His lady's destiny has been fulfilled, and that's all that matters to him. I guess he can now indulge himself by burning alive with his love one... Mayor, is everything alright at home? ._.

El destino de su lady se ha cumplido, y eso es todo lo que le importa. Supongo que ahora se da el lujo de quemarse vivo con su amado... Mayor, todo bien en casa? ._.

The demon was just another intruder for the Chief of War to defeat.

Little did he know, this one would prove useful…

Macaque could not, in all fairness, say he met the Mayor in the Diyu. He more or less experienced his presence. 

(Not that Macaque really cared all that much about fairness anymore, after what… after Wukong… after. After he died. Just after. Whatever.)

In Macaque’s defense, the Diyu sucked ass. Absolutely zero out of ten in hospitality. This suckage heavily contributed to his setting his better judgement aside and ignoring the disembodied voice begging him to refuse the bone demon's offer.

Pleading as his chains melted away and he reached out a hand to her to seal the deal.

Sobbing and screaming hysterically as he handed over his soul to her.

And then everything disappeared.

The cold, the heat, the light.

Sound remained.

A semblance of touch.

Here you will wait as I remake your mortal form. I must first exhume your corpse, then raise and mend from what remains.

Her voice went away, leaving him in the hollow, echoing void.

Something, somewhere was breathing.

Ragged, wet, desperate gulps of air that wasn't air.

“You shouldn't have agreed.” The disembodied voice, somehow more hollow here. Somehow more devoid of life.

Which, having heard it last in the Diyu, was saying something.

He grunted, trying to ignore the shiver crawling up his back. Alone in the dark but for a voice, a voice whose whereabouts he couldn't pinpoint. Alone without weapons in an echoing chamber as black as Wukong’s disloyal soul.

“I've been dead. I've been betrayed. I've already seen the worst the world has to give. What's one little pact, huh?”

“She betrayed us all. Her people, her home. I put my trust in one I called friend and she shucked my soul from my body like a grain from its husk, and used my mortal form to raze our homes to the ground. She forces me to do her bidding, writing her destiny down in blood.”

“Wow, get a load of the poet, here. Very macabre stuff.” 

Terror was curdling his heart, turning his guts to stone and filling his mouth with ash.

Better terror than his own blood, right?

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long has it been since the Great Sage Equal to Heaven took his Journey?”

“With the monk?”

“Yes.”

“Eight hundred years, or there about.” Not that Macaque kept track or anything. Wukong was nothing to him, now. Just a spectral fever dream.

“Oh. Do you… do you think the sun's still the same?”

Something in Macaque's stomach heaved as if he'd swallowed a live eel. Not even corporeal yet, and he was getting stress related nausea. Great, just great.

“What do you mean?”

“I failed her. Well, more of my body failed her. She was entombed by the Great Sage on his Journey. She… she hasn't allowed me back into my corpse since then.”

Eight hundred years.

Corpse?

“What do you mean, your corpse?”

“My body has no soul to pilot it. It is no more than a hollow toy. A puppet of flesh. The living dead.”

“So I'll be a lurching meat puppet.”

“Only if you fail. I wish I could sleep… I'm so tired… so hungry.”

Great. He had so much to look forward to, in this darkness.

“Got a name for that voice?”

“I… it's been so long. I… I can't recall it. I can't recall very much, anymore.”

Egh.

Shadowpuppet Week 2025: Tear Me to Pieces, Just Don't Leave