Land of Immortals

Steady rain fell as Raijin followed Misuru through the dense forest. The ghostly pale immortal batted aside wide blue leaves and tangles of thick vine with practiced, sinuous strikes while Raijin struggled just to keep up. He was weak, slow, and clumsy in this world, his body rendered in hazy smears like blue-gray charcoal, and he moved with the same strange halting, pausing stutter as the streaky indigo raindrops.

They were traveling downhill, but to Raijin, every step felt like a battle to the death that he was losing. His chest heaved as he sucked in lungfuls of the thick smoky air, the scent of incense curling inside his nose. It was as if a boulder were sitting on his chest. His head swam at the lack of oxygen.

Ahead, Misuru hopped over a fallen tree as wide as she was tall as if it were nothing more than a twig.

Raijin reached out arms shaking with effort and grabbed the closest branch to pull himself up. It crumbled in his grasp, rotten, and he dropped onto his back on the waterlogged forest floor.

From below, wetness soaked into the material of his loose warrior artist pants. From above, fat raindrops splattered his face and chest, cooling his burning skin. He shut his eyes and listened to the tapping of the shower on the leaves. He should call out to Misuru, but the best he could manage at that moment was to lie there gasping for air.

Footsteps whispered through the grass.

“The Mighty Thunderer at the mercy of the elements.” Misuru hopped onto the deadfall and sat with her legs dangling over its side. She put her hands on her knees and propped her chin on her fist, staring down at Raijin. The empty holes where her eyes should have been were a window to the falling rain and leafy canopy behind her. “I’m immortal, and still I never thought I would live to see the day. I suppose we can take a rest. We’ve got all eternity.”

Raijin was too exhausted to respond, so he gave her a weak smile of gratitude instead.

“What colors do you see here?” Misuru asked.

It took a few moments to gather himself enough to speak.

“Blue,” he wheezed. “Shades of…blue.”

“Everything?”

He gave a jerky nod. “Everything…but the…akane…you defeated. Red.”

“You’re still Tier 0,” Misuru explained. The rain picked up, and she had to raise her voice to be heard over the dull roar of the downpour. “About as skilled as mud. Tell me when you can see other colors. That will mean you’ve reached the primordial stage, Tier 1. Before we left, it seemed as if you were climbing, so it shouldn’t be long now.”

“How does one…climb the tiers?” Raijin asked, his chest heaving with effort.

“Your body does the majority of the work, aligning with this plane, gaining skill, training. ‘It never gets easier, you just grow stronger.’” Misuru smiled down at him. “You said that once. You gain your heavenly body at Tier 2, celestial speed at Tier 3, gravitational strength at Tier 4. All physical. Then when you reach Tier 5, your mind takes over. In a way, I suppose it’s a good thing Ha-Koi stole your memories.” She hopped to the ground and flicked Raijin on the forehead. “Until Tier 5, when you gain the Cave of Eclipsing Suns, the magnitude of your own immortality would probably rip your little mortal mind apart.”

A cloud burst overhead, and rain fell as if an ocean had been dropped on them. Frowning up at the sky, Misuru squeezed into the lee of the tree’s massive trunk.

“I forgot how much it rains when you’re here,” she said. “Make it stop. It isn’t as if the plants and trees need it. They live on the immortal energy they breathe in.”

Raijin pushed himself up and scooted into the makeshift shelter beside his ghostly pale companion.

“Apologies, immortal sister, but I did not realize I was doing it.”

She sighed. “Of course not.”

“This immortal energy you’ve spoken of…”

“The life force of the universe?” Misuru said, as if it were something he should already know. “It is intrinsic to every living thing. Don’t tell me the mortals these days are so backward that they don’t even know about cultivating immortal energy. Though I wouldn’t be surprised. Just when they begin to learn something, Ha-Koi ends the world and forces a new cycle, then they have to begin all over again.”

“They do know of immortal energy,” Raijin said. “They call it Ro now.”

Misuru waved a dismissive hand. “I can’t keep up with their words anymore.”

“You keep speaking of Koida—Ha-Koi as a great evil…” Raijin trailed off as he remembered the princess who wanted to help the untouchables in her empire and defended him fiercely to her family. “And I have seen visions of many lifetimes where she destroyed the mortal world, but in this life, she is kind and loyal.”

“She must not remember who she is either. The Dragon is treacherous and cunning, in love with death and destruction. She’s your natural enemy.” Misuru shook her head. “If she remembered herself, then you would not be speaking so highly of her.”

“How did she come to be cast from the heavens?”

“The Great Treachery. She betrayed us all.” Seeing his question before he asked it, Misuru stopped him. “Ha-Koi broke the law, Thunderer, and if there is one thing you have always been fond of, it’s the law.”

Raijin wanted to ask more, but Misuru popped back to her feet and continued on her way.

“Let’s go,” she called back. “We’ve got a long trek ahead before we reach our destination.”

If he wanted to know more, he would just have to catch up with her.

With a groan, Raijin rolled onto his feet. Surrounded as they were by huge trees and thick undergrowth, Raijin couldn't see any of the surrounding land or mark the distance they had come. From time to time, he thought he saw shapes rustling the branches from the corners of his eyes, but he never caught sight of other creatures or beings. The rain continued to pour down in that halting motion, and the breezes made the leaves stutter rather than sway.

“What law did she break?” he wheezed when he caught up to Misuru.

Without looking back, the eyeless woman said, “I would think you’d me more interested in where we’re going. Especially since it’s one of your favorite places.” She chuckled. “You once spent ten thousand years there.”

“Where are we going, then?” Raijin asked.

“Do you remember courses? Constructions where you train to hone your skills and grow stronger quickly in a controlled environment? Did mortals have courses in your last life?”

“I’ve read about them.” Such things had been features of the legends about wandering warrior artists that he and Master Chugi had both loved. “It is said that the ancients used them to practice their arts before war and death entered the world.”

Misuru shook her head and slapped aside a thick vine. “This is the problem with Ha-Koi putting the world through so many cycles. The mortals never advance far enough to try the methods of the ancients. Or they do, but she ends the world before they can grow any further. They stay as little children, when they should be growing into immortals like us.”

Raijin considered this as he fought to keep up with the ghostly woman. He knew humans could become immortal—the Uktena’s Great Unbreakable Truth said that they could not only do this, but continue advancing until they became gods—but the way to do so had been lost to time. Or perhaps in one of the world-ending cycles.

“You spoke of a first life and an Ascension, wise sister,” Raijin said. “How did I become an immortal? How did any of us arrive here?”

Misuru snapped out a kick, shattering a branch hanging across their path and sending it flying into the trees.

“There are only two ways to become immortal,” she said. “Consume the Ro of an immortal or Ascend after cultivating enough immortal energy and living a life of rigorous adherence to the principles of the Immortal Path.”

“Which is the Immortal Path?” Raijin asked. “In the land of the mortals, there are several, all with different core principles. For that matter, have Koida or I been back to the Land of Immortals before, or are we always reborn in the mortal world? Do we always lose our memories or have we lived a mortal lifetime where we remembered who we were? And does—”

“Speaking is certainly coming more easily to you,” Misuru cut him off, turning back to face him. “Let’s see just how far you’ve come.”

She sank into the deep fighting stance he’d seen her practicing at the pool, feet braced far apart, one hand pressed forward, the other reaching behind her head.

Instinctively, Raijin fell into Inviting Attack. The corded muscles in his arms and shoulders trembled with exhaustion, making his hands shake, but the motion was not as severely inhibited as it had been before.

Misuru closed the distance, pulling her leg back for the same kick that had shattered the branch.

Raijin twisted his body and threw one arm down in a Ro-less block while raising the other behind his head to prepare for a strike.

It looked as if she were moving at half-speed, as if her kick was still moving toward him and he had more than enough time to redirect her attack and counter. But pain bloomed in his gut and his body was thrown backward into a tree with enough force to crack the trunk. Only then did it look as if her kick snapped out.

And then without moving, she was at his side, watching him drop onto his hands and knees in the wet grass.

Raijin held the ribs the akane had broken upon his arrival in the Land of Immortals and waited for his lungs to stop panicking so he could breathe once more.

“Still Tier 0,” Misuru said, straightening. “But you are climbing.”

“How did—” Raijin winced and stumbled to his feet. “How did you make it look as if you hadn’t struck yet?”

“Celestial speed.” She started walking again. “Like the motion of the planets, it will appear as though you are hardly moving though your speed far surpasses that of your observer’s. Something to look forward to at Tier 4.”

Putting pressure on his ribs eased a measure of the pain, so Raijin kept one arm clamped to them as he followed after his ghostly pale guide. From behind, he could see through the eyeless holes in Misuru’s head. Perhaps out of deference to his weakness, she had slowed enough that he could keep up without running.

“In the Mortal Lands, demon beasts are tiered according to their strength and abilities,” Raijin said. He paused a moment to catch his breath in shallow gulps. Inhaling too deeply shot pain through his side. “Is this related to the way immortals are tiered?”

“To have made it this far, all immortals have to have a little demon beast in them.” Misuru cast a smile at him over her pale blue shoulder, showing rows of thin needle-like teeth. “Some of us just control it better than others.”