Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. There had been Anaku coming to confront Mino or to attack the people of his village, but they had never been more than skirmishes. Mino wasn’t the strongest Anaku in the region, but he could hold his own through more than just sheer power, for his predecessor taught him more than how to blow things up. But this time, he would have to dig deep inside of him to come out of this one alive and protect the people, because his senses were telling him that not only had another Anaku come into the premises of the village, but he had brought something with him that had the potential to destroy not only him, but his people too. While he couldn’t claim the residents of Nonha his people, he did have the highest rank among the fifty odd people, second only to the chief. The two never did see eye to eye much, but the chief was an admirable woman who stood firm in her beliefs.

Setting down the piece of walrus that he was munching on, Mino crawled out of his semi-subterranean home and poked his head out. According to his senses, whatever the other Anaku had brought with him was inching closer, and he had to stop them. In order to stay as concealed as possible, Mino metamorphosed into a little shrew and crawled west, toward the setting sun. Along the way, he felt the evil things drawing nearer, feeling as if they were huge monsters. What else could raze his beautiful home to the ground? The spirits of the world were agitated, Mino could tell, so he called on them for aid, asking them to bring up an earthen wall to at least slow down their progress.

“That will do no good, friend,” a spirit in the form of another shrew next to him said. “These are not things we can help you with. I am also afraid that you cannot stand against them either. Go to the other Anaku and plead with him. If he continues to use this power, he will become a dictator, a tyrant. He has already demolished several villages, and even killed Anaku with this new power. Stop him. You must stop him.”

When Mino looked at her, she was already gone. As soon as the spirits’ message was delivered, Mino sensed a silence among them, though he wished it were one of peace. He knew that they were going to watch him to see if he could help in any way. Even the spirits knew that while he was not the most powerful of Anaku, he was one of the most cunning and, at times, eloquent. Mino himself could admit to his flaws – he could be hasty when anger clouded his judgement; he was prone to lash out at villagers who doubted his power or mocked him – but he knew there was a reason even the chief respected him. Sure, the Anaku were the mediators between the physical and the spiritual world, but even if Mino weren’t, he would still be in high standing. Regardless, the spirits’ words were unsettling. If they were right, then maybe Mino would not be able to stop the other Anaku, armed with this unstoppable weapon.

Even though the evil things were passing above him, which he strangely couldn’t see, Mino trudged on toward the other Anaku. His feeling of dread was getting heavier and heavier, and he even contemplated just running away to live in the ocean several times. Still, he swallowed his the lump in his throat and trudged on, not only for himself, but for his people. And for the chief who lost her husband several years back and hadn’t taken another one, saying she had enough heirs.

Ahead of him, Mino could see the form of another Anaku, and that gave him pause; usually, when Anaku came to confront other Anaku, they would assume the form of the animal they most identified with, though it would be blatantly obvious that it was a metamorphosis either through increased size or the display of their powers. Never had Mino seen an Anaku coming to another village in his own form before, and this worried him even more. Was this man that confident in his assault? In any case, the evil things were approaching the villagers, and Mino didn’t have much time left.

The other Anaku looked down in Mino’s direction and smiled evilly, as if he was waiting for this exact moment.

“It has taken you long enough,” the other Anaku chuckled.

Mino transformed back into his human form and took an offensive stance. “You are not welcome here, neither are your minions.”

The other Anaku chuckled again and turned away. Mino was taken aback yet again. In a confrontation, you could not trust anyone behind your back, because they could have the earth swallow you up, or throw a spear at you. The arrogance of this other Anaku was infuriating, but Mino tried to keep his calm.

“My name is Seungyoon, if you didn’t know,” the other Anaku turned his head and proclaimed. “Also, you and I share the same father.”

Mino couldn’t reply to that, but he thought that Seungyoon had to be lying. After all, his father was an honorable man who wouldn’t leave anyone knowing they were with child. Mino knew this because he tried to model himself after his father, though he fell short many times. Still, if this was true, then…

“The spirits must have told you,” Seungyoon continued, “that I have killed Anaku before, so why else do you think I spared you? Many of the others didn’t even have the time to see me, let alone stop me. But you… I have been wanting to meet you since the day my mother told me about our father. Indeed, I have seen him, and you, and the rest of his children in my dreams. You look much older than when I last saw you, but I knew you would be here. Our father was a very foolish man.”

“You know nothing about him,” Mino snarled, ready to pounce at any moment. “He was a great and honorable man, and he raised me well.”

The scoff Seungyoon gave only fueled Mino’s frustration more, as did his next words.

“Honorable man, sure. It was very honorable of him to my mother, then leave her in the middle of the snowy desert. It was also honorable of him to turn her away when she came to him, pleading him to acknowledge their soon-to-be child. He knew nothing of honor, as you know nothing of it either, haunting villagers’ dreams when they so much as give you a wrong look, cursing families with stillborns and ‘accidents,’ not even showing your loving half-brother one speck of hospitality.”

“As if you know of honor,” Mino shouted, now unable to control that fire deep in his gut, “destroying villages, killing Anaku! Even the spirits are not pleased with you!” The earth rumbled in response to his unconscious exercising of his power.

“The spirits,” Seungyoon turned toward the north, “they are nothing to us, as we are nothing to them. Do you think they really care about us?”

“They provide us with our food and good weather!”

“They also live somewhere where we can never be. A paradise. If they really did care about us, would they not take us to live with them in their heavenly home? They are selfish, and it is time that we break the barrier between our world and theirs and take over their kingdom.”

“That will not mean we will live in paradise. It means we would destroy it. The spirits’ land is not meant for humans.”

Mino turned jerked around to face his village when he felt the evil things disappear, though he could feel a lingering malice similar to the sense of death that ades a deserted village. But this one was not of a death of the past, it was of a death to come. Mino’s anger was provoked anew, and he transformed into a mighty beast with a great jaw and a green scaly body on all fours to attack his supposed half-brother. Seungyoon merely raised his hand and Mino was bound head to toe, and another raised hand brought him back to his human form. Mino could only growl as Seungyoon continued to smirk.

“Brother,” Seungyoon said just at the edge of audibility, “I will leave you to judge whether or not what I am going to do to you is a mercy.”

“Do your worst,” Mino struggled against the invisible fetters holding his body.

All of a sudden, Seungyoon burst out laughing and released his half-brother, then jumped backwards and flipped his body face-down and flew away. Mino watched the other Anaku fly away and contemplated jumping up and flying as well when he remembered the evil things invading the village. It seemed that there was one that invaded each house, and worry immediately replaced his worry, which drove him to change into a crane and began his flight home. Although Mino was worried about the village as a whole, he headed for the chief’s home first and dropped down into the entrance, quickly crawling into the main room. He could still feel the lingering evil that Seungyoon had sent, so he was expecting anything from altercations to bodies rendered unrecognizable on the floor, but when he pulled back the curtain and looked inside, the chief and her three children were eating on the floor without a care in the world.

“Did anything come in?” Mino asked urgently.

The family said that there was nothing that bothered them, and Mino was surprised to hear the same thing from every home and family that he visited that day. This should have been a comfort to him, but he could still sense the evil working just under the surface. He knew that something was going to happen, but he could only wait to see just what that was. And the more important question was whether or not he could do anything to counter something that many other Anaku had failed to stop, some probably even more powerful than Mino was.

I will leave you to judge whether or not what I am going to do to you is a mercy.

Several weeks after Seungyoon’s attack, Mino found himself unable to heal a sickness for the first time. The little boy and his mother in front of him had come to him several days earlier complaining of a persistent cough that would not go away with their berry concoctions, or their purifying smokes. Mino had tried telling them to purify not only their bodies, but their entire homes and isolate themselves in their home for the process to take effect. When the two sent a messenger to his house, he took his amulet, which served as a magnifying link between him and his mirror spirit that gave him his powers and his Anaku staff with the bones of various animals dangling off of it. Needless to say, the messenger’s news was worrisome enough, but his stomach sank in despair when he saw the pot off to the side filled with blood. The mother and son were covered in sweat, and the sight in front of him could make the toughest of men cry. The little boy was laying on the usual grass mat struggling to breathe, but his loving mother had taken several pieces of clothing to make it softer to lay on, even using the rest of the clothing to add to the blanket. His mother didn’t look any better, but she was still working as hard as she could to keep them both fed. The mother greeted him warmly despite her sickness.

“Please, lay down next to your son,” Mino tried to smile, but his heart was too heavy.

As soon as everything in the house was still, Mino put the amulet in his mouth and his mirror spirit came and took over his body. The body of Mino raised his staff and he started a singing sort of chant with words that were on the edge of intelligibility. He asked for the Great Man of All to grant him the power to dispel the evil that had taken over the bodies of the two laying in front of him, and the bones of his staff began to glow and sparkle. Mino’s mirror spirit continued to chant and asked for the help of many spirits to aid him, such as the Lady of the Ocean and the Brothers of the Land, and they all lent their power, causing the staff to glow in many different colors and even emitting a hum.

As soon as the mirror spirit had asked for all the help he could get, he put the glowing end of his staff and his free hand over the space between the mother and the son and began his chanting again. Healing was always such a strange feeling: the mirror spirit felt as if he were in a big dark field, where there were guards all over, though most of these now were wounded or dying, and the invading forces needed to be exorcised. The problem was, there didn’t seem to be any monsters in the area, though he knew that there were some nearby. As the spirit watched, he was horrified to see one of the body’s guard’s eyes roll back as he was frothing at the mouth and convulsing. It was long until the guard stopped moving, and the spirit knew that it was hopeless. Whatever was attacking the body could not be helped.

When Mino came to himself again with the amulet out of his mouth, he saw that the two afflicted ones still didn’t seem any better. In previous years, he had seen and known that the spirit had healed people, but these two weren’t, he could tell. In despair, he stood up and left as the mother and son were seized by another coughing fit, spitting blood whenever they had a moment’s respite. In a matter of days, they would bury the two in their own home and nail their most prized possessions unto the grave marker that was their house.

As the weeks went by, there were more and more households that were dying off, and eventually, Mino held the last resident of the village in his arms.

The chief.

“I love you,” the chief whispered. “I know what people said about you, but I knew that you were a good man in your heart.”

Mino’s eyes had been welling over with tears as the chief was slowly losing coherency. They had been mostly in this same position for three days.

“Do not mourn over me,” she continued, “for I know the spirits will take care of me. And of you. You need not worry about me, please do not make me worry about you as I watch you until the day you die. If you find someone else, know that I love you enough to let you be happy as you live. I will not haunt your future wife.” She tried to laugh, but it turned into a series of coughs interlaced with several spits of blood.

Mino tried to be strong throughout this whole ordeal, but he found himself crying for hours on end until his body was as worn as the woman he loved. The chief tried to comfort Mino as many times as she could, but she was getting more and more delirious as the hours passed, until finally in the middle of the night, she closed her eyes and her spirit left for the other world.

That night, there was a great cry that could be heard for miles around, and Seungyoon, from the edge of the ocean where he was beholding its beauty, smiled as the last of his work took effect. He knew that either Mino would be driven mad by his thirst for vengeance now, or he would be broken, and therefore pliable. He really hoped it was the latter, but he knew he could hold his ground against his half-brother, for he was stronger.

From the entrance to the home of his beloved, Mino crawled out, his muscles aching from having stayed in the house for so long, but this man was not the same. This man’s eyes were different, his gentle face was now marred. Blind rage burned behind his eyes, and the lips that were so prone to smiling were now set in a snarl like a savage beast. Mino jumped up ten feet in the air and transformed into his signature crane. The crane was prey for many of the people, but this time, Mino was going to be the hunter. By sparing him, Seungyoon was not granting him a mercy, but gave him a reason to kill. Nothing would stand in his way now that he had nothing left to lose.

Mino would confront his half-brother and eradicate him from the face of the earth.