Imbalance: Book 1

Chapter 3 (Fuel to the Flame)

"Come on, we can't just stay here all day." Selva said to Yujin. He was growing extremely frustrated with how little Yujin trusted him. He'd literally just saved her, yet he could tell that she didn't quite know what she thought about him just yet. Yujin stood up with a sigh, dusted off her hanfu, and said to Selva,
"Nobody from the wood district ever comes here, so why now? Why do you show up, after the massacre of my people, when you never even came to us in the first place?" She said this so calmly, yet her voice was filled with such anger that Selva felt a bit concerned. 
"I-" he began, then stopped himself. Yujin looked over at him, her eyes ablaze. "You what?" She snapped. Selva looked into her eyes and continued saying what he'd started to. 
"I'm like you. I'm actually not even with the wood district." He said sadly. "They banished me because of my abilities. They called me evil." Selva could see Yujin's expression soften a bit, but almost as quickly as it did, it was replaced with a scowl.
"Please. You and I? We're nothing alike." She spat. "You weren't locked up, you weren't put in a dungeon, cut off from the rest of the world. You didn't have to witness a massacre!" 
Selva looked up at her after she finished. But something about him was... different. His eyes, they were filled with a manic look, and they'd changed color. His eyes used to be green, with his left eye a bit bluer than the other, but now, now one was orange and the other was yellow. Yujin gasped, and took a step backwards, and almost as soon as it had happened, Selva let out a defeated sigh, and his eyes reverted back to their normal state. Selva looked at her again, and he quietly said "We are more alike than you think." 
Yujin smirked, all surprise from what had just happened turning into sarcasm. "Okay, Mr. Elementalist, why is it that you're here?"
Selva was quite shocked by the sudden change of tone, and he stammered, "J-just a feeling I guess."
Yujin scoffed, surprised at how weak he was compared to what he'd just turned into. She felt a tremendous amount of power then, power that definitely matched hers. She smirked, and asked, "A feeling? Is that so? I get that you're an elementalist, but nobody comes to the aftermath of a war because of a feeling. It's energy, you idiot." She said all this before it even registered that she was going to say it. She was just so frustrated and wasn't thinking straight. "Why here, of all places? Why specifically this district?" Her anger was growing, but she didn't care at this point. "Let me guess, one of those water district assholes hired you, to come look for any spare survivors, and finish the job? Are you here to end the fire district for good?"
Selva just stood in silence until Yujin stopped spiraling into her hate. He calmly replied to her,
"No, I'm not here to kill anybody. And why would they hire me in the first place?" He gazed directly into Yujin's eyes as he asked this, and Yujin found herself strangely calmed. She sighed, and softly said one word.
"Fear."
She continued to speak. "They'd hire people to do it because they'd be too afraid to do it themselves, too afraid to kill the survivors, yet their initial fear caused all this." Yujin gestured to the ruins around them. "Also the fact that wood is neutral to fire and water, so it'd make sense."
Selva pondered that for a moment, then finally nodded and said,
"Yes, that would be a reasonable assumption, but I vow that it is not the reason I'm here." He said this without removing his gaze from her eyes.
"Then why?" Yujin asked again. "What is it that made you come here?"
Selva finally looked away from her eyes, and said "I told you, you and I are alike, you're an elementalist too, am I wrong? What luck, that the last of your kind happens to be an elementalist. I felt your power, and I had to see if it was too good to be true." Selva looked at her again, and asked her, "Does it make sense now?" 
Yujin nodded, and averted her gaze from his. She then said, quite tauntingly, "That's funny, though. I didn't feel anything from you."