The Irony Gods: Chapter 26
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(Author's Note)
Hnn…after this chapter, I dunno when my next update's gonna be. It's a long one, so be happy! And there's a little contest at the end. I'll be starting my official college career after this. To think I'm eighteen now, with the responsibilities of an adult… Screw it. I'll be seventy-five and still listening to ICP and techno and the Ghost in the Shell OSTs, watching Saiyuki and Hellsing, and reading Death Note and Bleach and Angel Sanctuary and Fight Club… Sweet sanity, I don't wanna grow up! I'm STILL a Toys-R-Us kid!
Dedicated to the mutated candy corn and the Siamese mellowcreme pumpkin twins sitting on my alarm clock.
Quote(s) of the Day: "There is no end for that which is continually beginnded."—Robot Chicken, Adult Swim
"If it weren't for physics and law enforcement, I'd be unstoppable."—BumperSticker
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Sense: Sans Sensibility
I was dreaming a happy dream. I was in class again, watching my DVD and thoroughly enjoying the antics of my favorite angry chihuahua/stupid cat duo. "Happy, Happy; Joy, Joy" was on, and Ren was about to bash his own head in with a hammer to get the invention off, wearing the sadistic grin I loved so much and laughing the psychotic maniacal laugh I cherished like a diamond.
John was knocking at the window, begging Mr. Wood to allow him in, and the teacher was pointedly ignoring him while he checked the NFL website to find out how his choice teams were doing in the playoffs. Adam was laughing along and scratching at that thing on his neck, probably half-wondering whether or not those aliens would be back to reclaim his brain. Katt was off to one side, scribbling things into her notebook.
I ask Wood if I can put a death date on that biography I have to write on Ross Perot—who isn't dead, by the way.
"What? No!" He is shocked, for some unfathomable reason.
"Why not?"
"What if you're right and he dies on that day? You'd feel terrible!"
I correct him with utter conviction. "No, I'd feel powerful."
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"Gyargh! Get out of my head!" I jerked out of the tangled bed sheets and ended up facedown on a hard marble floor…
…at the feet of the god of Chaos.
"I thought that would wake you up," Konran muttered, frowning down at me from six feet above. Dammit, he was so freaking tall. I hated him, mocking my shortness like a mockingly tall freekazoid.
I missed that show.
"I hope rabid radioactive Rhesus monkeys violate you in your sleep," I growled.
He snorted, "Oh, spare me. It certainly says something of your skewed sense of reality when happy dreams are what have you wake screaming. Plan D was to kick you in the head until you finally got up."
"Better than invading my dreams!" I shrieked, leaping to my feet and glaring up at him—before pausing in uncertainty. "Hold on…plan D? What were A, B, and C?"
He counted them off on one slender musicians' hand, wearing a bemused frown. "Let's see—first I yelled at you, but you just rolled over and buried yourself in about five feet of blankets; then I poured a pail of water on the pile of blankets, but they were too thick to soak through completely; and so I tried a little bit of mind probing, which worked quite nicely." The frown turned into a smirk and poked at my frayed nerves.
"Have you not heard of alarm clocks! Or cymbals! Or COFFEE!" I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, fighting off the urge to fish Ryushi out of the sodden blankets and take satisfaction from feeling the blade pierce his cranial cavity.
"You seem lively enough. Get dressed and come downstairs with all of your things; we depart in an hour."
And then he was gone, like yet another of my hallucinations. I was going to give him a swift kick to the face the next time I saw him…
…and after I had changed into a comfortable pair of jeans and my JtHM T-shirt, collected my sword and sweatdrop bag from the vicinity of the bed, slung my indestructible leather coat over one shoulder, and entered the kitchen-slash-war room, I did just that.
"Argh! What was that for!" he cried, dodging a second blow aimed for more sensitive areas than his face.
"Feistier than usual this morning, I see," commented Gojyo, casually leaning against a stone pillar with the stub of a cigarette caught in his wry smile. "What sneaky things were you doing this time, Konran?"
"I didn't do anything!" defended the god, rebutting Gojyo's little remark.
"RRRGHHHH! CHOKE ON YOUR LIES!" I attacked again, hopping onto the granite countertop and springing at him with sword in hand this time.
But instead of the anger management therapy I so desperately needed after being woken up at SIX FREAKING A.M., I received a heel to the small of my back, which immediately halted me in mid-leap and slammed me to the ground. I yelped like an injured animal and rolled over with a pained grimace, only to find myself under the irritated scrutiny of a pair of smoldering amethysts.
"Is it too much to ask for some goddamned silence!" Sanzo seethed. He had the fan in one hand, the periodical tucked under the opposite arm while he held a cup of coffee, and wore his reading glasses. Clearly, I had interrupted his morning revelry. He was still in the leather getup. He actually looked like he had just gotten up.
I chose not to point out to him that we were supposed to be leaving within the hour.
I would find no sympathy from Captain Corrupt, so I scanned the motley crew about me and picked Goku out of the group. "Yo, Goku, next time I'm sharing a room with you. No more Konran. Konran can find a nice cardboard shoebox to sleep in, like a good little rat." My eye twitched in the god's direction, and his own narrowed at the challenge.
"I don't think so!" he griped past the dribbling blood of his nose. I hoped to all sanity that it was broken.
"You should have not thought so before you invaded my privacy in the worst possible way. Now I can't even seek refuge in my inner thoughts, you bastard." Ignoring the protesting ache of my spinal column—which, ironically, was the same place Sanzo had kicked me twice before—I stood and trudged over to a tray of rice dumplings. I wanted sugar and caffeine. There was nothing more on my mind at this time of morning, especially since for the majority of my natural life, I had never even known that six A.M. existed.
"There's coffee in the pitcher over there," Hakkai pointed out helpfully, still working diligently at the oven to finish the teriyaki beef jerky he had prepared the other day under cover of darkness. He had to hide just about all food operations from the monkey, or we would surely run out of provisions in the middle of this mission and starve to death. Yet for some freakish reason, he wasn't bothered at all by it.
This only strengthened my resolve to be nice to Hakkai. The ones who smile all the time are the ones most likely to snap and go on a killing spree—which was why I reveled in my anger as often as possible. In a twisted way, it kept me sane…
Mocha, mocha, mocha, mocha…oh, sweet succulent beverage possessed of the two things I need to live, how I love thee! Now, granted, I preferred the Dew, but that was a luxury unavailable at every turn in this world, quite the opposite of my own.
"You make the world's best coffee, Hakkai," I sighed, breathing the chocolaty aroma before gulping down a mouthful as a chaser to an entire dumpling. "And excellent mocha."
"I just do what needs to be done to keep everyone calm," he laughed amicably, taking out the last tray of dried meat and sliding it onto a length of Saran wrap. What was Saran wrap doing in Togenkyo?
I thought I told you to stop questioning things, my brain sighed.
"You think a lot of useless crap," I muttered back under my breath.
Hakkai blinked. "What was that?"
"Just my brain trying to sabotage what meager sanity I have left." I put on my brave face and gave him a casual salute. "As you were, soldier." And then I walked away—but not before snatching up his sweatdrop. "Hey, where's Lirin?" I asked, scanning the stone room and finding no one but the Sanzo gang. Where had the Kou crew gone?
"They left an hour ago," muttered the priest, who sat upon a tall stool at the counter, reading and smoking and drinking coffee.
I pulled up a second stool and sat at the corner nearer to Hakkai than the monk. Goku yawned and came over as well, taking a seat to my left. Gojyo seemed to really like that wall. I suspected he was practicing his come-hither stare, and disregarded him accordingly. All that mental scarring was unnecessary.
"Damn, izzit gonna take a long time ta get there?" mumbled the monkey, looking half-ready to fall back asleep. Apparently, he had already eaten everything he could take. At least he was dressed to go, which was more than could be said for the monk.
"A day or so, at most," responded the kindly former human-now youkai. Hakuryu is resting, though. I checked outside when I got up, and the weather looks promisingly clear, but we're still in a desert region, and he needs all the strength he can gather to tackle this kind of heat. It's too bad there aren't any bottles to bring water."
Like the pretentious ass-hat he was, Konran scoffed, "No bottles? There are plenty if you just ask. Look in that cabinet over there, and you'll find several gallon jugs."
"Shut your irritating pie-hole," I snapped, taking another swig of mocha.
He frowned and gave me a look that was borderline injured. "I made that drink, you know, not Hakkai."
I stared at the mug of mocha, then back at him with narrowed eyes. "Dammit…now I can't drink it. It's got your plague."
The frown turned sour. "Lydia, shut up for once in your life. I've gone out of my way since my disintegration to make things easier for you, and I also sacrificed quite a lot of power to bring you back to health. I am sorry for the things I've done to you, and forgiveness is entirely your decision, but at the very least, could you just stop with the constant condemnations?"
I took another gulp of mocha—that was all he would get from me—and glared vengefully across the counter. "Condemnations? Not. Proclamations of truth? Yes, they are."
"Stop lying to yourself."
"You're the liar!" I shot back. "You're manipulative and uncouth and presumptuous and pedantic and annoying!"
"I'm also possessed of every trait you've ever found attractive in a man," he quipped caustically. "Ever wonder why that is?"
"Gah…buh…SHUT UP!" Crap! Lydia, you idiot! Come up with something better! Quickly! Now! "I don't remember feeling the least bit attracted to Quasimodo!" I cried triumphantly. "Sanzo, we leave NOW."
"Don't drag me into your little masochistic love affair," muttered the priest, downing the last of his coffee and standing abruptly. Before I could make a half-witty reply, he was gone up the stairs to do what he did to prepare for departure.
"Ooh, no support there," murmured Konran, smirking ever so teasingly.
I rounded on him in a rage. "One more sick remark as such and I'll personally remove your tongue and internal organs with a ladle! Then I'll pour gas on you and light you on fire! And since you'll live through all of that, I'll set a pack of rabid hyenas on you and have them eat your face!"
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
That twisted, conniving fiend. "How dare you use Shakespeare against me!"
A heavy sigh from behind alerted me to Gojyo, and as I turned to glare at him he shrugged away from the wall and ambled over, seating himself firmly between Konran and me.
"Mihi ignosce…" Konran said slowly, eyeing the half-breed suspiciously.
"Speak Chinese," he responded easily, throwing an amused wink my way. "It's annoying when people are speaking languages that I don't understand." Chinese…dammit, I still thought it was all English.
"It's also annoying when outsiders butt into the conversations of others." My, he wore a poisonous glare. "Kindly remove yourself while I speak with my equivalent."
"Speak?" Gojyo drawled out lackadaisically. "Seems more like harassment to me. That's no way to treat a lady."
The god seemed suddenly confused. "Lady? Beg pardon, but she's barely old enough to drive. She doesn't even have a license, and she's never even been out on a date. She's as dysfunctional as they come. She's not ladylike in the least."
The kappa had me physically restrained while I attempted to launch myself over his head and attack the deserving deity. "Stalker! Perv! FREAK!" I shouted in accusation, struggling against Gojyo's bizarrely strong grip on my arms. He looked lanky, but damn! He was strong.
"I rest my case," Konran nodded.
"Weird, I'm used to being the one getting called a perv," Gojyo muttered, laughing at his own little humor.
"Yeah, you are, but you're not a god with the ability to watch girls when they're alone in their rooms and—OH MY GOD, HAS HE BEEN WATCHING ME IN THE SHOWER!" I stopped struggling so suddenly that Gojyo let go and I fell bodily onto the countertop, jarring my chin against the hard stone and wincing at the pain. Slowly, I slid back into my seat and rubbed the new injury, all the while glaring at the offending god.
He held up his index finger as though he were about to proclaim the question to "42." "Firstly, give me a little more credit than that. I'm not some sadistic version of Santa Claus come to keep tabs on you. My only transgression is watching you while you're out and about. At home, you're invisible. I'm the god of Chaos, and perhaps the only person in all the dimensions who knows you better than you know yourself, but I'm no voyeur."
"That's creepy, you creepy bastard," I muttered under my breath. "Probably a lie, too."
"Shut up. SECONDLY, you have no sense of humor, I swear." He actually had the gall to shake his head and sigh in disdain.
I have a sense of humor! shrieked my brain. Gyahahahahah? See! I can laugh! Kill the vermin!
He gave me one of those weird looks. "Tell your brain to shut up, too."
Gojyo's head snapped around. "Wait, you can hear her brain talking? She wasn't lying?"
"I don't lie!" I defended.
"And lastly," interrupted Konran before I said anything further, "Sanzo's back; let's go."
And just like that, he left his seat to go murmur a few things to the monk, before dissipating like so much Halloween confetti.
"You're right: he's a creepy bastard," acknowledged Gojyo, sweatdropping.
I stared at it…and he noticed…and with a defeated sigh, he plucked it off his own head and handed it over. "I give up…"
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(Houtou Castle…Yet Again.)
"Hey, Kou, do you really think Konran's plan will work?" Dokugakuji walked quietly beside the prince as they wound through the secret stone passage which Lirin had told them led straight to their quarters. "I mean, okay, so he's a god, but I don't know…"
"It has to work," Kougaiji muttered half-distractedly, searching for the crack in the wall where a stone receded and opened the hidden doorway. "If we can get everything right, his plan is entirely possible, and I've been studying for long enough to understand what he needs me to do."
"I know you're more than ready for this, but how much does he know about it?"
"He had better know either as much as or more than I do, or none of this is going to come together the way we need it to." The prince didn't want to even think about the overall consequences of any ignorance of Konran's part. "Anyway, here's the crack Lirin told us to find." His keen youkai senses caught the scent of fresh air leaking in through the tiny gap between the stones.
"I wonder why she was laughing so hard when she told us," mused Dokugaku.
Kougaiji crouched low to trace the edge of the slightly jutting block of iron-gray granite, testing the edges to see how loose it was. "Who knows? Hakkai probably let her have some of the extra mocha drink that Konran made for Lydia. It's got coffee in it, and we all know that caffeine is the last thing Lirin needs…okay, it's loose. Try to kick it in." Dropping the subject, he stood back and let the swordsman deliver a rather impressive kick to the jutting stone, depressing it and causing an unhappy groan to echo up the wall.
"Whoa, get back, Skinny," Dokugaku held an arm out and shielded Kougaiji from the tiny stones and clouds of dust billowing from the shuddering wall.
And then they were swallowed up by the trap door directly beneath their feet. It shut tightly and the walls stopped moving in an instant, lending no clue as to what had transpired only moments before.
One minute hence, a confused and crestfallen Yumoa tiptoed through that same hall. "Hmm? I could have sworn I heard Kou and Doku down here…shoot. Must've missed 'em." He then trudged off, muttering to his borg bunny in lonely frustration.
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(On the Road…Again—Doo deet doo deet doo doo On the Road Again…)
"Hakkai, please, I'm not kidding," I said for maybe the twelfth time in just as many minutes. "It's creepy. You can end my discomfort with a word."
"Yeah, man, it's kinda creeping me out, too," muttered Gojyo, casting a circumspect glance askance toward the back of the jeep.
"I'm sorry, but it would be rude, and considering how healthy you are, Lydia, I don't think we have the right to do what you're asking." Hakkai was far too diplomatic and rational for my tastes. Though, of course, I preferred this diplomacy over his inner psychopath.
"Fine, then I'll do it!" I announced, turning resolutely and glaring at the smug, smirking Chaos god sitting comfortably atop the spare tire, as though mocking seat belt ads everywhere. "You! Ass-hat! Get the hell down from there and find yourself a normal seat, preferably on a rock somewhere on the other side of the planet, like Canada or something."
"No, I rather like it up here, thank you."
"I hope Eris flies down and spanks you, you wretched excuse for a son."
His smirk vanished, and he gaped in what appeared to be shock. "You can't talk about my mother!"
"I just did. It's nothing against her. You're just an ass-hat. She can't be blamed for your shortcomings."
He looked so offended that it was a wonder that he didn't fall off his seat, but somehow the tire clung tenaciously to his buttocks…or, perhaps, the other way around. I could never tell, considering the off-kilter laws of physics in this realm.
With a final begrudging leer my way, he turned around and hunched his shoulders, giving us his back and refusing to look behind him again. It sort of reminded me of Yumoa. It was no surprise that they were related.
"Fucking pansy," I thought I heard Sanzo mutter under his breath, searching his robe extensively for a lighter. Finding none, he turned to Gojyo and shot him a dangerous glare. "Give me your lighter."
"Can't you ask like a normal human being!" the cockroach shot back instantly, his own cigarette hanging on for dear life as he shouted.
"Hand over the goddamn lighter or I'll ice your ass where you sit," the monk replied tightly, the gun appearing in his hand as if by magic, aimed between the kappa's eyes. Clearly, eight hours straight of driving did not agree with him, and if Hakkai's cheery disposition was any indication, relief would be a long time coming.
I bunkered down for twelve more hours of PMS atmosphere, fishing out a piece of jerky and splitting it up between Goku, Gojyo, and myself—after the redhead relinquished the lighter, of course.
Guns are excellent motivation, but I prefer the more personal use of pointy objects.
"Don't I get any jerky?"
The three of us blinked and turned around simultaneously to frown in curiosity at Konran, who was facing front once more, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands gripping the edge of the jeep behind us.
Actually, my brain ventured slowly with the air of someone about to reveal some delicate information, he's kind of cute with his hair all wind-blown. Like a puppy. Give the puppy some jerky.
I felt my face form into an expression of shock and disgust. "Holy crap, I've gone insane!" I cried, panicking and grabbing Gojyo by the lapels of his coat. I shook him once and repeated, "INSANE!"
"Gyaah! Let go! Hands off the merchandise!" He pried me off and pressed his back against the far end of the jeep. "That's not news, missy. You were nuts form the start, and that shit better not be contagious." He took a bite of jerky and kept a wary eye on me.
Shaking in consternation, I slowly turned and chanced a look at the god.
He was staring at me, looking insulted.
"H-hi, Kon!" I said in what I hoped sounded like a cheerful tone…though I was willing to bet that I sounded more like I was having a nervous breakdown.
"A puppy, eh?"
"Puppy?" Goku inquired curiously, the piece of jerky sticking halfway out his mouth while he gnawed on it in an attempt to make it small enough to swallow. Hakkai was a genius. Jerky lasted much longer than meatbuns…But that wasn't important right now.
"Puppy! YES! Puppies are AWESOME! You tell 'im, Goku!" I grabbed the monkey and switched seats with him in a frantic rush, nearly falling out of the jeep in the process.
Goku seemed kind of scared, but looked up at the god anyway and nodded. "Yeah, puppies're cool."
Konran stared blankly at the monkey for a brief moment, then looked at me, huddled around Ryushi as far away from him as I could get in the corner behind my Goku shield. "I'll be back in a little while," he sighed at last, sounding as though he had given up on something. He looked west, toward the direction we were headed, then slowly disintegrated into coal dust, trailing behind like ashes on the wind.
Once he was completely gone, I relaxed and grabbed another chunk of meat, chewing madly like a caffeinated gerbil.
"Gods suck," I muttered.
Sanzo shifted in his seat, and slid down a bit, ready for a nap to pass the time. "I agree," he said flatly before abandoning us to deal with things on our own.
Once Sanzo was asleep, he was not to be disturbed unless the apocalypse was upon us…or at least something of equal magnitude. Sometimes a clever driving maneuver on Hakkai's part was enough to shake the monk from the land of nod, but he was pretty resilient.
"What's up with him?" Goku asked, a question mark appearing above his head to label his confusion.
Gojyo chuckled, drawing both our stares, and ran a careless hand through his hair.
"And your input, mighty master, would be?" I queried, though I knew I wasn't going to like the answer.
"Yeah, what's so funny?" the monkey prodded.
He grinned. "The poor guy's just trying to catch a break, but his opponent's a tough nut to crack, that's what's so funny."
I frowned, seeing well where this was going. "You shut your face right now, or I'll personally remove it from your head, and we all know how vain you are, kappa."
He raised his hands harmlessly, but the grin wouldn't budge. "Sorry."
"Not nearly sorry enough."
"I can't help it that I'm so damned smart."
I snorted. "It must be nice to live in that dream world of yours."
That only made his grin widen, but luckily he kept his thoughts to himself this time. Good. Ruyshi's break would remain undisturbed.
But still, it pissed me off that the damn god could hear my stupid brain talking to me. I made a mental note to start carrying Q-tips wherever I went, just in case my thinking half decided to turn on me again.
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Houtou Castle: The Tangent
"Yaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
For a long time they fell, plummeting like stones into the dark abyss, not knowing whether or not they would come out of this alive. There was nothing to see but blank and empty stone on all sides of the tube they had fallen into, though if there had been anything to see, they wouldn't have caught more than a smear of color or streak of light.
But luckily for them, after approximately three minutes of falling—give or take an hour—they caught a break. Or, more specifically, a break caught them.
SPLOOSH!
It was a deep, rippling pool of some unidentified liquid, thicker than water and thinner than syrup. Once he breached the surface after a rather long pencil dive, Kougaiji realized what it was and grabbed Dokugakuji by the arm to reassert his sanity.
"Dokugaku!" he said quickly, gripping a bit harder than he would normally have intended with one clawed hand—though who could blame him considering the situation? "What did we just land in?"
The swordsman glanced around in the dim lighting cast by a pair of Tiki torches off to their right. "Uh, is this a test?"
"No, it's not a test! What the hell is this?"
"Well, it tastes like chocolate milk."
The prince frowned, seeing now that he hadn't gone mad like everyone else in this bizarre little adventure. He let go of his friend. "That's what I thought."
"So…"
"What?"
Dokugaku shrugged. "Well, what's next?"
"I see light over there. Whatever the hell is going on, I'd rather confront it where there's more light." What was Lirin thinking, telling them to take this path? And who on earth put a lake of chocolate milk smack in the middle of Houtou castle?
"Kou, I hate to say it, but I think Lirin's been doing a lot more than just chasing the Sanzo party whenever she disappears from the castle," Dokugaku muttered, starting toward shore with Kougaiji right beside him.
"I think you're right. She has a lot of explaining to do when we see her again." Of all the stupid, time-wasting things that could possibly happen to them, this was probably more than just the last item on the list. This was worthy of Weekly World News alongside the "Gay Martian Landing" article.
"I mean, it's almost like were trapped in some sick-minded person's fantasy, our every move dictated to the letter by forces beyond you or me."
Kougaiji froze in the water—er, chocolate milk—and stared at the swordsman. "Are you feeling all right? You're not acting like yourself."
"That's my point! I'm never this smart!" Dokugaku insisted earnestly. "I'm the tough, optimistic one! None of this makes sense! The wheels spin without our knowing, putting us into situations we have know idea how to handle."
"I think I've read a story like this before, but I can't remember what it was about, or what it was even called," murmured the prince, both of them returning to the task of swimming toward the light.
"Do you remember what we were doing when Konran and his sister showed up?"
He shook his head. "No, do you?"
"Nope. Kind of weird, don't you think?"
"Yes, but these things happen," Kougaiji attempted to reason. "People forget what they were doing all the time, and then remember it later when it's not important anymore."
Dokugaku was the first to reach shore, and pulled himself up onto the wooden planks that marked the edge of the pool of chocolate milk. He then assisted Kougaiji in climbing out of the sweet, sticky liquid, both of them standing at the edge between the two Tiki torches for a few moments and staring down at the pool.
Kou shook his head. "It's this place. The chocolate milk threw you off. It'll be better when we find a way out of here."
"I can't remember anything, Kou. I can't be sure of any of this. I mean, I remember things, but they're like implants. It's like they're fake. Nothing's real."
"Uncertainty is the normal state. You're nobody special. All we have to do is accept that we're in a strange situation and keep our wits about us. Lirin must have known this was here or she wouldn't have told us to look for that stone."
"How do you know? Maybe we picked the wrong stone. This castle was empty for five hundred years while your father was imprisoned and Gyokumen Koushu wasn't around. Anybody could have found the place and used it."
The thought wasn't comforting in the least, but it was a possibility. However, that wasn't as important as reaching their current goal. "It doesn't matter right now. Come on, let's go find an exit."
Dokugakuji nodded once in obeisance to his Prince and followed faithfully into the dim stone cave, which seemed the only exit from the cavern where the pool resided. They passed an open umbrella beside the entrance, lying on its side with an unlit lantern behind it, and took up the lantern and lit the oil wick with one of the Tiki torches.
"Convenient," commented the swordsman, upon the lantern's ignition, which threw off enough light to illuminate their way through the cave.
"Probably left by whoever built this place," suggested the Prince, trying to wipe off as much of the drying, sugary liquid which soaked him to the bone.
"The umbrella's weird, though. Who would need an umbrella underground?"
"Questions only complicate things. Let's just get out of here and find that artifact the witch keeps locked up in her room."
"How do you think Konran knew about that?" Dokugaku wanted to keep some sort of conversation going to ward off the creepy, weird atmosphere of the place as they ventured further and further into the blank granite stone tunnel. Their shoes made hollow sounds against the planks of wood, which suggested that the pool of chocolate milk was fed or drained by a stream running fish-silent beneath them.
"He's a god," Kougaiji replied diffidently, uncertain himself as to the real answer.
"Did you know about it?"
"No, but I had heard rumors about it from some of her guards. It's so hard to get information from them, though, so I was never really confident in their answers. She has a death-grip on everyone but the four of us."
"We've got a bad time ahead of us, huh? It makes dealing with the scriptures seem easy and uneventful."
"I hate gods more and more every time we have to get involved with them," muttered Kougaiji, holding the lantern up and casting its glow onto the little cul-de-sac which marked what seemed to be a dead end. The gray, sparkling granite was seamless, carved and polished to a mirror finish.
"This is the only exit in the cavern, right?"
The Prince merely nodded.
"I can't wait until things go back to normal."
The Prince nodded once more, set the lantern down near the wall, and began the tedious task of searching for some clue as to how to get out. Damned irony gods. They were always finding some new and exciting way to screw everything up. He was beginning to see why Lydia spent so much of her free time cursing them.
To Be Continued…
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(Author's Note)
SPECIAL: If any of you can tell me what existential play I based that last bit with Kougaiji and Dokugakuji off of, you get to decide what happens in one of the tangents in The Sequel. The only clue you get is that the play itself was written as a sort of back story for two minor characters in one of Shakespeare's plays.
Why chocolate milk? Because I am the master of this universe. Muahahahaha!
—Cyh Scævola, the Chaos Theoryst OUT