-----
Sixth Beat
Day 12
By the show of the clock Kougaiji only slept for around three hours, before waking better-rested than he had not only in several weeks, but in most of his life.
The first thing Dokugakuji did was get him to eat. And then bathe, which Kougaiji was fine to do in company because Sanzo still seemed to be out of it.
Afterward, clothed and toweling off the prince's hair, Dokugakuji excused himself to run some errands. He kissed his cheek in apology, and offered that Kougaiji stick around for a while, if he wanted. Kougaiji said he would, but wanted to get out for a bit first. And then as Dokugakuji stood up to leave, tugged him back down by a sleeve and got the kiss he really wanted.
When he finally caved in and let his lover go on his way, anxiety crept up again. He didn't want to stay in this room another second if Dokugakuji wasn't in it too, the tousled bed and scent of their recent activities reawakening in him something very nearly an addiction, that would only get worse if he let it fester. So, ponytailing still-damp hair and pulling robes tighter around him for fear some of Dokugakuji's marks would show, he got out.
He almost collided with a young guard outside the war room. They exchanged glares until the boy wisely backed down and attempted to discreetly return to his cigarette break. Then a thought entered Kougaiji's head that wasn't his own, and he ordered the guard to hand over the pack.
Kougaiji found the way up to the roof of the castle fort walls, selected a corner beside a turret where guards seldom patrolled, and mentally greeted the just-stirring Genjo Sanzo.
He lit a cigarette, after a minor pause in which he realized he had no lighter and sufficed for a minor fire spell instead.
'Just like Gojyo,' huh?
Did I think that? Sanzo muttered guiltily.
Yes. Come to think of it, you never did mention much about your sex life.
Not exactly a soup question, is it? Hold on-- A pause as Kougaiji took the first long drag on the cigarette. --Ahhh. Gods, yes. Thank you.
You can really feel it?
I felt just about everything yesterday, you bastard.
It's not like it was particularly pleasant for me either. Having an audience for that isn't really my kind of thing.
The smoke tickled his throat something awful, far worse than the burning irritation in his lungs. Kougaiji lurched forward into ragged coughing.
Total lightweight, Sanzo said with disappointment.
A pair of passing guardsmen, who hadn't gotten the memo about patrol being just a suggestion, paused in their procession, watching until he sent a death glare their way and they got the idea to move along.
Last time I indulge you, Kougaiji thought miserably. He tried to compose himself, standing up straight and taking another puff, and only barely choked this time.
So, okay. Spill it.
About what?
Look, you've already learned pretty much every intimate detail about my sex life, it'd be nice to hear something in return.
I don't have one.
Kougaiji grinned, cigarette between his teeth. He leaned back.
You've got something. Otherwise that back there was one hell of a way to lose your virginity.
Don't you fucking dare get smug with me, Kougaiji.
Who's smug? I'm just curious.
Well, it's none of your goddamn business.
Kougaiji's expression soured, very close to reminding the priest that he didn't think listening in on sex was very much his business either, and he had no right putting up walls on him now, when his vision blacked out.
It was just for a second, less than, but it made him physically jump. This didn't tend to happen much, even if every other part of their brain's activities seemed to be linked now; the little bits of memory so strong that they took firm hold of thought and didn't let go.
Despite Sanzo's embarrassed death threats Kougaiji replayed the flashed image in his mind, until forced to give up on it. There was too little detail for him to sort through, and his conversation mate wasn't filling in the gaps. All he saw, or what could be seen, was dark night and close quarters and a sliver of moonlight outlining a serious face.
The accompanying sensation spoke far more eloquently, a frozen moment of feeling plucked out of time. A twist of heated, strained pleasure, flushed and embarrassed denial competing and losing against confused desire. And so strong Kougaiji almost lost his cigarette.
...Goddamn, Genjo.
Shut up, Sanzo shot back, trying to cringe away. And not doing too well.
Kougaiji didn't even feel the need to push the question of 'who' at him anymore. It was practically irrelevant. Whoever it was, he hoped they'd congratulated themselves on a job well done at some point.
Then, Sanzo said: So about your mother...
Which was an excellent way to douse any mood.
I think I have it figured out now.
What have you been doing, Kougaiji asked, drawing up strategies when my back's turned or something?
No, I do it when you're busy getting your ass pounded, Sanzo shot back, so abruptly vulgar that Kougaiji started to turn red. Moron. Tell me what else I'm supposed to do when you're asleep all the time.
What do you do, offload your fatigue on to me so you can stay awake longer? That'd explain why I've been tired so often...
No, you're tired so often because I've been having to borrow energy to do my work.
Gee, thanks for the advance warning.
There would've been an interesting conversation. 'Hey Kougaiji, can I suck out a bit of your life force for a moment? I promise I'll bring it right back.'
You'll tell me it's being put to good use.
Likely. I told you, I think I might just have found a way. Not just to help your mother, but everything. I know how to end it.
Kougaiji paused in the act of another drag at the dwindling cigarette.
You're making quite a big claim.
If we pull it off right, there's no way it can't work. I'm serious. I'd've told you this yesterday when I pieced it together, if you weren't on such an angstfest.
yesterday?Angstfest? Not to
be distracted by insults now, Kougaiji asked, How are you sure?
Because. It's so simple, we either do it right or we don't live long enough to figure out we did it wrong. All-or-nothing crapshoot. But set it up right and it'll be loaded dice.
Kougaiji said nothing, just chewed the filter of the cigarette between his lips and let the apprehension speak for him.
It's simple, Sanzo explained. We can assume that Gyumaoh is going to be increasing his influence on the aural plane the closer he comes to revival, as he wakes up. It's no good trying to work against that force; I don't have the power, neither do you, and combining strength doesn't help us. So what we do instead is try to divert that power to make it go where we want.
But?
But that means killing him.
For a moment, the world seemed to slow down.
...You can't kill him, Kougaiji said flatly. Look what it took just to seal him. It'd be suicide to try. Your employers didn't expect you to fight my father, they expected you to stop HER from waking him up in the first place.
I know that.
What makes you think you can do what a god and an army of heaven can't?
That's the part we have to play carefully. We have to turn him in on himself. The destruction will leave less fall-out for you, but...
What?
When you become king.
What do you...
"Kou?"
Kougaiji turned absently to the source of the voice. Dokugakuji stood stopped halfway up the stairwell, mouth dropped open in astonishment.
He was looking at the cigarette between Kougaiji's lips. Staring accusingly more like.
"Er--" Kougaiji stammered, quickly pulling the cigarette away and snuffing it out on the stone wall. "What's up?"
"Are you feeling much better?"
"Sure."
"Ah. Huh," Dokugakuji said awkwardly, breaking eye contact to look off to the side. He scratched an itch on the back of his head. "Well. Actually, Gyokumen's looking for you. She wants you at dinner tonight."
"Right."
"You're really okay with it? Don't go unless you're feeling all right."
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."
The warrior frowned, eyes drifting to the stubbed-out remains of a cigarette still lying on top of the stone. Quite the clear indication that he was going to worry as much as need be.
~*~
Almost as soon as Gyokumen Koushu had sent the frightened Dokugakuji on his way, Dr. Nii Jianyi was at her throne room door requesting an audience.
He had that guilty, put-upon look of a cat that knows its owner is going to find out about the missing canary very shortly, and wants to own up ahead of time to save the trouble. Normally she'd let him squirm in that for a few minutes, but there was quite a lot to do today and precious little time for games, so she ordered him to be quick about it.
The short of it was, the blackbox was malfunctioning.
Damnable curiosity got the better of her. She asked for the long version.
The long of it got a bit messy, he warned.
Gyokumen shrugged, indicating vaguely that the more easily upset servants should take their leave. Of course neither she nor the human scientist had much patience for propriety, but some conduct was only tolerable without a lot of shocked gasps. Which was usually what happened when Nii was allowed to speak at length.
He edged closer to her, thumbing through papers for a moment before stuffing these in a coat pocket and clearing his throat. "About the blackbox. Yesterday morning, our sensors started reporting unusual brainwave activity."
"Not related to the ghosts in the machine your people were screaming about earlier, I presume."
"We're... still investigating that," Nii admitted awkwardly. "We've found where most of the wall went, at least."
"Yes?"
"It repaired the south gate that was damaged in the recent raid."
"Very useful ghosts, then."
"Quite, your highness."
She waved a hand. "Continue?"
Nii's mouth twitched, as if vaguely hoping this could be put off. He smoothed it over by interesting himself in cleaning his glasses on his labcoat. "In basic terms, the blackbox began demonstrating heightened activity in sense receptors it should not have been receiving data for."
"Tamil, please. I don't have all day."
"Pain and pleasure it should not have been feeling," Nii explained. "Particularly to the errogenous zones even though physically it remained unaffected--"
"You're doing it again."
"Signals telling it it was aroused, even though it wasn't."
There was a slight pause in the room.
"So... What? Your little toy had a... what do you humans call it?"
"Wet dream?" he suggested. Somewhere in a corner, a maid whose powers of hearing had been underestimated squeaked. "No, not at all, your highness. Generally mental stimulation brings about a physical reaction. This didn't. Additionally, it was conscious at the time."
If Gyokumen was bothering to consider this information, she didn't make a very good show of it. "And this is your basis to presume a malfunction? It still sounds like the thing just got very excited."
"There's also the matter of the brainwaves themselves."
"And about them?" she asked, impatient with having to provide these little prompts.
"They weren't human. Rather, they were youkai."
"There's a difference?"
"Naturally. As distinguishable as the two species would be at sight, in fact." He slouched back on the heels of his feet. "This is the reason for our concern, you see. Ignoring some very advanced case of self-disassociation syndrome, our only theory is a kind of psychic interference."
"As I recall, you claimed the priest tested negative for psychic awareness."
"At least to any extent that could benefit us," the human confirmed. "But that may have changed."
The lady-youkai tilted her head a little. "How do you mean?"
To this, Dr. Nii actually managed to look nervous. "I had meant to keep these observations to myself, until I was able to double-check results, but the blackbox doesn't appear to be operating the way we'd intended it. Virtually a third of all the energy fed into it isn't drawn back out, and the gap seems to be getting bigger. It took a jump two nights ago, right before the recorders short-circuited. That being when we assume the changes started."
"Wonderful, doctor," Gyokumen said sourly. "So now your pet project is slowing down our operations, as well as randomly damaging property from some magical fall-out. Wouldn't this be the proper time to pull the plug?"
"Frankly, your highness, our progress is still far better than where we would be otherwise. Without this priest as a conduit, we would still require that last sutra, you recall."
She frowned poutingly, examining her nails a moment. The idea of slowing down operations even more, when they were so close to completion, seemed thoroughly intolerable. Surely the risk of a little structural damage was worth keeping what they had? It wasn't as though freak accidents weren't occuring with the machinery all over now. It was practically routine.
She relented. "When you say psychic interference, you mean it was picking up someone else's thoughts on accident?"
"If that. Probably weak sensations at best. Chemical reactions in the brain."
"Someone engaged in sex."
"That's the theory."
"At mid-morning."
"Stranger things have happened, highness."
"And probably," she said, spreading elegant hands, "whatever it is occupying the mind of your project, that's where the excess energy is being diverted, correct?"
Dr. Nii grinned. "Are you giving us authorization to investigate, Gyokumen-sama?"
"Am I?"
~*~
Tell me, Sanzo said, as Kougaiji hurried down steps in as dignified a manner as he could manage. The thing between you and Gojyo's brother. Is it just strictly sex, or are you attaching much more to it?
Odd thing to ask. Especially since you're still refusing to talk about yourself.
Ah. Careful. You're walking down stairs again. And you have such bad footing these days I've noticI FUCKED HAKKAI IN AN ELEVATOR SHAFT.
A few moments later, Kougaiji started picking himself up out of a heap at the foot of the stairwell, nursing an aching arm.
You're a complete asshole, he whined resentfully, after shooing off a concerned pair of laundry girls that had been wailing over him.
Careful what you ask for, is all I'm saying, Sanzo said, emotes of smug amusement so powerful Kougaiji felt his lips tugging into a grin too, despite everything.
It's true, then?
Shut the hell up.
I'll get it out of you someday.
Tell you what. Pull this operation off without a hitch and I'll give you every last dripping detail.
Kougaiji saw the sarcasm, but found even more enjoyment in ignoring it.
Really?
Oy. Seems I need that paper fan...
He had to smirk, and it almost seemed as though Sanzo was shaking his head in wry amusement too. What had become of them that they'd deevolved out of intellectual discussion or even anxieties of death to act like a pair of roughhousing schoolmates? Not that either of them had ever had those.
Kougaiji realized too late in his procession just what hallways he was walking down, and found himself turning into the hallway before the room of Rasetsunyo.
He froze.
No. Gods, no.
Then, for a few agonizing moments, everything seemed to move in slow motion, as his lips parted with a yell his lungs would not produce, adrenaline surging as he kicked into an immediate sprint, though it felt like he was hardly moving.
He roughly grabbed a fistful of jacket of the first worker he came to, ripped him back until he lost hold of the wooden plank he had been helping to carry, that crashed heavily as the rest of the workmen lost their balance, and all around them the scurrying youkai with lengths of cable and crates of tools scattered like ants on a hill kicked apart.
"What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled at them, forcing more of them away from the door while pushing his own self forward through it. Had to get in. Had to get through. Had to see what was happening to his mother--
One man he pulled away carried a hacksaw; he snatched it from him before realizing he grabbed it by the serated edge, ignored the blood and the pain and just struggling forward amid shouts of protests and cries from some people to call for the guard.
He discarded the saw as he entered, slowing and coming upon an even more horrible view. Scaffolds were being erected around the pillar of his frozen mother, and workers were setting about ferrying thick eletrical cables and large sledgehammers, and some were bundling what looked like small explosive charges.
How? Why? Why so soon?
So soon? Sanzo repeated, seeming to have picked enough up from Kougaiji's terror to guess the situation. The bitch announced her intentions over three days ago. Did you think she was going to wait?
It has not been--
But Kougaiji couldn't think to spend time arguing, dashing forward with a shouted "Hey. HEY!" and pulling the bundle of explosives out of startled hands, didn't care if there were far too many of them and only one of him, that he could tear at them all he wanted and--
Broad hands on his shoulders, slightly jeering suggestion he move along and leave the nice people alone. The guards had showed up.
He twisted out of the grasp, and ran forward. Heart pounding so loud in his ears that nothing even Sanzo yelled was penetrating, as Kougaiji screamed things at the workers he'd never have thought himself capable of saying, pushing bodies roughly aside and casting down the ladders, tearing off the cables, the ley lines under his feet stinging smartly as he tred over them, too frantic to care, just needed to get them away, AWAY! How dare they even enter this place, how dare they seek to harm her, how dare that Gyokumen bitch send these men on her right under his fucking nose..!
The hands that grabbed him this time were not so easy to break from, one of them gathering up the cloth of the back of his robes and yanking until it caught on his throat and started to choke him. He started lashing out, barely more than clawing at the air, sharp nails tearing at cords and sparking against the metal bars of the scaffolds.
"Excuse me! No! Wait! Stop!" wailed a voice, just on the cusp of his hearing, that if it wasn't so shrill and whiny he may have overlooked it entirely. A guard half-pausing let Kougaiji swing his head around to catch a glimpse of a nervous purple-haired woman standing on top a pile of crates and waving her arms frantically.
"No no no! This is all wrong! What are you doing? Are you people insane?"
Oh my gods, Kougaiji thought in disbelief. What does she think she's doing?
Does who think she's doing?
Yaone.
"Our orders were to clear this thing out," said an overseer, out of sight, but with that tone in his voice that suggested he was looking up at such an angle that the alchemist's short skirt provided a nice view.
She might have even been counting on that.
"Yes, but not YET. Do you want to all get sent to the dungeons? She said not YET! Honestly, you people!"
Okay. Doku's a much better actor than that.
"Gyokumen-sama... changed her mind?" the assistant overseer asked, in thorough disbelief.
"NO, Gyokumen Koushu does not change her mind. You heard her wrong! Now stop it before you do any damage. And let him go!" she shrilled, pointing sharply at Kougaiji.
"But... His highness was..."
"Stopping you from making complete fools of yourselves!" she finished for him, in her best take on indignant rage. "Think sensibly! Now let him go this instant!"
Hands around his arms loosened but did not remove themselves. Kougaiji finished the job for them, jerking out of their grasp and staggering a step or two away. He glared appropriately, content to play along for the moment. He straightened out his collar.
"And clean this mess up!" Yaone went on, shaking fingers at them like a furious matron over some bad-behaved children. "And don't take the initiative again, until you are SURE of your orders! Gyokumen-sama cannot afford casual errors of judgment when we are so close to the revival of the king! Think, you people, THINK!
"And YOU, sir!" she yelled imperially, turning her attention to Kougaiji. "Come with me."
~*~
When they were safely back near the war room, after checking to be sure the workmen were indeed starting to awkwardly pack up their tools, Yaone dissolved.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Lord Kougaiji!" she wailed, all of that hypnotizing authoritative bearing washed away in a second. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of those people--"
"You realize," Kougaiji said, the deja vu creeping up on him even as he said it, "that you wouldn't've gotten away with that if you didn't look like an officer."
She blushed a little, but anxiety still won out as the dominant emotion. "Well, we sort of were, lord. Until recently."
"...I know."
"Are you sure you're--"
"Yes," the prince muttered, bringing up a hand to brush aside a lock of hair, not realizing that it was the hand he had cut open earlier until Yaone gasped.
He sighed, waiting patiently while his servant frantically ran into one of the side-rooms in a mad dash for bandages and disinfectant.
Later, gently tugging the last wrap of the bandage into a knot, Yaone said, "So it's true, then. What Dokugakuji told me a few days ago. They really are trying to take her away."
"A few days ago? I was only telling him that last night."
She paused for a moment, seeming halfway between puzzled and not wanting to offend him by looking confused. "But. Um. My lord. Last night you were asleep."
"Before that."
"No. Ah. I mean, you were asleep here," she explained, more emphatically.
He stared at her.
"What...? Hold on."
Genjo.
Still here.
You were saying it too. That Gyokumen summoned me to her three days ago. That's not right. That was yesterday.
It was three days.
No. Look. I was kicked out, Doku took me to bed, I woke up, your room was different, then Doku took me to bed-- um, in the other way, I mean.
Right, except you're missing two days in between there. And then another one between the thing with Doku and you waking up.
"Lord Kougaiji...?"
Doku's watch said I'd been asleep three hours.
A day and three hours.
No.
I've been trying to tell you--
"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, the real sound cutting out the voice in his head.
Yaone made a choked little squeak. "My lord, didn't you realize that...?"
Cold dread was seeping in now with no way to quell it. To think that so much had been going on around him while he lay around and slept! "How much is he--" Shook his head, stopping short as he caught himself. No, he couldn't let on about this.
I said you were getting energy borrowed. That was why you were tired.
Knocking me out for whole days? We can't afford that now!
It's not all me! Sanzo protested. Part of it's the house. Part of it's your father.
"My Lord--"
"Please, Yaone. Don't--" He stopped, rushing to press a hand to his forehead in pain, as the priest tried harder to yell his way over a static-fuzzed frequency. "I sort of need to be alone."
And we still need to talk about that, Sanzo was insisting. Your father, and the revival, and what we need to do. And what's happening to you.
Get out of my head!
Don't block yourself off! he shouted. Probably not even realizing where he had heard that before, from whom. DON'T let this consume you! It's just fear, it's just anxiety. It's fucking GUILT. Nothing has gone under our radar yet. We're fine.
Let worries get the better of you like this and we'll never move forward, ever!
"Lord--"
"Please, just LEAVE!" he snapped at her, resisting an effort of hers to touch a shaking shoulder.
"Sh-Should I get Dokugakuji or--"
Doku. "How could he do that to me? How could either of you let me sleep that long?"
"But you're tired--"
"That doesn't matter! What if-- What if--"
And then her hands were on him anyway, bolder than anything she could have ever thought to do before, gutsier than acting superior to him in public just to save him from the guard. Gripped his arms tightly and forced him to look her in the eyes.
"Kougaiji-sama, we would never allow anything to happen. Don't think you are the only one doing anything," she told him. Her voice started to shake a little, so she swallowed and steadied it before going on."We're there for you too. When you don't watch, we will. And we watch over you as well. That's what we're here for. Please, don't fall to the belief that you're all alone."
For a moment in the silence that followed, just for a second as Kougaiji studied those wide, glassy eyes, there was a tug of something, an urge to repay this woman in a way he was sure she'd always wanted, but he pulled back from that. Not from revulsion, not because of preferences, but just for principles. It would mean nothing to her if he wasn't sincere, and he couldn't give her that.
Instead he turned his gaze from her a little, in what she probably assumed was bashfulness, and she respectfully removed her hands from his sleeves and stepped back. She looked at the ground.
When she looked back up it was to the sound of retreating footsteps, as Kougaiji took his leave out the door.
~*~
You're shaking.
I know. Why?
Nervous fucking wreck, I guess. You really have broken down.
Kougaiji must have been imagining it, but it almost felt like a pang of sympathy, or pity, or both, attached to that remark.
You're not at all the person we used to see in battle.
You're just the same. Except you talk more, Kougaiji said, but without much venom.
But then,
{Fuck you. I'm not some teenage girl or something.
{Internalizing just doesn't work anymore.
{I'm not exactly used to getting my emotions aired for someone
else to hear.
{How the hell do I keep myself in check now?
{It was falling apart before but now everything's just a mess!
Well... Sanzo said hesitantly, deliberating. Like he was scraping the bottom of a barrel for ideas. Have you considered meditation?
...Which was about the second most unlikely thing Kougaiji would have thought Sanzo to ever say. After the thing about Hakkai and elevator shafts.
~*~
In the lower recesses of the castle corridors, a darkened hallway found its silence punctuated as the door to the guard's lounge swung open, pouring out laughter, drinking and loud jeering along with the golden firelight.
"Yeh, and fuck you too," Dokugakuji yelled back goodnaturedly to one of the sargeants, who waved back drunkenly as he and the other officers bid him goodnight.
He stumbled out into the hall, and the door closed behind him. And the still darkness returned.
He breathed. With some effort. The entire castle now felt like it was pressing in and clamping down on his lungs, but the guard's lounge was purely suffocating.
He had to go, of course. Mingle and look like he belonged there. This was part of the operation he and Yaone had set up. If they could help their master in no other way, the least they could do was keep ears and eyes open and see danger in advance.
Plus, hanging out with the guards got him free booze. So it wasn't all bad.
The women were. He'd tried going along with it at first, but the more forward their advances got the more he found himself involuntarily going into retreat.
Before, maybe a few years ago, he could have not minded at all. Even when things with Kougaiji were just starting out it didn't feel like any particular indiscretion to sleep around a bit. But the longer things went on, the harder it got to just turn off those parts of his brain making him feel guilty. And after yesterday, hell, he never wanted to sleep with anyone else, ever. He was sure of that now.
He walked along, a little unsteadily, but not so much from intoxiation as a good bit of fatigue. He knew the way back to his quarters by memory now, just had to remember what fork to turn off at to end up at the war room.
Kougaiji had been absent since the afternoon, and now it was late evening, the time normal people usually went to bed. Who knew if the prince was asleep again, after being knocked out for well over a day. Much as it was flattering to think he had been that good, Dokugakuji knew there was far more to the other man's exhaustion than that. He had practically gone into hibernation as Dokugakuji watched him, and a few times he even had to check his pulse to be sure he was really alive.
He was half convinced it was a kind of illness. No clue what else it could possibly be. Except... well, granted, talking to yourself and lashing out violently at people wasn't much of a case for complete mental health. But the prince couldn't really be going insane, could he?
And then you come up on him today and find him smoking, Dokugakuji told himself, massaging a temple. He was the one to talk me out of that shit. What the hell.
The warrior stopped, glancing around, realizing he'd missed the corridor he was supposed to turn off into. This damn castle. Sometimes it felt like it was bigger on the inside than out.
He started to head back, when a voice called out from behind him.
"Hey. You," it said, some nasal teenage voice with far too much impertinence for his own good, "you're the prince's slave, aren't you?"
Not if I have any say in that.
Ah. Bad Doku. Mind out of gutter.
He turned back toward the approaching young guardsman. "Servant," he corrected. "I get paid. You know, with that money thing."
The boy had the presence of mind not to bristle too much at the remark. Most of the guards here were peasant boys drawn in on Gyokumen's "request." And one hell of a propaganda campaign. And as expansive as the lady-youkai's wealth was, it was being stretched over quite a large stock of employees. Whereas Kougaiji had his own money (hidden somewhere Gyokumen had yet to find out about), had little patience for math, and usually let Dokugakuji and Yaone sort out their wages as they saw fit.
Not that they were getting paid these days. Or had been for a while. But it was the principle of the thing.
"Well, you might wanna see about other employment options," the guardsman sneered back. "Gyokumen-sama's 'bout had it up ta here wit your prince."
"Uh-huh. She sent you to tell me?"
"Nuh. S'about common knowledge by now. She's fuckin' pissed. At you too."
Dokugakuji's mouth twinged a little. "Let me guess. He didn't show up to dinner."
~*~
It was even later that Dokugakuji slowly pushed open the door to Kougaiji's quarters, after a search of the war room and its side cabins had yielded nothing. He didn't knock, but did call out, "Kou?"
There was no answer, but soon as the door swung in fully and the corridor torches carried their light across the room, Dokugakuji didn't need one.
Kougaiji was sitting on his bed, stripped down to the waist, back straight against the wall. He was sitting crosslegged, hands on his knees palms-up with finger and thumb together. Eyes closed, but not asleep. Chest barely rising and falling with shockingly shallow breath.
Good gods. First smoking, and now this?
"Kou... What are you doing?"
Even from across the room he saw Kougaiji's eyelids flicker, then lift ever so slightly. His breathing broke and he started taking in more air.
"Hnh?" he murmured, blinking in the light. "Oh..." He shifted a stiff arm and brought up a hand to rub his forehead. "Guess I got carried away."
"Where'd you pick that up?"
"Mm?"
"Buddhist meditation. Didn't really figure it for your kind of thing."
"Oh. This was my first time trying it." He unfolded his legs and pushed himself to the edge of the bed. Started hunting for a shirt. "Something up?"
"Heard you missed dinner."
A hand paused halfway in snatching up a night shirt.
"What. Really?"
Dokugakuji nodded.
"I must've lost track of the time," the prince mumbled, going instead to his wardrobe. Dokugakuji caught a glimpse of more clothes than he'd ever seen on the man in his life, a true proponent of wearing a garment until it disintegrated on his back. Most of the contents of this closet weren't even things Dokugakuji could see his master wearing unless put to it on a dare-- and made a note that, if they lived long enough to get to such a point, he'd do just that.
"Don't bother now," he had to tell him, a little reluctantly. "It's late. Everyone's asleep. Normal people, anyway. Those scientists're still at it..."
"Are they still in G-- Sanzo's room?"
Dokugakuji's ears twinged at the name, but more than that, the unheardof casual way with which Kougaiji said it. He was reminded how much time the man had spent in that blackbox room, in those hours he was awake. Until recently, anyway. Who knew what had driven him off, but he'd heard humans whispering in small huddles about poltergeists.
"No idea," he admitted, as Kougaiji closed the wardrobe doors. "Look-- I talked with some people, and you have to be at dinner tomorrow, okay? Otherwise things are gonna get difficult."
"I meant to go tonight. Really. I just..." He shook his head, apparently too frustrated to search for words at the moment.
"It's fine. You just have to be careful, all right?"
"All right." His mouth twinged and he looked away, rubbing nervously at an arm. Suddenly conscious of just who he was half naked in front of, and that some of the marks Dokugakuji had left the other day still hadn't faded.
"...Doku?"
"Hm?"
"This m-- Yesterday, when you said you'd stay until I woke up... Did you really...?"
"Oh that. Yeah. Sorry. I lied."
"...Oh."
"I left to go to the bathroom once or twice."
~*~
In another place, there was only the whir of machines.
Dr. Nii had made an afternoon of gathering up the footage from the blackbox surveillance cameras, while he sent the most excitable and unsuited staff around to squeakily ask about youkai sex lives. One harassed assistant had came in around five with tea saying this was probably not a strong lead, with how many confirming responses they had so far generated. That was life, unfortunately. The desire to make more of it.
Nii shrugged and asked them to pursue this little Gestapo-styled witch hunt nevertheless. Just for the hell of it. Because the thing about witch hunts was, even if you didn't end up finding one, you still scared one up. Anyway, psychological warfare was Nii's prefered method of combat, when it came right down to it.
He replayed the footage from twelve days ago.
It was three-angled perspective, which worked fine if you were an insect, but not so well for anything vaguely mammalian. There was an angle on the blackbox's tank, one on the door, and another a wide view of everything in-between. Kougaiji was in between the first and third.
Nii watched, as the prince of demons approached the tank holding his former adversary, and looked up. Minutes passed before he jerked his gaze away, and only then because the blackbox had opened its eyes.
Not that that was much to go on. Granted, there was something in how that creature stared at you that made it a bit hard to keep looking. The way its eyes followed you like it knew what you were doing. But it wasn't communicative. It wasn't sentient. It was just a dumb sack of flesh responding to sensory data.
On the tape, Kougaiji looked back up at the prone figure, delicately pressed a palm to the glass-- and then, so slight it could nearly be overlooked, some odd freeze in hesitation, as if he was rethinking this.
Then his gestures started to grow unusual, and Nii noticed it was similar to the twitching he'd seen in the boy the other day, when he'd dragged him into that room. Similar to the rumors, too, of odd spasming and unexplained changes in expression, as though his inner monologue was giving him some serious trouble trying to internalize things.
And then, it happened. So fast that it almost flashed right by the doctor unnoticed, all but throwing his cup of tea aside to lurch forward for the pause key.
Rewind.
Play.
As he watched, the prince sinking a little forward with some debilitating line of thought, it all, suddenly, came to a halt. The angle on the blackbox fuzzed into static, just for a moment, and in the wide-angle view, Nii saw the royal brat abruptly jerk back, like he'd been electrocuted.
Really now.
Rewind.
Play.
The static. The jerk, so violent that Kougaiji might have been pulled back on some kind of wire. Staggering. Looking up at the tank in shock.
Well now. This was interesting.
He did so love it when his hunches were right.
-----