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やあ、やっとできてしまいました！！
I started writing this fanfic in 2001 and wrapped it up last Saturday night. Completed, it stands at forty-four pages. To phrase this along slightly different lines, that's an average of eleven pages per year. I am so not joking when I say I am the slowest writer on the face of god's green earth.
But anyway, it's finished, and two days before the Saiyuki Gaiden serial started back up, so I did manage it after all. I'm posting it now in the hopes that at least some of you read it before my version of events gets totally jossed by the sure-to-be-coming scanslations.
So here it is, my longest in-the-works Saiyuki fic to date. Probably an R, takes place immediately after the last tankoubon/released chapters with all the spoilerage that implies. It's not meant to be cut in two, but lj is making me.
Without further ado,
Exit Wounds
by Trismegistus
"Just looking at you, Tempou," said Kenren, "is like digging fingers into an open wound."
But it was Konzen's gaze he held as he spoke, not Tempou's. Then he moaned, and dropped his head into shaking hands.
"I need a fucking cigarette," he said.
~*~
"Jesus, Tempou," Kenren muttered after they were done, "you can lighten up a bit. I'm not going anywhere."
"Ah, forgive me." Tempou carefully relaxed his fingers. His grip had bit into Kenren's shoulders tight enough to leave marks.
"'Something wrong?" he asked, already realising the pointlessness of the question. Tempou was tense, like all of them were, and who the fuck wouldn't be? They were all going to be walking on eggshells until this whole thing blew over. But Kenren had no doubt that it would, harrowing though things might be right now. Celestials delighted in plotting and scheming; it disrupted the tedium, after all. But Celestials also craved the boring predictability of Heavenly life as much as they detested it, and when plots got too far out of hand, when things bubbled to the surface as they had a few days ago, well, everyone involved was more than happy to get those things brushed back under the rug so the plotting and scheming could continue in peace. He'd seen it happen before and had no doubt that he'd see it happen again.
Usually it was no cause for alarm, but this time things were different. This time people he cared about had suffered. Tempou, Gokuu, Nataku, even Konzen.
It was a few moments before Tempou answered.
"Ahh, no. I was merely caught up in my thoughts." The Marshall rolled onto his back and relaxed, hands locked behind his head, body just touching Kenren's. Although Kenren would never admit it, this was the part he liked the best - the afterwards. The sex was great. The sex was hot and frantic and so very good, but he'd had hot, frantic sex with other people before and all it did was make him want to get up and leave afterward. Smoke a cigarette, shower until their scent washed away, then go back to his quarters and nap.
He'd known something was different with Tempou. He could spend hours in Tempou's presence without even thinking about sex. There was something about Tempou that just distracted you like that, something about the way he was never aware how rumpled his clothes were, the way his hair was always snarled, the way the cigarette dangled from his mouth. The way he smiled. The way your offhand comment about the Military or the Dynasty or Down There could start him lecturing for hours on some obscure scholarly topic.
About the way that he lost all that cool when he knew that you were going to fuck him.
And also about the way that you could lie next to him when you were finished and make conversation until you fell asleep. Natural conversation, as unrushed as the sex had been hurried.
"Heh," Kenren said. "Figures." How Tempou had any energy left for thinking after that was beyond him. When they were done, it was all he could do to stay awake long enough to finish his cigarette without it falling out of his fingers and burning the whole place down. But Tempou seemed to gain twice as much energy from sex as he put into it, and so he would spend hours afterward chattering at Kenren about some minor military commander or battle formation of ages past.
Usually, but not tonight. Tonight was different. Tempou didn't seem inclined to talk at all, and Kenren couldn't blame him. The sex had been good and fun and it took his mind off things for a little while, but not forever. And they'd both been a little rougher than usual, because they were trying to take their minds off of things. Which had worked admirably while they were doing it, but once they were done the roughness only served to remind him that they'd been having sex to avoid thinking about it in the first place.
Kenren rolled away from Tempou and patted about on the bedside table until he found his smokes. He took one out, lit up, and offered the pack to Tempou, who accepted wordlessly. They lay next to each other and try as he might, Kenren felt his mind drifting back to that day in the Emperor's court. That had been fourteen days ago, but the horror was as vivid as if it had all just happened.
Kenren was a Celestial and thus healed almost instantaneously, even from critical wounds. But the injuries the kid - no not the kid, Son Gokuu - had given him were still alarmingly fresh. Kenren was also a seasoned career soldier who didn't go out of his way to play nice with his peers, but in all his endless years in Heaven's armies, he'd never suffered a beating rivaling the one he'd received at the Seiten Taisei's hands. The lacerations alone had yet to heal beyond vivid bruises, and they ached afresh wherever Tempou had roughed them up earlier.
He hadn't said anything to Tempou about it, either during or after. It would have been sissy, for one thing. But more important yet was the fact that he needed the pain. His mind swung back to Gokuu - the kid he'd played baseball with, the kid he'd terrorised Konzen with, the kid who called him 'Ken Nii-chan' - unrecognisable, ripping soldier and courtier alike apart as if they'd been so many sheets of paper.
With those memories came memories of the screaming, the stench of blood thick and metallic in the air, such an abnormal scent in Heaven, where no blood was ever shed. He'd smelt it for days afterward.
He remembered the bone-numbing impact as the Taisen blocked his sword thrust. He remembered the triumphant look in Litouten's eyes as the bastard ordered his son to commit murder. The sickening thudcrunch of Tempou's body against the wall. And then Kanzeon Bosatsu, Bodhisattva of Compassion, arriving to stop Gokuu - by killing him.
His cigarette had burned down to the butt, but he kept dragging on it until its heat scorched his fingers as well as his lungs. Don't think about this. Think about anything but this. After all, you've just had some wild sex. Enjoy it. But it was useless; no matter how many times he willed it to stop, his mind kept reeling back.
Kanzeon taking the kid on and being evenly matched. Tempou's bloodied hands grabbing him from behind and forcing him back and him fighting Tempou for all he was worth, because no matter what kind of havoc the Seiten Taisei was wreaking on Heaven, he was still Gokuu, and Kenren didn't care if it had been Guatama Buddha himself in Kanzeon's place - he was not going to let anyone hurt that kid.
"At least," Tempou said, deftly plucking the smoldering remains of Kenren's cigarette from his fingers, "we've set Litouten back as much as he has us." And although Kenren didn't like thinking about it in such pragmatic terms, he knew that Tempou was right. If Litouten were indeed responsible for raising the youkai tribes with an eye to currying Court favor by quelling them, then Nataku's near-suicide had certainly stalled any plans he might have had along those lines.
Not to mention the fact that Tempou had had the presence of mind to take Goujun hostage. Goujun, who on top of being commander of the Western army, was a Dragon king to boot.
"Tell the good Litouten," Tempou had proclaimed from the doorway of their quarters on dawn of the first day of the seige, "that if he so much as moves his armies one inch toward this building, our good friend Goujun dies."
He didn't need to mention that were Goujun to die, reprisal from his clan would be swift and merciless. Although dragons were Celestials, their temperament and culture were vastly different from that of the other Celestials who comprised the Emperor's army and court. Where Tempou to carry out his threat, it would not matter to Goujun's kin that Goujun had been killed by a suicidal band of renegades with nothing left to lose, only that Litouten's actions had in some way precipitated his death, and they would punish Litouten accordingly.
When Tempou had taken Goujun hostage, he had done the one thing which could buy them all time. There were times when the Marshall's foresight scared even Kenren.
Litouten could not move against Tempou and Kenren without forfeiting his own life. And so the stalemate had begun.
And although Litouten had the whole of Heaven's armies under his command, he was experiencing difficulties persuading them to act. For one thing, Kenren and Tempou would not be taken alive, and no one wanted to be the man who died while attempting to capture them.
Likewise, no Celestial wanted to be responsible for their deaths, because outlaws or not, the taking of life was forbidden and the Emperor was not known for his appreciation of nuance. The men who killed the heretics would be fully punished according to the laws of Heaven. While the army outside their walls could overrun them by force of numbers alone, they weren't about to do it, and Litouten knew better than to press them.
And as the days dragged on, those men who had formerly been under Tempou's command began to reconsider their position under their new leader. For while Kenren and Tempou were eccentric and abnormal and quite possibly fucking one another, in day-to-day affairs they were even-handed to the point of laxity. The men laying siege to Tempou's quarters were not sure how they felt about suddenly belonging to the army of a man increasingly impatient that someone - one of them - take the fall for him. So, by ones and twos, they began quietly speculating as to whether Tempou might actually have a chance of surviving this upset unscathed after all, and if so, did they still want to remain loyal to their new commander? The numbers of the Celestial army were uncountably large; not even Litouten could keep track of all of them all the time, and so Tempou and Kenren managed to receive smuggled supplies, rations, and information on a regular basis.
Kenren was not the sort of person to admit that he gave a damn about anyone's opinion of him, but he was secretly pleased that so many of his men had remained loyal. Every day that Litouten was delayed was a day in which he lost momentum. If they could only hold out long enough for most of the army to give up and go home...
He lost consciousness somewhere between that thought and the dawning of the fifteenth day. He awoke to an empty and thus spacious mattress, the thin haze of smoke hovering about the ceiling evidence that Tempou hadn't woken much earlier himself.
Never an early riser, Kenren could almost have rolled over and gone back to sleep, because he could almost pretend that things were normal. But that would be a dangerous habit to get into, and so he rose, dressed, and presented himself in the secondary antechamber, which had been converted to a makeshift dining area at some point around the sixth day.
Konzen was nowhere to be seen. That was not unexpected; he hadn't left Gokuu's side since they'd first retreated to Tempou's apartments. None of them had left Gokuu's side until the fever had stabilised and it looked as though his body might survive the damage wrought upon it by his transformation into the Seiten Taisei.
Tempou was seated at the table, drinking miso soup in an absentminded fashion and pouring over another handscroll of Celestial history while, across the room, Goujun sat and stared at nothing.
"Morning," Kenren said, and meandered into the room to help himself to some breakfast.
"Good morning, General," Tempou echoed vaguely, voice muffled by the proximity of his face to the scroll.
Goujun's eyes flicked briefly in Kenren's direction as he helped himself to some soup.
"You cannot expect to resist forever," Goujun said as Kenren seated himself at the table. His voice was devoid of emotion. "You of all people should realise this, Field Marshall Tempou."
"I'd say we've done an admirable job of it thus far," Tempou said, and unrolled more of the scroll.
"Litouten control over Heaven's armies is complete. There's no way you can hope to withstand their force once he convinces them to move against you."
Tempou shrugged. He looked extremely unconcerned, even to Kenren, who could read his moods like an open book. "Litouten's hands are far from clean. He can't risk moving against me at all if it means that his secrets are revealed to the Emperor."
"Every Celestial has secrets they wish to conceal from the Emperor."
"Every Celestial does."
"Do you know Litouten's?"
"Perhaps," Tempou said mildly. "But what is far more important from Litouten's point of view is that he cannot be certain whether or not I do."
Goujun's gaze did not leave Tempou's face. "Having progressed this far, he may decide that the risks outweigh the benefits."
"Or he may give up and go home," Kenren said.
"He won't. There is too much at stake. Either you will fall, or he will. But there can be no going back."
"Or," Tempou began, and then fell silent.
Or everyone forgets this, for the time being, and goes back to plotting one another's future downfalls, Kenren supplied for him silently. Just like we always do.
As if he could read Kenren's thoughts, Goujun's gaze shifted to his face, and Kenren felt the weight of his cold red eyes intensely. "Even if you both emerge from this unscathed," Goujun said, his tone conveying that found this highly unlikely, "Litouten will retaliate."
"Then we shall have to be prepared for it," Tempou said, and unrolled more scroll.
Goujun rose stiffly from the table and moved towards the door. "You cannot hope to resist forever," he repeated.
"You don't believe that Litouten should be stopped?" Tempou asked, without looking up.
Goujun halted. "I no longer believe that it is possible."
Kenren opened his mouth to argue, but Tempou spoke before he could.
"At the very least, could I ask you to remain in these apartments for one more week?" Tempou's voice held a note of weariness that hadn't been present earlier.
Goujun paused in the doorway, one long-nailed, finely scaled hand tracing lightly down the doorjamb. "I do not see what purpose it will accomplish. But you may have a week." His robes swished quietly as he strode down the hallway.
Kenren rose and lobbed his empty miso bowl into the urn which now served as their washing basin. "Want me to keep an eye on him?"
"No, General," said Tempou, rolling and tying the scroll. "He will keep his word."
Kenren hadn't been expecting that response. Goujun was their safeguard, the only thing keeping Litouten's troops from storming Tempou's apartments that very moment. If Goujun walked out, he would not be touched, but Kenren, Tempou, Konzen, and especially Gokuu, would be as good as dead.
Of course Tempou wanted him to keep an eye on Goujun. Kenren wasn't sure why the Field Marshall just didn't come out and say it. Perhaps his head had been addled by too little sleep.
He tried again. "You sure?"
"Yes," Tempou smiled, and rose from the table, scroll in hand. "Goujun has as little wish to see Litouten rise to power as do you or I. In fact, I think he's regretting not having done something about it sooner, which is why he's given us this little reprieve."
Kenren still was not entirely convinced, but it would be a relief not having to constantly trail Goujun around the clock or lock him in the antechamber during the nights he spent with Tempou. Goujun complied readily, even to this humiliation, but it was exactly that - his silence and dignity in the face of such indignity – that could make you feel small and base about doing it in the first place. Even Kenren, who was normally quite immune to such things, felt like shit over it.
He shrugged. If the Marshall thought Goujun could be trusted not to bail, who was he to doubt? Kenren hadn't yet known Tempou's reading of someone to err far from the mark. "So," he said, trying for lightness, "you got a way for us outmaneuver Litouten?"
Tempou's gaze was focused on some distant point beyond Kenren's face. "Yes, I think I have," he said slowly.
"You mind telling me what it is?"
Tempou sighed, met Kenren's eyes, and smiled. Lines of weariness traced across his face, but his expression was genuine enough. Kenren loved that smile, and the fact that he doubted any other Celestial had ever seen it.
"Not yet," Tempou said. "But you'll find out soon enough."
Kenren gave the Field Marshall a grin of his own. "Fair enough."
Tempou rose. "If you'll excuse me, General," he said, and strode down the hall toward his library and the company of his books and scrolls.
Bereft of any sort of mission now that Goujun no longer needed guarding, Kenren drifted down another hall to pay a visit to Konzen and Gokuu.
He opened the door quietly, not that there was really any possibility he'd disturb the occupants, but it felt like the right thing to do nonetheless.
"How is he?" he asked, shutting the door gently behind him.
Konzen glanced up briefly as he came in, and even from this distance Kenren could see the thick circles around his eyes, dark as bruises against Konzen's fair skin.
"Mnn." Konzen's response was halfway between a snort and sneer.
Kenren crossed the floor to the bed, weaving carefully between the stacks of books that still littered Tempou's bedroom floor. Gokuu lay as still as a corpse beneath the light sheets, his brow slightly creased as if in worry.
"Hey there, kiddo," Kenren whispered.
The monkey's breathing was shallow but even, which Kenren figured was a good sign. At least he wasn't writhing and spasming like he had the first week after. Watching that had been horrible - had dried out Kenren's mouth and left a sour taste in it at the same time.
It made him so angry, because there wasn't a damn thing he could do about any of it. At least when Gokuu had been killing half of the Emperor's courtiers Kenren had been able to make himself useful.
"I take it that Tempou has no plans as to what will become of us?" Konzen asked after a few minutes.
"No--" Kenren started automatically, then shut his mouth and thought for a moment.
"No, actually, he may have, this time."
For the first time Konzen looked at him - actually looked at him, and Kenren was almost ashamed to see the hope firing in the depths of Konzen's eyes. Sure, he wanted the kid to get better, wanted it bad, but that was the only thing Konzen cared about - you could tell it just by looking at him.
Kenren couldn't match Konzen's concern, but he could imagine what was going on in Konzen's head. He'd be the same way, if it were Tempou in that bed. And thank the gods, a small voice in the dark of his mind whispered, that it isn't.
Konzen half rose from his seat, a faint blush coming to his colorless cheeks. "What--"
His eagerness was pitiful. Kenren raised a hand and Konzen fell back into the chair as if physically pushed. "Dunno anything yet," he said, forcing himself to meet Konzen's eyes. "But Tempou thinks he's found a way to get the better of Litouten."
The hope drained from Konzen's eyes. "What does that have to do with Gokuu?" he demanded.
Kenren shrugged, made to rest a hand on Konzen's shoulder and then thought the better of it. "Maybe nothing," he said. "But if we manage to get out of this house we'll have a better chance of getting Gokuu some help."
Konzen's eyes moved automatically to Gokuu's face at the mention of the boy's name. Kenren watched as he raised a long, fine-boned hand and wiped the hair from Gokuu's forehead.
It was hard seeing Konzen like this, and Kenren knew that if Konzen weren't so worried for the boy he'd be furious that anyone had witnessed him acting so tenderly. It was a difficult image to reconcile with that of the haughty, distant Konzen Douji, raging at Gokuu for some petty infraction.
"Look, if you want to eat, or sleep or something, I can stay here with the kid..."
"No."
He'd known anyway that Konzen would refuse. The man didn't eat unless they brought him food, and half the time he wouldn't touch it even when it was laid beside him. And when Konzen slept, it was only despite his best efforts not to, in brief snatches until his head sagging onto his chest woke him.
Konzen probably wanted company, all the same, though he was still too proud to ask for it. Hell, he might even try to sleep as long as someone else was in the room to keep an eye on Gokuu. Kenren figured he'd be the same way, so he pulled a chair up to the other side of the bed and sat down.
Ironically, he was the first to fall asleep, and he woke to the gentle pressure of Tempou's hand on his shoulder.
"It's time, General," Tempou said.
He stood up, instantly awake despite having been soundly asleep a mere a second ago – yet another skill honed during their weeks of confinement.
"Do you wish to have any messages relayed outside, Konzen?" asked Tempou.
Konzen merely snorted in response. Kenren gave him one final glance as he left the room – Konzen's eyes never left Gokuu's face.
Then he was stumbling down hall after the Marshall, blearily scrubbing the grit from his eyes. They went first to collect Goujun before heading to the main gate of the apartments.
"My deepest apologies," Tempou said as he raised his sword to Goujun's throat.
"It's nothing," the dragon replied.
Then, carefully keeping the blade level, Tempou opened the gate, Kenren at his side, and faced the six soldiers awaiting them there.
Envoys passed back and forth between the renegades and the besieging army several times a day. Kenren knew that Litouten only allowed this for form's sake, so that when news of the siege eventually caught the attention of the Emperor no one could deny that he had not attempted to negotiate with Tempou.
It was so quintessentially Celestial. Litouten allowed the envoys in order to cover his back. Tempou allowed the envoys in order to gain information on conditions outside his apartments. Men volunteered for the envoys because they were still trying to decide which side they were on, and meanwhile, the whole situation stagnated.
Kenren recognised four of the six members of today's squad. Three of them had been nominally under his command in the Eastern Army, and one of them in the Western. Heaven's armies were so impossibly large that most commanders had little practical knowledge of any of the men under their command, but Kenren thought he remembered something about each of these four. Three of them would be staunch supporters of whomever had the upper hand, and one of them – a man he'd sometimes gone hellraising with in the bars in the Eastern barracks – might very possibly be sympathetic to their plight. The man arched an eyebrow. Kenren ignored him. He arched it again.
Ah.
He lit a cigarette and tried to look bored. He was vaguely aware of Tempou responding to the leader's angry demands with subtle insults well beyond the leader's ability to comprehend. Kenren left them to it and did his best to sidle away from the main group.
"The fuck do you thing you're doing!" This from his former subordinate in the Eastern.
"Smoking. Being bored. You got a problem with that?" Kenren asked, and took another hit.
"Yeah, I got a problem with that. Think you can just stand there and blow smoke in my face, asshole?"
"Yeah," said Kenren. "I do."
The man swung at Kenren's face and Kenren grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and dived on top of him. He even landed a few bruisers on the man's stomach before another soldier dived in to aid the first. It was uneven odds now, but Kenren knew he could still hold his own despite that.
The three remaining soldiers seemed torn between joining the brawl or keeping an eye on Tempou, who stood impassively, sword at Gojun's throat.
"Not gonna help your boyfriend?" one of them sneered.
"He's perfectly capable of handling himself," said Tempou, and pressed the edge of the blade that much closer to Gojun's throat. "Understand?"
Kenren was holding his own against the two men on top of him, but it wasn't until he felt something being fumblingly pressed into the inside pocket of his duster that he really let them have it until the fight ran its course and they drew back from one another, panting and bruised. He moved backwards to Tempou's side, careful not to pay any attention to the item in his pocket and doing his best to look royally pissed off.
Which actually didn't take much effort, because he would have loved to return some of those thumps with a few more solid blows of his own, but he couldn't risk letting things get out of hand. He raised his hand to his mouth and coughed. There was blood in his palm when he drew it away.
"Fucking assholes," he said, and meant it. "You get anything useful out of this guy, Marshall?"
"Ah, Commander Zhou has been as helpful as always," Tempou said lightly, not bothering to look at Kenren. "Good afternoon, Commander, Brigadier, Privates." He nodded at each man in turn and then backed Goujun and himself slowly through the gate, Kenren covering him as they went.
Once inside Tempou lowered the blade and apologized yet again to Goujun, who demurred as impassively as always before stalking toward the rooms he'd claimed for his own.
Tempou watched him go and then turned to face Kenren.
"I hope there was a point to that, General?" he inquired evenly.
The tension Kenren had been carefully suppressing finally crested. "Of course there was a point to it, Tempou! I know better than to risk starting a fucking riot for no reason."
Unaffected as always by Kenren's outbursts, Tempou's bland expression never wavered.
Kenren could think more clearly about the situation now that he'd let off some steam, which had doubtlessly been Tempou's intention in provoking him. "I knew most of those guys," he added in a calmer tone of voice.
"That is not unexpected." A corner of Tempou's mouth quirked. "You have, after all, completed stints in half of Heaven's armies."
Kenren sent him a grin of his own in return. "Yeah, and that's a lot of faces to remember, but I remembered these faces."
"Can any of them be expected to be sympathetic to our current situation?"
"Yeah. Least, I think so. Anyway, it's late. How 'bout we go to bed?"
Kenren didn't tell Tempou about the object he'd been given, didn't even look at it himself, until after they were finished having sex. He liked hiding something from the Field Marshall, even for such a short period of time, and even though Tempou must have known that his having recongnised some of the men in the envoy was far from the whole story.
He waited until they'd both finished their first smokes before groping about on the floor for his duster and pulling whatever it was out of his pocket.
"Anyway," he said without preamble, "one of them gave me this."
It appeared to be a document of some sort. Tempou plucked it from his hands and deftly undid the tie.
Several scrolls cascaded down to the sheets covering Tempou's lap. Kenren's eyes were confronted with maps, blueprints, and various diagrams resembling the 'science' they had Down Below that Tempou had been so interested in recently. There was a lot of information in those scrolls, precious little of which made any sort of sense to Kenren.
"What is this stuff?" he asked.
"Information I've requested," said Tempou. His brows were knitted above the rims of his glasses and he was clearly distracted. "They've taken a great risk in sending it to me all at once, and in this fashion."
The furrow between his brows deepened and he made an uncharacteristic impatient gesture with one hand. "Our current situation must be more precarious than I had assumed."
Kenren was a soldier; it was his job to evaluate precarious situations, but this 'technology' and behind-the-scenes subterfuge stuff was Tempou's forte, not his. He'd leave Tempou to it.
Still, he felt he had to say something, and he wanted an excuse not to ask further questions about things that would only make his head spin. He found an opportunity and seized on it.
"I didn't know you were receiving messengers on the side."
Tempou blinked in surprise. "Of course I am," he said, as if this should have been common sense to Kenren, which, in all fairness, it should have been.
Fuck it. He might as well ask anyway, and get it over with now.
"So what's all this about?" he said, motioning to the documents, careful lest the lit end of his cigarette set them on fire.
Tempou's attention returned full-force to the scrolls. "This may be the way by which we finally outmaneuver Litouten," he said, automatically accepting the cigarette Kenren offered him without taking his eyes from the documents.
Kenren was intrigued now, despite himself. It wasn't often that something had the power to distract Tempou completely from him, not so soon after they'd just had sex.
"So what are we going to do?"
"You will have noticed that Litouten has permitted a remarkable number of soldiers to make clandestine visits to you during the course of the siege?"
"Yeah, well, he doesn't have much of a choice about it," Kenren snorted, expelling an acrid cloud of smoke from his nostrils. "He can't exactly have them killed for disobeying, and if he imprisoned everyone he caught doing it, he'd have a mutiny on his hands.
"And more importantly—"
"They offer a very effective opportunity to feed us false information."
That would certainly explain Tempou's fascination with the scrolls. "So do you think that these are—"
"No," Tempou murmured. "These are the genuine article."
He did glance at Kenren now. "It is helpful that the men sneaking in to see you have not been the most...discrete. They have distracted Litouten's attention away from the messengers bearing me the information that I've requested. "
"Yeah, well, discretion's never been a strong point."
Tempou mirrored Kenren's wry smile. "More importantly, with everyone now trying to turn the existence of the stream of supposedly clandestine messengers entering and leaving our ostensibly besieged compound to their advantage, one imagines that Litouten has become accustomed to this state of events, which can only work to our advantage."
"We'll get out of this somehow," he said, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray.
"Yes, we will," Tempou echoed vaguely. He was still pouring over the documents when Kenren finally rolled over and went to sleep.
The next several days passed in the same manner as the days preceding them. They fucked, slept, woke and went about their business. Envoys came and went, and although Kenren didn't recognise any of the men in them now, he didn't have to take any other beatings either. Spies sneaked in and out. Goujun was chillingly polite, Konzen was dour, and Gokuu's condition neither worsened nor improved.
At times, while he was sitting in the library with the sun spilling through the windows, trying to figure out what Tempou found so damn fascinating about those books, or when they were in bed together, or talking, he could almost pretend that nothing was wrong.
"...ren."
"...enren."
"Kenren."
He awoke one night to the whisper of Tempou's voice in his ear, more breath than sound.
"Mmh? What issit?"
"It's time."
Kenren shot into wakefulness.
"What do I need to do?"
Tempou's smile was tight but satisfied. He had selected Kenren for his lover for a reason.
"Litouten possesses technology capable of reviving both Gokuu and Nataku." Tempou paused. An eyebrow twitched slightly. "I believe the time has come to avail ourselves of it."
Kenren could only stare. Healing Gokuu and Nataku would not do much to counteract the shitstorm they were in, not by a long shot, but dammit, it was the right thing to do. "I love how your mind works," he breathed.
Tempou sent him a too-brief smile in return. "I have been in contact with several men who are, shall we say, nostalgic for the days of General Kenren's sojourn in the Eastern Army. As it so happens, several of them will happen to pay a visit to my apartments tonight. One of them might just be convinced to switch places with you on the way out."
"And when their squad is interrogated after returning to Litouten's camp?" Getting out of the house for a bit was certainly a nice idea, but there was no way he could fight his way through the whole of Litouten's loyal followers.
Tempou smiled, catlike. "It just so happens that other soldiers nostalgic for the good old days of General Kenren have been placed in charge of interrogations tonight."
"Lucky coincidence, that," Kenren murmured.
"Indeed," Tempou murmured back, eyes mirroring the fire catching in Kenren's. "And I daresay that they may even be convinced to help you infiltrate Litouten's compound and secure the resurrection device."
Kenren smiled. He was really warming to this. "This must have involved a lot of overtime effort on your part."
Tempou inclined his head slightly, eyes flashing. "I hand the torch to you."
And suddenly he knew that somehow, everything would be all right. It was just like it had been in the old days, when he'd just arrived at the Western Army and he and Tempou had spent days testing the waters, challenging each other with schemes like this.
Kenren vaulted out of bed and threw on his clothes with a muttered thanks to Tempou whenever the Field Marshall retrieved an article from the farther corners of the room. And then he was dressed and ready to go.
"One last thing, General." Tempou turned and withdrew something from a nearby bookshelf. "How good are you with incantations?"
He felt his eyebrows elevate. Incantations? As opposed to Sutra? Those were Shinto, or possibly Taoist. Those belonged in one of the other Heavens.
He shrugged. "I suppose I could reel one off."
The cat-smile was back. "That's all it requires."
Tempou handed him a sealed piece of paper. "In the event that things do not go according to plan, read this. It will relocate the resurrection equipment to a location Litouten cannot reach."
But we can. He grinned. "Think of everything, don't you?"
Tempou smiled wearily. "I do try to, General."
The smile blinked out in a flash, and Tempou was all business again. "I believe our visitors will be arriving shortly, so you had best go. Say nothing of this to Konzen on the way out; it would only agitate him. I'll assist him with Gokuu when the time comes."
"Understood." Tempou handed Kenren his holster, which he belted around his waist and then headed for the door. He took a step through to the darkened hall beyond, paused.
"Tempou?"
"Yes?"
"This is insane."
"I thought you lived for this sort of thing."
He smiled. "I wasn't complaining."
It had been surprisingly easy to sneak out of Tempou's apartments, probably because everyone on both sides was so used to seeing people slipping in and out that no one paid them any mind, aside from making sure that the same number came out as had gone in.
He thought he vaguely remembered the kid Tempou had uncovered to be his stand in. He'd enlisted just before Kenren had been given the boot to the Western, which was the only reason Kenren remembered anything about him at all. The kid, on the other hand, seemed more than slightly awestruck to be in the presence of his former commander.
"General Kenren, sir," he'd whispered diffidently as Kenren emerged into the inner courtyard. Kenren nodded. He was already wearing the regulation uniform, so all that remained was to exchange his general's issue clothing for the kid's gear. Tempou had chosen well – they had roughly the same build, although Kenren found that the dress coat was somewhat constricting about the shoulders. His own duster bagged slightly around the kid's frame.
The other two members of the kid's party had already finished dropping off their delivery of supplies and whatever other contraband Tempou had requested, and were waiting tensely for Kenren and his replacement to finish.
Kenren gave the coat's shoulders one last impatient tug, testing for mobility, then nodded to them. The first laced his fingers together and hoisted his companion up onto the wall, who then leaned down to help the second up. And then it was Kenren's turn.
Ignoring the impatient hand of the man above him he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and faced the kid.
"Enjoy your stay," he whispered.
"Enjoy your stay, General, Private Kaji," the kid corrected, with a cocky arch to his eyebrow Kenren was sure hadn't been there while the kid'd been under his command. He liked that. This one was going to go places.
"Fuck you," he shot back, grabbed a hand up and vaulted over the wall.
His heart was pounding as they approached the siege line, but he didn't waste energy trying to suppress it. Any spy returning from enemy territory would be fucking nervous; far from betraying him, his apprehension would to help him blend in. They sped through the line, and then the gardens surrounding the officers' villas, largely abandoned at the beginning of the siege, though a light shone here and there around the edges of a blacked-out window.
The interrogation post was manned by more people Kenren couldn't really remember, but who evidently remembered him well enough to sympathise with his situation. They ran through standard debriefing procedure as if nothing had been out of the ordinary and Private Kaji had always looked like General Kenren. Then the head officer stamped his papers with the unit's official seal, and with an "You're on leave for one week, Private. Don't fuck things up while you're on it," he was sent out of the tent and into the thick of enemy forces.
So Litouten was still allowing leave rotation. Well, with the entire force of Heaven's armies at his back, he could afford to allow it, Kenren thought. Or more likely, he probably couldn't afford to not to. Kenren doubted the grunts that made up the bulk of the army would have reacted well to enforced around-the-clock duty during a seemingly endless siege.
Leave it to Tempou to figure out a way to use even that to their advantage.
Kenren's unit shuffled through checkpoint after checkpoint as quickly as they could. Nothing to attract attention to themselves in that - what grunt was ever not champing at the bit to go on leave? And then they were home free and on their way to the barracks, which would doubtlessly be empty – no soldier ever stayed in quarters during leave. But that worked out perfectly – what better place to organise troops than their own supposedly empty base?
They ambled up to the darkened building like three soldiers just dropping in to grab some things before hitting the bar district, and Kenren felt himself slipping back into the role as though he'd never been promoted out of it. It was just like being a nobody in the Eastern army, except that he was now a disgraced General and heretic to boot, about to take on the whole of Heaven. But yeah, aside from that, just like the old days.
One of the spies cracked the door open, turned and saluted smartly. "General Kenren, sir." The way the man's voice tripped over the 'General' bit didn't escape Kenren's notice; these soldiers had agreed to help him of their own free will, but they must be terrified now that they were actually doing it. Of course, in the event that they were caught, there was no such thing as a death sentence in the Celestial courts, but a near-eternity of confinement wasn't appreciably better to Kenren's way of thinking.
And yet, Tempou had still found people willing to risk it. "Just Kenren is fine." He slapped the man on the arm and slipped inside.
I started writing this fanfic in 2001 and wrapped it up last Saturday night. Completed, it stands at forty-four pages. To phrase this along slightly different lines, that's an average of eleven pages per year. I am so not joking when I say I am the slowest writer on the face of god's green earth.
But anyway, it's finished, and two days before the Saiyuki Gaiden serial started back up, so I did manage it after all. I'm posting it now in the hopes that at least some of you read it before my version of events gets totally jossed by the sure-to-be-coming scanslations.
So here it is, my longest in-the-works Saiyuki fic to date. Probably an R, takes place immediately after the last tankoubon/released chapters with all the spoilerage that implies. It's not meant to be cut in two, but lj is making me.
Without further ado,
Exit Wounds
by Trismegistus
"Just looking at you, Tempou," said Kenren, "is like digging fingers into an open wound."
But it was Konzen's gaze he held as he spoke, not Tempou's. Then he moaned, and dropped his head into shaking hands.
"I need a fucking cigarette," he said.
~*~
"Jesus, Tempou," Kenren muttered after they were done, "you can lighten up a bit. I'm not going anywhere."
"Ah, forgive me." Tempou carefully relaxed his fingers. His grip had bit into Kenren's shoulders tight enough to leave marks.
"'Something wrong?" he asked, already realising the pointlessness of the question. Tempou was tense, like all of them were, and who the fuck wouldn't be? They were all going to be walking on eggshells until this whole thing blew over. But Kenren had no doubt that it would, harrowing though things might be right now. Celestials delighted in plotting and scheming; it disrupted the tedium, after all. But Celestials also craved the boring predictability of Heavenly life as much as they detested it, and when plots got too far out of hand, when things bubbled to the surface as they had a few days ago, well, everyone involved was more than happy to get those things brushed back under the rug so the plotting and scheming could continue in peace. He'd seen it happen before and had no doubt that he'd see it happen again.
Usually it was no cause for alarm, but this time things were different. This time people he cared about had suffered. Tempou, Gokuu, Nataku, even Konzen.
It was a few moments before Tempou answered.
"Ahh, no. I was merely caught up in my thoughts." The Marshall rolled onto his back and relaxed, hands locked behind his head, body just touching Kenren's. Although Kenren would never admit it, this was the part he liked the best - the afterwards. The sex was great. The sex was hot and frantic and so very good, but he'd had hot, frantic sex with other people before and all it did was make him want to get up and leave afterward. Smoke a cigarette, shower until their scent washed away, then go back to his quarters and nap.
He'd known something was different with Tempou. He could spend hours in Tempou's presence without even thinking about sex. There was something about Tempou that just distracted you like that, something about the way he was never aware how rumpled his clothes were, the way his hair was always snarled, the way the cigarette dangled from his mouth. The way he smiled. The way your offhand comment about the Military or the Dynasty or Down There could start him lecturing for hours on some obscure scholarly topic.
About the way that he lost all that cool when he knew that you were going to fuck him.
And also about the way that you could lie next to him when you were finished and make conversation until you fell asleep. Natural conversation, as unrushed as the sex had been hurried.
"Heh," Kenren said. "Figures." How Tempou had any energy left for thinking after that was beyond him. When they were done, it was all he could do to stay awake long enough to finish his cigarette without it falling out of his fingers and burning the whole place down. But Tempou seemed to gain twice as much energy from sex as he put into it, and so he would spend hours afterward chattering at Kenren about some minor military commander or battle formation of ages past.
Usually, but not tonight. Tonight was different. Tempou didn't seem inclined to talk at all, and Kenren couldn't blame him. The sex had been good and fun and it took his mind off things for a little while, but not forever. And they'd both been a little rougher than usual, because they were trying to take their minds off of things. Which had worked admirably while they were doing it, but once they were done the roughness only served to remind him that they'd been having sex to avoid thinking about it in the first place.
Kenren rolled away from Tempou and patted about on the bedside table until he found his smokes. He took one out, lit up, and offered the pack to Tempou, who accepted wordlessly. They lay next to each other and try as he might, Kenren felt his mind drifting back to that day in the Emperor's court. That had been fourteen days ago, but the horror was as vivid as if it had all just happened.
Kenren was a Celestial and thus healed almost instantaneously, even from critical wounds. But the injuries the kid - no not the kid, Son Gokuu - had given him were still alarmingly fresh. Kenren was also a seasoned career soldier who didn't go out of his way to play nice with his peers, but in all his endless years in Heaven's armies, he'd never suffered a beating rivaling the one he'd received at the Seiten Taisei's hands. The lacerations alone had yet to heal beyond vivid bruises, and they ached afresh wherever Tempou had roughed them up earlier.
He hadn't said anything to Tempou about it, either during or after. It would have been sissy, for one thing. But more important yet was the fact that he needed the pain. His mind swung back to Gokuu - the kid he'd played baseball with, the kid he'd terrorised Konzen with, the kid who called him 'Ken Nii-chan' - unrecognisable, ripping soldier and courtier alike apart as if they'd been so many sheets of paper.
With those memories came memories of the screaming, the stench of blood thick and metallic in the air, such an abnormal scent in Heaven, where no blood was ever shed. He'd smelt it for days afterward.
He remembered the bone-numbing impact as the Taisen blocked his sword thrust. He remembered the triumphant look in Litouten's eyes as the bastard ordered his son to commit murder. The sickening thudcrunch of Tempou's body against the wall. And then Kanzeon Bosatsu, Bodhisattva of Compassion, arriving to stop Gokuu - by killing him.
His cigarette had burned down to the butt, but he kept dragging on it until its heat scorched his fingers as well as his lungs. Don't think about this. Think about anything but this. After all, you've just had some wild sex. Enjoy it. But it was useless; no matter how many times he willed it to stop, his mind kept reeling back.
Kanzeon taking the kid on and being evenly matched. Tempou's bloodied hands grabbing him from behind and forcing him back and him fighting Tempou for all he was worth, because no matter what kind of havoc the Seiten Taisei was wreaking on Heaven, he was still Gokuu, and Kenren didn't care if it had been Guatama Buddha himself in Kanzeon's place - he was not going to let anyone hurt that kid.
"At least," Tempou said, deftly plucking the smoldering remains of Kenren's cigarette from his fingers, "we've set Litouten back as much as he has us." And although Kenren didn't like thinking about it in such pragmatic terms, he knew that Tempou was right. If Litouten were indeed responsible for raising the youkai tribes with an eye to currying Court favor by quelling them, then Nataku's near-suicide had certainly stalled any plans he might have had along those lines.
Not to mention the fact that Tempou had had the presence of mind to take Goujun hostage. Goujun, who on top of being commander of the Western army, was a Dragon king to boot.
"Tell the good Litouten," Tempou had proclaimed from the doorway of their quarters on dawn of the first day of the seige, "that if he so much as moves his armies one inch toward this building, our good friend Goujun dies."
He didn't need to mention that were Goujun to die, reprisal from his clan would be swift and merciless. Although dragons were Celestials, their temperament and culture were vastly different from that of the other Celestials who comprised the Emperor's army and court. Where Tempou to carry out his threat, it would not matter to Goujun's kin that Goujun had been killed by a suicidal band of renegades with nothing left to lose, only that Litouten's actions had in some way precipitated his death, and they would punish Litouten accordingly.
When Tempou had taken Goujun hostage, he had done the one thing which could buy them all time. There were times when the Marshall's foresight scared even Kenren.
Litouten could not move against Tempou and Kenren without forfeiting his own life. And so the stalemate had begun.
And although Litouten had the whole of Heaven's armies under his command, he was experiencing difficulties persuading them to act. For one thing, Kenren and Tempou would not be taken alive, and no one wanted to be the man who died while attempting to capture them.
Likewise, no Celestial wanted to be responsible for their deaths, because outlaws or not, the taking of life was forbidden and the Emperor was not known for his appreciation of nuance. The men who killed the heretics would be fully punished according to the laws of Heaven. While the army outside their walls could overrun them by force of numbers alone, they weren't about to do it, and Litouten knew better than to press them.
And as the days dragged on, those men who had formerly been under Tempou's command began to reconsider their position under their new leader. For while Kenren and Tempou were eccentric and abnormal and quite possibly fucking one another, in day-to-day affairs they were even-handed to the point of laxity. The men laying siege to Tempou's quarters were not sure how they felt about suddenly belonging to the army of a man increasingly impatient that someone - one of them - take the fall for him. So, by ones and twos, they began quietly speculating as to whether Tempou might actually have a chance of surviving this upset unscathed after all, and if so, did they still want to remain loyal to their new commander? The numbers of the Celestial army were uncountably large; not even Litouten could keep track of all of them all the time, and so Tempou and Kenren managed to receive smuggled supplies, rations, and information on a regular basis.
Kenren was not the sort of person to admit that he gave a damn about anyone's opinion of him, but he was secretly pleased that so many of his men had remained loyal. Every day that Litouten was delayed was a day in which he lost momentum. If they could only hold out long enough for most of the army to give up and go home...
He lost consciousness somewhere between that thought and the dawning of the fifteenth day. He awoke to an empty and thus spacious mattress, the thin haze of smoke hovering about the ceiling evidence that Tempou hadn't woken much earlier himself.
Never an early riser, Kenren could almost have rolled over and gone back to sleep, because he could almost pretend that things were normal. But that would be a dangerous habit to get into, and so he rose, dressed, and presented himself in the secondary antechamber, which had been converted to a makeshift dining area at some point around the sixth day.
Konzen was nowhere to be seen. That was not unexpected; he hadn't left Gokuu's side since they'd first retreated to Tempou's apartments. None of them had left Gokuu's side until the fever had stabilised and it looked as though his body might survive the damage wrought upon it by his transformation into the Seiten Taisei.
Tempou was seated at the table, drinking miso soup in an absentminded fashion and pouring over another handscroll of Celestial history while, across the room, Goujun sat and stared at nothing.
"Morning," Kenren said, and meandered into the room to help himself to some breakfast.
"Good morning, General," Tempou echoed vaguely, voice muffled by the proximity of his face to the scroll.
Goujun's eyes flicked briefly in Kenren's direction as he helped himself to some soup.
"You cannot expect to resist forever," Goujun said as Kenren seated himself at the table. His voice was devoid of emotion. "You of all people should realise this, Field Marshall Tempou."
"I'd say we've done an admirable job of it thus far," Tempou said, and unrolled more of the scroll.
"Litouten control over Heaven's armies is complete. There's no way you can hope to withstand their force once he convinces them to move against you."
Tempou shrugged. He looked extremely unconcerned, even to Kenren, who could read his moods like an open book. "Litouten's hands are far from clean. He can't risk moving against me at all if it means that his secrets are revealed to the Emperor."
"Every Celestial has secrets they wish to conceal from the Emperor."
"Every Celestial does."
"Do you know Litouten's?"
"Perhaps," Tempou said mildly. "But what is far more important from Litouten's point of view is that he cannot be certain whether or not I do."
Goujun's gaze did not leave Tempou's face. "Having progressed this far, he may decide that the risks outweigh the benefits."
"Or he may give up and go home," Kenren said.
"He won't. There is too much at stake. Either you will fall, or he will. But there can be no going back."
"Or," Tempou began, and then fell silent.
Or everyone forgets this, for the time being, and goes back to plotting one another's future downfalls, Kenren supplied for him silently. Just like we always do.
As if he could read Kenren's thoughts, Goujun's gaze shifted to his face, and Kenren felt the weight of his cold red eyes intensely. "Even if you both emerge from this unscathed," Goujun said, his tone conveying that found this highly unlikely, "Litouten will retaliate."
"Then we shall have to be prepared for it," Tempou said, and unrolled more scroll.
Goujun rose stiffly from the table and moved towards the door. "You cannot hope to resist forever," he repeated.
"You don't believe that Litouten should be stopped?" Tempou asked, without looking up.
Goujun halted. "I no longer believe that it is possible."
Kenren opened his mouth to argue, but Tempou spoke before he could.
"At the very least, could I ask you to remain in these apartments for one more week?" Tempou's voice held a note of weariness that hadn't been present earlier.
Goujun paused in the doorway, one long-nailed, finely scaled hand tracing lightly down the doorjamb. "I do not see what purpose it will accomplish. But you may have a week." His robes swished quietly as he strode down the hallway.
Kenren rose and lobbed his empty miso bowl into the urn which now served as their washing basin. "Want me to keep an eye on him?"
"No, General," said Tempou, rolling and tying the scroll. "He will keep his word."
Kenren hadn't been expecting that response. Goujun was their safeguard, the only thing keeping Litouten's troops from storming Tempou's apartments that very moment. If Goujun walked out, he would not be touched, but Kenren, Tempou, Konzen, and especially Gokuu, would be as good as dead.
Of course Tempou wanted him to keep an eye on Goujun. Kenren wasn't sure why the Field Marshall just didn't come out and say it. Perhaps his head had been addled by too little sleep.
He tried again. "You sure?"
"Yes," Tempou smiled, and rose from the table, scroll in hand. "Goujun has as little wish to see Litouten rise to power as do you or I. In fact, I think he's regretting not having done something about it sooner, which is why he's given us this little reprieve."
Kenren still was not entirely convinced, but it would be a relief not having to constantly trail Goujun around the clock or lock him in the antechamber during the nights he spent with Tempou. Goujun complied readily, even to this humiliation, but it was exactly that - his silence and dignity in the face of such indignity – that could make you feel small and base about doing it in the first place. Even Kenren, who was normally quite immune to such things, felt like shit over it.
He shrugged. If the Marshall thought Goujun could be trusted not to bail, who was he to doubt? Kenren hadn't yet known Tempou's reading of someone to err far from the mark. "So," he said, trying for lightness, "you got a way for us outmaneuver Litouten?"
Tempou's gaze was focused on some distant point beyond Kenren's face. "Yes, I think I have," he said slowly.
"You mind telling me what it is?"
Tempou sighed, met Kenren's eyes, and smiled. Lines of weariness traced across his face, but his expression was genuine enough. Kenren loved that smile, and the fact that he doubted any other Celestial had ever seen it.
"Not yet," Tempou said. "But you'll find out soon enough."
Kenren gave the Field Marshall a grin of his own. "Fair enough."
Tempou rose. "If you'll excuse me, General," he said, and strode down the hall toward his library and the company of his books and scrolls.
Bereft of any sort of mission now that Goujun no longer needed guarding, Kenren drifted down another hall to pay a visit to Konzen and Gokuu.
He opened the door quietly, not that there was really any possibility he'd disturb the occupants, but it felt like the right thing to do nonetheless.
"How is he?" he asked, shutting the door gently behind him.
Konzen glanced up briefly as he came in, and even from this distance Kenren could see the thick circles around his eyes, dark as bruises against Konzen's fair skin.
"Mnn." Konzen's response was halfway between a snort and sneer.
Kenren crossed the floor to the bed, weaving carefully between the stacks of books that still littered Tempou's bedroom floor. Gokuu lay as still as a corpse beneath the light sheets, his brow slightly creased as if in worry.
"Hey there, kiddo," Kenren whispered.
The monkey's breathing was shallow but even, which Kenren figured was a good sign. At least he wasn't writhing and spasming like he had the first week after. Watching that had been horrible - had dried out Kenren's mouth and left a sour taste in it at the same time.
It made him so angry, because there wasn't a damn thing he could do about any of it. At least when Gokuu had been killing half of the Emperor's courtiers Kenren had been able to make himself useful.
"I take it that Tempou has no plans as to what will become of us?" Konzen asked after a few minutes.
"No--" Kenren started automatically, then shut his mouth and thought for a moment.
"No, actually, he may have, this time."
For the first time Konzen looked at him - actually looked at him, and Kenren was almost ashamed to see the hope firing in the depths of Konzen's eyes. Sure, he wanted the kid to get better, wanted it bad, but that was the only thing Konzen cared about - you could tell it just by looking at him.
Kenren couldn't match Konzen's concern, but he could imagine what was going on in Konzen's head. He'd be the same way, if it were Tempou in that bed. And thank the gods, a small voice in the dark of his mind whispered, that it isn't.
Konzen half rose from his seat, a faint blush coming to his colorless cheeks. "What--"
His eagerness was pitiful. Kenren raised a hand and Konzen fell back into the chair as if physically pushed. "Dunno anything yet," he said, forcing himself to meet Konzen's eyes. "But Tempou thinks he's found a way to get the better of Litouten."
The hope drained from Konzen's eyes. "What does that have to do with Gokuu?" he demanded.
Kenren shrugged, made to rest a hand on Konzen's shoulder and then thought the better of it. "Maybe nothing," he said. "But if we manage to get out of this house we'll have a better chance of getting Gokuu some help."
Konzen's eyes moved automatically to Gokuu's face at the mention of the boy's name. Kenren watched as he raised a long, fine-boned hand and wiped the hair from Gokuu's forehead.
It was hard seeing Konzen like this, and Kenren knew that if Konzen weren't so worried for the boy he'd be furious that anyone had witnessed him acting so tenderly. It was a difficult image to reconcile with that of the haughty, distant Konzen Douji, raging at Gokuu for some petty infraction.
"Look, if you want to eat, or sleep or something, I can stay here with the kid..."
"No."
He'd known anyway that Konzen would refuse. The man didn't eat unless they brought him food, and half the time he wouldn't touch it even when it was laid beside him. And when Konzen slept, it was only despite his best efforts not to, in brief snatches until his head sagging onto his chest woke him.
Konzen probably wanted company, all the same, though he was still too proud to ask for it. Hell, he might even try to sleep as long as someone else was in the room to keep an eye on Gokuu. Kenren figured he'd be the same way, so he pulled a chair up to the other side of the bed and sat down.
Ironically, he was the first to fall asleep, and he woke to the gentle pressure of Tempou's hand on his shoulder.
"It's time, General," Tempou said.
He stood up, instantly awake despite having been soundly asleep a mere a second ago – yet another skill honed during their weeks of confinement.
"Do you wish to have any messages relayed outside, Konzen?" asked Tempou.
Konzen merely snorted in response. Kenren gave him one final glance as he left the room – Konzen's eyes never left Gokuu's face.
Then he was stumbling down hall after the Marshall, blearily scrubbing the grit from his eyes. They went first to collect Goujun before heading to the main gate of the apartments.
"My deepest apologies," Tempou said as he raised his sword to Goujun's throat.
"It's nothing," the dragon replied.
Then, carefully keeping the blade level, Tempou opened the gate, Kenren at his side, and faced the six soldiers awaiting them there.
Envoys passed back and forth between the renegades and the besieging army several times a day. Kenren knew that Litouten only allowed this for form's sake, so that when news of the siege eventually caught the attention of the Emperor no one could deny that he had not attempted to negotiate with Tempou.
It was so quintessentially Celestial. Litouten allowed the envoys in order to cover his back. Tempou allowed the envoys in order to gain information on conditions outside his apartments. Men volunteered for the envoys because they were still trying to decide which side they were on, and meanwhile, the whole situation stagnated.
Kenren recognised four of the six members of today's squad. Three of them had been nominally under his command in the Eastern Army, and one of them in the Western. Heaven's armies were so impossibly large that most commanders had little practical knowledge of any of the men under their command, but Kenren thought he remembered something about each of these four. Three of them would be staunch supporters of whomever had the upper hand, and one of them – a man he'd sometimes gone hellraising with in the bars in the Eastern barracks – might very possibly be sympathetic to their plight. The man arched an eyebrow. Kenren ignored him. He arched it again.
Ah.
He lit a cigarette and tried to look bored. He was vaguely aware of Tempou responding to the leader's angry demands with subtle insults well beyond the leader's ability to comprehend. Kenren left them to it and did his best to sidle away from the main group.
"The fuck do you thing you're doing!" This from his former subordinate in the Eastern.
"Smoking. Being bored. You got a problem with that?" Kenren asked, and took another hit.
"Yeah, I got a problem with that. Think you can just stand there and blow smoke in my face, asshole?"
"Yeah," said Kenren. "I do."
The man swung at Kenren's face and Kenren grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and dived on top of him. He even landed a few bruisers on the man's stomach before another soldier dived in to aid the first. It was uneven odds now, but Kenren knew he could still hold his own despite that.
The three remaining soldiers seemed torn between joining the brawl or keeping an eye on Tempou, who stood impassively, sword at Gojun's throat.
"Not gonna help your boyfriend?" one of them sneered.
"He's perfectly capable of handling himself," said Tempou, and pressed the edge of the blade that much closer to Gojun's throat. "Understand?"
Kenren was holding his own against the two men on top of him, but it wasn't until he felt something being fumblingly pressed into the inside pocket of his duster that he really let them have it until the fight ran its course and they drew back from one another, panting and bruised. He moved backwards to Tempou's side, careful not to pay any attention to the item in his pocket and doing his best to look royally pissed off.
Which actually didn't take much effort, because he would have loved to return some of those thumps with a few more solid blows of his own, but he couldn't risk letting things get out of hand. He raised his hand to his mouth and coughed. There was blood in his palm when he drew it away.
"Fucking assholes," he said, and meant it. "You get anything useful out of this guy, Marshall?"
"Ah, Commander Zhou has been as helpful as always," Tempou said lightly, not bothering to look at Kenren. "Good afternoon, Commander, Brigadier, Privates." He nodded at each man in turn and then backed Goujun and himself slowly through the gate, Kenren covering him as they went.
Once inside Tempou lowered the blade and apologized yet again to Goujun, who demurred as impassively as always before stalking toward the rooms he'd claimed for his own.
Tempou watched him go and then turned to face Kenren.
"I hope there was a point to that, General?" he inquired evenly.
The tension Kenren had been carefully suppressing finally crested. "Of course there was a point to it, Tempou! I know better than to risk starting a fucking riot for no reason."
Unaffected as always by Kenren's outbursts, Tempou's bland expression never wavered.
Kenren could think more clearly about the situation now that he'd let off some steam, which had doubtlessly been Tempou's intention in provoking him. "I knew most of those guys," he added in a calmer tone of voice.
"That is not unexpected." A corner of Tempou's mouth quirked. "You have, after all, completed stints in half of Heaven's armies."
Kenren sent him a grin of his own in return. "Yeah, and that's a lot of faces to remember, but I remembered these faces."
"Can any of them be expected to be sympathetic to our current situation?"
"Yeah. Least, I think so. Anyway, it's late. How 'bout we go to bed?"
Kenren didn't tell Tempou about the object he'd been given, didn't even look at it himself, until after they were finished having sex. He liked hiding something from the Field Marshall, even for such a short period of time, and even though Tempou must have known that his having recongnised some of the men in the envoy was far from the whole story.
He waited until they'd both finished their first smokes before groping about on the floor for his duster and pulling whatever it was out of his pocket.
"Anyway," he said without preamble, "one of them gave me this."
It appeared to be a document of some sort. Tempou plucked it from his hands and deftly undid the tie.
Several scrolls cascaded down to the sheets covering Tempou's lap. Kenren's eyes were confronted with maps, blueprints, and various diagrams resembling the 'science' they had Down Below that Tempou had been so interested in recently. There was a lot of information in those scrolls, precious little of which made any sort of sense to Kenren.
"What is this stuff?" he asked.
"Information I've requested," said Tempou. His brows were knitted above the rims of his glasses and he was clearly distracted. "They've taken a great risk in sending it to me all at once, and in this fashion."
The furrow between his brows deepened and he made an uncharacteristic impatient gesture with one hand. "Our current situation must be more precarious than I had assumed."
Kenren was a soldier; it was his job to evaluate precarious situations, but this 'technology' and behind-the-scenes subterfuge stuff was Tempou's forte, not his. He'd leave Tempou to it.
Still, he felt he had to say something, and he wanted an excuse not to ask further questions about things that would only make his head spin. He found an opportunity and seized on it.
"I didn't know you were receiving messengers on the side."
Tempou blinked in surprise. "Of course I am," he said, as if this should have been common sense to Kenren, which, in all fairness, it should have been.
Fuck it. He might as well ask anyway, and get it over with now.
"So what's all this about?" he said, motioning to the documents, careful lest the lit end of his cigarette set them on fire.
Tempou's attention returned full-force to the scrolls. "This may be the way by which we finally outmaneuver Litouten," he said, automatically accepting the cigarette Kenren offered him without taking his eyes from the documents.
Kenren was intrigued now, despite himself. It wasn't often that something had the power to distract Tempou completely from him, not so soon after they'd just had sex.
"So what are we going to do?"
"You will have noticed that Litouten has permitted a remarkable number of soldiers to make clandestine visits to you during the course of the siege?"
"Yeah, well, he doesn't have much of a choice about it," Kenren snorted, expelling an acrid cloud of smoke from his nostrils. "He can't exactly have them killed for disobeying, and if he imprisoned everyone he caught doing it, he'd have a mutiny on his hands.
"And more importantly—"
"They offer a very effective opportunity to feed us false information."
That would certainly explain Tempou's fascination with the scrolls. "So do you think that these are—"
"No," Tempou murmured. "These are the genuine article."
He did glance at Kenren now. "It is helpful that the men sneaking in to see you have not been the most...discrete. They have distracted Litouten's attention away from the messengers bearing me the information that I've requested. "
"Yeah, well, discretion's never been a strong point."
Tempou mirrored Kenren's wry smile. "More importantly, with everyone now trying to turn the existence of the stream of supposedly clandestine messengers entering and leaving our ostensibly besieged compound to their advantage, one imagines that Litouten has become accustomed to this state of events, which can only work to our advantage."
"We'll get out of this somehow," he said, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray.
"Yes, we will," Tempou echoed vaguely. He was still pouring over the documents when Kenren finally rolled over and went to sleep.
The next several days passed in the same manner as the days preceding them. They fucked, slept, woke and went about their business. Envoys came and went, and although Kenren didn't recognise any of the men in them now, he didn't have to take any other beatings either. Spies sneaked in and out. Goujun was chillingly polite, Konzen was dour, and Gokuu's condition neither worsened nor improved.
At times, while he was sitting in the library with the sun spilling through the windows, trying to figure out what Tempou found so damn fascinating about those books, or when they were in bed together, or talking, he could almost pretend that nothing was wrong.
"...ren."
"...enren."
"Kenren."
He awoke one night to the whisper of Tempou's voice in his ear, more breath than sound.
"Mmh? What issit?"
"It's time."
Kenren shot into wakefulness.
"What do I need to do?"
Tempou's smile was tight but satisfied. He had selected Kenren for his lover for a reason.
"Litouten possesses technology capable of reviving both Gokuu and Nataku." Tempou paused. An eyebrow twitched slightly. "I believe the time has come to avail ourselves of it."
Kenren could only stare. Healing Gokuu and Nataku would not do much to counteract the shitstorm they were in, not by a long shot, but dammit, it was the right thing to do. "I love how your mind works," he breathed.
Tempou sent him a too-brief smile in return. "I have been in contact with several men who are, shall we say, nostalgic for the days of General Kenren's sojourn in the Eastern Army. As it so happens, several of them will happen to pay a visit to my apartments tonight. One of them might just be convinced to switch places with you on the way out."
"And when their squad is interrogated after returning to Litouten's camp?" Getting out of the house for a bit was certainly a nice idea, but there was no way he could fight his way through the whole of Litouten's loyal followers.
Tempou smiled, catlike. "It just so happens that other soldiers nostalgic for the good old days of General Kenren have been placed in charge of interrogations tonight."
"Lucky coincidence, that," Kenren murmured.
"Indeed," Tempou murmured back, eyes mirroring the fire catching in Kenren's. "And I daresay that they may even be convinced to help you infiltrate Litouten's compound and secure the resurrection device."
Kenren smiled. He was really warming to this. "This must have involved a lot of overtime effort on your part."
Tempou inclined his head slightly, eyes flashing. "I hand the torch to you."
And suddenly he knew that somehow, everything would be all right. It was just like it had been in the old days, when he'd just arrived at the Western Army and he and Tempou had spent days testing the waters, challenging each other with schemes like this.
Kenren vaulted out of bed and threw on his clothes with a muttered thanks to Tempou whenever the Field Marshall retrieved an article from the farther corners of the room. And then he was dressed and ready to go.
"One last thing, General." Tempou turned and withdrew something from a nearby bookshelf. "How good are you with incantations?"
He felt his eyebrows elevate. Incantations? As opposed to Sutra? Those were Shinto, or possibly Taoist. Those belonged in one of the other Heavens.
He shrugged. "I suppose I could reel one off."
The cat-smile was back. "That's all it requires."
Tempou handed him a sealed piece of paper. "In the event that things do not go according to plan, read this. It will relocate the resurrection equipment to a location Litouten cannot reach."
But we can. He grinned. "Think of everything, don't you?"
Tempou smiled wearily. "I do try to, General."
The smile blinked out in a flash, and Tempou was all business again. "I believe our visitors will be arriving shortly, so you had best go. Say nothing of this to Konzen on the way out; it would only agitate him. I'll assist him with Gokuu when the time comes."
"Understood." Tempou handed Kenren his holster, which he belted around his waist and then headed for the door. He took a step through to the darkened hall beyond, paused.
"Tempou?"
"Yes?"
"This is insane."
"I thought you lived for this sort of thing."
He smiled. "I wasn't complaining."
It had been surprisingly easy to sneak out of Tempou's apartments, probably because everyone on both sides was so used to seeing people slipping in and out that no one paid them any mind, aside from making sure that the same number came out as had gone in.
He thought he vaguely remembered the kid Tempou had uncovered to be his stand in. He'd enlisted just before Kenren had been given the boot to the Western, which was the only reason Kenren remembered anything about him at all. The kid, on the other hand, seemed more than slightly awestruck to be in the presence of his former commander.
"General Kenren, sir," he'd whispered diffidently as Kenren emerged into the inner courtyard. Kenren nodded. He was already wearing the regulation uniform, so all that remained was to exchange his general's issue clothing for the kid's gear. Tempou had chosen well – they had roughly the same build, although Kenren found that the dress coat was somewhat constricting about the shoulders. His own duster bagged slightly around the kid's frame.
The other two members of the kid's party had already finished dropping off their delivery of supplies and whatever other contraband Tempou had requested, and were waiting tensely for Kenren and his replacement to finish.
Kenren gave the coat's shoulders one last impatient tug, testing for mobility, then nodded to them. The first laced his fingers together and hoisted his companion up onto the wall, who then leaned down to help the second up. And then it was Kenren's turn.
Ignoring the impatient hand of the man above him he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and faced the kid.
"Enjoy your stay," he whispered.
"Enjoy your stay, General, Private Kaji," the kid corrected, with a cocky arch to his eyebrow Kenren was sure hadn't been there while the kid'd been under his command. He liked that. This one was going to go places.
"Fuck you," he shot back, grabbed a hand up and vaulted over the wall.
His heart was pounding as they approached the siege line, but he didn't waste energy trying to suppress it. Any spy returning from enemy territory would be fucking nervous; far from betraying him, his apprehension would to help him blend in. They sped through the line, and then the gardens surrounding the officers' villas, largely abandoned at the beginning of the siege, though a light shone here and there around the edges of a blacked-out window.
The interrogation post was manned by more people Kenren couldn't really remember, but who evidently remembered him well enough to sympathise with his situation. They ran through standard debriefing procedure as if nothing had been out of the ordinary and Private Kaji had always looked like General Kenren. Then the head officer stamped his papers with the unit's official seal, and with an "You're on leave for one week, Private. Don't fuck things up while you're on it," he was sent out of the tent and into the thick of enemy forces.
So Litouten was still allowing leave rotation. Well, with the entire force of Heaven's armies at his back, he could afford to allow it, Kenren thought. Or more likely, he probably couldn't afford to not to. Kenren doubted the grunts that made up the bulk of the army would have reacted well to enforced around-the-clock duty during a seemingly endless siege.
Leave it to Tempou to figure out a way to use even that to their advantage.
Kenren's unit shuffled through checkpoint after checkpoint as quickly as they could. Nothing to attract attention to themselves in that - what grunt was ever not champing at the bit to go on leave? And then they were home free and on their way to the barracks, which would doubtlessly be empty – no soldier ever stayed in quarters during leave. But that worked out perfectly – what better place to organise troops than their own supposedly empty base?
They ambled up to the darkened building like three soldiers just dropping in to grab some things before hitting the bar district, and Kenren felt himself slipping back into the role as though he'd never been promoted out of it. It was just like being a nobody in the Eastern army, except that he was now a disgraced General and heretic to boot, about to take on the whole of Heaven. But yeah, aside from that, just like the old days.
One of the spies cracked the door open, turned and saluted smartly. "General Kenren, sir." The way the man's voice tripped over the 'General' bit didn't escape Kenren's notice; these soldiers had agreed to help him of their own free will, but they must be terrified now that they were actually doing it. Of course, in the event that they were caught, there was no such thing as a death sentence in the Celestial courts, but a near-eternity of confinement wasn't appreciably better to Kenren's way of thinking.
And yet, Tempou had still found people willing to risk it. "Just Kenren is fine." He slapped the man on the arm and slipped inside.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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I love this.
Sidenote: There's a Gaiden serial? Cool! Can't wait for the raws then..
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Slowest. Writer. EVAH.
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What was cool though was how many echoes there were of this story in the actual text. Or at least the visuals. Or vice versa. Or something.
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G: "Konzen, this is perhaps the first time I'v exchanged words with you."
K: "Because I'm not concerned with the military."
G: "Then why involve yourself in the military's business? Unless you've made some sort of promise to protect the Seiten Taisei."
K: "Not really. I just don't like the things I don't like. No matter how big of an opponent they may make."
{{bits w/ the boys. Tempou has some great lines here}}
G: "In that case, let me ask: exactly what can you hope to accomplish?"
"Heaven's Armies consider you impure Celestials whose presence they'll expend all their energies to exorcise."
"In order to protect the life of a single child..."
K: ".........."
G: "You, who lead a coddled existence far from any experience of warfare...what can you possibly hope to accomplish."
K: "I'm waiting for [mine/our/Heaven's] destruction."
"That's pretty much what it is. I can't go back, and I don't want to go back."
{{This is where Gokuu pops up ready to kick ass. Incidentally, his panting throughout also sounds a whole lot as if he's trying to gasp Konzen's name.}}
G: "Stand down, Konzen Douji. I'll fight him!!"
"There's no way you can take him on! You'll only be killed, Konzen!! Stand down!"
Greek chorus; ".....KONZEN!"
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(And now I'm looking at pics and not text-- gee, dragons have fangs!)
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"The one who first reached out his hand was you, Goku."
"...I can't believe I'm saying this, you have no idea."
"But no matter what else changes..."
"...It sure fucking seems that don't want to ever let that hand go."
(With a bit of liberty taken w/ the language to convey feeling, but there it is. I was Teh DED when I read that. Oh my lord...)
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They are just...God. They kill me every time.
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Glad the email helped with the Word thing! (That would be
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SO. CLEVER. :D
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All sure signs that I have removed myself from academia prematurely.
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Where Tempou to carry out his threat, it would not matter to Goujun's kin that Goujun had been killed by a suicidal band of renegades with nothing left to lose
*points* just one small spelling error I noticed. ^^
*goes off to read the continuation*
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