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 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.