Walking out of the door and seeing a huge menagerie of beasts shoving each other around made Kai-Se think the dream wasn't quite over. Rather, it has just begun.

"Kai-Se," Nao-Zai's voice made him turn away from the humongous tortoise and towards probably the only sane element in the whole landscape. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

He chuckled. "You look more like a palace had been dropped on you than I do," he replied. A series of howls and roars drowned out most of his words in his ears. "Mind telling me what's going on here?"

A bird chirped to his left and a curved shadow covered his view of the sky when he whirled towards it. "Chai-Song," Nao-Zai breathed, eyes wide as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I thought you—"

"If you think I'm dead for the third time, I'm going to shred your innards, young mortal," the fowl snapped. "But maybe you are complimenting my ability to act, and for that I'm forgiving you."

Vain. The talking bird with sapphire feathers was as vain as a nobleman's pampered daughter. Kai-Se raised a finger to get some attention back to him. "What in Shaoryeong's nethers is going on here?" he asked.

The fowl swiveled to him, its beady brown eyes staring unblinkingly. "Oh, the Piper," it said. "Did you get him out?"

Nao-Zai groaned and rubbed the back of his head. From the folds of his palm, Kai-Se glimpsed a white bead tucked in them. What's that? "Yeah, I guess," the soldier said. "Is Reol-Je holding up? We should go and help him. I still got the noose."

"Excuse me?" Kai-Se waved his hand. Never mind how the huge bird could snap him in two if it got offended. "I'm here and I asked a question."

The bird whom Nao-Zai called Chai-Song lowered its head towards him as if to peck him like grains of wheat. Instead, its beak clicked. A voice rumbled somewhere in the air around its head. Strange. "We are the Divine Beasts and we have enlisted the young mortal's help in stopping one of our own," it said. "You might know them. That dragon over there," the bird inclined its head at the beasts trying to knock each other to the ground. "Han-Xi, the Amber Dragon."

Kai-Se's eyes widened. Oh, yeah. Han-Xi did say those ridiculous things to Jin-Fei when he pushed enough. It's true? Also, what's a Divine Beast?

"Heathens, the lot of you!" the dragon with chipped golden scales bleeding from a dozen pierces and slashes. The tortoise, whom Kai-Se assumed to be called Reol-Je, grunted and swiped its claws made of sharpened jade at Han-Xi's exposed neck. The dragon stumbled back but didn't fall.

"We've no time," Chai-Song swept its train of feathers before Reol-Je could step on it. Pain danced in its eyes, its eyelids drooping a bit. "See to it the noose is tied around Han-Xi's head."

Nao-Zai braced his knee and staggered up. He held a battered An-Ri in his arms. The spirit snored lightly, her fingers curled around the soldier's fenhai. "What happened?" Kai-Se demanded, drawing closer to her and laying a hand on her neck. Her entire form shimmered and her essence retreated back to the earring in a flash of green. "How long was I gone?"

The soldier faced him. More than a dozen thoughts, emotions, and sentiments whipped across his expression. Still, his features settled on a flat, urgent stare. "Time is difficult here," he said. "We don't have the luxury for specifics, but we need to slip this into Han-Xi's head. Even if just a horn."

Kai-Se's gaze wandered down as Nao-Zai untied a glowing rope from his belt. "We have to keep Han-Xi occupied and me unseen for it to work."

Despite not having all the pieces in his head, Kai-Se nodded. All of the Divine Beasts, even if they said they're powerful and all that, looked no worse for wear. They had to finish this. Quickly. So, Kai-Se bobbed his head. "Got it," he said.

Nao-Zai reached over and pressed his lips against Kai-Se's temple. Kai-Se froze, but Nao-Zai let go and gave him a brief but soft smile. "We'll talk later," the soldier whispered. His gaze faltered. "Or...not at all, if you don't want to."

A painful twinge twisted Kai-Se's heart. He could only watch as the soldier stalked off, lost in the currents of his mission. He pressed his lips on a thin line and whipped towards the chaos. "Han-Xi!" he called, his voice echoing in solid droves across the crater. The tortoise and the fowl stopped advancing as the dragon turned to him. "We need to talk!"

"I have no words for you, my beloved," the dragon answered, falling to his front legs so his horns were almost level with the crater's rim. "You can stop this nonsense by coming back with me. We can stop Fate from giving you misery at every turn. You can choose me and be happy."

Kai-Se blew a breath. "Don't you see?" he waved a hand in the vague direction of his surroundings. "All of this happened because of you and how you thought you can get your way just because you have the power. But you've done enough, Han-Xi."

"The only way you can make me happy," he continued as the dragon didn't have any snarky remarks to follow up with. "The only way you could have made all of those previous lives happy..."

He peered straight into those red eyes which had been the softest green, like the sea in the summer, and drove the point home. "Is to let go," he said. "Leave it up to fate. Don't fight it, because you will lose."

A sardonic laugh rumbled from Han-Xi's throat. "Fate exists only to serve its whims," he said. "It deserved to be battered to dust. We can write our own stories, Kai-Se, so let us."

Kai-Se shook his head. "I can write my own story and you can too," he said. "But you've got to realize there's a path where you and I won't be doing it together."

"Is it because of the mortal who stole your heart?" Han-Xi asked. It was a gentle question, not even a hostile one.

Kai-Se did his best to avoid looking at a figure edging off the crater's rim just to get in the same height as Han-Xi's horns. He wrenched his eyes back to Han-Xi, forcing himself to find the dragon's golden scales stained with bright red blood interesting. "My heart doesn't belong to anyone but me," he said. "That's another thing you need to understand, Han-Xi. You don't own a single drop of it, because it cannot be owned. Not even Nao-Zai."

The soldier had reached the nearest horn and reached out. His arms came up a few meters off. He'd have to jump. Kai-Se blinked and averted his eyes back to Han-Xi. Confusion marred the dragon's eyes. Crap. "What is it that has you hooked other than this conversation?" Han-Xi asked. Then, he turned. And caught Nao-Zai in the middle of a jumping stance, the noose held tightly in his hands.

Han-Xi's nostrils flared. Smoke puffed out from them as the dragon rose to his full height and glared down at Nao-Zai. Suddenly, all of them looked so puny next to the Amber Dragon. No wonder they're called Divine Beasts. "You again," Han-Xi hissed, his eyes trained on Nao-Zai. "Of course."

Then, he lunged.

"No!" Kai-Se lurched forward, arms outstretched. There's no way he could reach them with his short, mortal legs. A flash of blue and green. He went weightless, his collar digging into his neck. Chai-Song's legs flitted in his periphery as his body swung around at a dizzying speed, rising higher and higher from the ground.

"Hold on, Piper," the fowl's voice rang in Kai-Se's ears as its claws tightened around the back of his fenhai. Then, with a stringent cry and a powerful twist, it sent him streaking in the air, straight into Han-Xi's line of sight. Nao-Zai had brought his arms forward, a flash of white light blazing from his palms. He's not completely powerless, but for how long? Something tugged at his fingers. He looked down to find the noose clutched in them. How—?

Well, they're Divine Beasts. They could do that much.

Kai-Se slammed into Han-Xi's head. Just the mere force sent his bones knocking against each other. A landscape of pointed horns gilded with gold and red carpeted Han-Xi's head. Chai-Song must have aimed well for them to not end up skewering Kai-Se. The dragon gave a surprised grunt at Kai-Se's impact. Before any of them could realize what's going on, Kai-Se slipped the noose into the nearest horn from his fingers and pulled. Tight.

Then, he let himself fall just as the entire world hummed with a monotonic song. His body slammed against rock, but not hard enough to shatter his spine upon impact. Reol-Je muttered under its breath as it rushed towards the crater's wall.

He felt the ground shift underneath him as Han-Xi struggled to get the glowing twine out of his head. His claws swiped at it, his legs trying in desperation to find the loose end and pull at it from there.

Reol-Je scaled the crater, claws digging against soft soil. It tilted its shell to the side, allowing Kai-Se to slide down and his feet thud on the higher ground. Han-Xi wailed just as a spread of interconnected twines of the same kind as a noose burned the sky, plunging the world in crimson. Then, a loud rumble rocked the entire plane, and before Kai-Se's eyes, the soil in the crater crumbled inside a huge, bottomless pit.

Han-Xi attempted to lunge at them from the crater's rim, his curved claws flared out. "No!" he cried, fighting against the tug of the twine stuck in his horns like a leash. "Kai-Se. You betrayed me! No!"

Kai-Se forced himself to look on. "I was never on your side to begin with," he said as a whisper. To Han-Xi, though, it might have been as loud as a shout. The howls and groans of the tumbling soil and the newly-opened void didn't cease, but Kai-Se continued. "You just made yourself believe so."

Han-Xi's red eyes widened, showing Kai-Se more of the cursed crimson glare. "It will not end like this. No!"

His demands were stilled when the void shouted more, pulling him backwards to its embrace harder. It's done. They've won. Kai-Se closed his eyes and turned to Nao-Zai, standing at the edge of the crater, having turned away from the whole thing. Kai-Se expected anger, but what painted the soldier's face were regret and maybe a little relief.

Then, Nao-Zai's gaze locked with Kai-Se's. That did it.

Within seconds, Nao-Zai closed the distance between them and threw his arms around Kai-Se. No more words needed. Kai-Se buried his face against Nao-Zai's shoulder, his fingers crumpling the back of the soldier's fenhai, as if he's scared of what would happen if he let go. He took in Nao-Zai's familiar warmth, the feel of the soldier's body against his, and the safety he always felt when they weren't apart.

He missed this. He missed Nao-Zai.

They stayed that way for what felt like an eternity. Kai-Se couldn't care less. He'd been through a lot, made the wrong choices, and hurt a lot of people, but Nao-Zai was still here—holding him like nothing mattered but Kai-Se. It's just them inside their own world, and it would stay that way. Because they did it. They have overcome a trial so big it seemed impossible. And here they were. Together.

When they tore apart, Kai-Se was about to turn to the other Divine Beasts when he stumbled forward. Something was curled around his ankle and wouldn't budge even after squirming against its grip. He looked down. The bristles he only saw once in Han-Xi's tail dug against his skin, drawing blood.

He began skidding towards the ledge and into the yawning void.