Time seemed to stiffen where the arrow met the air. Liam's soul-made arrow that blazed orange and green, a comet of well and wind, tore through the air.

The flash startled the child Oni, making it raise its guard.

When it seemed the arrow would hit its target, a dark-toned hand rose between the child Oni and the arrow, catching it cleanly in the hollow of the palm. The flash faded to a stunned hush.

Where the light had been, there was now a man. White turban, chiton and flowing robes that seemed to bloom like petals even without wind. Golden chains threaded their way across the fabric, giving an almost ominous sheen. He stood with the same effortless balance of someone who'd walked between storms and sunrises for a very long time.

It was Saa'ir.

Saa'ir didn't look like a man who'd expected applause. He only cocked his head, slow and curious. The storm's last bite seemed to recoil from him—his aura did not roar; it was a low, steady warmth.

Up close, Saa'ir's face was neither old nor young. There were lines at the corners of his eyes that suggested long laughter, and eyes the color of a winter river that contained more kindness than a man ought to be allowed to hold in one pair of sockets.

Mumu's eyes went wide with recognition, his stubby tail swishing a bit knowing Saa'ir must definitely be able to help Dama considering what he pulled of in that nightmarish experience.

The air shimmered where Saa'ir stood, the golden chains drifting as though caught in a soft current only he could feel. The soulura arrow still crackled in his palm—contained, unmoving, its violent light tamed as though it had never been anything more than a spark.

Domitius rushed to the kneeling Okun, steadying his chief before asking the question that was one both of their minds. "That arrow chief—the soulura that made it..."

Okun's brow furrowed as he struggled to breath, yet still nodded. "The soulura...that arrow...belonged to none...none other than Liam..."

"Amazing," Domitus said, awestruck, "so that boy really did have a Soulful Technique? To think it would manifest to fast, despite being the one the least experienced in soulura compared to the two lads!" His face then adopted a confused expression. "Though, I must ask, why did it just stop midair like that...?"

While Domitius could only guess, Okun knew the answer. He could see why clear as day. His brow furrowed even more as he thought to himself. "Just who is this white clothed man? And...why do I feel like I've met him before?"

Back to Saa'ir, he tightened his fingers around the arrow and he let it unmake itself: the light folded, sighed, and vanished into thin air.

Meanwhile, Nini, still hunched beside the perfectly preserved ice-statue that was Dama, stared at him with a trembling stillness. Her stitched ears twitched once, twice, as if her mind were trying to reconcile him with the impossibility of the moment.

Saa'ir turned his attention to the stitched fox as his gaze softened. "Well," he exhaled, voice warm, "I would say 'it's been a while'…but we both know it has barely been a day since we last met in the Giona's mindscape."

Nini blinked. Her sockets widened, stitches stretching subtly as she inched forward on shaky paws. Her head tilted—hesitant, animal, childlike.

Saa'ir smirked slightly, his shoulders lowering in relaxation. He extended his other hand, palm down, offering a calm, slow gesture the way one might with a frightened creature.

Nini sniffed. Once. Twice. Nothing, but that was to be expected. since Nini remembered the same thing back when she first met Saa'ir. However, it was when her nose brushed through the hand entirely that made Nini's face crease.

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She froze, then waved a paw experimentally—straight through his skin, as though striking fog.

Her head jerked back in confusion.

Saa'ir glanced at his own transparent limb, huffing a tired, self-mocking sigh. "Ah. Right. I forget," he murmured, wiggling spectral fingers he couldn't quite feel, "that in the physical world, I have no physical body to touch anything with."

When Saa'ir looked back at Nini to see her reaction, he saw that Nini was no longer listening.

Her attention had snapped back to Dama—frozen, smiling, arm reaching toward where the Oni child had stood. Her ears drooped so far the stitches at their bases pulled taut. Her tail lay flat, barely moving, a low keening whine escaping her thread-lined jaw.

Saa'ir's smirk faded.

He stepped closer—his body casting no shadow, his feet making no sound nor print—and stood over the ice-bound boy. "Young Dama... It seems you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" He said quietly.

He placed his spectral hand near Dama's chest—not touching, but close enough that faint soul-particles rippled outward at the proximity. Saa'ir's eyes narrowed, brow lifting ever so slightly and his entire face creasing in concentration.

"It's hard to feel, but I can sense both breathing and a heartbeat. Not only that, but the soul remains anchored. He is alive." Relief flickered across his face in a near-imperceptible wave.

Then, his gaze slid behind him.

The Oni child still stood in awe, blinking through Saa'ir as if looking at empty sunlight. But the mother…

She saw him.

Saa'ir met her eyes calmly.

Confusion warred with fear. Fear with hatred. Hatred with the instinct to defend her child at any cost. Her claws flexed in the snow, body quivering between attack and collapse.

Saa'ir turned from side to side, taking in the destroyed and snow-blanketed view of Briarstone. Then, he fully turned to the mother, his expression calm, ancient, unreadable.

"This is your doing, is it not?" He asked plainly.

The parent Oni flinched. She understood him, perfectly. That alone stunned her—humans weren't supposed to speak the Oni tongue.

She had no idea how to answer.

Saa'ir doesn't wait for an answer. He planted his palms beside Dama's still chest, closed his eyes, and let his gray soulura spill from him like smoke poured into a bowl. The air between his hands thickens; the gray glow gathers, coils and tightens around Dama in a slow, patient spiral.

Okun, the mother Oni, Mumu, and Nini watch, barely breathing. The gathered soulura swells, then brightens—no longer the muted gray it began as but a translucent light that hummed in the air. For a heartbeat, even those who cannot usually see soulura felt the tilt of pressure within the surround atmosphere.

FInally, and without warning, the aura detonated in a bright, gray flash.

Snow blinds the eyes of those closest; heat floods the frozen air for a shivering instant.

When everyone blinks the afterimage away, Dama is upright again in the same reaching pose he'd been frozen into a moment before—but his face is different. Confusion roils across him like a wave: eyes unfocused, mouth open in a small O, breath shallow as if he's come back from a weird dream.

"C-Cold—!" he starts, voice cracking, beginning to tremble. He crosses an arm across his torso—at once shocked and bewildered by how cold he is, by how very much he can feel compared to just a moment ago.

Before he could say anything else, Nini launched herself at him like a spring-loaded ball of stitches and fur. She wrapped her entire body around him, squeezing so hard he squeaked, her relief physically overwhelming. Her multiple little whines were all the relief she had words for, and she burrows into him, nose burying into his shoulder.

When it came to Mumu, he lost whatever composure a stuffed bear can have. He set down Koul and Miuson—making sure to lay them down gently—before barreling forward and squeezing them both so hard that the three of them topple onto the snow.

Their laughter and little human noises—Dama's rough chuckle, Nini's high whine, Mumu's delighted huffs—are contagious. Even the hardened faces around them soften. Okun manages a tired, stunned smile; Domitius lets out an exhale that almost sounds like a laugh.

The child Oni watched from a short distance away, hand still halfway raised. The flash of light has left the creature blinking into the world; its shoulders droop a fraction. Its tear-streaked face is bewildered by the sudden, small, impossible warmth that now spills from where the three of them roll.

The mother Oni, meanwhile, breathes raggedly, her protective posture easing as she takes in the tableau: a frightened boy restored, two stitched toys clinging to him, a man in white who can communicate with both.

Saa'ir lowered his hands and opened his eyes. He regards the scene with the faint smile of someone who knows the worth of a simple miracle. He watches Nini nuzzle Dama's cheek, watches Mumu flop and roll, watches the way the group's happiness stitches itself back together.

For the first time since the village bell tolled, there is a small, bright island of calm and warmth on the snow—three living things refusing to be broken.

-

Next: (Chapter 106) Ghostly Mediator: Part 2

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