44.iii A Diamond Body

~ Anari ~

“Sorry we’re late,” Sun Bai said as he removed his waist-jacket and took his seat among his serpentine business partners.

While tea was being poured and Bai was getting caught up on the events beyond the glass-encased club lounge, Anari took her place just outside of where they sat, along with the other assassins accompanying their respective professionals. They all greeted each other with the subtlest of nods. There would be time to catch up with her associates later when they were not on duty.

How like Sun Bai to use a sporting event as a chance to talk business. While he was getting comfortable with his contemporaries, Anari was trying to process everything that she had learned on that unsettling monorail ride.

The spider spirit admitted that she only recently became aware that being a part of Bai’s growing monolith for so long had put her in close proximity with the inner workings of something big. Something that not only could, but was actively trying to take over the Ninth Heaven. When did it happen, Anari wondered. When had Bai gone from wanting a fair, functioning spirit world to wanting complete control?

“It appears that we have a nice mix of both traditional and nontraditional staff wielding styles this year, Dan.”

Anari lifted her gaze from the bosses deep in conversation and out at the sudden death disaster taking place on the other side of the glass. She would have switched her attention back to her primary objective if not for the twinkle of something slender and jade on the platform.

Anari almost let her jaw slip open. She caught herself and blinked instead. All eight of her eyes adjusted under her glamour before she focused them intentionally on what she prayed was just a play of the light.

~ Rainbow koi in flight…

She remembered a festival celebrating peaches.

~ Constant light bouncing off their scales onto smooth tiled walls of a shallow domain…

She remembered a heaven hall devoted to perfect light.

~ Bouncing back again,

And the spirit who shared these moments with her–

~ in prismatic radiance…

He was right in front of her.

~ Fruity nectar ten thousand years in the making drips from his handsome god king lips

She could not believe it.

~ As he watches the rainbow scales fight for dominance.