Ch.11: The Army Advances

Chichiri had very much been a man who liked to be sure of everything, and as his
reincarnation I was basically the same. However, even the most tightly controlled people
could be absolutely thrown off of the horse sometime, and this was definitely one of them.
As soon as my previous name flew from his lips I slammed the brakes so hard my forehead it
the top of the steering wheel. It was a good thing I stopped when I did; a fully armed tank
towered high over my little compact I was borrowing. Behind me cars started to honk (I
wasn't moving), but then all abruptly stopped as the giant towered over us all. In the
silence that followed there suddenly came a scream - either it was me or a woman from the
cars behind me, and suddenly the whole street came alive with car horns blaring, radios
turned up to the very loudest so the soldiers operating the tanks could hear "The traitorous
Army that has come kill our patriotic students...", and people escaping out of their cars
and holding their heads in terror as they ran away. I could not see anything but the gray,
scraped metal of the tank, the gun perched jauntily on the tank's head, and the rolling
chained wheels that threatened to crush my little vehicle any moment it wanted to.

I think it was the 'annoying reporter', as Kouji had begun to call him, that pulled
me out of the car. He muttered things into my ear that I couldn't hear, half-dragged and
half-led me out of the door; all there was the rush of fear and the thought that continually
ran 360 around my head:

The 'annoying reporter' stepped in front of me once we were on the sidewalk and said
clearly, "Suzaku constellation Chichiri, I demand you get up!" When I failed to see him or
even seem to hear him, he pulled me to my feet and walked back to the car just as the
crowds of students and civilians from Tiananmen Square started to gather.

They filed in tidy rows, between the columns of roads and the sidewalks, over the
lane lines, their feet making no sound on the pavement even though there came the crunch of
gravel under their shoes. To me they weren't walking - they were floating, the determined
air that surrounded them their wings. As my eyes slowly drew to the tank, it seemed to
shrink as the students' confidence rose. The protesters seemed to be the rock monoliths on
the shore, taking more than the waves had time for to crumble. They surrounded the tank
completely, entering from the other side of the street, their voices rising clear over the
rising storm that was Beijing. , my mind told me, .

I did not hear the voice calling me until it shouted straight into my ear over the
din that was the crowd attempting to block the tank. Before my eyes a gray haze seemed to
have lifted, and the sounds hit me full in the face: shouts, slogans, the waving of crudely,
hastily made signs that were overrun with Chinese characters. "Houjun!", Kou shook my
shoulders roughly. I could barely hear him, but by the look on his face he was worried, not
just about me; the students had pushed up to the tank and some had started to climb on it.
The machine creaked forward several notches abruptly, trying to dislodge the students that
were blocking its vision. While I had not noticed Kou slipped his hand into mine and nudged
me with his cheek. "The Army arrived this morning. Didn't you hear?" I almost protested
as several students climbed onto the car I had been driving and started to shake their fists
angrily at the metal they could not intrude. Kou's face remained impassive, and as I
looked on I knew that this was exactly what he had planned, exactly what he knew would
happen.

Then the tank moved forward a few feet, and a student screamed. The other students
scattered, giving a wide berth to the tank, still shouting slogans but their voices seemed
muted, more subdued. Grabbing my hand Kou forced his way inside and we dragged the student
away from the tank, which backed away as if it did not believe that it had actually injured
someone. Willing hands brought the student into the shop directly behind the crowd, and I
swiftly cleaned and dressed the wound. As I tied on a splint for the student's leg, Kou
talked rapidly in Chinese that I couldn't understand, sounding old and rustic, a mix between
the mountainous regions and the slang of Beijing. I tried to follow, but before I could
catch anything, the student had asked me in a joking voice, "How did a reporter manage to
learn how to splint a leg?"

Thoroughly surprised, I stared straight into the face of Kouji, who shared identical
grins with Kou beside him. I bit back a scolding for getting injured (and a smile at the
similarity between the two friends) and settled for a frown that wouldn't last; Kouji was
too easy to forgive, and it was not his fault he was injured. As for the question he asked - I could only say that Chichiri's training had included medical training, and that it had not gone entirely to waste.
Speaking of, the tank outside gave an ominous grunt and started to roll down the
street, much to the dismay of the students and civilian protesters. Frantically Kou and I
rushed to the doorway, blocked by the amount of students trying to avoid the tank, Kouji
hobbling up behind us. The Beijing student gave a growl at the bad view. Making a large
show of his injured leg, he pulled Kou and I after him upstairs, where the shopkeepers
huddled together in the corner of the room. Yells and challenges shook the walls in their
fury, but no one wanted to get close to the tank; no one wanted to share Kouji's injury.
Kou watched desperately as the tank neared the next intersection, one block closer to
Tiananmen Square. I knew what he wanted to see: anyone, just anyone, stand up to that tank!
Throw it back, send it back to the base to tell that one person managed to stop it.

Miracle of all miracles - the 'annoying reporter' stepped away from the madly
chaotic crowd and in front of the tank. For a moment, everyone was silent. Softly, Kou
said, "That reporter..." and we watched to see what he would do as the tank halted its
rollers not two inches away from his head, then backed a few feet so it would not completely
crash into him.

The reporter took step forward, eyes determined, and the tank took a step back,
giving ground. All around, protesters started to cheer. They did not stop even when 'that
annoying reporter' faced the tank down at the end of the street and the crowd surrounded it
again, preventing it from going anywhere but back. I saw the reporter walk away from the
crowd, his gait oddly familiar -

- "Give up You will never succeed alone" -

-confident and wary of all followers that pursued him, asking loudly about how he
got the courage to stand up to the tank when it could have killed him, how he could have
walked the tank always back to the end of the road it had rolled from. When he seemed
unwilling to talk, they slacked off and generally began to peel away. Then he disappeared
around the corner of the street and from my line of vision.

"He's a government reporter", Kouji supplied when I asked Kou who he was. "His name
is Tanxi, and he is from Hong Kong." His voice dropped down to a conspiratory whisper.
"He was caught in a scandal a few years ago, and that's why the government keeps such close
tabs on him. He was supposed to interview this official that everyone thought had this
underground business, and it was discovered after the official never showed up for the
interview that his wife had been involved in the same business, and when he came home she
was dead, committed suicide. Still, people believe he drove her to her death", he said
gravely, and a ripple of more than unease cast it way through me. Drove her to her death?
The story seemed so familiar -

- "Tenmei! Where is she?" -

-and I gasped for air. Chichiri! Of course, his fiancee had committed suicide. I
choked, and my head fell onto Kou's welcoming shoulder as I tried my hardest not to look
distressed and calmed my wheezing breaths. Warmth surged from his fingertips but it all
seemed cold and distant. Someone had made the same mistake? How could this Tanxi possibly
be so stupid? How could he do that to the person he loved? He had made the same mistake I
had, and did not seem to be the least affected by it!

Kouji was staring at us curiously. I had a feeling he knew there was something
other than just love was between, but something that went back a long ways. Giving me a
small pat on the shoulder, he hobbled to the stairway and I heard him clumping down the
stairs. The family above the shop in the corner followed him like frightened mice,
squealing in fear when a single creak was heard from the wooden stairs.

Kou hushed me. "Don't you realize who he is? He's the reincarnation of Tenku,
Houjun. It's no surprise that he doesn't care."

I jolted upright in surprise. "But that's not possible!", I exclaimed. "The rules
of reincarnation clearly state that a person marked 'denied reincarnation' cannot be
pardoned. Tenku was the first in nearly a century to receive that decree, but that is no
excuse for what he did to other people!"

"True", Kou said softly, "but I talked with him, and he revealed everything to me.
The story Kouji told isn't all of it. Most people still fear him because they expect him to
jump out at them with a knife or something. They think there is something wrong with his
mind."

"But it's still true that he forced his wife to her death, isn't it?", I challenged.
"He deserves all of that because he failed to protect the one he loved the most. He
failed to change the future of what Chichiri's future should have been. He should have
stayed denied." I held my head in my hands at the expense of Tanxi's shame.

Kou sighed, and his eyes held sympathy for both Tanxi's plight and my stubbornness.
"The law changed about 250 years ago, and his human persona was reincarnated. His want for
power was taken away, as his power itself. The Gods are keeping more of an eye on him than
any other reincarnation anywhere. He's harmless, Houjun."

"No!", I cried. "That's not what I was referring to. What I was talking about was
that he is still the same as the battle so long ago. He is still heartless, uncaring to the
people around him." I took a breath to steady myself. "Even without his want for power,
overlooking the fact he is not a complete person without that aspect of his being, he is
still one that should not be trusted."

Kou smiled wanly at me. "And that is why he stopped the tank outside from not
killing all those students?" He held up a hand when I started to protest. "Houjun, he is a
person too. He was brought up differently in this world, so he is not nearly as wicked as
he was back then. He is different. I had to speak with him because some of the reporters
wanted information. He is not a bad man."

I trembled with suppressed anger. I could not take it out here, on Kou or the walls
or the furniture lying about in the room. "And just why do you trust him? He is a
government reporter, isn't he?"

Kou just shook his head slowly in "I don't know". "Maybe because he is like us,
Houjun. Maybe because his story is so like yours I find myself pitying him instead of
hating him. Maybe because he didn't seem to like or care about what the government told him
to do and asked me questions about life in the Square during the hunger strike instead. I
do not trust him either, but I do not believe he will do any harm."

But I wasn't listening. I was already halfway out of the room and down the
staircase before the last sentence ended.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \

Author's note:

Oh dear, that was a whirlwind chapter for me. I can't believed I stayed calm while
I was writing about Tenku. I know that was kinda rushed over, but I can't find anything
else to say about it, so I just had to cut it short. This chapter may be replaced sometime
in the future as well; I don't think it's completely polished up yet. God, that was one
long ramble I had there, going up and down. I planned this all before but it came out
completely different; I had planned for Tanxi to explain everything to Houjun before the
tank came along, and then the story took a completely different turn as I started writing
it. I HATE it when that happens, but it's usually for the better.

Andrea Weiling