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*There's already some good Taiki-looking-for-Gyousou fanfics out there, but no one seems to have really concentrated on what happened to Gyousou six years ago when he vanished. Probably because all you can really do is take a stab in the dark, since it's Gyousou and what on earth could happen to make someone as awesome as he is go AWOL. This was the best I could come up with, and it turned out better than I thought it would, so I decided to post it.

*I've gone through Shore at Twilight inside out, backwards and forwards, then repeated the process. This is as accurate as I can make it. Curse you Kaei and your multiple explanations for the same event! BTW, my pet theory is that Kaei is one of Asen's spies and that's who keeps ratting Risai out, but it didn't make it in here. Also, the two year gap between the youma appearing, and then them appearing almost overnight, drove me batty.

*Taiki's horn in this is as central to the plot as the One Ring is in Lord of the Rings, though not in the same way. I'll just say upfront that it is the biggest Deus ex machina ever written in this.

*One day I should write a story that doesn't take place over a massive span of time. Hmm, wonder when that will be.

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You didn't kill those people because you were bitter, bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator. – BBC's SHERLOCK, Sherlock Holmes

Prologue: Setting of the Board

When Asen was growing up there was a girl who lived next door to him named Keika who was ten years his elder. When he was five he asked her to marry him, and she laughed, saying to ask again after growing up. But when he was ten she was taken away from him.

Her father had died the year previous, and her mother suddenly had to be the sole provider for the children. In addition the taxes had risen ever since the new king was enthroned. The month before her twentieth birthday her family was evicted; the worst fate that could happen to someone in Tai with winter setting in. His parents took pity on them and let them temporarily moved in, but they had no money to buy food and his parents weren't that generous. When Keika turned twenty she would be given her own plot of land, but she was a city girl who had never even seen a farm in her life. Even if she sold it, what then? Both Asen's and Keika's mother declared they would turn her out on her birthday, but the money Keika made working ceaselessly barely scraped together enough money for a small daily meal, never mind other necessary expenses such as rent and coal. Each night he heard her crying herself to sleep, the sobbing increasing the nearer her birthday crept. Keika had no future.

Then on the eve of her dreaded birthday, as she was weeping and begging her mother, a knock came at the door. Royal messengers had arrived inviting her to the Inner Palace, as a concubine.

Keika had blossomed into an extraordinarily pretty young woman, and many of their more malicious neighbours had said if she wanted to survive she would have to sell herself. In a sense it was true. Keika was taken to live in a luxurious palace and her family was given a comfortable monthly living expense, in return for Keika's services. Asen vowed he would see her again.

He remembered Keika sighing dreamily whenever men in armour passed by, and, due to causalities from skirmishes with corrupt officials the new king was purging, there were plenty of openings in the military and plenty of opportunities for a youngster to rise high. By the time he was 30 Asen had been given registry on the Immortal Register as a commander, and a decade later he was promoted to General of the Right. He finally had the status to visit the Inner Palace, on the pretext of seeing the king.

It took a while to locate Keika, and when he finally did she didn't remember him. Eventually, after much describing of her family and his, she was able to dimly recall that there did used to be a boy she babysat occasionally living next door. He asked her to marry him again, and she laughed,

"And have our ceremony at His Majesty's gallows? Thanks, but I am quite comfortable here."

Asen kept coming to see her until she considered him something like a lapdog she could vent her complaints to. His Majesty had been paying her rival two doors over more attention than her recently. The servants bowed a fraction lower to the girl down the hall, and came more slowly when she called for them. The pillows weren't plump enough. The tea not sweet enough, and when she requested more sugar it was too sweet. She hadn't gotten a new dress in a month.

Keika the Imperial Concubine was very different than Keika the Girl Next Door, but he still loved her. The more he saw her the more he wanted her, but she always laughed away his advances; she enjoyed the privileges and luxury awarded to her too much to jeopardize them with an affair. Not even with a man in armour.

During a particularly trying period there was a big ruckus as the General of the Left retired and, skipping over many more obvious candidates, promoted a young sub-commander as her replacement. Asen formed cordial relations with Gyousou, since it was beneficial to be on good terms with the other two Oushi generals, but was too preoccupied with trying to win Keika's heart to pay him much mind. They got on well and Gyousou was extremely competent – despite what malcontents muttered when they were absolutely sure he wasn't around – and so there was never any need to. But he was too competent.

During a particularly magnificent, though unaffordable, festival hosted by the king the rulers of neighbouring kingdoms were invited, including the king of En. It was arranged that Gyousou would face off against the king of En three times during the festival. Keika sat in the luxurious viewing box with the other concubines and watched in rapt attention. At the end of the last match when Gyousou won she cheered louder than anyone else.

The whole country was swept with Gyousou-mania and Keika was hit worse than anyone. Unplump pillows were forgotten as she sighed dreamily in describing for the hundredth time the exact moment when the king of En surrendered. Gyousou was all she ever talked about now. How strong he was, and how amazing his sword skills were. How dashing his snow white hair was, how fierce and piercing his red eyes were. How she had always liked older men.

"He's forty years younger than you!"

"He looks older."

"So do I, and I'm only a fourth that difference!"

Keika laughed. "Do you think the black or red dress would make him notice me more? I think I'll go with red, it has more of those connotations."

Talking with Keika like this squeezed his heart and filled his chest with leaden resentment, but he was addicted to her and couldn't keep away, no matter how it hurt. The resentment settled in permanently as even when Keika wasn't around Gyousou's praises would be sung by the king, or someone in the hallway, or one of his own men, or the ridiculously numerous musicians. Hearing Gyousou's praises always made him think of Keika saying them, even if they didn't proceed from her mouth, and no matter where he went all he heard was that name. Worse still, people started to call them the twin jewels in the crown, Gyousou and Asen. It was always Gyousou and Asen, never Asen and Gyousou, not matter that he had become general first. Gyousou's accomplishments would be described in great detail, and then his own would be added like an afterthought. What made it truly unbearable was how sickeningly unexaggerated the stories of Gyousou's triumphs that flowed like treasured honey out of Keika's mouth were.

The resentment reached a boiling point near the end of KyouOu's reign, when the people of Tetsui barricaded their storehouses and Gyousou was to be sent to deal with the rebellion. He had already confided in Asen that he planned resolve the situation without any civilian casualties, and how Keika had heard about it he couldn't say, but she came to him blotchy faced and tear stricken.

"He'll be killed. Oh, why must he be so noble and kind and honourable? Oh I can't stand it, the thought of never seeing him again…! Asen-kun, you need to help me, I must convince him. Please, just arrange for me to be able to meet him in private."

He knew for a fact Gyousou wouldn't alter his plans just to ease Keika's mind and that he would never even consider doing anything with the king's woman. Or any woman for that matter; Gyousou was much too dedicated to his work to spare time for something like romance. So he arranged it as Keika requested.

The next morning she was found dead. Her cold fingers clutched a dagger embedded in her heart, and were smeared in ink from the note she left behind saying, He wouldn't accept my heart, so there is no more use for it.

Asen confronted Gyousou, who was entirely unshaken; being a soldier had acclimatized him to gory deaths. "She was just a vain, spoilt pet of the king who was silly enough to fancy herself in love with a man she had only seen at a distance. Her life certainly does not rank above the hundreds of others in Tetsui, and since she killed herself over nothing more than a sharp rebuke, clearly it wasn't worth living."

"She loved you."

"She had loyalties to the king as a concubine and no business falling in love with someone else."

Gyousou rode off to Tetsui, and Asen hoped he died there. But he didn't. The Tetsui incident won Gyousou praise for solving the whole thing without a drop of blood being spilt. Except that of a woman named Keika. But no one remembered that.

The king fell not long after, and Gyousou was instrumental in maintaining the order of the Provisional Government for the next ten years. At the end of ten years Gyousou went to Mt. Hou. Asen didn't. Every single person chose Gyousou, so the kirin surely would as well. And Taiki did.

Gyousou was now king, and a king makes more enemies than a general does. Gathering up a following angry at Gyousou was easy, one only had to sniff out the trail of corruption and one would find an army of people scared at having their crimes exposed, bitter at losing their positions, or having vowed vengeance for an executed loved one. A just king has just as many angry citizens as an unjust one.

Asen was finished biding his time. He would destroy everything dear to Gyousou, just as Gyousou had done to him.

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*I freely admit that I royally suck at writing romance. Luckily for me Asen is a psychopath who is killing a country because of, according to what Risai thinks anyway, "personal animosity", so no one really wants a nice fluffy romance out of him. I just needed a reason for his over the top personal animosity towards Gyousou, and romance was my shameless fallback, despite the fact I can't write it. Blame SHERLOCK, that one quote at the top is what inspired this bit. Maybe I should have gone with Detective Conan logic and had his motive for murder be Gyousou threw a coat hanger at him or broke his fishing pole. Because, you know, people always commit murder for things like that. At least in Detective Conan.

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