middleofsomewhere | Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

"I don't want any more of a peanut gallery than the one I'm already stuck with, thanks," It was a genuine sentiment on Genjo's part. Genjo's expression seemed to drop with tired aggravation as his mind flashed with images of all the idiots he was already traveling alongside, sighing as he finally reached into his sweatshirt pocket to pull out a carton of cigarettes.

If they were going to be stuck in here talking about things for a while, he may as well make himself comfortable and have a smoke. After all, Koumyou did affirm that they probably weren't going to suffocate. That was more than enough green light in his eyes.

"Besides. Just like the kumari, you do not need to worry about my path," With that, Genjo popped the cigarette in his mouth before lifting his gaze. His eyes alight with an ice-cold seriousness. "I will not die any time soon, no matter how badly anyone tries."

"That's good," Koumyou agrees easily enough, "but you won't stop me from fussing, you know that. I'm your papa, I'm allowed!"

It's unavoidable, Genjo.

"And for that matter, Tenkai's sister is basically your auntie."

That had managed to get to one of the most emotionally dead-pan stares Genjo Sanzo had probably ever given in his entire life. Perhaps only second to the time Goku recommended that they try bicycling to India after they thought they lost Jeep.

".........What?"

Who the hell is Tenkai? Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?

Edited 2022-06-26 06:26 (UTC)

"Tenkai Sanzo, the protector of the Maten before me, and who I believe intended for it to go to you."

You know, that night. With the bear.

Koumyou mentally slips past that thought, still not sure how much Genjo had seen of his memories related to that night. Had he seen Koumyou's thoughts? How deeply?

-- Wait. Right. So that's why the name had felt so familiar. He had never directly heard of the person before but-- That memory.

The images of Koumyous experiences only flashed through his thoughts once more, sending a cold chill down his back, enough to get his body to tense. A small youkai with a round face. Besides the more youkai traits, he looked almost identical to--

"So you're saying the kumari was related to a previous Sanzo Priest?" Right. He did remember her mentioning something along those lines when Sahrak first introduced them. But that Sanzo was a friend of his masters?

"There is no way I'm calling her my aunt."

Rude old child-lady.

"Oh, no?" Koumyou chuckles, "Just imagine how baffled everyone would be. Other than Sai, of course. He knows how close the last of us were."

"How close the last of you were..." The statement came off more as a curiosity. A sentence that he felt needed to be further elaborated. Should he bring it up? The strangely surreal memory he had just experienced? Part of him was worried about mentioning it to his master, even though he was sure the other Sanzo Monk already had a fair idea of what had just happened. His shoulders slumped as he averted his gaze while thinking of the best way to broach the topic. "... Tenkai also had prophetic visions, right? Just like his sister."

"Yes," Koumyou confirms with a sigh, "that's how he knew who you would be. That you would have the Maten."

Tenkai had never said shit about the Seiten, but that didn't mean anything. Even though it's here with Koumyou now, the older priest has to die for real someday. Then it will become Genjo's, as well as the choice to guard two sutras or to pass one along to another.

"He couldn't get anything but a confused jumble of light and darkness from me for the longest time. A kaleidoscope. Normally, anyone he touched, he saw their future as clear as day."

Koumyou gazes over at his son quietly, then reaches into a sleeve for a cigarette, too.

"I suspect you were the light he saw. You must have been, there wasn't much other light to be had in that life."

He lights up in his usual way, a fingertip, a burst of chi. Takes a drag, holds it in, lets it out again.

"Plenty of darkness. I suppose the cave won't let us out until we discuss what we actually saw, hm? I already knew you had companions in your time, but I'm still glad for it. And glad to have seen them, now. Friends who are too stubborn to die are all too rare."

A light, huh?

"Stubborn idiots, the lot of them," It was a simple answer but summed up how Genjo had felt about the ragtag team he somehow traveled alongside. 'The Great Sanzo-Party,' a holy monk of the highest position followed by three loyal yet ferocious youkai who leave a pile of bodies wherever they go. "They ended up with me because of circumstance. Although I suppose they're useful enough to keep around."

He only shot them a few times so far. That has to account for something.

"I don't know if I could even express how happy and relieved I am that you have people," Koumyou tells his son quietly, and sure enough, his emotions reflect it. "The fact that you've made it. Not just survived, but made it."

Made friends, whatever he wants to call them. Koumyou's not particularly fooled.

His eyes are extra damp. Maybe Kouryuu can pretend it's just the smoke getting into them.

Edited 2022-06-30 09:05 (UTC)

Don't think he doesn't see that expression you're making, Koumyou!!!

Genjo doesn't know how to perceive it. Koumyou was expressing relief, to be sure. But were the tears necessary? Did anything Genjo say come off as so intimate and personal that it would require such a reaction????

His expression was most certainly a confused one. Eyebrows knitted and a frown sunken deep as his shoulders tensed up with conflicting worry and concern.

"I-It's not that big of a deal," Ah. The great and holy 31st of China, Toah Genjo Sanzo, just stuttered with his words. Now that was new. "Anybody with a valued name or position would have followers and guards to aid them on any large journey they take. That's only natural, isn't it?"

Koumyou swipes at his eyes with one edge of a sleeve, then clears his throat, banishing the swell of emotion. He hasn't had to compartmentalize so much in a while, on the train, but he's still an old hand at it.

"It's not always a given," he says once he's sure his tone will be normal. "Especially since most people even in the temples don't know how we defend the sutras. Like we just lecture would-be thieves and assassins and shake a finger at them."

That would be a good way to get dead, on their world. If someone tries to kill you, they'd better be prepared to die.

"And they're not just your followers or guards. You may as well be honest about that with me, I won't tell them if they show up."

"....," That managed to get a very pent up glare from Genjo. He rarely took his time to really acknowledge the relationship of those he traveled with. Or perhaps, he simply refused to? It was complicated and messy in a time in which messy could lead to death. He had so long sworn to himself to keep back any strong emotional attachment to any one thing.

Muichi Motsu.

Free of everything, bound by nothing.

That was what it had meant after all... Right?

But over the years that concept had gotten muddied and convoluted. Ever since he heard that voice.

He finally sighed out, lowering his head as he knew he could not keep such things from his master. Even if he didn't fully understand it himself either.

"They're leaches. Idiots who stubbornly refuse to leave," He had initially taken Goku along with him because Goku wouldn't be able to survive without his care. Hakkai-- well, he needed his car, also he was technically still responsible for making sure the guy didn't go batshit again. Gojyo... He just sort of came along with Hakkai. Genjo still had no idea why that idiot kept hanging around. "But they're useful. And I would most likely be dead now if they hadn't followed me along until this point."

See! He can say nice things about them!

Koumyou smiles in exactly the patient way he always did when teaching little Kouryuu something.

"Friiiiieeeends," he draws the word out helpfully.

His eyebrow twitched slightly with that. His arms crossed as his fingers dug into the sleeves of his sweater.

"Absolute bumbling parasites!" As if saying that countered Koumyou's response in some way. "Idiots, assholes, and outright menaces that don't know how to leave things alone. I will gladly drop them in a heartbeat if they let me."

But they're stubborn and persistent for some reason; Genjo Sanzo really couldn't understand.

Friendship?

Nah, they had to be getting something out of it.

Edited (Just fixing the autocorrect typo) 2022-08-04 23:12 (UTC)

"I know admitting attachment spells certain doom where we're from," Koumyou tells him with a slight huff, but even as he talks, the cheerful teasing nature of it slides away like melting snow. "But we're not there, are we?"

No. They weren't in Shangri-La any longer. That was true.

But even still Genjo Sanzo feared getting too attached. Loss had been something that had been pretty much ingrained into him at this point. And long ago he had sworn off any attachment that may hinder him on his goals. After all, such things almost always resulted in pain regardless, so what was the point of holding onto such bonds?

Meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. Meet your father, kill your father.

Freeing onesself of one's earthly ties, wasn't that the fundamental premise of Buddhism? Was it not one of the few things Koumyou had managed to instill into him as a child?

He didn't want to feel that sensation of getting close only to lose again.

But all he could give was a moment of silence before he looked up at Koumyou with tired resignation. He didn't want to argue it. He knew putting up arguments with his master, the one priest who was just as stubborn as he was, was absolutely fruitless.

"Yeah. Sure. If you say so. Guess we're not there."

And in that way hadn't he already lost them as well?

That kind of resignation in Kouryuu is... disheartening, really. Koumyou huffs out a much quieter little sigh, but this one isn't nearly so lively as the last. If his cheerful teasing had already slid away like melting snow, all it's left now is the muck beneath it.

He's still so very bad at all of this.

Not that his face shows anything but his usual serenity, of course. Just a silent little stab of depression, and some of his own resignation.

"And we're still here," Koumyou notes, glancing around them, "without an exit. It would be nice if these sorts of places would at least leave written instructions, you know?"

"You sound surprisingly bothered by that," Genjo states plainly, finally taking a moment to stand and look around the dark confines of their imprisoned chamber.

It wasn't that Genjo wasn't also worried about the situation. But it was also far from the first time he found himself trapped in an initially frustrating and inescapable situation. Reaching out to place the flat of his palm against the cool stone wall, he contemplated what was happening around them.

Right. The initial shock of the things Genjo saw in his dreams were starting to subside. And as disheartening as they had felt, he knew there had to be a reason behind receiving them.

After all, they had come to this world with a mission.

"This is a part of the memory cave system that we were briefed on, correct? If that's the case, perhaps there's more than simply those memories that need to be shuffled through."

"I prefer knowing the rules when I play games," Koumyou says simply, as though that's his real problem with the situation and not that he has a sinking feeling he does know the rules. Or at least some of them.

Like how they've only really discussed his own dream that had thrust him into Genjo's point of view on a past memory, while both carefully side-stepping around what Genjo himself had surely seen in turn. They've even ventured off into side topics, like about Sai Tai Sai's history of stalking Sanzos, and Tenkai's grumpy sister practically being Genjo's auntie, and how relieved Koumyou is that his son has friends back on their world. Although he knows exactly how terrifying that can be, having watched all of his own die horribly.

He smokes in silence for a few moments, dread gnawing sharply in his gut and worming its way up his throat like bile.

"...So," he asks with a sigh, sounding distant to his own ears. "I saw you meet Sai Tai Sai. What did you see?"

He can guess, of course, with how fucked up Kouryuu had been upon first waking. But he could be wrong. Maybe his dear son saw some other horror in Koumyou's sordid past, and not one in which he himself had been present?

Doubtful, but let him hope for another half a second, here.

The reaction Genjo had given in response was almost laughably predictable. His body seemed to tense, his eyes widening only slightly as the memories that were so familiar and yet so different flashed through his thoughts once more. His frown sank as he did his best to shrug his shoulders as nonchalantly as possible.

"Dunno," At least he was surprisingly good at keeping his tone neutral despite it all. "Some bullshit about an idiot getting himself killed off in a ridiculously avoidable and self-sacrificial way, I guess."

Hey, he at least has a right to be snarky about it, no?

That doesn't narrow it down as much as Genjo probably thinks, does it.

"Too bad you can't control the idiot in those visions, then," Koumyou remarks lightly, from behind the hand minding his cigarette at his lips, "being as your hindsight seems to have ridiculously easy solutions to present."

Koumyou's never had the 'demonic', almost lambent quality of stare that Genjo does, but the look from his open brown eyes is no less intense in this moment through the smoke. He's genuinely curious, if also secretly hurt; a knife's twist in a wound that will never heal.

"So, what would you have done, then?" he asks, "What would you do, if that boy of yours was in the place of young Kouryuu, and you were in the place of Koumyou Sanzo, in that moment? If you had raised him from an infant, promised to keep him safe when you sang him to sleep at night?"

Edited 2022-11-27 06:05 (UTC)

"I would have never even been in such a position to begin with," Genjo was quick to respond, almost bitingly. His expression was no less stern and fierce than it had been a second ago. He seemed almost like a carved stone with how controlled his emotions were as he spoke. His eyes met the serene and bitter brown gaze of his master with piercing violet. "When told of my forthcoming end, I would instead take that path into my own hands and defy what is expected of me. Not walk right into it with bitter compliance."

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."

Genjo honestly did not expect that sort of response from his master. He had expected another argument, more resistance, just like the last time the subject had come up. He hadn't expected Koumyou to be so floored by such a simple concept.

"I see," Genjos shoulders dropped, and his head lowered, slowly folding his hands into his pockets as he tried his best to consider what he should say. "I suppose in the end; you always were fairly dense regarding what was in front of you."

If he couldn't find an argument against his master, he could at least rib him over it.

"The path you chose to follow is your own. The decisions you make are yours. And that goes very much the same with every person that is around you. I can't control the choices you decide to make on your own. But I can at least help guide you to look at things with a different perspective and learn to move forward from there," With that, he walked closer to Koumyou. The scripture around his shoulders radiates a soft violet light. "But you also can't control the fate and decisions others make either. You chose to put the most sacred thing you have on the line for me. And I have the right to resent how casually you were willing to toss something so precious away."

He looked up, his eyes once more meeting Koumyous, his expression, for the first time, far softer than he usually carried it.

"You wished to know what I would have done if the one I found ended up in a similar situation?"

Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

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