ine his weapons. Looked inside the gun. Fully loaded. He stuck it in his belt then went to the the sword: slick and newly sharpened. It would do nicely.

Thirty demons? A secret, feral leer graced his face just then. He licked his lips.

Nothing to one who has slain a thousand.

*****

Gojyo sneezed. "Damn cold." he muttered before drowning a cup of weak wine. It did little to warm him. But hell, it was something, at least. Perched on the only unbroken chair in the now roofless tavern, he looked into the fire Hakkai...or rather...Tenpou...had told him to make.

"Those youkai are drawn to heat like metal to a ma." the man had said. "Just like you, ne? Just wait here while I go get Sanzo. He's been gone for an awful long time." And he left. But Gojyo followed, eavesdropped and then ran back.

"I'm hungry." a voice said from behind him on the floor.

"Shut up, saru. You just ate the last of our reserves. If you want more, scrounge around the village. I'm sure there's some edible trash around here. Might have to fight the dogs for it."

Goku kicked himself up. "What kinda animal do you think I am?"

"What a memory you've got, saru."

"Why you-"

The sound of a creaking door cut him off as Hakkai walked through, smiling. "Don't tell me you've started arguing already. I've only been gone...about five minutes."

"Ten." Gojyo corrected morosely, turning away from the two of them to stare into the fire. It was ridiculous.pletely ridiculous. He bit into his cigarette. Fucking asshole.

"Hakkai? Is Sanzoing back now?" the boy was looking out the glassless window again in the direction the surly priest had gone. Before Homura, Goku was never this anxious whenever Sanzo just wanted to go off alone to meditate. But ever since Homura...well...everything that had happened with him just proved how frail Sanzo really was. A mere human with the resilience of a twig whenpared to a god. That's why he hated it whenever Sanzo was alone because that would make Goku feel alone. And then there was always that threat that the aloness would last forever if Sanzo never came back.

"Eh. Soon. After he calms down a bit." Tenpou replied, amusedly as he sat himself down by Gojyo's feet and leaned his chin upon the other's knee. Gojyo froze. "I think I angered him. Don't you think so, Gojyo?"

The redhead shrugged. "How the hell would I know?"

"Be it of friend or foe." Tenpou recited with a twinkle in his eye. "One cannot help but see, a third set of footprints in the snow."

"Damn you!" he lifted his hand to angrily strike him away, "Maybe one good knock on the head'll send you back!" but it was caught by Goku's fierce grip.

"Stop! Gojyo don't! Not Ten-chan!" he held on harder as he repeated the name.

He didn't know how he knew. He just did. All the questions that were asked of him...

Who taught you how to read, Goku?

It wasn't Sanzo, was it?

Then who?

...and so he began to think really hard about it. Who? Who? Who? For three nights, he'd been asking himself, finally resorting to asking the goddess of mercy (wherever she...he was)...who?

And so that night he dreamed about a library, aforting hand upon his shoulder as another one pointed out the squiggles laid out on the paper before him. "Read it out loud with me, Goku..." Faceless, but in the shiny reflection of the book, he saw someone he thought he recognized.

"I won't let you hurt Ten-chan! It's probably not his fault that he's here. I don't know what happened, but you can't hurt him! I won't let you! Never!" Goku was starting to sound like a small child.

Gojyo grit his teeth. Man, it was starting to hurt.

Tenpou could only stare dumbly at the scene. Goku had known. But the longer he thought about it, the more he found it less surprising. The boy had always been more perceptive than they all thought and it was a grave miscalculation on his part that he could hide this secret from Goku for very long. And it was more than he deserved from somebody he supposedly abandoned...or will abandon sometime.

While the two grappled, Tenpou briskly got up and went for the door. He needed to feel the wind against his face again. Goku and Gojyo didn't notice the lack of presence until wood slammed against wood. "See what you did!" shouted Goku before he went to follow. The half-breed caught him by the collar.

"Oi. Goku..." he said, thoughtful this time. "How long did you know about him?"

"I guess...I guess I never totallypletely ot." the boy replied, looking at his wrists as if expecting his gauntlets to transform before his eyes.

"And you're not in the least worried about Hakkai?"

"Why should I? Hakkai's the one who always knows his way around. He'll find his way back, but Ten-chan...Ten-chan seems really lost around here."

Why was it so easy for him to grasp the concept of the two of them switching? Gojyo could only wonder.

The reincarnation part...the half-breed could ept, although he preferred not to linger on it. Enemies have called him Kenren Taishou before. Homura did. Those soldiers in the tower did. But he never really epted the idea. Neither could Sanzo, and he was supposed to be the closest to heaven any mortal could ever be.

But Goku was over five hundred years old. He never died. He knew ALL of them. So could it be that somewhere in that ape brain of his, he never registered the difference between Hakkai and Tenpou, between Sanzo and Konzen, between me and...

"Saru, you stay here and wait for Sanzo." Gojyo got up, headed for the door and left before Goku could argue.

...as if there never really was a difference in the first place.

****

Goku stirred, opened his eyes. Couldn't sleep. Maybe sleeping on his left side. Nope. Right side. Nope. Back? Nuh huh. The mattress of his little bed creaked, incessantly as he tossed and turned because something tickled his nose like an itch he couldn't scratch. Left, right...back...stare at the ceiling...

"Will you just go to sleep bakasaru!" Konzen roared, shooting up in bed with obvious frustration. Even in the darkness his hair seemed to shine unnaturally.

"But I can't, Konzen!" he replied, big-eyed and tucking his legs up beneath him. The ever-present sound of clanking chains apanying his movement. Konzen never admitted it, but he knew that if he heard them nearby, things were relatively good. And Goku was safe. Hell if he'd admit it.

"It's easy. Just close your eyes and shut up!"

"I'm worried about Ten-chan." That was about the hundredth time he'd said it in the past three days.

"Tenpou doesn't need people worrying about him." the Kanzeon's nephew replied, a bit more subdued. "He can take care of himself, despite all the trouble he causes."

"But still..."

A vein popped out. " .What?"

"Feels like wolves."

"Wolves? What are those?"

"Big hairy monsters that walk on four legs with really scary yellow teeth. Whenever I smelled them around...or thought they were nearby, I had to climb into a tree...all the time because they can't climb."

"Sounds like youkai to me."

"Wolves. Are there wolves in heaven, Konzen?"

"Sure. They're called politicians."

"Konzen!"

A sigh. "Goku...just go to-"

But a shrill cry shook the night, piercing the walls around them, right down to the marrow of their bones. The first was followed by a second, which was then followed by another until a whole grotesque chorus of fierce wails arose, like a wave gaining momentum...

Konzen tried to switch on the light, but the moment he did, the bulb shattered, raining down on them in shimmering pieces. The glass of the window cracked. And a cold wind...

****

The cold wind bit at Tenpou's neck and he hunched over to pull his collar up. It was a futile attempt at warmth, yet he didn't mind because lately, the term 'futility' had made itself a permanent and cozy niche in his mind.

You will fail.

You will die.

You will sin.

You will cry.

You will turn into your own victim. Quietly, the metal cuffs seethed as the gusts picked up. They wereing. The sun was setting as he prepared himself to kill for the first time. Taking a life seemed so clinical, the written word making the act seem an act and nothing more than an act. The word nothing more than a word, but as there had always existed an incongruity between words and actions, actions and thoughts, surely the deed must carry with it a heavy burden, to a certain extent a specific type of trauma thates with the pinnacle of immorality.

That is not to say that there aren't those who deserve to die. There are...

And so is there any being better fit than a god to execute those mortals unworthy of life?

And what of the gods unworthy of their immortality? Who to execute them?

Wallowing in irony, Tenpou thought of his other self. Why, a mortal of course.

He took a moment to indulge himself in a strange vanity, that the mortal man he will be will be unordinary, that part of humanity chosen from the rest because he is of celestial background...

"I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories," Tenpou once read. It still held a certain, egotistical truth with him. "inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers."

But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood.

"But I hate blood."

"What a coincidence," someone said behind him. "So do I." A cold hand brushed over his hair, causing the clinging snowflakes to shimmer down, only to disappear as the wind whisked them away to nothingness. "So does he. But he's used to it- seeing it every time he looks at me. And I'm used to it- seeing it every time I look in the mirror. Which leaves you." Gojyo settled down behind Tenpou until they were back to back. "Apparently you haven't been looking at me enough to realize that I'm not-"

"Of

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