Counterparts Part III

Chapter 10





“Kenren, do you hear me?” Kanzeon lifted the heavy eyelid and got no response.



“KENREN! DO you HEAR me!” she tried again, in his ear this time.



Gojyo felt a warm breath stirring his ear. His first thought was a happy one.



“Hot damn, Sanzo must be feeling frisky! This oughta be good!” It was always more interesting on the rare occasions when Sanzo initiated their lovemaking sessions.



“KENREN, I want you to wake up right NOW!” Louder this time.



“Wait a minute….”



Gojyo’s mind was hazy and he tried to get his bearings. He felt like he was swimming up from deep underwater.



“Wait… that voice – it didn’t sound like Sanzo. And whoever it was sure didn’t smell like Sanzo either… “



He started to feel more oriented in his body, and decided he could safely open one eye. A large violet one the color of Sanzo’s stared back at him, but this one wasn’t surrounded by long blonde lashes like Sanzo’s. This eye had thick, dark lashes.



“Hold it, was Sanzo wearing mascara now?… What kind of kink did the monk have in mind tonight?”



Emboldened now to open both eyes, Gojyo realized immediately the person barking orders at him wasn’t Sanzo, unless Sanzo had gone through some very serious changes.



“Wait a minute… I’ve had seen this broad before somewhere…”



He realized he was laying stretched out on some kind of cold surface, and he sat up on his elbows and looked around. The woman stood up and looked down on him, shaking her head ruefully.



“It’s about damn time you woke up. Jiroushin, get him up off of the floor, for goddsake.”



She crooked her finger and some strangely-dressed guy came and helped him up and walked him to a nice comfortable chair. He was surprised at how wobbly his legs felt for the first step or two but he shook it off fast, and by the time he was seated he physically felt pretty good. Now if he could only figure out where the hell he was…



The woman seated herself in some sort of large elaborate chair, and the man sat in a lesser chair next to her.



She looked at Gojyo with one eyebrow raised and a bored look (where had he seen that expression before?) and said, as if talking to an idiot child, “You’re in Tenkai, fool.”



“Tenkai, ok that’s cool, don’t think I’ve ever been here before. How did I get here and where are the others?”



“Where is the rest of my party?” he asked the woman, his first words coming out croaky and funny-sounding.



“This is one trip you have to make alone,” she said, “at least for a while.”



He looked at his surroundings and was overwhelmed by the splendor of it. The colors were brighter than any he had ever seen before, and there were varieties of plants, and birds, and flowers in abundance everywhere that were incomparably beautiful. He seemed to be on some kind of a marble balcony, and he could see a lotus pond through the balusters. The pond was stocked with the most remarkable assortment of multicolor koi he had ever seen, and the lotuses blooming in it were breathtaking in their beauty. Huge willow and cherry blossom trees framed the pond, and he realized as he looked at them that their size would dwarf any trees of that variety he had ever seen before.



“What the fuck is this place?”



“Like I said,”she sounded mildly annoyed now, “you’re in Tenkai- that’s heaven, fool. And you’re dead.”



The word “dead” put a cold shower on Gojyo’s rhapsodizing to himself about the beauty of this new place, and his head whipped back around to the woman.



“Excuse me?!” he demanded, understandably agitated, not to mention a bit disturbed that the woman had apparently somehow heard what he was thinking.



“Look, Kenren…”she sighed.



“And WHY do you keep calling me that!? The name’s Gojyo.. Sha Gojyo!”



“Don’t you remember anything?” she asked him, finally starting to take pity on the poor mortal. He truly was ignorant. Cute, but ignorant. Just like Kenren had been.



Gojyo thought and thought, searching his mind for what seemed to be his most recent memories. He remembered the date night with Sanzo, which made him smile, and a particularly nasty spate of demons one time after that. He remembered walking up a mountain path and knuckling Goku in the head for stealing his piece of salmon jerky. Then things got a bit blurry… he remembered seeing the shikagami, ugly fucking beast, and thinking it was making a beeline for Sanzo. He had a one-track mind on stopping it as he pulled out the shakujou. He only got to it after the thing had already knocked Sanzo down….



“Sanzo!!”



“Sanzo! Is he dead, too? Where is he? Did that thing kill him?”



“No, Gojyo, you saved him. You’re a hero.”



He brightened at that prospect, picturing parades and picture-taking sessions with pretty girls.



“Really, a hero, me? Well, now, that’s not so bad…”



“But you paid for it with your life.”



“But I remember fighting the damn thing…”



“Yes, and it took you over the cliff with it. And you have been lying in a room in a hotel ever since, half-dead and half-alive. Apparently you decided you would rather be here.”



Gojyo closed his eyes and thought as deeply as he could. Bits and pieces of things were coming back to him. He did remember falling, and things going into slow motion as he fell. It seemed like when he was falling he had plenty of time to think about how it wasn’t fair, and how he had too many things he still wanted to do, most of them involving Sanzo.



After the fall, things got very hazy. He remembered Hakkai’s hands, and heat coming from them through terrible pain. Also having the worst headache he had ever had – like the hangover from hell, times a thousand. He recalled bits and pieces of hearing people talking about him, around him, to him, and remembered thinking over and over “I’m still here… I can hear you… I still love you all… It’s so lonely in here… It hurts so much…”



Through it all there was always pain…pain in his body that wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave him alone. Pain that was hectoring him constantly, and weakening him more and more the longer it went on. But then there was also one other constant… one other presence always there… always pulling at him…always worrying him…it was pain too but it was different somehow… what was it?… oh, gods, it was… Sanzo…



He looked up at the woman. “Now I remember…I just couldn’t take it anymore. It’s coming back to me now. I was so tired, just so tired of the pain. Not just my pain, but his pain. I could tell it was killing him too. And I didn’t want that to happen. I couldn’t stand being responsible for his pain. So I knew it was time to go. I tried to go one time when he wasn’t in the room – it was so hard, he was always there. But my friend – he’s a healer – he brought me back.”



“Yes, Kenren, I know,” she said gently. She touched his shoulder softly and sat beside him on the edge of the balcony.



“Besides,” he continued in a quiet voice, “he’s never really been in love with me – he just feels responsible for my being hurt, that’s all. He feels guilty, like it’s his fault. He won’t miss me - he’s always saying how he doesn’t need anybody… You should have seen what I had to go through to get him to care this much about me.”



“I did.”



“What?”



“Nothing, go on.”



“I’ve always had to chase him, to tease and trick him into being with me… I may have been able to get him to fuck me….oh! excuse me!



“Quite alright.”



“I may have been able to get him to ‘sleep with me’ on a semi-regular basis, and with him even that’s a big achievement, but I’d never be able to get him to love me. It’s just not in him. Why keep banging my head against the same brick wall?”



“What about your other friends?”



“Oh, they’ll be fine. Hakkai had it kind of rough there for a while after his old lady died, but he’s doing so much better now. I think his heart is finally starting to heal. There’s even this cute youkai chick I’ve been trying to get him to go after..” He smiled at the thought of his friend finally falling in love again with the beautiful youkai apothecary.



“Yaone.”



“Yeah…Hey, how did you know that? Anyway, she’s a doll, and she’s just like Hakkai but with big pretty tits! Maybe if he wasn’t hanging around with me all the time he’d be more likely to go after her.”



“You think so?”



“Aw, sure. And the monkey – that’s what I call this kid, Goku – he’s doing great. The boy is really growing up. I think this trip has been good for him. Oh – uhm, we four have kind of been on this trip- it’s a long story.”



“Yes, I heard.”



“Huh? Oh, well , anyway, the saru is gonna grow up just fine. Sanzo was going a little rough on him there for a while, and we had kind of a set-to about that. I explained to him that he didn’t always have to be so hard on the kid, and I think he understands. We have talked about it some since, and he’s trying to do better by the kid. It’s not easy for him, but he’s trying. They’ll get along fine.”



“I see.”



”And between you and me,” he leaned towards Kanzeon as if sharing a secret, “there’s a young youkai chick lives in the same place as the one I’m trying to get ‘Kai matched up with? She’s cute as can be, and she’d be just perfect for Goku after about another year or so when they both grow up a little more, and start getting interested in something other than food and fighting. Rich girl, too.”



“Really?”



”Yup. Her daddy owned a castle, big brother still lives there with the wicked stepmother. Flying dragons and the whole bit. Best part about her and Goku getting together is it would make Sanzo absolutely nuts.” He chuckled at the thought of Sanzo having Lirin as a daughter-in-law of sorts some day.



“And why is that?”



“Because the little princess drives him batty, just nucking futs- oh, ‘scuse me again. It would serve Sanzo right for all the times he’s whacked the saru over the head with that fan over the years. Paybacks are hell- ah – heck.”



“You don’t have to be so careful with your language, Kenren. You’ll find things are fairly tolerant up here.”



“Really?” He looked around. “Sure is a pretty place. I could get used to the atmosphere.”



“Does any of it seem familiar?”



“Huh?”



“Do any of these surroundings feel familiar to you? – look around.”



Gojyo got up and wandered around the full perimeter of Kanzeon’s balcony. He took in the vast array of colorful flora, the peacocks wandering on the distant lawn, the scent of the jasmine blooming, the creamy lotus blossoms floating in the azure pool below the balcony, and the rich decorations on the balcony itself. Aware of Jiroushin scowling at him while he did it, he peeked in the doorway to the palace and peered down the marble hallway. The opulence he saw there bordered on sheer decadence, far beyond anything he had ever seen in his lifetime, and in his day he had been in some of the pricier seraglios where the décor was incredibly lush.



“You know I do kind of have this strange feeling that I’ve maybe been here before…”



“Déjà vu.”



“Deja who?”



“Déjà vu – it means having the feeling that you have seen or done something before.”



“Yeah, well, I do kind of have that here, but I wouldn’t say that I actually recognize anything, other than you and him,” he said pointing to Jiroushin, who rolled his eyes.



“Well, yes, we did actually meet down there one time before – after Sanzo was injured by Rikudo, remember?”



“Oh, riiiiiight… that mad monk… and the monkey lost his limiter and bit the crap out of my arm before you came and gave him a new one… I do remember that.”



“Yes.”



“We took Sanzo back to the inn and he was really bad off and you and he showed up, and you….” He smiled as he remembered Kanzeon’s deep-kissing method of getting blood from him for a transfusion for Sanzo.



“Yes…”



“I remember,” Gojyo said, grinning, “I definitely remember you now.”



“Ah, I thought you might,” she said. Jiroushin cleared his throat loudly.



“So I was here before, huh?”



“Do you really want to know?



“Sure, why the hell not? Seems I have nothing but time now.”



He sat down again next to Kanzeon on the balustrade.



“True enough,” she agreed, thinking “he catches on fast, this one.”



“You, and all the rest of your little band of travelers were all here together in Tenkai many, many years before you were ever born into your current lives on the underworld.”



“Really?” She really had Gojyo’s full attention now. “Was I a god?”



“He cut right to the point, didn’t he?”she thought. “Well, basically… you all would have lived here… indefinitely… if things hadn’t gotten a little out of hand.”



“Excuse me?”



So Kanzeon had Jiroushin bring them all some tall drinks and proceeded to tell Gojyo the story of Kenren, Konzen, Tenpou, and the Seiten Taisei. He was pleased to hear that he had been a general, and not at all surprised to hear that he had been a rather non-conformist one.



When he pressed her to know if he and Sanzo had been involved in their previous lifetime she was rather mysterious, saying that she had not been privy to the goings-on in the general and Konzen’s bedrooms, as much as she might have liked to be. She did tell him that the Genjyo Sanzo he knew was a much more adventurous and rugged soul than the prissy paper-pushing bureaucrat that Konzen had been, as much as she had loved her nephew.



Kanzeon finished her story as the sun waned and the stars began to fill the sky. She asked Jiroushin to have their dinner served al fresco, and within minutes several underlings appeared with a magnificent meal, elegant and sublime beyond Gojyo’s best dining experiences in his earthbound life. He couldn’t help but notice that the servants – and everyone that he had seen since he had gotten there – were magnificent physical specimens, the women statuesque and shapely, the men handsome and refined.



Kanzeon waited until they had finished her meals and were enjoying their after-dinner coffee to steer her guest back to the more difficult subject at hand. Gojyo had been offered and had taken an après-meal cigar and was enjoying it immensely, blowing smoke rings, and terribly pleased with himself to find that it worked every time he tried.



“So… we need a decision now. Kenren, or Sha Gojyo, which is it to be?”



He looked over at her, startled at her serious tone. “What do you mean?”



“Well, you essentially have to make a decision, Kenren. You can stay here in Tenkai, and have a life here. It is not as exciting as your life down there has been, and your old friends won’t be here with you for a while. You will find time is quite different up here. It may be another sixty years before any of your friends arrive here. It may seem like a long time to you or it may go by very quickly – much depends on what you do with your time here. The Kenren I knew found it very dull here, and constantly chafed against the bureaucracy and hypocrisy. I have missed that about you, my friend.”



“But if I go back? It was so bad….”



“There is the conundrum, Kenren. If you go back, you will have to fight. You will have to fight harder than you have ever fought against any demon or any evil foe. You will have to fight the physical pain in your body, and the discouragement you will feel in your soul when you find your body is not what it once was.”



“But why should I go back… they’re just as well off without me. Better off, if I’m going to be all messed up. They’ll miss me for a while, but they’ll get over it.”



He looked down at his feet and hoped she couldn’t see the sadness he knew he couldn’t keep from showing in his eyes at that thought.



“Are you so sure of that?” She looked at the puzzled mortal, and decided to give him some additional insight to help him with his dilemma.



“Come with me.” She led Gojyo to the far edge of her balcony and pointed to the underworld below.



“Yes, I see… very pretty. So?”



“No,” she said, “look a little more closely. There is something going on in a room over there,” she indicated, showing Gojyo exactly where to look.



“As much as I enjoy your company, Kenren, I think you might want to see this before you make your decision…”