Not with a Bang: Conclusion

[voidtreckermods]

The base camp is a mess by the time the fight is over. The heavy rain alone would have been enough, but the battle has churned up the earth itself. The previously peaceful clearing is pockmarked with craters and dark puddles where ash has mixed into rainwater, along with oil and blood that swirl unpleasantly through the shallow pools. The trees are bowed outwards with the force of the powers that waged through the area, trunks shattered and torn, boughs hanging haphazardly or draped with the remnants of tents and equipment.

Perhaps all that can be said is that it gives the Voidtrecker Express a decidedly clear landing spot. The train snakes its way through the jungle, coming to a stop in a familiar, though now lopsided, coil around the clearing, and opening its doors to allow injured to be carried on, or anyone from the train to disembark.

It’s clear that there are indeed people aboard - as the doors hiss open, activity is already visible inside, as well as voices audibly going back and forth over the tinny speakers of the ICP.

Now that the saboteurs are dealt with, the final repairs can be made to the damaged stations and the shields locked into place. By the time they are done, nothing and no one will be able to enter the planet - from space, anyway.

The train will remain in the clearing through the night of Imagination 12 and the morning of Imagination 13, until all the stations are prepared, the pandas returned to their rightful place and everyone has rejoined the train.

By midday of Imagination 13, the train is ready to leave. Everyone gets a message on their SCA to return to the train, if they haven’t already. Once all are onboard the doors shut and the train begins to snake through the jungle.

“Re-entering Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

The train rattles and shakes as the greenery around them (and the purple of a few farewell pandas) fade into the colours of the void.

Comments

[its_dad_sanzo]

"The answer to...?"

It sure doesn't sound to Koumyou like the question he'd answered had really been 'why you so chill tho'. Or rather, it perhaps hadn't been the only question answered.

How to be chill like Koumyou? Maybe?

"...Can't say I recommend following any teachings you glean off of me. I'm really not suited to that kind of responsibility."

[blue_ice]

"How to stop feeling like...this," Kaiba groans. It's hard to put in words...or perhaps putting it in words is admitting more weakness. "Like everything's out of control and it's driving me up the wall."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ah," The priest sits up a little further still, and lifts his arms out of the water to drape along the side of the pool his back's against.

"Before, I would have called that simple. Muichi Motsu," and Koumyou pronounces the words very slowly and deliberately, so that the train can't just try to run off with some butchered version of it. They're important. Holy, even.

"But now, I'm not sure how good that advice even is, anymore. It destroyed the soul of a former pupil of mine, and I myself couldn't even stick to it in the end."

[blue_ice]

"Hold onto nothing..."

Kaiba is familiar with the term. He's just not good at practicing it at all.

"It really is much harder to follow than it seems. I used to believe I was...but I'd only refused positive attachment. Big difference."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Yes," Koumyou sank back down into the water again, arms slipping back under the surface.

Maybe the hot water made it slightly easier to drop his bullshit, or maybe it was the exhaustion... or maybe he was just in a mood, today. Maybe Kaiba's willingness, however hesitant, to admit his 'weakness' had granted him access to something rare and real from the priest. Could have been all of it in combination.

"I was very good at 'hold nothing', watching everyone I cared about die, one by one. Every friend, every classmate, even those who became Sanzo priests with me. Hold nothing, accept the inherent impermanence of attachment, and just be a passive observer. Death was inevitable, so it couldn't be worth clinging to."

Tenkai's death in Goudai's arms, one bloodsoaked hand reaching toward the sky -- toward Koumyou. Goudai's death in a shower of blood, at the hands of the man Koumyou had then taught for a year in the ways of a Sanzo. That dark-haired youth who he had refused to kill by request, the night before.

The rest of the squad trying to become Sanzo priests, long before that. Eight names, eight faces, eight deaths.

"Or rather, I thought I was very good at 'hold nothing'. Told my students to live by it, even my own son. But when death came for my son, I couldn't stand and watch. I couldn't let go."

Not with Kouryuu, now Genjo Sanzo.

"So I died in his place."

All through this, his expression hadn't changed from its usual quiet serenity, like they were discussing the temperature of the pool.

"...You see, I really can't be an example, after all."

[blue_ice]

Kaiba listens without judgment...it's surprising, to hear the priest on a different level. It seemed that bathing really did bridge the gap between people...a fact he'd file away for later.

But he can certainly understand the bond of family being stronger than any other, able to tear at even the strongest resistance. As he often does when thinking about a certain someone, his hand reaches up to touch a point on the center of his chest, where a certain locket usually hangs.

"Maybe it's just...an aspect of the human condition. I've raised my brother since our parents died, and I never could've resisted loving him."

Or missing him. That still hurts.

"...but I'm sorry. It must've been incredibly painful."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou didn't seem upset by it, but it would probably take a lot more than a discussion on 'hold nothing' to crack that serene mask of his. Pool of hot water or not.

"Well, then you know 'hold nothing' ultimately doesn't work."

If Seto already had someone in mind who would be impossible to let go of, then he knew that.

For his part, Koumyou had never shied away from loving his adoptive kid. His version of 'hold nothing' didn't forbid attachment to the living, more to the need to keep them alive. To fight the tide of the inevitable. But he hadn't been able to watch his young boy become yet another vacant-eyed corpse, another tragedy heaped atop tragedy.

So, 'hold nothing' was ultimately incorrect.

As for pain, Koumyou shrugged a shoulder again.

"Life is suffering."

Blasé, perhaps, but there it was. Straight from the Buddhist high priest's mouth!

[blue_ice]

"A burden we bear...yet the ever-tilting balance of joy and suffering sustains us."

Where did that come from? Maybe...hm. Old literature he'd studied as a child. A new way of life, or at least it could be.

"I've found more joy...of course pain follows. But maybe the more important thing is to not give up, even though it's futile..."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"There you go," Koumyou said agreeably, sinking down until the water touched his chin again, "Sounds like you've stumbled into a game-plan, after all."

[blue_ice]

And Kaiba found himself relaxing too, despite himself. Maybe the priest was decent company after all.

"Or we can just let it float away for a few more minutes..."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Sh, don't tell anyone.

"That sounds like a plan I can get behind."