With a red flush and dreary eyes, a woman jumped out of the tavern’s door and waltzed along the cobblestone street. Although she had drank so much alcohol, she was still aware of herself. She could see the faint glimmers of the moon and the translucent wings of the dragonflies.

Saya, as she called herself rather than Azukunika, went to the village center and stopped. Around her, conversations from the villagers buzzed her ears, they must have been talking about something that happened at the temple. Their voices came off as slurs and warbles, so Saya couldn’t understand them well—and it irritated her so much that she was willing to tussle with one of them. Feeling the heat from her face, she approached a muscular man and grabbed his collar. With daggering eyes from her did the man shake himself, he was sweating.

“What you looking at fool? Can’t you see that I am Azukunika... I mean, Saya?!” She hiccuped, and the man waved his face away. Being silent, he shoved the drunkard and walked off with a scowl. The lady then proceeded to do the same thing with the other villagers, and it was only from the bitter stench of her mouth that deter them into annoyance. They brought a barrage of insults, also telling her to dig her own grave, but Saya didn’t stop. It seemed she was not willing to stay put until she settled herself down—but it was unlikely she could last long. Thus raising her fists, she offered a fight against one of them.

“Look at me! I am the best in the world! That’s what he told me before he set off for his special mission! Hic! Hic! God, I can’t take this.”

The villagers, instead of involving themselves with someone like Saya, left the center. Within her vision, they looked as though they were flames vanishing into the air. Soon with her mind still muddled, she forgot what she had said, and she leaned to a building on her left side. She punched her bosom and scratched her neck to suppress her hiccups. She nodded her head, then her heart came to a lull. It was then she recalled the previous hour when she blew most of her reward money in the tavern; the staff there questioned her excessive spending of drinks, and they suggested her to go to the clinic before she’d collapse in drunkenness. Saya threw the offer off the window, and held herself in the corner. Little patience they held, the staff members kicked her out. And here she was, alone and cold in the night, with a lump forming in her bosom. It ached her.

Saya then took off to the northern district, her feet crossed over one another as she walked. She staggered her steps, and upon arrival, she eyed on the restaurants that had closed shop.

“Yum! I wonder if I can eat there-” Pulling her pockets, she found only dust. A bummer for her. “Dammit. I think I ran out of money. Well I have to go to the bank and withdraw more. Good thing the Lama gave me a total of twenty-thousand gold for doing the job! I could buy a house with that stack of money. But sadly, my account is shrinking,” Saya said, pulling her cheeks.

She wandered to the intersection and turned left, then she arrived at the food stand area. There the crickets were chirping and the birds were sleeping, and Saya yawned as loud as she could. Under the moonlight she navigated her way to the end of the area—and after what it felt like two hours, she encountered and empty space to her right. At once she cackled, for this place held something special in her memories.

“That’s right... I have destroyed you all! Every single one of you lots, the evil Ganshipes you were! Hahahaha!” Her eyes burning, her lips curling, Saya slapped her hands upon the cobblestone and shrieked. She couldn’t have felt any better in light of Usheniko and her family’s fate. With them gone, Saya considered herself as the happiest woman on Earth. “This is what you get! Your mansion had been torn down, the High Order confiscated all your possessions, and they booted you out of the village! Oh God, I feel like vomiting from this elation.”

Saya plopped herself to the ground, she wiped her face and continued to laugh. Managing to fulfill her vengeance against the family, the Lama praised her for her hard work. It was within her efforts that she was able to do what she had to do—a task more necessary for the sake of herself than anything else. One might ask why she dared to defy her family and her mother—but from such a question, one should reserve it later on. Saya thanked the heavens for helping her along the way, and though she had accomplished her mission, her time at the village was not over yet. The High Order had one more task for her, albeit her having to act more by the sidelines: it had to do with the spiritual mission. Her only role would be to stop and put any intruders into unconsciousness. For she found the whole scheme too easy, she couldn’t wait any longer, and she wanted to knock on the Lama’s door and begged him to act right away. But she would have to keep her patience at bay for now. There was no need to hurry anyway, for the plan itself was going smooth as anticipated.

Saya glanced at the sky. Stars and comets went along the darkness in a single line, it streaked all the way to the grasslands; and one by one, they dimmed. The moment all of them faded, Saya sobbed.

“I have done all of this for you, the one that raised me. I have avenged you, that’s what you want, I know! Oh, if only you were alive, then I would have led you to destroying them alongside me, because you hated them so much, for their actions had almost killed us all! It’s too bad that your grave is not in the cemetery, since the family cremated your body and threw them in the desert. How brutal they must be. But everything is now good. They are gone forever. I don’t have to suffer and play games any longer, especially towards that poor excuse of the woman Usheniko.”

Memories of that person she loved like a parent flashed in her mind. Before the revolution against Ozughen’s regime, she lived with him for a brief period and worked as his housekeeper after a woman died long ago, who was rumored to be the man’s mistress. That part remained a speculation in thin air, for Saya did not know the woman in the first place—nor did she want to learn about her. Whenever the man went to work in the political sphere, Saya would follow and observe him until the very end of the day, she’d get in a big deal of trouble just for doing that. Although he noticed Saya in all instances, he maintained his efforts towards his work, serious about the things he was dealing with. Saya would be jovial whenever he came home, and he often brought his friends over for matters pertaining to the regime and the current state of the village. Although she listened well of their conversations, she initially had no interest, and she instead waited for all his friends to depart. After that, she hung out with him; they played checkers, drew illustrations of the landscape, and strolled around the village in nights together like this. Such times, simple as one could perceive it, were fond memories that Saya held in the bottom of her heart. She didn’t want those times to end. She wished to live through them for eternity.

That was, until the days before the revolution. It was a period where everybody’s lives were in turmoil, including his life. When she received news about his murder, Saya broke down and wailed for endless days and nights—she renounced the gods for being so merciless towards his fate. She couldn’t believe he had died, and it was too unbearable that she considered suicide to reunite with him in heaven. But then it occurred from thereon that she vowed to swore vengeance from the humiliation and torture he had faced against the ‘family.’ To her, vengeance was the only way to let him rest in peace, away from the terrors so that his soul wouldn’t suffer any further. Thus by joining forces against the 27th Lama, the woman did everything she could to fight and shed blood—it was the only thing back then that kept her living. She was a workhorse, an outstanding comrade, and with her strength she cut down anybody in her way. The best thing that happened to her was when the revolutionaries invaded the temple, and she was the first one to barge into the building by the front door. She slaughtered a quarter of the garrison there, destroyed the trove of gold and jewelries that the regime had amassed, and with all her anger she slayed Ozughen himself. It was a victorious time. Upon recalling such a moment, a blush warmed her face—and she smiled.

“Rest in peace.” Saya stood up, and she followed again the path of moonlight. “Maybe someday when I die, I will make things up to you. But I ain’t going to die now.”