Pain.
In a hospital bed, the faint sound of gasping breaths slowed and ceased. The night fell silent for a bare, hesitant moment before allowing a certain machine to make its grim announcement with a long, uninterrupted beep.
He watched it fade away from him, as if it fell from a great height. As for himself, colors and reality seemed to merge, cross, and mess around with his perceptions until at last, he found himself in an entirely different situation, in a place filled with fire.
Is this hell? He had a moment to wonder before a man with tears covering his face literally kicked him flying.
"Why…?!" It was all he could manage, wondering at all the pain he was feeling. Wasn't the pain supposed to end when you died? Why did everything seem to hurt even more now? Especially his heart. His heart hurt like there was a knife in it.
"Live, my son. Live." The man said below him as he was engulfed in flames.
"What?" Conflicting emotions exploded all through him. He grieved. He rejoiced. He raged. He was cold inside, so, so cold. He brimmed with energy. He died of exhaustion. He was, and was not, and was no longer.
He found himself laughing, laughing hysterically, filling the smoke filled sky with maniacal laughter.
And then gravity decided enough was enough, and that what went up MUST come down and he was sent plummeting to the ground unceremoniously.
WHAM! "OW!"
Consciousness threw up its hands in disgust and gave up on him entirely.
***
In his dreams, his past life and his past life chased each other around in circles until he was dizzy.
"Stop! Just stop! Let me get my feet on the ground first!" He scolded them both.
"No! You shouldn't be up! Stay in bed!" a young girl's voice said stubbornly.
He opened his eyes, surprised, and surprised at being surprised.
Sitting over him was a little girl in a red robe who held him down with a snort. He found himself lying on some sort of pallet, in a clean, airy room. "Where am I? Who are you?"
His memories were muddled, but in all his muddled memories, this girl had never shown up before.
"I am your new mistress! Bow before me and swear eternal loyalty!" she proclaimed proudly. "While still staying in bed!"
"Ruyi, for heaven's sake…" another face appeared, this one rolling his eyes at the girl. It was a boy of roughly nine years of age, with very, very short hair, wearing a white-and-cloud-blue robe. "Hey there. How are you feeling?"
"Like a gold coin!" sitting up in bed, he flashed them a thumbs-up. "Completely flattened and with a hole in the center!"
The guy laughed, but the girl nodded sagely. "Then you should be called Jin Two!"
"I don't think either of them would be happy about that." The boy observed. "Why not let him introduce himself?"
"Me? I'm Riku." Well, at least one of him was Riku. The other one belonged to a world that was very, very different from this one. At least the Riku version of him seemed to feel at home in this world where people wore robes and didn't have air conditioning or light bulbs.
"I'm Shui." The cloud-robed boy introduced himself. "This is Huang Ruyi."
"I am the boss of this place!" she said. "Now, swear fealty!"
Shui cleared his throat. "Little miss, before he pledges loyalty to the small boss, he needs to first pledge to the big boss. Since Master is not here right now…"
She snapped her fingers. "Right! I'll go call him right now! PAPA!!! PAPA, he's AWAKE!!" she ran out yelling.
Riku winced. "She really is the little boss around here?"
"Yep." Shui sighed.
An older girl poked her head into the room then. She was about ten, maybe, brown and slender, with short hair. She looked at him and Shui, and nodded to herself sagely. "Um."
"Huh?" Riku blinked at her.
She just nodded to herself again and left.
"Who was that who said 'um'?" Riku asked Shui.
"That was Mu."
"Mu said 'um'?" Riku frowned. "Shouldn't she have said the opposite thing?"
Shui rolled his eyes. "Only if she was trying to introduce herself."
"Wasn't that what she was supposed to do?"
Shui shook her head. "Only if she were normal."
"She's not normal?"
"None of us are." Shui shrugged. "But then, who is?"
Riku grinned. He had the feeling he was going to like this guy. And probably that girl too.
At that point, a fierce-looking guy poked his head in and scowled at Riku. Then he disappeared.
"Was that Jin One? Was he mad because Ruyi called me Jin Two?" Riku hazarded a guess.
"No, that's Huo. Don't worry. He's always scowling at everyone." Shui assured him.
An excited guy then bounded into the room, thrice as wide as Shui and about a few inches shorter. "Where is he? Where's the other Jin?"
"THAT is Jin One." Shui said. "He's the excitable sort."
Jin's face fell. "I'm trying not to be. Master says I should be as unyielding as steel, as stable as the mountains…"
"Good luck with that." Shui patted him on the shoulder in condolence.
Finally, Ruyi bounded back in, tugging a man robed in black with a gold chain hung across his chest. "See? He's awake! Make him swear loyalty to me!"
"One step at a time, Ruyi." He told her. "You are Xi Riku, are you not?"
"I guess?" Riku scratched his head.
"Don't worry." Ruyi patted his hand. "You'll be Huang Riku soon."
Riku stared. "Did you just propose marriage to me?"
Jin choked. Shui slapped him on the back. "There, there."
"One step at a time, Riku." Ruyi's dad said clearing his throat. "But it's not far from the truth. Actually, because of the friendship between your late father and I, my plan was to take you in as a closer disciple, like Shui and Jin and Mu and Huo. All my closer disciples are formally adopted into my family and also take the surname 'Huang'."
"So he's Huang Jin Two?" Ruyi asked eagerly.
"Jin Two?" Her father looked at her strangely. "No, no. Riku's element is Earth. Like Tu's."
"He's not Jin Two?" she frowned. "He's Tu Two! Tutu?? No! Tu Two can't be Tutu! Only Tutu can be Tutu!"*
"Just Riku, please…" he groaned out loud.
"So how about it, Riku? There is nothing left of the Xi clan, now." Ruyi's father said, his eyes gazing into the distance solemnly. "As far as I can tell, you are the last survivor."
"Sir Huang… I don't even know what happened…" Riku said, still quite disoriented.
"The Black Wind happened." Shui told him. "When we saw the signal, Master Huang got there as quickly as he could, but all he came back with was you."
"The Black Wind?" Riku didn't recognize the name in either of his two memories.
"Killers for hire. They don't normally appear around these parts, but…" Jin trailed off.
Their Master cleared his throat. "Riku, learn martial arts from me. If you work hard under my tutorship, there may come a day when you grow strong enough to take revenge by your own hands."
"Plus, you got nowhere else to go. Nowhere to stay, no other way to live…" Shui counted off fingers.
"You have no choice but to serve me!!" Ruyi exclaimed.
Riku sighed, got up to kowtow. "Riku greets… ugah!"
Absolute dizziness struck him. Pain racked his brains. Riku fell over clutching his head. "Uguarha…! I'll talk! I'll talk! Forty-two! The answer is Forty-Two!!
"The answer to what?" Shui was confused.
"EVERYTHING!!" Riku gasped, and then blacked out.
In the blackness before awareness faded, were two words.
[System Initiated]