As quickly as the irritation had come to Koumyou, Genjo's response actually... banishes it. Like a wave drowning a fire. No talk of trying to counter the spell he'd watched kill a Sanzo before, for example. No macho posturing about being able to change the outcome of the actual encounter.

No, the young man's hindsight has taken a far more practical, and sensible path.

Just don't do what is expected. Of course. Foolish old man.

"I raised you to be far more sensible than I," Koumyou admits gently. "I'm glad."

He'd leave it at that, but the cave doesn't mysteriously vanish from around them, and so Koumyou sighs. "...When I saw you and the bear, I should have grabbed you. We could have left. We could have gone overseas, like he was always trying to get me to do with him. We could have gone anywhere, done anything, other than what I did instead which was... nothing."

Fucking nothing, except hope Tenkai had been wrong, or that it was somehow a different encounter with a bear. An idiot in denial.

"It didn't even occur to me," he admits. "Until literally just now. For all the rebelliousness I was known for growing up, I still conformed to the system I was raised in, I still moved on the tracks laid before me. A foolish old man, to the last."

Staying in the temple system, the only system he'd ever known, and not even noticing the opened cage door. Gaining rank had only really gilded the cage, it hadn't taught him he could leave it. He hadn't considered distant branches, open skies.

The tracks had gone in one direction, with only two outcomes. Die, or watch Kouryuu die. To simply leave the tracks altogether? Even with all the thinking he's done on that night, the idea's just never registered to him at all, even in hindsight.

"I really am sorry, Kouryuu. I wasn't raised to think freely, and I don't think I ever really learned."