One With Nature

End of the Chinese Arc

I was in the cave we used to stay in. The place looked like it hasn't been used for years which is not untrue. Yu was also there standing behind me but neither of us said anything.

In front of us, in the middle of the cave, was a grave with Shé stabbed in the back.

"I messed up," was the only thing I can say.

"Yeah," Yu said.

"I really should have done better."

"You should have."

"You know, there's something called being supportive," I deadpanned at Yu.

"That's an option, not a necessity," Yu said and I groaned. "How do you feel?"

"Since when do you care?" I asked.

"I started caring when a pile of firewood taught me how losing someone you like and someone you love aren't the same thing," Yu replied, repeating the words I said to her once. "I'll ask again, how do you feel?"

"I just... Where did I go wrong?" I practically begged her.

"You loved her," Yu said.

"And...?"

"Nothing else. You loved her," Yu grabbed my shoulder, turned me around and looked at me with actual sympathy. "You're young. At least by Elemental terms. Whenever we Elementals love someone, it always becomes borderline obsessive. We ignore their faults and base our whole world around them. We reject the thought that there might be something wrong with them," Yu held my hand and looked at it. "When I realised that Lord Xiang Yu was planning his own death, I went into denial. I didn't for one second want to believe he would just... have himself killed. When I confronted him about it... That was the first and only time we've had an actual argument. I tried convincing him that humans weren't worth it. That they don't deserve it. But, he didn't budge. He believed it was his duty, and I didn't want to believe it. It took me a while to come in terms that the man I loved had his faults."

"So... I messed up because I loved her too much to see something wrong with her?" I asked and Yu nodded. "So, basically, we Elementals are cursed with eternal life and knowing that if we love someone we're gonna screw up one way or another?"

"That sums it up well, yeah."

"... This sucks."

"You just summarised my whole life in two words," Yu actually chuckled with a genuine smiled. "Come with me," she turned around and headed for the entrance.

I looked at her in confusion before following her out of the cave. We kept walking down the mountain, out the forest, and headed to one of the human villages.

"Go into the village and listen in for a few minutes," Yu instructed and I just looked even more confused.

Still, I decided to listen to her. I turned to my wind element and melded with the breeze. My body was now invisible to humans unless I gather it to one piece again.

I got into the village and listened to the talks of people. They were normal stuff. What the emperor was planing? Will he notice their hardwork? How is the crops doing?

"Hey, did you hear about the demon Swordsman? Xing Qiu?" One of the farmers working on the rice field asked the man besides him which caught my attention.

"Yeah. I heard the demon that possessed Xiang Yu came back and was killed by them but they died in the fight," the other man said back.

"But wasn't Xing Qiu evil?" The first man asked.

"I don't know. I haven't heard anything about them hurting villages. I just hear about them killing monsters and bandits," the second man said back.

I listened in for a few more seconds before they changed the topic of their conversation. I left the village and found Yu waiting for me.

I materialized my body and looked at her in confusion. "What did you do?"

"The brat's reputation was never that bad. I just tweaked a few memories here and there," Yu replied.

"Why?"

"Consider it me repaying the debt for what you did for Lord Xiang Yu when he died. Now we're even," Yu explained.

"Okay... Why Xing Qiu?" I asked.

"I thought it was appropriate considering... this," Yu said pointing at the mark on my chest.

We stayed quiet for a few moments before I finally spoke. "You're a good friend."

Yu snorted. "Tell me something I don't know."

"We'll keep in touch, okay?" I said as I began walking away.

"You'll have to find me. I'm not going through the trouble of looking for you again. What kind of Elemental doesn't give any kind of magical energy?" I just laughed at Yu's complaining.

Somethings never change.

Me and Yu kept in touch after that. We have talks every now and then. And by that, I mean every couple of decades or so.

I also got first hand experience in seeing history get someone's gender wrong. It wasn't even a couple of generations that people were talking about Xing Qiu Yang the MAN who died killing a great demon.

Hearing about how history got someone's gender wrong is one thing. Personally seeing it yourself?... That did not help my view on human intelligence.