Chapter 185: The House of Black and White! (I)
Next morning,
Buckfastleigh
"Ticket please," the train conductor demanded.
Kai fumbled around the chest pockets of his long black overcoat and took out a slim piece of parchment. The conductor examined it, marked it with a small tear, and then hurried off to the next passenger.
Three hours had passed since he left the capital city of the nation, bordering the Wall. The Steam locomotive he was traveling in was nowhere near the quality and comfort of its counterpart running between the Arrival Zone and the nation and had only one first-class carriage, where Kai was now, seated on an upholstered seat near the window.
Throwing the ticket back into his pocket, and adjusting his hat, Kai looked out through the window as the open fields rushed past him in a brown-green blur. His thoughts went back to the moments that had led to this unplanned and unavoidable trip.
When she returned after attending the opening ceremony, Meg had found him healing, covered in blood, black and light green fluids, and charred flesh. A black, crumpled figure had been sprawled In front of him that was once alive within the broken tank, a fist-size hole in its chest telling a barbaric tale.
Oh, no! Meg had gasped then. What have you done, master? Didn't you tell me that an unresolved Karma can become a major hindrance in achieving Absolute Power? Why did you kill her? We...
Kai had indeed said those words to her, he remembered.
If the Existence with the Rinnegan was right, then his actions of goading Little Hao to tell him the names of the Temples and the Old Ones, though unknowingly, had become a Cause. Yes, a Cause, whose Effect was the death of Little Hao and the fate of Selena Hao, making him fall into a Karmic Cycle, which if not dealt with, would become shackles for him in the future.
As that Existence had told him, this was Kai's Karma, and it must be him who had to resolve it.