They were standing on the hill overlooking the village of Toyo under the cherry blossom tree. It may have been the same hill and tree that a certain otherworldly cultivator and a young sect elder got together and spoke just a few nights ago. It was night and the moon was full and bright in the starlit sky giving the pair a good view of the village.

  One was, or well, looked like a woman. She was dressed in a dark kimono made of fine silk and there were specks of glitter in it like it was made from the very night sky the pair stood under. Her long hair was done up intricately with golden pins and hair accessories. She turned her white painted face towards her brother, if you were losing the term loosely.

  “What the hell happened Teru?” The male looked over at her with a flat look. When he spoke it sounded hollow and that his words were coming from the very winds themselves. He may have been a skeleton but he could make some facial expressions. Not exaggerated or super animated but he was always able to get his point across. He crossed his arms and sighed as he looked over the town.

  As fine as rich as she looked, Minoru looked the opposite. The clothing he wore still had some straw from the scarecrow this form used to be. Blue pants that went to the middle of his shins that were tattered and torn. A white shirt that hung from his bones and a straw yellow robe that he wore open that blew even though the night was still. His clothes were full of holes from birds that had pecked and clawed at the scarecrow these clothes used to belong to.

  The usual passive kami of space and goddess of the void sighed and looked back down towards the town. It took her another long moment before the usual prim and proper woman growled. “Kentaro.”

  Minoru frowned and nodded in understanding. “He’s powerful, and mad.”

  “Yes. Too powerful than he should be I think,” Teru said as she calmed and recovered from her moment of anger.

  Minoru shrugged. “Probably. I don’t know how he could be though. He was a simple mortal.”

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  Teru narrowed her eyes and then looked up to the night sky as she tried to piece out what had happened to the village. Ultimately, it was her fault. It was one of her beings that rampaged the village before she had been able to deal with it.

  “I always wondered how he was able to defeat Kenichi,” Minoru thought out loud.

  Teru waved the thought away. “Kenichi is a fool. I think I need to go see our youngest sister.”

  Minoru stared at Teru. The skeleton even gaped a little at her. “Why?”

  “I feel like she had something to do with this. I’m not sure. Things are hard to track. Someone has been interfering, and she’s the only one I can think of.”

  Minoru sighed. He really wasn’t sure what Genki would have to do with any of this. The goddess was a troublemaker, sure. He shook his head. Whatever, he didn’t care that much for the rivalries between his siblings. He cared more about what was going on here in the mortal realm. He didn’t want to tell his sister that he felt like something was wrong. Something was off here in the realms of man, he could smell it in the dirt. Taste it in the soil. He took a moment to look up at the moon before he looked back at the top of the mountains where the sect was hidden from mortal view by the trees.

  “What about that mortal? The one who woke up the day after everything happened. The last one left. He’s up in the mountains now with his old sect.” Minoru said and raised a hand towards the mountains on the other side of the town from them.

  Teru snorted. “These sects. These mortals all scrap and fight and pretend to have everything figured out when they’ve barely touched the edge.”

  Minoru just nodded as Teru went off on her tangent. He was used to it. The skeleton thought it might have been because she was just a little angry because no one realized they were missing an entire element. Or well, used to be missing an entire element.

  “But what about that mortal?” Minoru broke in while the woman was still complaining.

  Teru stopped and arched an eyebrow as she looked up the mountains. It was nothing to her to be able to look in on the bulky cultivator Silas Zhao sleeping on the metal table in the healers room. “Oooh. Hm.”

  Minoru nodded his head. “Yeah.”

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