Ten Thousand Tragedies

Before he was even consciously aware that he'd come back, Wu Hao seized up, coughing, retching as he did. Several of the others gave him looks as they passed by him.

Still he coughed, trying to get the taste of ash out of his mouth and failing. He imagined almost that he could still feel it, still trapped within him and tearing at his insides, devouring whatever it could get its hands on and -

He tried to breath in, as deeply as he could. His shivers didn't stop, and his panic didn't fade, but gradually he began to be able to think again. Part of his qi was gone, all of a sudden, wasted in a spasm of lost control, and he felt cold and completely hollow inside.

"Get up," someone commanded. It was 726, standing over him. "You have not been given permission to laze around."

Wu Hao sniffled. It was such an embarrassingly human thing to do so, but he couldn't stop himself. He didn't feel able to stand, felt sick to his stomach. Ash still seemed to linger on his tongue.

726's foot slammed into his side, threatened to send him careening off the side of the mountain where they'd stopped. Oddly enough, the dull ache of pain helped tear him out of his thoughts, which had been continuing to loop themselves into a knot.

"You are wasting my time," 726 hissed. "If Uncle sees, I'll -"

What would happen to 726, he didn't get to finish, because Wu Hao's fist caught him in the thigh, a wild uppercut thrown as Wu Hao rose to his feet. 726 grunted something, tried to throw a punch, and then Wu Hao's fist slammed into the other boy's fist.

There was an audible crack of bone hitting bone, but Wu Hao managed to get up to his feet in the silence that followed.

"Uncle forgives lateness if it's for challenges," Wu Hao said, breaking the silence of the misty mountain morning. He wiped his mouth.

726, standing back up across from him, eyed him. "You're challenging me? Here, now?"

"Here," Wu Hao said, and raised a hand. He took up the Heavy Fist stance, right fist in front like a shield, the left cocked back to deliver quicker strikes. Then he opened up his right hand, turned it palm up, and wriggled his fingers at 726. "Now."

726 rushed forward, and Wu Hao met him with an equally wild charge. A fist slammed into his upper arm and would probably leave a bruise, but Wu Hao turned into the blow and stepped into 726's guard.

His left fist flew, like an arrow launched from a bow, and crashed into 726's solar plexus. He gasped for air, once, then tried to raise his fists again even as his face blanched and his eyes went wide.

Wu Hao slammed his other fist into 726's face, feeling the other boy's nose crumple under the ridges of his fingers, and then pushed forwards, throwing the other boy down to the ground. Then he kicked him in the chest, in the same way he himself had just been kicked.

Then, allowing himself a few more seconds to breathe in deeply, he walked off to 726, ripped the Brother pin from his clothes, and stuck it onto his own rags. He wiped his mouth once more, then turned and walked while 726 was still twitching on the ground.

There. That felt better.

Maybe the other boy would get up again. Maybe he wouldn't. Wu Hao had bigger problems, like the screen twitching in the side of his vision.