Page 42 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“Wait, really?” Kaiyo stopped in his tracks. Mori paused with him.
“Yes. I’m guessing by your expression we should have told you.”
“Well, it’s good that I know now. I have an idea.” Kaiyo walked towards Mori, standing right in front of him. He was distracted for a moment by his features, his masculine jaw and stubble offset by the delicacy of the gloss on his lips, the faint darkness around his eyes.
“I think I may know what the problem is. Do you think you could do a half-moon shift now?”
“I can try.”
“I’ll need to put my hands on your face and feel your Ousía.”
Mori’s eyes twinkled. “Go right ahead.”
Kaiyo hesitated a moment at Mori’s teasing tone. It had been a long time since Kaiyo felt that fluttering in his stomach.
Discarding his discomfiture for the task at hand, Kaiyo cupped his palms on either side of Mori’s face before closing his eyes.
“Shift,” Kaiyo asked softly.
There was a long pause and then the bones and muscles beneath Kaiyo’s hands began changing. The skin sprouted long, thick hair. The eye sockets became deeper, moving Kaiyo’s fingers, the ridges over them more pronounced, the jaw elongated to resemble a muzzle.
With the access Mori had granted him, Kaiyo could feel his Ousía shifting too. The instincts that were pulled to the moon, to the land, to—
“There,” Kaiyo said, opening his eyes. He looked at Mori’s half-moon face just inches away. It took him a moment to lower his hands and step away. “I’ve found it. You can shift back if you want. Thank you.”
Mori’s face turned human once again. “Find something interesting?” he asked.
“Let’s go.”
They walked through the forest with renewed purpose. The mist seemed to part for them, the leaves rustling in the wind. Now that Kaiyo had identified it, he could feel the sick pull of what he was following.
“Ah. There,” Kaiyo said, pointing at a spot between two trees. Mori frowned.
“I can’t see anything.”
“No, but it’s there. Stay here, I don’t know if it’s safe.”
“Safe for you, is it?”
“Safer, anyway. Stay here.”
“As you wish.”
“Don’t sass me.”
“Ah, I’ll choose a Japanese movie next time,” Mori teased. Kaiyo rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but grin.
The smile dropped as he approached the space between the trees. Mori was right. To the eye, there was nothing there. But to Kaiyo’s searching Ousía, there lay a wound.
Kaiyo inspected it, reaching out very carefully with his Ousía. This was no accidental lesion, but a deliberately dealt laceration. Someone had cut through the membrane between the physical and the Ousía and demanded that the land pay the price.
“God. And just for easy access. Do you know the meaning of what you were doing?” he muttered rhetorically.
Kaiyo placed a soothing hand on the forest floor, as empathetic for the land as he was frustrated at the selfishness of the person who had deemed their convenience more important than the earth around them.
“Let’s heal you up,” Kaiyo said before turning to look at Mori. “Come on over. It’s safe. For now—although you’d feel the effects if you stayed here too long.”
“What is it?” Mori asked, walking to crouch next to Kaiyo.
