"Why are you crying? Did someone spot you, or did somebody bully you?"
The moment Kai'Sa returned safely, Zihark had just started to relax when he saw her remove her helmet, eyes red-rimmed. He immediately grew worried.
Kai'Sa said nothing. She simply held out a wooden comb.
Zihark took it and froze. Why a comb of all things?
"Let's go back down before we talk. It's not very hidden here."
Once they were back in a more open area, Kai'Sa's tears had already stopped. Zihark held up the comb and went straight to the point.
"Did you take this because I said I'd get you a comb?"
He had deliberately chosen the word "take" instead of "steal," sparing what remained of her pride after it had already been hurt once.
Kai'Sa nodded, then shook her head. It was only half true.
She had taken the comb because she thought it was the cheapest thing there, the one that would make her feel the least guilty. But she had not expected that even the smallest amount of guilt would still weigh on her so heavily she could barely breathe.
When she stayed silent, Zihark lifted the comb as if he meant to use it on her hair.
Kai'Sa immediately stumbled back in alarm, as though the comb were more terrifying than any monster.
"If you won't even use it, then why take it at all?" Zihark sighed. He knew part of the blame was his. He had always assumed things like this did not matter underground, so he had rarely taught her much about dealing with people.
There was nothing strange about Kai'Sa liking such things. If she had stolen something, then a lecture and that would have been the end of it.
But stealing something, then feeling this tormented over it—that was not normal.
Under Zihark's questioning, Kai'Sa finally spoke, but not to answer him directly.
"If I didn't have this horrible skin, would I be able to buy the things I like, just like other girls?"
Zihark quietly pressed his lips together.
So it really had come back to this.
With the voidskin on her, she could not just be an ordinary girl. Something as simple as a small happiness was beyond her reach, and that hurt.
But had she thought about the other side of it? Was invisibility something an ordinary girl could have?
She did not like the invisibility? Thought the voidskin was ugly? Thought brute force did not suit her?
Then what about that perfect figure of hers? Ordinary girls could not manage that either.
Kai'Sa was still looking at the issue too narrowly.
"It's true, a girl who can't go shopping is pretty pitiful. But that has nothing to do with taking someone else's things. Good girls don't do that."
This time, even Zihark did not defend her, and that only made Kai'Sa feel more clearly that she really had done wrong.
"I haven't used it yet. Can I still return it?"
Zihark did not answer right away. Instead, he quietly pulled a gold coin from a gap in his armor and placed it in Kai'Sa's hand.
"Why do you even have money?" Kai'Sa stared at him, stunned. But she understood almost at once. It had come from the bird seller's inheritance.
"Go put the money back quietly. Then it'll count as buying the comb."
He knew this was not exactly the right way to teach her, but Kai'Sa's situation was special, and he could tell how much she wanted that comb.
"But they still didn't agree to sell it to me. Doesn't that still count as forcing the sale?" Kai'Sa became conflicted again.
"That much money could buy dozens of combs like that. Merchants live for profit. They won't refuse. But don't do this again. Just bear with it a little longer. When the time comes, I'll go shopping with you properly."
"Okay..." Kai'Sa was already moved, and immediately started to turn back toward the market, only for Zihark to stop her in a hurry.
"Aren't you hungry? Tomorrow. Don't go back today."
Invisibility consumed energy. And the less energy they had, the hungrier the voidskin became. Sometimes Zihark wondered whether one day, if they got too hungry and found too little to eat, the voidskin would turn on them instead.
"Let's go hunt."
"Oh."
By now Kai'Sa was still a little dazed, so she obediently followed behind Zihark while he kept lecturing her.
"I'm starting to suspect you did it on purpose. You stole the comb just so you'd have an excuse to go back up again, didn't you? That tiny bit of cleverness of yours—I saw through it ages ago."
"I did not!" Kai'Sa snapped back in complaint.
At first she had felt wronged, but the moment she realized he had, in a roundabout way, just called her clever, her mood improved all at once.
Following the "radar" in his mind, Zihark traced the movements of nearby Void creatures and led them deeper down again. Even now, while Kai'Sa was still wrapped up in her longing for the beauty of the world above, she had no idea how fragile that beauty was, delicate as a dream balanced on a cicada's wing.
They came to a limestone cave to hunt. The glow on the cave walls did not come from the walls themselves, but from something beyond them, something from another dimension shining up from below.
And suddenly they both felt that same familiar unease.
"Don't tell me..."
Zihark looked down the sloping ground and saw a lake of violet light, its surface reflecting ripples from another world.
And the creatures living above ground knew nothing about it.
He realized something horrifying.
This settlement had been built directly above an abyss.
The two of them locked eyes, both frowning, both understanding at once just how serious this was.
This abyss lay dangerously close to the surface.
Which made it doubly dangerous.
The moment the Void creatures discovered the people above, the whole settlement would be wiped out in a single night, erased from the edge of Shurima as though it had never existed.
"Zihark, we have to do something. We have to save them!" The sight of the world above had affected Kai'Sa deeply. She could not stand by and do nothing.
Part of it was her conscience. The other part was that she could not just let the Void continue devouring and growing stronger.
This time it was only a small settlement. The next time, it could be a town.
Especially after Zihark had told her that nearly half of Shurima's underground had already been hollowed out by Void creatures, this was no longer a matter of if, but when.
Zihark knew Kai'Sa's nature well enough. Her kindness would never let her stand aside while people were swallowed by the Void.
She knew she was unique. Beneath the world people lived in, poison was flowing like a river, and she was the antidote.
That sense of responsibility had already awakened in her. It would be very hard to turn her away from it now.
So he did not try to crush this thankless, exhausting impulse of hers, not even knowing that in the end the people above might deny everything she did to save them.
"How do we save them? Do you have a plan?" Zihark asked, resting a hand on his chin and pretending to think.
Kai'Sa still had no idea that this would become the greatest setback of her life. After serious thought, she answered, "We can't seal the abyss. Void creatures will keep crawling out of it forever. So we need to make the people above move away."
"They won't move easily. In the desert, relocation is expensive." Zihark curled his lip slightly, thinking that Kai'Sa had clearly never seen the true power of stubborn holdouts.
"Nothing is more important than life. If they won't move, then we threaten them with death!" Kai'Sa clenched her fist, her expression fully serious now.
"Threatening them is fine. But we can't come into direct contact with them. Best case, they move from start to finish without ever knowing we were involved."
"Haa... that's so hard!" Kai'Sa had originally been thinking of going up there and simply scaring them away.
But she had not thought it through. Humans were creatures that gathered together. One person might fear her.
But what about several hundred?
The answer would leave her badly shaken.
"Exactly," Zihark said quietly, lowering his head, his gaze deep and unreadable.
He had never once imagined this would be easy to solve.
[End of chapter]