Desolation of the Caged Bird Chapter 45 - Eating The Tiger

He’s made his move.

A red-eyed crow perched high above a rocky outcropping, observing two individuals within a camp on the outskirts of Iwagakure no Sato. The air was arid, dry, and scorched. A heatwave had settled in, one of the many in the region marking the transition of spring to summer, which had forced an encampment of shinobi returning towards Iwagakure to stop and rest. Beside a source of water, they gathered to recollect themselves, pitching up tents and idling about. The light of the day had not yet ceased, yet the men had all stopped, acting as though dusk was nigh, and occupying themselves with vespertine routines. None, at all, seemed to be aware of this oddity, of cooking dinner under the midday sun, lighting lanterns, and moving about with torches in broad daylight.

The red-eyed crow watched, amidst this camp of oddities, two particular individuals. The first individual was a man who bore red hair, a mustache, and a beard that tapered off to a point. He had a large headpiece consisting of a three-pointed crown-like ridge, and bore his Iwagakure forehead protector. 

The second was an incredibly tall man, who was also heavily armored, wearing a set of red armor with a furnace on the back that emitted steam. He bore light brown eyes and was completely eyebrowless, as his armor extended all the way to the bottom half of his face, covering it up.

For weeks, the red-eyed crow had been watching them. For weeks, it had watched as they continued to attempt to return to Iwagakure, following the announcement of the ceasefire, yet, retraced their steps, circling their paths, moving again and again in a circular pattern, neither aware of the fact that they were doing so, and entirely unaware of the fact that their journey had taken them far longer than it should. For weeks, the red-eyed crow had paid attention, waiting, and priming itself for this moment, this day.

It started, all, with a conversation that had taken place years ago. A conversation he had after discovering his teammate’s secret. Seeing that the one whom he had been sparring with, fighting with, and training with had, in fact, been a mere clone. A clone that hid layers of true strength, whilst the world around them burned, whilst many died, and whilst Konoha was pushed to its darkest time. Thus had their confrontation come; the demand for answers, for reason, for truth. 

“It is the act of playing the pig to eat the tiger.”

“Playing the pig to eat the tiger?”

“To accrue secretly, and respond explosively. To bide one’s time, endure pain, struggles, and hardships, accumulating grievances, counting debts owed, so that when one strikes, none can say you were excessive.”

“...when do you intend to strike?”

“The signal will be impossible to miss.”

“And then…?”

“Then, as I said. One eats the Tiger.”

“If there are many tigers?”

“One eats them all.”

The red-eyed crow cawed. Another crow arrived on a different rocky outcropping and cawed with it. A third followed, repeating the action, and a fourth appeared. One after the other, like raindrops falling, crows gathered by the dozens, then by the hundreds.

Such that it was impossible, even for the odd shinobi below, not to notice their arrival.

“Hm…? Wait— where did all these crows come from?!”

“Crows?”

“No… it’s— it’s him! It’s the Prince of—”

The man choked on his words. His hands grabbed and scratched at his throat, scratching and clawing, coughing and raking, gasping and wheezing. Spittle flew out of his mouth, as drool poured and gargled beyond his lips. His mouth opened wide as he dropped to his knees, retching, heaving, his back curving and stomach sinking until he vomited a black, red-eyed crow. The creature poured upon the ground with a flood of bile and saliva, and the man’s body collapsed, as it did, his pupils rolling fully into the back of his head.

The sound of collective retching filled the entire rocky outcropping, the entire camp. As though a mass case of emetophobia had given rise to sympathetic, contagious vomiting. One man began, another followed, like dominoes falling, like a snowball rolling, the shinobi, one after the other, began to collapse, each one heaving a crow from the center of their stomachs. Each and every one, gripped by horror, unable to understand when or how a crow had been planted within them..

“R-run! Run!”

“H-Han-sama! Rōshi-sama! H-help—” 

Amongst the individuals present were two of notable, notorious fame. Han and Rōshi.  Both had gotten to their feet the moment the crows were spotted, standing back to back, cautious of foes and enemies as their gazes swept through the clearing. Rōshi covered his nostrils with the back of his hand, his eyes watering from the overwhelming scent of vomit and bile, a scent that inflicted him with a nausea that forced saliva to bubble at the back of his throat. He swallowed it down, forcing himself to speak.

“What is the meaning of this? Uchiha Itachi! There’s a peace treaty!” Rōshi called out. “The Shinobi Leader Summit is in mere days! Do you think you can break the treaty now without consequences?”

No answer came. No voice came. The crows perched high above with red eyes all watched, silently, eerily, without so much as an indication that his words had been heard. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. A tremble ran down his spine. His bowels moved uneasily. The unnerving silence that had come was typical of the man who had earned the appellation of the Prince of Crows, a man to whom few of his enemies could speak well of the pleasure of being acquainted.

The Fire Extinguishing Alliance had a close-knit information network, sharing their reports in the process of their goals, and even if such a thing had ultimately been manipulated by a puppet master, those reports had been real. In them, reportedly, it had been years since anyone had seen Uchiha Itachi himself. All that had ever been seen of him were crows. His physical body, its true location, was unknown. Squadrons had ganged up upon what they believed to be him, a giant crow-like figure, only for it to disperse into a flock of crows, leaving all in despair at the knowledge that it was yet another one of his Crow Clones.

Crows were his messengers, his spies, his flesh, his blood, his form and shape. He was an Uchiha, yet he was more known for his mastery of those corvids, using them to fight battles of attrition, wearing down entire squadrons with an endless swarm of black birds that attacked without rest, without stop, and without mercy.

Yet, nothing in the records Rōshi had read spoke of this.

How did one fight back against this? The squadron, the Jinchūriki Protection Squadron, was taken out, vomiting crows one after the other. A group assigned to them meant to protect them on their return trip to Iwagakure, meant to wear down attackers and grant them the chance to escape from an enemy if need be, had been incapacitated, with complete ease. 

Against one man, the squadron was worthless.

The crows vomited out by the shinobi, coated in bile and saliva, all flew upwards, towards the rocky surroundings, before they began circling the air, gathering in enough numbers to obscure the sky with complete darkness. Then, the crows' flight pattern changed, forming a sigil in the air, a kanji in the air.

He’s using fūinjutsu… Rōshi’s back was slick with sweat. He knows Fūinjutsu?!

The crows forming a fūinjutsu seal in the air was a sight that would haunt his nightmares to come, just as the sight and memory of the clones that were heaved out of his fellow shinobi. How it was possible to have put a creature, a crow, inside a person with no one ever noticing a thing amiss made his scalp cold. Let alone, having done so to so many people with not a single soul noticing.

Chakra pulsed from the crows collectively, snapping Rōshi out of his thoughts and having him contemplate his next action. He could attack the crows forming a seal right above him, but he had no knowledge of what said seal was, or what it was supposed to do. It could be, even, that attacking it was what the enemy intended, and the results of doing so would be dire. 

When it came to Fūinjutsu, one could never know.

Rōshi could count on one hand the number of individuals who knew Fūinjutsu in Iwagakure no Sato. During the Third Shinobi World War, there had been no shortage of attempts by Iwagakure no Sato to counter Namikaze Minato’s Flying Thunder God technique by training individuals who could learn fūinjutsu. Yet, they had borne no success. Many individuals ended up maiming, crippling, or outright killing themselves in countless attempts at learning the art.

The destruction of Uzushiogakure no Sato was a great mercy to the shinobi world. The thought of a single village of Masters of that esoteric means was enough to make all others turn in their sleep.

Alas, Konoha was following in their footsteps.

What was the world coming to if even the likes of Uchiha were dabblers of that mysterious art?

“Han!” Rōshi barked.

Han rapidly formed hand seals. “Futton: Jōkigakure no Jutsu!”

Boil Release: Hiding in the Steam Technique!

Han spat out superheated steam, one that rapidly raised the temperature of the surroundings to superheated, near-boiling points. Han could endure the temperatures due to his Steam Armor, and Rōshi, possessing his own Lava Release techniques, would be able to endure within it. The rest of the squadron would not be able to do so, but Rōshi had already written them off. All of them who had vomited those crows were either incapacitated or dead, and now was not the time to worry about their well-being.

For now, obscuring the enemy’s line of sight was the most paramount thing that could be done.

When fighting an Uchiha, the first and most important step is to obscure their sight.

That lesson had been driven hard into the skulls of most in the Fire Extinguishing Alliance, and perhaps, whatever fūinjutsu method the man was performing required their visibility to be effective. 

C-CAW!

A crow dove directly towards Rōshi from above, through the steam. Rōshi grabbed a kunai and stabbed the bird mid-flight.

“Rōshi… sama…? W-why?” 

The bird became a heart.

A human heart. Red, hot, still beating, faintly beating, before his kunai pierced it. The voice of one of the members of the squadron came from the ventricles, shrieking from it as though they were loudspeakers.

Genjutsu?!

Another crow lunged at Han. Han instinctively reached out, crushing it with his hand. The crow turned into another heart.

“Han-sama! S-stop! P-please!”

What is this? What sort of… demonic technique is this?

Rōshi’s senses told him this was no genjutsu. He had checked, once, twice, thrice, and confirmed no foreign chakra signatures in his body. His eyes told him all he saw was real, and his ears told him all he could hear was real. Senses to which he had never doubted, he now for the first time called into question. If this was real, why were the crows turning into hearts? Why could the hearts speak, and why did they do so with the voices of the members of the squadron?

The bizarre, inexplicable methods of the Prince of Crows were beyond his understanding, breaking the conventions of the shinobi arts, the arts of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. In that unknown, lay the greatest terror.

Know your enemy and know yourself; one need not fear the results of a thousand battles. Having no knowledge of the enemy and doubting even oneself, was there any hope of victory even in the tiniest of skirmishes?

“Han, we should consider withdrawing.”

His companion did not answer.

Rōshi glanced behind him. “Han?”

Han was gone. 

No sign. No traces. No footprints. Not even the tiniest lingering evidence that a struggle had occurred. There had not even been the most minute of fluctuations of his chakra signature.

Rōshi’s pupils shrank into pinpricks. He broke out into a mad sprint.

Only one thought raced in his mind: 

Flee.

The enemy had either abducted or eliminated his companion without so much as a single sound, and he, despite his experience, despite his honed instincts and sharp senses, had failed to notice a thing amiss.

The enemy was hidden in the shadows, but he was out in the open. The enemy could attack from any direction, while he could only endure the assault. The enemy could retreat at any time, while doing so would leave him open to pursuit.

It was a zugzwang, a situation where there were no good moves to make, yet a move had to be made. The only move that could be made was one:

Flee.

Bursting into a mad sprint, chakra pouring into his legs, his limbs, faster and more recklessly than before, he covered immense distances that no civilian could ever match. Yet, everywhere he went, the steam followed. Running at his maximum speed, the sound of the cawing of crows still followed him, haunting him, lingering behind him as though it were a malevolent phantom destined to chase him to the ends of the world.

CAW!

One by one, intermittently, the crows launched suicide attacks, dives, each and every one turning into a beating human heart as they crashed.

What is this?! This despicable fighting method?!

The faster he ran, the swifter the crows chased, the more a gnawing feeling of inevitability ate at his heart.  He could not escape the crows, he could not escape the steam, yet he dared not stand and fight. Fight what? Fight who? An enemy he could not see? Could not sense? An enemy whose location and position he could not find? No. Fighting was not the right move. Rōshi continued to flee. Fleeing in the direction of Iwagakure. As soon as he got there, as soon  as he did, and had reinforcements—

His heart gripped with terror, his mind too preoccupied with fleeing, he took no notice of time. He took no notice of how day turned to night, and night turned to day, and day, again, turned to night.

He took no notice of how, at night, the moon was red, and during the day, the sun was the moon.

He took no notice of how a man sat on the red moon, one leg crossed over the other.

A man who watched it all, casually, with eyes spinning with the Mangekyō Sharingan.

XXXXX

There was a crow in his room.

His room, within Sunagakure no Sato, was not fanciful, nor was it as decorated or filled with unnecessary things as many would be. Not like his brother, Kankuro’s room, littered with puppets, ink, gears, bolts, and mechanical objects, and not like his sister, Temari’s room, possessing varying fans of different shapes and sizes, as well as having feed for weasel summons.

His room was always perfectly clean, spotless, such that the moment a single thing was amiss, he would notice. In the event his father attempted to assassinate him again, choosing more amateurs to do the task, he would notice. Thus, his room had little of note, little of attention. A bed, a desk, a chair, lighting, and lamps. Some would compare it to a prison cell instead of a room, but it sufficed.

Thus, it was why the crow stood out.

Pitch black, dark as night, it stood on its bed, with beady red eyes. Crows were not endemic to the desert. The birds to be found in such arid places were vultures, wrens, owls, and hawks. Worse, the window was closed and locked and designed such that the lock could not be opened from the outside, yet, all the same, there was a crow in his room.

Years ago, the voice of his ‘mother’ would have told him to kill it and forget about the matter, but such voices no longer controlled him. His bloodlust had been sated to fullness in the course of war, and his knowledge of what he was had expanded further. He controlled those voices, those instincts, not the other way around any further. The voice often nagged and whined, complained and mumbled, but such things could be silenced.

In fact, it had been silenced for a truly long time. It had only begun being its incessant whining of late, but had gone completely silent, once again, the moment he entered the room, and saw the crow upon the bed.

The crow’s mouth opened, and a woman crawled out.

At first, he’d almost mistaken her for a whore, given the fishnet-patterned kimono and black spandex, and given the shape and body of the figure. He was not one moved by such things, but his brows had risen, just a fraction, at the ratio of hips and breasts.  

Clad in black, with black lipstick, black eyeliner, darkened nails, and sharp heels, the woman who crawled out of the crow did so in a manner that would likely have stirred others, but not him. 

Gaara was certain, the moment she appeared, that this was an enemy attack. Neither his father nor brother would ever send a kunoichi to him alone, and none in Sunagakure would be foolish enough to expect him to fall for a honeytrap. Yet, rather than opening her lips and beginning some plot or another, the woman paid no heed to him and began bickering with the crow, as if his presence were an afterthought.

“I was in the middle of something, you know!”

“He made his move. That was the signal.”

“Taking Kumogakure was the signal?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t do anything halfway, does he?”

“No.”

“Have you gotten them?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, don’t just talk about capturing two Jinchūriki simultaneously as if you’re talking about the weather.”

Gaara’s brow rose. The words were almost too absurd to believe.

“Is there a reason I’m the one getting the weakest one? I thought I made it clear I wanted to go after the Three Tails.”

“That is also the Mizukage. He’ll be taken last.”

“Then the Seven Tails—”

“He’ll handle that one himself.”

“So Hinata-chan is getting the Two Tails and Eight Tails, and you’ve gotten the Four-Tails and Six Tails, he’s getting the Seven Tails himself, and the Mizukage is left for last…” the woman sighed. “Fine… I guess I can handle the runt of the litter.”

Gaara’s hand went up. Sand gathered and completely ensnared the flippant, insane, clearly delusional woman and crow. With a clench of his hand, both were crushed instantly.

“Hey, brat, don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt someone in the middle of a conversation?”

The voice of the woman who should have been crushed into pieces came from within the sand. No, not the sand. The shadow cast by it. The shadow rippled as though it were a liquid comparable to sludge, yet moved as though it were a solid at the same time. It was dark. So dark, it completely eliminated and swallowed all light. From that black, inky liquid shadow, a figure slowly pooled together, forming once more into the shape and form of the woman with the crow perched on her shoulder.

“...A Nara.”

“I am not a Nara.”

The woman’s irritation appeared genuine, yet Gaara doubted it. The ability to control shadows was said to be a technique exclusive to the Nara Clan of Konohagakure no Sato. Climbing out of a shadow or turning one’s body into a shadow were clear extensions of that technique. Did she expect him to be fooled into thinking he would not recognize the means?

“Do you want to be a good little boy and do this the easy way…” She said. “Or the hard way?”

Gaara moved his sand forward. It engulfed her from top to bottom, and he squeezed. There was no resistance. His sand felt as though he were trying to squeeze water, attempting and striving to squeeze air. 

From the corner of the room, the sound of heels clacking against the floor emerged. Gaara’s gaze flickered to it. The woman, unharmed, unscratched, licked her lips. 

“The hard way it is.”

Gaara stared.

She swapped positions… with the shadow?

Or... She can travel between shadows?

She clapped her hands together. 

“Inton: Ansō no Jutsu.”

Yin Release: Dark Burial Technique.

The shadows of the room came alive. They all stretched, as if they were fabric. Stretching and covering everything. The room was plunged into pitch-black, all-consuming darkness. Gaara could not hear a single sound. He could not see a single thing. No light, not even the tiniest bit, managed to pierce through that darkness. His enemy was gone. He could not see his own hand in front of his face, let alone see his enemy. He could not sense a thing.

Fabled for his ultimate defense, he did not fear battles of attrition. Thus, he waited for his enemy to strike, to reveal her position, such that he would counter-attack.

He waited.

And he waited.

Minutes passed.

Then, what felt like hours passed.

Gaara could wait no longer. He lunged out with the sand, attacking the darkness. Yet, he could not see what he was attacking. Blindly attacking nothing, he struck nothing. Silence engulfed him, and no sign of the outside world could be sensed. No exit could be sensed. No sign of his enemy could be seen. The silence was so heavy, he could hear everything. He could hear the sound of his own breathing, hear the beating of his own heartbeat, hear every rustle of his clothes, every scratch of his skin, and hear even the blood pounding in his veins.

The silence… was maddening.

His feet began to sink into the darkness, but Gaara could not tell if it was merely a hallucination born from the sensory deprivation or if it was truly happening. He was beginning to be swallowed by the darkness. Consumed by it. The darkness was draining his chakra. No, it had been doing so from the beginning, only that he had so much chaka, he failed to notice. 

He became increasingly lightheaded. Dizzy.

He found it harder and harder to breathe.

Air, too, was being swallowed by the darkness.

The suffocating sensation, the silence, the darkness, it was as if he was—

Being buried.

Buried alive.

He was being buried alive.

Gaara clawed at the darkness, clawed, and struggled and resisted, but the further he resisted, the harder he attempted to escape the darkness, the more the darkness poured in from above, covering him, filling him, giving him no room to breathe, no room to escape. Even his defense, his automatic defense, his prided absolute defense, was of no use to the all-encompassing darkness. The chakra inherent in the sand was being absorbed by the darkness, being drained away, making it useless and worthless.

Bit by bit, Gaara sank, and sank, until only his hand remained above the dark, reaching for air.

There was no other choice but to unleash the beast within, to allow Shukaku to go wild, so he could escape.

Yet, there was no communication.

He could not hand over the reins to his Tailed Beast.

“When you die, you’re buried alone…”

A voice, faint, wafted through the darkness.

“Do you think that you can get others to be buried for you?”

His answer did not come. It could not come. Faintly, now, he recalled who the woman was. The other teammate of Hyūga Neji, the Divine Firmament, a maniac said to have buried herself alive thousands of times, all in the name of training, until she began to do so for fun.

A woman, perhaps, more insane than he.

Mitarashi Anko.

The final iota of air departed Gaara’s lungs.

And with it, his consciousness followed.

XXXXX

Zi Wuji sat within the chair that had once belonged to the Raikage, having remade it with fine, elegant jade. From his position in what was once the Raikage's Office, he overlooked Kumogakure no Sato, which was being rebuilt. A red-eyed crow sat upon his shoulder, overlooking Kumogakure no Sato along with him.

“...I cannot see any men.”

“That was Hinata's choice,” Zi Wuji mused. “Their lustful gazes displeased her.”

“...”

“She knows not to go overboard. Do not worry.”

“Konoha's higher-ups do not know how to handle this turn of events.”

“They will find a way."

“And you?”

Zi Wuji's gaze went far. "Where, to you, is the most breathtaking place in this world? The place with the greatest view?”

“The top of the Hokage Monument.”

“Because it allows you to overlook all of Konoha."

“Yes.”

“Is that place the greatest view because it is truly the greatest, or is it the greatest view because it is the one closest at hand?”

The crow did not answer.

“One who has seen the peaks of mountaintops is not moved any longer by the view at the top of a hill. One who has seen the view from beyond the clouds is not moved any longer by the view at the top of mountains."

Zi Wuji's gaze flickered to where Hinata was organizing the women into different groups.

“I have seen hills, and I have seen mountains. I wish to see stars, and I wish to see things beyond them."

The crow remained silent.

“The offer still stands.”

“Konoha is my home.”

“Konoha can come along if need be.”

“Will it be the same?”

Zi Wuji did not answer.

The crow's wings flapped. It spat out a sealing scroll, one that Zi Wuji caught, casually, with an outstretched palm.

“Only the Seven Tails, Three Tails, and Eight Tails remain.”

“So it seems.”

“And then?”

"I will absorb the beasts and depart,” Zi Wuji said. “Hinata will be joining me, as will my clan. I will also extend my offer to a select few in Konoha. I had planned to simply take the entirety of Konoha at first, but...”

Zi Wuji mused.

"At the behest of my younger disciple-brother, I reconsidered.”

“...”

“You never did say when you figured it out.”

“...the unawareness of your own genius in the early days. That is all.”

The crow took off, flying into the air and vanisging out of sight.

“That is all, he says,” Zi Wuji chuckled. “As expected of a Favored Son of Heaven.”

Zi Wuji casually put the scroll within his sleeves, rising from his seat, his hands clasped behind him as he overlooked the entirety of Kumogakure no Sato. This village, he would be uprooting and taking with him. The mountainous terrain was sufficient to be used as a basis to establish a Sect, and perhaps transplant atop whatever low-level sect he would find and usurp upon returning to the Rain World.

With near-infinite chakra, the powers granted to him by the Rinnegan, Tenseigan, and Byakugan amongst the other specialties unlocked by the Origin Blood Pool, he did not fear attacking and taking a Sect by force.

Besides, it was only fitting that Kumogakure no Sato was the one taken, as Kumogakure no Sato had once slapped him in the face.

Directly and without reservation, they had slapped he, Zi Wuji, in the face.

Sending someone to abduct his cousin, Hinata, underneath his nose, and managing to nearly succeed in doing so, was the greatest slap in the face, the greatest slight Zi Wuji had received in this world.

He had never forgotten the matter. Merely that for the longest time, he was not in a position of power to repay that slap to his face. Even had his cousin not been traumatized by that event, Zi Wuji would have set out to seek reparations for that slight personally, and ravaged Kumogakure no Sato all the same.

“Neji-ni-sama.”

Hinata appeared beside him in a rush of wind and ice, using the Body Flicker technique.

“I have searched and slain all the adult males, but I could not find any trace of the Jinchūriki of the Eight Tails within Kumo. Forgive me.”

Zi Wuji's hand lightly patted her shoulder. “Not bad. You've performed well, Hinata. Leave this to me.”

She beamed. “Neji-ni-sama!”

Zi Wuji's Divine Sense swept all of Kumogakure, sensing souls and chakra signatures at a glance. Yet, he could not find, indeed, any sign of the individual, hiding anywhere within Kumo. Slowly, his Divine Sense caught on to one person. He took a step, vanishing with a high-level Body Flicker and appearing in front of a trembling, dark-skinned woman with light-gray hair.

The Raikage’s Assistant.

“Where is the Jinchūriki of the Eight Tails?”

With his eyes, he peered straight into her thoughts. The power of the Rinnegan, the Human Path, allowed reading of memories and souls, and the Byakugan allowed peering deeper than any other. The combined effects of his Divine Sense granted him the powers no different from a cultivator casually perusing through the mind of a mortal. Her thoughts showed a picture, an image of a place, instinctively. At the sight of it, Zi Wuji was startled.

What…?

“Hinata.”

Hinata appeared beside him, also with the Body Flicker. “Yes, Neji-ni-sama?”

“Finish up here and prepare the place for the clan's arrival. There’s something I need to see.”

“Understood, Neji-ni-sama.”

Zi Wuji sliced the air, stepping through the black tear in space, before he appeared over the ocean. Mist stretched as far as the eye could see, and below was a vast island on the surface of the water. 

Yet, he knew it to be no mere island.

The Shinobi World, with its trees that only traced back to a thousand years of history, with its Tailed Beasts created by Hagoromo, could not have given rise to such a thing.

No, it was impossible.

As his memories proved, Ninshu, the precursor to Ninjutsu, was spread by Hagoromo, as was chakra. Therefore, such a thing had no connection, no relation whatsoever, to that man, nor to his mother. It meant such a thing vastly predated both. To Zi Wuji’s knowledge, there was no other creature like it; thus, it could not be a species native to this land.

Zi Wuji flew to the very front of the island and stood in the air, where the mist was thickest. Slowly, he spoke, transmitting his voice as loudly as possible.

He did not speak in the language of the Elemental Nations.

He spoke in the tongue of the Rain World.

“This humble one is called Zi Wuji. Might I know what the name of this Heavenly Beast is?”

Silence stretched. His pristine Daoist robes fluttered around him, though no wind blew.

Then, the world stirred. The island, the earth upon it, trembled. Vast waves rose from the water, and a head, that of a turtle, emerged from the sea. 

“Ah…”

The voice shook the air.

“After aeons, at last…”

The enormous turtle, the likes of which no other existed upon this world, spoke aloud, with an ancient voice.

“A Cultivator returns.”