Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

He's so very tired.

He moves slower now. His body aches. He has long since grown used to pain, become intimately familiar with its touches and meanings, and yet it is an exhausting companion at the best of times. He has lived with pins in his bones, with sensory arrays carved on jade plates in his guts, spent days awake and aware with his skull peeled open so its inner workings might be examined and teased and explored.

The pain he has now is different.

It is ever-present, and ever-consuming, and it takes all that he has to accept it and move in spite of it.

But he's so very tired.

A whisper of fabric as someone approaches.

It takes him a few more breaths to remind himself of the importance of the world around him, pulling himself away from how he feels on the inside.

It is an active choice, and it takes effort. Like deciding to turn and address a simple chore while ones limb is trapped in a vice- every instinct and mechanism in him demands that he focus only on what is so deeply wrong as to cause this feeling.

He ignores it.

A final exhale, and he turns to see who has arrived.

"Was wondering if you'd be awake today," says a voice of silk and velvet.

"I don't sleep," he replies, feeling his lungs vibrate at the baritone sound he emits.

"But you're not always awake," replies the figure, clad in peach-silk and hints of gold on ivory robes. "They've been getting longer, your little meditations. Only so long that we can go without it becoming an issue, and only so long we can use the excuse of trying to break through to the next realm. Anyone who's anyone can already tell that what you have going on is… unique."

He grunts in acknowledgement. "So long as they do not understand why, the what and the who don't matter. Things are still on track."

A scoff. "Really? I know it's your thing to plan for everything you can, but there's no way you saw this mess coming."

"I saw enough. The first ring has deployed one of its sky-bastions, two of the three Blades are occupied, and the Breach remains open. The players on the board have… shifted, it's true, but the assets we still have in the field remain impressive."

"We lost her. That doesn't matter?"

It hurts to breathe. Hurts to think. Hurts to move.

He sighs, turning to face Kaena more fully.

"The plan was created before her. It has survived her passing. If anything, the resources left behind are more useful than the chaotic unknown she often manifested as. The loss of that particular asset hurts, yes, but her death was always likely. We have to consider the advantages gained. She riled the Fengs, enough that they sent their great killer after her, and he still hasn't returned. She's gotten the entire family on edge and making bold moves, which will only get bolder as others take the glory at the Breach and their peerless silencer remains missing. The Breach itself we can lay at her feet. She's caused more than enough chaos for us to use, and the ongoing hazards remain useful."

"...cold, Taurus. Cold."

It wouldn't be useful to lash out. The reaction he has to this criticism is a weakness, a flaw, and he does not need to respond to it.

It used to be easier, but he's so tired.

"I know you developed some… connection to the subject, but-"

"She was my friend."

Don't. Keep it in. Don't let the pain interrupt the logic.

He turns to look into the eyes of his closest confidant, his most trusted advisor, the only person he trusts to see him as he is.

There is something quiet there, lurking behind pupils of gold. They've gotten stronger- even with the in-bred limitations of their genome, he can sense that their presence spreads far wider than before, that the weight they can hold on their ever-leaking cultivation stands higher than before. The robes on them are brighter, more complex, more intricate- there are lords that would have to sell their manors to afford such finery. Woven of soul-silk, braided with burnt gold and emanating arrays that he himself helped develop once upon a time, back when that was his main method of proving valuable.

It would do nothing but harm to lash out now. To offer criticism. He needs to keep them on his side.

It's so close, and he's so tired.

"She was… exceptional. Mad and willful like few I've heard of, let alone seen. She made it further and higher than most manage to in far less time than I thought possible. But I don't have the luxury of grief, Kaena. We have too much to do."

A scoff at that. "That's no excuse. I-"

"What do you want, hmm? You want me to say I cared for her? I didn't. I respected her. I admired her ability to survive. I valued her capacity for chaos and unexpected changes. Now she's gone, like so very many that we've known before, and we have to keep moving. The plan was designed so that no one failure could define success or loss- so no, this wasn't planned, but her loss does not cripple us. It offers opportunity. I will be grateful as I am disappointed, and then I will walk forward."

The silence sits heavy between them for a moment.

He tries to keep his focus. To keep his gaze firm, locked, aware. To care about this, to analyze every breath and microexpression- but it hurts so much, and he has to blink back to awareness as it drowns the rest of him for a moment.

They're looking at him. They- the echoes in the room indicate that they said something.

"I… repeat that."

Kaena cocks their head, a look of… anger? Humor? Rising from behind their ever-controlled expression.

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"You saw you saw her as just another piece, and yet here you are, emulating her. She did this too, you know. Hurt herself for no good reason."

"Do not-"

Stop. Don't lash out. Hold it in. Recenter.

The knife is in the wound, but the more important thing is to keep walking. Ignore the signals that say otherwise.

"You know as well as I that there is reason for this. That it is all I can do. That it is what I am now. Don't let your affection for a passing connection cloud your judgement."

Kaena's aura washes out from them, sharp in a way that makes Taurus' instincts rise up to awareness. Like a grazing beast glimpsing something slithering through the grass, fangs glinting in the light.

But he has grown used to burying such instincts, and does not look away.

Their eyes meet his head on.

"She could have been more. She could have done more. She-"

"She would have hated you."

Fuck. He hadn't meant to say that. He needs to-

But the words are already slipping out, oozing forth like oil from out of him, taking the barest fraction of his pain and shaping it into sound and vitriol and regret and-

"You know it as well as I. You know how she would have felt about what you did with your playthings, Snake in the Garden. We are not mindless berserkers, do not waste our time breaking our heads against brick walls- ours is the way of finding the chisel, finding the breaking point, no matter how it hurts. Do you think that the bastion of free will and anti-authoritarian hate would've continued to care for you if she knew what you've done? The people you've hurt, the ways that you've hurt? No. Suffer as you will, but don't pretend that it was something more than it was. You are venom. You are subversion and abuse and manipulation, from birth, now turned against those who hold our leashes. If she was so good and meaningful as you hoped, she would have slain you outright."

By the end of his rant, he is panting. His aura is aching, his core straining against itself, the runes and arrays carved into his meridians and arrayed about the room rattling with the force of escaping pressure. He can feel something like smoke wafting off him, a transmutation of energy and meaning eating away at his skin and his fur and his teeth, which ache like they're going to fall out.

And Kaena is staring at him.

He does not know what they're thinking.

He should. He can guess. He can formulate.

But he can't tell. And he should be able to.

He's so tired. Letting the pain out, slipping up, didn't make it easier- it just made it louder. Reminded him how tired he is.

Too late. Can't take them back.

"There are… strains, yes. Unexpected complications. But the idea remains. The Empire is pulled apart, slowly enough that it does not wake to the danger, far enough that it moves like we want it to. If we don't play our cards carefully, the war will fizzle- we need to balance this, and that requires our entire focus. We don't have room for grief, for what-if, for disappointment. If you know me as you say you do, then you know that I believe in this. It will work. It will succeed.

"But I need you here. I need you focused. There is no room for doubt now. Do you understand?"

It is the wrong thing to say. It is shaped wrong. He is shaped wrong.

He feels the thing at the core of him, the thing that eats at mortality and shapes existence with its bulk, and in the flavor of pain he feels he senses it move. Senses the vast plains that it calls, the cutting wind and towering mountains and vast grasses of what he's built and caged.

He cannot bear to look at it now. He will have to, later- but now, here, he cannot.

He can't break yet. He's not allowed to.

"I understand," says a voice in a room.

He blinks. He drifted again. He'll have to finish his meditations, ensure that he can lock himself high enough above the pain that such lapses cease.

"Good. Good. I… you know that I-"

"I know."

Silence.

He should know what to say. What should-

He snorts, an inhuman reflex he usually suppresses.

"I apologize. It would seem that I'm-"

"No need," they reply. "You said what you meant to say. I am not so naive as to believe that your pain would be able to cloud you truly. I understand. We're almost there."

He nods. "Almost there. Yes. The Empire will change. We will kill from it the parts that need killing. This I swear."

Kaena smiles, their teeth like a razor hidden beneath peach-skin. "I shall content myself with killing the parts of it I wish to kill, Taurus. The rest remains your purview. You owe me the Garden."

"I do. The oath stands."

"Say it. Show me you still remember."

He sighs. It takes a moment, but like his work, like the plan, like the formulas he holds onto, the promises he's made sit somewhere above the pain. He has etched them in deep.

"Within two decades time, the Garden will burn beneath the gaze of its Snake. The Divisions will be culled, the first ring sundered, and those who have done us wrong will be cast down as they have earned."

A shift in the room. The arrays dim, losing some of their animating friction as Kaena's aura retracts in closer to their body, wrapping delicately like coils around the gilded robes they are presented in.

"Good. But in the meantime?"

"Yes. I… I will take a moment. We'll have to-"

"No. You told me once that you had emergency measures in place, just in case you ever lost control. You're losing it now. Better to activate them than to fail, so close to the finish line. That you are doing something is obvious- I can't think of anyone below the generals or the first-ring bastards with your Qi-density- but you feel unstable. Like a bomb about to go off."

He can't help but laugh at that, making the air in the room rumble to his sound. "Mmh. Would hate to give away the game early."

"Quite."

He sighs.

Then, with a wave of his hand, some of the runes in his body shift, opening a spatial pocket no larger than a grain of rice.

Delicately, exercising every ounce of control he has over his telekinesis, he manipulates his aura to pull out the scroll hidden within.

"I'll need some time to complete this. A few days, perhaps."

"I can buy you at least that much time. It's not as easy as with the other Fruits, but now that I've had some practice, I can move the necessary pieces into place."

He nods.

"Afterwards, I'll be… different."

"You're falling apart as it is."

"I trust your judgement on it."

"As you should."

Another snort. "Yes. I… do suppose that it's necessary at this point. In the meantime-"

"It's just a few days. I'll watch the plan in the meantime. You said yourself that most of the pieces are still in place- I can watch the ones we need. Your Grandmaster will be more interested in seeing your results than interfering, and-"

"And I have enough face over the other Divisions to be keep them from trying anything overt. Yes. I'll be in-"

"Your little oracle chamber. I know."

A sigh.

"I… apologize. Without you-"

"The plan would go on."

"Yes. But… but."

They smile. It is softer this time, and real, and sad.

He is in too much pain to care. He is too tired not to.

He exhales. "Alright then. When I emerge-"

"We move to the next phase. Don't worry. What's the worst that could happen?"