Just Another Replacement

Lung's jade eye scanned the destruction around us. "My, what a mess you've made. And here I thought you'd learned some manners during your time with us."

Red filled my vision. "Shut the fuck up! Where's Qing Qing? Her sister? Where's Inorin?"

"Ah yes, the ones who abandoned you, just like everyone else. Tell me, how many people rejected you before they took pity?"

"Shut up!" I slammed my tree-arm into the ground. The ginkgo roots erupted through concrete, heading toward him like spears.

Lung didn't even blink. The floor beneath him twisted, redirecting my roots into empty air.

"Poor little girl. Always pushing people away then wondering why you're alone. Even that girl Qing Qing. You don't really care about her, did you? Just desperate for anyone who'd tolerate your presence."

"SHE'S MY FRIEND!" I launched myself at him, morphing my wooden arm into a blade.

"Is she?" Lung materialized behind me. "Or just another replacement for the your precious one who abandoned you?"

I spun around, but he was already gone. The walls kept shifting, boxing me in tighter and tighter while that bastard's words were burrowing into my head like poison.

But I wasn't about to let this bastard cage me. My wood arm erupted into branches, ripping through it. I rode a wave of wood straight at Lung's face.

"You don't know shit!"

Lung's jade eye flashed, sending my branches spiraling into nothing. Pain exploded in my chest as something pierced through me.

I plummeted, his words echoing: Just another replacement...

Replacement. The word burned worse than the wound. Was that all Qing Qing was to me? Someone to fill the Inorin-shaped hole in my life?

NO! I slammed my wooden fist into my face.

Qing Qing isn't Inorin. She's the girl who laughs whenever she caught me talking to Peng, the one who gets me to try food I'd never touch otherwise, the one who trusted me enough to share her deepest pain about her sister.

And Inorin... that drunk who took in the problem child without hesitation. Who sang off-key to help me feel better. Who never gave up on me even when I pushed her away.

They weren't replacements for each other. They were both irreplaceable.

Tears streamed upward as I fell, and a warm sensation spread from my chest. The ginkgo leaf I still clutched began to illuminate. From somewhere below, roots thick as buildings erupted, branches unfurling. My giant tree filled the entire realm, and as its leaves brushed my skin, I finally understood.

I wasn't alone. I never had been.

Branches thick as buildings shot upward, carrying me back toward Lung where he stood perfectly still, seeming unsurprised. 

"Impressive display. But you seem to forget whose realm this is."

Jade-colored light blazed down his other arm. The buildings throughout his realm groaned, their walls and floors twisting and aimed at me.

I couldn't help but smirk. "Your realm? You sure about that?"

I held up my wooden arm. The ginkgo's power pulsed through me, a warmth that reminded me of every moment Inorin believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself.

SNAP

The sound echoed like thunder in the realm. Branches and roots exploded outward, wrapping around every building Lung tried to control. The buildings struggled against my embrace, but the ginkgo's grip only tightened.

Lung's jade eye widened. "Impossible...!"

A laugh burst from my chest. "You see it now? I was never alone. Every precious memory, every moment she stood by me. "They're all right here!"

The ginkgo's leaves rustled with my words, carrying the echo of an off-key nursery rhyme.

Lung's face twisted as he tried forcing the buildings to crush me, but my tree just laughed it off, its branches wrapping tighter around the concrete and steel. The buildings cracked and buckled under the pressure.

"You little-"

"What's wrong, bastard?" The ginko responded to my taunt, branch shooting out toward Lung like nature's 'fuck you.'

I sprinted along the branch. Lung's eye widened as I closed in. His mouth opened, probably his last words.

My fist cut him off. The impact rattled through my arm as I caught him right in that smug face. The force sent him plummeting until he crashed into a thick branch below.

I landed on a nearby branch that curved up to catch me. That's when something caught my eye. Lung's precious pagoda lay on its side a few feet away with a nasty crack down its middle. And from inside...

"Help me… Kuroha..."

My heart stopped. That voice. "Qing Qing?"

I snatched up the pagoda, hands trembling. Her voice echoed again, desperate and afraid.

Rage boiled up inside me. This fucker had been keeping her trapped in here this whole time?

With a roar, I snapped the pagoda in half. Light began erupting from the break, blinding me. When my vision cleared, several figures materialized in mid-air.

"KUROHA!"

A familiar weight slammed into me as Qing Qing crashed into my chest, nearly knocking us both off the branch. Her arms squeezed tight enough to crack my already cracked ribs.

"Can't... breathe..." I wheezed.

"I knew you'd come!" Qing Qing buried her face in my shoulder. "I just knew it!"

"'Course I came. Won't leave a friend behind. Not anymore."

A groan echoed from below. Lung pushed himself up, his perfect face now a bruised from my punch. His eye blazed with fury as he spotted the broken pagoda.

"You insignificant-"

Something blurred past me. A woman who looked like an older, deadlier version of Qing Qing appeared before Lung. Her blade flashed once, twice - then Lung fell to his knees with a thud.

"Been wanting to do that for ages," she sighed, flicking blood from her sword.

I gaped. "Ugh..."

"Oh, that's just my sister." Qing Qing waved dismissively. "Don't mind her vendetta against that bastard."

Qing Qing finally took in our surroundings: the massive ginkgo tree dominating the realm, crushed buildings, overall destruction.

"You've got some explaining to do, Kuroha. Over drinks, of course."