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Most of Blade’s memories about his past are fractured, vague splinters of emotions and experiences that, try as he might, are just out of his reach. What he remembers vividly, however, has been enough to sustain him through these last few millennia, fragments of hatred and rage and betrayal, of the constant reminder that he cannot die, isn’t allowed to die, and it’s all because of the man in front of him, still standing even after a sword had run clean through him.
Dan Heng, or rather, the Imbibitor Lunae, looks just as cool and collected as if there wasn’t blood pouring out of the wound in his chest and his face is pale as the full moon rising above them, but that’s not what Blade is focused on.
What he notices, first and foremost, are the horns on the Vidyadhara’s head, a jade green at the base that blends into pure white, as well as the way his eyes glow an icy-blue, further highlighting his clear dragon lineage and how truly non-human he is. Blade had forgotten—or, perhaps, he chose to forget—that the Dan Heng he’d fought and been killed by, time and time again, was just a mask, a facade, for the cold-blooded dragon underneath.
The one who’d turned him into a monster, unable to die even by his own hand.
Fortunately, it’s only the two of them here at the Divination Commission, everyone else having left to the Ambrosial Arbor in an attempt to remove the Stellaron now fused with it. Fools, the lot of them. Against the power of an Aeon, what could they do except to endure?
Blade tightens his grip on his sword and prepares to fight, not wanting to give Dan Heng any time to recoup and flee like the coward he’s always been. He doesn’t know exactly what to expect with the other’s unsealed powers, but it doesn’t matter as long as he’s able to gain the advantage.
With that, he lunges forward, sword pointed directly at Dan Heng’s throat; if even a blade through his heart isn’t able to kill him, then he’ll simply have to cut the Vidyadhara’s head off his shoulders. Dan Heng’s eyes widen in shock, then narrow as he smoothly glides around Blade’s attack, feet barely touching the ground until they’re on opposite sides of when they started.
“Ren—” Dan Heng begins, voice hoarse as he presses a hand to his chest to try to stem the bleeding.
“Do not speak that name,” Blade snarls, immediately moving in for another attack.
He quickly uses Hellscape to enhance his power, barely wincing at the spiritual wounds it inflicts upon him, and rushes into Dan Heng’s space, slashing upwards only to meet the edge of the other’s spear, the sound of metal clanging against metal reaching his ears. Dan Heng’s eyes are clear and unyielding, determined, but his hands are shaking ever so slightly on his spear, an indication of some sort of weakness that Blade is all too willing to take advantage of.
A twisted grin curls at his mouth as he pushes harder, the influence of Hellscape allowing him to break through the physical limitations of his body, and he’s just about to force Dan Heng to either lose a hand or retreat when the Vidyadhara does something that causes Blade to leap back, maneuvering his sword in front of him in a defensive position.
The blood drenching the front of Dan Heng’s clothing has suddenly disappeared , and even the injury itself, from what Blade can see, has knitted itself back together as if neither had ever been there in the first place.
“What—what did you do?” Blade asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Some sort of healing ability? But he never possessed that before…
Dan Heng looks at him evenly, hands loose at his sides. “It’s not a healing ability, if that’s what you were wondering. It’s—” He cuts himself off then, lifting his spear with another steely expression. “Never mind what it is. My companions are currently trying to seal the Stellaron, and I need to get to them.”
Blade lifts his sword as well with a grin, his blood beginning to thrum in his veins. “You won’t,” he says like a promise, and then the two of them surge forward.
The years of facing off against one another have attuned each of them to their opponent’s moves and fighting styles, to the point where Blade knows when he needs to dodge whenever Dan Heng prepares for a killing blow and Dan Heng is easily able to defend himself from Blade’s tendency to target his weaker left side. They go back and forth like this, playing off their own strengths and using the other’s weaknesses against him, almost like a dance.
This time, however, somehow feels different from every other time they’ve fought.
The reason for that becomes clear when Blade turns to defend his right side, expecting Dan Heng to be there with his spear, but finds himself unguarded when Dan Heng comes up behind him instead. He hadn’t even seen the Vidyadhara move in that direction; has he become too accustomed to Dan Heng’s style of fighting to account for something unfamiliar like this? He quickly readjusts for this in his head, deciding to go for more aggressive attacks so Dan Heng is forced into the defensive.
This continues to happen over the course of the next several minutes, though, until Blade discovers far more wounds on his body that were a result of mistakes that he made rather than simple negligence and he actually feels a little winded, when usually the only breathlessness he experiences is the overwhelming need to killkillkill the man in front of him.
Meanwhile, Dan Heng appears to have only a few nicks on him, nothing close to the damage on Blade’s skin.
“You—” Blade grits through his teeth, ignoring the way he feels lightheaded from the blood loss. There’s nothing he enjoys more than a good fight against Dan Heng, even when it results in his death and subsequent resurrection, but to be in this sort of situation where it’s obvious he’s at the disadvantage the entire time—it infuriates him so much he can barely think, let alone speak.
He lunges forward before Dan Heng can open his mouth to speak, hoping to land at least one fatal strike on him, but he’s slowed a bit from blood loss and exhaustion—though he isn’t exactly mortal , he’s still human , and he can tell his body has reached its absolute limit—and he realizes he’s missed a step just as Dan Heng moves to run him through with the spear that’s seen an innumerable amount of his deaths.
It feels familiar at this point, seeing the cold jade of Dan Heng’s eyes as pain erupts through Blade’s core and he prepares himself to ‘die’ only to reawaken somewhere—most likely wherever Kafka and Silver Wolf have decided to make their next base of operations—as a blank slate once more. Rinse and repeat.
This time, as he realized before, is different.
Instead of the cool and detached expression that Dan Heng usually wears when he kills Blade, the Vidyadhara is now crying , thin trails of tears streaming on either side of his face, and his eyes are lined with a sorrow that Blade has never seen on him before. It’s so shocking that Blade almost wants to prick himself to make sure he isn’t hallucinating or hasn’t accidentally been transported to an alternate universe where Dan Heng—the esteemed Imbibitor Lunae and the reason he’s unable to die now—is crying. In front of him .
“What…” He rasps as he stumbles backwards, barely able to speak past the blood bubbling up his throat.
Dan Heng glances up at him, mouth parted slightly like he didn’t expect Blade to still be able to talk with a gaping hole in his chest. “Ren…” He begins, then shakes his head as he dismisses his spear and stretches out his hand. “I’ve just remembered that there’s something I need to tell you. Something important.”
“You—” Blade snarls as he feels blood smear over his teeth. He can’t feel his limbs anymore, and his heart is racing much too fast, but damned if he’s going to die with Dan Heng having the upper hand. “I don’t care—whatever you have to say. Just let me die, then I’ll hunt you in my next life. I’ll never stop trying to kill you.”
That seems to make Dan Heng even more upset, the corners of his eyes turning red from crying and his lips trembling. “No.” He shakes his head again. “I need to tell you right now, while all of my memories have just returned. Millennia ago… during that time… the reason I fed you that fruit from the Ambrosial Arbor—it wasn’t so I could turn you into a monster.”
Blade’s vision is starting to blacken at the edges, but something in him forces him to stay conscious for this, even if he doesn’t know how or why. “Then…”
“You—” Dan Heng’s voice wavers, just slightly. “There was a war, and you were dying. You were dying right in front of me. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I refused to let you leave me.”
A faint echo of a memory, shining and pure, drifts forward in Blade’s thoughts, and he grabs for it desperately, wanting the answer to the question he’s asked for millennia but knowing, somehow, that he’s had the answer this entire time and just forgot. How could it be that simple? He just forgot.
As Blade feels the last of his energy draining away, that faint memory almost reaching him, he hears Dan Heng reveal, muffled as though he were speaking through water, “I loved you. That was the reason. I loved you, Ren, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He closes his eyes.
...
...
...
When Blade regains consciousness again, he expects Kafka to be standing over him with that vaguely annoyed expression she gets whenever he ‘dies’ and they need to waste more time hauling his body somewhere safe so it can stitch itself back together.
Instead of Kafka, however, he discovers Dan Heng, who is still in his Imbibitor Lunae form and currently at the tail end of a fight with a mara-struck soldier some distance away from him. With how quickly he dispatches the soldier then hurries towards Blade to kneel beside him, it’s almost like he has a sixth sense for when he would wake up.
It irritates and confuses Blade in equal measure. Wasn’t he the one in such a rush to go find his companions at the Ambrosial Arbor? What was he still doing here?
He sees Dan Heng say something, but isn’t able to hear it clearly past the blood suddenly rushing in his ears. Something about this situation feels very wrong, but also very familiar at the same time. The Vidyadhara in front of him, he realizes, isn’t Dan Heng—at least, not the one he knows in the present. His face is too young, to begin with, unmarred and untainted by the years of being on the run, and he would never look at Blade in this way—like he was worried for him—if it was his Dan Heng.
“...you stand? I’ve already contacted Bailu, but we might have to go to her , as last we spoke, she was nearly on the other side of the Luofu,” Blade hears not-Dan Heng explain once he turns his attention back to him. There’s a tense and anxious set to his shoulders and a brittle edge to his expression that hints at some kind of deeper emotion. “If not, then… then I’ll carry you. You aren’t allowed to die today.”
“I refused to let you leave me.”
The realization comes to Blade in a flash, and a sickening pool of dread settles in his stomach when he looks up at Dan Heng, then past him to their surroundings that are much too familiar to him to be a hallucination or a dream.
That gazebo overlooking the endless space beneath the great Xianzhou ship cannot be mistaken for any other, not when he can almost see the afterimage of the guzheng and its lone chair that will be there in the future.
Today is the day I get turned into a monster, Blade thinks numbly, unnamable emotions swirling within him.
He’s thought and dreamt about this moment, this memory, an endless amount of times, wondering and lingering and burning. Though he doesn’t remember all of the details, he knows that by the end of today, the man in front of him will be a wanted criminal and he’ll be far, far away, presumed dead to the world until he wakes up for the first time as someone who can’t die.
It’s enough to have rage, quick and explosive, overwhelm him, burn away any semblance of mercy or kindness he might’ve felt at future Dan Heng’s confession until he’s nearly shaking with it. He opens his mouth to curse at Dan Heng—the body he’s in right now is weak and won’t respond—but all he can manage is a strained, “...you…away…”
Dan Heng frowns deeply, a wrinkle forming in between his eyebrows, and shakes his head, misinterpreting him entirely. “I can’t simply leave you here. What sort of request is that?” He hesitates a moment, then reaches over to place his hand over Blade’s, squeezing carefully. His expression is less stern now, more vulnerable. It feels like some sort of strange, twisted dream. “The fighting will soon be over,” he murmurs, a faint smile appearing on his lips. “Then the two of us will be able to return home, back to our daily lives. It’ll be calm and peaceful, as much as you like to complain about boredom all the time.”
Home? Peace? Those are words that Blade hasn’t been able to apply to his own life for millennia now, no matter how long he’s been with the Stellaron Hunters. To think this was the sort of life he and this past Dan Heng had… together —it feels like a fabrication. An illusion. He refuses to believe that there could be any version of them that could share a life together in the same way that only lovers could, because if this was what they had, then how could he forget about all of it so easily?
Out of the corner of his eye, Blade catches sight of the Ambrosial Arbor, still vibrant and golden with the forbidden fruit of the Plagues Author, Yaoshi the Abundance, and the reality of the situation they are in returns to him.
He turns his head to look at Dan Heng, who is half keeping an eye on him and and half watching their surroundings for any other mara-struck, and is hit with the sudden realization that this is the last and only time he’ll see the Vidyadhara like this—calm, gentle, with a care for him that he doesn’t particularly deserve nor need. Is this what his past self was able to experience?
Was the future version of Dan Heng, the one who’s been witness to him at his worst and most vicious, telling the truth when he said he loved Blade then?
Just allow me to die already, he thinks as his wounds finally begin to catch up to him. He slouches over with a wet cough, blood spilling past his lips, and barely notices Dan Heng running his hands over him in a panic, eyes blown wide.
“Stay with me,” Dan Heng nearly begs, tears pricking his eyes. “I don’t have any—please hold fast for just a moment longer, I’ll carry you over to Bailu if you aren’t able to walk. Just please stay awake. Don’t close your eyes.”
Blade stares at him as his vision goes spotty, feeling unusually annoyed that Dan Heng hasn’t thought of the easiest solution for this yet; the Ambrosial Arbor is surely closer than whoever this Bailu is, so wouldn’t it be much quicker to just feed him one of the tree’s fruits and heal him that way? He doesn’t have the energy to speak anymore though, let alone argue, so he simply falls over onto Dan Heng’s shoulder in silent agreement.
So be it. You won’t have enough time to get me to that healer, so you’re going to be forced to feed me the arbor’s fruit, anyways. At least, that’s from what I remember of this moment.
As Dan Heng lifts him into his arms as easily as if he were carrying a feather, Blade closes his eyes and wonders, in the smallest, most vulnerable corner of his heart, whether the future version of Dan Heng still loved him, too.
Even before Blade opens his eyes, he knows that something about the memory has changed.
Rather than the scent of half-melted snow and pine leaves invading his senses, Blade smells instead the sharp bitterness of medicinal potions, followed by the awareness that someone is sitting beside him, holding his hand. He would laugh if he could muster the energy to, but as it is, all he can do is open his eyes and face his new reality.
As he thought, he’s in some sort of hospital—a very ramshackle one, judging by the dirt on the floor and sound of busy healers behind the curtain separating him from the rest of the room. Dan Heng has fallen asleep sitting up in the small space between his bed and the curtain, his neck curved at an awkward angle but his hand firmly holding onto Blade’s even while unconscious. Those are things he can see and understand, if not fully accept. What he doesn’t understand, though, is how.
How had this past version of Dan Heng managed to get him to a healer in time when his version of Dan Heng couldn’t? It couldn’t have been because he had intruded on this past memory of his, could it? Nothing had changed about the circumstances surrounding it, as far as he knew, so… how? Why?
“...impossible…” he mutters, voice scraping at his raw throat. Impossible. This couldn’t have been…
Somehow that’s loud enough for Dan Heng to stir awake, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep before noticing Blade is awake and jolting up in his seat. “How—how are you feeling?” He asks, relief evident in his eyes as he leans over to gently brush the hair from Blade’s forehead.
…an alternate reality? The possibility is too ridiculous for Blade to consider, but it’s the only semi-logical explanation he can think of that isn’t outright time travel . He hadn’t changed the memory in any way, so if this version of Dan Heng hadn’t fed him the fruit from the Ambrosial Arbor, then…
Then that must be the truth for this universe, this reality.
The reality where Blade wasn’t forced to become immortal and continue living with only the next battle as his aim. The one where Dan Heng hadn’t betrayed him and instigated a relentless pursuit that still hasn’t concluded in the time Blade had come from.
It can’t have been that simple… Blade mourns and rages all at once, his heart a chaotic mess of emotions. Has it really been that simple all this time?
“...alright?”
He turns to find Dan Heng looking at him in concern, the hand that had been on his forehead now pressed to his cheek. It feels so much more comforting than anything he’s experienced in a very long time. This version of Dan Heng, Blade thinks, something in him instinctively leaning into the warmth of Dan Heng’s hand, still loves the version of me who’s supposed to be here, doesn’t he?
Hesitantly, as if afraid of even entertaining the thought, he wonders to himself, …would he be able to love this version of me, too?
“Yes,” he murmurs, a very old, dormant part of himself that he believed to have lost beginning to bloom once more when Dan Heng smiles.
He learns to love again.
There comes a time, much sooner than he would have liked, when he tells Dan Heng who he really is and the world he came from, who they were to each other. Dan Heng is upset, as to be expected when learning one’s lover is now essentially a different man altogether, but he takes in the truth with understanding and an endless, endless patience, not even hesitating before holding him in an embrace that nearly brings tears to his eyes.
“You’ve been through so much,” Dan Heng says, pressing a kiss to his hair in the privacy of his— their —home. “Everything is alright now. I’m here, and I love you, no matter who you are.”
The two of them don’t do much for the rest of the day after that, preferring to spend it relearning each other’s bodies since it appears as if he’ll be able to stay in this world—at least for the meanwhile. Dan Heng complains about how rough he is when he wasn’t used to that before, but doesn’t say a word at the bruises and teeth marks left on his skin in retaliation.
...
Life continues, peaceful for the most part.
Mara-struck soldiers and Xianzhou natives still appear frequently, what with the recent eradication of the Ambrosial Arbor; he discovers that he’s a Lieutenant on the Xianzhou Luofu, so he’s often summoned to carry out his duty. Dan Heng rankles at being kept at home while he goes off to fight, though it’s not as if he would have refused him anyways; fighting alongside Dan Heng is infinitely better and more exciting than fighting against him, he soon finds out.
Nevertheless, they still spar whenever they can, and that is an exhilaration that he doesn’t think he’ll ever grow tired of, no matter which body he’s in or which life he’s living.
...
At some point, he ties his white hair up with a wooden hairstick, decorated with a small maple charm, when it becomes too long to handle by itself; Dan Heng’s jade-green eyes darken at the sight, and they spend the rest of the afternoon into the evening consumed by each other.
Not even Jing Yuan, who has yet to become General of the Luofu, grumbling about their missed dinner plans is enough to dampen how content he is, even if their first few interactions are a bit tense and awkward from their history that will never come to pass in this reality.
...
Dan Heng catches him fidgeting with the bracer on his left arm one early morning when the scent of dew is still fresh in the air.
“Do you…” he asks.
“Mm.”
It’s odd, looking at the bracer and feeling the echoes of hatred and bitterness that arose whenever he remembered what they symbolized in his past life. He doesn’t feel those emotions as strongly anymore, but he also doesn’t know exactly how to feel since he is essentially wearing a gift that was given to someone he is no longer—a stranger.
Maybe, he thinks as Dan Heng lifts his left hand to press a kiss on the center of his palm, something warm and unimaginably tender bursting in his chest, this can symbolize something new between the two of us.
...
He stops waiting for the day this was all just some cruel dream fated to end, and begins to live , wholly and completely.
...
Jing Yuan confesses, once, that he knows, has known since he was dispatched from the field hospital that day that he’s someone from another world.
He doesn’t reply for some time, long enough for the tea between their game of chess to have cooled, before asking, “Does it matter, if this is the life I wish to live now? What makes it any different than the life the original ‘me’ was living before I came here?”
Though Jing Yuan doesn’t say anything to that, there’s a faint smile on his face when they conclude their meeting later.
...
More time passes.
He begins to think of himself as Ren , the name having returned to his memories after nearly a century of living with Dan Heng, instead of Blade , the title he gave himself when all he knew about himself was that he was a weapon, and he was broken.
He is still broken, in ways that he thinks will never truly heal, but with Dan Heng there to fill in some of the cracks, Ren slowly begins to forget the millennia of emptiness that had tormented him in his previous life.
...
They cook and clean and garden—mostly Dan Heng’s responsibility, but Ren contributes as much as he can without completely killing the plants—and share decades upon decades of memories and experiences, smiles and tears and love , so much love that Ren can barely recall the time he was without. ‘I love you’ is something Dan Heng tells him often, a reminder; and although he doesn’t always respond in kind, he knows that through his actions, Dan Heng understands what he’s trying to say.
I love you, as he carefully ties up Dan Heng’s hair to prepare him for the day ahead of them.
I love you, as he presents Dan Heng with a beautiful jade bracelet as a gift, knowing that the Vidyadhara enjoys collecting pretty, shiny things.
I love you, as he kisses the spot over Dan Heng’s heart after jolting awake from another nightmare about his past life.
...
Eventually, as is the case with Xianzhou natives, Ren approaches the end of his lifespan. He’s prepared for this inevitability for decades, knows exactly how the ritual should be carried out so he’ll die as peacefully as possible. Jing Yuan, who’s become something of a confidant to him over the last two millennia, understands completely as soon as he mentions it, considering what happened to his Master.
Dan Heng, on the other hand, is a bit more stubborn about it.
Ren wheedles, cajoles, uses every trick and skill he can think of to convince Dan Heng to be there during the ritual because he wants him to be by his side while he passes over. His soulmate. The one person who has become such a vital part of him that he doesn’t even remember a time when they weren’t together.
Dan Heng doesn’t talk to him for a few weeks after that conversation, only sends him baleful stares and anxious frowns whenever he thinks Ren isn’t looking.
Finally, finally, he agrees, but there’s nothing triumphant about the success. Dan Heng holds himself stiffly in the months leading up to the ritual, like he’ll splinter if he were to relax for even a moment. Ren is the same, but included in those emotions is also guilt, both for making his lover have to go through this in the first place and the realization that he won’t reincarnate like Dan Heng will after he dies.
Once this life is over, that’s it. There’s no second chance.
He takes extra care to treat Dan Heng more tenderly after this realization, wanting him to know how much he loves him—how much he’ll eternally love him, even when he isn’t in the mortal realm any longer.
The day of the ritual comes all too quickly. Most of it passes in a blur, details and customs that Ren barely pays attention to, for all that he can bring himself to look away from Dan Heng the whole time. There’s a frailty to the Vidyadhara that only Ren notices, the lines of his face worn from stress and his cheeks sunken from lack of sleep. His gaze on Ren, however, holds steady, even as his knuckles have turned white from how tightly his hands are clenched on his sleeves.
In what feels like the blink of an eye, it’s suddenly over.
Ren doesn’t feel much of anything in the few moments before his soul is transferred into the Hall of Karma, laid out on the stone where his body will be cremated, but somehow he can sense Dan Heng kneeling beside him and the coolness of his tears as they drop onto his skin. Already he can feel himself drifting away into the dark. Though most would find the unknown frightening, he’s… relieved, instead.
Relieved, because after millennia spent in the throes of bloodlust in his previous life, then millennia spent alongside Dan Heng in this life, Ren thinks that he has finally lived long enough.
All these years, his body has never truly been his own, and the amount of times before when he didn’t care whether he lived or died were too many to count. None of it mattered to him, and there were moments where he deliberately put himself in harm’s way or did something he knew was reckless because he just wanted to die . He only needed the excuse whenever he was given the opportunity to do something dangerous; he was just so exhausted of living.
This current life… he can’t say he regrets anything from it, but something in the back of his mind tells him that this life wasn’t truly his, either. It belonged to the Ren who Dan Heng had first grown to love, and he just intruded upon it because of some sort of extraordinary circumstance. There’s no doubt in his heart that Dan Heng loves him, but this lovely dream has finally ended and he must return back to the soil, like all things that exist in this world.
It really was… such a lovely dream, while he was able to live in it.
As he drifts and drifts and drifts, the last thing he can sense with the parts of his soul still clinging to the mortal realm is the quiet humming of a song, unfamiliar and wonderful; and the fading remnants of the most lovely voice whispering,
I love you.
He closes his eyes.
When he opens his eyes after what feels like the longest dream, he first notices two people in front of him. One, a woman with sunglasses and a dangerous smile on her face. The second, a grey-haired girl with some sort of device in her hands.
“Finally awake, are you?” The woman, who some part of his mind knows as Kafka , asks, already moving to the door. “You took quite a while this time. It’s time to begin your service once more…” She turns to glance at him, the corner of her lip quirked, “... Blade .”
Blade. His name is Blade.
The grey-haired girl— Silver Wolf —sends him an unreadable look before following Kafka, leaving him a bit of time to gather what little he remembers.
There isn’t much.
A very old and familiar hatred begins to stir in his chest along with the image of a face he could never forget, no matter how many times he dies. This he understands perfectly.
What Blade doesn’t understand, as he rises to his feet and grabs his cracked sword leaning against the wall, is why he can also remember the faint melody of a song he’s never heard before, and why it seems to make somewhere in his chest ache.