Short Story I — Vantage Point

Side Story I — Vantage Point

“It’s finally settled down...and I’m glad we managed not to lose any countries either.”

God, who had been watching Suiboku’s candle from his seat, relaxed when he noticed that Suiboku’s flame had returned to normal. Looking upon the candles around it, it didn’t seem like there had been many victims this time around.

“When that monster goes on a rampage, we really do see a wholesale snuffing out of candles, after all.”

Whenever Suiboku’s candle flame burned intently, it would usually consume a large number of candles around it. Thousands, tens of thousands of lives, would be lost to Suiboku’s intensity. Still, that would have been fine, in a sense, if they had somehow fulfilled Suiboku’s aim. Unfortunately, such individuals couldn’t even serve as fuel for Suiboku’s efforts. The victims that had come from Suiboku’s past rampages hadn’t been necessary at all for Suiboku to obtain his current level of strength.

“...Such a waste.”

The reason why Suiboku had let go of Eckesachs and started training on his own was because he felt he hadn’t gotten any stronger despite massacring large numbers of people. If wholesale slaughter was necessary to become strong, then Suiboku would have trained Sansui by sending him off on such a rampage. Just destroying things in a rage didn’t make you stronger. How many people had died before Suiboku had realized that one simple fact?

“Well, we can’t bring back what’s been lost. I suppose it’s not worthy of a god to complain so much about what had already happened. What’s more important is what’ll happen next...”

God already knew what was going to happen in this world.

“If Suiboku was to fight in earnest, then the coming threats would probably die without being able to do anything, but I doubt he’ll trouble himself to actually fight them at this point...”

The world’s people were soon going to face an existential threat, a threat where the Eight Sacred Treasures that God had created would finally fulfill their true purpose. The terrifying reality was that Suiboku would have been able to defeat that threat on his own, but God couldn’t rely upon him to do it.

“Well... I suppose it’s a mistake to think of Immortals as humans in the first place. The most I can hope for is that they’ll offer clues about ordinary humans...”

Of course, if God were to ask Suiboku directly, he might very well accept. But that would be going too far, directly interfering in a way that He wasn’t supposed to do with the mortal world.

“Oh well... I decided what abilities humans would have when I created everything. It would be an insult to this world’s people if I were to suddenly intervene directly and change things... I may be the one who manages this world, but it’s not as though it’s my world to do with as I please.”

God was preparing simply to watch over the world, hoping that things would go well.

Far to the east of the Arcana Kingdom, past the Domino Republic and countless other countries, at the eastern edge of the world there was a group of islands floating in the air. It was a land that had once been known as Hanafuda and was now called the Eight Great Provinces. In that land there were many Immortals and mortals living out their days.

Among those people was a particularly old Immortal known by the name of Kacho, who stared outward with a sense of resignation. Sitting near the base of an enormous tree, a boy had been meditating nearby when the Immortal master had detected the inevitable outcome of a far-off battle.

“So Fukei has come to an end.”

“Huh? Master Fukei lost?!”

Hearing Kacho’s words, the young man who had been sitting nearby showed astonishment that his brother apprentice had lost.

“I can’t believe that Master Fukei would ever lose! He was considered the most powerful warrior, a man without equal, here in the Eight Great Provinces. Did he really lose?!”

“The outcome was pretty much inevitable. He was facing the wrong opponent. He stood no chance, not against Suiboku, who split apart this land when it was called Hanafuda over three thousand years ago. But I’m not sad that he lost, nor that he died.”

“Wait, the fact that he died is plenty sad! I mean, he was very good to me even during my mortal days, while you, Master Kacho, must have known him for even longer...”

“He lived for over forty-five hundred years. There’s nothing sad about his life coming to an end. What makes me grieve is that he didn’t accept his mistakes until the very end.”

Fukei hadn’t been able to place himself in the right state of mind as an Immortal until it was too late. Kacho had worried that Fukei was going to end up that way for over four thousand years. Ultimately, that worry hadn’t prevented his apprentice from coming to the very end he had feared would happen.

“While there’s no inherent meaning to a tree growing, there is a reason for it. That is the same for the stones shaped by rivers. Because Fukei was too close to Suiboku, a being that had set aside his humanity, Fukei, too, sought to put aside his humanity.”

Suiboku had grown into an extraordinary power simply by being as he always had been. Fukei, who just happened to be near him, had been continually eclipsed by his shadow. Because Fukei had been corrupted to his core by this proximity, he continued to be affected by Suiboku even long after Suiboku had departed.

Fukei had spent his life battling Suiboku’s shadow and influence. The fact that he had been locked in constant internal battle with his rival meant that he had also been in a state of continual suffering. And, in the end, Fukei couldn’t continue to bear that suffering.

“I was a failure as a teacher. Because I adored Suiboku, I let him act with too much freedom, while my concern for Fukei meant that I continually bombarded him with words.”

“You bombarded him with words... You spent too much time lecturing him?”

“Indeed, that’s correct. I did that despite knowing that words are merely words, not actually teachings... No doubt I made a mistake in raising the two of them.”

It had been three thousand years since Suiboku had split Hanafuda asunder. Almost all of the Immortals that had instructed Suiboku had already become one with nature. Kacho was the last remaining, only tied to this world by regret. He felt an unbreakable urge to watch his two apprentices go to their inevitable ends. That was all over now. Tragically, the end that he had foreseen the moment Suiboku arrived in this land four thousand years ago had finally arrived.

“Words can be interpreted however the hearer wishes to interpret them. Just as the Immortal Arts can be used any way the wielder wishes, my words, in the end, never reached Fukei’s heart.”

“What do you mean?”

“An Immortal is one who has stopped consuming the five staple grains and focuses upon their pursuits. Is that not so?”

“Well, sure.”

“But it’s not as though an Immortal can’t consume the five staples, nor are they incapable of doing so. There’s no rule that says an Immortal who’s eaten the five staples is to be exiled, is there?”

“Well, of course not!”

Immortals had no need to eat and gluttony was only an obstacle to training. But so long as it was in moderation, many Immortals continued to consume food. To state that no one who consumes the five staple grains is an Immortal showed a complete lack of understanding of Immortals in general.

“What’s important is their heart, their state of mind... That’s what you always teach, master!”

“Yes...and it’s not a simple matter to change one’s heart or mind with words. But just because one is forced to emulate an Immortal’s actions through the act of training, that doesn’t mean they’ll also acquire the right frame of mind.”

For example, say there’s training that involves sitting in front of a tree. By engaging in that act, the disciple learns discipline and dedication. But that doesn’t mean that action allows them to fulfill the goal of becoming one with nature, of feeling and understanding themselves as part of nature.

Has the disciple actually learned discipline, or are they simply engaging in training to fulfill their goal of getting revenge? While the difference in motivations will manifest in reality, disciples who can’t come to the right answer will never be able to tell the difference.

“Fukei was extremely serious and dedicated. He admired the Immortals around him, respected them, and wanted to emulate them. That was fine, but he viewed that alone as the answer to his quest. He had convinced himself, wrongly, that it was sufficient to emulate their forms and their techniques.”

A Fallen Immortal who had lived for forty-five hundred years was, in essence, an Immortal who had wasted forty-five hundred years by living in error. Fukei had been convinced beyond doubt that Suiboku had fallen and become an evil being, and he had used that as a justification for becoming a Fallen Immortal himself, but that had been the wrong conclusion to draw.

“It’s true that Suiboku acted in ways that were far from those of a typical Immortal, but there was no evil or malice in Suiboku’s heart. At his core, he was actually a well-intentioned man. That was why we competed to teach him new techniques.”

“...Um, but wasn’t that what brought upon that issue?”

“By ‘that issue,’ do you mean the shattering of Hanafuda? Even at the time, the only ones who struggled to deal with it were the young ones. We, the fully trained Immortals, were, in fact, pleased with the outcome. After all, all that had happened was that island had been split in several pieces.”

Kacho and many Immortals hadn’t chastised Suiboku, dismissing the shattering of the island as inconsequential. The reason was simply that none of them actually cared about what had happened.

Despite that, Fukei had been enraged. As though to say that he had no desire to cower before a monster, a force of nature, like Suiboku, and that he would make Suiboku pay for his crime. Given the justification that he was acting to punish someone who had committed a great crime, Fukei happily began piling up his hatred of his rival apprentice.

“Suiboku may have been unconventional, but at his core he was still an Immortal. That was why everyone was happy to teach him their techniques. The reason why other Immortals taught Fukei, however, was out of pity.”

“That’s pretty terrible...”

“Fukei wanted desperately to view Suiboku as his inferior. Because Suiboku was so far removed from an ordinary Immortal, he wasn’t able to view him as right or as a good Immortal.”

“Did he really need to accept that Suiboku was a good Immortal?”

“I don’t know about martial arts, but the Immortal Arts are not a competition. Immortals simply don’t care about how much another Immortal has mastered their martial arts or their Immortal Arts. The true path of an Immortal is to heighten one’s self, and that was where Fukei went wrong.”

Immortals needed to live a life without desire and to control themselves at all times, avoiding involvement with the mortal world. Why? Because to do otherwise would lead to them becoming a Fallen Immortal.

To put it another way, however, so long as one didn’t fall, there was no need for an Immortal to control oneself, nor to avoid contact with the mortal world. If an Immortal was capable of engaging in training, regardless of their circumstances, then that was still the proper path for an Immortal.

To Immortals beyond a certain level, if no longer restraining oneself or getting involved in mortal society was enough to lose oneself and fall, then that was simply a sign that they needed more training. While drowning in lust could be the cause of an Immortal’s fall, not all Immortals who engaged in such relationships were fallen.

In general, it wasn’t as though Immortals shared an absolute set of laws among them, nor was there any established set of punishments that they enforced for each infraction. In that sense, Immortals were free, and they were expected to take responsibility for their own choices. They would be forgiven with a laugh even if they were to destroy the floating island that everyone lived on and they would be forgiven for chasing after the one who destroyed the island and killing them. There were no absolute rules that dictated the interactions between Immortals.

Immortals had a certain type of lifestyle and many Immortals arrived at their habits quite naturally. However, that lifestyle wasn’t absolute. It was simply that most Immortals lived that way, and there was no rule that stated it was the only way for an Immortal to live, or that no other lifestyle was acceptable.

Fukei, who had been obsessed with maintaining the forms and had turned the Immortal way into an object of veneration, had simply convinced himself that there were right and wrong ways to be an Immortal. Of course, others tried to persuade him of his error, but Fukei was never able to get away from his mindset that there was an absolute “right” way of being an Immortal.

“Of course, in the end, all of it stems from Fukei’s choices and Suiboku’s failings. There’s no misunderstanding or tragedy in that. They had each contributed to the reasons for this outcome, and there was no malicious intent involved on either side.”

“So you mean to dismiss it as being inevitable?”

“Indeed. The reality is that there was nothing to be done about it.”

Yes, there was nothing to be done. With that one statement, Kacho had given up and accepted all that had happened.

“Thinking back upon it, perhaps there were far too many forebears to serve as an example here. The fact that it was an environment suited to learning was what made Suiboku so powerful and made Fukei so obsessive. Teaching and guiding aren’t necessarily always the same thing. Perhaps Suiboku has finally recognized that fact.”

“Uhm...What do you mean?”

“In Suiboku’s case, even if no one had taught him, no doubt he would have just acquired power in his own way. No doubt that would have taken longer than it did when we taught him. Both Suiboku and Fukei were able to take shortcuts by using our instruction. But, if all that’s saved by taking those shortcuts is time, then maybe it’s better to take the longer path. That’s particularly true when it comes to the heart.”

Kacho, the Immortal who had lived for ages, took the time to explain at length to the young man who was likely going to be his final apprentice. He described in detail the regrets he held for the two apprentices he had raised with his own two hands.

“There is a meaning to struggling and striving, to thinking about problems, and coming to your own answers. It allows you to learn and grow, mentally and emotionally, in a way that you cannot by simply taking the right answers that have been prepared for you.”

“So is that why you haven’t taught me much in the way of techniques? Is it to correct that error?”

“No, that’s just because you’re lacking in talent. Besides, it’s only been about a hundred years since you became my apprentice.”

“O-Oh.”

In the end, it was all in the past. No one had been forced or controlled into doing anything. They had all simply followed their own hearts. No matter how predictable and tragic the outcome, Kacho’s vigil over his two apprentices was almost at an end.

“Soon, Suiboku will come back to this land. That will be when my last regret tying me to this world will end. I will finally be able to leave this world and go join my friends.”

“...Um, Master Kacho. What about me?”

“...Guess I’ll leave you to Suiboku.”

“Master Kacho?! That’s awful! You’d completely forgotten about me, hadn’t you?! You don’t have any regrets about me at all?!”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll reach enlightenment even if I leave you to yourself.”

“Besides, isn’t Master Suiboku the one with all the awful stories, like the one where he peed on Master Fukei’s head?!”

“Indeed.”

“Don’t ‘indeed’ that away! Did he really do those things?! They weren’t exaggerations?!”

“He was only about five hundred years old or so at the time... He was still immature by Immortal standards...”

“That’s still only the sort of thing five-year-olds or the like do! I really don’t want to be apprenticed to someone like that!”

Soon, the man who had found the cows of enlightenment would come to this land. He would bring the apprentice he was so proud of and return to the land where he had accumulated so many of his failings. That meant the end of a particular Immortal.

“Well, yes... Suiboku would do things like step on Fukei’s head, slam his head against a boulder, knock him out and toss him off the island, throw him in the ocean after paralyzing him with needles, bury him in the ground and surround him with rocks, crush him with giant snowballs... Yes, he did do all sorts of terrible things, but I’m sure he’s now become a proper Immortal. I’m certain of it.”

“I really don’t want a master like that! Wait, Master Kacho, you and the other Immortals really didn’t stop him?!”

“...We all thought it was cute and laughed about it.”

“There, that’s it! That’s what you should be most ashamed of!”

Could it be that this master was the one who was the worst out of all them? Zen, the young Immortal, couldn’t help but feel anxious about his master’s ability to teach.

“...I see. I suppose this is what it means to learn wisdom from the mouth of babes. There’s no end to training, I suppose.”

“...This is why Immortals this old can be such a problem.”