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"Sorry."
"Direct witnesses?"
"Nataku-sama."
"He cannot be interviewed."
"Why?"
"He was just sent to Under Heaven yesterday on assignment by Tentei."
"Mh."
"And Konzen where was he?"
"I don't know. He came later..."
***
Day 3: Follow up investigation
"How is the Marshal's condition, Kenren Taishou?"
"Still unconscious."
"He seemed to come just in time to save you, as if he knew what was happening."
"I don't think-"
"You have not been given leave to talk."
"...m..." for the umpteenth time "...my apologies."
"It is rumored that you were planning on asking for a transfer from his command. To what extent is this true?"
"None of it is true."
"None?"
"It is an absolutely false claim."
"Where do your loyalties lie, Taishou?"
"With heaven."
"Or is it with Tenpou Gensui?"
"..." His teeth clenched. "Fu-"
"Don't answer, Taishou." Goujin ordered, cutting in after a long day's contemplative silence, staring hard at the committee of interogators in tacit derision, purposely overlooking his general's almost-transgression. "That is already out of the scope of the investigation. Thank you. You are dismissed Kenren Taishou. We will call upon you if needed."
He puttered around the Western Army's housing complex, turning from one corridor into the next and when Tenpou's unguarded door caught his eye, he passed into another corridor to push it from his sight. Stark hallways would give way to elaborate balconies overlooking the central garden and its gurgling waterfall. Balconies would give way to endless stairways which would give way to more balconies that gave a view to the same garden and same waterfall from every conceivable angle. A labyrinth that had only one true destination: his own room, Kenren concluded as he stopped his wanderings to kick his idling mind to some semblance of resolution.
And so he puttered, smoking, in the direction of his room when a disgustingly overly energetic major crossed his path and saluted as if it were 3 p.m. and not 3 a.m. Give him a few more centuries and he'll start to get lazy, Kenren concluded.
"Kenren Taishou! I'm glad I found you!"
Kenren offered him a cigarette, which was (obviously) refused due to the fact that in the "In the Military Manual given to us during training it is stated specifically on page 5834, paragraph 3, lines 4 through..."
It's always the fresh young ones.
"Cut the protocol and just tell me what the hell's gotten you so riled up."
"We've been called to duty!" he seemed unnecessarily confused.
"You're not *that* new, kid." Kenren scratched the back of his head, looking down at the young major with a look of growing exasperation. He shouldn't have had to deal with the psychological traumas of green soldiers who were still scared shitless when it came to youkai, battlefields, and fast women (poor souls). "March bravely for the glory and honor of heaven and all that crap but remember, if you're ever disarmed, rip their eyes out."
The boy visibly cringed. "But that's just it, sir."
"What's it?"
"We don't know whose eyes to rip out. We don't know where to march. Divisions six, eight, and thirteen were just advised to arm themselves as preparation for a code blue which according to the Military Manual on page 4 lines twenty-eight to thirty, signifies..."
He rolled his eyes before sparing the boy a good lung cramp. "Preparation for oncoming invasion." Kenren lifted a slim brow and crossed his arms. "And what drunken idiot told you to do that?"
"Why...Tenpou Gensui did. You didn't know, sir?"
*****
"You bastard." It was just a voice. Devoid of anger, fear, sympathy, or anything. It was just a voice that floated over his head coming from the open doorway where the lights flooded into the dark, empty save for the two of them room. His eyes were closed and he breathed deeply, half in a world of dreams, half in an unlikely reality where a certain stubborn general was cursing him from ten feet away.
And so at this moment, two things were existing at once.
The door closed and there was darkness again. Footsteps got louder to his right where the door was. And a haze materialized that made the left side of his room- the side with the window- waver as if he were trying to see through a curtain of rain. Hakkai tried to focus his eyes as a figure was fluttering there like the dying flames of a setting sun.
He squinted and before long he was looking into a pair of deep amethyst eyes, deeply disapproving and deeply relieved.. "Found you, idiot."
"Sanzo!" The name sounded strange to him as if it had been an eternity since he'd said it. He wanted to get up and reach for him, but his body was drugged with sleep. He was dreaming this. Or at least half dreaming it since Kenren was still there, oblivious. And so Hakkai looked with a tinge of longing and envy towards the monk who sat by the window as if both of them were still back in the hotel. "How did you..."
The blonde shrugged. "There were only three places where you could have been: Earth, Heaven, or Hell." he looked out the window, boredom gracing his face as ever. He went as if to reach for a cigarette then refrained. "You pamper the monkey too much to go to Hell, not that I find this place to be much of a better alternative." Hakkai wondered if he could actually see his surroundings.
"Tenpou." Kenren whispered only a little harshly, reaching out his hand in order to wake up the sleeping marshal, only to have second thoughts and pulling back.
Sanzo didn't see him.
"Hakkai, get your ass back here." the monk grumbled, but despite the language, he sounded sincerely concerned. He knew. For a long time he knew. Maybe he was even aware of the exact, the exact moment when it happened because sometime in the middle of the night when they had shared that room, the entire air above them was suddenly washed over with the scent of cherry blossoms before dying out less then a breath later. "I don't like him."
Point: "You don't like anybody."
