Calamity Mandate

The demon girl had the look of a rabid beast, her fur standing on end, fangs bared as Jun Yi Kong's rumbling laughter mocked her situation. Ironic, that the caged demon king was taking pleasure in Pix's captive state.

"Okay, enough bickering." Yuzu sighed, turning to Jun Yi Kong — or his statue, at least. "It seems that I have some ability to control the mechanisms in this chamber. Do you think it's strong enough to hold her indefinitely?"

"With ease." Jun Yi Kong said, "After all, it's strong enough to hold me."

"Brilliant." Yuzu rolled her eyes. Her eyes fell on the caprine demoness, pondering her options.

Truthfully, there was little point in keeping Pix locked away in here. What would Yuzu do with a Chaos demi-god in this space? Nor was she so heartless as to feed her to Jun Yi Kong as he requested.

Then again, she is an ancient monster that brings misfortune wherever she goes. Yuzu frowned as the thought came to mind. If I did 'finish her off' here, would that mean it's a net benefit to the world? How many people can chalk off 'Killed a folk story monster' on their bucket list?

If she could read Pix's fate, she could perhaps have a little confidence that the demoness wouldn't tear her to shreds the moment she was let out of the cell. Was this a power the chaos demon could turn off and on at will?

Yuzu spent a few moments thinking about asking the question, but decided against it. Currently, her biggest trump card was her powers over fate, and to the best of her knowledge very few people — gods included — knew exactly what that entailed. Perhaps Pix did not even know that her presence defied Yuzu's powers, but that kind of information could be critical to any negotiations.

It could even be that Pix was unaware of Yuzu's powers as well, and was secretly guarded against them.

The same could be said for Jun Yi Kong. Though he was a captive of this space, Yuzu had been very careful about revealing anything about her specific powers to him. She had felt a disturbance in his fate thread when the defense mechanisms of the chamber activated to entrap Pix. Absolutely, he would be wondering to himself when Yuzu had gained access to the chamber and exactly what she was capable of controlling.

The answer to that question, as well as exploration of what her connection to the chamber gave her access to, would have to wait until the current situation was handled.

"So, Pix." Yuzu said, a calculating look in her eyes, "What'll it be? Cooperation, or supper time for my demon king?"

A tug on Jun Yi Kong's string prevented the predictable outburst from the proud immortal to protest her claim on him.

A twinkle of amusement sparkled in Pix's eyes as she heard the words 'my demon king', her demeanour instantly snapping back to playful miscreant. She looked up and down Yuzu as she re-evaluated the mortal girl with a creeping grin.

"Tell me why you're tailing me." Yuzu said.

Pix tilted her head in confusion as she tested her bonds, goat legs kicking lazily. "Tailing?"

"Watching me, following me." Yuzu said evenly. "Answer the question."

"Why can't I?" Pix didn't look in any hurry to help the conversation along.

Am I ever going to get a straight answer out of her? Yuzu held back a scowl, feeling like any show of frustration would only encourage the demon. If only she was able to read Pix's string, this would be child's play. Having to carry on a conversation blind? How did anyone do it?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Yuzu tried extending her spiritual vision around Pix, wondering if the cage had nullified Pix's abilities or amplified her own in some way. The tapestry of fate was still blank around Pix as before, as if someone had taken a weave of fabric and pulled out the strings.

Wait a moment… Yuzu's eyes narrowed as she noticed a pattern in the emptiness. This pattern extended away from Pix and attached to Yuzu. Yuzu of course, could read her own thread, but just the feedback loop of reading her own thread and acting on that new knowledge always made her future hazy and disorienting to read. At this time, though, a void in the fabric was woven alongside her thread.

The void feels too thin to be part of a person's string… It took Yuzu only a moment to realize what it meant.

At the beginning of their chat, Pix mentioned that she was playing around, that she wanted to see what Argus saw in her. Though Yuzu wasn't willing to trust Pix simply because they both knew Argus, it felt like that was the significant connection. That, coupled with this distortion in the tapestry of Fate, gave Yuzu the hint she needed.

"You're here to give me something." Yuzu said, "From Argus."

After drawing this conclusion, Yuzu understood the meaning of the existence of the 'blank thread'. Though Yuzu could not read her own future, there was no future in which Yuzu did not receive the gift from Argus. The interweaving of this small part of fate could not be affected by her actions.

After a moment of contemplation, Yuzu released Pix from the cage. The demon girl tilted her head at Yuzu, her expression shifting from confusion to amusement as she hovered in the air.

"How… interesting!" Pix's eyes flickered with a red light as the Cheshire grin once again spread across her face, "I've changed my mind about you, Fate girl."

Giggles echoed around the chamber as the shadow beneath Pix bulged and darkened. Two thin, bony arms stretched from the base of the shadow, growing along the floor toward Yuzu. Yuzu's spiritual intuition triggered as long, wicked claws extended menacingly around her, pointing inward like they were about to grab and skewer her from both sides.

Yuzu kept her eyes on Pix with a calm expression, trusting in her read of the strings.

Just as the right claws were about to reach her, they touched together right in front of her on the floor, and a small golden artifact materialized out of their shadow.

Yuzu used her newfound control over the chamber to will the artifact to float up toward her. The familiar round, lidded disc opened as it approached her, revealing a complicated watch-like device. It had a glass front, two hands and a complicated inner face filled with the complicated inscriptions and constellations.

"Argus' astrolabe." Yuzu said, taking hold of the device.

Without warning a gust of cold wind swirled in the chamber. The candlelight flickered, then went out completely. An unnatural darkness blocked out the starlight.

A moment later the darkness lifted and Pix was gone.

Yuzu instinctively scanned the surroundings the demon girl, but the unnatural void in the tapestry was gone. Not satisfied by the quick scan Yuzu spent a few moments carefully examining the threads in the chamber before she was satisfied that the chaos demoness had really left Ying Zhen.

Astrolabe in hand, Yuzu walked over to the spot where Pix was last hovering at. In that place, a small smoky orb lay in the cracks in the stone tile.

A sarira. Yuzu felt the energy clearly from the orb, which hovered up into the air at her beckoning. More specifically, a Chaos domain sarira. The energy of this sarira is very familiar to me as well…

"A gift from the Trickster is a double edged sword." Yuzu recited softly from her newfound memories, "A challenge, when used wisely, that can be used to overcome peril. But equally, a warning of that deadly peril to come."

Thinking this, Yuzu was reminded of the story of Dina the Hermit. In some versions of the tale, upon seeing her inevitable gruesome end to the locust swarm, the hermit took her life with the magpie's dagger.

As Yuzu contemplated this she felt a pair of eyes boring through her back. She turned around to see a smoky figure of a hulking man standing two meters tall at the edge of the shadow beneath the center statue. His wrists and ankles were shackled, chains pooling around his feet. The smoke rippled across his muscular, giant form, though there was not enough definition to see his face clearly. This was the form of Jun Yi Kong, though he had never shown himself in this way to Yuzu before.

"Release me." Jun Yi Kong said, "It is clear you now have the power to do so."

Yuzu closed the astrolabe, placing it in the pocket of her coat. She looked at Jun Yi Kong with a serious expression, though she didn't respond to his request.

"You wish to counteract this Nature Goddess who is blocking your way. I can grant you that power." Jun Yi Kong said, "You wish to pry yourself out of your curse of serving as Akahi's vessel, I can tear that fate asunder. With me at your side, the gods and demons will kneel to your will."

"I have been trapped for millennia, I only desire freedom from this cage. Grant me my request, child, and I shall pledge my might to achieve whatever your soul and heart desires for the next thousand years."