《（最游记同人）镜里镜外》作者：未知
    Saiyuki: Through the Looking Glass
    Chapter 1: The Looking Glass
    The walls were stained with dried blood.
    Different blood from different youkai who had united their minds, souls and bodies towards the defense of their king. Primitive politics fused together with a grim sort of innocence found only in lower creatures. A vain battle, but nevertheless bravely fought. Not that he wanted to be contemplating messy skirmishes at this moment. That was for the strategy table and his study, not here.
    Regardless of his weak resolution, a part of his mind was bemusing itself with gruesome thoughts.
    Now those youkai were now...truly...unified. Altogether now as a river of hair and blood upon the castle grounds. Beautiful...that is...to a more morbid eye, but Tenpou did not have a morbid eye. None of this was beautiful, even if it was necessary. He looked all with distaste.
    He hated the red. It made him think of mortality, which (he believed) all gods feared. Then it made him think of losing battles, which was something all soldiers feared. Then it made him think of losing friends...which was something Goku greatly feared. Of course, being a god, Tenpou was beyond that. Should have been beyond that. But if he were truly honest with himself, could never be beyond that.
    Then it made him think of losing himself, as selfish as it was to turn these musings towards his own privileged lot. Tenpou smiled, if not a little morosely. "Sell fish?" Goku would say. He didn't know the meaning of the word, nor did he need to. 'Sell fless' was more fitting for the forbidden child. But Tenpou couldn't be like that, as much as he felt he should be.
    There was too much at risk. The field marshal's arms were already occupied in performing a huge balancing act with "heaven's fate"- the outcome of which he was still unsure- and he wasn't really willing to unburden anybody else for the sake of generosity. Too much at stake and too much to lose. The higher up you are, the harder you fall and Tenpou was high enough to know that gambling recklessly with his own fate was unwise. If he was ever going to die, it wasn't going to be a cheap ticket for anybody.
    Can I hold that for you? A dangerous question.
    It meant involvement with someone else and involvement with someone else complicated the web and jolted the equilibrium of the situation in someone else's favor.
    Hence, the reason he slept with Kenren.
    Tenpou smiled to himself again, this time a little devilishly. First of all it was fun. Can't rule that out completely. But second of all, Kenren never asked questions. Not anymore, at least. And not since they'd started having sex because the General, sensible man that he is, had figured out that if he wanted to keep having sex, then the topic of political motives would have to be shut up tight in some dark corner of his lust-driven, alcohol tinged head. You know the drill, soldier.
    Then there was Konzen, whose tendency not to pry was dissipating every day he saw Goku mope over the inability to see Nataku. "What's wrong with Nataku, Konzen? Konzen...Konzen! What's happening? And who's that mean old man always with him? Why would Nataku rather spend his time with him than me? And why did That nasty old guy hit Ten-chan?"
    That last one was a slip-up. Poor kid. Couldn't keep a secret even his lunch depended on it.
    Anyway, Konzen got riled up, gave Tenpou the third degree, futile as it was, then went straight to Tentei. Straight to the Jade Emperor himself to clear his friend's names, to apologize for them- though his sincerity was a bit strained- and to get the ex-general reinstated. Maybe Goku was getting to him. High marks for selflessness there. And this was Konzen for goodness' sake...
    Konzen-I-don't-care-to-do-anybody-favors-because-you're-all-dust-beneath-my-golden-sandals-Douji.
    Literally, with the 'holier than thou' attitude radiating from him like sunlight.
    Albeit the price for all his kindness was an explanation, reported by Tenpou himself in its abridged, revised, edited, censored and summarized version; which came down to one simple, non-self-explanatory conclusion: All's bad in the holy land. Better start praying.
    Who the hell am I gonna pray to? Konzen growled, but it was enough to keep him at bay.
    But any thoughts of Konzen were quickly pushed away by the grim sensation of stepping in a puddle of still unsolidified blood, staining the edges of his black army boots with acrid crimson. Tenpou swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and kicked any loose drops off his foot, disgusting, then presumed surveying the ghastly empty interior of Gyuumao's castle.
    Two pairs of footsteps echoed throughout the main hall. Kenren was right behind him. Silent for once, but with his finger ready at the trigger.
    "I don't like it." said Kenren, checking the barrel for the eighth time.
    "What's there to like?"
    Nothing. But that, if anything, was self explanatory. "What the hell are you lookin' for anyway? We're not fucking ghostbusters, you know."
    "I never said we were looking for ghosts, General," replied Tenpou, trying to pad up the edge in his voice but wavering. "I distinctly remember telling you that we were going down 'to look.' But if you're scared..."
    "Cut the crap. All I'm goin' to say is that I had better get good compensation for being made to work off duty."
    Tenpou decided to play along. "I'll talk to Goujin about giving you a short vacation in a century or two. Not now though. Busy times."
    "Idiot." That wasn't the type of compensation he had been asking for. "Well, since you were the one who dragged me down here, you have to give the compensation, not Goujin." He shuddered at the thought.
    "Now that you put it that way," the field marshal replied. "I'll give you a..."
    He paused.
    Kenren pushed him to continue, a little hopefulness in his voice. "A..."
    "A hug." replied Tenpou with simple decision.
    "A...hug." Kenren was incredulous.
    "Or is that too intimate?"
    "A hug."
    "What did you think I'd give you?"
    Fine, if the marshal wanted to play the damn innocent, he could very well do it. Kenren had threats. Very good threats.
    "I..." the raven-haired general stated with obstinate resolution, wishing the loudness of his voice (and the provocativeness of the thought) would banish that eerie gut feeling he was getting from this place . "WILL get something VERY, VERY GOOD from you TONIGHT because I ain't prancing around in youkai guts for NOTHING. And you had better promise me something VERY, VERY GOOD or else I'll take you right here and now...on the damn FLOOR and I won't give a damn if the whole western army came in looking for us and found me screwing you senseless. You'll like it so much you won't even see the cadavers when I'm through."
    "Well, if you put it that way, I guess I'll have to..." but his voice faded when he caught sight of a faint glow coming from a far off room. It disappeared. "One moment, please." And he quickened his pace to a slow jog until he reached the decrepit door which housed the "mysterious glowing thing." Farther behind him, he heard Kenren cursing as he smacked his own face with consternation.
    "Dammit Tenpou!"
    "Don't worry, General." he called over his shoulder. "You'll receive fair rewards for your efforts."
    Kenren grinned and vowed to make sure that Tenpou lived up to his word. 'Rewards' not 'reward.' Tonight...will be a very very fine night indeed. Taking the time to make short celebration of this little victory, he lit a cigarette and posted himself outside the door, gun ready, while Tenpou foraged inside. "Hurry up Tenpou, this place is really too fucking creepy. I'm gonna have nightmares."
    "Didn't I say that I'd help you deal with that?" he heard the voice mix with sounds of wooden boxes being open and shut, open and shut.
    Drawers opened and shut, opened and shut.
    Shelves being moved. "You're telling me now, and I'm gonna remember it." Books being opened... "And don't tell me you came here looking for books, dammit!"...and shut.
    But Tenpou didn't answer. After two minutes of random treasure hunting, he found the rumored relic. Supposedly something that one of the demon king's spies stole from heaven years ago.
    So much for border security.
    From beneath a silken cloth, he found a mirror, and upon exposing its pristine surface, he nearly stumbled back from shock. The reflection he saw was not of himself...or it may have been...or might have not...
    His same hair, only shorter. His same face, only kinder. His same ears, only with cuffs. His same eyes, only...with a monocle? His same lips, but instead of the grim line of abject horror Tenpou knew he wore, his reflection simply...smiled.
    It followed his movements...just like any obedient reflection, but the eyes he saw were not obedient eyes.
    "Oi, Tenpou, what's takin so long?"
    He didn't hear Kenren's voice, only a little hum ticking the back of his mind, saying...
    "A pity isn't it? That this isn't hell..." Tenpou whispered the words to himself.
    Then behind his reflection, in the mirror, was a shadow. A specter, hazy and shifting. Tenpou glanced over his shoulder, but there was nothing. He looked back at the mirror. Definitely...something. So he approached the glassy surface, touched its coldness and looked deeper. Into his own strange eyes, but also into that shadow which seemed to move and take shape until his reflection wavered, melted, split like lava prying through the earth's cracks, only to meet the coldest day of winter. There were claws now...teeth so sharp that he could taste the blood they drew from his tongue...
    "Tenpou? You okay?"
    Again, he didn't hear it.
    Suddenly something roared in his ears: wild, vicious and unrestrained. Tenpou tried to stagger back, but found that he couldn't move. His hand was paralyzed, locked palm to palm with that of his mirror image which seemed to oscillate before him...from youkai to that other form. From gentle to malicious, delirous and ripping at the seams.
    He felt pain rushing through his abdomen like a claw being dug into him, felt the rain when he was nowhere near water. It drove him half mad and he cried out, tried to, but no sound emerged from his throat. Rain, hisses, and growls. Grim innocence and the smell of blood. Pouring rain and pouring blood. He hated it and hungered for it, pounding rain and blood pounding through his ears. Then...
    Soft rain, a soft bed, and a voice. "Did you want to die?"
    I don't want to die...it was his last thought.
    The mirror shattered. Now a broken piece of nothing with a bullet hole.
    Five-hundred years later, on a road heading west...
    The jeep screeched to a halt, its driver leaning forward over the wheel, his skin growing pale and his eyes dimming with extreme fatigue.
    "Oi, Hakkai!" Sanzo's harsh tone woke him up.
    "Sorry...Sanzo." Hakkai apologized sheepishly. "I guess I'm just tired, that's all...but I'm fine now. Really. The next town shouldn't be more than ten min-"
    "Just shut up and drive. The faster we get there, the better." He paused, then added in a softer tone, "Sleep later, not now. I'm not in the mood to be road kill."
    "I understand." And so Hakkai continued driving.
    Then...in the midst of an ever so rare and ever so awkward silence that permeated the air, he heard a voice.
    "You okay?"...and it echoed.
    "I'm fine, Gojyo, really."
    The halfbreed lifted a slender brow. "But I didn't even say anything..."
    Chapter 2: Strange Times
    "The other shape, If shape it might be called that shape had none
    Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;
    Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
    For each seemed either; black he stood as night;
    Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;
    And shook a deadly dart. What seemed his head
    The likeness of a kingly crown had on."
    - Milton on Death
    Tenpou sharply shut the book, pointedly ignoring the ache of doubt that had planted itself in his chest. And for a while, the field marshal of the Western Army just sat there, staring blankly at the chaotically colliding dust motes illuminated by his dim desk lamp. His vision blurred, but he squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head and all returned to normal, if only for a while.
    More silence and more dust motes. He blew smoke at them. The cigarette was on its final centimeter.
    Like all heavenly nights, tonight was quiet, a gentle wind blowing at his nape and a glass of sweet wine by his side. Should have been blissful.
    After a moment of thought, Tenpou reached into his desk drawer and pulled out two old reports from the Western Army.
    The first one read like this: "Report to Tenpou Gensui, Field Marshal of Heaven's Western Armies: (the handwriting was Kenren's) The twenty first regiment of the third division, comprised of thirty soldiers was sent to Earth on a surveillance round to investigate possible threats of dormant ice youkai. Not one man of the thirty ever reported back. Permission to organize a rescue mission."
    Tenpou's response: Denied.
    Cold. Yes, he knew that, and had to deal with Kenren's silent treatment for a good week. He truly did care for his men, but something nudged Tenpou's intuition and bid him stay quiet. Think before you leap. Then again, don't leap at all because there's a pit of spikes on the other side...And so he waited as his own relay report filtered its way through the bureaucracy, passing from hand to corrupted hand.
    This is the same report as Konzen had received it several days and departments later:
    "Report to Konzen Douji: The twenty first regiment of the third division, comprised of thirty soldiers was sent to Earth on a surveillance round to investigate possible threats of mobilizing water youkai. Not one man of the thirty ever reported back. It is most certain that the division had strayed away from heaven and the army's leaders have decided to view the situation as abandonment. No drastic action need be taken. Forbidden re-entrance to heaven is sufficient." (He could not decipher the writer of the altered report)
    Like a game of telephone...and dammit his eyesight was wavering again. Eyes were necessary for research, for this tedious handwriting analysis since he couldn't trust anybody's word on who the mysterious author was. But surely, one with enough influence to push this trash all the way up to Konzen who gave the correspondence back to Tenpou.
    "The handwriting's too neat to be yours. Too much flourish to be your dickhead general's."
    The message was never delivered to Tentei.
    He felt like a petty detective instead of a high military man. One disappearance. No witnesses. Two contradicting reports. Needless to say, Kenren's version was the more reliable one.
    Strange times indeed.
    Tenpou squinted harder at the lettering, comparing one note with another, then with another and yet another, until...
    "Dammit Tenpou!" Lately, 'dammit' seemed to be his first name.
    "Yes General?"
    Kenren stood with his arms crossed at the study's entrance, puffing angrily at a newly lit cigarette. "I thought told you to stay put."
    "I'm staying put." replied Tenpou matter-of-factly.
    "I meant in bed."
    The marshal smiled as sweetly as he could manage at that point. "I thought you didn't like frigid partners." But this time Kenren wasn't amused.
    "I don't. I just don't want to take you while you're injured. So until you're better..."
    "I'm not injured. Meandering in dank, dark castles is just a cold waiting to happen."
    "Sick? Gods shouldn't get sick."
    "Kenren," Tenpou interrupted softly, his smile slowly dying. "We're immortal, not invincible."
    That statement seemed to take all the air out of Kenren's lungs and he slouched against the door, uncertain about how to respond. So he just resorted to smoking. The marshal chuckled softly and put the papers back in his drawer, taking care to lock it.
    "What the hell are you laughing at? I'm just pissed that you ain't thinking about what happened. The most dangerous man in heaven, and you're knocked unconscious for two days by a fucking piece of furniture!"
    "That was quality furniture, General, and you shouldn't have destroyed..." He stopped. The humming in the back of his mind was back again. It doesn't mean that you didn't lover her enough...But Kenren never said... "What in the world are talking about Kenren? Didn't love who enough?" His eyesight grew hazy and he stumbled, only to be caught by a pair of strong arms.
    "Hey, hey. Easy now. You just woke up," Kenren soothed, bringing Tenpou back onto his feet and leading him to the bedroom. "What happened in there anyway? Must have been some freaky stuff that messed with your ears because now you're hearing things."
    Tenpou shrugged and sat on the soft mattress, shedding the lab coat and fiddling uselessly with the buttons of his shirt. His hands were shaking and for a while, he thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him as well. Was that his lifeline shrinking?
    "You weren't too far from the truth," he admitted, then looked grudgingly at his own hands. They just couldn't keep still, as if the ground were shaking. "General, could you do me a fav-"
    But he was cut off with a kiss as Kenren gently pushed him flat on the bed and started undoing his shirt buttons, pushing past the fabric and grazing his mouth against the skin underneath. "Did you just admit I was right, Tenpou?"
    "Part of your compensation, General. If you want the rest, I advise you to stop talking," Tenpou answered, slipping his cold hands against Kenren's cheeks and guiding him up until the general's shadow hovered over his face. Tenpou knew this wasn't fair, but he needed this, and it was right here, warm and close and offering.
    Kenren understood well enough that this probably the worst way to solve the problem, but it was the quickest and most agreeable way for both of them. Tenpou would never tell him anything, he knew that. You can sleep with a man carrying a thousand hidden secrets for a thousand nights and not learn a thing, but for Kenren it was enough that he could slip around these secrets, nestle into the cracks and wait for the walls to fall.
    It wasn't as if he loved him or anything like that. Kenren wasn't stupid. He knew his...their...limits.
    They were sharing a room again and as Hakkai slid blissfully under the soft bed sheets, he stretched contentedly and looked over to Sanzo who was cursing by the window.
    "Sanzo, it's only snow. Be thankful it isn't rain." He tried to be comforting, but it was hard when you were already half asleep.
    "Let the damn rain come. At least it doesn't stick," the priest replied bitterly.
    "Ah."
    And so the silence reigned between them, not that either minded. Waiting for the sleep to come, Hakkai stared at the dark ceiling. They sat in the dark, the two of them, pierced only by the whitish glow of a street lamp reflecting off a two foot bed of snow. The harsh winds ratted the window pane.
    "Sanzo."
    "I thought you were asleep." He was more subdued this time, his irritation minutely soothed by a cigarette whose pale smoke seemed ghostlike from Sanzo's position near the window.
    "I'm not."
    "I can fucking see that. What do you want? That flame headed idiot of yours is skirt-chasing downstairs. I ain't getting him and I ain't switching rooms either. If I hear that bakasaru's voice one more time tonight..."
    Suddenly, a gentle laugh wafted through the room. "No, no. I wasn't going to ask something so futile. I was going to say: Was I fair?"
    "Clarify."
    "Sanzo..."
    "Fine."
    Sanzo already knew what he was talking about. The way Hakkai had defeated Shien...his gentle voice whipping out taunt after taunt until the god's concentration was broken, a whip snapping from too much pull. Hakkai was never one for psychological warfare...exploiting on the weakness of the enemy's mind because he knew his own mind was still in shambles.
    Dishonorable, to say the least. But not something Sanzo wouldn't do.
    "Take out anybody in our way, Hakkai. Shien's no different from the rest."
    But somehow he was. They all were. Homura, Shien, and Zenon.
    "But what they wanted wasn't necessarily bad, was it? A better heaven..."
    "What the hell was wrong with the first one?" Sanzo spat out.
    "That is something I would like to know..."
    "Well you don't know and I don't know, so stop pushing it."
    Their adventures with Homura were a touchy subject for the priest. Enemies who were enemies, but not really. Otherwise, why would Goku have mourned Homura's death? Why was Sanzo content in letting Homura have the death he wanted? Their demeanor...their passion for this new heaven...and they made it feel so justified.
    And they made it seem that something was truly wrong with the gods. Not just the ones forsaken by heaven, but all of them. Which meant things were wrong with everything. Sanzo worked for the gods. This entire journey was ordered by the gods. All for what? To save the world? Yes, fine. Who else? Heaven? Perhaps. And gods who couldn't give a damn what happened down here as long as Gyuumao wasn't alive to threaten that world up there.
    "Maybe..." Sanzo started, startling Hakkai who expected the man not to go any further with the subject. "It was just too boring."
    He smiled. "Good reasoning. Definitely your reasoning."
    "Hakkai."
    "Yes, Sanzo?" Hakkai replied...or thought he replied.
    "Go to sleep. You're forgetting your company."
    "It's only you."
    "But you just called me Konzen."
    Chapter 3: A Better Man
    The gods save no one. I can believe it now. They don't see the blood we shed. They don't see the tears we cry. They are incapable; as are we. Doomed to live in anarchy we shake our fists to the skies and damn them down and damn them down. Share the hell and destroy the world. Make the new resurface and pray for a better reality.
    I believe that I hate their heaven. And as such, I have always felt...even as a child...that heaven hated me. But what can they do to punish me? Kill my love? Murder by the thousands? Take away my humanity? They are incapable. Those were my own doings.
    And so I ask nothing of them.
    Man is a god in ruins. Drowned in blood and sweat. Empty of tears. And infinitely more perfect...we destroy our world over and over. Build new walls. Break them down. And we have an eternity of death and rebirth. Perfecting, unperfecting. Perfecting, and failing. That is why we aren't weak, if we aren't strong.
    The gods are incapable. An eternity of passive death. An oppressive stillness. They sit and watch and rot.
    That is why I died. I think. So that I could live.
    ***
    There must be a better man for this job. Tenpou was sure there was someone more deserving. He had un-deserved himself of the honor. And if the general ever found out why, Kenren would kill him. Most definitely. Kill him, instead of embracing Tenpou in his sleep like he was doing now.
    There was blood on his hands, he just knew it. After years of sorting through intelligence reports and discreetly directing every division of the Western Army in order to avoid non accidental "accidents," something like this just had to come along right under his nose.
    God, he was selfish.
    Kenren stirred, mumbled a few curses to himself about a meeting in the morning or something like that and pushed himself off the bed. He himself knew it was just an excuse to leave because Tenpou preferred to wake up alone. And as the general lazily picked around the room for wherever his clothes may be, his superior was staring out the window. Snow, but considering his earlier hallucinations, he didn't care.
    It was just an anonymous note, for heaven's sake. A note that he found somewhere in his path saying that something bad was going to happen to Kenren Taishou's regiment at such and such time during such and such surveillance round headed by aforementioned general.
    Planted, no doubt.
    And if Tenpou had pulled the reins on such a routine mission, it would have been obvious to everyone from heaven to hell that he knew more about what was happening in the bureaucracy than he really should. It was just too early to do anything. Being discovered at this stage was just too dangerous for words. Anyway, it was /just/ an anonymous note. He found them all the time. None of them ever proved themselves to be real threats (Tenpou himself was on the field to see that they weren't).
    So he did the only thing he thought was right to do: Nothing.
    Well.../almost/ nothing.
    This time, the situation just felt...how would you call it...spine tingling?
    So he did the only thing he knew was wrong to do: He reassigned the general elsewhere then played the ignorant when it happened, just like he was feigning sleep now. It was hard to be passive and selfish at the same time.
    Now thirty men are gone. And now his general is thirty men short without any idea why.
    Thirty soldiers. Sacrificed for the sake of discretion. For the sake of their marshal's obsession with secrecy. For the sake of their general's life.
    Tenpou heard the soft scuffle of boots heading towards the door. Heard it stop and hesitate, then go back...must have forgotten something.
    Surely, had Kenren been there, things might have turned out differently. Or they might have not. Kenren could have saved them or could have disappeared as well. And that wouldn't have been good because Tenpou needed him...politically of course.
    And Tenpou was selfish.
    And not a better man.
    And because Tenpou was selfish and not a better man, he was starting to wish there was a better man for this job.
    He felt Kenren's presence by the bed. Quiet. He was staring again...
    Someone with the compassion to love this hell hole more than his own life.
    Because Tenpou, despite his love of war, hated death...and so...thirty...
    Relaxing his muscles, the marshal tried not to cringe when he felt the warm kiss at the nape of his neck. Felt it retreat with the footsteps, growing cold on his skin with each passing second.
    God, Kenren was going kill him.
    The door opened...
    A laugh. "Tenpou, I know you're awake."
    ...then closed. And after that, Tenpou didn't remember much, except for the snow and the fact that the room was getting colder and colder.
    ***
    Did they return yet?"
    "Yes, Litouten-sama. Two days ago."
    The bureaucrat smiled over his papers, steepling his hands. "And?"
    "Tenpou Gensui was unconscious when they arrived."
    "Good. And the mirror?"
    "Broken, sir. By the general."
    "Excellent."
    "Why so, sir?"
    "A body without a soul can't live very long. He'll never wake up."
    ***
    "Kanzeon-sama, what do you find so amusing that you laugh out of the blue?" demanded Jiroshin while quizzically looking from Kanzeon to the lily pond, from the lily pond, back to the Goddess of Mercy.
    Another all-knowing malicious smile snuck its way onto her lips as she replied, "Strange times, Jiroshin. But good times."
    "What in the world do you mean by that?"
    Silence and a shrug. The smile faded and Kanzeon leaned boredly back into her throne. "I believe that the Marshal with have a temporary substitute standing in for him sometime soon."
    "Why? Is he going somewhere?"
    "Yes he is."
    "And who is this substitute?"
    The boddhisvata grinned again as she took a sip from her cup of tea. "A better man, I believe. A better man."
    Jiroshin seemed ready to ask for a clarification, but Kanzeon immediately stuck the cup in his face and demanded, "Please change it. The drink is tepid. And boil the water well this time."
    "You'll burn your tongue Kanzeon-sama!"
    "But I like tea. Those who like tea shouldn't mind the heat, wouldn't you say? And those who do mind it, shouldn't drink it."
    ***
    Life was strange. First you start hearing things while driving. Then you start seeing things. Yes, and then you wake up and you're naked in a room that you are dead sure is not your hotel room.
    Kinda makes you want to think things through a bit, but Hakkai wasn't even given that luxury when he heard a bellowing voice he could have sworn was Gojyo's yelling out, "Tenpouuuuu! Rise n' shine!"
    Then said voice was proceeded by a sturdy kick to the door and a raven-haired man garbed all in black pranced into the room, throwing a heap of freshly smelling clothes in his face. That's. Not. Gojyo.
    "What the hell do you think you're doing? If you were gonna sleep in oh great, almighty, Tenpou Gensui, then you shoulda told me. I would've stayed instead of going to that boring ass military briefing!"
    Tenpou...Gensui...
    So Hakkai, being the highly self-conscious and highly courteous man that he was, immediately pulled the covers higher around him and asked the question of the millennium, "And you are?"
    There was no way in hiding the fact that he sounded completely scandalized.
    "Deserving of more compensation in the future, dammit." the man retorted, his anger only half hearted as he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and proceeded to light it. "That is...after your meeting with Kanzeon-sama."
    "Kanzeon..." The pieces of the puzzle were slowly...and painstakingly being put together. Kanzeon. was here, which meant that there wasn't any immediate danger. That was a good thing, he hoped. But back to more pressing matters:
    1. He was naked.
    2. In a room not his.
    3. With a man he didn't know.
    4. Who obviously didn't know the rules of propriety.
    People leave rooms when other people get dressed. Unless they were lovers, which most certainly they were not. Question number two. In Gojyo's style: Where in the fucking hell was he?
    "Where am I?" Hakkai fidgeted nervously under the other man's piercing gaze which seemed too roam over too much over his body for comfort.
    "In a heluva lotta trouble if you don't quit playing around." he took a drag. "But damn, we must have fucked pretty well last night for you to /still/ be out of your senses. Come on. Can't keep the Goddess of Mercy waiting , you know." He paused, then stalked forward with nothing less than a near possessive smirk curving the corners of his lips. "Or are you waiting for me give you a good morning kiss? Hey, I thought we didn't have that type of relationship."
    "Um..." But what else could he say with that man's forehead pressed against his? He smelled incredibly good. With fresh cologne.
    What else was he supposed to do? When their lips lightly met in a kiss that kept soft and only soft. Such things happen at times...when your mind draws a complete blank for a good eternity. That's when your body starts to do the thinking. And now, it was thinking.../nice...very nice.../
    A bit how he imagined Gojyo would kiss him, though he never had. They weren't like that...or like this...
    But then his mind woke up. Finally. /Gojyo.../ Breaking the contact, Hakkai shrunk back and covered his slightly swollen lips. "That's...enough."
    "Yeah, you've had enough, Marshal, even though last night you kept asking."
    "What are you taking about?" the poor healer demanded, his mind whirling in the possibilities of that statement. Who in the world was this? "Excuse me for being rude, but I believe you are deluded. In any case, an introduction would be appreciated..."
    "Okay. Fine. Have it your way. Play stupid." And with that, the man walked out the door, most likely waiting for him on the other side.
    Okay. He could handle this, Hakkai repeated to himself. WORSE THINGS have happened.(Not that this was anything too bad...) THIS was just an oddity borne of consequence. Deja vu in the eyes of a stranger... And he didn't like it, bodily pleasure or not.
    Wrapping the sheets around him and padding to the door, he said through the cracks, "Just let me shower, okay?" he said with as much composure as he could muster up.
    He felt like he hadn't showered in days...even though he distinctly remembered going to the bath house last night and having a nice long and well deserved soak.
    From the other sound came a choke as if the other had swallowed the smoke of his cigarette. "Geeze, don't /do/ that without warning me first! It's, like, really freaky."
    "What? Surprising you like this?"
    "No, saying that you're gonna take a shower."
    "So are you saying that I shouldn't? Is that how things are done here? What strange customs...And while you're at it, could you please tell me where I-"
    "Take the damn shower, Tenpou. Even I won't let you see Kanzeon-sama smelling like sex."
    Like...sex? But he didn't even...what was...and why was...
    Hakkai had a vague idea, and the only piece of solid ground in the whole thought was the fact that he was absolutely positive that Tenpou Gensui was dead. As surely as Hakkai breathed, he knew that Tenpou Gensui was a pile of five hundred year old ash.
    And then he found a mirror...
    ***
    Chapter 4: Without A Trace
    Author's note: I'm going to have to raise the rating on this fic to 'R' sometime in the future. Kinda gives a hint as to where this thing is going...
    Chapter 4: Without a Trace
    It could be the coldest sight in the world, looking in the mirror and looking straight into the eyes of a stranger. Worse, when it was a dead stranger. Then, not so strange. Long dead. May he rest in peace beside...
    He saw Cho Gonou. In the mirror. Staring back. /That/ dead past. With the longer hair and two good eyes. Without the scar. Just smooth, sweat drenched skin. No blood. Pristine.
    Without the traces of murder...
    "You never die, do you?" asked Hakkai dumbly to the looking glass before turning on the water and getting in the shower.
    It felt different, to wake up and have all your sins washed away with the body that committed them...
    ***
    "You're going to die, Tenpou. Accept at least that much."
    "Doom-sayer." snapped Tenpou back at the Goddess of Mercy as her image wavered in the inn's bedroom mirror.
    Explained and analyzed forwards and backwards, he heard. Though refused to understand. And the only thing he knew to do was curse Litouten to the depths of hell- wherever he was now. Whenever it was...
    "I will not die." he concluded with recalcitrance, but Kanzeon sensed that hint of doubt that tainted his voice. /I will not.../
    "Immortal, but not invincible, dear marshal." she interrupted, a smile spreading. "Or I could let you die now, though I must say, what an anti-climactic end that would be. The end Litouten had been planning for you."
    "I prefer 'no end' Kanzeon-sama, if you please." Tenpou blinked. Squinted his left eye, saw only blurriness then opened it. Closed the bad right one. Scrunched up his face.
    "You might as well request the rivers to flow backwards." Was the reply from the other side of time and space, but sensing she was being little merciful in her apocalyptic heraldry, she added, "Tenpou, give me one week to find a way to change you back. And during that period, I have only one request that you must keep."
    "And that is?"
    "Stay alive, because I'd hate for that body to be destroyed. It's endured enough."
    Tenpou's hand immediately went to the scar on his abdomen, an angry slash of puckered skin hidden by the modest green of fabric. "And what of *him*?" He pointed to himself, odd as it was to do so.
    "You mean, Cho Hakkai?" A thoughtful pause as if she were listening to something beyond Tenpou. Perhaps to something in her room...the sound of footsteps...a knock on the door and Jiroshin running to answer it.
    "Kanzeon-sama! Tenpou Gensui is here to see you." announced her manservant much to the goddess's expectations and to the real Tenpou Gensui's abject horror.
    His fist landed on the dresser in a furious, futile thud. "He'll raise hell!"
    "Then perhaps that's what this ice garden needs. A little heat for flavor." Kanzeon stated gravely as she returned full attention to the marshal. "Everyone needs a little inferno. Here's your dose. Specifically tailored to you by fate."
    Nothing much to do now, so he threw himself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling as the celestial's image began to fade and all that was left to see was some stranger he was already starting to hate. "So what do I do in the mean time?"
    "Become a better man, Tenpou Gensui, with a little hell and a little earth."
    ***
    "Hey Sanzo," Goku said while sinking into his chair while the three of them sat at the table and trying to hide the loud growling coming from his stomach. "What's wrong with Hakkai? He hasn't come down yet." And then the inevitable... "Ne Sanzo, I'm hungry."
    And then even more inevitable, *wack* "It's too early to hear you whine, so shut up." the monk grumbled, casting a glance at the winter wonderland outside.
    "Owww." the boy rubbed his head. "It's not as if we were leaving or anything like that."
    "And that's what's pissing me off so don't push it, saru!"
    Gojyo was in somewhat of a reverie, cigarette dangling lazily from his lips, looking from the stairs leading to the bedrooms and back towards the others. To the stairs. To the snow. To the hot waitress which had undone the top two buttons of her high collar shirt just for him. To the stairs.
    The food would come soon, but it would have been rude to start without Hakkai. And there was the poor waitress, hauling (albeit with a bit of difficulty) everything on the left side of the menu.
    Gojyo stubbed out the almost new cigarette- only half burnt out - and got up. "I'm gonna get him, okay?"
    "Get who?" A voice suddenly sounded from behind him. Gojyo jumped ten feet.
    "Hakkai! Don't *do* that!" the half-breed halfheartedly snarled as he spun around to face the smiling face of his best friend.
    "Do what Tai-?" Tenpou stopped himself. "Gojyo." They were both so predictable when it came to surprises.
    "Forget it." replied Gojyo, taking out a fresh cigarette as he sat down again. Tenpou did likewise, only without the cigarette. Damn. What I wouldn't give for...but Cho Hakkai didn't smoke. Kanzeon gave him a run-down on the things Cho Hakkai didn't do. Smoking was one of them... cursing was another...getting mad...getting laid...
    The marshal leaned over the table and rubbed his temples. This was going to be a looong week. But at least Cho Hakkai drank alcohol. That, in itself, was quite a bit of consolation.
    Since Goku finally kept his mouth occupied by eating, their meal that morning was relatively peaceful. Tenpou picked at his food (which had not gone unnoticed by a certain redhead and a certain blonde) trying rather fruitlessly to ignore the idea of mortality and directing his thoughts to something just as nagging, but not as...fatalistic.
    Cho Hakkai didn't do this. Cho Hakkai didn't do that. Well, what *did* Cho Hakkai do? And also, what had Cho Hakkai done? The wound on his abdomen tugged at his mind, as if it were trying to evoke a memory that wasn't there anymore.
    He felt a hand at his shoulder. "Oi, Hakkai." Tenpou turned around, only to be stared down by eyes only too familiar, this time filled with obvious worry. "You look like you haven't slept in days." Then he grinned with a bit of mischief. "Or did you have a nice long night, eh?"
    "Uh..."
    But Sanzo interrupted him, glaring at Gojyo over the newspaper. "No, that was you."
    Truth be told, Tenpou *was* having a nice long night until he woke up to a damn nightmare. He yawned just as the elderly innkeeper lady walked to their table. She smiled heartily at all of them and ruffled Tenpou's hair as if she were his mother or something so crazy like that. "Poor young man." she sympathized after asking them if they enjoyed their meal. "Must have been kept up by the ghosts around this place."
    "Ghosts?" The word was enough to draw Sanzo's attention from today's paper. "Is that why you have six bolts on the door?"
    The woman nodded gravely. "Yes, but they don't hurt anybody. The bolts are just to be sure it stays that way."
    What an odd village this one was. "They why don't all of you leave and set up a home somewhere else?" inquired Goku, making a face. "I wouldn't want to share a town with a bunch of freaky dead guys."
    Gojyo waved his cigarette in agreement. "The saru's got a point, lady. Besides, I'm sure there are nicer places than this frozen wasteland."
    "Oh no!" the inn keeper. "We can't just do that! If anything, they scare raiders away. Who would want to ransack a haunted village? But most importantly, we wouldn't want to disrespect the gods. No sir."
    "The gods?" Now it was Tenpou's turn to sound skeptical. "The gods have nothing to do with this place." The statement was turned into a bleeding pulp with one sharp comment from a certain priest.
    "And you know this how?" Sanzo turned to him, raising a slim brow and shooting a critical glance.
    "I don't. I only assume. Their business is among themselves and heaven. Not with humans." Which left another loophole for the a similar question. 'And you know this how?' It could have gone on for days, but Sanzo dropped the third degree before it could get bad.
    "Ch,"
    "Then there's the legend..." she continued, as if this story was repeated to a thousand different guests on a thousand different days. "...about the lake on the other side of the foothill. A lake of holy water, frozen to create a mirror half a mile wide. A mirror to heaven..."
    A mirror to heaven...
    "...and that is why those spirits are here, to protect that mirror..."
    Those spirits...
    "...and the ancient tale also talks about their arrival! Here you shall see how the gods truly do care about us..."
    Their arrival...
    "It has been passed down by word of mouth, since few of our ancestors could write (after all, this is a rural area filled with farmers) that heaven's army sent its finest warriors to protect that holy water."
    Finest warriors...
    And then she bent down, lowering her voice to a mere whisper.
    "We tell the children never to leave when the ghosts are out, for fear that their souls may be stolen if they anger the gods...but one time...I did go out. I must have been twelve or eleven at that time. I snuck out of my home and went to the lake even though the warning bell had already sounded and I saw them! I swear to it on my own life. I saw them. With the marks in the middle of their foreheads. They lingered on the lake like mist, but I could see them! And count them! Thirty. I saw with my own young eyes. Thirty."
    Thirty of heaven's finest warriors...
    Chopsticks fell to the wooden floor.
    "Hakkai, what's wrong with you today?"
    ...who disappeared without a trace.
    Chapter 5: Bitter sweet
    Author's note: I think I indulged a bit. Anyway, it's been a rough week ^_^ I deserve a bit of indulgence.
    Saiyuki: Through The Looking Glass
    Chapter 5
    Rating: PG13...still...
    ****
    A pointless sunset, Hakkai thought as he paused in his shelving in order to gaze outside Tenpou's library window. But beautiful nonetheless. As beautiful as a porcelain doll. Again, a meaningless image without even a shadow of a soul.
    Yes, but beautiful still...eternally so.
    Shafts of wine-red light streamed into the study, warming the ever aging yet never rotting wood. It shined on rich mahogany, making it glow like dying embers in the red twilight. His body liked it. Felt at home, though the mind did not- despite the pang of bittersweet amusement that played upon his memory.
    /We always wanted a library. Just like this one. Sort of. Less war literature for the sake of the kids. It wasn't really something for them to think about. To keep in the back of their minds, yes. A constant preoccupation, no. /
    Flipping through pages, opening books where bookmarks were left, organizing papers. A cup of wine on his desk. Very good. Very sweet. The ashtray put aside never to be used. /As long as I'm here/. Pulling out and skimming texts, re-rolling undone scrolls. A life he was supposed to have lived as Cho Gonou. Teacher. He figured, also, that as long as he kept himself shut in Tenpou's study, he could keep fantasizing about it. Keep some veil of normalcy over his two good eyes. This was safe.
    Then a voice drifted through the shutters and he peeked out. Was that-across the courtyard-but it couldn't be-oh yes it could...
    "Konzen! Konzen! Look! I went to the field today and got you flowers. Bright gold, like your hair, ne?" Goku was jumping, chains around his neck and wrists clanking about as the unmistakable diadem gleamed in the sunset. "Are we gonna visit Ten-chan?"
    "Not now." A deep voice. Controlled and firm. The mark of someone not even attempting to hide obvious boredom. "Go play with Kenren or something and let. me. work." A flicker of light caught Konzen's eye. He turned his head: Tenpou's library. /The idiot's locked himself in again/.
    In said room, Hakkai leaned against the wall tiredly and sunk down, grabbing the nearest book, one he had forgotten to shelf for lack of any fitting space. Again, went to the bookmark:
    "Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself." Worthless book. Stupid human.
    He laughed mirthlessly, shook his head, and in a justified act of frustration, Hakkai slammed the covers shut and violently sent hefty volume careening to the other side of the otherwise uncluttered library.
    /His library/; which a few hours ago looked as if a bomb had dropped inside. Clean now, save for one book out of place.
    If time had any relevance here, he would have estimated being here for a good eleven hours, give or take a few. Hakkai closed his eyes, basking in the security of darkness which had never failed him ever since that day. Oblivion was a good thing. Yes, a very good thing. Then...the creaking of the door.
    "Oi, Tenpouuu!"
    Oh god.
    Footsteps.
    Hakkai furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance and sunk deeper into his bookshelf enclave as if privation of words, privation of breath, privation of thought and privation of sight would make him disappear. Privation of person. If only.
    ***
    Tenpou didn't answer the door. Not like he ever did, so Kenren just waltzed right on it and nearly died of a heart attack. The place was clean. Impeccably clean. Not a single book out of place...save for one. Not one paper out of file. Not a speck of dust. Maybe he took a wrong turn, he thought. This was not Tenpou's room.
    But sure enough, he found the marshal in his usual spot- in the nook between the war history of this century and the war history of that. Right on the border separating two different eras, but to Kenren it was all the same. War was war after all.
    Hmmm...sleeping. Tenpou's brown hair was slightly disheveled, falling across his eyes and face. "Ten-chan." he said a bit more endearingly, saw the flinch at the corner of his eyes.
    Gotcha.
    Without further adieu, he was by the other man's side. Whispering in his ear, Kenren said, "You, Tenpou Gensui, are the worst liar I've ever met." So with that, took hold the marshal's chin and leaned forward to claim the waiting mouth...
    But soon found himself in a gentle liplock with "Brave New World" by an author he didn't bother to know. Nor did he care, especially now.
    "And you, Kenren Taishou, are the most persistent hound I've ever met." retorted Hakkai as he hid his face behind the book, only daring to reveal his twin emerald eyes. "Don't you ever tire of this?"
    The raven-haired man backed off and sat cross-legged in front of him. He scratched the back of his head, his smile never faltering. "Not if you keep playing hard to get like that."
    "I am not playing hard to get." The book was tentatively lowered, but remained poised in the event of another attack. "I'm playing 'not going to get,' Gojyo, so if you would just-"
    "Gojyo?" The general quirked his head to the side.
    Hakkai bit his lip and quickly amended, despite the futility of it all. "Kenren."
    "You said 'Gojyo'."
    "I said 'Kenren'."
    "You *meant* 'Kenren' but it sure as *hell* didn't come out that way."
    The healer had just to say it, regardless of all compulsion not to...
    "Jealous?" He tilted his head to the side inquiringly as Kenren squirmed under his gaze until finally, he gathered up his wits to spit out a flat-
    "No."
    ...just for the sake of seeing how much the general was in love with Tenpou.
    The temptation to just let things be was overwhelming. This was (theoretically speaking) Tenpou's problem, not Hakkai's. But Hakkai was right here, right now, being stared down by the previous incarnation of the man he was in love with.
    There. He admitted it to himself. He had grown attached to the half-breed- a habit from three years past turned into a hunger gnawing at him whenever they were alone together. Hakkai felt the same hunger now, but his mind kept him from it. The body screamed for it. And the heart...which was not Hakkai's heart, but Tenpou's...seemed to ache ever so slightly from god-knows-how-many-centuries of cold imprisonment by a mind constantly in denial. Who to satisfy? Hakkai didn't know, and all he could do was stare as Kenren broke out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. He offered one to Hakkai.
    "No, thank you."
    Kenren shrugged and pocketed them, taking a long drag and blowing smoke idly into the air. "Must be a pretty good bastard to have you pick up good habits all of a sudden."
    "Mmh."
    "Not that it's my business, 'cause we ain't like that anyway, but..." he waved the cigarette for emphasis, yet refused to look back at the other's eyes. Something in it bothered him. Ever since this morning it bothered him, as if Tenpou had finally and completely withdrawn within himself. Either that, or he had resorted to /someone else/. "You care to tell me who this guy is?"
    Far be it from Kenren Taishou to be subtle. And far be it from Cho Hakkai to be open.
    "No. I don't." he responded tersely.
    "Do I know him?" God, now we're playing 20 questions, Kenren thought irritably, like...
    /A husband accusing his wife of infidelity.../
    "In a sense."
    "You sleep with him?" Smoke was blown in the direction of the bedroom.
    "No." And with that one syllable word came a nearly inaudible sigh of disappointment. Kenren caught it, and his first impulse was to just grab Tenpou by the shoulders, shake him and shout out, 'what's wrong with you?' But if Tenpou was Tenpou, and undoubtedly he was, then the marshal would simply reply that the one askew in his thinking was Kenren. After all...
    (flashback)
    ****/ "Bedroom. Now."
    "I've never gone about this with a man, Taishou. Are you sure?"
    "Hell yeah and you had better stuff that book away or else I'll take you now...on the other hand, maybe that wouldn't be so bad..."
    "Kenren, wait I- mmph...Why must...must...oh god...why must you be so...insistent?"
    "I. Want. You. Now. Care to have me elaborate, or shall we continue, eh?
    "Continue."
    All either of them remembered was that at that point, they were basically ravaging each other, but clear at the start...Tenpou's condition...was that there were no promises between them. /*****
    But still... If only...Those were the only reasons he had. The words 'I want you to be mine and only mine' wouldn't have sufficed for the marshal. Never.
    "Then what?"
    "Then what *what*?" There was no hiding the growing annoyance, especially when Hakkai was clutching "Brave New World" with a grip strong enough to strangle a statue.
    "Is he important?" He braced himself for an answer. Tenpou didn't think in terms of affection- more along the lines of lust if anything. So 'importance' was the determining factor of whether you were under the marshal's wing or not. A utilitarian to the core. You had to be advantageous to him or you were gone. Konzen, due to some unfathomable childhood bonding, had gained a permanent spot. One wing, under which Goku could find shelter as well. Which left one other- and it was the more capricious.
    If you were there, it was only because you didn't give a damn about what he did with you (as long as you were on top, of course). You were blind. But you were pampered- as long as you didn't pry into his business. You were safe from the dogs biting at your heels because Tenpou's authority was enough to put them at bay a good three miles behind you. Most of all, you had to be ready to be thrown back to the dogs at any given moment. You shouldn't care- either about the dogs or the loss you would suffer from Tenpou's refusal to commit.
    Kenren didn't give a damn about the dogs and so when Tenpou said, "Yes, Kenren, he is." he felt like a door had just been slammed in his face: a betrayal he should have expected one time or another, but enough endless nights with Tenpou had the general convinced that it would never happen. The bastard.
    "Ah...then you use him like you do me? Or maybe he's even more useful..." his voice dripped with poison as Hakkai could only look on with dismay, if not with a bit of pity.
    /You should have said 'I love you' earlier. Such things fall on deaf ears. He's not here, Kenren. I am./ Though not lost to the healer was the damage he had irrevocably done./ I only mentioned his name. One name/. Then came the endless questions- each one cutting into the other bit by bit because after that there was no choice but to be honest. To be otherwise would be a betrayal towards Gojyo, and he had already promised three years ago that such a thing was unthinkable, even when the half-youkai wasn't present.
    The situation would have been infinitely easier to handle had Hakkai known Tenpou's character. Cold. Steel. And so he had not realized the weight of his words when he answered the general's question.
    "I don't use him." Simple truth. Hakkai believed it to be an innocent confession, or rather, a statement of the obvious. The safest answer he could return because saying 'yes' seemed too malicious and surely, Tenpou Gensui wasn't like that. Right?
    Simple enough, but that four letter phrase was sufficient enough to replace an even simpler three letter verdict. It came like a slap in the face, leaving Kenren more pissed than heartbroken. Never in his life had he felt so humiliated, and thank god no one saw this interaction. Made him feel like a petty whore in the court, subject to the interested eye of a man in power. And Tenpou Gensui was a man with power. A lot of it. Who was on top now?
    But he never would have thought...
    "You know what?" said Kenren as apathetically as he could manage. "I think I've outworn my welcome with you."
    "Kenren-"
    "I don't care, really. No promises. I remember."
    "Kenren."
    Then he produced from his pocket a rumpled square of paper- small enough so to be fit into the message vial of a carrier bird-and tossed it at Hakkai's feet. It read:
    /They're ready for Kenren Taishou and his men at the mountain path. Surveillance round. Thirty including the general. Orders understood. They won't return. /
    Hakkai scrutinized it. "I don't remember..." Well of course he didn't. "General, what is this?" His answer came in the form of a punch to the jaw and he stumbled back. Before he knew it, Kenren was on top of him, seizing the collar of his shirt.
    "Cut the crap." he snarled fiercely, as his eyes lit up with pent up resentment. "You fucking know what I'm talking about. I've played the willful ignorant. Believed you and blamed Litouten all the way. Why the hell I did, I don't know. I just *did*. So shoot me for being so fucking stupid. Found this on your desk this morning."
    Suddenly taken with the realization that he was shouting, Kenren lowered his voice to a mere whisper and lowered his head to Hakkai's ear as one hand cupped the side of his face as if he were acting like a lover which, god forbid, he wasn't. Hakkai was almost trembling with shock and the fear that he was going to face some terrible fate in the library of his dreams. His mind conjured up the worst and for once, Tenpou's body agreed. Then the ever-present question: What did Tenpou do? And the ever-present non-consoling thought: I don't deserve this. Nevertheless, he allowed Kenren to continue torturing him. Hakkai could take it- with his confused detachment- he could take it.
    "I should have seen it before. You took my men away from me. I know that much, and I won't let you take away anything else. I won't beg for something you won't give, now that I know that you gave to someone else..."
    It still didn't explain anything to the healer, only reaffirmed the fact that he had jeopardized Tenpou's fine threads of secrets. The web was collapsing.
    The hand at his cheek stayed surprisingly gentle. Hakkai had expected it to come flying down and pound him into the floor, but it didn't. It cradled his face, though in its stiffness he could sense Kenren's reluctance. "Kenren I-" he spoke for Tenpou, not for himself. "There's no one else." but when he had uttered those last words, he realized how empty they sounded. Something not even Goku would believe. Kenren must have thought it a blatant lie.
    "I don't care, *marshal*." the man's voice had grown dispassionate though their faces were only mere centimeters apart. Hakkai flinched at the scorn imbued with the mention of Tenpou's title.
    Then lips descended on his own in a soft kiss like the one from this morning. Softer even. But bitter. "I'll request that Goujin reassign me in the morning. I'll be out of your hair from now on." Kenren's mouth hovered over his own, their breaths mingling as he received one bitter kiss after another.
    "But Tenpou...mess with me or my soldiers again and I'll make you know what hell feels like."
    Cho Gonou smiled cruelly up at him, piqued by the mention of absolute misery. "I already do."
    Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, breaking both of them from their spell of hatred. For an eternity, neither moved. They stared at each other in disbelief- at the words they had exchanged, the threats...
    Kenren pushed himself off the floor and quickly snatched up the cigarette he had dropped before it burned the entire place down. Not that he cared, of course. Hakkai took advantage of the disruption and tried not to race to the door. Upon opening it, he was met by an impassive face. /God, doesn't anybody smile in heaven?/
    "I was sent by Goujin to convey a message."
    It took Hakkai's muddled brain a good minute to register the sight before him. Heaven knows he'd seen this man enough.
    "Marshal?" Shien prompted as he scrutinized Tenpou's astounded expression.
    "Ah, yes." Hakkai apologized sheepishly. "Forgive me, Shien. What is it that were you sent to tell me?"
    "Kenren Taishou's missing troops have returned. They were caught in a storm and had lost their way on earth. With all the turbulence, they say, access to the gate back to heaven was near impossible. They had to wait it out." the man reported verbatim from the written paper in his hand which he then gave to Hakkai.
    "I see. Thank you."
    "They will be marching through the streets as soon as they enter the holy city."
    At the mention of his troop, Kenren jumped and made his way to the door. "See, Marshal?" he said, brushing roughly against Hakkai's shoulder as he walked out. "This bastard general can sure train his soldiers, even when he had to keep you in check too."
    The meaning wasn't lost to Hakkai, nor to the other man who stood by him. They watched as Kenren stalked away, but before he was out of earshot, he heard, "A man's power is only as good as the freedom given to him by his superior."
    But it wasn't Hakkai speaking.
    The general balked and turned around quickly enough to glare daggers in Shien's direction before shrugging and rounding the corner.
    "Oh my, now you've made him angrier." Hakkai commented as he held the door frame in order to regain his composure.
    "No reason to pamper unjustified pride. I stand by that, marshal...Are you ill?"
    "No. Just..."
    "Angry."
    "Perhaps."
    "Too angry to see the parade?" Shien inquired, his voice level.
    "No."
    "Then let me accompany you."
    "Please."
    Chapter 6: Then you get desperate
    The sound of breaking glass caught Goku's attention as he was walking through the hall on his way towards the kitchen. They had been pent up in the lodge all day and now the sun was setting behind the mountains. It was pretty and he stayed at the window looking outside for hours while Sanzo smoked and read the paper, grateful that he was being quiet for once. There was no better time when the sun was so alive. "Right before it dies out, saru? You make me sick." Well, a Sanzo comment was a Sanzo comment. At least he talked.
    Gojyo spent most of the time flirting with the tavern waitress and drinking. Typical. But Hakkai...Hakkai didn't seem to want to talk to anybody. He apologized for not being able to cook for them. Too tired, Hakkai said. And that was that. Sanzo wouldn't allow anybody to pester the man about food. No question. No answer either. "Just leave him alone." the priest snapped earlier. "You're finally getting to him. It was inevitable." Goku didn't believe him though. Hakkai always had time for him. Hakkai never got mad with him. Hakkai had the patience of a saint.
    Now Hakkai was acting like a ghost. It worried him tremendously. He crept to the room the healer and Sanzo shared- not even bothering to wonder why the monk refused to go in. And why he preferred Goku's company that day instead of Hakkai's. It just wasn't done. More likely that the stars would shift their positions and there would be a completely new sky to look up at. It just wasn't *natural.*
    Goku found the door ajar and peeked in.
    "I'm not human." he heard Hakkai mutter miserably. "I'm a goddam youkai!" His hands went to the cuffs at his ears and upon touching them, he drew his hand back as if he were burned.
    "Um...Hakkai?"
    At the sound of Goku's voice, the man in question whipped around like a thief caught red handed in the middle of a heist. "Goku!" His eyes widened. There was no concealing the broken mirror at his feet where a random ball of ki had hit. He was just looking at himself...and then it just...it just flew out of his hand, shattering everything.
    Bad enough to think he was human. Condemnation to know that he was a youkai. Nataku killed people like him. A better man. Right. With a youkai in heaven, all was sure to go to hell. He was sure of it.
    "You're hand's bleeding!"
    "What? Oh." Tenpou looked absently down. The boy was right. It was stained red. When he looked up again, Goku was digging through Hakkai's luggage and after a moment produced a first aid kit. "Sit down." Tenpou dumbly obeyed and fell into a stiff armchair in the corner of the room.
    Sitting at his feet, Goku got a basin filled with water and began to wash the superficial wound that stretched across Tenpou's palm.
    "Thank you."
    "No problem." the boy said. "Does it hurt?"
    "Not anymore. Who taught you to dress wounds?"
    Goku looked up with concern. "You did Hakkai."
    "Yes. So I did." Bad recovery. Note to self: learn how to act. "And what I good job on my part, eh?" he laughed listlessly, hoping the other wouldn't notice.
    "Of course! You're the sensei around here when it comes to practical stuff." continued Goku as he pulled out a tube of ointment, read it, and after confirming it was the correct one, applied it to the now clean surface of skin. Sanzo was there for anything cynically philosophical.
    A sad smile suddenly tugged at the corners of Tenpou's mouth. It made Goku uneasy because it was an expression Hakkai rarely wore...or maybe wore often but never showed anybody else. It fell on his face whenever it rained. Whenever he thought of that dead lady.
    "Tell me, Goku." Tenpou started. "Who taught you how to read? It wasn't Sanzo, was it?"
    A shake of the head.
    "Really? But I thought there were no other teachers before Sanzo. Before me."
    A shrug. "I just knew." It was simple childlike acceptance. Why do you breathe? I just do. What do you see? I opened my eyes. Why do you speak? When I open my mouth, sound comes out.
    "Favorite story?"
    "Must've had something to do with food."
    "Of course..."
    He fell silent and hesitated, opening his mouth to say something that didn't want to come out. Finally, he forced it to, as much as it made him feel like the greatest fool in the universe. Hell, maybe he was.
    "Two favors Goku. Can you do that for me?" Tenpou asked hopefully.
    "Sure. What's the first?" Wide eyes regarded him quizzically and Tenpou swallowed hard. Fuck it, I'm pitiful.
    "Repeat after me."
    "Okay."
    "Ten-" Like teaching the alphabet...
    "Ten-" Goku repeated.
    "-chan."
    "-chan. Ten-chan? Ten-chan. Ten-chan!" God, it felt good to hear that voice say that name. It hasn't even been that long, but still...it put his heart more at ease. He bid his eyes closed and pictured a smaller boy with longer hair. Clanking chains with that same diadem. "Who's that? Someone you know, Hakkai?" Goku then went to the bandages, wrapping it around Tenpou's hand once. Twice.
    He choked. "Not really. He hides himself in a library all the time. I never did have the time to get to know him well."
    "It's not good to lock yourself up all the time. Not healthy. I tell Sanzo that. Tell him that too."
    /Dammit Tenpou, don't you know it ain't good for you to stay cooped up in here all the time? Look, the kid's just begging for attention...
    Ten-chan! Let's go on a picnic, kay? You, me, Ken-niichan and Konzen. Okay Ten-chan? It's nice outside and the books can't make jokes and laugh and talk to you.
    He's got a point, Tenpou./
    "It's as good as told, Goku. Thank you." Tenpou examined his newly bandaged hand. At least he didn't have to look at that dreadfully short lifeline half as much anymore.
    "Second?"
    "What?"
    "Second favor, Hakkai." Goku pushed on as he carelessly stuffed the supplies back into the first aid kid and tossed it over to one side of the room for future use. A bit pessimistic for someone like Goku, Tenpou thought, maybe I'm really scaring the hell out of him.
    Second favor most important. For the ruse and for his dignity. "Please don't tell the others about what I did. Something...something's happened to me and I can't get good control over my...powers. I'll be fine within a week's time. I promise, if you promise me that you won't tell." But Goku didn't look convinced. /Kenren's right. I'm such a bad liar./
    "Promise." the boy chirped cheerfully, alleviated by the fact that Hakkai would get better. "It was kinda clutzy of me to run into the mirror like that. Seven years bad luck, right?"
    Tenpou ruffled Goku's hair. "Seven years isn't very long. Don't worry about it."
    Really, I shouldn't force you to keep my secrets all the time...
    ****
    "What do you mean *gone*?" Gojyo roared as he grabbed the front of Sanzo's robe, only to have his hand violently slapped away.
    "Gone to the lake, no doubt to investigate those rumors of celestial warriors." replied the monk, lighting himself a new cigarette and settling back into his chair by the windowsill, newspaper in hand. "Left an hour ago."
    "And you just let him? What kind of friend are you, monk?"
    "Don't talk to me about friendship." Sanzo growled. "If he needs to make peace with the gods, let him."
    There was no denying that the storm outside was getting worse, but what bothered Gojyo the most was the fact that Hakkai went off alone just like he did three years ago. His mind did a dreadful replay. "And if he dies along the way?"
    A cynical scowl graced the fine contours of the other's face as he flipped the page. "A journey in the name of the gods is never a journey lost." he said tritely. "Besides, no one's tying him down with this journey. He always has the choice to leave."
    "Fuck you. He's coming back."
    "Doglike faith you have for your master."
    Gojyo's temper erupted and he clenched his fist, his knuckles going white. "Same goes for you, bastard!" He threw a punch directed right at the blonde's face, but it was blocked by Sanzo's left hand, the right one with the gun aimed point blank at Gojyo's forehead.
    "Don't tempt me too much, Gojyo. I might just do it."
    "Fuck you straight to hell." Gojyo spat out, retracting his fist and spinning around towards the door. "You might not give a damn for your companions, but I do."
    "Stop treating him like your little wife. Hakkai can take care of himself."
    Gojyo opened the door, only to face a scene of pure white chaos. He blanched, "Ch'. dipshit." then stepped through into the storm, closing the door behind him.
    ****
    Tenpou pulled the cloak tighter around his body as he trudged wearily through the snow. The winds were picking up and clouds were moving in, blocking the sun's light. His skin screamed for warmth, and perhaps he would have collapsed by now if it weren't for Tenpou's insistent mind willing this new body to go on beyond its limits. Through the growing storm that seemed to take on a life of its own. Like destiny working against him. Through the snow that stuck to his boots. Through screeching winds that seemed to beat down upon him like invisible harpies.
    One foot in front of the other. One. Two. One. Two. In time with the celestial army's drum beat. One. Two. As if he were going to war. Boom. Boom. It never ceased, an echo of the soldier's heart as he is thrown into the heat of battle. One. Two. And as long as it rung clear in the distance, he could be sure that others were fighting right next to him, that he wasn't alone. One. Two. The lake was getting nearer, he could sense it.
    Then the sound of drums wasn't only in his mind. He could actually hear it faintly over the howling winds. Boom. Boom. Slow this time, like a death march. And so he journeyed, as if to his death because it was this beat of heaven which he followed so doggedly through the squall. Tenpou rounded the hill and there it was- a lake within a crater. Frozen yet solitary. Nobody was there, but something about the lake beckoned to him. Holy water.
    With one last burst of energy, Tenpou sprinted towards it and fell at its icy shore. The winds seemed to blow less harshly here as if the powers of the earth had no place. On his knees and with shaking hands, he reached out and touched the glassy surface. It stung, but he refused to break contact. Leaning forward and cleaning the scattered snowflakes off the ice, the marshal felt as if his heart stopped beating. Staring back was his reflection. Tenpou Gensui's reflection. His real reflection.
    A strong gust suddenly washed over him, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The beating got stronger. Closer. It came again, with enough speed that he was knocked off is knees and into a snowbank. And a mist was rising around him. Then came whispers- at times indistinguishable from the winds that carried them.
    "Marshal Tenpou..." they said. "Marshal Tenpou, you've come!"
    Tenpou must have blacked out for a minute or two, but when he opened his eyes, he was on the surface of the lake, surrounded by Kenren's thirty soldiers...or at least what was left of them.
    ****
    It all went right back to Chin Lishou, the feeling anyway. When you see someone and yet you don't. It was pissing him off. Should have just shot him through the head this morning, Sanzo thought dolefully. Or through the heart. Give him a few seconds to say where Hakkai really is. But the strange thing about it was that this was Hakkai, not some strange spell made to look like him. And dammit, he needed a driver. No use killing the real thing.
    The simplest conclusion would be to say that he was possessed, Sanzo mused as he looked up from the paper and towards the wall. A crack ran through it as if something from the other side had stricken it hard.
    There were just some mental frequencies that were simply Hakkai's- see it in the smile, hear it in the tone of voice, and especially his silence. Hakkai's silence was completely, utterly self-controlled. He would just vanish within himself and vanish from the room altogether until he willed himself to speak. Like magic. And he would be there again like a fairy godmother/mother hen at your service. Now the silence was different. It was unbearably loud- worse than Goku calling out to him from the mountain.
    This was somebody screaming at the top of his lungs.
    "Sanzoooooooooo!" Goku shouted from the hallway, his footsteps bounding closer, shaking the floorboards.
    Shiiiiiiit. Right when I had a bit of peace. Please, " .Hell."
    And soon glass was flying. The beside him shattered into a thousand pieces as ice arrows penetrated the glass followed by streams of fire, quickly making the rickety wooden lodge into a burning inferno. Goku burst into the room, panting heavily.
    "The village is being attacked!"
    "No shit Sherlock!" he snatched his gun and loaded. "Let's go before this piece of crap collapses on top of us!"
    Outside, they were met by bloody carnage. People were running every which way. Nobody fighting the onslaught of snow youkai that swept the streets like a plague. Sanzo spat. "People who live without danger turn into chickenshit pretty fast."
    Beside him, Goku summoned his staff. "We have to do something, Sanzo."
    "Don't be so eager!" the monk snapped as he pushed the both of them into the shadows of a nearby building. "And shut up."
    The youkai possessed little features, looking no more than ice statues with furious blue eyes. Some possessed wings. Looked like white moths. Flew low. Spat out fire. Spat out ice. One of them made another round in their direction, screeching furiously. With practiced calm, Sanzo raised his gun, aimed right between the eyes. A loud crack of thunder and it disintegrated into snowflakes.
    "At least they don't leave a mess when they die."
    "I wonder how many there are..." said Goku, poking the pile of snow with the end of his staff.
    "A lot. It must be an entire clan out there."
    "Why?"
    "Simple. They need food and they're desperate."
    It suddenly dawned on Goku. "What about Gojyo and Hakkai! They don't know what's going on."
    "They'll find out soon. We're outnumbered though. The best we can do is fight it out with them until those two idiots come back."
    There was more screeching in the distance, mingled with the screams of humans and the . gut wrenching sounds of limbs being torn off and eaten. Goku grit his teeth. "That's no way to get food. It's so gross...And those people..." He took off at a sprint, Sanzo at his side.
    ***
    He recognized one of them as Gen, the sergeant which had taken Kenren's place. The other's were just vague faces in his memory, blending in with the rest of the Celestial army's manpower. "Marshal Tenpou! What in the world are you doing here?"
    "I still have yet to figure that one out." Tenpou replied, willing his aching muscles to move. "What are you doing here? You all have been filed as missing." Thirty specters floated about him, pushing and shoving each other to get a look at their marshal. It's been so long.
    Gen's expression was grave. "Surveillance round."
    "I know that."
    "We were passing this very lake when we were attacked by an army of snow youkai. They seemed to have been waiting for us...an ambush."
    Tenpou rubbed his cheeks. They were quickly getting numb. "I could point fingers, but the most accusing would have been towards myself. I shouldn't have taken Kenren Taishou-"
    "But it was for the best that you did!" Gen interrupted. "Nobody would have survived this...this...damnation!" He sounded contemptuous as he looked down at his arms and feet- translucent now. "When the youkai attacked, the lake started to glow...it was strange indeed. It pulsed, got brighter and brighter until...we all fell unconscious. When we woke up, we found ourselves trapped in the bodies of the youkai who attacked us."
    "A switch!" Tenpou's mouth fell open. "Which means that the youkai are in heaven now. In your bodies."
    The sergeant lifted a brow, his arms folding over his stout form. "I wouldn't exactly say now. Five hundred years have passed after all...who knows what could have happened already. We were hoping that you were able to do something about it. Apparently, you seem to be stuck in the same situation."
    It seemed a waste of time to explain his own situation. It was irrelevant, There were more important matters at hand. "How do I get back?"
    "Now?" asked Gen.
    "Now. Right now. This very moment! Please tell me you figured out a way to do this." He was near begging.
    "We did, but it was too late. Our bodies were already dead. Too late for us, not that we could have done it while alive. As you can see, this lake is a giant mirror- a mirror to heaven as the locals call it. But to be practical, call it a teleportation mechanism for souls as long as there are receptacle bodies that can facilitate them. Hence the need for a 'switch'." the sides of his mouth turned down as Gen stroked his beard thoughtfully. "But to activate it, a great surge of power is necessary. Do you have that?"
    Tenpou remembered the mirror in his hotel room. The earcuffs. Yes, that's it!
    "I think I do."
    "Then we can proceed."
    I'm sorry, Kanzeon sama, but a week is too much for me.
    ****
    Dammit. I can't see a thing. Gojyo cursed loudly to himself. Damn Hakkai with his damn ideas to go out in the middle of a fucking storm to go fucking ghost busting.
    /"Stop treating him like your little wife. Hakkai can take care of himself."/
    Little wife. He spat. Hakkai ain't my wife.
    "The fuck?!" he shouted before falling into a ditch of five foot snow. "Damiiiiiittttttt." Gojyo crawled out and with a growl of frustration, whipped out his weapon and sent the surrounding snow into the air.
    He plowed forward, holding his arm up against the wind. "Don't do anything stupid, Hakkai..." It sounded cheesy, but maybe if he said it enough, Hakkai would hear because Hakkai's sensitive like that and he would never do anything against Gojyo's will. "Wait for me..."
    ****
    Tenpou gazed into lake's water where Gen had his men break the ice. It sat there, bleak and gray. Forbidding in its eerie stillness.
    "I have to..." Tenpou's mouth suddenly went dry. His hand immediately went to the earcuff, clutched, unclutched. Let go. "...in there?"
    Gen nodded severely. "Then do whatever you need to do to get that power before you're paralyzed. To switch the souls of thirty youkai and thirty gods, about fifty of their clan jumped into the lake and sacrificed themselves. It was apparently enough."
    Litouten must have bribed them with some twisted promise of power, Tenpou thought sourly before gazing over the horizon to where the village was located. Nothing more than blinding whiteness. "Tell me...what happens after the switch? I'm back home in my study- cozy and all but..." His eyes switched to his bandaged hand which hid the lifeline he wasn't going to think about. "What happens to this body?"
    "It's as good as dead." Gen stated simply, twenty nine heads nodding in agreement. "Good as dead." the rest repeated.
    "I see."
    "Is that a problem?"
    "Not mine, I suppose."
    Wait for me.
    The voice tingled the back of his mind, but he shook it off.
    "Let's get this over with. Thank you all for your help. I know I can't do anything for you anymore, but rest assured, I'll set things right. Even at the cost of this body."
    Tenpou shrugged off the cloak, gave one last glance over the hill, then his eyes fell again on Gen who looked calmer at the knowledge that he and his men would get avenged.
    A brief nod and they saluted, their forms wavering as they dissipated back into the mist.
    He jumped.
    ****
    Gojyo arrived too late. Once he caught sight of the lake, nobody was there. But there...there...farther out into the ice...the surface was broken and there...there...Hakkai's cloak.
    ****
    Tenpou woke up. It was cold. Freezing in fact. He opened his eyes and was welcomed back to heaven with a barrel of a gun to his forehead.
    "Give me one good fucking reason not to pull the trigger." Sanzo threatened quietly.
    "I..."
    "Not good enough Hakkai."
    They were in a tent, a blazing fire crackling in the middle of it. Night had fallen, but the winds still haven't let up. "What the fuck happened?" Not a question, an order.
    "I...I fell through the ice." Sanzo had the right idea though. What the fuck happened? It should have worked. He should have been home. Cho Hakkai should have been dead. Tenpou's hands flew to the earcuffs. He wasn't even able to take them off.
    "That was stupid of you." the monk grumbled before falling back and resting the gun on his knee, pointedly keeping it aimed towards Tenpou's heart. "Especially when you know there's one idiot here who would follow you to the ends of the earth."
    Gojyo lay sleeping behind them, closer to the fire. He stirred, murmured something inaudible, then fell silent.
    "Jumped in after you, dragged your sorry carcass out of the water, over a mile of snow, and brought you here." The blonde pretended to examine the shining silver of the gun, then gave Tenpou a sidelong glance. "Oh yeah, the village burned down while you two were out. Eight people were eaten alive. Thanks for backup."
    "Oh will you shut up you phony monk! He didn't know!" Gojyo retorted angrily, pulling himself up into a sitting position on quaking arms.
    "Ah, the husband's awake. Nice to know you don't die quickly." said Sanzo bitterly as he got up. "Hakuuryu's wing was frozen and broken during the attack. We'll be here for a while if we don't all die of cold first."
    "Salt in an open wound, Sanzo. See to your pet and I'll see to my wife, okay?" Ruby red eyes narrowed in his direction, mirrored by equally scornful violet ones. With a "humph" Sanzo left the two and Gojyo's glance softened a bit, turning towards Tenpou who in turn was struck dumb by the term 'wife'.
    "Forget about it. Sanzo's just bitching as usual. It wouldn't have made a difference if we were here or not."
    A feeble lie far from comforting. Even in the way Gojyo said it, the marshal knew that the redhead didn't seem all too disposed towards forgiveness. Silence reigned after that. Every bit of him a Kenren. Kenren never asked questions. Kenren, who only needed silence to say, 'tell me'. Kenren, who gave and gave, never assuming. Who always smoked off a grudge before coming back into your arms.
    Tenpou sat, miserably watching as Gojyo's shaking hands lit a cigarette. The cold must have affected him more than it did Hakkai's body which was one-hundred percent youkai. Guessing on the hair and eye color- the shade of the sunset- Gojyo was only half-half. With half the resistance to cold that Tenpou now had.
    Outside, the storm fiercely ravaged the sturdy canvas, and deep inside, the fallen god prayed that the standing buildings of the village would be enough to give shelter to the people now homeless- no thanks to him. The tent provided little warmth and the half-breed was inching as close to the fire as rationally possible, taking care not to get burned by the flying sparks. Granted, he was pushing his limits and every other minute, a piece of hot ash would fly into his skin. He'd curse. Profusely. And Tenpou would wince.
    Neither talked. Tenpou, out of shame and Gojyo, he figured, out of disgust. Silence save for the high pitched whistling winds that came like screams through the night. Crept under the tent and gave sharp knives to the feverish half-youkai's badly healing wounds.
    His hand shook violently and the cigarette met a hellish end in the fire. "Shit..."
    "I'm sorry, Gojyo." Tenpou muttered after a long while of self-berating. "I should have-"
    "People thinking in terms of 'should haves' don't live very long around here." Gojyo replied through clattering teeth, stretching out under the thin blanket and staring into the flames; envying it.
    "Then what should I do?"
    "First, drop your wall 'cause I'm too tired to give you the third degree. I'll wait till tomorrow, so think up some good reasons to give me. Second, leave a man in peace while he sleeps, Hakkai. But if you wanna do me a really big favor, go outside and fetch a pretty lady I can spend the night with. It's still cold in here." The words of a man who would probably die of hypothermia before the sun comes back up.
    /Yeah, and no better way to die than that way./
    "Sorry. Can't."
    "Figures."
    A thoughtful pause. "Will I do?"
    "What?!" Gojyo exclaimed, shooting straight up from his makeshift bed as Tenpou pulled off his white sash. Stared, open mouthed as he slowly undid the clasps of his green overshirt. Pulled that off and accompanied it with the black one underneath until he was completely bare from the waist up.
    Hakkai looked at him. Quirked a wan smile. Gojyo paled.
    Then came the belt...
    "Hakkai! Wait!" No. No. Keep going please. "This...this..." This is about time. "This isn't right." Oh, but isn't it? "Look, aw shit, I know you feel bad, but you don't have to..." But it would be nice if you... "To do that. Not for me." Just for me. "I was kidding about the girl, really!" Of course.
    Then came the belt. Off it went, casually as if Hakkai had done this for him a thousand times. No trace of shame or embarrassment in stripping before his best friend who suppressed every instinct to grab and ravage him right there and now.
    A glint of amusement flickered in his one good eye. "You don't actually think I'm going to have sex with you, do you?" He undid the top button of his pants. "Strip please."
    "The thought crossed my mind."
    That's it, Gojyo concluded to himself with a bit of resignation as he took of his vest. There was no use talking to Hakkai when he was like this- especially when he felt like he had a debt to pay. But dammit, he has got to be the master of mixed messages...and a fucking tease. He's a fucking tease, he mentally grumbled, pulling the white tank top over his head and shrugging off his pants; leaving on the boxers.
    "So what the fuck are you planning on doing?"
    Equally dressed- or rather- undressed, Tenpou moved over beside him until the distance between them was nonexistent; Gojyo's chest against his back. "Now put your arms around me. You'll feel warmer that way."
    It suddenly clicked. "Ah. So that's what you were getting at." Gojyo's skin was as cold as a corpse's. It made Tenpou's spine tingle when strong muscular arms wove their way around his body. Made him think of someone else who by now probably had his arms around someone else. Made him burn to death of jealousy.
    "Comfortable?" Tenpou asked tentatively, pulling the blanket over the two of them.
    "Yeah. More than I feel I should be."
    "Still cold?"
    "Not as much, but given the situation, I think we're doing good. Hey."
    "Mmh?"
    "What if the monk and the saru find us like this?"
    "Let them."
    "Sanzo'll bitch about it."
    "Words are words, Gojyo. Rumors are rumors. They never bothered you before." Not that he was totally alluding to Gojyo at this point.
    "Well yeah."
    Two good-looking guys living together did stir up a mountain of gossip in their old village. Not that Gojyo gave a damn. Sure, Hakkai did act like a housewife most of the time- only without the jealous bitching whenever Gojyo went out for a night on the town. He'd find breakfast ready whenever he came back and fresh clothes on his bed- an implicit request that he take a shower before eating. He thought...and perhaps that thought held up until now...that Hakkai simply found it distasteful to smell like sex while at the table. But the fact that Hakkai was always at the table when he ate, intently evading any conversation that might allude to the half-breed's active sex-life...and the fact that there they were right now, in each other's arms at Hakkai's order...maybe it wasn't a matter of propriety, rather...
    Maybe it was jealous bitching.
    Gojyo bit his lip at the other's silence. He could only hear the wind, the fire, and their breathing- Hakkai's steady and forcibly focused while his own was ragged and irregular. He pulled closer, lulled to comfort by the heat emanating from Hakkai's smooth back which was a complete contrast from the rough scar on his abdomen- something that Gojyo found himself unconsciously stroking; exploring like territory newly acquired. Hakkai's breath hitched, yet Gojyo didn't bother to stop. He was starting to like it and guessing from the soft moan that escaped Hakkai's lips, he was liking it too.
    It stretched across him like a spider's web. Gojyo knew every inch from memory. Months of changing bandages have etched it forever in his mind. Now he traced its fine lines with featherlight touches that made the other tremble, he thought, with delight. "Gojyo..." Up a little first. Then a little higher where there was barely any scar, then down lower to the heart of the violent laceration. Then lower...
    "Gojyo..."
    Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Tenpou wanted to cry out, but his body wouldn't let him. The body was willing, yet the mind was not. And it was probably the body's urgings that got him in this position in the first place. Self blame got the better of him. He wasn't thinking. The mind didn't want Gojyo; wanted Kenren. The body wanted Gojyo; who the hell was Kenren?
    /Of all the idiotic things I have ever done.../
    It was merciless torture and Tenpou squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep at bay the memories retained by this piece of once human flesh. Something about the scar...Gojyo's touch woke it up.
    He saw blood; a lot of blood. God how he hated blood. Warm, covering him, biting. Acrid. Heard the cries of the tormented.
    Saw demonic eyes flash before his own pair after pair after pair after pair. Bloody eyes. His own bloodied eye. Warmth racing to his hands, the blood this body spilt. The blood of others. The blood of a thousand.
    Saw a girl with a knife, crying, whispering a thousand 'I'm sorrys' that were enough to kill a thousand souls whose power was a thousand times that of Tenpou because with just one tear she changed an entire land. Watered it with blood. Made bloody flowers grow. Made the rain turn to hellfire...burn burn burn and scream up to the heavens to those who shall never hear your pitiful cries for mercy...
    "Hakkai!" Gojyo shook Tenpou violently as tears streamed from the corners of his closed eyes. The two of them were surrounded by bright green light. Warm, so warm. "You're energy's flooding out. Control it or you'll wear yourself out completely!"
    "I can't. Let your body absorb it or it's lost for nothing." His voice was already fading.
    /Ah, so this was the hell you wanted me to know. /
    Gojyo did as he was told and took it in. He could feel his wounds healing faster. His fever lifting as he broke into a sweat. The surge of ki finally started to ebb as the smaller of the two bordered the abyss of unconsciousness. Hakkai...he was getting colder.
    Gojyo's grip around him tightened. "Suicidal idiot." And before Tenpou slipped tiredly into the darkness of sleep, he felt a kiss brush the nape of his neck, then another, and then another- warming his skin with each passing second.
    A stab of guilt and then, /Somebody kill me./
    Chapter 7: Things too Stupid for Words:
    Goujin was easy to spot out among the spectators, standing rigidly away from the crowd, arms crossed, face cross and white braid heavily hanging down his back reminding him of the burden of his position. Kenren walked two paces towards the white dragon. Stopped, then turned around. Walked. Stopped. Turned around and faced the back of his superior once more.
    "I request that I be transferred from the command of Field Marshal Tenpou Gensui to..." Well, he wasn't saying it, but the words came out clear in his mind anyway. All it took was just a tap on the shoulder and he was sure that Goujin would be more than pleased - if 'pleased' would do any justice to the inner euphoria the Dragon King would feel- to have Kenren out of his sight.
    The drums announcing the entrance of his men started up, slow and steady as a heartbeat, but there was a certain laziness to it that made it sound like some sort of death march. Goujin tipped his head up to the air, sniffed, then returned to being a marble statue. A death march. And the people cheered wildly.
    Confetti and streamers rained down upon him from the balconies of the Holy City, but Kenren's mind was far from it all. He absently reached for his wine flask, poured himself a small sip. Something felt utterly wrong about the situation. A breeze swept through the gates of heaven, utterly freezing and utterly unnoticed by the likes of every kami in sight. Poured himself another sip, warmed up and utterly forgot about it.
    *****
    Litouten was sputtering insanely. Nataku tried not to take notice, his eyes glued to the proudly marching (and proudly smirking, the boy did not fail to note) regiment as if they had just come back from some victory instead of some lousy snowstorm. And then Litouten was cursing, smacking a servant in the face for some "ultimately unacceptable failure, you louse, get someone out there to do it right this time!"
    His father came back to the balcony to sit beside him, red in the face and breathing heavily. "Damnable fools," Litouten grumbled behind his teeth as he leaned over the railing to make sure that the bespectacled man in the white coat was really who he seemed to be. "are the hardest to get rid of."
    Nataku pretended not to hear. Pretended to be dumb. Pretended to be still, when his eyes were actually scanning the crowd for a certain itan. A shock of brown hair would be the biggest tip off. He saw a white statue...which moved...which then must have been Goujin...a little behind him was Kenren (Nataku frowned) drinking out of turn...
    "It didn't work, how could it be that it didn't work...when a body has no soul...there aren't such things as bloody miracles in heaven."
    Nataku pretended not to hear. There was Shien standing off to the left down on the ground with Marshal Tenpou beside him. They seemed deep in conversation, until Shien caught him looking and bowed his head in respectful acknowledgment. The boy briskly nodded and then suddenly raised both his eyebrows in silent astonishment as Tenpou amiably smiled, giving a little wave.
    He gaped. What was Tenpou doing, waving at him as if he were just a mere...a...a mere...child? Perhaps it was due to that incident on earth he only heard rumors about. The boy turned to his father who seemed to be furrowing his brow, preoccupied with some inconceivable frustration; looked into the back room now empty. The Marshal probably wasn't himself. Injuries can do that to a person, Nataku concluded.
    Something hit his foot, thrown from down below. He picked it up: a delicately made paper crane. Nataku waved back.
    *****
    "What did you do that for?" Shien asked with disbelief leaking through the well constructed calm of his voice. "It was unnecessary. And disrespectful."
    "Children should be receiving toys," Hakkai replied over the cheer of the crowd, "not worship."
    Shien's voice frowned, if a voice could frown. "You speak with too much confidence, Tenpou Gensui." the other said flatly, ignoring the light smile that graced Nataku's face as he tinkered with the paper figure. "But then again, I find that far from surprising. What surprises me is that such an acute intellect such as yours needs to be briefed on a matter strictly within your domain."
    "I am well aware of the current happenings." The lie came out subtly haughtily and defensive. "But I find it useful to hear it from another person's mouth."
    The slow undulation of the drums was suddenly accompanied by the sonorous roar of the great bell whose vibrations sunk down into Hakkai's bones. In rhythm, the soldiers marched and neared. Flutes sounded with the quickness of fluttering birds.
    "Or were you expecting to hear something else?" Shien's voice broke through his numbing thoughts.
    "Come again?"
    "That I am keeping something from you."
    "It crossed my mind...though I never would have thought of asking." was the honest response. Either way, Hakkai knew how things were going to end up, secret or no secret. "You have no obligation to speak what you do not wish to say, Shien."
    "In heaven, it is one's obligation never to speak what he wishes to say. But keep in mind, Marshal, that from this point until I stop, I am not speaking." And with that, Shien grabbed Hakkai wrist, turned his heel, and then dragged the confused healer into an abandoned alleyway. "I must say, though, that you have been truly dense these past few weeks."
    A few snickers from those who saw. "Looks like Tenpou Gensui's found another lover..."
    Kenren pretended not to notice.
    ****
    "Your indecision worries me, Marshal."
    Shien, as always, had his eyes closed, had his head tilted to the side in question. When he got none, he continued. "Did you not get the note?"
    "I get a lot of notes." Hakkai said, leaning against the whitewashed brick wall and trying to fight down that feeling stirring around in his gut. Something about the air. It seemed...just a tad bit putrid.
    "Ah, but this was an important one," Shien pursued, then quoted, "They're ready for Kenren Taishou and his men at the mountain path. Surveillance round. Thirty including the general. Orders understood..."
    Hakkai's eyes widened. "YOU wrote that? But why?"
    "For heaven's sake." the other man quirked the faintest bit of a smile. "And perhaps yours as well. The Taishou..."
    / "There are many here who want Tenpou out of the way, namely one noble by the name of Litouten. You've heard of him? Of course not. You just got here...And he is the reason you are here." Kanzeon had said earlier. "Don't be disheartened by the news, Hakkai. It won't last forever. Just don't do anything too stupid. Tenpou is, after all, a secretly hunted man."/
    "He's not my responsibility anymore." Hakkai cut in, ashamed. "You saw."
    "I didn't interpret. But to the point...these men that now march the streets, I don't think they are as they seem."
    "I don't follow."
    Shien rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I have my sources," he continued, without mentioning Homura, "that tell me there exists a type of curse derived from the properties of reflective surfaces that serve as windows between here and Under Heaven. If enough power is utilized, a soul switching can occur. The body is the same, but the mind is not..." Shien paused, then took the time to open his eyes just a crack to be able to look Hakkai straight in the face.
    "You understand now?"
    The healer gulped, his hands growing instantly cold. "So you are saying that you can be talking to me...and think it is me, but perhaps I am really not here, but down there. Is that it?"
    "But of course I am not accusing you-"
    "Of course not."
    Silence descended upon the two of them, interrupted momentarily by a long winded, "Ten-chaaaaaaaan!" and a brown blur racing towards them. Goku leaped up and clung to Hakkai's neck.
    "Goku." Like a monkey, the boy was hanging off him playfully. "You shouldn't interrupt adults while they're talking." Immense brown orbs looked up at him, smiling widely.
    "Gomen, Ten-chan! But Konzen's super busy doing paperstuff and got mad at me and Ken-niichan's sad so I thought I could get you to come cheer him up because I couldn't and if I couldn't I thought you could because you can. On yeah, and Konzen taught me how to count! You want to hear? One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine... ten..."
    "Not now, Goku. Later perhaps." With considerable difficulty, Hakkai managed to unwrap the little Goku's iron grip around his neck and placed him gently down on the ground. "Fifteen...sixteen...seventeen..." All the while, Shien said nothing, scanning the second story windows and quickly pulling the three of them further into the shadows as the army passed their section of the street.
    Goku sniffed the air, then scrunched up his nose. "Ack." he pouted while pointing to the file of marching kami.
    "Twenty...twenty-one...twenty-two..."
    Then it dawned on him. That feeling returned, unfamiliar to this body, but to his mind the memory of it all was only too acute. The only thing as painful as rain was youkai...
    The boy hid behind Hakkai's coat with childish suspicion. "They smell...like blood."
    "I requested that they not be allowed to return." Shien confessed quietly. "But it seems that it never reached the higher ups."
    Goku's oblivious-to-the-world counting resumed. "Twenty-five, twenty-six..."
    Youkai, Hakkai thought frenetically, youkai in heaven. Youkai in the bodies of kami. Just as he was a youkai, in the body of a kami. Hell in heaven.
    "Twenty-seven, twenty eight..."
    There was no question of who, but what- and he could divine that as well. Thirty youkai in the bodies of thirty, now-dead heavenly soldiers...they didn't march, they stalked, their hunger barely suppressed. They glared beneath those glazed eyes, thirty pairs of them, thirsted, licked their lips, thirty tongues grazing over sharp teeth.
    "They'll spill blood here..." Hakkai choked out as he looked to Shien who had returned to close his eyes.
    "And I can only think of two men who have the influence to stand in their way." The man with the bandaged arms turned started to walk in the direction opposite of the Holy City's main street. "I am afraid that with my position in Nataku-sama's army, I can do no more for you. See to your foolish general," He stopped in thought, as if wondering whether to continue with what he was about to say. "Take back his heart before the archer up there pins it to his body."
    "Twenty-nine! Aren't you proud of me Ten-chan? I counted all the soldiers. Twenty-nine!"
    *****
    Heaven seemed like a better place, now that he was tipsy. It gave him a lighter heart- in a way as light as it was before he met Tenpou who was (besides physically satisfying) like a foggy day in the middle of an Under Heaven summer...and alcohol made him poetic... heavy, hot, blinding, fatalistic. Fatalistic and he didn't care either. Learned to live with it, fatalistic, hot, naked, blinding, just close your eyes and let...and alcohol made him forgetful of the present, and reminiscent so that the Now suddenly stuck out like a sore thumb. It was over. Fuck you, Tenpou; you manipulative bastard. I've enough, drop dead at my feet and I wouldn't have the pity to look down. Likewise, I'd bet...
    *****
    Litouten had grown unusually quiet and Nataku pretended not to notice, dutifully watching the parade like a dutiful son. Litouten was smirking like a cat who had just swallowed a canary and Nataku just sat there, bored, and dutifully watching the parade like a dutiful, bored son- pretending not to notice the fact that they were one man short. And the place was festive. And the cherry blossoms flew. And the flute sounds danced in the dead wind as the heavy drums beat a dead sound to a happy death march. And in a window across the happy dancing death marching parade, Nataku didn't pretend not to see the glint of metal that reflected off a dead sun. The pointy tip of an arrow pretending not to be there.
    *****
    And they say that gods can't die.
    Hakkai ran.
    But surely, gods can bleed.
    *****
    Where the hell is he? Konzen stalked through the crowd, up and down the street. "Goku!" This day, out of all days, boring day in and boring day out...must be the worst of them all. He looked around him to make sure nobody paid attention, then spat indignantly in a convenient place where people would most likely not walk.
    Disgusting, putrid water, not water, the god thought to himself, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to spit again. It was fine fifteen minutes ago, cool and caressing in his throat when he was still at his desk. Then came an arctic cold chill that threw all the papers on his desk into disarray. He sipped again and it was salty-sour, looked into the cup and it was a crimson red.
    "Goku!" It didn't work. Where was he?
    Something wasn't right. And if something wasn't right...
    Then perhaps, "Tenpou!"
    As if he hadn't practiced futility enough. So then there was...but he wouldn't, just wouldn't, by the grace of all things right, he wasn't going to say...
    "Kenren-taishou!" Konzen snapped is head up. It was Nataku. Suddenly a wail arose in the crowd. And then another, and another. And then there was frenetic chaos to the tune of a death march. The blonde fought his way against the tide of rushing gods; through confetti and streamers.
    "Somebody find a healer!" someone shouted...roared. Goujin was shouting orders. "Surround the premises and find out where this came from!" Konzen followed the voice then pushed through a final ring of people.
    He felt the taste of blood in his mouth again which was even stronger this time now that he was looking at it spewing from a real person. Kenren knelt, gaping, his mouth dropping into a horrific 'o'. He was clutching Tenpou's arms, holding him dumbly as he stared at the arrow that had impaled the marshal of the Western army, which, had it not met the flesh of another being, would have taken him straight through the chest.
    But Hakkai still smiled. It made the others nervous and they backed away from the pair. He opened his mouth to speak, seemingly unaware of the blood that trickled down his lips.
    "Kanzeon...Kanzeon...does this qualify...as..." he coughed; caughed and smiled even as Kenren seemed to be on the verge of...the world blurred. "...as anything too stupid?"
    ******
    Chapter 8: Crossed Nights
    The ground sunk beneath him, soft, cold, and invitingly supple. He was hot. But that heat, in turn was driven away from something rough, cold, and gentle above him and all around. A cold cloth, driven by a cold hand worked his face; on his forehead, down his nose, above his eyelids, beneath his chin, under his lips. Hakkai's mind and closed eyes traced the path dumbly as he felt his skin liberated from suffocation little by little. The healer finally got it into his head to speak and even he himself was surprised at the astounding clarity with which he was thinking.
    "I do recall you saying that you would 'do no more for me.' A change of heart?"
    The hand stopped, if not in surprise, then in amusement, and lifted. Hakkai could hear the water stream down as the cloth was soaked and wrung, the sound echoing off the walls of the bedroom. The freshness was pressed again to his face, traveling down to his neck.
    "I took pity on your stupidity." Shien replied, his words as swift and gliding as a paper cut. Hakkai opened his eyes and found that the world had transformed into a dim watercolor; which was made clear again once the other man took the time to replace Tenpou's glasses. "You seem to take your immortality too lightly, allowing your trite display of affection to be transformed into a political statement." he paused thoughtfully. "A dangerous man who does not fear death is a very strong threat."
    "I fear death."
    "Then you must act like it." the other nearly snapped. There was something behind what Tenpou did that unnerved him and stuck something hollow in the depths of his bones. Unthinking devotion. How he had always struggled to understand why it had more strength behind it than a thousand of Heaven's armies. Why not even a thousand of Heaven's armies could free a mere boy from his imposed and bloody adulthood while a simple paper crane had accomplished the task in a heartbeat. "You truly don't know how much power you wield."
    Hakkai kept his eyes fixed to the ceiling, so that Shien was only a voice. The pain in his chest throbbed gently and he had enough sense not to move the injury. It would have killed him, he knew that, but somehow he felt that Mercy was smiling upon him once again. Shien was a voice, nothing else, a comforting un-presence as if he were merely a specter floating beside him- and the gods knew that his ghost has haunted him before.
    "Will you not get in trouble for being here?" he asked aimlessly. His body was craving nicotine, but Hakkai sternly told it to shut up.
    Shien shook his head slowly and shifted himself slightly, calling to notice that he was now sitting on the bed- or probably had been there the entire time only Hakkai failed to pay attention. "Apparently there is a rumor that I am your new lover, Marshal. Nobody finds it unusual that I have headed towards your quarters. How do you feel?"
    "Very human."
    "How belittling," the other chided blandly, "but perhaps that is what loss of blood does to one. In all honesty, I never expected you to go that far."
    Where's Kenren, he wondered though he didn't bother to voice it. "How far is far?"
    "Resorting to human carelessness." the reply was automatic and well programmed- courtesy of Heaven's grooming.
    "Who's careless?"
    "Risking your life for a subordinate...anyone, it reveals a dependence kami should be above feeling. To debase yourself in this manner..." He was just a voice.
    "It makes me feel like myself. Perhaps debased. My face rubbed in the dirt, perhaps. Perhaps with the terror of feeling mortal." A quirk of a smile lifted the sides of his lips. Shien could feel it. "I like it."
    "You're nothing more than a human in a god's body." Nataku's soldier replied soberly, without the full knowledge of his words, before standing up and taking a seat by the closed window. He opened it a crack, letting the cool night air waif inside. It ruffled the blankets and the papers of nearby books Hakkai was sure he had shelved earlier that day. Shien must have been here for a while.
    "Oh, I think my case is worse than that, but I'm not very interested in talking about myself at the moment. The soldiers..."
    Shien was looking out into the distance now. "In the barracks, probably doing as they please. Playing with women most likely. Very animalistic, revolting. I hesitate to speak openly in the court about this...situation. It is not my place."
    "This can't end well." Hakkai said.
    "It is not my place to think of how it will all end. I take orders from Nataku-sama who, I fear, might not be capable of handling the situation. The farthest I go is informing you."
    "So that I can end it."
    "If you can."
    This was conspiracy, if nothing else. And if nothing else, he was absolutely the wrong person for the job. This was Tenpou's field entirely, a man a trillion years wiser than Hakkai was. Infinitely more skilled in underhanded diplomacy, and an infinite other things that would make way for an infinite number of reasons why the healer should give a flat out: No, do your own dirty work. It was a typically Sanzo-esque reaction, yes, but the priest was, if nothing else...extremely practical and wise in an alcoholic, chain-smoking, and sullen sort of way.
    But the thought of Sanzo triggered other things in Hakkai's mind. Made him think of rainy nights when the blonde would sit by the window staring, just like Shien was doing now, waiting for nothing, yet expecting everything to implode at any moment because that was just how he felt because the rain did that and the rain did many things and the rain made many things become remembered even though they shouldn't be remembered. And he remembered how hard it rained that night and how it pained him so much to hear it thundering in his ears like some omnipotent doom that would first seduce him then burn him to ash. Kanan was ash. Burn, burned and then he noticed that it never seemed that heaven would ever ever ever have rain because heaven is perfect and heaven is nice, and heaven is peaceful and heaven is completely oblivious of anything that the humans would suffer down below. Apathetic heaven. Sweet and charming...apathetic...and just for show. Slutty heaven. You deserve your share of heat...
    He stopped himself, jerked himself from that train of thought as if he were forcing himself out of an impending nightmare before sleep had completely taken over and he would be rendered helpless. "That's not me either." Hakkai whispered, bringing his hand to touch the uncuffed ear. He suddenly felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Hungry like the rest of them. "But still...how can you get rid of the rotten pillars of a pavilion without sending the entire structure crashing down?"
    "We'll salvage what we can. Heaven tends to survive that way." Shien sounded nonchalant, as if by giving Hakkai the responsibility, the sacrilege was off his chest. "Heaven itself is incidental. Break it right through the middle. I hold no concern for it for I only serve Nataku-sama and he is not of it."
    And it reminded Hakkai of his university days...
    The noble human being does not sin, the profound poet wants to tell us: though every law, every natural order, even the moral world may perish through his actions, his actions also produce a higher magical circle of effects which found a new world on the ruins of the old one that has been overthrown.
    - Nietzsche in "The Birth of Tragedy"
    ...he never really thought about it too much. Not until now. But he wasn't noble. Kougaiji was noble. Yaone was noble. Pure hearts, he could sense. But never in himself. Nobility easily shifts into carelessness, giving no indication of the transformation until the final deed is executed. By that time, it is already too late, the world destroyed.
    "But what if...by my human carelessness of course...you end with the end?" Hakkai prodded, pushing himself up higher on the pillows in order to meet the other's almost-glare that said, 'are you threatening me?' Through the darkness, he noticed that Shien balked. "I warn you now. There are some situations, destinies which I cannot control. I hold no grudge against you, Shien and I can only admire your loyalty- which makes it all the harder for me to accept your blessing of..." he hesitated to say it. "...power."
    Silence as Shien digested the honest words. And Hakkai counted a good three minutes before he received an answer floating in the dim. "I would admit defeat to no other person."
    Hakkai nodded with grim satisfaction as he bit his lip. It wasn't what he wanted, but in some absurd sense, he felt like he was granting a dying man his last wish- despite the fact that he already knew which of the two would die first.
    "Shien..."
    "Hm?" He hadn't moved.
    "Find me some paper, a pen, and my seal. I believe there are some new orders I wish to issue...but..." He never issued orders before. He didn't know the etiquette. Worst of all, he didn't know how he was going to get his arm to move.
    Shien nodded with partial understanding. "I will write them for you."
    ***
    Day 1: Preliminary investigation
    "Who was with Marshal Tenpou before the parade?"
    "Me."
    "During?"
    "Hell if I'd pay attention."
    "You are before the military council, Kenren Taishou. Please show more respect."
    "My apologies."
    "Accepted..."
    "Okay then...as the gates were opening..."
    ***
    Day 2: Post-preliminary investigation
    "Would you know of anybody conspiring to do this?"
    "Let me get the book."
    "Taishou."
    "Sorry."
    "Direct witnesses?"
    "Nataku-sama."
    "He cannot be interviewed."
    "Why?"
    "He was just sent to Under Heaven yesterday on assignment by Tentei."
    "Mh."
    "And Konzen where was he?"
    "I don't know. He came later..."
    ***
    Day 3: Follow up investigation
    "How is the Marshal's condition, Kenren Taishou?"
    "Still unconscious."
    "He seemed to come just in time to save you, as if he knew what was happening."
    "I don't think-"
    "You have not been given leave to talk."
    "...m..." for the umpteenth time "...my apologies."
    "It is rumored that you were planning on asking for a transfer from his command. To what extent is this true?"
    "None of it is true."
    "None?"
    "It is an absolutely false claim."
    "Where do your loyalties lie, Taishou?"
    "With heaven."
    "Or is it with Tenpou Gensui?"
    "..." His teeth clenched. "Fu-"
    "Don't answer, Taishou." Goujin ordered, cutting in after a long day's contemplative silence, staring hard at the committee of interogators in tacit derision, purposely overlooking his general's almost-transgression. "That is already out of the scope of the investigation. Thank you. You are dismissed Kenren Taishou. We will call upon you if needed."
    He puttered around the Western Army's housing complex, turning from one corridor into the next and when Tenpou's unguarded door caught his eye, he passed into another corridor to push it from his sight. Stark hallways would give way to elaborate balconies overlooking the central garden and its gurgling waterfall. Balconies would give way to endless stairways which would give way to more balconies that gave a view to the same garden and same waterfall from every conceivable angle. A labyrinth that had only one true destination: his own room, Kenren concluded as he stopped his wanderings to kick his idling mind to some semblance of resolution.
    And so he puttered, smoking, in the direction of his room when a disgustingly overly energetic major crossed his path and saluted as if it were 3 p.m. and not 3 a.m. Give him a few more centuries and he'll start to get lazy, Kenren concluded.
    "Kenren Taishou! I'm glad I found you!"
    Kenren offered him a cigarette, which was (obviously) refused due to the fact that in the "In the Military Manual given to us during training it is stated specifically on page 5834, paragraph 3, lines 4 through..."
    It's always the fresh young ones.
    "Cut the protocol and just tell me what the hell's gotten you so riled up."
    "We've been called to duty!" he seemed unnecessarily confused.
    "You're not *that* new, kid." Kenren scratched the back of his head, looking down at the young major with a look of growing exasperation. He shouldn't have had to deal with the psychological traumas of green soldiers who were still scared shitless when it came to youkai, battlefields, and fast women (poor souls). "March bravely for the glory and honor of heaven and all that crap but remember, if you're ever disarmed, rip their eyes out."
    The boy visibly cringed. "But that's just it, sir."
    "What's it?"
    "We don't know whose eyes to rip out. We don't know where to march. Divisions six, eight, and thirteen were just advised to arm themselves as preparation for a code blue which according to the Military Manual on page 4 lines twenty-eight to thirty, signifies..."
    He rolled his eyes before sparing the boy a good lung cramp. "Preparation for oncoming invasion." Kenren lifted a slim brow and crossed his arms. "And what drunken idiot told you to do that?"
    "Why...Tenpou Gensui did. You didn't know, sir?"
    *****
    "You bastard." It was just a voice. Devoid of anger, fear, sympathy, or anything. It was just a voice that floated over his head coming from the open doorway where the lights flooded into the dark, empty save for the two of them room. His eyes were closed and he breathed deeply, half in a world of dreams, half in an unlikely reality where a certain stubborn general was cursing him from ten feet away.
    And so at this moment, two things were existing at once.
    The door closed and there was darkness again. Footsteps got louder to his right where the door was. And a haze materialized that made the left side of his room- the side with the window- waver as if he were trying to see through a curtain of rain. Hakkai tried to focus his eyes as a figure was fluttering there like the dying flames of a setting sun.
    He squinted and before long he was looking into a pair of deep amethyst eyes, deeply disapproving and deeply relieved.. "Found you, idiot."
    "Sanzo!" The name sounded strange to him as if it had been an eternity since he'd said it. He wanted to get up and reach for him, but his body was drugged with sleep. He was dreaming this. Or at least half dreaming it since Kenren was still there, oblivious. And so Hakkai looked with a tinge of longing and envy towards the monk who sat by the window as if both of them were still back in the hotel. "How did you..."
    The blonde shrugged. "There were only three places where you could have been: Earth, Heaven, or Hell." he looked out the window, boredom gracing his face as ever. He went as if to reach for a cigarette then refrained. "You pamper the monkey too much to go to Hell, not that I find this place to be much of a better alternative." Hakkai wondered if he could actually see his surroundings.
    "Tenpou." Kenren whispered only a little harshly, reaching out his hand in order to wake up the sleeping marshal, only to have second thoughts and pulling back.
    Sanzo didn't see him.
    "Hakkai, get your ass back here." the monk grumbled, but despite the language, he sounded sincerely concerned. He knew. For a long time he knew. Maybe he was even aware of the exact, the exact moment when it happened because sometime in the middle of the night when they had shared that room, the entire air above them was suddenly washed over with the scent of cherry blossoms before dying out less then a breath later. "I don't like him."
    Point: "You don't like anybody."
    Counterpoint: "I dislike you less."
    "There's nothing much that I can do right now about it. You should at least realize that."
    "I realize it."
    "Then why are you here, hm? You didn't have to call my attention in order to locate me. Where's the trust?" Hakkai smiled because he knew he was forcing from the monk an answer the man was too proud to vocalize. A sense of satisfaction- knowing that no gun could be pointed at his head. No threat for Sanzo to hide behind. Exploitation of vulnerabilities was not Hakkai's style at all, but then again, where was Hakkai?
    "Reminding you to come back." Stone still features glowed eerily beneath the moonlight, the pond below casting reflections up into his window which pierced right through the monk as if he were air. Sanzo's features blurred. His concentration was breaking. "Because you're an idiot and might forget to."
    "You want me to come back?" The thought amused him. Are you afraid that I've abandoned you? Afraid enough that you'd starve yourself fasting, torture yourself by abstaining from your precious cigarettes, and then jumping headlong into a reckless...dangerous...meditation... just to say...
    "You're coming back."
    "When I can. There are a few loose ends I must tie up before I leave."
    "You're not on a fucking business trip, Hakkai. You have one day. Just one day and then I'm taking you back." He didn't say how, but knowing Sanzo, there was always a way that made things more convenient, at least for him.
    The blonde turned away from him, hiding what Hakkai could only assume was a pout. But even with that last ultimatum, he still didn't leave, lingering drearily out of many nights' habit. Not saying anything at first, then nodding to himself. "This is you." A quiet silence. A Hakkai silence. He still lingered.
    "Sanzo?"
    "Shut up."
    "Ne, Sanzo..."
    "What?" He didn't move.
    "Get yourself something to eat then rest some. We'll be leaving soon and there's still a long way to travel. Make sure Hakuryuu's well fed too, please?"
    A nod. "Don't wake up late. I hate leaving late."
    "Good night, Sanzo."
    "Ch."
    And then he was gone. Only Sanzo could make something as simple as friendship into some impossible four dimensional puzzle.
    The bed shifted next to him, and all the sensations of cold sweat and high fever dissolved, replaced by a heady musk that could only belong to a certain stubborn general smelling of cologne and cigarettes. The mist next to the window was gone, revealing only shutters and curtains. A cool hand checked the heat on his forehead, the heat on his neck. Ran down to the newly changed bandages and wondered who had changed them and why nobody else had informed him that someone else was tending to the Marshal in his absence. Farther and farther back into sleep, all that Hakkai could sense was the coolness, the warmth, cigarette smoke and musk. And the world congealed in a collective darkness, caressing and full. And something that breathed nice and slow nuzzled the crook of his neck in an apology his body seemed to understand.
    "Taishou..."
    "My head's been pounded by every fucking commander in all the fucking armies of fucking eternity." He felt the words on his skin. "Give me your worst. I can take it."
    Given the liberty to do so...
    "Broken and whimpering now? I don't like."
    "Fuck off." But Kenren only pulled him closer. Don't leave.
    "Are you going to stay with me this time? Or do I have to take another arrow?"
    "Shut up."
    And then he couldn't resist. "Still jealous?"
    "Okay, I didn't mean it. I can't take your worst right now. Kick my ass for forgetting who you are. That's salt in an open wound, Tenpou. Mercy's a good virtue."
    And he pretended to sleep. And he thought he would finally be able to until a single word pierced their silence.
    "Well?"
    Nagging wife...
    "Okay, fine. Shit. Yeah, I am."
    "So, are you going to stay with me this time?"
    "Who the hell said I was going anywhere?"
    "Mnh."
    Chapter 9: The Scent of Battle and Revelation:
    "Nataku. Nataku!" Litouten was vigorously shaking his son's shoulder. "Wake up!"
    "Huh?" The boy dazedly asked as his father pulled him up from the bed and literally dragged him out. His long, black locks fell to his waist and he barely had time to tie them back when he was pushed onto the balcony. "Does Tentei want me again?" He rubbed his eyes.
    "No."
    "Then wha-"
    "Ssshh." Litouten hushshed him with a vile grin on his face, a filthy hand on his shoulder. "And watch."
    Nataku did. All he saw was dead blackness and the Western Army housing complex not too far into the distance. "There's nothing there."
    "Not now. Just wait. Tonight will be..." he trailed off, searching for a word glorious enough to do justice to this sensation of sweet, sadistic victory he was now tasting. "Nataku, wake up!"
    The boy had fallen asleep on his feet. "I'm awake, Father. Tonight will be what? You said it'll be what?"
    "Mine."
    He sounded like one of those comic books the Marshal always slipped under his door whenever he knew Litouten isn't around. Nataku looked grumpily towards his father and shrunk back as the hand on his shoulder tightened into an oppressive grip. He looked to Western Army, then closed his eyes again. He didn't want to see this.
    ****
    He had never really seen barrenness until now, the charred homes, trampled flower beds, broken fences, and severe emptiness -made more painful by the multitude of footprints in the snow indicating that there were once many more people here- it all tugged at memories that only this body knew. And what this body knew, Tenpou could only guess.
    Walking the cold empty streets, that part of him numb to human suffering seemed to die with each step. Whisps of smoke from dying fires rose from various points in the village where several families had decided to stay out of love for homeland. "When it comes right down to it," a woman had told him. "Total disaster is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, we miss our lost friends...but we still have ourselves. Homes are just sticks and stones, and they can be rebuilt. Besides, the town was starting to look a bit decrepit anyway, wouldn't you think?"
    If Heaven had the opportunity to experience such calamities, maybe it wouldn't be so intolerable, so untouched. Something so egotistically virgin needed a bit of...non-virgin experiences. Dirt. Snow. Wind. Rain. Fire. Fire.
    It was a dim, gray sunrise, giving way to a sickly pale sun that seemed to suck the heat from earth instead of give. He caught a wide frozen splotch of red against a house, blatant and infused with the last scream of the dying, then fought the urge to gag when the scent reached his nose. Tenpou picked up his pace and headed to a wood right outside the town.
    Finding him didn't take too long- a permanent frown etched into perfect white marble that made the snow around him hide in shame. His eyes were closed, painfully so, as if he were forcing himself farther and farther into his meditation like it was some closet to hide in. As he stepped closer, a twig broke beneath Tenpou's feet. He froze. The other flinched, then stilled himself, a murmur barely audible on his lips. "...come back."
    Tenpou dared to speak. "Sanzo." One violet eye cracked open to give a well-aimed glare tailored perfectly for the marshal, accompanied by a well aimed gun.
    "I thought I said that I wanted to be alone."
    Tenpou didn't flinch, but held out a meat bun in his right hand. "You've been alone for five hours. You've been fasting for fifteen. Not smoking for ten. I'm surprised you're still alive."
    His hand was graciously swatted away. "Don't try to be my fucking nursemaid."
    But Tenpou wasn't at all ready to leave. As if he had expected the initial rejection, his left hand offered an opened packet of cigarettes. Sanzo was about to repeat the gesture, accompanying it with more colorful epithets, then reconsidered. So he took a cigarette, evoking a light smile from the other man who tapped the bottom of the pack with the comfort only a well practiced smoker would have until a cigarette popped up neatly from the rest.
    Sanzo wasn't at all surprised as he lit up and threw the lighter at Tenpou's feet. "My thanks." the marshal said, as picked it up and brought burning life to end of his cigarette. It felt good, that first drag in a good long time...his mind liked it, but his body began to cough and choke like the beginner it was. It took a few shorter puffs for him to get accustomed, but when it felt more comfortable, Tenpou leaned himself against a tree, closing his eyes. "Just this once, so he won't get addicted."
    "So you decided to cut the crap."
    "Yes, well, we both have eyes for bad acting, hm?" He grinned again then flicked his ashes onto the snow, blown cold by the northern winds before it even reached the ground. The winds haven't stopped since that first attack. They both knew it. "That's them, you know, and they're still hungry."
    "There's no food here."
    "Some villagers have decided to stay."
    "Then that's their problem, not ours." Sanzo said tersely, not looking at the stranger in front of him. "And definitely not yours. All you do is cause us trouble with your selfish little wants...not caring who gets trampled along the way. You and the rest of you, all the same- whether its for this heaven or that heaven, all the crap got thrown down here."
    "Like Goku, perhaps?" Tenpou said, wryly prodding the monk to defend his ward.
    Sanzo only snarled, putting out his cigarette with more violence then necessary, the quiet hissing adding a greater dimension of irritation to his mood. "And I should hope that you weren't responsible for chaining him up in that fucking cave, alone, for five hundred fucking years so that five hundred fucking years after he got put there, *I* had to fucking take care of him."
    Tenpou opened his mouth to disagree, then silenced himself, his face growing still and his eyes narrowing in subtle contempt- more for himself than anything else. Why was Goku...he didn't know this. Nobody had told him, but it was a glance into an inevitable fate he didn't want to accept...still couldn't accept...but he had to now: he was going to lose everything regardless of what he did. And everything he had so wished for Heaven would never...and it would be nothing glorious. No Renaissance. That's what he wanted, a true renaissance, like the ones he'd read about- a golden age of true change instead of a rotting, tepid one...he had so wished...
    But it was a human desire incompatible with a nonhuman world- like trying to light a match in the vacuum of space...
    Looking past the end of his cigarette, he saw the image of Konzen at his desk, superimposed on this unruly, smoking monk. Had Tenpou been in Konzen's office this very minute instead of some freezing wood with Sanzo, he absently and futilly mused, Konzen would have said something like, "Go back to your books and quit distracting me." if he really didn't want to be disturbed. But if he really didn't mind Tenpou's presence, it would be something in the range of, "You're still here."
    "You're still here." Sanzo said, dully.
    "Yes I am." he agreed, a better mood returning to him. "The youkai..."
    "It's not your problem."
    But motivated by a growing sense of vanity, Tenpou decided not to scuttle away with his tail between his legs like a kicked dog on some dirty sidestreet. Nobody had the right...no, not even a Sanzo because he was...and *he* was...is...
    "It's not for you to decide which problems are mine, Genjo Sanzo, emissary of the *gods*. " Tenpou retorted, rubbing it in, delighting in that look of abject shock that flashed across Sanzo's apathetic face just then, and feeling more like himself and deciding that he was himself, only in different skin- human, youkai, or not- and that he was still marshal.
    Matters which concerned rampaging youkai were, arbitrarily, his problem. "Now listen, I've instructed the people to put out their fires and hide out in the valley west of here taking minimal belongings. They should be all cleared out in about two hours or so. The town will then be deserted and the youkai will most likely go for the slower caravan moving southwards which left around the time you started meditating. They cannot get there without passing first through the town. I think we can handle them, don't you think?"
    But Sanzo was busy grinding his teeth. "Fuck you."
    "Now, now. You should start to be nicer to me. I may not be Hakkai, but that doesn't mean I'm worth any less." Tenpou chided as he went over and put a patronizing hand over Sanzo's head, petting him as if he were some student of his. "You know that Three Aspects debit Card you have?" He stopped. Sanzo glared. "When I go back, I can cut the Sanzo's account with just a simple order and you and your predecessors will have a good five hundred years to learn how to earn your wages right. Wouldn't you like that?"
    Tenpou's hand tightened at the hair that brushed against Sanzo's neck as if pulling an imaginary ponytail.
    "Or..." the marshal continued, pretending to ponder.
    "Or." said Sanzo through a clenched jaw, his trigger finger twitching like mad.
    "Or, maybe I won't. I could also have a word with the Three Aspects about guaranteeing vacations to the men in your line of work. After all, you need your rest...humans are so...so frail..."
    It was enough provocation to send a bullet buzzing past his ear and into the air. Before he had time to think any second thoughts, Tenpou was grabbed by his collar in a brutal hold.
    "Listen you..."
    A bloodcurdling screech filled the air, cutting off the monk's impending threat.
    "So now they know we're here. It's all quite convenient really. I'm doing my job, and you're getting your friend back. There won't be any more need for you to meditate yourself over to his side. Isn't that fair? " Tenpou commented, oblivious to how close to death he was at that moment. He paused. "Isn't it what you want, Genjo Sanzo?"
    Sanzo released him, his eyes strewn with scornful disbelief as if he'd just been violated. Tenpou could have burst out laughing. "You..."
    They were so alike. So the same. They were both allergic to the F-word.
    "Why must both of you make friendship so complicated?" Tenpou teased. "Anyway, just come back before noon. Goku's starting to miss you and we should prepare ourselves for the attack. It'll be around dusk, if my knowledge of that type of youkai is correct."
    "Who put you in charge?" said Sanzo sulkily, grabbing the cigarette pack from Tenpou and lighting himself up another one. He breathed deeply, relaxed a little, only to have the cigarette plucked from his lips as the other man leaned down close and whispered in his ear, words both silky and terrifying, giving him enough proof that Tenpou Gensui was truly a fatal menace.
    "I am -always- in charge. Remember that."
    And with those words, Tenpou walked past the stricken priest, his eyes glowing with satisfaction as he contemplated his newly acquired cigarette.
    And with those words, Sanzo started to pity the marshal's celestial enemies.
    ****
    At the corner of the wood, out of sight, but not out of earshot, stood Gojyo digesting the conversation as the faint smell of cigarette smoke- not Sanzo's brand at all - drifted towards him.
    ****
    Tenpou felt especially soft right now- melting in his arms like cold fluffy soap scented feather down...
    Wait a second.
    Kenren's eyes flew open and he found himself in a passionate embrace with an extremely dispassionate pillow. Burying his face in frustration, he mumbled to the memory, "Dammiiiitttt Tenpou." The memory didn't respond. "Who're you running off to?"
    "No one in particular." replied Hakkai cheerily as the general shot up in bed. "Here and there, but mostly to the bathroom to bathe and such." Which had proven to be quite difficult given the injury, but he wasn't about to wake this man just so that he would help him bathe...not that Kenren would have minded one bit.
    He felt like...bathing? It just wasn't done. "Who-"
    "Am I and what have I done with your Tenpou, right?" Hakkai waved a nonchalant hand dismissing the idea as if it were simply preposterous that Tenpou was not Tenpou. "Don't bother Taishou."
    "Yes sir, not bothering sir."
    From his desk, Hakkai silently stood up with the ease of someone who had been awake for quite some time, Kenren noted, then resettled himself at the other man's side, careful not to jolt his own shoulder.
    "But in full uniform?" Kenren pursued, scooting over to make room.
    "Mmh." Hakkai agreed. "For here and there."
    "Ah."
    The desk was messed up with papers, a blemish in a strangely pristine room illuminated by soft candlelight. Dancing shadows were cast about, the wood marred here and there by splotches of black ink. Tenpou had been writing- or attempting to write- had gotten some ink smudges on his cheek and this was the messiest Kenren's seen him in four days.
    And it was suddenly like he stood in a room with a masked stranger who smiled out of mechanical habit and not bland amusement, whose eyes were not Tenpou eyes because Tenpou eyes were lusty when it came to being alone in dim candlelit rooms with less than two feet between him and Kenren. The way Tenpou looked at him now- as analytic as ever- quietly with his eyes whispering and not ravaging over exposed skin...it was as if Kenren were a torn picture he had tried to piece back together with the help only of a previous memory of his true image. The memory would superimpose itself upon the picture...
    And then Tenpou kissed him, ticking his senses with soap and cologne that seemed to take on a different scent now- as if it were on different skin. Soft. Soft. And not demanding more than a simple touch but it felt like so much more than that because as innocent as it was, it made him warmer warmer and so Kenren being Kenren, took it past innocence and forced Hakkai's mouth open with a probing tongue, tasting something slightly of cinnamon, maybe of vanilla, maybe of mint. The absence of tobacco was curious, and he pressed further to take in more.
    "Mmh!" Hakkai violently pushed him away and clutched his stomach. It burned so much-as if it were being ripped open. Again. Because the mind's memories were strong. It caused his shoulder to burn. It made him think of rain. And blood. And then he knew...that scent of youkai was so strong now...that they were ready to feast. "Hurts." was all he said, but it was enough for the Taishou to understand and he went to cradle the other man if he weren't pushed away. Again.
    And he was going to protest, again, if a gentle hand hadn't cupped his cheek and shaking, stroked it gently. "Get dressed, Taishou. Full uniform. We have no time for any of that now." Hakkai said apologetically, though a sense of numbess had taken over him, and slowly, steadily, he got up and worked his way to the desk.
    Kenren just couldn't place Tenpou's expression- one of solemn rumination on dark thoughts that implied more than the general ever thought his marshal had experienced.
    "Taishou." Hakkai insisted to the general who hadn't yet moved and pointed to the pile of black clothes- now neatly folded- sitting at the foot of the bed. "Your uniform. I will not have my general stark naked in the middle of an attack.
    Kenren sighed. This was pure madness; paranoia. "You're insane, Tenpou." But he complied anyway, frivolously tossing away the covering sheet and noticing Tenpou turn away in embarrassment, a blush creeping into his cheeks.
    Tenpou never blushed. Or turned away.
    A brusque knock on the door of Tenpou's study broke their momentary silence. They looked at each other, then the marshal walked into the next room, closing the separating door behind him before answering the one hiding the visitor.
    "Oh, it's you..." Kenren heard Tenpou say in the other room, tacking "sir" hastily at the end of his greeting. It must be Goujun.
    Silence and the general could just imagine his commanding officer taking a still-eyed perusal of the study. And he could imagine Tenpou twiddling his thumbs as he kept the dragon king outside of his little sanctuary.
    "Won't you come in?"
    A ruffle of clothing, the stepping of boots that even *sounded* polished pierced the air- as a dragon's presence would, whether he be in this form or that. Goujun looked to the Marshal, who stood as erect as he could, given his sling-cradled injury.
    "You keep clean quarters, Tenpou Gensui."
    "It's not usually like this, sir."
    Deep, blood red eyes bored into Hakkai's relentlessly until turning away abruptly towards the ink stained desk, and his ink stained face and fingers. "No, I'd imagine not." With one look alone, Hakkai felt violated, as if the dragon king had merely used his claws to effortlessly rip away into his mind and, with cunning deliberation, pick out a certain thought he deemed useful to keep in mind.
    It made him uncomfortable, to say the least. "What can I do for you, sir?" he all but stuttered.
    "Nothing. I was just checking that it was really you, issuing those foolish orders and not your foolish general."
    "It was me, sir."
    "Yes, I'd imagine it would be. Kenren Taishou would be too dense to even-" He paused. "But given that you are a kami as well, you should have been unable to perceive it also."
    "Perceive what, sir?" The eyes came to him again, narrowed as his white scaly body stilled, waiting to feel the direction of some invisible wind. One slender ear moved- ever so slightly- the look in his eyes changed, and before Hakkai knew it, sharp claws grasped his uniform and Goujun pulled him closer, the other hand forcing his chin up as the dragon king lowered his face to a vulnerable neck.
    "Um...sir?"
    Oblivious to Tenpou's squirming, Goujun brought his nose close to the sweat sheened skin and worked his way through the different scents that invaded him. Soap was the most obvious sensation, then cologne, then a different musk -Kenren's, the dragon thought wryly- , but after that he found it confusing. Traces of something earthly beneath heaven's toiletries seemed to linger. Like dirt. Like humans...humans?...like youkai...like blood.
    Goujun released him like a rag doll, toyed with and tossed.
    "Sir, that was most inappropriate for Heaven." Hakkai breathed out with slight indignation, but Goujun was unfazed as he stepped back, nodded a goodbye then headed out, calling over his shoulder as he left.
    "I am not of heaven either." the dragon king said, heavy with knowledge. "I do not totally approve of your form of intervention in this matter, but I trust that you will handle the situation to the best of your abilities. I do not approve, but good luck."
    Chapter 10: Just Admit It
    When Kenren finished dressing, he stumbled into the study where Tenpou was- no surprise here-reading.
    "Oi, Tenpou." he said to catch the marshal's attention, but the other man was too deeply engrossed in the tattered hardback to look up. "Tenpou!"
    Hakkai jumped; snapped the book shut. "Oh. It's you."
    Kenren twisted his face in mock disgust. "Who else would it be?"
    "Well..."
    "Should I even bother asking?"
    "You wouldn't get a very interesting answer." Hakkai admitted honestly before casting his eyes down towards the cover. In the weak light of the candle, the shiny leather cast a pale sheen of red over his skin. "You're the only person I sleep with around here."
    "Damn straight." All the windows were closed, he had noticed; which was odd since Tenpou usually liked to keep them open.
    The air was strange tonight, with a deathly stillness that set it apart from other nights. He lit a cigarette. Tenpou was fiddling around with his books again and Kenren was starting to get the impression that the marshal had forgotten all about his previous commands. Still, he said nothing because as careless as Tenpou could be when it came to bookkeeping and hygiene, he was NEVER one to forget anything that had the slightest bit to do with war. Shout out a name and page number, and he'd even quote from the damn book.
    And so he smoked, closing his eyes and pretending not to look like he didn't have the slightest idea of what was happening. That's how politics went, didn't it? Hence the importance of having somebody to trust completely.
    That said, Kenren wasn't actually sure where to place Tenpou in the great scheme of things.
    A click of a loading gun pierced the silence in a way that was harsh and neat, like the tick of a clock, only it happened once. So Tenpou hadn't forgotten his orders after all.
    Of course Kenren trusted him. After all, there was that incident several days ago. If he couldn't trust him now...but then again there was always something he felt that simply included trust. Couldn't exactly put his finger on it. Respect maybe. Most likely. Of course. On the other hand, that sounded too buddy buddy...as if they didn't sleep together...ravaged each other at the most random times, at the most random locations.
    Going along those likes, Kenren could just say he was impressed...
    Tenpou moved into the shadows of another bookshelf, his figure melting into the darkness where the candlelight couldn't reach. Paper was torn.
    It was never too difficult to be impressed with Tenpou, who had the most uncanny way of getting things done and then smoked it off as if it were "something he just wanted to try out." As if he had stashes and stashes of plans waiting to be executed, daydreamed over millennia but never given the opportunity to be carried out on the field. Tenpou's mind was always running like that...perhaps even when he's being fucked senseless, a part of him is still with his maps and diagrams. Most likely, despite the fact that Kenren would have preferred to doubt it.
    That said, Tenpou still didn't seem to fit anywhere with him.
    Sure, it was a comfort knowing that there was one brain in this whole heaven that didn't get dusty and rusty; that always had a backup plan to the backup plan's contingency plan. Because with Tenpou, you could breathe easy knowing that somebody was in control of the situation...except when it came to sex...but really, anything in that area is completely out of the marshal's control, Kenren added smugly. But still...
    Tenpou emerged from the shadows, gun in hand and hair tied loosely back. He smiled weakly then set himself on top of his desk, the weapon on his lap.
    "Well?" Hakkai said.
    "Well what?"
    "Aren't you going to question my orders? You always seem rather disposed to doing such things."
    "Eh." Kenren shrugged, looking at the floor. "I figured it wasn't worth the effort this time."
    "Why?"
    "Because I'm an ass, that's why."
    "Is that it?"
    "That and the fact that in section 6 of the Military Manual, page 37, paragraph eight," Kenren recited in mocking rote. "It says that whenever the army is in a code blue situation, no superior's orders are to be questioned lest something really shitty happen to the stupid ass subordinate."
    Laughter bubbled up from Tenpou as he politely covered his mouth. "Oh my. And what 'shitty' punishment do you think I might have prepared for that certain 'stupid ass' subordinate of mine?"
    You would finally say that you want to be on top, Kenren voiced internally, but wouldn't even dare speak it out loud for fear that Tenpou might actually want to do *just that.* He's capable of it. Entirely capable of it.
    "I dunno. Extra desk work?"
    Hakkai shook his head. "In any case, Taishou, shouldn't that rule apply all the time and not just on a code blue signal? Or..." he continued with added mischief. "Wouldn't it also be a punishable infraction should a certain subordinate talk back rudely to a certain superior whilst at the same time questioning his judgment AND adding an inappropriate sexual jibe?" Kenren grew red.
    "I DIDN'T!"
    "Even Shien caught it. Perhaps if I come out of this upset, he'll report you."
    Playing with jealousy again. Well it was working. And fucking annoying him to the ends of the earth because he didn't know why. The jealousy he could admit, but the reason for it he couldn't rationalize.
    Tenpou could fuck anybody he wanted to fuck. He had the liberty to do it. Just as Kenren did. God knows there were many nights and many women.
    There was no disputing it. There's nothing there. Absolutely not. He was doing a poor job of convincing himself. Respect. Total respect. Comrades in arms...who just happened to sleep with each other. But guys do that sometimes. It was just "something they wanted to try out." And sure, it was fun, still is, but that's just it. Fun. Alcohol. Cigarettes. Sex. All the same.
    To bad his mind was in a position to argue.
    Point: But Tenpou hasn't been fucking anybody else. You like that idea, don't you?
    Counterpoint: ...
    Point: And you haven't been fucking any woman ever since you started fucking *him* isn't that right?
    Counterpoint: ...
    Point: There's a word for that, you know.
    "Taishou." Tenpou's eyes suddenly seemed to take on an apologetic look. "Consider this your punishment."
    "What!?"
    But before he could even look up to meet Tenpou's eyes, something sharp met his arm and he winced in pain. Then from that point, everything started to go numb, spreading from his arm and down into his legs until he collapsed into Tenpou's embrace.
    "This is for your own sake, Taishou, because I know you value the lives of your men. So this time, again, the responsibility is out of your hands and back into mine. I'm not even asking you to trust me, just allow me to free your conscience this time around."
    And the obvious answer: "Fuck you."
    "I need you to cooperate with me." Hakkai continued, putting the fired tranquilizer gun back on the desk and easing the general onto the floor. "Taishou, you are in no position for dishonesty. And so I ask for a single answer to a single question and then I can leave you in peace to insult me at will whenever you awake, if that is what you find pleasure in doing." he paused. "In any case, that is just a disclaimer because I mixed truth syrum into the dart. You will be truthful whether you want to be or not."
    "Manipulative bastard." His head was suddenly growing fuzzy, that sense of foreboding churning his gut making him wish that the unconsciousness would come just a bit faster.
    Hakkai ruffled his hair. "That's me, but don't you worry. It's a simple yes or no question."
    Come on. Knock me out already. Sleep. Sleep. Go to sleep. I'm not listeniiiinnnngggg...
    "Are you in love with me?"
    Shit.
    There was a knock on the door, a bit lazy this time so it couldn't be Goujun.
    "Come in!" Hakkai called, getting up from his desk to meet the visitor yet making no move to hide the unconscious general at his feet.
    Through the entranceway walked a man with wild, orange hair. One eye visible while the other was covered with a patch that was insufficient in hiding the angry scar that ran across it. "Zenon." Hakkai greeted with a nod.
    "Mn." the man looked over to Kenren, dead asleep. "Is this how you deal with all of them?"
    A smile, but he refused to acknowledge the question. "I want all units, except for the regiment that had just returned, to evacuate the building. Discretion is necessary."
    "And you?"
    "I'll stay for the time being. Play it by ear."
    Zenon looked up from the floor towards the marshal. The other man's mind was wandering, a small smile playing on his lips. He could ask, but they were never on such familiar grounds. How Shien managed to do it eluded him completely. So instead of frivolous words, he retreated to going about doing what he knew.
    The sound of metal upon wood thundered throughout the quiet room as Zenon dropped a hefty sword onto the desk.
    A slender brow lifted. "But that would require..."
    "You're playing it by ear, remember?" Zenon retorted, fishing out a cigarette from his pocket.
    "Ah."
    "And you might want this too." he held out a gun.
    "No need, I already have one." Hakkai pointed to the silver tranquilizer over on the bookshelf.
    Zenon huffed before replacing Hakkai's gun with his own pistol- the machine gun, of course, remained hanging at his side. "That one's for sissies. This one," he said of Hakkai's newly acquired weapon. "Is the real thing."
    "For playing it by ear, am I correct?"
    A terse nod, then, "And him?" Zenon pointed to the taishou.
    "Bring him with you on your way out. Careful, he's a bit heavy."
    He could have said something, but...again...they were never on familiar grounds. The marshal would throttle him for it. "What do I tell Goujun?"
    "Say that the sandman knocked him out."
    Zennon grinned then. The marshal didn't seem as bad a guy as people made him out to be. Then again, the Tenpou Gensui was a man of many faces "Yes, sir." And then he was gone, Kenren Taishou in tow.
    Left alone in the room, Hakkai took time to examine his weapons. Looked inside the gun. Fully loaded. He stuck it in his belt then went to the the sword: slick and newly sharpened. It would do nicely.
    Thirty demons? A secret, feral leer graced his face just then. He licked his lips.
    Nothing to one who has slain a thousand.
    *****
    Gojyo sneezed. "Damn cold." he muttered before drowning a cup of weak wine. It did little to warm him. But hell, it was something, at least. Perched on the only unbroken chair in the now roofless tavern, he looked into the fire Hakkai...or rather...Tenpou...had told him to make.
    "Those youkai are drawn to heat like metal to a magnet." the man had said. "Just like you, ne? Just wait here while I go get Sanzo. He's been gone for an awful long time." And he left. But Gojyo followed, eavesdropped and then ran back.
    "I'm hungry." a voice said from behind him on the floor.
    "Shut up, saru. You just ate the last of our reserves. If you want more, scrounge around the village. I'm sure there's some edible trash around here. Might have to fight the dogs for it."
    Goku kicked himself up. "What kinda animal do you think I am?"
    "What a memory you've got, saru."
    "Why you-"
    The sound of a creaking door cut him off as Hakkai walked through, smiling. "Don't tell me you've started arguing already. I've only been gone...about five minutes."
    "Ten." Gojyo corrected morosely, turning away from the two of them to stare into the fire. It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. He bit into his cigarette. Fucking asshole.
    "Hakkai? Is Sanzo coming back now?" the boy was looking out the glassless window again in the direction the surly priest had gone. Before Homura, Goku was never this anxious whenever Sanzo just wanted to go off alone to meditate. But ever since Homura...well...everything that had happened with him just proved how frail Sanzo really was. A mere human with the resilience of a twig when compared to a god. That's why he hated it whenever Sanzo was alone because that would make Goku feel alone. And then there was always that threat that the aloness would last forever if Sanzo never came back.
    "Eh. Soon. After he calms down a bit." Tenpou replied, amusedly as he sat himself down by Gojyo's feet and leaned his chin upon the other's knee. Gojyo froze. "I think I angered him. Don't you think so, Gojyo?"
    The redhead shrugged. "How the hell would I know?"
    "Be it of friend or foe." Tenpou recited with a twinkle in his eye. "One cannot help but see, a third set of footprints in the snow."
    "Damn you!" he lifted his hand to angrily strike him away, "Maybe one good knock on the head'll send you back!" but it was caught by Goku's fierce grip.
    "Stop! Gojyo don't! Not Ten-chan!" he held on harder as he repeated the name.
    He didn't know how he knew. He just did. All the questions that were asked of him...
    Who taught you how to read, Goku?
    It wasn't Sanzo, was it?
    Then who?
    ...and so he began to think really hard about it. Who? Who? Who? For three nights, he'd been asking himself, finally resorting to asking the goddess of mercy (wherever she...he was)...who?
    And so that night he dreamed about a library, a comforting hand upon his shoulder as another one pointed out the squiggles laid out on the paper before him. "Read it out loud with me, Goku..." Faceless, but in the shiny reflection of the book, he saw someone he thought he recognized.
    "I won't let you hurt Ten-chan! It's probably not his fault that he's here. I don't know what happened, but you can't hurt him! I won't let you! Never!" Goku was starting to sound like a small child.
    Gojyo grit his teeth. Man, it was starting to hurt.
    Tenpou could only stare dumbly at the scene. Goku had known. But the longer he thought about it, the more he found it less surprising. The boy had always been more perceptive than they all thought and it was a grave miscalculation on his part that he could hide this secret from Goku for very long. And it was more than he deserved from somebody he supposedly abandoned...or will abandon sometime.
    While the two grappled, Tenpou briskly got up and went for the door. He needed to feel the wind against his face again. Goku and Gojyo didn't notice the lack of presence until wood slammed against wood. "See what you did!" shouted Goku before he went to follow. The half-breed caught him by the collar.
    "Oi. Goku..." he said, thoughtful this time. "How long did you know about him?"
    "I guess...I guess I never totally completely forgot." the boy replied, looking at his wrists as if expecting his gauntlets to transform before his eyes.
    "And you're not in the least worried about Hakkai?"
    "Why should I? Hakkai's the one who always knows his way around. He'll find his way back, but Ten-chan...Ten-chan seems really lost around here."
    Why was it so easy for him to grasp the concept of the two of them switching? Gojyo could only wonder.
    The reincarnation part...the half-breed could accept, although he preferred not to linger on it. Enemies have called him Kenren Taishou before. Homura did. Those soldiers in the tower did. But he never really accepted the idea. Neither could Sanzo, and he was supposed to be the closest to heaven any mortal could ever be.
    But Goku was over five hundred years old. He never died. He knew ALL of them. So could it be that somewhere in that ape brain of his, he never registered the difference between Hakkai and Tenpou, between Sanzo and Konzen, between me and...
    "Saru, you stay here and wait for Sanzo." Gojyo got up, headed for the door and left before Goku could argue.
    ...as if there never really was a difference in the first place.
    ****
    Goku stirred, opened his eyes. Couldn't sleep. Maybe sleeping on his left side. Nope. Right side. Nope. Back? Nuh huh. The mattress of his little bed creaked, incessantly as he tossed and turned because something tickled his nose like an itch he couldn't scratch. Left, right...back...stare at the ceiling...
    "Will you just go to sleep bakasaru!" Konzen roared, shooting up in bed with obvious frustration. Even in the darkness his hair seemed to shine unnaturally.
    "But I can't, Konzen!" he replied, big-eyed and tucking his legs up beneath him. The ever-present sound of clanking chains accompanying his movement. Konzen never admitted it, but he knew that if he heard them nearby, things were relatively good. And Goku was safe. Hell if he'd admit it.
    "It's easy. Just close your eyes and shut up!"
    "I'm worried about Ten-chan." That was about the hundredth time he'd said it in the past three days.
    "Tenpou doesn't need people worrying about him." the Kanzeon's nephew replied, a bit more subdued. "He can take care of himself, despite all the trouble he causes."
    "But still..."
    A vein popped out. " .What?"
    "Feels like wolves."
    "Wolves? What are those?"
    "Big hairy monsters that walk on four legs with really scary yellow teeth. Whenever I smelled them around...or thought they were nearby, I had to climb into a tree...all the time because they can't climb."
    "Sounds like youkai to me."
    "Wolves. Are there wolves in heaven, Konzen?"
    "Sure. They're called politicians."
    "Konzen!"
    A sigh. "Goku...just go to-"
    But a shrill cry shook the night, piercing the walls around them, right down to the marrow of their bones. The first was followed by a second, which was then followed by another until a whole grotesque chorus of fierce wails arose, like a wave gaining momentum...
    Konzen tried to switch on the light, but the moment he did, the bulb shattered, raining down on them in shimmering pieces. The glass of the window cracked. And a cold wind...
    ****
    The cold wind bit at Tenpou's neck and he hunched over to pull his collar up. It was a futile attempt at warmth, yet he didn't mind because lately, the term 'futility' had made itself a permanent and cozy niche in his mind.
    You will fail.
    You will die.
    You will sin.
    You will cry.
    You will turn into your own victim. Quietly, the metal cuffs seethed as the gusts picked up. They were coming. The sun was setting as he prepared himself to kill for the first time. Taking a life seemed so clinical, the written word making the act seem an act and nothing more than an act. The word nothing more than a word, but as there had always existed an incongruity between words and actions, actions and thoughts, surely the deed must carry with it a heavy burden, to a certain extent a specific type of trauma that comes with the pinnacle of immorality.
    That is not to say that there aren't those who deserve to die. There are...
    And so is there any being better fit than a god to execute those mortals unworthy of life?
    And what of the gods unworthy of their immortality? Who to execute them?
    Wallowing in irony, Tenpou thought of his other self. Why, a mortal of course.
    He took a moment to indulge himself in a strange vanity, that the mortal man he will become will be unordinary, that part of humanity chosen from the rest because he is of celestial background...
    "I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories," Tenpou once read. It still held a certain, egotistical truth with him. "inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers."
    But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood.
    "But I hate blood."
    "What a coincidence," someone said behind him. "So do I." A cold hand brushed over his hair, causing the clinging snowflakes to shimmer down, only to disappear as the wind whisked them away to nothingness. "So does he. But he's used to it- seeing it every time he looks at me. And I'm used to it- seeing it every time I look in the mirror. Which leaves you." Gojyo settled down behind Tenpou until they were back to back. "Apparently you haven't been looking at me enough to realize that I'm not-"
    "Of course you aren't." the marshal cut in. "Nor did I ever expect it of you."
    "Ah, then why cuddly moment?"
    "I was making sure. And now I am sure that you are not Kenren Taishou."
    "How so?"
    "You simply aren't."
    "Does he smoke?"
    "Yes."
    "Does he drink?"
    "Quite a bit."
    Gojyo didn't get it. "So what's the difference?"
    "Simple."
    "What?"
    "He'd let me lie to him." Tenpou stifled a laugh as he leaned into what little warmth he could feel from the half-breed's skin.
    Gojyo snorted. "What a pushover."
    "I'll quote you on that next time I see him. Usually I am the one who is...how do you say..."
    "Pushed over?"
    "So to speak..." Tenpou drifted off, his mind dipping itself once again in a pool of reminiscence. He would like to think it was all for the sex, because it was good sex. Nothing Gojyo wouldn't have been able to provide had he asked at that moment three days ago. Not just physical release...
    "So..." Gojyo struck up the conversation again, this time around feeling less uncomfortable. "Does he...you know..."
    "We don't use that word in heaven."
    "What a coincidence, we're reluctant to use it here too. But does he?"
    "Most likely."
    "And you?"
    There were some things he just couldn't get around. "I do."
    I do. My god, it sounded like...
    Tenpou felt an elbow jab him playfully in the back. "Oi, Tenpou."
    "Mh?"
    "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette on you, would you now?"
    "Actually...I do."
    ****
    "Taishou. Hey, you awake?" Kenren felt a hand slapping his face, not all to gentle, but not like a pissed off woman either. Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at the great fabricated sky of heaven, dotted with numerous stars disappearing with the encroaching dawn. "Taishou."
    He couldn't move his legs. "What?"
    "How's the sky look from down there, eh?" Zenon asked.
    "Shut the hell up. Where's Tenpou?" he added without thinking.
    "Around, playing things by ear." the fiery haired man as he hauled Kenren up to a sitting position. The two of them were situated on a hill overlooking the Western Army's living complex which was, as per orders, surrounded by the recently vacated troops.
    Kenren blinked away the blurriness of sleep and registered his surroundings. The entire building was shut off...the doors, windows...everything. And attached to each closed opening was a white slip of paper with neatly stroked characters on them. Spirit wards. "What the hell's happening?"
    "We're just enacting the military's containment policy over our own grounds. It's a quarantine." Zenon responded, his one eye perusing the premises like a hawk. Off to the side stood Shien, arms crossed and as still as ever, right next to Goujun. They looked like a pair of pale statues from his vantage point. At the opposite edge sat Homura who, as always, was trying to keep a low profile.
    "A quarantine? That's only necessary for the containment of a disease." Kenren objected. "And we're kami. We don't get-"
    "It all depends on how you define an infection. Because according to high sources, we have been infected by youkai. And so we are containing them."
    "What youkai?" Realization dawned. "What the fuck! That's absolutely crazy!" He tried to leap up to his feet, only to land flat on his face.
    "You're not going anywhere. Not in at least thirty minutes, and everything should be done by then." Zenon seemed annoyingly calm, as did the rest of the Western Army around them, as if they were standing witness to a funeral of sorts. The soldier pulled Kenren back up. "Now sit still unless you want Goujun and the others to see you crawling to get back on your ass."
    Kenren scowled.
    "That's a good general."
    Chapter 11: Savage Indignation
    The snowman's head blew up, leaving the decapitated body slouching against the fence. A second shot caused the midsection and legs to follow the same fate. Quick and efficient, not a drop of energy wasted.
    "Whewwww." Gojyo whistled as he clapped Tenpou on the shoulder. "For a second try, that's pretty damn good. You a sharpshooter?"
    "It's a pastime." replied Tenpou, watching as Goku scrambled to erect another snowman for him to obliterate. He looked at his hands, the glowing green seeping quietly back into his skin. "Thank you, Gojyo."
    For the past hour, the two of them had been teaching Tenpou how to use Hakkai's powers, toppling many a poor snowblob.
    "Now close your eyes." instructed the half-breed, taking off his own bandanna and tying it around Tenpou's head. "The monkey's gonna make a whole lot now. I'm not going to tell you how many." At this point, Gojyo lifted six fingers for Goku to see. The boy gave an enthusiastic nod, then went back to work. "When he's finished, I'm gonna take off the blindfold and as fast as you can, blow any snowman you see to hell, okay?"
    Tenpou nodded. The sound of packing snow caused him to tilt his head. Yes...a little to the left...perhaps a bit behind...
    "No cheating!" Gojyo shouted before clapping his hands over the other's ears.
    "Is this really necessary?"
    "Yeah. So don't complain." Not that Tenpou could actually hear him by now. So he stood there, shifting uncomfortably. No sight. No hearing. Totally, utterly...vulnerable. He hated it. Nervously, he bit his lip, oblivious to the fact that Gojyo was intently watching him.
    The redhead's eyes shifted to Goku. "Oi...saru. Take your time...you know...while your at it...make one over there."
    "Here?" Goku inquired, pointing to a spot.
    Gojyo shook his head. "Nah. Waaaaaaaaaay over there. And make it...like...eight feet high so it'll be more intimidating."
    "Why don't you help some? That'll take forever!" the boy whined.
    I know. Hungrily licking his lips, he turned back to Tenpou; called out to his "younger" teammate. "Can't. I'm busy." And so Goku stomped away, heaving armfuls of snow. Now, Gojyo thought, to business.
    "Tenpou."
    No answer.
    "Tenpouuuuu."
    Nothing.
    "Your hair's on fire."
    Nothing.
    Well, can't say I never told him. Who cares if he didn't hear? It was just as useful as talking to a wall. "I know you ain't Hakkai. And that's fine. As long as he gets back all right, you know?"
    Nothing.
    "You should just know that...you know...I've got nothin against ya, okay?"
    Nothing.
    "But you should also really know that I'm a horny bastard who doesn't give a damn sometimes."
    Nothing.
    "Anyway, that's just a disclaimer." Gojyo leaned in closer until their lips just barely, barely grazed each other. Tenpou's breath hitched, his mouth opening in a slight gasp. "Cause I'm gonna kiss ya now." And he did, taking advantage of the other's surprise to slip his tongue in.
    "Mh." Hands instantly went up to clutch at Gojyo's vest as Tenpou pulled him in to deepen the kiss until it was almost vicious. Haven't had this...in a very...long time. He lost himself in it, the darkness of the blindfold serving only to further the illusion that this was...
    Gojyo pulled away, gasping for air and pressed his forehead against Tenpou's. His hands slid down to the other's waist and squeezed gently. "But I'm not..."
    "Doesn't matter." Tenpou said before taking his lips again. Quickly this time. "I'm a horny bastard too. Who just doesn't give a damn sometimes. Besides..." He added between kisses. "I have no doubt...that he's...doing the exact same...thing...to Hakkai. This is only fair."
    The half-breed could only laugh, breaking the kiss to tilt Tenpou's chin up, exposing the nice soft flesh of his neck; the cold air and wet butterfly kisses sending shivers up the smaller man's spine. "Baka. You're jealous of yourself." he said, exploring a bit farther up, then finding that spot behind the ear that made the other bite down a moan before losing all aggression and melting into him.
    Like that, hm?
    "Gods...you must be..." Tenpou almost choked on his own words. "...good at it."
    "Understatement of eternity, my little kami." Gojyo teased as he slipped a leg between Tenpou's and nudged...just a little.
    "Mmmnh." The god's breath stopped short and he buried his face into the other man's shoulder. "W...We really...really should stop."
    "Can't take the heat?"
    "Goku's almost finished."
    "Eh?" Gojyo looked over Tenpou's shoulder and sure enough, the snowblob's head was being placed on a seven foot tall body. "Holy shit...you were paying attention?"
    A blindfolded head tilted to the side in amusement. "You don't know me at all, do you?" At that moment, Goku came running up to the two of them.
    "Kaaaay! Finished!" he said proudly.
    "Ready?" Gojyo prompted.
    Tenpou nodded and ripped off the blindfold.
    1. Near the fence. Gone in three shots.
    2. Over by the street lamp. Gone in two.
    3. Doorway.
    4. Garden. Both melted by a shot from each hand.
    5. Park entrance. Gone.
    6. The chimney. Done.
    7. The one with the scowling face...
    "Sanzo!" Tenpou grit his teeth...stopped the rushing ball of ki in mid-flight...an inch from Sanzo's nose. The priest hadn't flinched. The god was starting to break into a bit of a sweat. Holding so much energy was difficult. "Um...Sanzo..."
    "What?"
    "Could you...please...move." It was starting to slip from him. Closer and closer to the monk...
    "Why the hell should I do that?" Sanzo looked straight through the looming green beam of light and right into Tenpou's face.
    "Sanzo please...I don't want to..."
    "Go ahead. Give me an excuse to shoot you."
    Without warning, a screech like a dying hyena's ripped through the wind and a strangely shaped white bird came up behind the blonde. "Sanzo!" He couldn't help it...he let go. And the world was engulfed in bright green as shattered snowflakes fell in sparks around them.
    Had he? Could he have...Tenpou blinked and adjusted his eyes.
    Sanzo was still standing, teeth clenched and gun halfway raised. His hand was visibly shaking. "How did you..." It had passed right through him, without even touching a single hair...
    "Ch' looks like the monk gets scared after all!" proclaimed Gojyo as he slung an arm around Tenpou's shoulder. "Man, and I thought I would never live to see the day..." A bullet whistled past his ear and into the head of another snow demon.
    "Save your breath, asshole! They're coming to get us." Sanzo snarled.
    Goku could hardly begin to contain his excitement. "Bring em' on!"
    ****
    They hissed. The doors and windows burned their hands as they touched. Like animals from the wild put into a circus cage, they went raging about the complex, overturning tables, ripping curtains, and clawing at the walls. Locked into the library, Hakkai contemplated the situation.
    Absently, he ignited Tenpou's lighter over and over again, looking into the flames as if the answer to all his troubles resided in that tiny piece of fire.
    Chances were fair that he'd get out alive despite the fact that he was now deprived of his powers. There was also the chance that he might not. He lacked anger- and it was anger that drove him to kill those one thousand. For Kanan. But this time it wasn't really for anybody. It was for an "entity" whose goodness he was already beginning to question.
    Perhaps he would live. And within several days time, perhaps less, the problem wouldn't be his anymore. It would be Tenpou's. Hakkai could just imagine it...Tenpou waking up and finding himself arrested for breaking the highest sacred law in heaven: he had shed the blood of his own kind.
    However inevitable, it seemed rather cruel of him to leave his predecessor with such a mess on his hands.
    "Have I taken things too far?" Hakkai asked the air in front of him. "Yes. I think I did."
    Oh well.
    "Like I said, Heaven deserves its share of heat." He ignited the lighter once more and brought the dancing flame to touch the cover of a single book. "I'm sorry, Tenpou. You must have treasured this little heaven of yours." Dry and dusty, the pages quickly flamed up and spread to the other books of the shelf. 'The Art of War' turned into a heap of cinders, as did 'The Seven Steps of Revolution.'
    Hundreds and hundreds of years of war crackled in a gold-orange brilliance, beautiful... their stillness finally becoming un-still; the life contained within the pages realizing itself...as if a spell on the brink of completion had finally heard its magician utter the final chant. Burn burn burn. With satisfaction, Hakkai pushed over the shelf, causing ash to jump and the fire to diffuse from its source.
    Hakkai grabbed the oil lamp that stood on his desk and hurled it over Tenpou's bed, liquid fire like molten lava creeping in rivulets over the soft covers. At last he re-lit the lighter and locked it. He opened a desk drawer and dropped the living flame inside.
    The heat felt good on his skin. The excess of it breaking the tepid balance of sensation in this unsensaitonal place. And he liked the feel of cold metal against his skin. The excess of it reawakening the part of him that lived for bloodlust. Hakkai unsheathed the sword and headed for the door that lead to the demons' wails and screeches...
    Burn them into nothing...so that you cannot even mourn the ashes.
    Burn everything into nothing...so you cannot convict me for an act you were too cowardly to commit yourselves.
    Burn everything down...and feel the heat from Down Below that you have so ignored.
    The heat of karma is very sweet, is it not?
    ****
    They rained down upon them like locusts, appearing to be a gray smear on the darkening sky. One after another, whenever a youkai was killed there was always another to replace it. Hundreds and hundreds of them...and those that were shattered remade themselves.
    "Can't. They. Just. Stay. Dead?" Sanzo spat out between shots.
    Gojyo ducked as one swept down to decapitate him. "Hey, monk, don't you have a sutra to take care of things like this? Or are you just waiting until we're totally fucked up?"
    "Like trying to swat a fly with a hammer." the priest replied.
    It wasn't the same; fighting without Hakkai. He had to watch his back more because...and he hated to admit it so he didn't...Hakkai took it upon himself to ALWAYS be at Sanzo's back. The feeling was as reassuring as having an extra set of his own eyes behind his head- maybe even better because he didn't have to think too much about what was going on beyond his line of vision.
    There was no way in Hell that he'd give Tenpou that responsibility.
    Energetic shouting over to his far left indicated where Goku was having his fun. Just a bit over the hill must where Gojyo had run off to; the glint of whiplike metal shining through the snow was an assurance that the man was still going at it. Now where was the other idiot?
    They were starting to get separated. Not that it worried Sanzo any. Everyone could take care of themselves, but still...if he had his choice of battle scenarios...it wouldn't be anything like this one because:
    #1. He was running out of bullets.
    #2. He needed bullets.
    #3. He needed TIME to load the fucking bullets
    Then there was something warm and solid against his back. Green light like fireworks shot in all directions and not a youkai could get within five feet of either of them. He reloaded, as usual taking his dear sweet time. "Mmh. Thanks." Sanzo muttered.
    "Am I doing a good job being Hakkai?" Tenpou smiled. It was almost starting to look like a Hakkai smile too.
    "I'd give you a 'B+' for effort."
    "That's cruel, Sanzo. Is there any way to get extra credit with you?"
    The implication was there. Sanzo hadn't missed it, but he pretended to anyway because Hakkai never suggested things of the sort. And when Hakkai came back, he wanted to see Hakkai...and not think of any idiocies of the sort. Especially not THOSE types of idiocies.
    No wonder Tenpou and Gojyo had taken to each other.
    "Yeah."
    "Oh?"
    "If you figure out a way out of this. That's a Hakkai thing to do."
    "Really? Why didn't you say so earlier?"
    Really, he could have shot him in the head, right then and there. "Spit it out. What do you know?" Sanzo went to shooting again, noting how tired the other man was getting.
    "Well...these youkai seem to of a primitive species, their thinking capabilities closer to that of pack animals than of more reasoning creatures. But better to compare them to insects, their existences revolving around the life span of a single queen who reproduces an heir once in a generation. The rest are simply pawns...their energies feeding off hers. And so therefore..."
    "We have to kill the queen bee, am I correct?" interjected Sanzo, his patience wearing very very thin.
    "You are correct."
    "So which one is she?" Sanzo scanned the sky, but it had already gotten dark and all he could discern was the cloud of buzzing youkai...then there...a little ways off was a single youkai hovering in the air emitting a pulsating light from the chest. With the wings of a butterfly, she hovered, her eyes closed in meditation and her mouth moving in an instinctive battle chant- the words of resurrection. Sanzo narrowed his eyes and aimed.
    "I'll kill the bitch."
    Bang.
    But it hit one of her pawns instead. Another shot. Another pawn. "Fuck." With each bullet, a youkai appeared to block. It was a living shield, easily replaced. "Are you just going to stand there!? Fight like the rest of your kin..." Sanzo taunted. "Or are you so stupid of a beast that you can't even do that?"
    That got her attention. "Uh...Sanzo..."
    "What?"
    "Perhaps you should have chosen a more...how shall I say...tactful way to go about the situation." Tenpou pressed closer. The youkai had stopped in mid-flight and were simply hovering there...hollow ice blue eyes that stared into nothing...limbs that hung limply...like forgotten puppets...
    "What's done is done."
    ...and the queen stopped her chant, turned towards the two men, and opened her eyes...black and blue and gold whirlpools; tantalizing and seductive...they pulled...tugged at their minds... 'so cold'...they said... 'so tired'...they said... 'so still' the bewitching orbs called out...And Sanzo's body suddenly felt so...so...
    "Sanzo!" Tenpou clapped a hand over Sanzo's eyes.
    "Tenpou, get off!"
    "Don't look at her. She's a...a...gorgon!"
    The feeling that was there before was suddenly shattered. Only then did he sense that the fringes of his robe were solid ice. "A what?"
    The chanting resumed; this time undulating and less hectic, causing the violent winds around them to cease completely. The air died and an absolute stillness fell down upon them with the shock of thunder.
    "A medusa. If you look into her eyes, you'll turn into ice." Tenpou murmured, his eyes squinted shut. "And as pretty as you are, I don't think I want to see you as a statue."
    Sanzo pushed him off... "Say that again and die."...but before Tenpou could completely back away, the monk grabbed his wrist. "Stay HERE you idiot!"
    "I must say though..." Tenpou continued uneasily. "...having my eyes closed whilst surrounded by enemies is an invitation for a quick execution."
    "You think that too?" Sanzo retorted sarcastically, his grip on Tenpou's wrist tightening by the second.
    The queen's voice changed, omitting an ear-splitting shriek that sent the ground beneath them shaking. Something like a rushing wave could be heard at a distance, getting closer and closer...their legs started to sink into the snow...
    "Fuck." Blindly, Sanzo aimed and shot, but to no avail. He had to take the chance...so when he opened his eyes, it was enough to see a tornado ripping its way through the ground towards them.
    At its approach, Tenpou followed suit. "Gods..." he gasped. "Sanzo! We have to get out of the snow!"
    "No shit!" Having the rest of his body torn from his legs was definitely NOT something he wanted to think about right now...or ever. Dammit, it was hard to think, especially with that hellstorm getting nearer. He almost didn't hear Tenpou speak...stay close to me?...is that what he said?...Then a green bubble began to form around them- close, warm, slightly suffocating, but it melted the snow...the earth was convulsing more as the tornado neared ...or was that him shaking? A strong arm wrapped around his shoulders. A calm voice whispered in his ear. "Trust me. Just stay close, ne?" Like the earth was being severed from his very feet...and then there was total blackness. And then there was nothing.
    ****
    The blood ran warm over his hands, ran in little rivulets on the floor, little rivers of tainted celestial blood. Hakkai rammed the sword through the gut of his fifteenth, leaving fifteen more. The body fell against him and he shrugged it off. Wet and sticky, the red fluid stuck to his boots as he kicked one corpse to the side, as he swung back and beheaded another one. That's sixteen.
    Smoke crept over his head, the fire that he started spreading from its source into other rooms. He checked his shoulder wound. It had reopened, yet he didn't feel it. Another scream, another stab, but this time, Hakkai fell to the ground as well. The room was spinning, suddenly getting colder. He felt a gust of icy wind, his vision going blurry and for a moment...a flash of an instant...he could see the snowy mountain town where he had been...no...not now... The healer shook his head. Stay here! he scolded himself stubbornly.
    In a fit of desperation, Hakkai heaved himself up and impaled two youkai into the wall as if they were butterflies. He didn't bother retrieving the sword. Instead, he picked up a dagger dropped by a fallen enemy, trying to ignore the sound of pouring rain that was echoing in his ears.
    Twelve more.
    When Tenpou opened his eyes, his gaze was met by two beady blood red jewels ingrained in the head of a small creature...white...with wings...that looked like...
    "Kyuu!" Hakuuryuu squeaked.
    "Sir?" Tenpou responded.
    "Kyuu!" Hakuuryuu replied.
    Tenpou paled. "My god..." Goujun...what have you done to yourself?
    "Kyuuuuuuuuu!" the little dragon was frantically pulling at his sleeve.
    "Okay, okay, I'm up sir...errrr...you." This was certainly one more thing to think about. Tenpou gingerly rubbed his head, not surprised to find a few sore spots. A quick glance at his surroundings told him that the tornado had carried them rather far; maybe a mile or so.
    Now where was Toto?
    A groan and a curse escaped a pile of snow next to him.
    "Ah! There you are. Thought I had lost you." Tenpou said cheerily as he stuck his arm in and hauled the monk out by the collar. Sanzo came out choking and coughing.
    "You only wish."
    "Now that wouldn't be a very Hakkai thing to do."
    "Ch." the monk mumbled. "At least you got our asses out of there in once piece."
    Tenpou shrugged. "Your welcome."
    They were by the lake now, far from the battle that was still raging farther up the mountain. From the sounds of it- the squeals of dying youkai- Gojyo and Goku hadn't been touched.
    "So..." the marshal said, getting up and walking to the edge of the frozen water. "Do you think she's finished with us?" Sanzo followed suit, violet eyes scanning the darkness and finding nothing but the glaring moon.
    "Doubt it. She seemed really pissed."
    "No thanks to you."
    The priest didn't dignify the comment with an answer, nor did Tenpou seem to be expecting one. The kami was too deeply engrossed in the reflection staring back at him lit by moonlight and fireflies. Kneeling, he saw that it was his own- the one with two good eyes, long hair and a labcoat. The fool who thought that he could change heaven by himself.
    "An idiotic desire." Tenpou scoffed quietly, unaware of Konzen's reflection staring critically back at him.
    "Well you've always been an idiot." shot Sanzo. "You always will be, whether it's this life or the next. Not that I blame you too much. It takes a crapload idiots to take on the jobs we do."
    "Touché." the marshal replied with a sad smile, petting the dragon's head as the creature landed on his shoulder to nuzzle him. "At least I won't go alone, right?"
    "A wise man never does."
    Tenpou laughed, probably more than he should have, but it felt nice and rather silly to be outwitted by a human. Scratch that, it was amazingly ridiculous to be outwitted by Konzen, out of all people!
    At that moment, he laughed at everything...That the incredibly dense bureaucrat would become an enlightened priest. That the highest ranking general of the Western Army would become a backwater gambler. That the messiest, most powerful marshal that had ever existed would become housewife obsessed with cleanliness... That his own commander would become his pet...
    "Kyuuuu!"
    ...friend.
    At that moment, he laughed at fate because fate had a wonderful sense of humor that restored his spirits somewhat; for it meant that heaven's time would come as well. That it would transform into something halfway decent.
    Sanzo snorted, "Baka." then went as if to return to where the battle was. He didn't hear the soft beating of wings that loomed overhead, or maybe he thought it was Hakuuryuu because when he heard Tenpou shout out his name, he didn't know what was happening until strong hands pushed him sharply to the side and the god was blown clear across the ice.
    "Agh! Damn." Tenpou cursed before attempting to pick himself up. Everything hurt and he only ended up falling again on the ice, the gravity of his condition revealed by the blood he smeared across the shimmering surface. It was so cold...the weight of the weather bringing his very thoughts to a standstill, tempting him to simply close his eyes...
    Perhaps he would have done it too, if he hadn't heard the ice crack beneath him.
    "Tenpou! Don't move!" Sanzo ordered. He squinted his eyes and looked for her.
    There was a pond right outside Tenpou's study; one that was always so still that it was a delicate and perfect mirror of the heaven's flawless sky. He remembered journeying to Under Heaven, simply to get four or five fish to stick in there so that the water would always move, so that it wouldn't be such a perfect mirror of death. Now here he was, on the brink of death, splayed out and frozen, and feeling as feeble as a fish out of water- yet being out of the water would not be a problem for very long, judging on how fast the ice was cracking under his weight. Like breaking glass, it had a nice melody.
    A rose scented breeze tickled his skin coming from behind. Above the breeze, he could hear flapping in the darkness. Curious, he thought, why the sweet attention? Then he remembered what sweet attention was from a witch like this one. He was being seasoned up to be eaten. Stricken by paralysis, Tenpou couldn't even conjure up the energy to scream when she dove in his direction.
    What a horrible way to die, he repeated to himself pitifully until a gun pierced the ice inches from his body. Sanzo fired again, this time near his feet. Again and again and again...and the cracks in the ice spread...and there was a splash of water as Tenpou fell through...
    The god didn't remember much after that, simply a voice that shook the waters, surrounding him in gold light. The dying cry of the witch...and a hand that reached in and grabbed his own...an incantation filtering through the surface and to his ears...and then he heard nothing.
    ****
    "Tenpou!" he heard Gojyo calling him. "Where the hell are you?"
    "Mmmmh..." It was so hot that the possibility hit him that he may have gone to hell, that not even the pretty gold light could save him from the inevitable. Oh. It was one of those, Tenpou contemplated, his eyes remaining closed- one of those effective modes of sub-Under-Heaven torture wherein the victim can still hear the living voice of his lover, friend or whatnot...
    "Tenpou!"
    ...and so adding to the torment, the victim is drenched head to toe in the most disagreeable substance in his eyes...In Tenpou's case: blood, still a bit warm and sticky...which leads to the victim thinking thoughts he never thought before: I really need to shower. It was silly, because there were no showers in hell.
    Nevertheless, one cannot crawl up from the depths of purgatory without opening one's eyes and seeing it for oneself. So Tenpou opened his eyes and found that hell looked exactly like heaven except that hell had the stereotypical flames.
    ...then again, he *could* be in heaven, in his own home which was now transforming into ash as he contemplated absurdities.
    ...and he should get up, run out, and see what more havoc his doppleganger had committed.
    ...or what good he had done- and judging from the scarcely identifiable corpses of Kenren's regiment, Hakkai had taken care of things his way and not Tenpou's way and he'd be dammed if nobody figured out the difference already. Regardless, his counterpart deserved a 'thank you' for taking pains to burn the evidence- and a good 'fuck you' for setting himself down to burn with it.
    ...and he could run and escape.
    ...and he would, if he could only move.
    Kenren found the marshal lying in the midst of gutted bodies. It was a sickening sight that made him want to wretch, but he suppressed the feeling and the alarms going off in his head telling him that Tenpou was one of the gutted. He laid so still.
    "Tenp-" he broke off in a fit of cough and got down on his knees to crawl. The entire place was a labyrinth of fire. In the air, ravenous heat prowled and feasted on his lungs. The suicidal bastard, fucking suicidal bastard always doing things alone, always thinking he was alone enough to do suicidal things like this and too dense to know there were always people following him to make sure he was never alone and that he never went alone. Tenpou's fingers moved. He groaned, then stilled.
    Blood was smeared all across his face, but Kenren didn't care and kissed him anyway.
    The marshal moaned weakly, his head lolling back. "Come on now." Kenren said encouragingly as he gently lifted Tenpou from the carnage. "Anything happens to you, Konzen's gonna have my ass."
    "To kick to hell, of course." a voice growled from behind. "Not for anything else." There, Kanzeon's nephew stood, his mouth covered. "Now let's get out of this shithole! You've been in here too long."
    "Konzeeeeeeen!" Goku called from down the hall.
    "Baka! I told you to stay outside." The blonde registered the scene before him. Goku didn't have to see this. Hell, not even *he* wanted to be around to see this, but he just *had* to go with his idiotic impulses. Messy, golden strands falling about his waist, and amethyst eyes radiating cold fury- even the encroaching flames seemed to make a conscientious effort to avoid him.
    "But Konzen..."
    "Stay there!" and then to Kenren. "Let's go."
    Cautiously, the four made their way to the main entrance, only to be stopped by Goujun who stood there so calmly that he seemed oblivious to the blood, fire, and heat. His critical eyes slowly looked over his wounded marshal- blood soaked with blood not his own. He would be convicted, and Goujun would lose his most effective subordinate.
    "Not that way." the dragon king said bluntly before taking the lead and bringing them to the side entrance where a silent pool reflected the bitterness of the entire inferno. "Lay him down there and get him clean, then take him out the back."
    "Gettin' your claws dirty?" Kenren remarked.
    "Remember your place, Taishou."
    "My apologies."
    And with that, Goujun left, but not before throwing one of his extra uniforms at Tenpou's feet. There's going to be a lot of paperwork involving this incident. Best get started.
    Tenpou finally came to in the midst of all the washing, re-clothing, and general pampering.
    "What...what happened?"
    Unceremoniously, Konzen dumped a bucketful of water on top of his head.
    "Keep saying that and you'll have your position longer."
    "No, really, what happened?" he sputtered water.
    "You're playing stupid, that's what." the blonde said, the calmness in his voice taking the edge from his words. "Just say it. You started the fire, didn't you?"
    "I didn't." Well it was true.
    "Of course he didn't." Kenren said, grinning and slinging his arm around the marshal. "He was with me the entire time."
    Konzen gracefully arched a brow. "Doing *what* may I ask? I will not allow anything so inappropriate to reach Tentei."
    "Scouting."
    "Down below." added Tenpou with his own secret smile.
    "Konzen, what do I do with this?" Goku held up Tenpou's bloodied uniform.
    "Toss it into the fire."
    A crash shook the ground as the main pillars fell, causing the roof to collapse. This was heaven's first fire, and they all knew that many more would come: hotter and wilder giving way to many a new dawn just as it was doing now. The sunrise was fresh this day.
    "Ten-chan, this was in the pocket."
    "Oh? Give it here."
    Tenpou unfolded the rumpled piece of paper- something that Hakkai had ripped from one of his books. Poetry?
    It said:
    Saeva Indignatio and the labourer's hire,
    The strength that gives our blood and state magnanimity of
    its own desire;
    Everything that is not God consumed with intellectual fire.
    ****
    When upon waking, Hakkai saw the fire, he thought nothing, except: 'Perhaps I should leave before the roof collapses.' But there was no roof. There were no walls. There was rain.
    His second thought, this time voiced: "Hell's a lot more simple that I'd have expected."
    "Well excuse me for giving you a simple life." a voice said behind him where he lay.
    Hakkai smiled, then turned to face the half-breed. "Gojyo." Nagging husband.
    "Hakkai."
    The green tent stretched over them, the fire revealing five slumbering shadows. In the corner, Goku snored softly with an occasional mumbling about food. "Gyoza...yes...oh... and can I have mu shi also...ow...not enough food...Sanzo." To the other side, Sanzo was...Hakkai noted with amusement...pretending to sleep.
    "So you found your way."
    "Don't I always?"
    "We won't be leaving till tomorrow."
    "Mh."
    "It started raining right after you..."
    "So?"
    "It's weird."
    "Not really."
    "Why?"
    "Heaven is simply trying to put out a fire it can't reach."
    Gojyo laughed and ruffled his hair, pulling him close for a chaste and quiet kiss before falling back. It was their first, though it certainly didn't feel like it. "You causing trouble without me?"
    "Wouldn't dream of it." Tired. He was still tired. Hakkai closed his eyes.
    "So..." Gojyo said, then drifted off.
    "Hm?"
    Perhaps as if to clear his own conscience: "I'm just curious, but...um...did you and Kenren..."
    "Go to sleep, Gojyo." And with a smirk, Gojyo did.
    ****
    This was a good heaven, Tenpou thought as he sprawled himself over the grassy field just outside the holy city. The roughness of the ground beneath his skin, the scent of flowers, the sky that never cried and the breeze that always caressed.
    Nothing but being. It was a good heaven.
    A shadow fell over him, making the dimness behind his eyelids even dimmer. He squinted them open. Tenpou's gaze was met by two deep blood red jewels gracefully set in a statue of shining white marble and scales.
    "Marshal." Goujun greeted impassively.
    "Sir?" Tenpou responded, smiling stupidly.
    Yes, this was his marshal.
    The dragon king waved a handful of documents in front of him. "Paperwork with regards to last week's...incident. I will not do these alone, given that you-"
    "I didn't do it."
    Goujun shrugged and settled himself down in the grass beside him. "I never said you did, but nevertheless, I will not burden myself with the bureaucracy's inane little protocols more than needed. Therefore I thought it appropriate for you to have your share of the responsibility."
    "And so you decide to spend some free time with me? I'm touched."
    He ignored the insubordination. In any case, the fire had deprived him of his office. There was no other place to work. "Now I need to know with as much precision as you can muster, the details surrounding the event."
    "I'll be as specific as possible."
    The report went something like this...
    Cause of fire: Toppled lamp.
    Casualties: None.
    Witnesses: None to speak of.
    Suspects should this matter be taken to higher court: The wind, perhaps a cat of sorts.
    Solicitation: Request the building materials and laborers necessary to reconstruct the Western Army's main building.
    ****
    Konzen looked at the report and scoffed. "The idiot."
    Then he stamped the document: APPROVED.