[b]Chen![/b]

"That wasn't us," said Vogodoris the falling god. "We would not bring sheep into our crimes. There are limits."

"We were on the lookout for an opportunity like this, though," said Elkibrant. "Never negotiate with a fox without a maiden's heart, after all! Your own or a sufficiently gagged proxy."

"Such picky creatures," said Vogodoris, shaking his head.

"As to ol' stoneface here - where else do you meet a god? The Buddha cemetery! You should see it - this huge beach on the shores of Green Coral Bay where all the Buddhas of the world wash up. Plastic and stone and sodden papercraft, books and bronze and chocolate. Millions of them, laughing and calm, serene and warlike, rich and starving. Buddha statues the size of mountains and Buddha statues sealed within marbles. Temple playsets and motorcycle maintenance Buddhas and hitchhiker Buddhas. Enough Buddhas to enlighten the world, if that was how it worked. 

"I grew up near there. Every winter when the tides are calm and the coral is hibernating we'd go down there with trash bags and grabby sticks and plenty of monks. We'd pick through the Buddhas looking for our yearly Buddha. Everyone gets to pick one of the ten million Buddhas to be their Buddha for the year. It's like a new years resolution, you know? The Buddha you're going to care for says a little about how your year's going to go. If you're tired and need a rest then you take a little Buddha and have a little year, but if you're bright and full of energy you pick a huge Buddha that comes with huge problems! Every year some dumb kid picks one of the mountains statue Buddhas and has to spend all year climbing it to clean the bird shit, hauling incense out to the beach by the barrel, and undergoing a crash course in stonemasonry in addition to all their schoolwork.

"Gods, of course, live in Buddha statues too - Buddha's kind so he lets them stay. Sometimes you get a wicked one, just like some years you get a wicked year. Sometimes you get a really good one and your life is blessed. But sometimes... sometimes you get a god who's going through some shit, just like you. A god who's on the brink of some kind of transformation and needs as much from you as you need from him. You get a god like that, well, maybe it's time to leave the Buddha behind and hit the road. See if the two of you can find where you're looking for on your own, together. Some days respecting the Buddha just isn't enough - you've got to try to be the Buddha too."

[b]Rose![/b]

"A sale!" squeaked Will0 in shock and delight. She bounced happily on her heels and fist-pumped, childishly delighted - and snatched the two coins without hesitation. "Oh! A sale! I got a sale!"

Immediately ten thousand other geists are present. They're swarming over your senses, piling into this dataspace like seagulls to the scent of chips. For a moment it's a total sensory overload of blaring data confusion before things start abruptly cutting off. Will0 is returning your senses to you piecemeal, and you perceive her walking back and forth with a large mop, alternately cleaning away the advertisements plastering your senses and beating other geists with it. Finally the crowd backs off a little and the world is yours again, none witness to your bargaining than the sheep.

"Sorry!" said Will0. "I wasn't thinking - wow, they're [i]really[/i] bored, huh? Well, I better stick with you! I've gotta keep my end of the bargain!"

This is a demon and her own creature, but she is also a fragment of the Scales of Meaning in the same way the Scales is a fragment of the Pyre of Knowledge. Like a thought can change a person, her perspective can change the Scales and the Scales' perspective can change the Pyre. And right now she is beaming at you with such happiness and delight that at least some of that must be running up the chain.

"Come on! Let's go meet a fox!"

[b]Yue![/b]

[i]good[/i]

These aren't thoughts that are haunting you. No evil will is this, no higher purpose, no agenda or unfinished business. This is [i]instinct[/i]. This is all physicality, its lessons speaking themselves in bone and nerve and muscle. Clack clack clack! This time when the machines go down they land in twisted and ruined heaps, too damaged for even the golden light to illuminate. They struggle, and then the light moves on.

[i]duels aren't about control. not about controlling yourself. not about controlling your opponent. not about surrendering yourself. not about making your opponent surrender.[/i]

The light flowed through ancient channels and ran into a wall covered in muck and filth. Bubbles ran out in lines - the force of ancient pressure seals breaking, releasing air held still for centuries. Through the filth emerged a structure of filth. A gown of muck, a feminine form with no head, dressed in sticky black tar which glows red-orange from the golden light trapped inside. It raises its sword in salute - the faintest fleck of metal visible through the decay. Then it steps, steps, twists its legs, raises its blade, all present and ready energy and oh so beautiful and oh so dangerous despite the sludge.

It pauses in that motion, then stands straight and repeats the steps. As it goes through them your legs are dragged into the same places, the same angles, repeating its stance so the two of you are mirrors of each other.

[i]duels are about the duel.[/i]

You step into the same step, you strike the same strike, slime-covered steel clashes with polished wood. Again and again - one! Two! Three! Faster and faster! So fast you're afraid of it, the speed, the whirling clash! It's striking a mirror - no, it's being the reflection. You're being made to imitate everything this spirit does and it turns out that you can. You can do it. You can move this way. There's nothing physically stopping you other than that you don't know how. You're leaning into it rather than fighting it and it's like learning the difference between falling and flight.

[i]the duel has its own logic. its own steps. it is something that we create together, greater than the sum of our hearts.[/i]

Amidst the whirl of being a reflection lines of tar are leaving your opponent. With flicks and flourishes drips are leaving the hem of that animated gown and revealing gold and violet and orange, like a sunset emerging from beneath the sea floor. 

The mirror shifts.

Now when she goes high you duck low, reflecting her in the inverse. You're still being guided but with each exchange the control loosens a little. Here is how you do this. And this. And finishing with that. Good. Again. Again! Again! One more time! One more again! And again! You're in spectacular beautiful motion, in sync with the duel - but every time it seems like it might conclude, that formless fabric recovers, withdraws, falls back into its stance and calls into your bones - again!

[i]one more time, just one more - please. i'm not done yet.[/i]

It feels like this might go forever. And while you're keeping up you can't forever. This, after all, is a hungry ghost - the base craving instincts of the body, abandoned by the thoughts and compassion and soul that have gone on to the next life. It is simply [i]craving[/i], craving for the joy that it remembers in life. Craving the clash of blades, the whirl of steps, the beat of hearts. Just one more time. That is all it needs.

(But what is the filth of this place but the craving of the ancient world? What would blind a ghost so if not for endless exposure to the advertising geists and toxic excess? Perhaps one more duel truly would satisfy it were it not soaked in the corruption of ancient days).