Tails looked with her canine eyes at Taikoubou for a very long time, "You are the leader of this pack are you? How do you get them to follow you? Is it by making sound judgments based on experience, credibility, benevolence, courage, and discipline? If you can do this you must be a very wise sage, please tell me I am only a wolf..."
The little guy with the bunny-eared hat just laughed nodded knowing very well that she was one the list as something dangerous – or at least something to keep an eye on. This could be one of Dakki's traps, as the hippo pointed out.
She blinked, and repeated herself wanting an answer from both Taikoubou and the "un-tasty" priest without success.
Sanzo on the other hand had his own problems – Goku looked at Nataku repeating the name as if he knew it but did not. There was something wrong with his memory – that name had some significance to him.
The redhead on the other just stood there like a statue, ready for a fight to resume with either Goku or that bat-man, to him it would not matter. He did keep an uneasy eye on the little white dragon – that thing could endanger mother.
The goblin and the "perverted water-sprite" caught up with what they were trying to do – getting into Tails or Sonic. Tails was no longer interested in this but watched the redhead and the Taikoubou group.
"Brother! You are back!"
Mei shouted in joy at her sibling's return.
A smile at his sister, he clutched the knife in his hand at the ready. Thoughts of slicing her head clean off and peeing down her throat filled the twisted child's sick mind.
"Where is dad," the green-haired innocent asked, her eyes blinked and she crossed her arms bumping the bounty of her plump breasts.
Eying them thinking of her majesty, "He is dead..."
"What!"
Mei demanded the reason.
"I wrote home that dead was "invited" to become part of Lady Dakki's bedroom...he nobly refused... but mom sent a moon cake," he lied sobbing dramatically, "He was poisoned..."
"Give me that knife," she grabbed the blade and stormed into the house.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha..."
He laughed drowning out the scream from inside, "But I will be happy to be "her bedchamber."
"Why this side story about Mei?"
"Firstly to show that the fox-lady is contravention all the rules... The Five Relationships – Father-to-Son and Student-to-Master... His father was teaching Mei's brother, he killed his father to have Dakki's love. He then probably on orders, has his sister sever the rule of Mother-to-Daughter. Mei then kills her brother, flouting the rule of Elder Sibling-to-Younger Sibling."
"Why?"
"So that Mei can tell her tale, to Bukichi, Taikoubou's very able disciple who was cut out of the anime, before she hangs herself..."
"What?"
"Mei was the first of "the Hanging Ghosts," a very old Chinese ghost story where a tortured soul that cannot pass on induces others to hang themselves and become a Hanging Ghost themselves..."
"That's sacrey..."
"Don't worry, I will protect you, it is not like the Gods themselves are aliens..."
(SPOILER WARNING: In the Manga of Houshin Engi, the originators of the Houshin Project are feuding aliens!)
"Cannot sleep too, Li No-Cho?"
"I don't need to..."
Nataku said in his double voice.
"You are so cool like that," Tails hugged him, "So cute, too."
"What does she sees in him," Sonic fumed watching this slightly.
"He is special – that is why!"
Tal's answered her question half hearing it with her sensitive ears, "He is Li No-cha, the shining youth! And it is said that sometimes wolves mate for life ... tee-he..."
Looking at her in the brown bodysuit with the trashing tail – she had too much of a resemblance to when that dog-duke took Dakki's form and attacked him.
The spiky redhead pushed her off. He pressed his bracelet point-blank to the she-wolf's head, "What are you doing?"
"Do it, Li No-Cha," she closed her eyes, "It will be a load off my mind. For when you see revenge, dig two graves - one for your intended and the other for yourself."
A long pause proceeded, "Before you do so, I am hungry. Like something to eat? I can make you something..."
"I don't need to eat..."
"How about some tea? Surely, Li No-Cha will have some tea," she said politely bowing she presented the pot and leaves and cups, "Surely, Li No-Cha will..."
"Do as you will – I do not care."
Seeing her pine over someone exactly like her, Sonic was frustrated. She was a little found of her little pet. She was not able to voice her feelings. Sonic was in the classical hedgehog's dilemma – the closer someone got to her the more she pushed away so not to be hut by her spines or the spines of others. She did not even know why she was staying with Tails anymore ...
"Neither alive or dead, enjoying nothing, appreciating nothing. You do not care if you are alive or dead, you do not care about being killed or killing. Not even finding joy in it," she went through the whole Japanese ceremony braking the rule about talking about something other than tea, "Little brother, monkey, might perceive the void in pure innocence ... you, Li No-Cha, have become it... Credibility allows the pack leader to have his pack-mates him so that they will follow her. This is created through uninterrupted honesty. Trust and faith must be earned, with what terms do you speak with and what have you accomplished, Li No-Cha?"
"Why do you keep calling me that?"
He took up a cup of green tea, just to hold it.
She threw herself into the teacakes, "The Mountains say it. So does The Dictionary of Chinese Mythology," she finished off the buttered scones and two sticks of butter off their plates, "They say...During the reign of the tyrant Chou Shin...the son of general Li Ching fought against Ao Ping, the son of the dragon king, and slew him in contest. Having defeated him, he plucked out the tendons of his victim, and made there a belt, which he wore on special occasions. When Ao Kuang, King of the Western Dragons, and brother of Hakkuryu, heard of the death of his son, he became exceedingly angry and exclaimed," My son belonged to the race of the brave; he could fly amidst the clouds, impart live giving rain and luck to the world; how have you been so rash to him?"
Having uttered these words; he engaged in struggle with Li No-Cha, but was soon cast to the ground. His adversary trampled on his body, stripping him of his clothes, found he was covered over with scales, like those of a fish. Li No-cha dragged them off until blood flowed on all sides. Overwhelmed with pain, the dragon-kin craved for mercy. Li No-Cha spared his life, but ordered him to be transformed into a little blue snake, which he hid in his sleeve. He then returned to his home and gave it as a gift to his father and mother..."
"Mother...father..."
He drunk a little, showing he still had not resolved his entire situation at home.
"Eighty-one times did the dragon kings seek Li No-Cha's life, circumstances forced him to commit suicide to keep the reputation of his parents," Tails gulped the tea down as if her mouth was the portal to the underworld, "You do have the same sense of honor..."
"I do..."
"Very noble," she kissed him. Tails waited there on his lips – nothing. Her soft paws started to unwrap his damask and set the red clot so to hold them together.
Now the blue pinprick eyes moved, he knew...
A smile came, she broke the kiss off, "You are worried about me. That is the first step."
She pulled away ignoring the poisons of the damask, "I think I will leave it at that. It would be wrong to force you to do anything, besides you are somewhat human and I am a wolf. Just remember, everything in this world has something or someone, all you will need time to realize it that no man is an island."
Tails went off to bed, "Good night, sweet dreams – everything that has intelligence has dreams, maybe someday you will, Li No-Cha..."
A giggle, "I already have mine..."
"We need wise men to put an end to cultural decay..."
"We need fighters and soldiers to enforce the bad rulers and get rid of the barbarians..."
"Fighters and solders would want compensation for killing. Normally men do not want to kill their fellow men without urging or being paid devalued currency, lands, titles, and rights... and besides we have enough bad generals..."
"We need a religious man to do something with the debaucheries, decadence, slavery, and discrimination..."
"No we need a police force to deal with cultural diverse subversives..."
"What you really need is an idiot that can be controlled and be used – someone who does not understand the evil he faces..."
Taikoubou shivered thinking of the debate of those people who labeled him for the Houshin Project, "The problem is do-nothing religious bigots and do-nothing philosophers... People can complain about how the world is, but do nothing to change it..."
" I must be kind in this... compassion allows the pack-mates to be devoted to their Alpha and therefore they will follow orders. The absolute but not blind love for others must be maintained that if someone does something incorrect they must be punished but if they have done something right they will be rewarded. This building blocks of pack harmony," Tails tapped her finger, "Here is the demon stronghold, whom I seek their death, "she drew out with the end of her ranseur, "Here is Taikoubou and Here is Sanzo..."
"They are not part of the pack, despite their courage. They have no regulation and discipline, which allows an Alpha to unify his pack so that they are ready for the hunt. I therefore must use that fact that discipline brings order and promptness. They would not do what I suggest anyway. So the demons will come here and divide them or be destroyed..."
"What's that, wolf-girl?"
"Don't call me that! Or I will have your liver right out," she barked.
"Okay, Tails, fine by me," Sonic remove her outer spiny armor revealing some lighter armor underneath, "For a moment you sounded like some sort of general..."
"What do you mean general?"
A snarl.
"You are very serious, you try hard, you never give up, and you have the mental strength of a general..."
The lighter armor under it looked like silk but of stronger material that what can made by a moth's worm –– it was silk in quite a few layers woven together by bits of iron thread and lacquered several hundred times making something with the constancy of a bullet-resistant fiberglass armor that a SWAT team would dream about.
"Me a general? Never. I am a wolf."
"With every sort of principle of integrity, no enemy could overtake you, General Wolf," the guy with the monocle entered the conversation, indicating that striking the base as they fight, "Only through experience, study, and testing everything can one get the trait of being a great pack leader or a human General, holding on to the constant ebb and flow, can one obtain this trait of being one. Courage allows the general to do only what he asks of his soldiers to do...."
"What are you talking about?"
Sonic demanded.
"Nothing, Sonic, we're going out for a little run," her tail wagged brushing the plan away. She kissed her on the cheek and said glancing at the smiling man, "Hopefully, I can be a good "general." I would hate myself if I would lose any part of my pack..."