Reborn!

47: The Realms Between

Sakura watched with deadened numbness as the three leaders of the Phoenix race engaged in a very physical battle with each other.

Aoi was looking down his nose at the three mythical birds in disdain.

He clicked his tongue. "And these are the fabled Phoenixes of legend."

There were no fancy variously attributed flames being tossed around, as would come to mind when one imagined such a scene. The three were just pecking and clawing at each other with their sharp beaks and talons. There was a flurry of feathers as the hallowed blood of the holy beasts was shed in the Phoenix Realm.

Sakura thought that the Phoenix race could not sully its image further than it had already done, but that was when a few younger phoenixes swooped into the fray.

She had to admit that she was worried about them -- a quarter of the three leaders' respective wingspans at maximum, the birds looked tiny compared to Elrick, Oswald and Yvonne. It would have been terrible if they were caught in the crossfire. Their unrefined form of combat aside, Sakura could tell that the trio was powerful. The smaller phoenixes would be shredded if they were accidentally struck by their leaders' claws.

Or at least she was until the three Phoenix monarchs politely shifted the battle site to give the young access.

The little ones dove in and began to gather the fallen feathers, sorting them according to owner into three baskets with uncanny efficiency. It was evident that this was a practised procedure, and she had a sinking feeling that this was far from a rare occurrence in the mythical summons' realm. She recalled the regal woman dressed in a gorgeous purple kimono and the inhumanly beautiful twins who were so collected and proper.

Those elegant beings... were nowhere in sight. She remembered being told, at some point, that the Phoenix race looked down on the Kirin race for the latter being all brawn and no brain. With that being the case, what was going on here?

"They have been like this for how long now?" Sakura finally asked the Great Elder, a deceptively young-looking girl next to her.

Sakura knew that this was the oldest phoenix remaining in the realm. She was on her nine hundred and ninety-ninth samsara, though it had just started. The Great Elder's newly-reformed body was that of a child's, and it would only fully mature in half a century. There were a few ways to expedite this process, but they shortened the duration of a cycle and the Great Elder frowned upon it. If Sakura counted nine hundred and ninety-nine full samsaras, she could estimate the elder to be four hundred and ninety-nine thousand years old. A complete samsara, for a member of the Phoenix race, was five hundred years, an incredibly long time in human society. They thus counted their age in the number of rebirths they have undergone. Each time they faded to ashes and were reborn anew, they added one plume feather to a shrine safeguarded by the Great Elder -- the position held by the oldest surviving member of the race.

In every rebirth, there was a chance for a phoenix's existence to be extinguished permanently. When that happened, the enshrined feathers of that phoenix would lose their lustre and turn ash grey. Such an occurrence was not based on luck or chance -- it meant that the phoenix no longer had any will to live. Unlike other mythical races, the Phoenix race had the option to end their immortal lives other than dying in battle.

It was sad to see a loved one go, but the three clans celebrated each lost member's final rest. A phoenix's first plume feather that commemorated the first rebirth, on the other hand, was special. It would remain coloured even after a phoenix perished. This feather was precious to a phoenix, an item they would entrust to the being they most trusted in life after they died.

The remaining feathers, together with the ashes, would be scattered into the eternal flames of their birthplace, tying the phoenix's end to their beginning.