#xiaolinstuck

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==> Knight of Breath: Rise Up

In that moment, the world seemed silent and peaceful. The smirking sorcerer across the cloud and blood pouring from his chest were a faraway dream. As he fell forwards, the shriek of, "Rai no!" falling on deaf ears, he idly wondered if the cumulonimbus was as soft as it looked. He wouldn't know though, the condensation brushing against his face as he fell went unfelt as he passed through the stratosphere.

Green eyes, once so vivid and bright, became two dull chips of jade and he twisted as he fell so that, even with the black creping in at the edges of his blurring vision, the bright white of the clouds were still clear as day. The wind played with and tousled his hair as it went rushing past.

Cold air passed through his lips, but he barely noticed. His weakening heartbeat and slowing breathing were part of another being. The ever widening circle of red was on robes he wasn't wearing. The soft cotton wasn't touching his skin. The roar of the wind wasn't in his ears. The creeping cold wasn't in his arms and legs.

The only thing that registered was the gold glow of the sun behind the clouds. Warmth that he knew to be caressing his face, but didn't feel and gold light succumbing to the soft dark. He was unafraid of the dark, but out of ignorance rather than courage. The slow pulse didn't push blood through his veins and into the cotton fibers. The gold held his attention, not the red.

The winds played and weaved about him, occasionally whisking drops of bright red blood away from a wound he didn't feel. Without his knowledge, they spun a soft web of unseen netting about their master until he was engulfed in a clear cocoon. Still, he continued to fall. To fall out of time, out of space, further into a realm of forgotten dreams.

The beautiful golden glow faded to black as his eyes closed and the falling stopped as his pulse faded to nothingness. Yet in that moment he became more aware than ever before. He felt the swirling winds below him, holding him up. He could still feel the way his arms and legs hung down loose from his body, the way his head tilted back on a limp neck. The dull chill of his body and the stillness of all but the hair and clothes gently tugged and tossed by the breeze. He could feel the outer limits of his skin, borders in the darkness. The gentle whisper of the wind saying nonsense in his ears. The motionless mass of muscle that had once been a heart.

There was no pain though. He could feel the gentle way the wind occasionally touched the gaping hole where the blast struck home. It traced around the edge, spiraling in and flowing into his wrecked chest, caressing the pierced lung, the shredded arteries and veins, the shattered bone. It caressed the bloodstained debris and viscera, playing with the frayed and tattered edges as Kimiko once played with his hair, teasing and styling until it reached its desired shape.

The tendrils of wind flowed towards his broken body more quickly with every moment. They whirled and flowed into him, coursing through the bloody crater. An outside observer would have noted the gold glow emanating from his body, starting from the wound and spiraling in tendrils outwards and slowly engulfing his entire body.

As the winds flowed into him, he appeared a being made of pure light. As the last of the breezes streamed into the gold where there had once been a bloody wound, he was entirely still. The winds no longer tousled his shaggy hair or tossed his baggy robes. For all the world to see, a gilded statue in the sky.

Just as slowly as it came, the gold faded from his body, flowing back towards the wound and sinking into his body. As it finally faded, all the evidence that remained was the torn, bloodstained robe and the motionless boy. Then he felt his previously still heart give a jolting beat and the winds whirled around him again, bearing him up through the sky and back through the clouds.

He could feel the moisture from the clouds this time, gently brushing against his face and he could feel a dull ache in his chest, but it didn't hurt as much as it would have before. He could hear the battle that raged as he broke through the clouds, but he kept rising until he was high above them, their faces tilted up in wonderment at how he'd risen from what should have killed him.

Set against the sun, he appeared silhouetted in golden light, the winds swirling about him in anticipation of his command. His eyes, now a blazing emerald green, meet with the tawny slits of the sorcerer in an unspoken challenge.