thenearshore | 008

. . . Hmm. I wonder.

[ Sorry, Hakkai. That might not have been an actual question, but it's still worth answering... Your take on what to do to protect people is much more responsible and careful than his, after all.

He takes one last look at the cherry trees before deciding to ignore them altogether and follow Hakkai outside their area of influence. Time to see if they really were the cause of this or not. ]

Did you get to choose your new god? Or did their hospitality include that as well?

[ Or maybe he doesn't have one... But that's unlikely. Shinki seem to be scarce. ]

Edited 2016-09-24 07:27 (UTC)

[If it was the cherry trees, then their influence is annoyingly slow to fade, Hakkai concludes, coming to a stop several paces away. The air is clearer here, and the scent much less powerful, but he still feels fuzzy-headed and unsteady. He'll wait and see. A few more minutes, at least.]

Ah, my new god...? It's Gojyo. Strangely, they did let me choose.

[Which also, in retrospect, makes him nervous. Some shinki find themselves automatically reassigned, some don't. Were they watching him to see if he'd pick out Elsa's allies?

Well, he's not asking for a transfer. It's easier to protect someone when he's close to them, and he doesn't want to adjust to another god. And, besides...

... There's something deeply uncomfortable in talking to Tenpou about Gojyo, he thinks, considering how he and Kenren are. Even if it's easier and easier to think of their former incarnations as not the same, still. He glances away, clearing his throat again as though it's the cigarette smoke he's objecting to.]

[ Tenpou nods, stopping a couple of steps away from where Hakkai is, but doesn't bother with it any more than that. Maybe youkai senses are more inconvenient than he thought. Well, that's not his problem, Hakkai should be used to second-hand cigarette smoke at this point, especially after what he just said. ]

I see. [ He doesn't have enough clarity to draw conclusions from this right now other than the obvious, so he files this information away for later inspection. ]

Are you planning to stay in your youkai form from now on?

That's a good question!

[The few steps away is rather unexpectedly polite of him; since it wasn't actually the cigarette smoke that was the problem, Hakkai leaves it at that, only offering him a tiny thank-you nod in acknowledgment.

It is a good question. He's stubborn enough to want to, and to think that the other shinki and gods here can just get used to seeing him as he really is. And, besides... Elsa had liked it. So does Gojyo.]

I think so. Well, maybe not if I have to go to the human world.

[Unlike the gods and their shinki, they can't really be expected to respond well to a youkai. And it makes shopping very annoying, even if they don't remember their confusion or fear.]

Haha. Yes, they wouldn't take it too naturally over there, unless people assumed you were doing cosplay...

[ But somehow, the thought of Hakkai doing cosplay seems awkward even to think about. ]

I hope you can find your limiters. How did you lose them?

[ After all, limiters aren't the kind of thing you can just lose. But maybe Hakkai doesn't know that. ]

I did find them. It took a few days, but they were scattered on the floor of the Great Hall. Luckily, they weren't swept up with the cleaning.

[Ha ha. That light little chuckle doesn't even really try to sound amused, considering what the "cleaning" had been clearing up: body parts and blood spatter, mostly. Hakkai's limiters had been wedged into a crack in the floor.

As for how he lost them, though, that's a much better question.]

... Someone must have taken them off my ear. I didn't see who, but I was watching Goku.

[And taking his eyes off Goku in that mode would have been swiftly fatal. He'd very much like to know who was responsible for the limiters. Who could have known about them? Only Gojyo, and he'd had Gojyo in sight the whole time.]

. . . Of course. Well, at least you were able to find them.

[ Which is suspicious in itself. How could they have not been thrown away or picked up by someone else after all of that? How convenient is that... Well, there may be no answers for this, but at least he can tell he's starting to be able to think more clearly, little by little. ]

Who else was there with you?

[It is suspicious. The whole thing is suspicious. Hakkai can only assume they were planted for him to find later, somehow; he's glad to have them should they be necessary, but.

He lifts a hand to count off the others.]

Gojyo, Elsa, and Sanzo. Goku, of course. You and your friends arrived shortly afterwards.

But I'm sure it wasn't any of them. Someone else, perhaps. My guess would be a god.

[First: because they would have to teleport in and out fast enough for Hakkai not to see them there, besides being fast enough to snatch off three earrings before he saw them that close. Second, because for someone to know what Hakkai's limiters were, they'd have to be a god; and a god from their world at that. No one else seems to recognize youkai.]

Ah, Gojyo and Elsa weren't there when we got there, but there was someone else... I think she's the one who got us back to my temple. I didn't catch her name.

. . . So. A god who comes from our world. [ Or someone working with, or for them. Or maybe Amaterasu's people, if they have information on their world. ] Do you know of any others, besides Gojyo and the three of us?

With the long sleeves? Her name is Genjo Sanzo, too.

[It's sometimes nice to see Tenpou's mind working along exactly the same lines as his own, and sometimes a little unsettling. This time, it's nice, though, Hakkai has to admit.]

I don't. That would be a better question for Gojyo, though. [He glances at Tenpou, dry amusement flashing briefly over his face.] After all, I wouldn't recognize anyone even if they were from our world.

[There's no guarantee that it would be someone that Gojyo recognizes, but it seems more likely that it's someone who knows Hakkai's fighting abilities well. And if that's the case, Gojyo should recognize them.]

[ He's treating both Sanzos as the same person?

He'd ask more about this female Genjo Sanzo (who didn't remind him of Konzen at all), but this doesn't seem like the right time. If she was present all along, she couldn't have been the one to take off Hakkai's limiters anyway. ]

Of course. [ If Hakkai hasn't heard anything about this, maybe Gojyo himself doesn't know of any other gods from their world who might be here. Or maybe he does, and he doesn't consider them a threat-- he could just be trying to protect Hakkai the shinki by not telling him about them. ]

Before you lost them, were you aware that wore limiters?

[~~The player misremembered which point in the thread Sanzang showed up.~~

Hakkai sighs, looking up. It's a nice day; the shadows are growing long, but the sky is still blue.]

Ah... well. No, in fact. I had a feeling....

[He trails off and glances back at Tenpou. It's a little embarrassing talking about the subconscious hints and guesses he has about his own identity. In this case -- well.]

I felt like I didn't want to take them off, but I didn't know why. I hadn't gotten around to experimenting.

[ ~~Ohh, ok! Tenpou's still going to wonder about Sanzang's connection with the ikkou, but not about the Sanzoception o/.~~

He nods, but he looks thoughtful. ]

. . . Well, at least losing them was helpful in this case.

[ He's not even trying to pretend that he's not keeping things to himself. Ask if you want, Hakkai, but you know the risks. ]

Surprisingly so, yes.

[He shifts, clasping his hands together on his knee. His thoughts are still annoyingly clouded and muzzy. Perhaps a little less... he doesn't want to take any risks without thinking them through, but, on the other hand, he's starting to get frustrated with dancing around any possible hints. It can't possibly be riskier than what Gojyo had said to him, anyway.]

You're thinking of something?

[ He looks at him, silent for a couple of seconds before speaking. ]

...Have you heard of something called the 'minus wave'?

Only heard of. I'm afraid I don't remember anything about it.

[Although the knowledge had seemed oddly instictive: like "youkai need limiters," or "Sanzo's robes are a high priest's," something that fits right in with the odd handful of facts he knows about the world. Like math and literature. Personally, of course, it was uninformative.

What's surprising is that Tenpou knows about it. Gojyo'd spoken of it as though it were recent.]

008 | OVERFLOW

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