PeaceSign
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TEEN rating: moderate violence and dark themes!!
Clarity. Peace of mind. It was something the dreamwalker hadn’t wholly experienced in years.
He feels it even heading towards the Kiyomizu-Dera. Sunshine is perfect on his skin, kissing him in these early morning hours, welcoming him to the light of a brand new day. As someone who usually wakes up at around four P.M. everyday, he feels refreshed. Revitalized. Perhaps the sunshine he experiences everyday is duller in comparison, having already sent its waves to the most productive of the day. The fittest, the happiest. Baa’stian flicks his gaze towards a couple across from him on the bullet train, watching as a young man cradles the head of a young woman into his arms. Suffering. He’s witnessing suffering, yet he’s good as brand new, if not better. What an odd conundrum.
The consequence of wiping quirks in Japan was unspeakable. The number of those who died due to the instantaneous wipe, from zero to one-hundred in potential lost, easily spiked into the hundreds of thousands. Baa’stian couldn’t quite wrap his head around it; and he feels like he’s probably a little psychotic because he doesn’t really care much about all the unspeakable others. He rallied when Saya was sent into the hospital, whole body collapsing due to the loss of her gel sacs and cucumber physiology; he mourned when she cried, hating himself more because he could do nothing for her. That whole situation stood as a stark reminder that Anthony was her guardian angel after all. There was nothing more that Baa’stian could do in the situation. He stilled.
A few days later, he’s never been so refreshed. Saya’s not dead. His friends aren’t in unspeakable, immeasurable pain. His lover is the magical flower, never needed his quirk to make the sternest seeds bloom. As for the rest of Japan… he couldn’t really be fucked about the people he didn’t know. The dreamwalker was a bit like a demisexual for saving people.
He looks towards the couple as the train eases to a slow, steady stop. Rumbles from the bottom catch his senses, red gaze drifting over to the sunshine that spills in once the doors open. Those people, too, will cry. They’ll grieve over their lost ones, they’ll scream frustration, they’ll hate, they’ll love again. Baa’stian grabs his duffel bag, slipping his phone back into his pocket as he steps out.
Where was this certainty coming from?
“Tian? Are you well?” a concerned, elder voice calls to him. The voice of a savior, reassurance lacing every word. Baa’stian bows as he heads up the grandeur, gorgeous steps, making sure to never lose his manners even in front of the one he’d call his pseudo-parent. Jun Chen, that crazy strong monk of ninety years old. A retired Neighbor, always calm and in control. Baa’stian smiles up, not daring to let the elder man worry over him.
“Wot? Aye come to the temple to see yuh, n’ all o’ a sudden aye’m some sorta problem?” he starts, hands ceremoniously on his hips. “Aye should be askin’ yuh, bhante. Anyone die o’ the Order? Yuh need help ‘round here?”
Jun’s face slips back into its semblance of forever peace. His steps are slow, measured, hands easily swaying behind his back. This is his spiritual son upon him, a twenty year old Irish dreamwalker lost in Japan. Exchanging blows with anyone who dared wrong the old ladies in his community, who’d soil the lives of children. Appearance as out of place as it could possibly be upon a temple’s steps - waist-length hair out of control, ruby eyes provocative with sights of sinning, 6’3 worth of lean musculature that had no business upholding prayer stands. A crooked smile facing upwards.
Jun is content as can be. “We have quite a few who’ve come from far to pray. This is what we might consider a catastrophe. Some of them have been here for hours, wishing well for the lives of their loved ones… would you mind bringing our guests some water and refreshments?”
Baa’stian’s already on it, having changed to ceremonial robes. He has so much to talk to Jun about - the meaning of the Neighborhood and his involvement in it, what Baa’stian himself witnessed of his mentor in the past few days. There is so much he does not know, so many mysterious messages lost upon his ever swirling soul. But Jun Chen had taught him patience. Emotional regulation… service. His reply is instant. “For yuh? Sure, bhante.”
Maybe this was the best way for his energy to be put to use for now.
///
The world’s falling to pieces outside and here they are, praying.
Baa’stian wonders now. If he’d fall into holy water, raised and born again, would it truly purge him of everything bad that curls the demon inside of him? He keeps his hum to himself, throat still for once, as he sweeps through hoister after hoister. People posed in prayer. SIlent tears poured in the temple that day, people idly accepting his water bottles as if their souls had already been separated from their bodies. He’s sad for them. He’s not all that sad for them. He wonders if he’s much more crazy than he thought.
He’s never made good with God. Like the half-hearted imp he is, he dropped the subject entirely after barreling towards a ditch at seventy miles per hour on a bicycle. He’s scared. He’s in no hurry to figure out that part of him… Even here, when the end of the world is upon them, thrown power and anarchy quickly descending over Japan like a pestilence. He’s so consciously aware this time of how he’s dodging all these hungry questions eating him alive. For once, he’s not running away from it. An endless spiral of existential terror breaks him in two, revealing the him at his core. Not the Vigilante, not the dreamwalker, wanna be boyfriend or Guardian... But just a boy who still doesn’t entirely know who he is.
Incense floats gently through holy air, an uplifting cloud of ease. It’s enough to carry his thoughts up the piers, up and beyond the temple, swirling and swirling. Baa’stian sets down the makeshift bag he brought to distribute water and snacks to the people. Then hands start moving on their own, reorganizing the monks’ letterhead, pushing papers to the side in neat stacks. Jun Chen doesn’t move at his desk, reading the message sent to the temple from afar. Observing and reading, wholly being a part of this moment. He is ready for the young one’s words even before he speaks.
“Sometimes aye’ve evil thoughts on me mind, bhante…” it comes soft as shock, a realization he has no idea what to deal with. Hands continue flying over spare paperwork and letters, sorting and shuffling, ironic for someone so messy in his own apartment.
Jun doesn’t move a muscle. “I’m a monk, not a priest, Tian. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know what to do with your confession.”
“Y’know, bhante, aye’m a bleedin’ bad dose n’ ‘nother… just wanted yuh to know sometimes me head’s really loud.” Voice grows quiet. “N’ now there’s nothin’.”
Hands still.
“N’ aye dunno how to feel ‘bout it.” Voice is quiet, so quiet, even one more shuffle of Jun’s parchment would have missed his disciple’s very important words.
“S’is this how aye’m supposed to be, bhante? In control? Not flyin’ off me own handle?”
Memories deluge him now, roaring waves of everything he couldn’t figure out himself - the sight of a child when he’d turn around, the sound of his best friend’s chuckle when he was hundreds of miles away in Musutafu. It can’t just be grief and self-loathing. All these mirages and illusions in front of him - how could he be so foolish?
All the little things that didn’t add up ever since he savagely worked his quirk with Michelle. But it began far before that, the dreamwalker realized with hurried despair. He was never quite in control of his own emotions, and it’d spike whenever he’d spend considerable time in someone else’s dream. So moods would make motions and memories that were never actually there. How long?... How long had he been this unbalanced, this uncertain, this unnormal? Ever since he awoke the quirk as a four-year-old? Why is he just realizing it now -
“Me quirk. Aye dun want it, aye dun wanna not know what aye think aye know n’ always second guess meself. The more it grows n’ cuts me down - aye’m afraid.” His truth leaves a tremble through every inch of him, so unsettled, so intense, he almost screams when a hand falls over his shoulder.
“Tian. You are already fine as you are. Right now, standing here, you are what you were meant to be.” Jun’s words are infallible. Baa’stian wants to swear at him, to curse him, to slap his hand away from him. To cry. But he finds he’s somehow incapable of all of those options right now. Jun’s hand tightens over his pseudo-son, wishing all the love for him in the world.
“Your quirk has done good and bad deeds for yourself and others. You know this. Why do you question the balance? Focus instead on what you will you do to conquer your fear.”
Baa’stian hates this. His bhante’s always right. He can’t give him that satisfaction as he chews on those words, as he processes what he thinks is the new truth surrounding him. His dreamweaving is a disease unto him. It is a blessing to save somebody’s life one day. Shit.
Right hand eventually shoots over Jun’s hand on his shoulder, so gently, so slowly. He’s not looking at him. Red glare unfocused on the ground below, soul lost somewhere without sight. It would take weeks for him to figure this out for himself. But for now, he knew this much. “Aye dun wanna rely on me Shadeslayin all the time’. Not knowin’ the full extent o’ what it does to me or what it could do to others.”
“Bhante, teach me the ways o’ the Eight Immortals.”
Jun Chen smiles.
///
Baa’stian thinks of Anthony.
Breath hurts in his lungs, barreling through his chest faster than he would like. Incinerating all the edges of his rib cage and him at the core of it. Jun hums something affirmative and kind, sitting in meditation pose just a meter away from Baa’stian. But there’s an iron ocean separating them now. Cool water drenching him, coming down at any unfathomable rate, washing over the iron weights strapped to torso and limbs. “Augh!” Baa’stian suavely articulates, body whirling with agony, all muscles commanding that he stop. Yet another iron misogi. He idly wonders how many times he’ll stand under a waterfall only to see that the training gets worse and worse - longer sessions, stronger weights tied to him. Tips of his ears freezing, body steadily going numb. It was okay before when he would just have to stand there - he’s lazy enough to do that - but now Jun commands him to stretch and Other Shit.
“If you wish to learn the way of the greatest Protectors, I’ll teach you. You are more than capable,” Jun had said ever-so-astutely an eternity ago. Now the ninety-year-old’s casually sitting and watching, reveling in the beautiful scenery set by the Kiyomizu-dera’s floral gardens. Baa’stian feels like that beauty is a little deadly by now. But the Guardian fortifies himself all the same, lunging in the water yet again to rise up, thrice his body weight compacted into those iron weights. “You’ve slowly worked to discover your purpose. Fight for what you believe in.”
Baa’stian smirks, his face a contorted smudge underneath the water. Damn. Bhante’s telling him to fight for his beliefs, and here he is, daydreaming about his arch nemesis. It’s a slip of control so cruel, like lurid thoughts of a best friend. Usually people motivate themselves with thoughts of goodness and justice and all that boring junk he could never really be bothered with. But what did pull the Guardian these days was the safety of his friends and loved ones. Being privileged in multiple ways since his birth, he didn’t even understand the concept of survival until he met Ashura Granja, and way back then, Azayakana. But then he went and got himself lost in the dreams of a cherubic angel, a young girl who didn’t deserve a modicum of the hatred and trauma she experienced. Baa’stian lunges again, following his reps to a T, not daring to disappoint Jun. Internally, he would do this.
He would do it for him.
The melty hoor who he despised with every strand of being in his body. He would get stronger for him - if this occurred about a couple of weeks ago, he would say he’d get stronger in case he’d have to kill the fabulous mullette man one day. But alas, now he knew different. Saya’s survival hinged on Anthony’s survival. All of the hate in Baa’stian’s heart couldn’t deny the truth - the Villain cared for her, nurturing her needs like her parents never would. Like Baa’stian could never dream of. Should anything happen to that man, despite how much Baa’stian hates him, loathes him, secretly admires his strength - he could never forgive the perpetrator. So, ironically on this day, Baa’stian trains in spirit of the man he hates the most. To promise protection.
Another spine-rattling roar claws its way from his throat. But he will not let up. There’s too much on the line now - his purpose standing right out of his grasp, his bhante’s expectation of him. How many hours have they been out here? The sunshine is distorted from where he stands, an illusion of brightness for one drowning in the deep. In not only body, but mind, for Baa’stian will never learn to purge himself of all of these loud thoughts in his head. To his crazed delight, without his quirk, all thought loud thoughts in his head are still there, just twenty decibels lighter. “Halle-fockin’-lujah,” he mutters to himself with grit teeth, working his last reps with a mind on autopilot. There’s no sanity for one like him. Silence when he’s at his worst, everlasting sound when he’s at his best. This is him.
“Good job, Tian,” Jun says at some point, rising to his feet. A mirage just beyond the water. Baa’stian heaves in and out, head bowed to prevent water gushing into his jaws. Just when he looks up again, a hand out-splayed rushes into the water, bopping him on the forehead with enough force to send him into tomorrow. “Let’s see how mentally prepared you are. It’s been a while, eh?” he says with a soft chuckle at the end, emulating his mentee. “Take a drop in the Ocean!”
“Bhante, yuh bih-!” All he manages to shout before consciousness drops back into Jun’s territory.
Here’s here to fulfill that promise.
///
Dreamwalker plummets towards the Ocean at a hundred miles a minute. Seagulls from here look like bombs spreading their wings over the deceased far below, drowning in endless sorrow. Baa’stian blinks; for a millisecond, he flies, then memory suspends him in the gravity of war. Whole body freezes, ice in his lungs, as he can’t shake memories of that day. But it’s not over yet. Red eyes shoot towards the liquid sepulchre before him, widening, stretching to swallow him whole. There’s a face in that water. A face he’s memorized, a face he sees in his darkest memories, a fugmo to blind and kill -
The day Baa’stian Ives killed a man -
“Shite!” he roars as water consumes him, sucking him down a greedy whirlpool. Water pounds his chest, ensnares legs and drags him further down, to a place so deep Baa’stian can’t reel himself up again. He knows how this goes, has dropped into his mentor’s quirk a million times before. Emotions control the waves, clarify the mind until you see straight to the bottom. Ride the Ocean. There’s a truth he’s clutching to his head, not connecting to his heart, as he succumbs to painful memories tearing him apart. Head drops below the surface; arm and head shoot back up, trying with every might of his being to not die -
Aye can’t die here, it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real he chants over and over to himself, outside of his body, the voice of a parent to child. Except he doesn’t believe it.
Fight for your beliefs.
Baa’stian loses to a force that drags him past the Ocean’s floor.
✧ - ✧ - ✧
An eight-year-old giggles with one half of a snake in each palm.
Tiny feet pad up to his brother, the Golden Son of the Huang household. Hair swishes past the little one’s waist as he clambers up the lap of a twenty-year-old, high, perfect in the youngest son’s eyes. Bleary black eyes narrow at the child. Hand instinctively grasps the small’s back protectively before a dripping sensation seeps into his pants. He looks down, ever so slowly, at the blood of a decapitated animal pouring from its fangs.
“Jin! Jin! Lookie what aye got!” the mini-Baa’stian exclaims, wriggling the limp body parts in his tiny hands. Dancing dead snakes. He grins, whole body shaking with mirth and life. Jin Huang slaps the snake right out of his hands.
“Christ, Tian.” Voice is a wearied low bell of warning. Baa’stian watches the bits go flying, blood arcing through the air in three heavy drops that stain their grandma’s garden. A hand shoots protectively up to Baa’stian’s head, rubbing the hair, lazy, indolent. “We dun have those at home. They’re dangerous. Yuh stay far away. Yuh understand that?” Baa’stian snuggles into the chest of his older brother, big red eyes watching two lifeless halves on the floor. A realization clicks into place far too soon.
“Jin… why ain’t he movin’?”
Jin Huang, the first, the bravest, the strongest. In the throes of a huge mistake, he finds himself in a self-proscribed haze in which morality slowly slips away from him. He changed this kid’s diapers. He can tell him the truth. It’s the same shit.
“He’s dead.”
“No!” Baa’stian immediately protests, breath catching in his throat. Jin turns to the little one, lazy look not broken by the razen cry. He’s usually so much more empathetic than this. Unfortunately, he won’t even remember this moment. Won’t live to regret it. His next words come easy.
“Why’d yuh kill him?”
Baa’stian shakes, palms upturning. An emotion he cannot name hurtles through his chest, crushing existence as he knows it. Words come to his mouth, only to not leave his lips. Jin turns his attention away from both the boy and the once-snake.
“Right, cause yuh were curious,” he says for his little brother. Next words exonerate him from sin. “He coulda hurt yuh. Dun be sad.”
An existentialist crisis unravels in the young one’s mind. Before Jin has the opportunity to hold onto Tian with high hands, the little one’s bounding out of his grasp, to the severed body of the snake on the floor. Now Jin’s up and after him, slapping his hands, tilting the young chin to look up at him. “Aye said no. Yuh hard o’ hearin’ today?” An inevitable crying session comes. Jin rolls his eyes, scooping the younger into his arms, hugging him close. At some point, the small one stirs.
“Should we say somethin’ nice to him?...” He doesn’t know what death means. Mind runs through a variety of scripts he’s picked up from the world, trying to find something to assuage his own sadness. Jin combs a hand through his younger brother’s hair, thinking carefully, not minding as the truest words come to the forefront.
“No. That’s meanin’less, Tian. He once lived n’ now he’s dead. We all live n’ we die. There’s no need to make rituals out o’ it. It’s not as big o’ a deal as yuh think.” Now black eyes hover over his brother, steadily sucking him in like a tiny planet approaching the event horizon. “Dun be ‘fraid o’ it. To kill n’ to die, yuh hear me? We’re slaves to enough things o’ this world. Yuh conscious doesn’t need to be one o’ em.”
Jin holds his little brother, not realizing in his daze just what he’s untethered in him. An eight-year-old, at that moment, slowly awakens into a conflicted moral compass. Falling asleep in loving arms.
///
Creeping death hangs onto him. Memories and words play through his mind on infinite loops as he sinks deeper and deeper. Frigid water paralyzing fingers, reaching past his core, clutching him into a new kind of coma. Baa’stian opens his eyes, watching idly as the water from above cruelly filters away. Shades of life lost between the swirling strands of his hair. He’s so far gone, so done. He physically can’t die out here… but he thinks he’s already experienced something worse than something as simple as death.
Aye dun really give a shite… he hurt me, Jin. Should aye be sad? Who’s right is it anyway, who kills n’ who gives life… grief intersperses broken thoughts, heavy and cruel. Dragging him down further. The night was truly a big blur - he fought it out with Ordeal, blind for the whole event. Guided by Orion’s light, by sounds. Shielded from the sight of his own fists hammering over the madman. Now Baa’stian’s thoughts continue to weave in and out. He stops fighting. He doesn’t want that thing - the consciousness Jin always spoke so sourly of.
Jin doesn’t believe in the sanctity of life. He couldn’t care for ritual, didn’t show for their mothers’ own wedding. Baa’stian gulps in more and more metaphorical water, dry-drowning with thoughts of the mysterious elder. At twenty-seven years old, Jin left Ireland for legal business, taking after Mei Huang. That’s when Baa’stian’s problems begun - the bullying, the lapse of good judgement on so many bad occasions. Every Tuesday night thereafter, Jin would call him. Bouts of depression, highs, lows, vibrant moments that filled him with life.
How much of these he didn’t tell Jin. How much resided within him as he idled at his brother’s voice on the other side of the receiver, low, controlled. Reserved. Baa’stian murdered someone in cold blood, left him to die - and the next week on the phone, told Jin he was cooking wonton soup for dinner.
How long? How long had they been lying to each other? Much less Baa’stian lying to himself?
Thoughts of death.
Hurt him.
In the waking world, his monk mentor stalls before him. Both bodies sit cross-legged across from each other, Jun’s eyes glowing a bright blue. Jun’s quirk, much like his pseudo-son’s, can never hurt anyone in the waking world. There Baa’stian sits across from him, rivulets of water trailing down his neck and jaw, mouth opening and closing, gasping sounds desperately coming out from him as if he was drowning. The feeling of being intensely waterboarded - that was as much as the Ocean could do to one, torture-wise. In his younger days, Jun attained plenty of information from people with his quirk. Now he trains people in body and mind, refining their mental fortitude.
Baa’stian Ives has been one of his toughest cases.
The waterfall roars behind them, hailing the nearly setting sun. How long would he have to see the young one suffer? Beads of sweat rolled down the elder’s temple as he continued to occupy his apprentice’s mind. If he couldn’t come to his heart’s conclusion, he would draw him out by force, severing the link, watching his apprentice come flailing into the waking world like a gutted fish. Jun persevered, never privy to what was going on in the other’s own mentalscape. Sometimes, a parent must trust wholly without reason, blind conviction lighting the way for their child.
Baa’stian drifts. Movement taken from him by himself, wading away. He feels his soul tugged down by a weight in the middle of his belly, body’s gravity carrying him down. Ucky, heavy sadness. He’s well acquainted with this feeling by now. A darkness growing at the center of him, expanding like a punishing weight from another world.
Back arches backwards a bit, falling privvy to the sinking tide. If he can just carry that huge weight, lift himself up, instead of being bogged down by all of this…. The dreamwalker closes his eyes, practically not breathing in the waking world. Running out of his wits. Little thoughts make mismatched patterns in his mid: early childhood memories with Jin and the others, current day memories. A loved one lifting him out of his funk, embracing him despite his truths. Yasashii. Far too good for him. He must protect him, the one who could do no wrong in his eyes -
So he needs to get this giant weight off of him. Two hands eventually find their place in space, moving past gushing water to save himself.
Jun Chen gasps.
In reality, hands of his apprentice shot out, thin, vaporous layer of bright green enshrouding palms. Slowly they glided towards his abdomen, stilling, lifting some unknown weight. So much power held within him. Baa’stian’s red eyes wide open, seeing nothing and everything simultaneously as his soul battled against him.
A soft smile finds the monk.
Now he’s learning.
///
Conquer your fear.
In the water world, hands unfurl over his stomach. Thunderous expression tightening, hair flowing around naked form in shells of darkness. Green speckled through red iris, reflecting old memories, new fears. Baa’stian lugs the weight off the center of him, winding up, hurling it far and away in the water.
Then he finally swims.
Waves cool as he comes, psychological state finally locking hands with victory. He forgot a core truth of the training: it’s not about ascertaining one’s non-death in the Ocean; it’s more like making sure one won’t give up on themselves despite the state they stand in. Death never mattered, in Jun’s world or the overarching one. Fear of himself… fear of his quirk, fear of his loved ones dying. It’s always been a grey world to the dreamwalker, but finally he can see through the murkiness of it all to what lies deep down below.
Swimming down, further and further, water glides against his skin. Welcoming, embracing. The frigid waters he once knew are cool and calm, finally owned by his consciousness. When he feels the soles of his feet hit the ocean floor, he stops.
Then he turns.
Jun’s eyebrow quirks in the waking world. The goal of the Ocean has always been to reach the other side of the seemingly infinite body of water. When one finally manifested true mental fortitude, owning fears and anxieties, they would walk on water instead of being consumed completely by it. Baa’stian knows this, has been down that path dozens of times over, despite how much he struggled. So what would he be doing now? Veneer of pure intensity graces the fae child in the waking world. Obscuring intention to even his mentor.
In the water sphere, he lifts up his hands. That same vaporous green energy cloaks half-open fists before he breathes in and out. Summoning something beyond Jun’s understanding. Then mist comes, bloodying water, terrifying to behold. For a moment, Jun thinks he’s caught in a nightmare that he can’t end. Dread runs up his spine, exchanging place for horror when a shapeshifting entity hits the waves. Ten tentacles shimmying in and out of the water, single eye the size of a tire honing in on the young warrior, who squares up to a beast ten times his size.
Jun’s hand trembles, eyes lost where he can’t look away, completely with his apprentice as he stalks towards the beast he created. Jun sees someone very different then: complete dedication traded out for impish eyes, body not missing a beat. Baa’stian swing kicks, missing his first attack; beast retaliates, drunken legs swallowing up the ocean floor, turning to its side. Only for the dreamwalker to scream down in retaliation, arm poised in ending.
Jun gasps - what is he witnessing? He never considered it possible for his apprentice to do something to a mental scape - especially when his physical body has no access to his quirk - but what stuck to him more was the sight of bloodlust set to his eyes. Something different. Something freed within the dreamwalker. Before the thought could end, Baa’stian roared, shaking the mentalscape, body hurtling ten meters through the water with a kick straight to the eye -
“Enough!”
Yet another bop to the head in the waking world. Jun visibly shakes, sweat cladding arms. Baa’stian’s consciousness leaps back into his physical body immediately, damp and cold from sitting under the waterfall. Then he laughs, innocent and pure, completely in stark contrast to the warrior who just killed the krakken of his own invention.
“Bhante! Aye jump yuh or somethin’?... Sorry. Aye had the thought o’ doin’ it n’ couldn’t be stopped aye guess.”
Jun’s eyes narrow. Caution. Curiosity. He just witnessed the youth experience a breakthrough. Was it really possible that he had such devilish thoughts on his mind simultaneously the whole time? The man-child was something of an enigma still to the elder.
Baa’stian whistles as he leans back, wincing. “Bhante, me body hurts… tho aye think aye learned somethin’.”
“Oh? What’s that?” Thoughts of what Jun just witnessed were carefully sorted away for the future. The monk could feel a headache coming on, a quirk-induced variety he hadn’t experienced in years.
“Aye iunno! There was a glowy energy n’ aye… “ Baa’stian throws up his hands, flexing and unflexing, trying to find the truth of in the empty space between his hands. “Aye wanna find out more ‘bout it.”
Jun stands.
“Then we shall.” Sun descends over the melting hills the Kiyomizu-dera stands upon, bringing with it the cool embrace of the night. Baa’stian follows suit, body crackling with a new type of energy. Hope held in both hands.
///
“Yuh went to China.” An accusation. A truth. A way to break their glowing morning, new waves of life pulsating over the Temple’s boundless acres.
Baa’stian stuffs his face with steamed buns before pouring himself hot water into his cup. In a way, he’s delighted: exploring the morning routine for typical folks, sharing a breakfast table with his mentor like they were truly parent and child in another world. In another way, he’s terrified to find the truth. To begin the conversation that’s been on the back burner ever since that night.
“I did. It is unfortunate. I might be the last man in Japan with a quirk left.” Jun Chen scoops rice into Baa’stian’s bowl, places the steamer over his apprentice’s cup. Honey and lemon into his own. Void eyes study the space on the table before him with a measured finality. Then, he speaks. Words vulnerable and true, ones he would tell only the young one before him. “I haven’t been home in twenty years, Tian. Things have changed a lot since then.”
Baa’stian averts his eyes as he eats. “O’ yah, bhante? Consider me yuh baby or somethin’ then, aye dunno... “ Jun smirks at that; kind chuckle releases him from his worried thoughts. If twenty years could make a madman like him, he couldn’t imagine what else it would do. Baa’stian presses on.
“So what, yuh wanted to visit yuh ancestral homeland or somethin’? Somethin’ missin’ or wrong?”
A memory flashes before the dreamwalker’s eyes. Tendrils of ivy bleeding down, pooling in his grandmother’s garden, discerning expression watching him as he crawls on all four’s -
“No, Tian. Thank you for your concern.” He quiets now. “I just had some old business to attend to.” Baa’stian’s utensil hits the bowl a bit harder than he meant to. But he has no change in facial expression. He remembers, now. How to contain himself. How to act right, under the judgement of someone much stronger and superior to him. Ironically, Jin didn’t teach him how to hide all his secrets - he learned that part himself.
“O. Business, yah, aye get it.” Calls on the phone with his brother that go nowhere and start at no place. Baa’stian pours after his food, big bites and big gulps, practically not breathing. He doesn’t want this. This burden of not bringing your loved ones into danger by locking them out of your life. He speaks before he has a chance to really think that through. “Y’know, bhante, aye got a new job. Well aye still tatt random blockes for fun, y’know, but now aye work at a nonprofit.”
Curiosity piques Jun’s expression. Hands still for the briefest of moments before the monk continues his meal. “Oh yeah, Tian? What kind of nonprofit?”
“Somethin’ to do with families or anotha.” Exact words said to his brother. A lie carefully contained. When will this cycle end? When Baa’stian realizes it, he opens his mouth. The soft gaze of Jun meets him, waiting expectantly. Little wrinkles peppering his mouth, his face, aged collarbone peeping through sagging skin. No. Baa’stian can’t say more… can’t bring this man further out of his blissful retirement. He shakes the thought away - Jun’s business in China has nothing to do with him.
Just like Jin’s own.
“I’m so proud of you, Tian,” Jun says after the prolonged silence. “You’re using your powers for good. You have enough care to fill the ocean.” Baa’stian rolls his eyes. At the monk’s words and the stupid happiness coursing through him. Jun throws another bun onto his apprentice’s plate, beginning to hum just like Baa’stian does. One more question, a lot more bites, and then a new training would begun.
“What is your purpose, Tian?” a spoken reaffirmation of a sacred truth.
“To protect. Whate’er it takes.”
///
“They crossed the ocean for a shared goal.”
Baa’stian gagged, breathless, air in the wrong part of his lungs going up. Whole body was the wrong way anyway, center of gravity dragging towards the ground. Eyes fifteen centimeters above the floor as the dreamwalker suspended himself with one arm. Fingerpads barely touching the ground, five points holding all of his weight as he balanced his body. Green energy swathed his fingers, buffering the load, before shooting and coursing all throughout his body. Energy uncontrolled, chaos uncontained. A true Baa’stian stance.
“They achieved immortality through common events.” Jun’s voice came from very far away, his bhante wandering a few meters from the man-child. Baa’stian could barely tell; blindfolded, he swayed gently, thick beads of sweat dripping from his temples and onto the wood paneling. He said he wanted to train his new ability, although he didn’t think it’d be quite like this -
Suddenly, his voice was so much closer. “Persevering, caring for others. They adhered to the taoist tradition which formed a foundation for making sense of the world.”
Energy in his forearm dashed up to his hip! Just in time for Jun’s crosschop to swing the area, making the boy’s body practically reverberate with the attack. Shit. That had been the forty-fifth attack Baa’stian had caught with his newfound energy, but it still hurt. How much? How much weight could he handle at once? How could he improve it?
Jun’s voice drifted far and away from him again, sounds of bare feet ghosting across the floor. “Tian, they were commoners. Like you or I, people who loved, hated, struggled and survived.”
“Yuh history lesson grows duller n’ duller by the day bhante… but aye’m amused. Yuh expect me to be a legend through sittin’ n’ watchin’ me grass grow, huh? Yuh better send me the registration.” He could practically feel the smirk appearing over Jun’s face. The elder walked a circle, cocking his head and thinking about his young one’s question.
“No, I’m expecting you to suffer, and love, with acceptance of suffering and loving.”
Now he hit Baa’stian over the ankle hard enough to draw a scream from the Vigilante, so contained despite the contorted visage of agony cracking his face into two. After five hours of practically standing on his head, blindfolded, balancing himself with only his fingertips while defending himself with an ability he learned yesterday…
He was ready for more.
“Stand. Son of Mei and Marcia Huang.”
Something new coursed through him when he heard Jun say those words. The last few hours, and days and weeks and months and year weren’t just about training. They were about belonging and family, messages of the past shared between the monk and the younger man. Stories of long, long ago, vivid people appearing behind Baa’stian’s eyelids as he imagined what his mentor meant. When he told him about an organization he joined in his twenties to fight violence in his homeland, when he talked about a young boy he saved who ultimately changed his life forever -
And when he neglected to tell Baa’stian all of that which he would face. The stealing, the mass-killings and the endless driving to put crowns back upon the Neighborhood’s chosen rightful queens of the world. When Jun Chen speaks, orotund voice booming with pride, with love, he commands Baa’stian to do something he could never say out loud. To fight for his life and those lives he cared about with ceaseless abandon.
“Show me what you’ve learned of the Eight Immortals!”
Baa’stian doubled up on his feet. Body drenched with sweat, heartbeat thunder in his ears, warriors from a distant land squaring up to each other with all the love and fire in the world. Quan’s fist aimed towards his bhante’s heart with vim. Vigor screaming in stance, every muscle alive.
His time had come.
FIN
Clarity. Peace of mind. It was something the dreamwalker hadn’t wholly experienced in years.
He feels it even heading towards the Kiyomizu-Dera. Sunshine is perfect on his skin, kissing him in these early morning hours, welcoming him to the light of a brand new day. As someone who usually wakes up at around four P.M. everyday, he feels refreshed. Revitalized. Perhaps the sunshine he experiences everyday is duller in comparison, having already sent its waves to the most productive of the day. The fittest, the happiest. Baa’stian flicks his gaze towards a couple across from him on the bullet train, watching as a young man cradles the head of a young woman into his arms. Suffering. He’s witnessing suffering, yet he’s good as brand new, if not better. What an odd conundrum.
The consequence of wiping quirks in Japan was unspeakable. The number of those who died due to the instantaneous wipe, from zero to one-hundred in potential lost, easily spiked into the hundreds of thousands. Baa’stian couldn’t quite wrap his head around it; and he feels like he’s probably a little psychotic because he doesn’t really care much about all the unspeakable others. He rallied when Saya was sent into the hospital, whole body collapsing due to the loss of her gel sacs and cucumber physiology; he mourned when she cried, hating himself more because he could do nothing for her. That whole situation stood as a stark reminder that Anthony was her guardian angel after all. There was nothing more that Baa’stian could do in the situation. He stilled.
A few days later, he’s never been so refreshed. Saya’s not dead. His friends aren’t in unspeakable, immeasurable pain. His lover is the magical flower, never needed his quirk to make the sternest seeds bloom. As for the rest of Japan… he couldn’t really be fucked about the people he didn’t know. The dreamwalker was a bit like a demisexual for saving people.
He looks towards the couple as the train eases to a slow, steady stop. Rumbles from the bottom catch his senses, red gaze drifting over to the sunshine that spills in once the doors open. Those people, too, will cry. They’ll grieve over their lost ones, they’ll scream frustration, they’ll hate, they’ll love again. Baa’stian grabs his duffel bag, slipping his phone back into his pocket as he steps out.
Where was this certainty coming from?
“Tian? Are you well?” a concerned, elder voice calls to him. The voice of a savior, reassurance lacing every word. Baa’stian bows as he heads up the grandeur, gorgeous steps, making sure to never lose his manners even in front of the one he’d call his pseudo-parent. Jun Chen, that crazy strong monk of ninety years old. A retired Neighbor, always calm and in control. Baa’stian smiles up, not daring to let the elder man worry over him.
“Wot? Aye come to the temple to see yuh, n’ all o’ a sudden aye’m some sorta problem?” he starts, hands ceremoniously on his hips. “Aye should be askin’ yuh, bhante. Anyone die o’ the Order? Yuh need help ‘round here?”
Jun’s face slips back into its semblance of forever peace. His steps are slow, measured, hands easily swaying behind his back. This is his spiritual son upon him, a twenty year old Irish dreamwalker lost in Japan. Exchanging blows with anyone who dared wrong the old ladies in his community, who’d soil the lives of children. Appearance as out of place as it could possibly be upon a temple’s steps - waist-length hair out of control, ruby eyes provocative with sights of sinning, 6’3 worth of lean musculature that had no business upholding prayer stands. A crooked smile facing upwards.
Jun is content as can be. “We have quite a few who’ve come from far to pray. This is what we might consider a catastrophe. Some of them have been here for hours, wishing well for the lives of their loved ones… would you mind bringing our guests some water and refreshments?”
Baa’stian’s already on it, having changed to ceremonial robes. He has so much to talk to Jun about - the meaning of the Neighborhood and his involvement in it, what Baa’stian himself witnessed of his mentor in the past few days. There is so much he does not know, so many mysterious messages lost upon his ever swirling soul. But Jun Chen had taught him patience. Emotional regulation… service. His reply is instant. “For yuh? Sure, bhante.”
Maybe this was the best way for his energy to be put to use for now.
///
The world’s falling to pieces outside and here they are, praying.
Baa’stian wonders now. If he’d fall into holy water, raised and born again, would it truly purge him of everything bad that curls the demon inside of him? He keeps his hum to himself, throat still for once, as he sweeps through hoister after hoister. People posed in prayer. SIlent tears poured in the temple that day, people idly accepting his water bottles as if their souls had already been separated from their bodies. He’s sad for them. He’s not all that sad for them. He wonders if he’s much more crazy than he thought.
He’s never made good with God. Like the half-hearted imp he is, he dropped the subject entirely after barreling towards a ditch at seventy miles per hour on a bicycle. He’s scared. He’s in no hurry to figure out that part of him… Even here, when the end of the world is upon them, thrown power and anarchy quickly descending over Japan like a pestilence. He’s so consciously aware this time of how he’s dodging all these hungry questions eating him alive. For once, he’s not running away from it. An endless spiral of existential terror breaks him in two, revealing the him at his core. Not the Vigilante, not the dreamwalker, wanna be boyfriend or Guardian... But just a boy who still doesn’t entirely know who he is.
Incense floats gently through holy air, an uplifting cloud of ease. It’s enough to carry his thoughts up the piers, up and beyond the temple, swirling and swirling. Baa’stian sets down the makeshift bag he brought to distribute water and snacks to the people. Then hands start moving on their own, reorganizing the monks’ letterhead, pushing papers to the side in neat stacks. Jun Chen doesn’t move at his desk, reading the message sent to the temple from afar. Observing and reading, wholly being a part of this moment. He is ready for the young one’s words even before he speaks.
“Sometimes aye’ve evil thoughts on me mind, bhante…” it comes soft as shock, a realization he has no idea what to deal with. Hands continue flying over spare paperwork and letters, sorting and shuffling, ironic for someone so messy in his own apartment.
Jun doesn’t move a muscle. “I’m a monk, not a priest, Tian. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know what to do with your confession.”
“Y’know, bhante, aye’m a bleedin’ bad dose n’ ‘nother… just wanted yuh to know sometimes me head’s really loud.” Voice grows quiet. “N’ now there’s nothin’.”
Hands still.
“N’ aye dunno how to feel ‘bout it.” Voice is quiet, so quiet, even one more shuffle of Jun’s parchment would have missed his disciple’s very important words.
“S’is this how aye’m supposed to be, bhante? In control? Not flyin’ off me own handle?”
Memories deluge him now, roaring waves of everything he couldn’t figure out himself - the sight of a child when he’d turn around, the sound of his best friend’s chuckle when he was hundreds of miles away in Musutafu. It can’t just be grief and self-loathing. All these mirages and illusions in front of him - how could he be so foolish?
All the little things that didn’t add up ever since he savagely worked his quirk with Michelle. But it began far before that, the dreamwalker realized with hurried despair. He was never quite in control of his own emotions, and it’d spike whenever he’d spend considerable time in someone else’s dream. So moods would make motions and memories that were never actually there. How long?... How long had he been this unbalanced, this uncertain, this unnormal? Ever since he awoke the quirk as a four-year-old? Why is he just realizing it now -
“Me quirk. Aye dun want it, aye dun wanna not know what aye think aye know n’ always second guess meself. The more it grows n’ cuts me down - aye’m afraid.” His truth leaves a tremble through every inch of him, so unsettled, so intense, he almost screams when a hand falls over his shoulder.
“Tian. You are already fine as you are. Right now, standing here, you are what you were meant to be.” Jun’s words are infallible. Baa’stian wants to swear at him, to curse him, to slap his hand away from him. To cry. But he finds he’s somehow incapable of all of those options right now. Jun’s hand tightens over his pseudo-son, wishing all the love for him in the world.
“Your quirk has done good and bad deeds for yourself and others. You know this. Why do you question the balance? Focus instead on what you will you do to conquer your fear.”
Baa’stian hates this. His bhante’s always right. He can’t give him that satisfaction as he chews on those words, as he processes what he thinks is the new truth surrounding him. His dreamweaving is a disease unto him. It is a blessing to save somebody’s life one day. Shit.
Right hand eventually shoots over Jun’s hand on his shoulder, so gently, so slowly. He’s not looking at him. Red glare unfocused on the ground below, soul lost somewhere without sight. It would take weeks for him to figure this out for himself. But for now, he knew this much. “Aye dun wanna rely on me Shadeslayin all the time’. Not knowin’ the full extent o’ what it does to me or what it could do to others.”
“Bhante, teach me the ways o’ the Eight Immortals.”
Jun Chen smiles.
///
Baa’stian thinks of Anthony.
Breath hurts in his lungs, barreling through his chest faster than he would like. Incinerating all the edges of his rib cage and him at the core of it. Jun hums something affirmative and kind, sitting in meditation pose just a meter away from Baa’stian. But there’s an iron ocean separating them now. Cool water drenching him, coming down at any unfathomable rate, washing over the iron weights strapped to torso and limbs. “Augh!” Baa’stian suavely articulates, body whirling with agony, all muscles commanding that he stop. Yet another iron misogi. He idly wonders how many times he’ll stand under a waterfall only to see that the training gets worse and worse - longer sessions, stronger weights tied to him. Tips of his ears freezing, body steadily going numb. It was okay before when he would just have to stand there - he’s lazy enough to do that - but now Jun commands him to stretch and Other Shit.
“If you wish to learn the way of the greatest Protectors, I’ll teach you. You are more than capable,” Jun had said ever-so-astutely an eternity ago. Now the ninety-year-old’s casually sitting and watching, reveling in the beautiful scenery set by the Kiyomizu-dera’s floral gardens. Baa’stian feels like that beauty is a little deadly by now. But the Guardian fortifies himself all the same, lunging in the water yet again to rise up, thrice his body weight compacted into those iron weights. “You’ve slowly worked to discover your purpose. Fight for what you believe in.”
Baa’stian smirks, his face a contorted smudge underneath the water. Damn. Bhante’s telling him to fight for his beliefs, and here he is, daydreaming about his arch nemesis. It’s a slip of control so cruel, like lurid thoughts of a best friend. Usually people motivate themselves with thoughts of goodness and justice and all that boring junk he could never really be bothered with. But what did pull the Guardian these days was the safety of his friends and loved ones. Being privileged in multiple ways since his birth, he didn’t even understand the concept of survival until he met Ashura Granja, and way back then, Azayakana. But then he went and got himself lost in the dreams of a cherubic angel, a young girl who didn’t deserve a modicum of the hatred and trauma she experienced. Baa’stian lunges again, following his reps to a T, not daring to disappoint Jun. Internally, he would do this.
He would do it for him.
The melty hoor who he despised with every strand of being in his body. He would get stronger for him - if this occurred about a couple of weeks ago, he would say he’d get stronger in case he’d have to kill the fabulous mullette man one day. But alas, now he knew different. Saya’s survival hinged on Anthony’s survival. All of the hate in Baa’stian’s heart couldn’t deny the truth - the Villain cared for her, nurturing her needs like her parents never would. Like Baa’stian could never dream of. Should anything happen to that man, despite how much Baa’stian hates him, loathes him, secretly admires his strength - he could never forgive the perpetrator. So, ironically on this day, Baa’stian trains in spirit of the man he hates the most. To promise protection.
Another spine-rattling roar claws its way from his throat. But he will not let up. There’s too much on the line now - his purpose standing right out of his grasp, his bhante’s expectation of him. How many hours have they been out here? The sunshine is distorted from where he stands, an illusion of brightness for one drowning in the deep. In not only body, but mind, for Baa’stian will never learn to purge himself of all of these loud thoughts in his head. To his crazed delight, without his quirk, all thought loud thoughts in his head are still there, just twenty decibels lighter. “Halle-fockin’-lujah,” he mutters to himself with grit teeth, working his last reps with a mind on autopilot. There’s no sanity for one like him. Silence when he’s at his worst, everlasting sound when he’s at his best. This is him.
“Good job, Tian,” Jun says at some point, rising to his feet. A mirage just beyond the water. Baa’stian heaves in and out, head bowed to prevent water gushing into his jaws. Just when he looks up again, a hand out-splayed rushes into the water, bopping him on the forehead with enough force to send him into tomorrow. “Let’s see how mentally prepared you are. It’s been a while, eh?” he says with a soft chuckle at the end, emulating his mentee. “Take a drop in the Ocean!”
“Bhante, yuh bih-!” All he manages to shout before consciousness drops back into Jun’s territory.
Here’s here to fulfill that promise.
///
Dreamwalker plummets towards the Ocean at a hundred miles a minute. Seagulls from here look like bombs spreading their wings over the deceased far below, drowning in endless sorrow. Baa’stian blinks; for a millisecond, he flies, then memory suspends him in the gravity of war. Whole body freezes, ice in his lungs, as he can’t shake memories of that day. But it’s not over yet. Red eyes shoot towards the liquid sepulchre before him, widening, stretching to swallow him whole. There’s a face in that water. A face he’s memorized, a face he sees in his darkest memories, a fugmo to blind and kill -
The day Baa’stian Ives killed a man -
“Shite!” he roars as water consumes him, sucking him down a greedy whirlpool. Water pounds his chest, ensnares legs and drags him further down, to a place so deep Baa’stian can’t reel himself up again. He knows how this goes, has dropped into his mentor’s quirk a million times before. Emotions control the waves, clarify the mind until you see straight to the bottom. Ride the Ocean. There’s a truth he’s clutching to his head, not connecting to his heart, as he succumbs to painful memories tearing him apart. Head drops below the surface; arm and head shoot back up, trying with every might of his being to not die -
Aye can’t die here, it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real he chants over and over to himself, outside of his body, the voice of a parent to child. Except he doesn’t believe it.
Fight for your beliefs.
Baa’stian loses to a force that drags him past the Ocean’s floor.
✧ - ✧ - ✧
An eight-year-old giggles with one half of a snake in each palm.
Tiny feet pad up to his brother, the Golden Son of the Huang household. Hair swishes past the little one’s waist as he clambers up the lap of a twenty-year-old, high, perfect in the youngest son’s eyes. Bleary black eyes narrow at the child. Hand instinctively grasps the small’s back protectively before a dripping sensation seeps into his pants. He looks down, ever so slowly, at the blood of a decapitated animal pouring from its fangs.
“Jin! Jin! Lookie what aye got!” the mini-Baa’stian exclaims, wriggling the limp body parts in his tiny hands. Dancing dead snakes. He grins, whole body shaking with mirth and life. Jin Huang slaps the snake right out of his hands.
“Christ, Tian.” Voice is a wearied low bell of warning. Baa’stian watches the bits go flying, blood arcing through the air in three heavy drops that stain their grandma’s garden. A hand shoots protectively up to Baa’stian’s head, rubbing the hair, lazy, indolent. “We dun have those at home. They’re dangerous. Yuh stay far away. Yuh understand that?” Baa’stian snuggles into the chest of his older brother, big red eyes watching two lifeless halves on the floor. A realization clicks into place far too soon.
“Jin… why ain’t he movin’?”
Jin Huang, the first, the bravest, the strongest. In the throes of a huge mistake, he finds himself in a self-proscribed haze in which morality slowly slips away from him. He changed this kid’s diapers. He can tell him the truth. It’s the same shit.
“He’s dead.”
“No!” Baa’stian immediately protests, breath catching in his throat. Jin turns to the little one, lazy look not broken by the razen cry. He’s usually so much more empathetic than this. Unfortunately, he won’t even remember this moment. Won’t live to regret it. His next words come easy.
“Why’d yuh kill him?”
Baa’stian shakes, palms upturning. An emotion he cannot name hurtles through his chest, crushing existence as he knows it. Words come to his mouth, only to not leave his lips. Jin turns his attention away from both the boy and the once-snake.
“Right, cause yuh were curious,” he says for his little brother. Next words exonerate him from sin. “He coulda hurt yuh. Dun be sad.”
An existentialist crisis unravels in the young one’s mind. Before Jin has the opportunity to hold onto Tian with high hands, the little one’s bounding out of his grasp, to the severed body of the snake on the floor. Now Jin’s up and after him, slapping his hands, tilting the young chin to look up at him. “Aye said no. Yuh hard o’ hearin’ today?” An inevitable crying session comes. Jin rolls his eyes, scooping the younger into his arms, hugging him close. At some point, the small one stirs.
“Should we say somethin’ nice to him?...” He doesn’t know what death means. Mind runs through a variety of scripts he’s picked up from the world, trying to find something to assuage his own sadness. Jin combs a hand through his younger brother’s hair, thinking carefully, not minding as the truest words come to the forefront.
“No. That’s meanin’less, Tian. He once lived n’ now he’s dead. We all live n’ we die. There’s no need to make rituals out o’ it. It’s not as big o’ a deal as yuh think.” Now black eyes hover over his brother, steadily sucking him in like a tiny planet approaching the event horizon. “Dun be ‘fraid o’ it. To kill n’ to die, yuh hear me? We’re slaves to enough things o’ this world. Yuh conscious doesn’t need to be one o’ em.”
Jin holds his little brother, not realizing in his daze just what he’s untethered in him. An eight-year-old, at that moment, slowly awakens into a conflicted moral compass. Falling asleep in loving arms.
///
Creeping death hangs onto him. Memories and words play through his mind on infinite loops as he sinks deeper and deeper. Frigid water paralyzing fingers, reaching past his core, clutching him into a new kind of coma. Baa’stian opens his eyes, watching idly as the water from above cruelly filters away. Shades of life lost between the swirling strands of his hair. He’s so far gone, so done. He physically can’t die out here… but he thinks he’s already experienced something worse than something as simple as death.
Aye dun really give a shite… he hurt me, Jin. Should aye be sad? Who’s right is it anyway, who kills n’ who gives life… grief intersperses broken thoughts, heavy and cruel. Dragging him down further. The night was truly a big blur - he fought it out with Ordeal, blind for the whole event. Guided by Orion’s light, by sounds. Shielded from the sight of his own fists hammering over the madman. Now Baa’stian’s thoughts continue to weave in and out. He stops fighting. He doesn’t want that thing - the consciousness Jin always spoke so sourly of.
Jin doesn’t believe in the sanctity of life. He couldn’t care for ritual, didn’t show for their mothers’ own wedding. Baa’stian gulps in more and more metaphorical water, dry-drowning with thoughts of the mysterious elder. At twenty-seven years old, Jin left Ireland for legal business, taking after Mei Huang. That’s when Baa’stian’s problems begun - the bullying, the lapse of good judgement on so many bad occasions. Every Tuesday night thereafter, Jin would call him. Bouts of depression, highs, lows, vibrant moments that filled him with life.
How much of these he didn’t tell Jin. How much resided within him as he idled at his brother’s voice on the other side of the receiver, low, controlled. Reserved. Baa’stian murdered someone in cold blood, left him to die - and the next week on the phone, told Jin he was cooking wonton soup for dinner.
How long? How long had they been lying to each other? Much less Baa’stian lying to himself?
Thoughts of death.
Hurt him.
In the waking world, his monk mentor stalls before him. Both bodies sit cross-legged across from each other, Jun’s eyes glowing a bright blue. Jun’s quirk, much like his pseudo-son’s, can never hurt anyone in the waking world. There Baa’stian sits across from him, rivulets of water trailing down his neck and jaw, mouth opening and closing, gasping sounds desperately coming out from him as if he was drowning. The feeling of being intensely waterboarded - that was as much as the Ocean could do to one, torture-wise. In his younger days, Jun attained plenty of information from people with his quirk. Now he trains people in body and mind, refining their mental fortitude.
Baa’stian Ives has been one of his toughest cases.
The waterfall roars behind them, hailing the nearly setting sun. How long would he have to see the young one suffer? Beads of sweat rolled down the elder’s temple as he continued to occupy his apprentice’s mind. If he couldn’t come to his heart’s conclusion, he would draw him out by force, severing the link, watching his apprentice come flailing into the waking world like a gutted fish. Jun persevered, never privy to what was going on in the other’s own mentalscape. Sometimes, a parent must trust wholly without reason, blind conviction lighting the way for their child.
Baa’stian drifts. Movement taken from him by himself, wading away. He feels his soul tugged down by a weight in the middle of his belly, body’s gravity carrying him down. Ucky, heavy sadness. He’s well acquainted with this feeling by now. A darkness growing at the center of him, expanding like a punishing weight from another world.
Back arches backwards a bit, falling privvy to the sinking tide. If he can just carry that huge weight, lift himself up, instead of being bogged down by all of this…. The dreamwalker closes his eyes, practically not breathing in the waking world. Running out of his wits. Little thoughts make mismatched patterns in his mid: early childhood memories with Jin and the others, current day memories. A loved one lifting him out of his funk, embracing him despite his truths. Yasashii. Far too good for him. He must protect him, the one who could do no wrong in his eyes -
So he needs to get this giant weight off of him. Two hands eventually find their place in space, moving past gushing water to save himself.
Jun Chen gasps.
In reality, hands of his apprentice shot out, thin, vaporous layer of bright green enshrouding palms. Slowly they glided towards his abdomen, stilling, lifting some unknown weight. So much power held within him. Baa’stian’s red eyes wide open, seeing nothing and everything simultaneously as his soul battled against him.
A soft smile finds the monk.
Now he’s learning.
///
Conquer your fear.
In the water world, hands unfurl over his stomach. Thunderous expression tightening, hair flowing around naked form in shells of darkness. Green speckled through red iris, reflecting old memories, new fears. Baa’stian lugs the weight off the center of him, winding up, hurling it far and away in the water.
Then he finally swims.
Waves cool as he comes, psychological state finally locking hands with victory. He forgot a core truth of the training: it’s not about ascertaining one’s non-death in the Ocean; it’s more like making sure one won’t give up on themselves despite the state they stand in. Death never mattered, in Jun’s world or the overarching one. Fear of himself… fear of his quirk, fear of his loved ones dying. It’s always been a grey world to the dreamwalker, but finally he can see through the murkiness of it all to what lies deep down below.
Swimming down, further and further, water glides against his skin. Welcoming, embracing. The frigid waters he once knew are cool and calm, finally owned by his consciousness. When he feels the soles of his feet hit the ocean floor, he stops.
Then he turns.
Jun’s eyebrow quirks in the waking world. The goal of the Ocean has always been to reach the other side of the seemingly infinite body of water. When one finally manifested true mental fortitude, owning fears and anxieties, they would walk on water instead of being consumed completely by it. Baa’stian knows this, has been down that path dozens of times over, despite how much he struggled. So what would he be doing now? Veneer of pure intensity graces the fae child in the waking world. Obscuring intention to even his mentor.
In the water sphere, he lifts up his hands. That same vaporous green energy cloaks half-open fists before he breathes in and out. Summoning something beyond Jun’s understanding. Then mist comes, bloodying water, terrifying to behold. For a moment, Jun thinks he’s caught in a nightmare that he can’t end. Dread runs up his spine, exchanging place for horror when a shapeshifting entity hits the waves. Ten tentacles shimmying in and out of the water, single eye the size of a tire honing in on the young warrior, who squares up to a beast ten times his size.
Jun’s hand trembles, eyes lost where he can’t look away, completely with his apprentice as he stalks towards the beast he created. Jun sees someone very different then: complete dedication traded out for impish eyes, body not missing a beat. Baa’stian swing kicks, missing his first attack; beast retaliates, drunken legs swallowing up the ocean floor, turning to its side. Only for the dreamwalker to scream down in retaliation, arm poised in ending.
Jun gasps - what is he witnessing? He never considered it possible for his apprentice to do something to a mental scape - especially when his physical body has no access to his quirk - but what stuck to him more was the sight of bloodlust set to his eyes. Something different. Something freed within the dreamwalker. Before the thought could end, Baa’stian roared, shaking the mentalscape, body hurtling ten meters through the water with a kick straight to the eye -
“Enough!”
Yet another bop to the head in the waking world. Jun visibly shakes, sweat cladding arms. Baa’stian’s consciousness leaps back into his physical body immediately, damp and cold from sitting under the waterfall. Then he laughs, innocent and pure, completely in stark contrast to the warrior who just killed the krakken of his own invention.
“Bhante! Aye jump yuh or somethin’?... Sorry. Aye had the thought o’ doin’ it n’ couldn’t be stopped aye guess.”
Jun’s eyes narrow. Caution. Curiosity. He just witnessed the youth experience a breakthrough. Was it really possible that he had such devilish thoughts on his mind simultaneously the whole time? The man-child was something of an enigma still to the elder.
Baa’stian whistles as he leans back, wincing. “Bhante, me body hurts… tho aye think aye learned somethin’.”
“Oh? What’s that?” Thoughts of what Jun just witnessed were carefully sorted away for the future. The monk could feel a headache coming on, a quirk-induced variety he hadn’t experienced in years.
“Aye iunno! There was a glowy energy n’ aye… “ Baa’stian throws up his hands, flexing and unflexing, trying to find the truth of in the empty space between his hands. “Aye wanna find out more ‘bout it.”
Jun stands.
“Then we shall.” Sun descends over the melting hills the Kiyomizu-dera stands upon, bringing with it the cool embrace of the night. Baa’stian follows suit, body crackling with a new type of energy. Hope held in both hands.
///
“Yuh went to China.” An accusation. A truth. A way to break their glowing morning, new waves of life pulsating over the Temple’s boundless acres.
Baa’stian stuffs his face with steamed buns before pouring himself hot water into his cup. In a way, he’s delighted: exploring the morning routine for typical folks, sharing a breakfast table with his mentor like they were truly parent and child in another world. In another way, he’s terrified to find the truth. To begin the conversation that’s been on the back burner ever since that night.
“I did. It is unfortunate. I might be the last man in Japan with a quirk left.” Jun Chen scoops rice into Baa’stian’s bowl, places the steamer over his apprentice’s cup. Honey and lemon into his own. Void eyes study the space on the table before him with a measured finality. Then, he speaks. Words vulnerable and true, ones he would tell only the young one before him. “I haven’t been home in twenty years, Tian. Things have changed a lot since then.”
Baa’stian averts his eyes as he eats. “O’ yah, bhante? Consider me yuh baby or somethin’ then, aye dunno... “ Jun smirks at that; kind chuckle releases him from his worried thoughts. If twenty years could make a madman like him, he couldn’t imagine what else it would do. Baa’stian presses on.
“So what, yuh wanted to visit yuh ancestral homeland or somethin’? Somethin’ missin’ or wrong?”
A memory flashes before the dreamwalker’s eyes. Tendrils of ivy bleeding down, pooling in his grandmother’s garden, discerning expression watching him as he crawls on all four’s -
“No, Tian. Thank you for your concern.” He quiets now. “I just had some old business to attend to.” Baa’stian’s utensil hits the bowl a bit harder than he meant to. But he has no change in facial expression. He remembers, now. How to contain himself. How to act right, under the judgement of someone much stronger and superior to him. Ironically, Jin didn’t teach him how to hide all his secrets - he learned that part himself.
“O. Business, yah, aye get it.” Calls on the phone with his brother that go nowhere and start at no place. Baa’stian pours after his food, big bites and big gulps, practically not breathing. He doesn’t want this. This burden of not bringing your loved ones into danger by locking them out of your life. He speaks before he has a chance to really think that through. “Y’know, bhante, aye got a new job. Well aye still tatt random blockes for fun, y’know, but now aye work at a nonprofit.”
Curiosity piques Jun’s expression. Hands still for the briefest of moments before the monk continues his meal. “Oh yeah, Tian? What kind of nonprofit?”
“Somethin’ to do with families or anotha.” Exact words said to his brother. A lie carefully contained. When will this cycle end? When Baa’stian realizes it, he opens his mouth. The soft gaze of Jun meets him, waiting expectantly. Little wrinkles peppering his mouth, his face, aged collarbone peeping through sagging skin. No. Baa’stian can’t say more… can’t bring this man further out of his blissful retirement. He shakes the thought away - Jun’s business in China has nothing to do with him.
Just like Jin’s own.
“I’m so proud of you, Tian,” Jun says after the prolonged silence. “You’re using your powers for good. You have enough care to fill the ocean.” Baa’stian rolls his eyes. At the monk’s words and the stupid happiness coursing through him. Jun throws another bun onto his apprentice’s plate, beginning to hum just like Baa’stian does. One more question, a lot more bites, and then a new training would begun.
“What is your purpose, Tian?” a spoken reaffirmation of a sacred truth.
“To protect. Whate’er it takes.”
///
“They crossed the ocean for a shared goal.”
Baa’stian gagged, breathless, air in the wrong part of his lungs going up. Whole body was the wrong way anyway, center of gravity dragging towards the ground. Eyes fifteen centimeters above the floor as the dreamwalker suspended himself with one arm. Fingerpads barely touching the ground, five points holding all of his weight as he balanced his body. Green energy swathed his fingers, buffering the load, before shooting and coursing all throughout his body. Energy uncontrolled, chaos uncontained. A true Baa’stian stance.
“They achieved immortality through common events.” Jun’s voice came from very far away, his bhante wandering a few meters from the man-child. Baa’stian could barely tell; blindfolded, he swayed gently, thick beads of sweat dripping from his temples and onto the wood paneling. He said he wanted to train his new ability, although he didn’t think it’d be quite like this -
Suddenly, his voice was so much closer. “Persevering, caring for others. They adhered to the taoist tradition which formed a foundation for making sense of the world.”
Energy in his forearm dashed up to his hip! Just in time for Jun’s crosschop to swing the area, making the boy’s body practically reverberate with the attack. Shit. That had been the forty-fifth attack Baa’stian had caught with his newfound energy, but it still hurt. How much? How much weight could he handle at once? How could he improve it?
Jun’s voice drifted far and away from him again, sounds of bare feet ghosting across the floor. “Tian, they were commoners. Like you or I, people who loved, hated, struggled and survived.”
“Yuh history lesson grows duller n’ duller by the day bhante… but aye’m amused. Yuh expect me to be a legend through sittin’ n’ watchin’ me grass grow, huh? Yuh better send me the registration.” He could practically feel the smirk appearing over Jun’s face. The elder walked a circle, cocking his head and thinking about his young one’s question.
“No, I’m expecting you to suffer, and love, with acceptance of suffering and loving.”
Now he hit Baa’stian over the ankle hard enough to draw a scream from the Vigilante, so contained despite the contorted visage of agony cracking his face into two. After five hours of practically standing on his head, blindfolded, balancing himself with only his fingertips while defending himself with an ability he learned yesterday…
He was ready for more.
“Stand. Son of Mei and Marcia Huang.”
Something new coursed through him when he heard Jun say those words. The last few hours, and days and weeks and months and year weren’t just about training. They were about belonging and family, messages of the past shared between the monk and the younger man. Stories of long, long ago, vivid people appearing behind Baa’stian’s eyelids as he imagined what his mentor meant. When he told him about an organization he joined in his twenties to fight violence in his homeland, when he talked about a young boy he saved who ultimately changed his life forever -
And when he neglected to tell Baa’stian all of that which he would face. The stealing, the mass-killings and the endless driving to put crowns back upon the Neighborhood’s chosen rightful queens of the world. When Jun Chen speaks, orotund voice booming with pride, with love, he commands Baa’stian to do something he could never say out loud. To fight for his life and those lives he cared about with ceaseless abandon.
“Show me what you’ve learned of the Eight Immortals!”
Baa’stian doubled up on his feet. Body drenched with sweat, heartbeat thunder in his ears, warriors from a distant land squaring up to each other with all the love and fire in the world. Quan’s fist aimed towards his bhante’s heart with vim. Vigor screaming in stance, every muscle alive.
His time had come.
FIN
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