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Really.
No, really.
Summary: ever notice how Kanzeon Bosatsu never does anything, even when she knows all about what's going down? Even when she can apparently take Gokuu out with the blink of an eye? Ever wonder why that is, exactly? Vague spoilers for the end of Gensoumaden Saiyuki.
Must See TV
by Trismegistus
"Well, that went about as well as could be expected."
The Bodhisattva swirls into the room like a force of nature and drops herself dramatically into an empty chair.
"Did you see the look on Konzen's face?" she crows. "It would have been worth five hundred years of pure boredom for that alone!
Jiroushin always thinks of the Bodhisattva as 'she,' although 'she' is truly neither. It is the one small amount of control he can maintain over her.
"Ah," he replies carefully. Long centuries in attendance have taught him that neutrality is by far the best approach when dealing with his mistress, as any expression of personal opinion, or indeed personality, tends to lead him into trouble.
"Was that a 'yes,' Jiroushin?" she prompts.
He bows his head. "Yes, Kanzeon-sama," he replies meekly.
It had, in truth, gone as well as could be expected, which is to say the memory alone is enough to make him cringe. The two insignificant ones baffled as usual, the frighteningly polite one frighteningly polite to the last, and the blond one with the terrifying gaze spitting and hissing like an enraged wildcat.
"Gods? As if I care! Where the hell were you gods when we were busy cleaning up your shit for you? You can kiss my fucking ass."
Jiroushin winces. To say such things – and in the exalted presence of the Emperor of Heaven! After He had deigned to come down to Earth and reveal everything to them Himself - an honor never before bestowed on any mortal: human, youkai, or otherwise! The very thought sets the tick in his left eyelid jumping.
The Bodhisattva props her legs on a nearby writing table, upsetting the piles of documents he'd carefully sorted and indexed the previous evening, and smiles. He kneels meekly atop the mess, trying not to look at the spilt ink spattering the papers, and begins to massage her feet.
"Mmm," she sighs and leans back into the divan. "I've been waiting for this for hours. Thought that windbag of an emperor would never shut up."
Jiroushin shudders, and not just at the profanity. He would rather not touch his mistress at all were the choice left to him, but it isn't as…distasteful as some of the other things she's had him do in the past.
She smiles, white teeth flashing. "Five hundred years below certainly doesn't seem to have taught Konzen any manners, don't you think?"
"Ah," he says again.
"Imagine – refusing a place in Heaven to the Emperor's face!"
Jiroushin doesn't have to imagine. He saw it happen.
"I did it...because," Konzen-the-Sanzou had said. "Not because I wanted your fucking heaven. I don't!"
"'Because ?'" The Emperor of Heaven had been rather enraged himself by that point. Understandably so, in Jiroushin's humble opinion. "I ordered the Sanbutsushin to make you."
"No! I did it because I needed to do it then! And not for any fucking thing or fucking one else!"
And of course Kanzeon-sama had stepped in to point out that doing things because they were what you needed to do then was the definition of correct action, and that correct action undertaken without prior consideration of gods or duty was also very Buddhist as well.
And so Konzen Douji and his companions attained nirvana and were freed from the cycle of death and rebirth after five hundred years spent languishing below.
"The look on his face when he heard he was headed back up here after all!" she exclaims. "I thought I was going to—ooh, do that spot again."
He absolutely hates having to rub between her toes. It makes his skin crawl.
"Things will certainly be a lot quieter up here from now on, won't they?" she murmurs.
"Yes indeed, Kanzeon-sama," he replies, eager to finally have something on which he can agree with her wholeheartedly. He begins to carefully work away from the toe region.
And then it hits him with the force of a sudden awakening. Just what is going to keep the Bodhisattva entertained now, with her nephew and his companions finally enlightened? There is only one logical answer – him. Just as he had in the days before Konzen Douji and the others fell from grace.
Brief flashes of those days sear across his consciousness before his mind reels away in self defense.
He sets to work on her feet with a renewed sense of purpose. The Bodhisattva sighs and falls silent for a while.
"Mm, that's enough," she says finally, and shakes her foot free. "You're dismissed for the evening."
"Yes, Kanzeon-sama," he answers, and excuses himself from her presence at the door.
"Oh, Jiroushin." Her voice chases him down the hall. "I've had the records for pending rebirths placed in your room. I'm interested in three in particular. Find them for me."
He stands obediently at her door until she decides to notice him again.
"Oh, don't worry. You'll know them when you see them."
He excuses himself again and returns to his private quarters.
Three records from amongst the hundreds of thousands of souls awaiting rebirth at any given moment. It's just what he likes most – steady, predictable, boring work. And that is why he knows there must be a catch. She would never give it to him otherwise.
Unless...the complete mortification of the Emperor of Heaven this afternoon has left her in a particularly charitable mood. He considers it a possibility.
The records are waiting for him in his chamber, as she'd said they would be. There must be tens of hundreds of thousands of them, and he is to find three of them in particular.
You'll know them when you see them, she'd said, but he doesn't think that's likely, considering the sheer volume of the task. And even if he did, there's such a massive amount that, were he so inclined, he could believably pretend that it had taken him a good deal longer. Make a few mistakes before he brings her the real ones. Work on a model or two in the meantime, maybe. Enjoy a quiet afternoon without having to attend upon anyone.
Unfortunately, those pleasant delusions are dispelled the moment he finds the first record. It's so obvious that there is no conceivable way he could ever pretend to not understand what she meant now.
It takes him a little more than a day to locate the other two, even moving at a snail's pace. He gathers them up and carries them to her offices with a vague sense of dread.
"Well, well, let's see what's in store for these three, shall we?" she asks as he hands them over.
He doesn't need to be told, seeing as he'd already looked at the records the previous evening. The youkai halfbreed itan reborn to parents karmically destined to be slaughtered by vengeful humans within his first decade of life. The well-mannered one reborn into the small mountain village where he'd once been patronized as its god, and the former Toushin Taishi soon fated to be an orphan in an unremarkable southern province.
Really, the orphan bit was rather predictable, even for someone like Jiroushin. But then again, he supposes, it worked for Konzen in the end.
The Bodhisattva gives the records a final satisfied glance before tossing them onto an empty end table. "Well, with a little luck they just might be as interesting as the last set," she says.
A sudden crestfallen expression flits across her face. "Of course, they won't even be reborn for another few decades, and it'll take a few more after that before anything interesting happens."
Jiroushin finds himself just as bereft at this realization as is his mistress.
The Bodhisattva of Compassion shrugs. "Ah, well. We'll need to find something significant for them to do, anyway." She crosses her ankles on a nearby footstool and draws the sheer silk of her robes up over a long, shapely leg. "But we have centuries to figure that out."
"You'll need the baby oil of course," she says. "And the foam. Wisteria, this time, I think. Oh, and Jiroushin, take your time. I want them smooth."
これで以上です。
Ahem.
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...and you're never online!
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And I am too online. You, however, are not;-)
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"Did you see the look on Kanzeon's face?"
The usual Kanzeon/ Konzen confusion?
Am perfectly happy to see Zenon shafted like that. Thanks.
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Indeed. Thanks for pointing it out.
Even Zenon will eventually get his day in the sun. Methinks it's going to take a looong time, however.
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From:
incandescens sent me
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Re: incandescens sent me