GENSOUMADEN SAIYUKI
Gensoumaden Saiyuki belongs to Minekura Kazuya.
A/U. Four individuals will play key roles in the change that is coming to the Holy Land.
CIRCLES
PART FOUR: DESTINY'S FOUR
Damn idiot wants to die.
The half-breed shifts, pausing at the rough scrape of his heels on wood. It is the kind of strained silence that rejects physical sound even though the air screams with feeling. He moves again, and I want to snap at him to stop squirming; there's not much space to move around – not on our end anyway. Cho Gonou and his painfully polite smiles take up the other side of the table. It's the furthest strategic point from both the door and window, but he makes no attempt to escape.
He sits straight in the chair with his hands clasped together on the table surface, unmoving since we first returned to the inn. He speaks only in response to my questions, giving quietly accommodating answers in his mild, frustratingly apologetic tone.
But the words have petered out, and he is increasingly pensive, tension has turned his knuckles white, and there is a patient resignation in his eyes. He is still smiling, but I recognise the lie, and I know that the half-breed too sees the emptiness. And I want to snarl at it, want to shake the man hard until he flares at me, and I can hit back. But I know he won't care, that he'll take the abuse like the fucking martyr he is.
Damn, blasted idiot wants to die.
I turn abruptly, feeling some petty satisfaction in the sharp slide of my sandals on the floor and the way the both of them start at the sound. Cho flicks his eyes to me and beyond before dropping his gaze again, his features tightening marginally. Despite my foul mood, my lip curls slightly as I too look to the window, out into the night.
Bloody rain's still falling, and I'm not the only one who feels it. What secrets does a mass murderer keep?
It's obvious what I have to do with him now, and the realisation makes me want to smack someone over the head, preferably the boy who started this in the first place. But he's still twisting fitfully in bed with a fever, so I settle for a long, soothing smoke.
I have to return to Chou An and hand Cho Gonou over for trial. All the fucking way back.
It's not difficult to appreciate the irony; no one asks questions in a town that has more than its share of blood-letting to condemn one individual. He hides his own blood behind mild manners and high walls, doing nothing more extraordinary than teach letters and numbers and dote on his small charges. And it's not all pretense – he did not balk at my charge, could have taken off with the boy as hostage. But he offered no resistance when he followed us back to the inn instead, seeing to the boy himself before finally sitting down to my questions.
The boy stirs again, and I watch Cho's reflection in the glass as he looks to me. When I don't say anything he turns to the half-breed for permission before rising quickly from his chair, getting away from the memories of the rain. The pathetic light of the room's sole light bulb glints off the three metal earpieces that he wears, and I smirk.
I can see the four of us trouping back to the shock and outrage in Chou An – Genjo Sanzo, with not one or two, but three youkai in tow. It might actually make the trip worth it.
The boy is fidgeting worse now – I turn around when I hear him whimper. But Cho has one hand on the boy's forehead and a half-smile on his face. "I think the fever's breaking." Good. The sooner things get moving along the better. Because once I've delivered him to the Three Aspects, I have to fucking start West all over again. I'm committed to Destiny now.
But I'm saved the hassle. Golden eyes snap open abruptly, seeking and finding startled green ones. And it suddenly makes sense, and I really should have seen it coming. He's tired and still a little delirious, but Prophecy grins, and lifts one hand to touch the face that has drawn closer to his own.
"Redemption –"
– at last four at last come together destiny Destiny change –
– and Cho Gonou's expression breaks and I see grief and anger and desperation and denial –
"– you are Redemption – "
– and I know the half-breed also feels the ties that bind and he is as shaken as I am –
"– to stop change."
And the whispered words are loud in the silence and I finally remember the room.
I am never going to get used to that.
Prophecy drops his arm and closes his eyes with a sigh, and I know that the fever has broken. Cho's face is carefully blank but his hand trembles when he again presses one hand to the boy's forehead. The half-breed slants a bewildered look at me, but I do not give anything away; unlike him, it's not the first time I have been made aware of it, of something I'm beginning to feel uneasily, impossibly, beyond what Destiny has in store of us.
It has to be the illness – Prophecy has screwed up the Naming. I sure as hell am not going to sacrifice anything only to have Redemption prevent it.
But the tension has fallen away from the room, and I know the half-breed welcomes it when he kicks his heels up on the table, arms crossed behind his head. "So," he drawls. "Who's up for a game of poker?"
**********
The rusty hinges of the school gates grate harshly in the chill of early morning. "I won't be long, I just need to sort some things out." Cho moves off to the main building and I frown. I am impatient to be leaving, but he is insistent that he cannot go without leaving proper notice for the principal and instructions for the day's lessons for his pupils. And I give in, seeing in his eyes a determination to do things right, and a hint of cold, quiet resentment if I do not let him do at least this.
What kind of relief does one get from resigning the rest of life to atoning for past sins?
Redemption to stop change. It irks me that I can't make any sense of it, and my only answer to the mess is nodding sleepily in the half-breed's arms. He's still tired even though the fever's broken, and I still have no idea how he fell sick in the first place. Then again it does not matter, because Destiny has us all now.
Cho finally emerges from the school, and from across the schoolyard it looks like a white scarf wrapped around his neck. But scarves don't coo. And as he draws nearer, it flicks out white wings and uncurl from him, suspended lazily above his head.
"School pet," Cho says with a smile, as the half-breed and I gape at the small dragon descending gently to perch on his shoulder. "Found him asleep on the school steps when I came in one morning, and he never left after that."
"So? Why's it coming with us?" His grin widens as he gestures for us to walk ahead of him out of the school compound. Locking the gates, he gives the creature a nudge, and it takes off from his shoulder with a gurgling murmur, sweeping low to the ground...
...and then there's a muted flare of light, and the dragon has disappeared, and the half-breed and I are staring dumbstruck at a dark green jeep.
"I've always wondered myself why a jeep, but Hakuryuu unfortunately isn't going to give me any answers." I want to be annoyed at his mild, amused tone, but already I am thinking.
Travelling's going to be a hell lot easier now.
And that's when the shit really starts.
-TBC-