Work Text:
You are all kindness and charm to the newest apprentice, but he’s still very deliberate and careful around you. “He’s not intimidated by me, is he?” you ask Wu Yuce, who first discovered Gai Caijie’s talent, recruited him posthaste into the guild, and has spent much more time talking with the boy than you have. “There’s nothing to be afraid of!”
Absolutely nothing, truly nothing to be afraid of from the captain, or Wu Yuce the straight talker, or Li Xun the gossipmonger, or Yang Haoxuan the second-newest same-aged recruit…
There are many other things Gai Caijie should be more afraid of. He need not add unnecessary fears to his troubles.
“It’s not you,” Wu Yuce answers. “He’s just conscientious. I’ve noticed he’s always triple-checking the talismans he has on him, in case he’s left one lying around. He probably thinks they might reverse your spells by accident.”
Oh. What a thoughtful lad, even if his concerns are unwarranted. Everything you’ve set up for Void is anchored too deeply in blood and sacrifice to be undone by a stray slip of paper. He’s young, and only now starting out; in time he’ll learn all that he can do as an exorcist, and all the limits therein—just as you once did. The guild will guide him.
“He could make a good leader in the future,” says Wu Yuce. “Yes, he’s inexperienced—but he’s clear-sighted, and slow to anger… Hey. You. Don’t worry.”
You’re not worrying. You tell him so.
“I can’t hide anything from you,” says your partner. “And you can’t hide anything from me. So don’t worry. This Ghostblade Duo isn’t going anywhere. I’m not about to retire now.”
“Of course you can’t,” you reply. “We work too well together. And you’re still young, for a hunter!”
“Haha,” he says. “Do you want me to say the same?”
“What I want? Can’t you tell?”
“Fair enough.” Wu Yuce smiles. “We do work well together. And you… you’re not old.”
If only his smile were happier. He can’t hide anything from you, after all.
Li Xun, on the other hand, doesn’t try to hide anything. Truth be told you enjoy his chatter, though Wu Yuce often wishes for more brevity in the delivery of hunting gossip. What guilds have experienced upheaval, what types of ghosts and curses are trending, what weapons have grown and changed… all dressed up with the lavish embellishment that Li Xun loves for his stories. It’s both pure entertainment and stellar information-gathering. In a past dynasty, you think, he could’ve made a perfect spymaster for the Emperor.
The most recent talk is of turmoil in Excellent Era’s territory, so you’ve heard. The old guild leader has vanished, Li Xun reports with badly concealed fright—or delight (the two so often go together when it comes to him). “The word is Ye Qiu got ambushed by a foul-mouth ghost, and the guild’s pretending he went on a pilgrimage.” The eyeroll with which Li Xun accompanies the last word shows just what most people think of that.
“... are they trying to use an obviously flimsy reason?” Wu Yuce is skeptical. So are you. “Ye Qiu wouldn’t go down so easily.”
“Well, you know, like attracts like. So dirty mouths attract… anyway.” Li Xun coughs. “I’m trying to get details out of Liu Hao, but he’s so damn cagey all the time. He’s like a fake goody two shoes who uses the wrong shoe polish.”
Their land feels strange, you grumble, for you do feel off-kilter whenever your senses have brought you close to Excellent Era. By nature, you’re attuned to alien presences that encroach, the places where something has disturbed harmony. You want to track them all down and rip them from their lives, mend or at least cauterize the holes they leave behind… and Excellent Era bothers you more than most.
It’s not the first time you’ve said so.
“Yeah, but we can’t really go skulking around just because, you know? Best I can do is strap detectors up and down all over next time I’m passing through.”
Unfortunately, such a matter like this isn’t about what you want. The world would be so much simpler if that were truly the case.
“We’re low on manpower anyway,” Wu Yuce remarks. His face is tense with stress that you can’t help but feel too. Half of your team left earlier this week to go deal with an urgent, contagious infestation of brainy corpse-eaters—brainy because they are maddeningly evasive, more so than the usual, not because they are picky about the organs they eat. Wu Yuce would’ve liked to go too, but he and you are needed to hold down the fort. You’re responsible for addressing all problems within your territory, not just a one-off matter.
“It’s ok, sir!” says Li Xun. “One Ghostblade’s already more than enough to take on any emergency call! And this week’s been pretty quiet, actually! You should enjoy the break!”
Later that night, Wu Yuce says, “I really think that guy’s cursed to always speak too soon.”
You chortle with glee. This isn’t even a normal emergency call; instead of tackling, say, a mutant insect curse (dispatched with a single slash) or a misshapen ghost cluster (unknot their dilemma and they will gratefully stop their pained moaning, neatly queue up, and move on), you get to enjoy a weaver demon.
Li Xuan and your fellow Ghostblade, that crybaby, will be so disappointed they missed out on this to chase down emotionless corpse-eating blanks playing hide and seek.
Hunting involves less tiptoeing than the public imagines. Wu Yuce walks with utter assurance on the trail that your shared awareness illuminates, a wavering line of gold that flickers in and out of his eyesight. With each step, he lays another boundary marker in preparation to contain any damage. With each muttered chant, he lays another boundary marker for the upcoming feast.
At last he stops. You’re close enough to sense the intricate work of the weaver demon beyond the fuzzy outline of its existence; you can sketch out the threads that prey on the protective wards around its nesting grounds, the tight warp and weft of its pattern that has started to encase the underground water pipes and building foundations. A quiet progression, a ticking bomb. Weaver demons can feed like plump parasites, or flip a switch and devour its covered tapestry whole. How fortunate for the neighborhood that this appears to be a young fresh one. They’re more prone to thrum with panic when you immobilize them and start to pick their work apart, as if you’ve caught them in their own web.
Delectable. Slurpable, like noodles.
And what you see, what you feel, Wu Yuce knows too. “If you can,” he says dryly, “remember to leave leftovers that we can return.”
“I’m not so forgetful as that,” you reply with a laugh. “My name is forgotten, but my duty is not.”
“You’re so happy,” Wu Yuce snorts. “I pity other demons.”
And in one swift stroke, he draws the blade that is your body.
“O thou of the luminous mind,” says he, “who walks still in this hollow world that was, and is, and shall be… grant thine eyes with which I wake, thy breath with which I quench the light, thy death with which we die, and die, and live again.” And stops, and waits to hear from you.
Your dear partner… He insists on retreading old lines of ritual as his own stubborn sign of respect. You have always told him he need not add unnecessary steps, but you’ve never forced the issue. It’s charming, almost. For your answer will never change.
In his mind and out loud, a double echo of your will, you sigh yes with a voice as wispy and vicious as the wind. Yes you said to your creation of Void as you danced upon its edge centuries ago, yes you said to the sacrifice of a name stripped from all memory and all time, yes you say to your soul carved with blood into your blade, yes you say to eternal rest and unrest entwined… and yes you will say someday when Wu Yuce is old and you are not, when this life kills him as it killed you all who came before, yes you will say to a new face, yes you said yes you will yes.
But this is not that day. He and you go forth as one, a risen ghost who carves a path through bardo. Together you wake and together you sing, into the emptiness that rings, Let the crimson lotus bloom.
And so, lovingly, murderously, you do.