Saint Seiya: The Legend of Seiya

35 - A Chinese Tale

The bright green grass of the Rozan peaks was especially beautiful at that time, the trees gnarled in their trunks with pretty leafy frames. The mighty waterfalls scattered across the mist-free rivers at that time of year. Serpentine smoke escaping from a small chimney of a pagoda erected in the middle of a distant peak.

And within, a deepest darkness.

The vibrant colors of the surrounding red privets and maples were lost in the doorway of a sliding door. The door ran and out came an old man very wrinkled, walking in difficulties with the help of a cane; his beard almost touching his knees was the only thing to see under a huge bamboo hat.

The house lost even more color when the old man left it. In the kitchen, a girl happily worked, whose voice was still the only color a very sick person could appreciate, sunk in her lost pit.

She heard, night after night, the voice of her friends calling her; her hands falter, groping the emptiness, stumbling over her mistakes and anguish to almost always wake up startled from a nightmare. Panting. Sad.

"Shiryu." said the voice. "Have you had another nightmare?"

It was Shunrei, the only color she could still see.

She didn't answered as she knew Shunrei was always worried about her sleepless nights.

"I need to change your bandages."

Inside, Shiryu felt very bad for her, because since returning home, Shunrei, very moved, sought knowledge in neighboring regions; she read guidebooks and antiques day after day looking for anything that might help her. But to no avail.

And there she was waking up for another day. Shiryu put her hands behind her neck and untied the carefully placed sashes Shunrei had made.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you."

She had eyes still, different from the Compassion bodhisattva in the story she told to Saori; but her eyes, if they couldn't see at all, certainly caused her a lot of discomfort, as they were still very sensitive after the surgical procedure. She was always under a lot of pain.

Deep down, she knew Shunrei was looking for a way to make her see again. It was not just alleviating her pain that she sought, but giving her back all the colors.

The pain she felt, really was something that Shunrei could ease and for that Shiryu was very grateful.

Even though she couldn't see anything, Shiryu couldn't explain it, but she was sure that, knowing that her dressings and herbs had worked, Shunrei was smiling. As if the air moved almost imperceptibly when the girl was excited.

"Today I'm going to the small lake of Luhua." she said. "They say that there are herbs growing in there that can help you."

"Shunrei..." Shiryu began. "I am very grateful to you. But..."

"Don't start this again, Shiryu." said her friend, moved.

"Not even the Old Master knows how it would be possible to cure my eyes. You know that too."

She heard Shunrei's breath falter. The wooden board creaked, and Shiryu knew this happened whenever her friend walked in and out of her room; she didn't left quickly, angry, but calmly, curled up. She came back, more firm.

"Don't give up!" she said. "Xiaoling and the others must be expecting some good news from you."

Shiryu remembered Xiaoling, who had brought her to her house; the whole trip talking nonsense, making her laugh, pulling her hand in the traffic and, at the last moment, also explaining with great pain what had happened to her to both Master and Shunrei.