...And somehow, The-Youkai-Formerly-Known-As-Gonou managed to not get much of a part in this chapter except offscreen; temple chaos and Goku-or-aftermath-thereof kind-of upstaged him. Just trust me that next chapter he will be back to getting screentime, and this runaway train of a work will remember that it's supposed to be mostly an angst fic. (Because Sanzo's not allowed to get comfortable with things - ever! Mwaheheheheh...)


It was tempting to just hole up in my room, but if I was going to be antisocial, I could at least do something useful, and there was something I'd been neglecting.

I know my entrance registered with the librarian, but as I paid no heed to the desk or the area he was in, and was headed for something specific, he just left me be; he wasn't in the habit of herding everyone that came in. The first place I stopped was some of the official records; they were horribly spotty for the outlying villages, but I grabbed everything for that area that seemed to be in a date range where I might find something anyway. Next I looked up what priests had traveled through that area in the last few years, and collected the journals and accounts that were on record. Finally, I hit where the records of legal cases the temple intervened in were kept, fishing out his file in the hopes they recorded something. I leave with a stack of papers, folders, books, and documents I can barely see over, taking the whole mess back to my room. The stack ends up taking over the table, with the first few journals and sets of records on my desk to the side.

It looks like I've got a good opportunity to not have to keep an eye on him every minute, Goku doesn't need much watching, so I lock my door and sit down to filter out what might be useful from what I'll just be wasting time on, a stack of paper for notes next to me.

I start by going over his file from the trial. From the amount of information in it, the idea to get the temples involved had to've been mostly the Sanbutshin's doing; the entire report feels cobbled together, gathered in the gap between when I left and when we got back. Before the killings, it drops off into a big blank, the only information being an idea of what specific village he was from.

I narrow the stacks, filtering out some of the records of the other villages, then start on the legal and diplomatic ledgers. Three books worth of skimming page by page later, there's been plenty of mention of Hyakugan Maoh and the Dark Crow - who ruled that area - but not even a letter of Cho Gonou or Kanan, my only two leads. The dinner bell only barely registers as I start on the fourth volume. I even manage to work right through the sound of Goku's voice in the hallway and the sense of his too-bright aura until he's banging on the door. "Oy, Sanzo!" He continues banging, and I put a slip of scrap-paper in the book to mark my place, rubbing my eyes. "Sanzo?" The door handle rattles, locked. I set the book down, straightening the stacks; I may not get away, but I'm not going to be rushed about this.

There's an absolutely pathetic, lost puppy whimper from the other side of the door, as he drags his words out in the whine. "Saaaaaannzzoooooo! I'm huuunnngrryyyyyy!" He's trying to sound like he's going to die if he isn't fed, but it's not hard to tell that it's total bullshit. I pick up my mostly-blank notes, roll them up, and pause at the door. If he wants to whine like a lost dog...

Then pull the door open, and crack the roll of paper over his head. "Shut up, you stupid monkey! Go eat if you're so hungry - you know where the dining hall is!"

The wounded look is nothing more than camouflage for the background smug as he's rubbing his head. "But Sanzo! Those stuffy monks look at me meaner than you do when you're not there..." A calculated look of dejection and wounded pleading is all over his face, while my ward stands behind him watching the performance. I'd be willing to bet Goku came to fetch me for dinner just to make sure I ate.

"Fine.", I glower at him, set my notes by the door, and lock it behind me. Goku falls back into his old pattern of running back and forth struggling to keep a faster pace than me without losing sight, yammering the whole way, my ward following behind me in my shadow. There's pricks from several directions of suspicion and indignation; word of my outburst at the acolytes earlier must've already spread. The priests in the dining hall edge around me, resigned to my presence but merely tolerating me, Goku, and my ward.

Goku pointedly hovers over my shoulder until I've gotten food, then runs off to his own devices. Once my ward's gotten his own meal, there's an awkward moment where the monks in the area are all staring at us expectantly, and he's looking to me as if waiting. I shoot the other monks a glare until they quit watching, then hand him my plate and stalk out.

Dinner is quiet besides that I'm getting the occasional prodding look, as he's glancing up now and then to check that I'm eating. Once he's eaten and made sure I've at least had something for dinner, he takes the plates and leaves. I get a couple minutes of peace, then Goku comes dashing out of the building.

"Hey, Sanzo!"

I mourn the peace and quiet while he waits, just behind my shoulder, for some acknowledgement.

"What'd you do to Anji? He's acting sorta scared, and he was actually polite to me!"

So the Constable-Intermediary's including Goku in this. It makes sense, really, from what he'd said about who he'd be able to hide behind if things went bad. "We came to an understanding."

He gives me an odd look. "...Must've been some understanding, you were practically plotting to kill him a month ago after that stunt with telling the serpent Maoh when you'd be on the road in that area; he had been avoiding me ever since."

"Let's leave it that he's in a position where I'm the least of his worries."

"Oh, and someone told me to tell you that the High Abbot guy wants to see you about the thing earlier, with the shooting at the acolytes again." He rambles it as if it's an afterthought. "What'd they do to piss you off?" He waits to check if there's going to be an answer, then shrugs when there isn't. "Do you really need to keep the gun in the baths? I mean, I know people try to kill you off and on, but they don't ever get in here, and I think they'd be in trouble anyway harassing you in the shower whether you had the gun or not." He shuffles, and I can almost hear his attention span die before he runs off again.

I get up and head back to my room before an actual messenger can find me, and lock the door; if they send anyone to fetch me tonight, I'm going to ignore them. I settle down to continue sifting through the records and journals.

Even narrowed down to the range of a village, it's slow, tedious work, digging through line by line of cramped handwritten notes and praying the information I'm looking for isn't in one of the unreadable passages. The sun's going down and the breezes off the ocean are becoming cooler by the time I get through the last of the records and am left with journals kept by random traveling monks.

The sun sets and I have to light a candle to keep slogging through the random travelogues. Most of the accounts are very poetic, to be sure, but there's next to nothing in the way of practical information besides the occasional comment on the weather or maybe a mention of some harassment on the road.

By somewhere past midnight, my brain's turning to mush enough that I almost miss it; an account that started out just like any other random roadside incident, the monk mentioning running across a lost child who'd gotten turned around in the woods and separated from his classmates. The monk brought the child back to town, found the school group, teacher was very thankful, it impressed the monk that such a young man seemed to be handling teaching that many children that well, very bright, bookish, soft-spoken, fading hint of an unfamiliar accent, and halfway down the second page he offhand refers to the teacher by name.

Cho Gonou.

I stop and read back over the monk's comments on the schoolteacher in detail just to be sure. Green eyes, dark hair, struck the monk as almost-frail at one point, had wandered into town one day and taken over teaching the children, nobody seemed to know much about him besides that he seemed to have known his wife Kanan - also a "mystery that blew in one day" - from childhood sometime.

He was a schoolteacher.

My entire career as a Sanzo, any time I'd been in this area, I'd had to be mindful of Hyakugan Maoh and his allies, tread lightly around their areas of power for lack of a good opportunity to do anything about them, and the bloody bastard finally bites it at the hands of a schoolteacher. It's like another one of those random details that just proves that existence is a big cosmic joke.

I close the journal; if the town didn't know anything else about him, then I won't find anything else here. I stack everything to take it back to the library in the morning and go to bed, pulling the blanket up against the breezes turning cold.

The dawn wakes me up halfway; I blearily take the stack of books back to the library, setting them on the desk for reshelving. The librarian scans the spines with a dark chuckle, but doesn't say more than an offhand, "Only just now trying to find out what you've gotten yourself into, eh?" as I'm lurching out to go back to bed.

I almost get back to sleep when there's a knock at my door; my first bet is that the head of the temple finally sent for me to chew me out for scaring the acolytes again.

"Who is it?", I snap, one arm draped over my face to shield the sun out of my eyes. There's silence, for a second.

"Sanzo? I've brought you breakfast..." It's my ward, sounding timid.

I get up and open the door; he's dressed, neat, and looks like he's already had time to bathe and everything this morning. He's only carrying one plate, and as I take it he catches the door to hold it open. I catch myself muttering under my breath, cut it off, and just slump at the table staring at the plate.

"You eat yet?" He shakes his head, looking at me half-dazed. "Go eat." He bows and closes the door, retreating.

I end up nodding at the table, dozing for a while before I pull out one of the ceramic bottles and eat.

He finally catches me as I'm on my way to return the plate.

"Most Honored High Priest Genjo Sanzo the thirty-first!" The older man rattles off my full name and title like a parent snapping a child's full name for emphasis. "Did that boy deliver my message yesterday?"

I hand the plate over, wanting to grind my teeth. "I got your message just fine."

"I've been waiting to see you on this matter."

"I was busy. Studying." I nod to the acolyte cleaning up who takes the plate, very carefully taking my time about dealing with the head of the temple. By the time I turn around to face him, carefully straight and staring him straight in the eye, he's irked to boiling over.

"I need to speak with you in my office, immediately."

"I have other affairs to attend to; you can speak to me right here." Much more important affairs, like patrolling the back gardens.

He glowers, picking up on my blowing-off. "I must respectfully insist that you refrain from harming the acolytes ever again." I'm sure he'd love to be able to actually reprimand me; forcing him to talk in the open like this, where he can't skirt Right Speech to speak his mind, is forcing him all the more to face how toothless he is towards me.

"Well, there shouldn't be any problem then; the last injury was six months ago." And it was completely their stupidity, too.

"I'm afraid there's the matter of the incident yesterday." His temper's fraying, which is all the more incentive for me to pour on the stiff protocol and poise. "Smoking and drinking can pass as eccentricities, attempting to kill the acolytes cannot."

"I still fail to see the problem; they were never in any actual danger."

"You shot at them. Through one of the bathing stalls."

"And when have I ever hit an acolyte with this?" The pistol slips easily out of the holster in my sleeve, and he starts as he realizes I'm holding it up.

"You shouldn't even have an instrument of bloodshed like that on temple grounds."

"Regardless, it's never harmed an acolyte, and they should count themselves lucky I consider accounts even and chose not to otherwise take them to task for their insults. Slandering an elder or higher-ranking member of the brotherhood was taken rather seriously, the last I checked." He winces at the underhanded barb, as much at him as at the acolytes, and it's hard not to pick up a sadistic smirk at his desire to squirm. "Of course, I'm sure you would know the punishments typically called for far better than I would; I try to avoid the position of passing such judgments on others in such minor matters, being only a mortal Sanzo."

Much of the kitchen staff are surreptitiously watching, and I think he's achieved a new level of loathing for me. He struggles with a scowl, then straightens his shoulders, grooms his demeanor, and tries to match me in "cold, aloof, and condescending". "Well then, Honored Sanzo, I will trust that you will treat your fellow brothers in the faith with respect and deference, and mind that your students do the same." He bows only as much as propriety demands and sweeps off; the kitchen staff falls still, then hurry back to redouble their work as if denying they'd been watching.

I wander out on my now-scheduled "inspection of the gardens", drifting through trying to avoid drawing more than cursory notice. Once or twice I have to focus my attention somewhere empty and pretend to be busy when I pass by some older priest lecturing and feel the warning prick of interest in my presence that usually heralds a request to teach. After a while, the dinner bell rings, and my ward finds me with food, quietly accepting heading to my room to eat, so I can drink and make sure the food stays down. He stays long enough to finish his meal and make sure I've eaten, then takes the plates back and heads out.

I drift through the library, just sorting out some histories and books on folklore and cosmology. The librarian watches my presence without comment as I take them back to my room; it's an old routine that happens whenever I'm stuck here for some reason.

The next day he actually tracks me down in one of the side courtyards, acting like he's been looking for me for some time; he natters at the edge of the courtyard cleaning his glasses, and almost turns to bustle off before he sees me leaning on the sunlit wall.

"Ah, Sanzo! There you are."

I acknowledge him with a quizzical nod; he usually only seeks me out if I forget to return something for too long.

"I just came to warn you to lie low for a few days. It seems that our esteemed High Abbot has gotten it into his head that as long as you're here like this, you should be living up to your title by teaching."

"And you're not going to nag me about the proper duties of my position yourself?"

He gives me a humorless look. "As much as I may think you're not very good at living up to your title, I'm not so stupid as to forget what happened the last few times you tried to teach. Some of the students are out of acolyte's robes and still have nervous twitches."

"If you're talking about that last one, I was teaching him to pay attention to his surroundings." If I'm going to waste my time running off at the mouth at some of these people, the least they can do is listen.

"You shot down a paper lantern on his head."

"If he'd been paying attention, he would've seen me draw the gun and aim, and would've known to get out of the way. It was a lesson by example." A simple lesson, too; don't ask the Sanzo some question requiring a long drawn-out answer thinking he won't notice it's a pretense so you can nod off.

"What about that other one? The one where it took the groundskeeper months to repair the damage to the pond?" Ah. That.

"He was questioning some of the teachings on the symbolism of the lotus, so I gave him a closer look." Another fateful combination of bad timing, their bad wording, a golden setup in staging that was too good to pass up, and the uncanny talent some of them seem to have for treading on the wrong nerves.

The humorless look gets more accusing. "He caught cold and was sick for a week afterwards."

"That's not too bad, as illnesses go." He had a bit of a cough and a slight fever; he was just being melodramatic about it. He lost his voice for a few days, too, and it was a blessing.

"And the other one that month, who ended up unable to use his hands for much for three days?" Oh gods, that one…

"He had been insisting that if he was to be an acolyte in my service, he should accompany me everywhere when I left the temple. I told him I had business where he'd get seriously hurt, and he didn't believe me, so I told him that he could follow me if he could get from where he was standing to the door, to prove that he could take care of himself if things went bad. He failed at that, miserably, and all I did was a simple nerve pinch they teach in the first few weeks of the self defense classes - painful, maybe, but hardly dangerous; I didn't even follow through on the throws. He'd have gotten into much worse if I'd let him get away with sneaking out after me like he was trying to do. I was protecting him from his own lack of foresight."

The old man falls silent for a few minutes, shaking his head. "You rehearse these explanations, don't you?"

I roll my eyes. "As often as I had to repeat them at the time?"

"…At any rate, my point stands; it is for the better of the students that you not teach. Actually, just by that last real injury, and not anything… spectacular like the Self-Defense Class Incident, I wonder if you should be around the acolytes at all."

"…You mean the dislocated shoulder?"

"Precisely."

"His fault."

He sighs, exasperated. "He was only trying to get your attention!"

"And should've known better than to tug on the sutra to do so. I have those reflexes for very good reasons."

The librarian slowly shakes his head, half burying his face in his hands. "Just… don't let anyone who seems to be on official business catch you for a few days. Things are so much quieter here without you sending students to the infirmary. You can even hide in the library if you want, I'll pretend I don't know where you are if it'll keep the acolytes in one piece."

There's a sudden commotion around the building, then Goku dashes by full-tilt, slowing down only to toss me a pair of long pruning shears as he's running. Not far behind him is the groundskeeper, struggling to keep up and moving as fast as he can, yelling semi-coherently about "give that back" as he can catch his breath enough. He's too rabid to even notice that I'm holding the shears as he passes not five feet from me. The librarian watches the whole thing pass by with a raised eyebrow, then turns it to me, still holding the shears.

"…Aren't you going to say something?"

"He doesn't seem to be paying attention anyway."

"…You're never going to do anything about this game, are you?"

I shrug. "Whatever keeps Goku busy so he doesn't wander off and get into worse trouble."

"...And the shears?"

"I'll leave them at his toolshed or something."

The librarian's deadpan expression suggests that he's just now remembering why he doesn't get out more often. "…I'm going back to the library." He heads inside while I walk back to where the toolshed is, to drop the shears off before the groundskeeper comes back to rant at me about Goku.