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The Sword Saint looked more like a god-- glowing, destructive, holograms flickering among the debris that rises up in his wake. In the low light, the streaks of blood make his blue headset cast indigo.
A red light starts blinking in the corner of Sun Xiang’s sight, and the patch on his left hand flickers a weak saffron. No can do. He hefts his broadsword and charges forward, orange meeting blue. They separate and clash again, over and over, until the saffron dims out. Knife Cross falls. Blue Rain prevails.
In Conquering Clouds, he was their blessing sent from the heavens. Yueyun Corp considered him a miracle. With him they almost reached playoffs, Yueyun’s sales spiked, and for once, they felt they could make a dent in this world controlled by powerhouses.
They also knew that these golden years were numbered. One offer from any of the big names and the 7th season’s Best Rookie would jump ship.
But what could they do? This blood sport was glory. The talented ones were fed promises of fame and fortune.
None of them protested when they sold Sun Xiang to Jiashi. None of them spoke when they cut Yueyun’s glowing saffron cyberware from his body, and none of them commented on the fresh pink scars that remained. He was leaving Knife Cross behind.
The scars would fade within a week. Jiashi promised him the Battle God, One Autumn Leaf, and it was only a matter of time before Sun Xiang’s cyberware would shine scarlet, and his broadsword would be replaced with a spear. This marked the end of an era. The Battle Mage would no longer be the Berserker they knew.
He has a couple centimeters on Ye Qiu. The man is nothing like what he expected, thin and ghost-pale. The old god looks dead tired, and if his wrists and neck and parts of his face weren’t wrapped in fresh gauze, he might’ve just been some hobo off the street. Don’t mention a 1v3, Sun Xiang could hardly see him fighting out a 1v1.
Yet before he enters the operating room, Ye Qiu grasps his shoulder. The grip is like iron, the fingers digging into the soft part of his collarbone. “What are you doing?!” He hisses in Ye Qiu’s face, staring at his grim, tired eyes. “Let go!”
“You like fighting in the Alliance, do you?” His voice is hoarse, deathly quiet. Sun Xiang strains to listen.
“What kind of question is that?”
“Don’t get complacent. Treat your victories like glory, but… If you’re going to take one thing away from my words. If you love your free will… for your own sake.” Ye Qiu leans closer, his lips centimeters away from Sun Xiang’s ear. “Never trust them with your cyberware.”
He glances at the gauze-wrapped hand, the fresh pink scars on his own palm burning a cold chill into his bones. Once Ye Qiu loosens his grip, the new captain bolts towards the operating room.
All the little chips and wires that made up One Autumn Leaf glittered on a metal tray, freshly cleaned and sterilized. His cyberware, now.
He’ll have to test it out, he muses, as the local anesthesia sets in. Who knows how clunky the coding is, if Ye Qiu never let Jiashi touch it. Perhaps that’s why the old powerhouse’s pedestal is crumbling.
They shoot him with a few painkillers to reduce the ache. Give it a few days and the wiring will adjust itself, and the remains of Cross Knife will fade into thin white lines. That’s how you tell a Cyberathlete apart from normal people. Even if you removed all the tech in them, they have too many scars to be overlooked.
The months tick by, and eventually the scarlet cyberware becomes a comfort instead of a novelty.
The old King of Fighting versus the new Battle God, and he’d yet to shoulder the reputation.
Dragon Raising its Head. Ye Qiu’s signature move, proof that somebody stood at the peak of glory. Still too green, they said. Like he wasn’t worthy of the avatar. To see the same thing executed by the man he replaced was only adding insult to injury.
He obsessed over it. He shed blood, tears, broke wires until the hologram of One Autumn Leaf looked like a corrupted file. The techs dealt him earfuls about taking better care of his cyberware, but each time it fell deaf as they cut out the damaged implants and sent them to Jiashi’s engineers for refinement, and then reinstalled them on Sun Xiang to be ruined again.
He didn’t fear R&D enough to stop hurting himself. He broke it, they repaired it, made it better. Every time the scarlet nodes and cables shone brighter, his arms ached less and each strike dealt more damage. After each battle, the implants in his hands burned like hot iron. It was like they injected raw energy into the wires. It was like Icarus dipping his hand in the sun.
He bleeds. He learns that even on the coldest nights, he burns. He learns hard-earned patience, though the pain is largely dulled by the technology suppressing his nerves. He learns that Ye Qiu had a successor.
If Sun Xiang didn’t come onto the scene, they would’ve installed One Autumn Leaf on Qiu Fei. He wonders if Qiu Fei hates him for usurping the throne, for keeping him walled-in at the training camp. He wonders if he’s still hopeful, ignorant. Yet to be a canvas for old wounds.
Never trust them with your cyberware.
Without the full force of Jiashi Technologies supporting it, eventually the Battle God must’ve become outdated.That must be why they’re falling so hard, he reasoned. Because the old captain was suspicious of others. Because he was slipping. They made a gamble bringing in Sun Xiang, casting the die between life and death.
But why him?
You’re a fluke. You got in because of luck.
Not luck. Jiashi Tech wouldn’t have paid the price to bring him here, if they didn’t have a reason to not promote Qiu Fei.
Fine. Perhaps he isn’t good enough.
Wasn’t good enough? Anybody mentored by Ye Qiu would be nothing less than terrifying. Anybody chosen by Ye Qiu to inherit the Battle God must have closely mirrored his spirit.
But what if that was why?
It’s not like you suspected there was a conspiracy, anyways.
He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he had no complaints about Qiu Fei, with his young general attitude and his Combat Form.
He was a little stern, fairly quiet, but not shy. He was domineering, headstrong, dependable. Fierce, but not flashy. And he always spouted those same words that kept on poking Sun Xiang in the brain, to never trust the Corps with your cyberware.
Maybe it was a good thing they kicked Ye Qiu out of Excellent Era. He could bear one person and their unfounded cautiousness. If he had to deal with eighty of them, he’d find a way to self-destruct.
Ah, there was another thing. Even with Sun Xiang on the roster, Excellent Era got relegated.
They reshuffled their lineup.
Xiao Shiqin, from Thunderclap, a tactician to pull the strings.
Sun Xiang, Qiu Fei, two Battle Mages to lead the charge, twin cores. Two separate legacies of Ye Qiu and his One Autumn Leaf, two parts to create a whole. The disinherited prince and the usurping king.
Sun Xiang thought it would be a good match. Two unstoppable forces instead of one. Equals, to restore Excellent Era’s old glory.
“I always told you to not hand your cyberware over to management.”
His head aches, like nails were being driven through his skull. “It’s probably the weather or something, who would make cyberware that shitty?”
He could almost hear Qiu Fei shaking his head. “You look unhealthier, and I know you eat like a normal person when you aren’t trying to one-up me when it comes to spicy food.”
“I--” The nerve of this guy!
“Look, your hands are twitching.” He grabs Sun Xiang’s wrist, gently massaging it with his thumb. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Is it supposed to?” Sun Xiang sorely wished the pillows weren’t on the other side of the couch. His hand visibly relaxed under Qiu Fei’s care, and he still couldn’t decide if he wanted to cover his face or hit his partner.
The answer, it seemed, was ‘yes, obviously’. “Look for Guan Rongfei. Your cyberware shouldn’t overperform like this.” When Sun Xiang achieved Dragon Raises its Head, waves of heat rolled off him as he collapsed in a fainting spell. “Don’t overexert yourself, I don’t want this to happen again.”
“I’m not weak.” Excellent Era’s captain grumbles and scoffs, but allows Qiu Fei to help him up.
Throughout the Revival League and into the Finals, Sun Xiang acted like fever-- burning, disconnected. The captain’s cyberware shone bright, bright scarlet.
They risked that with all the players, but none half as extreme as Sun Xiang’s case. This was their way of reclaiming an avatar that was never really theirs in spirit. A small error, a little too much exertion and the jacked-up system could shut down, a current short-circuiting his brain from inside. Qiu Fei wondered how far they would go in risking Sun Xiang’s life and health for the stat boosts in competition.
Ye Qiu wasn’t spouting conspiracy. Today’s Jiashi was nowhere similar to the startup the old captain reminisced about. Today, Jiashi Technologies would do anything to claw back to their old reputation, even if they had to harm their ace in the process.
He didn’t know if Sun Xiang knew what Jiashi was doing to him. He didn’t know he simply chose not to believe it.
He could only watch him burn out, waiting until Sun Xiang finally realized the price he was paying for his glory.
So he waited, listening patiently to how much his captain’s head ached, ignoring the burning heat every time he rubbed those shaking limbs and the clawing at his heart telling him no, it wouldn’t be proper, there was too much at stake if he dared press his lips to Sun Xiang’s fingers.
That final round, the Battle God surrendered. He made so far as the doorway leading to the competitor’s area, and collapsed. His cyberware dimmed, and the pulse was pounding far too heavily in Qiu Fei’s mind to know if Sun Xiang lived or died.
Excellent Era’s captain disappeared for a week. His partner and Guan Rongfei, armed with scalpels and little else, cut out everything. These scars would never fade, ugly, twisted proof of a Megacorp’s final breaths.
And so they fell. A dynasty collapsed, and the remnants scattered to different parts of the world.
“You got an offer from Lunhui Corp.” Would you go?
“I’m taking One Autumn Leaf with me.” A full cleansing, a new start. “Didn’t you plan on going to Tiny Herb?”
His captain still seemed so alien with new scars in place of cyberware. He imagined it shining gold, as it will a few months from now. “Something came up. There was a donor.” He searches Sun Xiang’s face for some reaction. “I want to bring back the old Jiashi, the one that made a dynasty.”
So then, I won’t see you for a while? “... Will you remember us?”
“I’ll remember you.” It falls from his mouth, before he could consider what it meant. Too late to take back now.
I’ll remember you, your spirit, your shaky hands. How easily flustered you get. Your scars, your fingers, how much I wanted to kiss them.
He deliberates for a second, thinking to correct himself or continue. “I’ll remember you as I knew you, as who you will be.”
“You better come back to the Alliance.” A light blush creeps up Sun Xiang’s cheekbones. His voice softens. “I wanna see you again.”
Usurping king, disinherited prince. From that point on, their paths would split and never converge.