A rush overcame Vir, and soon, their fight resembled less a lethal duel and more a dance. Their timing and movements flowed from attack to defense to attack.
They were, surprisingly, evenly matched. Ekanai with his reach, tattoos, and Chakra, and Vir with Prana Current, his agility… and his invulnerability in the mindscape.
Vir hadn’t been able to dodge all the veteran warrior’s strikes, and several had landed. Initially, Vir assumed Prana Armor had protected him, but then he saw the truth—Ekanai hadn’t even dented the armor.
His strikes simply weren’t getting through. This was, after all, Vir’s own mind. Here, he had unlimited prana. Here, he could set the rules of engagement, and here, he could not be harmed. At least, not physically.
Though he was cheating, Vir couldn’t help but appreciate the battle. Ekanai fought with such unbridled ferocity and skill that only Cirayus could hope to match him. Even then, Vir figured it’d be an even match.
Vir missed those fights. As ridiculous as it sounded, he missed the hordes of Ash Beasts—the days of pitting himself against monsters again and again, always striving to become faster, deadlier, and smarter.
Vir pushed aside Ekanai’s strike and used the demon’s momentum to trip him.
They fell to the ground, with Vir mounting the gangly demon, grappling with him. Though despite Vir having the dominant position, Ekanai held a far greater advantage—his gangly arms more than made up for his compromised reach, and he landed blow after blow on Vir… until he suddenly stopped.
The demon stared at his claws, retracted them, and let out a great breath.
Vir dismounted the demon and offered a hand. Ekanai took it.
“Your prana. You… are me,” Ekanai said. “You are my next incarnation.”
Vir nodded.
Ekanai laughed wryly. “Then I am dead.”
“You died five hundred years ago, Ekanai. You’re just a memory. My memory. Of you.”
Ekanai heavily sat on the trampled grass. “I see. How… did I die? I remember nothing.”
Despite everything Ekanai had done to him, Vir was beginning to pity the demon, despite all that happened. After all, the version of Ekanai who’d threatened and harassed him was a compromised and distorted one. The Ekanai before Vir now looked lost. Lost, and scared.
Vir sat beside the Reaper. “You ventured into the Mahādi Realm, but your body couldn’t take it. You perished soon after.”
“Tell me,” Ekanai rasped, his voice even more hoarse than usual. “What transpired after? Why have you brought me here? Tell me everything.”
Vir ripped a piece of grass and let it fly away, watching it pensively. “I suppose I should start from the beginning. From our first encounter.”
Vir spent the next hours narrating his encounters with Ekanai, from the Godshollow, and how the demon commandeered his body, to their fights in the chamber of illusions in the Ashen Realm.
“Impossible,” Ekanai said. “I know nothing of the workings of the soul. I couldn’t have siphoned your lover’s soul into an orb.”
“I figured as much,” Vir replied, his lips pulled tight. “I feel the chamber was using you as a vessel for its own ends. Or something to that effect. To this day, I can’t understand it all.”
Ekanai grumbled. “You… must hate me. After all those atrocities I committed. You consider me your enemy.”
“I… don’t,” Vir said. The realization came as a surprise to him. “The you I knew… wasn’t really you, was it? I know that now. But even before I did… I’d resolved to accept you. For who you were. You are a part of me. Only by recognizing that could I move on. Only by accepting that did I open my Foundation Chakra.”
Ekanai grunted.
“Then I suppose I have redeemed myself somewhat, though my actions remain unacceptable. My memories are few, but I at least know that I fought for my people. To protect them. To ward off the destruction of all that I knew.”
“Ekanai,” Vir asked, “what is the purpose of the Primordial? The Akh Nara. Is it really to reunite demonkind?”
“I… do not know,” Ekanai said slowly. “Memories of my life elude me. It is an aggravating feeling.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Vir said, disappointed. “All you have are my memories, after all.”
“If I were to wager a guess…” Ekanai said, “I feel as though there is more. What need was there for our earliest incarnations to unite the Demon Realm?”
“That’s… true.” The splintering of the clans was a recent thing. A millennia ago, the political landscape would have looked quite different.
Vir was left with more questions than ever before.
“Tell me,” Ekanai said. “Why have you summoned me here? What do you require of me?”
Oh, right.
With all that had happened, Vir nearly forgot why he’d summoned Ekanai to his mindscape in the first place.
“The Life Chakra. I need help training it.”
Ekanai looked away. “My instruction would do you little good. I have learned by instinct. Through adversity. I would make a terrible teacher.”
“I… figured,” Vir replied, deflated. “Well, it was worth a—”
“All I ever did,” Ekanai continued, “all I have ever known, is fighting. If nothing else, I can strike you with Life Chakra attacks.”
Vir winced. “Will that help?”
“Who can say? Perhaps you’ll be driven mad. But it is how I would train.”
Vir stood up. “Well, I suppose it can’t hurt to try.”
Vir quickly learned that indeed, it could hurt to try, as Ekanai catapulted Vir’s mind into nightmare after nightmare.
Vir lived through visions of Maiya’s death. Of Neel getting gored. Of Shan being ripped in two, and of Cirayus being burned alive.
He lived through personal agony. He witnessed the failure of his uprising against the Chitran and the subsequent annihilation of Garga.
When it stopped, Vir could no longer stand. He lay sprawled on the grass of the Godshollow mindscape, twitching.
Who said I couldn’t get hurt here? Vir fumed. Maybe he couldn’t be physically harmed, but it seemed there was no limit to the damage his mind could sustain.
“Are you undamaged?” Ekanai asked.
What a strange choice of word, Vir thought dazedly.
Sitting up, he pulled on the Foundation Chakra and cleared his mind.
“I’ll be fine,” he replied. “I just don’t know if this helped or hurt.”
For the first time in their encounter, Ekanai grinned. “Oh, it helped.”
“How do you know?” Vir asked.
“Because I can feel it. I can feel you, striking back at me whenever I assault your mind.”
Vir’s eyes bulged. “Really? I’m opening the Chakra?”
Ekanai scoffed. “No. Not even close. It will be a long path. A painful one. But if you persist, the Life Chakra will be yours in due time.”
There was no hesitation in Vir’s response.
“Then let’s continue.”
23
THE REBELS OF SAMAR PATAG (PART ONE)
Vir’s rebellion summons didn’t arrive quite in the manner he’d expected. Though in hindsight, he should have expected it, with all the glances Janani was throwing his way these days. She must have thought he wouldn’t notice, but he did. Her skills at subterfuge left much to be desired.
Vir had just been thinking of the glacial progress he was making with Ekanai in the mindscape—of the long journey that was Chakra mastery—when Janani finally said something.
“They wish to meet with you,” Janani said, averting her eyes. “They’ve been… impressed with your exploits.”
“My exploits?” Vir asked innocently. He sipped the tea she’d prepared, looking her over appraisingly.