsheathed beside the neck. Her instincts screamed of danger, of overwhelming force, yet it did not strike her. It receded as quickly as it had come.

"You know I could beat you," he said, voice steady. "Right now. But I won't. Because I'm not here to punish you. I'm here to offer you a choice. You can keep living for someone who threw you away... or you can find something, someone, worth fighting for."

Her grip tightened again. She lunged.

But he was ready.

This time, Feiyin didn't dodge. He stepped into her strike, twisting and pinning her to the ground with a sudden motion, her wrists locked by his hands, her daggers clattering onto the stone beside her.

She hissed beneath him, breath ragged, eyes flashing with confusion and residual fury. Her legs kicked once beneath him, instinctive and wild, but Feiyin didn't flinch. His hands held firm, not in cruelty, but in quiet command.

Then he spoke again, not with words alone, but through the steady hum of his intent.

His musical intent flared, not just as sound, but as a representation of his will. It seeped from him like a heartbeat made of resonance, passing into her through his hands, his breath, the rhythm pulsing in the air around them. It touched her blood, her core, bypassing her defenses as if it had always belonged there.

"I mean it," he said softly, power thrumming in his words. "You were never the failure. They failed you. They made you bleed for their sins. Wouldn't you like to bite back at the ones who wronged you?"

Her eyes widened, blood-red and uncertain, locking onto his- grey, calm, and dotted with flickers of amethyst light. In them, she saw no cruelty, no mockery. Only sincerity. Something rare. Something she had not seen since the one caretaker who once held her as a child, before her father had taken her away.

There was kindness.

Her breath hitched slightly. She did not understand it, but it rattled something deep inside her.

He released her slowly.

She didn't move.

Finally, she asked in a low voice, "If I follow you… what do I become?"

Feiyin smiled, sincere and calm. "Someone who can choose their own path."

A long silence passed.

Then, finally, she nodded.

Not as a weapon obeying a command.

But as a person making a choice.