Exit Wounds
     by Trismegistus

     "Just looking at you, Tempou," said Kenren, "is like digging fingers into an open wound."

     But it was Konzen's gaze he held as he spoke, not Tempou's. Then he moaned, and dropped his head into shaking hands.

     "I need a fucking cigarette," he said.

     ~*~

     "Jesus, Tempou," Kenren muttered after they were done, "you can lighten up a bit. I'm not going anywhere."

     "Ah, forgive me." Tempou carefully relaxed his fingers. His grip had bit into Kenren's shoulders tight enough to leave marks.

     "'Something wrong?" he asked, already realising the pointlessness of the question. Tempou was tense, like all of them were, and who the fuck wouldn't be? They were all going to be walking on eggshells until this whole thing blew over. But Kenren had no doubt that it would, harrowing though things might be right now. Celestials delighted in plotting and scheming; it disrupted the tedium, after all. But Celestials also craved the boring predictability of Heavenly life as much as they detested it, and when plots got too far out of hand, when things bubbled to the surface as they had a few days ago, well, everyone involved was more than happy to get those things brushed back under the rug so the plotting and scheming could continue in peace. He'd seen it happen before and had no doubt that he'd see it happen again.

     Usually it was no cause for alarm, but this time things were different. This time people he cared about had suffered. Tempou, Gokuu, Nataku, even Konzen.

     It was a few moments before Tempou answered.

     "Ahh, no. I was merely caught up in my thoughts." The Marshall rolled onto his back and relaxed, hands locked behind his head, body just touching Kenren's. Although Kenren would never admit it, this was the part he liked the best - the afterwards. The sex was great. The sex was hot and frantic and so very good, but he'd had hot, frantic sex with other people before and all it did was make him want to get up and leave afterward. Smoke a cigarette, shower until their scent washed away, then go back to his quarters and nap.

     He'd known something was different with Tempou. He could spend hours in Tempou's presence without even thinking about sex. There was something about Tempou that just distracted you like that, something about the way he was never aware how rumpled his clothes were, the way his hair was always snarled, the way the cigarette dangled from his mouth. The way he smiled. The way your offhand comment about the Military or the Dynasty or Down There could start him lecturing for hours on some obscure scholarly topic.

     About the way that he lost all that cool when he knew that you were going to fuck him.

     And also about the way that you could lie next to him when you were finished and make conversation until you fell asleep. Natural conversation, as unrushed as the sex had been hurried.

     "Heh," Kenren said. "Figures." How Tempou had any energy left for thinking after that was beyond him. When they were done, it was all he could do to stay awake long enough to finish his cigarette without it falling out of his fingers and burning the whole place down. But Tempou seemed to gain twice as much energy from sex as he put into it, and so he would spend hours afterward chattering at Kenren about some minor military commander or battle formation of ages past.

     Usually, but not tonight. Tonight was different. Tempou didn't seem inclined to talk at all, and Kenren couldn't blame him. The sex had been good and fun and it took his mind off things for a little while, but not forever. And they'd both been a little rougher than usual, because they were trying to take their minds off of things. Which had worked admirably while they were doing it, but once they were done the roughness only served to remind him that they'd been having sex to avoid thinking about it in the first place.

     Kenren rolled away from Tempou and patted about on the bedside table until he found his smokes. He took one out, lit up, and offered the pack to Tempou, who accepted wordlessly. They lay next to each other and try as he might, Kenren felt his mind drifting back to that day in the Emperor's court. That had been fourteen days ago, but the horror was as vivid as if it had all just happened.

     Kenren was a Celestial and thus healed almost instantaneously, even from critical wounds. But the injuries the kid - no not the kid, Son Gokuu - had given him were still alarmingly fresh. Kenren was also a seasoned career soldier who didn't go out of his way to play nice with his peers, but in all his endless years in Heaven's armies, he'd never suffered a beating rivaling the one he'd received at the Seiten Taisei's hands. The lacerations alone had yet to heal beyond vivid bruises, and they ached afresh wherever Tempou had roughed them up earlier.

     He hadn't said anything to Tempou about it, either during or after. It would have been sissy, for one thing. But more important yet was the fact that he needed the pain. His mind swung back to Gokuu - the kid he'd played baseball with, the kid he'd terrorised Konzen with, the kid who called him 'Ken Nii-chan' - unrecognisable, ripping soldier and courtier alike apart as if they'd been so many sheets of paper.

     With those memories came memories of the screaming, the stench of blood thick and metallic in the air, such an abnormal scent in Heaven, where no blood was ever shed. He'd smelt it for days afterward.

     He remembered the bone-numbing impact as the Taisen blocked his sword thrust. He remembered the triumphant look in Litouten's eyes as the bastard ordered his son to commit murder. The sickening thudcrunch of Tempou's body against the wall. And then Kanzeon Bosatsu, Bodhisattva of Compassion, arriving to stop Gokuu - by killing him.

     His cigarette had burned down to the butt, but he kept dragging on it until its heat scorched his fingers as well as his lungs. Don't think about this. Think about anything but this. After all, you've just had some wild sex. Enjoy it. But it was useless; no matter how many times he willed it to stop, his mind kept reeling back.

     Kanzeon taking the kid on and being evenly matched. Tempou's bloodied hands grabbing him from behind and forcing him back and him fighting Tempou for all he was worth, because no matter what kind of havoc the Seiten Taisei was wreaking on Heaven, he was still Gokuu, and Kenren didn't care if it had been Guatama Buddha himself in Kanzeon's place - he was not going to let anyone hurt that kid.

     "At least," Tempou said, deftly plucking the smoldering remains of Kenren's cigarette from his fingers, "we've set Litouten back as much as he has us." And although Kenren didn't like thinking about it in such pragmatic terms, he knew that Tempou was right. If Litouten were indeed responsible for raising the youkai tribes with an eye to currying Court favor by quelling them, then Nataku's near-suicide had certainly stalled any plans he might have had along those lines.

     Not to mention the fact that Tempou had had the presence of mind to take Goujun hostage. Goujun, who on top of being commander of the Western army, was a Dragon king to boot.

     "Tell the good Litouten," Tempou had proclaimed from the doorway of their quarters on dawn of the first day of the seige, "that if he so much as moves his armies one inch toward this building, our good friend Goujun dies."

     He didn't need to mention that were Goujun to die, reprisal from his clan would be swift and merciless. Although dragons were Celestials, their temperament and culture were vastly different from that of the other Celestials who comprised the Emperor's army and court. Where Tempou to carry out his threat, it would not matter to Goujun's kin that Goujun had been killed by a suicidal band of renegades with nothing left to lose, only that Litouten's actions had in some way precipitated his death, and they would punish Litouten accordingly.

     When Tempou had taken Goujun hostage, he had done the one thing which could buy them all time. There were times when the Marshall's foresight scared even Kenren.

     Litouten could not move against Tempou and Kenren without forfeiting his own life. And so the stalemate had begun.

     And although Litouten had the whole of Heaven's armies under his command, he was experiencing difficulties persuading them to act. For one thing, Kenren and Tempou would not be taken alive, and no one wanted to be the man who died while attempting to capture them.

     Likewise, no Celestial wanted to be responsible for their deaths, because outlaws or not, the taking of life was forbidden and the Emperor was not known for his appreciation of nuance. The men who killed the heretics would be fully punished according to the laws of Heaven. While the army outside their walls could overrun them by force of numbers alone, they weren't about to do it, and Litouten knew better than to press them.

     And as the days dragged on, those men who had formerly been under Tempou's command began to reconsider their position under their new leader. For while Kenren and Tempou were eccentric and abnormal and quite possibly fucking one another, in day-to-day affairs they were even-handed to the point of laxity. The men laying siege to Tempou's quarters were not sure how they felt about suddenly belonging to the army of a man increasingly impatient that someone - one of them - take the fall for him. So, by ones and twos, they began quietly speculating as to whether Tempou might actually have a chance of surviving this upset unscathed after all, and if so, did they still want to remain loyal to their new commander? The numbers of the Celestial army were uncountably large; not even Litouten could keep track of all of them all the time, and so Tempou and Kenren managed to receive smuggled supplies, rations, and information on a regular basis.

     Kenren was not the sort of person to admit that he gave a damn about anyone's opinion of him, but he was secretly pleased that so many of his men had remained loyal. Every day that Litouten was delayed was a day in which he lost momentum. If they could only hold out long enough for most of the army to give up and go home...

     He lost consciousness somewhere between that thought and the dawning of the fifteenth day. He awoke to an empty and thus spacious mattress, the thin haze of smoke hovering about the ceiling evidence that Tempou hadn't woken much earlier himself.

     Never an early riser, Kenren could almost have rolled over and gone back to sleep, because he could almost pretend that things were normal. But that would be a dangerous habit to get into, and so he rose, dressed, and presented himself in the secondary antechamber, which had been converted to a makeshift dining area at some point around the sixth day.

     Konzen was nowhere to be seen. That was not unexpected; he hadn't left Gokuu's side since they'd first retreated to Tempou's apartments. None of them had left Gokuu's side until the fever had stabilised and it looked as though his body might survive the damage wrought upon it by his transformation into the Seiten Taisei.

     Tempou was seated at the table, drinking miso soup in an absentminded fashion and pouring over another handscroll of Celestial history while, across the room, Goujun sat and stared at nothing.

     "Morning," Kenren said, and meandered into the room to help himself to some breakfast.

     "Good morning, General," Tempou echoed vaguely, voice muffled by the proximity of his face to the scroll.

     Goujun's eyes flicked briefly in Kenren's direction as he helped himself to some soup.

     "You cannot expect to resist forever," Goujun said as Kenren seated himself at the table. His voice was devoid of emotion. "You of all people should realise this, Field Marshall Tempou."

     "I'd say we've done an admirable job of it thus far," Tempou said, and unrolled more of the scroll.

     "Litouten control over Heaven's armies is complete. There's no way you can hope to withstand their force once he convinces them to move against you."

     Tempou shrugged. He looked extremely unconcerned, even to Kenren, who could read his moods like an open book. "Litouten's hands are far from clean. He can't risk moving against me at all if it means that his secrets are revealed to the Emperor."

     "Every Celestial has secrets they wish to conceal from the Emperor."

     "Every Celestial does."

     "Do you know Litouten's?"

     "Perhaps," Tempou said mildly. "But what is far more important from Litouten's point of view is that he cannot be certain whether or not I do."

     Goujun's gaze did not leave Tempou's face. "Having progressed this far, he may decide that the risks outweigh the benefits."

     "Or he may give up and go home," Kenren said.

     "He won't. There is too much at stake. Either you will fall, or he will. But there can be no going back."

     "Or," Tempou began, and then fell silent.

     Or everyone forgets this, for the time being, and goes back to plotting one another's future downfalls, Kenren supplied for him silently. Just like we always do.

     As if he could read Kenren's thoughts, Goujun's gaze shifted to his face, and Kenren felt the weight of his cold red eyes intensely. "Even if you both emerge from this unscathed," Goujun said, his tone conveying that found this highly unlikely, "Litouten will retaliate."

     "Then we shall have to be prepared for it," Tempou said, and unrolled more scroll.

     Goujun rose stiffly from the table and moved towards the door. "You cannot hope to resist forever," he repeated.

     "You don't believe that Litouten should be stopped?" Tempou asked, without looking up.

     Goujun halted. "I no longer believe that it is possible."

     Kenren opened his mouth to argue, but Tempou spoke before he could.

     "At the very least, could I ask you to remain in these apartments for one more week?" Tempou's voice held a note of weariness that hadn't been present earlier.

     Goujun paused in the doorway, one long-nailed, finely scaled hand tracing lightly down the doorjamb. "I do not see what purpose it will accomplish. But you may have a week." His robes swished quietly as he strode down the hallway.

     Kenren rose and lobbed his empty miso bowl into the urn which now served as their washing basin. "Want me to keep an eye on him?"

     "No, General," said Tempou, rolling and tying the scroll. "He will keep his word."

     Kenren hadn't been expecting that response. Goujun was their safeguard, the only thing keeping Litouten's troops from storming Tempou's apartments that very moment. If Goujun walked out, he would not be touched, but Kenren, Tempou, Konzen, and especially Gokuu, would be as good as dead.

     Of course Tempou wanted him to keep an eye on Goujun. Kenren wasn't sure why the Field Marshall just didn't come out and say it. Perhaps his head had been addled by too little sleep.

     He tried again. "You sure?"

     "Yes," Tempou smiled, and rose from the table, scroll in hand. "Goujun has as little wish to see Litouten rise to power as do you or I. In fact, I think he's regretting not having done something about it sooner, which is why he's given us this little reprieve."

     Kenren still was not entirely convinced, but it would be a relief not having to constantly trail Goujun around the clock or lock him in the antechamber during the nights he spent with Tempou. Goujun complied readily, even to this humiliation, but it was exactly that - his silence and dignity in the face of such indignity – that could make you feel small and base about doing it in the first place. Even Kenren, who was normally quite immune to such things, felt like shit over it.

     He shrugged. If the Marshall thought Goujun could be trusted not to bail, who was he to doubt? Kenren hadn't yet known Tempou's reading of someone to err far from the mark. "So," he said, trying for lightness, "you got a way for us outmaneuver Litouten?"

     Tempou's gaze was focused on some distant point beyond Kenren's face. "Yes, I think I have," he said slowly.

     "You mind telling me what it is?"

     Tempou sighed, met Kenren's eyes, and smiled. Lines of weariness traced across his face, but his expression was genuine enough. Kenren loved that smile, and the fact that he doubted any other Celestial had ever seen it.

     "Not yet," Tempou said. "But you'll find out soon enough."

     Kenren gave the Field Marshall a grin of his own. "Fair enough."

     Tempou rose. "If you'll excuse me, General," he said, and strode down the hall toward his library and the company of his books and scrolls.

     Bereft of any sort of mission now that Goujun no longer needed guarding, Kenren drifted down another hall to pay a visit to Konzen and Gokuu.

     He opened the door quietly, not that there was really any possibility he'd disturb the occupants, but it felt like the right thing to do nonetheless.

     "How is he?" he asked, shutting the door gently behind him.

     Konzen glanced up briefly as he came in, and even from this distance Kenren could see the thick circles around his eyes, dark as bruises against Konzen's fair skin.

     "Mnn." Konzen's response was halfway between a snort and sneer.

     Kenren crossed the floor to the bed, weaving carefully between the stacks of books that still littered Tempou's bedroom floor. Gokuu lay as still as a corpse beneath the light sheets, his brow slightly creased as if in worry.

     "Hey there, kiddo," Kenren whispered.

     The monkey's breathing was shallow but even, which Kenren figured was a good sign. At least he wasn't writhing and spasming like he had the first week after. Watching that had been horrible - had dried out Kenren's mouth and left a sour taste in it at the same time.

     It made him so angry, because there wasn't a damn thing he could do about any of it. At least when Gokuu had been killing half of the Emperor's courtiers Kenren had been able to make himself useful.

     "I take it that Tempou has no plans as to what will become of us?" Konzen asked after a few minutes.

     "No--" Kenren started automatically, then shut his mouth and thought for a moment.

     "No, actually, he may have, this time."

     For the first time Konzen looked at him - actually looked at him, and Kenren was almost ashamed to see the hope firing in the depths of Konzen's eyes. Sure, he wanted the kid to get better, wanted it bad, but that was the only thing Konzen cared about - you could tell it just by looking at him.

     Kenren couldn't match Konzen's concern, but he could imagine what was going on in Konzen's head. He'd be the same way, if it were Tempou in that bed. And thank the gods, a small voice in the dark of his mind whispered, that it isn't.

     Konzen half rose from his seat, a faint blush coming to his colorless cheeks. "What--"

     His eagerness was pitiful. Kenren raised a hand and Konzen fell back into the chair as if physically pushed. "Dunno anything yet," he said, forcing himself to meet Konzen's eyes. "But Tempou thinks he's found a way to get the better of Litouten."

     The hope drained from Konzen's eyes. "What does that have to do with Gokuu?" he demanded.

     Kenren shrugged, made to rest a hand on Konzen's shoulder and then thought the better of it. "Maybe nothing," he said. "But if we manage to get out of this house we'll have a better chance of getting Gokuu some help."

     Konzen's eyes moved automatically to Gokuu's face at the mention of the boy's name. Kenren watched as he raised a long, fine-boned hand and wiped the hair from Gokuu's forehead.

     It was hard seeing Konzen like this, and Kenren knew that if Konzen weren't so worried for the boy he'd be furious that anyone had witnessed him acting so tenderly. It was a difficult image to reconcile with that of the haughty, distant Konzen Douji, raging at Gokuu for some petty infraction.

     "Look, if you want to eat, or sleep or something, I can stay here with the kid..."

     "No."

     He'd known anyway that Konzen would refuse. The man didn't eat unless they brought him food, and half the time he wouldn't touch it even when it was laid beside him. And when Konzen slept, it was only despite his best efforts not to, in brief snatches until his head sagging onto his chest woke him.

     Konzen probably wanted company, all the same, though he was still too proud to ask for it. Hell, he might even try to sleep as long as someone else was in the room to keep an eye on Gokuu. Kenren figured he'd be the same way, so he pulled a chair up to the other side of the bed and sat down.

     Ironically, he was the first to fall asleep, and he woke to the gentle pressure of Tempou's hand on his shoulder.

     "It's time, General," Tempou said.

     He stood up, instantly awake despite having been soundly asleep a mere a second ago – yet another skill honed during their weeks of confinement.

     "Do you wish to have any messages relayed outside, Konzen?" asked Tempou.

     Konzen merely snorted in response. Kenren gave him one final glance as he left the room – Konzen's eyes never left Gokuu's face.

     Then he was stumbling down hall after the Marshall, blearily scrubbing the grit from his eyes. They went first to collect Goujun before heading to the main gate of the apartments.

     "My deepest apologies," Tempou said as he raised his sword to Goujun's throat.

     "It's nothing," the dragon replied.

     Then, carefully keeping the blade level, Tempou opened the gate, Kenren at his side, and faced the six soldiers awaiting them there.

     Envoys passed back and forth between the renegades and the besieging army several times a day. Kenren knew that Litouten only allowed this for form's sake, so that when news of the siege eventually caught the attention of the Emperor no one could deny that he had not attempted to negotiate with Tempou.

     It was so quintessentially Celestial. Litouten allowed the envoys in order to cover his back. Tempou allowed the envoys in order to gain information on conditions outside his apartments. Men volunteered for the envoys because they were still trying to decide which side they were on, and meanwhile, the whole situation stagnated.

     Kenren recognised four of the six members of today's squad. Three of them had been nominally under his command in the Eastern Army, and one of them in the Western. Heaven's armies were so impossibly large that most commanders had little practical knowledge of any of the men under their command, but Kenren thought he remembered something about each of these four. Three of them would be staunch supporters of whomever had the upper hand, and one of them – a man he'd sometimes gone hellraising with in the bars in the Eastern barracks – might very possibly be sympathetic to their plight. The man arched an eyebrow. Kenren ignored him. He arched it again.

     Ah.

     He lit a cigarette and tried to look bored. He was vaguely aware of Tempou responding to the leader's angry demands with subtle insults well beyond the leader's ability to comprehend. Kenren left them to it and did his best to sidle away from the main group.

     "The fuck do you thing you're doing!" This from his former subordinate in the Eastern.

     "Smoking. Being bored. You got a problem with that?" Kenren asked, and took another hit.

     "Yeah, I got a problem with that. Think you can just stand there and blow smoke in my face, asshole?"

     "Yeah," said Kenren. "I do."

     The man swung at Kenren's face and Kenren grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and dived on top of him. He even landed a few bruisers on the man's stomach before another soldier dived in to aid the first. It was uneven odds now, but Kenren knew he could still hold his own despite that.

     The three remaining soldiers seemed torn between joining the brawl or keeping an eye on Tempou, who stood impassively, sword at Gojun's throat.

     "Not gonna help your boyfriend?" one of them sneered.

     "He's perfectly capable of handling himself," said Tempou, and pressed the edge of the blade that much closer to Gojun's throat. "Understand?"

     Kenren was holding his own against the two men on top of him, but it wasn't until he felt something being fumblingly pressed into the inside pocket of his duster that he really let them have it until the fight ran its course and they drew back from one another, panting and bruised. He moved backwards to Tempou's side, careful not to pay any attention to the item in his pocket and doing his best to look royally pissed off.

     Which actually didn't take much effort, because he would have loved to return some of those thumps with a few more solid blows of his own, but he couldn't risk letting things get out of hand. He raised his hand to his mouth and coughed. There was blood in his palm when he drew it away.

     "Fucking assholes," he said, and meant it. "You get anything useful out of this guy, Marshall?"

     "Ah, Commander Zhou has been as helpful as always," Tempou said lightly, not bothering to look at Kenren. "Good afternoon, Commander, Brigadier, Privates." He nodded at each man in turn and then backed Goujun and himself slowly through the gate, Kenren covering him as they went.

     Once inside Tempou lowered the blade and apologized yet again to Goujun, who demurred as impassively as always before stalking toward the rooms he'd claimed for his own.

     Tempou watched him go and then turned to face Kenren.

     "I hope there was a point to that, General?" he inquired evenly.

     The tension Kenren had been carefully suppressing finally crested. "Of course there was a point to it, Tempou! I know better than to risk starting a fucking riot for no reason."

     Unaffected as always by Kenren's outbursts, Tempou's bland expression never wavered.

     Kenren could think more clearly about the situation now that he'd let off some steam, which had doubtlessly been Tempou's intention in provoking him. "I knew most of those guys," he added in a calmer tone of voice.

     "That is not unexpected." A corner of Tempou's mouth quirked. "You have, after all, completed stints in half of Heaven's armies."

     Kenren sent him a grin of his own in return. "Yeah, and that's a lot of faces to remember, but I remembered these faces."

     "Can any of them be expected to be sympathetic to our current situation?"

     "Yeah. Least, I think so. Anyway, it's late. How 'bout we go to bed?"

     Kenren didn't tell Tempou about the object he'd been given, didn't even look at it himself, until after they were finished having sex. He liked hiding something from the Field Marshall, even for such a short period of time, and even though Tempou must have known that his having recongnised some of the men in the envoy was far from the whole story.

     He waited until they'd both finished their first smokes before groping about on the floor for his duster and pulling whatever it was out of his pocket.

     "Anyway," he said without preamble, "one of them gave me this."

     It appeared to be a document of some sort. Tempou plucked it from his hands and deftly undid the tie.

     Several scrolls cascaded down to the sheets covering Tempou's lap.

     Kenren's eyes were confronted with maps, blueprints, and various diagrams resembling the 'science' they had Down Below that Tempou had been so interested in recently. There was a lot of information in those scrolls, precious little of which made any sort of sense to Kenren.

     "What is this stuff?" he asked.

     "Information I've requested," said Tempou. His brows were knitted above the rims of his glasses and he was clearly distracted. "They've taken a great risk in sending it to me all at once, and in this fashion."

     The furrow between his brows deepened and he made an uncharacteristic impatient gesture with one hand. "Our current situation must be more precarious than I had assumed."

     Kenren was a soldier; it was his job to evaluate precarious situations, but this 'technology' and behind-the-scenes subterfuge stuff was Tempou's forte, not his. He'd leave Tempou to it.

     Still, he felt he had to say something, and he wanted an excuse not to ask further questions about things that would only make his head spin. He found an opportunity and seized on it.

     "I didn't know you were receiving messengers on the side."

     Tempou blinked in surprise. "Of course I am," he said, as if this should have been common sense to Kenren, which, in all fairness, it should have been.

     Fuck it. He might as well ask anyway, and get it over with now.

     "So what's all this about?" he said, motioning to the documents, careful lest the lit end of his cigarette set them on fire.

     Tempou's attention returned full-force to the scrolls. "This may be the way by which we finally outmaneuver Litouten," he said, automatically accepting the cigarette Kenren offered him without taking his eyes from the documents.

     Kenren was intrigued now, despite himself. It wasn't often that something had the power to distract Tempou completely from him, not so soon after they'd just had sex.

     "So what are we going to do?"

     "You will have noticed that Litouten has permitted a remarkable number of soldiers to make clandestine visits to you during the course of the siege?"

     "Yeah, well, he doesn't have much of a choice about it," Kenren snorted, expelling an acrid cloud of smoke from his nostrils. "He can't exactly have them killed for disobeying, and if he imprisoned everyone he caught doing it, he'd have a mutiny on his hands.

     "And more importantly—"

     "They offer a very effective opportunity to feed us false information."

     That would certainly explain Tempou's fascination with the scrolls. "So do you think that these are—"

     "No," Tempou murmured. "These are the genuine article."

     He did glance at Kenren now. "It is helpful that the men sneaking in to see you have not been the most...discrete. They have distracted Litouten's attention away from the messengers bearing me the information that I've requested. "

     "Yeah, well, discretion's never been a strong point."

     Tempou mirrored Kenren's wry smile. "More importantly, with everyone now trying to turn the existence of the stream of supposedly clandestine messengers entering and leaving our ostensibly besieged compound to their advantage, one imagines that Litouten has become accustomed to this state of events, which can only work to our advantage."

     "We'll get out of this somehow," he said, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray.

     "Yes, we will," Tempou echoed vaguely. He was still pouring over the documents when Kenren finally rolled over and went to sleep.

     The next several days passed in the same manner as the days preceding them. They fucked, slept, woke and went about their business. Envoys came and went, and although Kenren didn't recognise any of the men in them now, he didn't have to take any other beatings either. Spies sneaked in and out. Goujun was chillingly polite, Konzen was dour, and Gokuu's condition neither worsened nor improved.

     At times, while he was sitting in the library with the sun spilling through the windows, trying to figure out what Tempou found so damn fascinating about those books, or when they were in bed together, or talking, he could almost pretend that nothing was wrong.

     "...ren."

     "...enren."

     "Kenren."

     He awoke one night to the whisper of Tempou's voice in his ear, more breath than sound.

     "Mmh? What issit?"

     "It's time."

     Kenren shot into wakefulness.

     "What do I need to do?"

     Tempou's smile was tight but satisfied. He had selected Kenren for his lover for a reason.

     "Litouten possesses technology capable of reviving both Gokuu and Nataku." Tempou paused. An eyebrow twitched slightly. "I believe the time has come to avail ourselves of it."

     Kenren could only stare. Healing Gokuu and Nataku would not do much to counteract the shitstorm they were in, not by a long shot, but dammit, it was the right thing to do. "I love how your mind works," he breathed.

     Tempou sent him a too-brief smile in return. "I have been in contact with several men who are, shall we say, nostalgic for the days of General Kenren's sojourn in the Eastern Army. As it so happens, several of them will happen to pay a visit to my apartments tonight. One of them might just be convinced to switch places with you on the way out."

     "And when their squad is interrogated after returning to Litouten's camp?" Getting out of the house for a bit was certainly a nice idea, but there was no way he could fight his way through the whole of Litouten's loyal followers.

     Tempou smiled, catlike. "It just so happens that other soldiers nostalgic for the good old days of General Kenren have been placed in charge of interrogations tonight."

     "Lucky coincidence, that," Kenren murmured.

     "Indeed," Tempou murmured back, eyes mirroring the fire catching in Kenren's. "And I daresay that they may even be convinced to help you infiltrate Litouten's compound and secure the resurrection device."

     Kenren smiled. He was really warming to this. "This must have involved a lot of overtime effort on your part."

     Tempou inclined his head slightly, eyes flashing. "I hand the torch to you."

     And suddenly he knew that somehow, everything would be all right. It was just like it had been in the old days, when he'd just arrived at the Western Army and he and Tempou had spent days testing the waters, challenging each other with schemes like this.

     Kenren vaulted out of bed and threw on his clothes with a muttered thanks to Tempou whenever the Field Marshall retrieved an article from the farther corners of the room. And then he was dressed and ready to go.

     "One last thing, General." Tempou turned and withdrew something from a nearby bookshelf. "How good are you with incantations?"

     He felt his eyebrows elevate. Incantations? As opposed to Sutra? Those were Shinto, or possibly Taoist. Those belonged in one of the other Heavens.

     He shrugged. "I suppose I could reel one off."

     The cat-smile was back. "That's all it requires."

     Tempou handed him a sealed piece of paper. "In the event that things do not go according to plan, read this. It will relocate the resurrection equipment to a location Litouten cannot reach."

     But we can. He grinned. "Think of everything, don't you?"

     Tempou smiled wearily. "I do try to, General."

     The smile blinked out in a flash, and Tempou was all business again. "I believe our visitors will be arriving shortly, so you had best go. Say nothing of this to Konzen on the way out; it would only agitate him. I'll assist him with Gokuu when the time comes."

     "Understood." Tempou handed Kenren his holster, which he belted around his waist and then headed for the door. He took a step through to the darkened hall beyond, paused.

     "Tempou?"

     "Yes?"

     "This is insane."

     "I thought you lived for this sort of thing."

     He smiled. "I wasn't complaining."

     It had been surprisingly easy to sneak out of Tempou's apartments, probably because everyone on both sides was so used to seeing people slipping in and out that no one paid them any mind, aside from making sure that the same number came out as had gone in.

     He thought he vaguely remembered the kid Tempou had uncovered to be his stand in. He'd enlisted just before Kenren had been given the boot to the Western, which was the only reason Kenren remembered anything about him at all. The kid, on the other hand, seemed more than slightly awestruck to be in the presence of his former commander.

     "General Kenren, sir," he'd whispered diffidently as Kenren emerged into the inner courtyard. Kenren nodded. He was already wearing the regulation uniform, so all that remained was to exchange his general's issue clothing for the kid's gear. Tempou had chosen well – they had roughly the same build, although Kenren found that the dress coat was somewhat constricting about the shoulders. His own duster bagged slightly around the kid's frame.

     The other two members of the kid's party had already finished dropping off their delivery of supplies and whatever other contraband Tempou had requested, and were waiting tensely for Kenren and his replacement to finish.

     Kenren gave the coat's shoulders one last impatient tug, testing for mobility, then nodded to them. The first laced his fingers together and hoisted his companion up onto the wall, who then leaned down to help the second up. And then it was Kenren's turn.

     Ignoring the impatient hand of the man above him he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and faced the kid.

     "Enjoy your stay," he whispered.

     "Enjoy your stay, General, Private Kaji," the kid corrected, with a cocky arch to his eyebrow Kenren was sure hadn't been there while the kid'd been under his command. He liked that. This one was going to go places.

     "Fuck you," he shot back, grabbed a hand up and vaulted over the wall.

     His heart was pounding as they approached the siege line, but he didn't waste energy trying to suppress it. Any spy returning from enemy territory would be fucking nervous; far from betraying him, his apprehension would to help him blend in. They sped through the line, and then the gardens surrounding the officers' villas, largely abandoned at the beginning of the siege, though a light shone here and there around the edges of a blacked-out window.

     The interrogation post was manned by more people Kenren couldn't really remember, but who evidently remembered him well enough to sympathise with his situation. They ran through standard debriefing procedure as if nothing had been out of the ordinary and Private Kaji had always looked like General Kenren. Then the head officer stamped his papers with the unit's official seal, and with an "You're on leave for one week, Private. Don't fuck things up while you're on it," he was sent out of the tent and into the thick of enemy forces.

     So Litouten was still allowing leave rotation. Well, with the entire force of Heaven's armies at his back, he could afford to allow it, Kenren thought. Or more likely, he probably couldn't afford to not to. Kenren doubted the grunts that made up the bulk of the army would have reacted well to enforced around-the-clock duty during a seemingly endless siege.

     Leave it to Tempou to figure out a way to use even that to their advantage.

     Kenren's unit shuffled through checkpoint after checkpoint as quickly as they could. Nothing to attract attention to themselves in that - what grunt was ever not champing at the bit to go on leave? And then they were home free and on their way to the barracks, which would doubtlessly be empty – no soldier ever stayed in quarters during leave. But that worked out perfectly – what better place to organise troops than their own supposedly empty base?

     They ambled up to the darkened building like three soldiers just dropping in to grab some things before hitting the bar district, and Kenren felt himself slipping back into the role as though he'd never been promoted out of it. It was just like being a nobody in the Eastern army, except that he was now a disgraced General and heretic to boot, about to take on the whole of Heaven. But yeah, aside from that, just like the old days.

     One of the spies cracked the door open, turned and saluted smartly. "General Kenren, sir." The way the man's voice tripped over the 'General' bit didn't escape Kenren's notice; these soldiers had agreed to help him of their own free will, but they must be terrified now that they were actually doing it. Of course, in the event that they were caught, there was no such thing as a death sentence in the Celestial courts, but a near-eternity of confinement wasn't appreciably better to Kenren's way of thinking.

     And yet, Tempou had still found people willing to risk it. "Just Kenren is fine." He slapped the man on the arm and slipped inside.

     And was confronted with an entire unit of soldiers huddled in the dark of the barrack's interior, nervous but at the ready. The door shut behind him as his two companions entered, and he found that he didn't know what to say. He'd been expecting ten or fifteen, not an entire goddamn unit.

     Kenren had always considered himself a decent General, as far as those things went. He wasn't stick-up-the-ass about the rules, and he didn't throw his rank around. Of course, aside from their potential to provide regular drinking company, he hadn't really been interested in most of the men under his command – Tempou had taken up the majority of his time when he wasn't in the field, and Gokuu and Konzen the rest.

     Kenren's overall take on being a general had been of the 'leave me alone unless there's a major problem and don't break any rules that will be brought to my attention' school of leadership. He'd thought his men had merely tolerated it because they didn't exactly have a choice, once you got down to it. Apparently, if numbers were anything by which to judge, they'd appreciated him more than he'd thought.

     And here he was, standing in front of them as if he were about to command them as their General, which...he was. He looked at them, trying to remember who they all were, and found that he was seeing individual faces this time, not just a mass of men under his command. They were doing this because they'd been asked to do it, for him, because when you got down to it, it wasn't as if any of them gave a flying damn about Gokuu or Nataku.

     As he looked at their faces, he realised that he was genuinely grateful. It was a strange sensation. He leaned against the closed door, lit a cigarette and hit it. "All right," he said in a conversational tone of voice. "I'd love to scream at you bastards like a real general, but I can't because the last fucking thing we want is some asshole crashing the party to see what all the noise is about. So you'll have to make do with me giving orders like one of those pansy courtiers in the Floating Pavilion."

     It didn't matter that he wasn't screaming. You could have cut the silence with a knife, it was so thick. Every eye was riveted on him. "I don't know why you're here," he said, because he didn't know what else to follow with and it was the foremost thought on his mind, so it seemed as good a choice as any. "Maybe you're bored. Maybe you hate Litouten. Maybe the Field Marshall has something really bad on you. Each of 'em seems as likely to me as the others—" This elicited a scattering of low chuckles.

     "So we're going to go and steal something pretty damn important from that asshole Li tonight. And then..." After Gokuu and Nataku were healed, what exactly? Tempou obviously had that bit worked out, but he didn't, and there hadn't been time for explanations.

     "...It makes his day real shitty, I guess," he finished, and punctuated it with a cloud of cigarette smoke.

     Silence, and then, from somewhere in the back of the room, "Works for me."

     That set one person off and then the laughter caught like wildfire and it was some time before they had it under control. Kenren let it run its course, would have done the same even if he hadn't fallen as badly under its effects as the others. Soldiers did all sorts of things to relieve the tension before a battle, and you had to let them do it, or you ended up with a bunch of men that were too scared to fight.

     He was back on familiar ground. Fuck the pomp and the status and the bureaucracy. This is what he loved about being a general – that feeling of camaraderie before the fight, the way everyone came together, they way the world got really clear and suddenly you knew what you had to do and then you went out and did it.

     "Okay," he continued. "We can't all go waltzing out of here at once, 'cause there's a lot of us - and I'm thankful for that - but there's still a lot more of them.

     "Now, I'm assuming you know where this shit of Litouten's is...because I sure the fuck don't."

     More laughter again, but it wasn't hysterical any longer, and it stopped on cue when he raised his hand to speak again. "So here's what's gonna happen. Since you knew enough to be here, I imagine the Field Marshall's already figured out more or less what you're each gonna do." Several people nodded.

     "Good. So whoever's job it is to make sure it's safe to get started, go do it now."

     On his order a squad of four men rose and slipped out the rear entrance.

     Kenren concentrated. He knew Tempou, so he should know what Tempou intended everyone to do. But more importantly, he'd done this sort of thing before, countless times, and he was good at it, dammit. Fuck Tempou. He knew what they should do.

     And then his mind clicked into battle mode as if there'd never been three weeks of besiegement for it to get rusty.

     There was a slight disturbance at the back of the barracks as a door opened and someone was admitted inside. Men backed out of his way as he approached Kenren.

     He bowed. "It's clear, sir."

     Kenren nodded. "All right. I want those of you whose job it is to go somewhere and be obnoxious to go do that now." He turned to the messenger at his side. "Tempou did want people to go be obnoxious, didn't he?"

     The man smiled. "Well, he didn't quite put it along those lines, sir..."

     Several squads slipped out of the building. "'Creating a diversion' is just a polite term for raising hell, Lieutenant," he said.

     The barracks slowly emptied as each squad sneaked out to complete their individual missions. Kenren spoke for a few minutes to each to get an idea of where they'd be and what they were doing, then made his way over to the six or so men who would be heading out with him personally.

     They made room for him on the bench at the table they were crowded around, and he took it. They spent the next hour talking about girls, drinking, brawling, all the things soldiers talk about to pretend like they aren't about to go risk their lives. Kenren listened more than he spoke, and it wasn't long before he had names to put with their faces – Nakajou, Saitou, Takamura, two Takedas, Hatake.

     And then it was time.

     They rose and filed through the door into the darkened streets beyond. It was still several hours until morning – late enough that no one would look too closely at a few stray soldiers on the road this far inside the territory Litouten controlled, and aside from the military, no one else would be about. Celestials had a remarkable sense of self-preservation, and anyone Litouten hadn't been able to press into his service would be sticking low to the ground until they could see for themselves which way the chips were going to fall.

     The dash through the city was a blur to Kenren. He treated it like every soldier was trained to treat these things – focus on getting to your destination, and not what might happen to you before you do. Or once you got there. Just get there, and then get the next bit taken care of, and the one after that.

     They'd been on the move for a good half hour now. The villas kept getting steadily larger, the walls surrounding them higher, the gates more ornate. This was the city quarter of the highest higher-ups, the people who didn't yet work in the Emperor's court but were only a bit of unrealised ambition away.

     They rounded a corner and then they were there. Kenren had had occasion to pass by Litouten's compound before, when he'd had official business in this part of the city. Its outer walls were larger and showier than those of almost all other estates in this, the showiest part of the city. Even these walls, which surrounded the servants' quarters at the back of the estate, were larger than the front facades of most others.

     Kenren set his hand against the low gate and pushed before he lost his nerve. It swung open as he'd known it would, but a massive adrenaline tide of relief washed over him all the same. It wouldn't be long now before they'd have Gokuu all fixed up, and then on to whatever Tempou had in store for them next.

     He crouched for a moment in the gate's shadow and scanned the courtyard - no one home - and motioned his men in after him. Their numbers were down to five now – one of the soldiers would remain hidden outside the gate, and one more inside.

     They bent double and dashed across the narrow servants courtyard into the kitchens, and from there down the service hallways into the heart of Litouten's quarters, Lieutenant Nakajou leading the way. Kenren was sickly fascinated with the interior of Litouten's estate. He'd never seen anything like it, aside from the Emperor's official court buildings. It was vast, for one thing, and so densely packed with gold and jade and silk that the overall effect was more cheap than impressive.

     They crept along the myriad hallways, bent double, moving as fast as they dared through the shadows. Like a tomb, Kenren thought, all dead stale air and piles of expensive things no one will ever use. He had the vague sensation that they were moving downward, as the condensation curling the edges of the hanging scrolls and silk draperies worsened.

     Then came the barriers. Door after door of them, each fitted with a progressively less decorative and more complicated lock. One of the Kenren's men had the keys to them all. Kenren had heard the rumors, of course – standard servant's stock that Litouten kept untold treasures locked behind a million doors in the heart of his estate. Apparently, there was some truth to the stories after all.

     Those same rumors also claimed that no one save Litouten had the power to unlock these doors. Kenren wondered how long it must have taken Tempou to get copies of all those keys, and then marveled at the fact that he'd been able to do it at all while trapped inside his own apartments.

     Or maybe he'd always had them. Kenren wouldn't put it past the Field Marshall.

     The silence was thick and deafening this deep under Litouten's estate. Kenren's breath sounded thunderous to his own ears, and every step he took echoed eerily down the empty corridors.

     "This is it, sir," said Nakajou.

     "Last door?"

     The man gave a shaky grin. "That we have a key for, sir."

     "Alright then. Why don't we open it and see what the big deal is?"

     Nakajou put the key in the lock, turned it and pushed. Kenren tensed; could feel the soldiers behind him tensing as well, and then the door swung open.

     One of the men swore softly. "What the fuck is that?"

     It was massive, for one thing, a huge tangle of wires and tubes pulsing with oddly colored liquids. It gave off a constant low hum and the air around it crackled with ozone like a storm before the lightening strikes. It radiated malignancy.

     Well of course it was malignant, Kenren told himself. It had the power to bring people back from the threshold of death. That sort of thing wasn't right. It was the very worst perversion of Celestial order, perversion on such a huge scale that mere proximity to it could make Celestials ill, even Celestials like Kenren, who didn't normally give a shit about Divine law.

     There was no question that this was Litouten's resurrection technology, the thing in all those diagrams Tempou had spent the last few weeks pouring over. Kenren had to admit that it was sickly fascinating. He took a few steps into the chamber, almost despite himself, and then when nothing happened went to inspect it more closely.

     Its bulk stretched up into the shadows near the domed ceiling, from which the wires and tubes descended like a jungle of metallic hanging vine. Kenren's eyes followed them to the chair at their epicenter, dozens of leather restraints and intravenous drip lines hanging from its framework.

     He turned and found that he was the only one in the room. The others hung back at the door, peering into the room with expressions of revulsion. Their earlier curiosity about the contents of Litouten's secret vault had vanished into thin air; it was all to obvious that every last one of them was regretting having ever agreed to help in the first place. Kenren thought back to their dash through the city. They'd made good time; surely no more than two hours had passed. Assuming Tempou had arranged for others outside to help transport Gokuu and Nataku to the machine, Kenren reckoned he could reasonably expect them to appear within the hour.

     But what was Tempou planning next? Most likely to revive Gokuu and Natakuu, then spirit themselves and the machine away before Litouten was any the wiser. But would he want their escort accompanying them to wherever that was? Kenren didn't think so, and more importantly, he didn't think it would be doing right by these men to involve them further. They'd done enough tonight as it was.

     Well, that settled that.

     He turned to the Lieutenant. "I think," he said, "that this is the part where us renegades disappear without a trace. Which implies that the lot of you don't know anything more than anyone else."

     The men turned as one toward the hall, then turned back just as quickly, soldiers to the core. They wanted – badly – to go, but weren't about to abandon their commanding officer.

     So be it. He would command them. Only, he thought, it would have been so much easier if they'd all just gone. "Dismissed," he whispered. And then, in a surer tone of voice, "Get the hell back to your families or girls or whoever you've got waiting for you."

     A quick glance passed between the unit, and then Lieutenant Nakajou stepped forward. "Good luck, General," he said. The men saluted, and then turned as a unit and hurried back down the corridor. They didn't break formation, but they didn't take their time either. Their footsteps echoed softly for a minute before fading into silence.

     And then it was just him and the machine. He circled its perimeter a few times, staring at its workings, but try as he might he could not bring himself to touch it. Another hour passed, maybe. The adrenaline was wearing off now that he knew he was on the home stretch and he was yawning uncontrollably now, although still painfully alert.

     He thought he was imagining it at first. Soldiers often heard boogeymen in the dark, and Kenren was experienced enough to know when his own nerves were on the edge. He froze, held his own breath, and heard nothing for long moments.

     But he wasn't imagining things after all.

     Rapid footsteps echoed down the corridor. Kenren dropped to a crouch, put the machine between himself door. His gun was out and trained on the approach to the room.

     There was only one of them, but the uncamoflauged approach meant more were probably on the way. But that didn't make any sense – any decent soldier knew better than to give himself away so blatantly, and Litouten wasn't likely to entrust the security of his estate to men without any experience. And if they knew he was here, why not come in force?

     Unless... Konzen. Konzen was idiot enough to come barreling down to the room with no thought to the noise he was making. Konzen would be frantic enough not to bother with things like caution. Maybe, Kenren allowed himself to hope, the footsteps belonged to an ally.

     They did. Only it was Private Hatake, not Konzen, who burst through the door into the room. Kenren took in the Private's flushed face and wild eyes, and began to panic.

     "Litouten's men, sir. They're coming."

     The words took a moment to sink in, and then Kenren burst into action. "How many?" he demanded and felt a detached sense of pride in the fact that his voice was so even.

     Hatake shook his head, sending the sweat beading on his temples flying from them like a dog shaking itself dry. "Four, maybe five," he gasped. "They know, sir. That you've escaped. They're searching the front lines now..."

     But it would only be a matter of time before Litouten sent a detachment to his own estate.

     But he hadn't yet, which would explain how the private had been able to return to warn Kenren. Kenren was torn between an overpowering sense of gratitude and the desire to beat the man to a pulp for his idiotic bravery, but that could wait. He had a split second in which to make his decision, and he made it. "Won't take Litouten long to realise Tempou means to come here. He'll send full unit but it'll take time to deploy one and Tempou has the head start. I'll hold off anyone Li sends against us until they get here."

     Hatake shook his head, eyes rolling like an animal's. "Sir--"

     "Don't waste time arguing with me, Private. Now get the fuck out of here while you still can."

     Hatake's throat worked. "I'm staying. You'll need my gun."

     The last thing he wanted was a hero. Kenren advanced on him, eyes blazing. "Don't be a fucking idiot."

     "I'm not. My chances are better here with you than they'll be if they catch me in the corridor on my own." He was sweating rivers.

     It was true, of course, and Kenren was going to need all the extra firepower he could get. "No more of this damn playing the hero business," he said.

     Hatake only nodded. He looked as if he might vomit were he to open his mouth.

     Kenren raised a hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. New beads immediately rose to replace it. "If we're lucky, they'll send scouts down first. If we're really lucky, we can pick 'em off one by one," he said.

     Then he shrugged and gave the kid a smile he didn't feel. "No use sitting around waiting." Hatake nodded, and they slipped out of the door, keeping the wall to their backs.

     They edged along the corridor for some distance, Kenren's heartbeat roaring in his ears. Their strangled breathing came in short gunfire bursts.

     The fourteenth door, the thirteenth door, clear, no sign of anyone...Kenren almost began to hope that he'd been wrong, that Litouten didn't realise Tempou knew of his machine, that he hadn't realised the renegades were congregating in the heart of his home territory. And then the first soldier rounded the corner.

     Kenren didn't even pause to think. He raised his gun, aimed, and fired.

     There was a flash of light and a retort so loud Kenren couldn't hear anything for moments afterward. And even when he could hear again, silence. The soldier lay slumped against the wall, headless.

     Kenren couldn't breathe.

     Hatake was staring in horror. "You killed him!" He backed slowly away from the blood inching its way across the floor toward his boots. "You fucking killed him, you fucking killed him!"

     Kenren opened his mouth to say – what? That no he hadn't? That that wasn't possible? The guy was dead.

     But it was not possible. You couldn't kill people in Heaven. No Celestial had deadly weapons. Weapons that could stun and tranquilize, immobilise, bind, banish, dispel, yeah, you had those, but nothing that could blow a fucker's head clean off his shoulders.

     The only person who would ever be permitted to own a weapon capable of doing that was the Toushin Taishi, and Nataku had never favored firearms. And even if he had, this gun wasn't it, because it was Kenren's own. Tempou had handed it to him himself...

     "You fucking killed him! Oh, man, oh fuck, oh—"

     There had to be some fucking mistake. Someone – one of the spies, one of the messengers – must have switched his gun for this one at some point during the evening. There was no other possible explanation. Tempou had handed him his gun. Tempou would never have given him a deadly weapon.

     Tempou just might, whispered a voice in his head. Give someone a deadly weapon and not say a word about it until it was too late. It was just the sort of thing Tempou might do.

     "NO!" Kenren said and jumped at the sound of his own voice. Tempou was sly, but he was loyal to the people he cared about. Kenren knew that better than anyone.

     There was a lot of blood left over when you blew off someone's head.

     Hatake was quivering, backed against the wall. "Aw, man what the fuck did you just do? Fuck! He's fucking dead!"

     Kenren stared at him for another shocked moment. Then he turned and charged back down the corridor to the machine room.

     "Hey!" Hatake shrieked to his receding back. "Where the fuck are you going?"

     "You think a gunshot isn't going to bring the entire Army of Heaven down onto our heads?" he bellowed over his shoulder. It was a question that didn't warrant a spoken reply; of course it would. He'd killed a man. The entire army would be out after his ass with orders to bind first and ask later, but with luck not until they had gathered sufficient numbers to risk cornering a criminal with a deadly weapon.

     Killer. Killer. Killer. His head chanted the word in time with his footfalls, but he was still too shocked to pay it much attention. He was a killer, and no matter what he did now he didn't have much time left, which made it all the more important that he get back to the machine and get it to the safe place Tempou had arranged for before Heaven's Armies gunned him down and threw him into a kekkai.

     Hatake's footfalls pounded along behind him. But what the hell else could the kid do? Flee back to the mansion straight into the fire of the soldiers coming after Kenren? Hatake didn't have a choice.

     They burst through the final door into the machine room "Stay where you are and shoot down anyone who gets near," Kenren barked at Hatake, who stopped in his tracks as if bound and raised his gun to the door. Kenren was being ruthless, but he had no choice. He was not going to fuck things up any more than he already had (and why hadn't he thought to check his gun?). Tempou, Gokuu, Konzen, Nataku - he was not going to let them down.

     He pulled Tempou's scroll from his duster and tried to steady himself to the point where he could manage an incantation. Like all Celestials, he had a basic knowledge of these things – demon, youkai, saint, angel, immortal – the world was jam-packed with every imaginable type of magic user from more heavens than you could count. Since it wasn't politic to mistake an emissary from some other god's Heaven for a garden-variety Terrestrial, most Celestials in the Emperor's court were educated in the basics of non-Buddhist magic, just in case.

     But only the basics, because it was forbidden for Celestials to use divine magic from any of the other Heavens. Not that that mattered to Kenren now.

     Kenren withdrew the scroll, fumbled it in sweaty hands, then tore the seal off with his teeth. The paper unrolled toward his feet as he began chanting the incantation, throat forming the sounds of unfamiliar characters. A strange burning metallic taste filled his mouth as the incantation took hold.

     The air filled with ozone. Static electricity danced across his clothes, lifted his sodden hair from the back of his neck, jumped crackling and spitting along the wires and tubes. Kenren's throat was on fire, his voice was cracking, he wasn't going to make it to the end of the incantation, he was choking out the final character. There was a flash of blinding light, the air stank of sulfur and singed hair, and he was suddenly standing in a cavernously empty room, staring through a Gate at the machine.

     It was not where they were. Kenren took a step toward the Gate, the way out, and then stumbled back, repelled. He could not, could not go in there.

     The Gate shimmered, then evaporated.

     Hatake was on his knees at Kenren's feet, face a sickly greenish-white. "No," he whispered, swaying from side to side. "No, you didn't."

     Kenren stared at him. "You know where that was." And then, "Where the hell is it? If we can get there..." It was more important than anything now to find out where that was, so that he could send word, somehow, to Tempou, that he'd sent the machine safely beyond Litouten's clutches; that there was still hope for Gokuu and Nataku.

     Hatake was staring at the place where the Gate had been, face so twisted Kenren no longer recognised it. "I've been there," he said thickly. "That's there. That's the castle where they imprisoned Gyuumaoh." He turned hate-filled eyes on Kenren and laughed. "You're not gonna get there. Ain't no one gonna get in there after we sealed him in."

     A wave of nausea rolled over Kenren as if the floor had suddenly dropped away from his feet. What the hell, what the fucking hell, was happening?

     Hatake was still on his knees at Kenren's side, swaying back and forth. Kenren raised his gun, aimed and fired before he lost the nerve. Hatake screamed; blood fountained from his shoulder. The hot smell of piss filled the air.

     The kid had been knocked onto his back. Kenren grabbed him roughly by his good shoulder and hauled him to his feet. And then he slugged him in the face to make him shut up.

     Hatake stared at him in terror, whimpering, face smeared with blood, snot and tears. Kenren slapped him this time, his hand raising a red mark on the kid's cheek. "Get the fuck out of here!" he bawled. "Go!"

     "Go?" Hatake shrieked. "Back? You want me to go back? Into Litouten's house? They'll kill me!" He laughed hysterically.

     "You wanna get caught here with me instead?"

     But Hatake was too frantic to make any sense of the words. Kenren swore viciously and rammed the butt of his pistol into Hatake's temple; the kid crumpled to the ground. At least like this, battered, with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and his own piss staining his uniform the kid might look as though he'd tried to take Kenren on one-on-one. There was a chance they'd let him go unpunished. Kenren swore again and jammed a new round of ammo into the pistol.

     And then the Imperial Guard broke down the door.

     He had expected to awake to find himself magically bound and imprisoned in a kekkai for all eternity, but it seemed they'd only chained him. Still, he didn't need to open his eyes to know he'd been beaten to within an inch of death.

     "Ah, fuck," he whispered. Wounds on his lips cracked open and bled. He never wanted to open his eyes again.

     "You're awake." The words were delivered evenly, devoid of warmth or any other emotion.

     He did open his eyes then, although he had to shut them and try again several times before he could focus them without waves of nausea washing over him.

     Konzen was sitting across from him in the other corner of the cell, leaning against the wall. His perpetually flawlessly clothing was soiled and torn, and his hair had come free from its bindings to tangle about his face and back, but he was otherwise unharmed.

     It was a few moments before he could speak. "Where are the others?"

     Konzen looked him straight in the eye and shrugged. Eventually he spoke. "Litouten's guard has reclaimed Nataku. I do not know where they've imprisoned Gokuu."

     "Tempou?" he whispered. A sudden upsurge of adrenaline flowed through his body and he slowly dragged himself upright to face Konzen.

     Konzen shrugged again. "He has evaded capture to the best of my knowledge."

     Kenren shut his eyes; gave a cracked whoop that left his lips and throat throbbing. Tempou had evaded capture. Tempou had evidence against Litouten. Tempou would intervene on their behalf.

     He opened his eyes and met Konzen's empty gaze. "Hey," he said. "Tempou'll get us out of this. He'll figure it out somehow." Tempou still had the scrolls detailing just what Litouten had created in the basements beneath his estate, and that information would be as good as damning. There was no way Tempou would leave them here when he could use it to get them out.

     Konzen was looking at Kenren as though he pitied him.

     "What?' he snapped. "What are you getting that I'm not?"

     "Tempou will most likely not intervene on our behalf," Konzen said finally, and the pity in his voice, so uncharacteristic of him, set Kenren's teeth on edge. "Since he intended for more of this to happen than you think."

     It was the last response Kenren could have expected. Sudden rage rose in his throat. "What the hell are you saying?" Chains grated angrily across the flagstones as he made an abrupt, staccato lunge toward Konzen, then lurched back to the floor as half-healed wounds burst open from the sudden movement, oozing blood like fresh tears.

     Konzen looked away and said nothing. There was silence for several minutes.

     "Take it back," Kenren said finally.

     "I said nothing," Konzen answered mildly.

     "The hell you didn't! You didn't have to say it; it's all over your face, Konzen. Take it back. Tempou wouldn't betray me-- us. We..."

     "Wouldn't betray you why?" said Konzen. "Because you were...fucking?" He enunciated the word with clear distaste, as though even discussing behavior so rooted in the physical body was beneath him.

     "Yes," said Kenren, threat clear in his voice. "Because we were...'fucking.'" Another agitated movement as he saw that he had failed to convince Konzen. "What the hell does that have to do with anything anyway? What Tempou and I do in bed has nothing to do with what we do out of it!"

     "Doesn't it?" said Konzen slowly. "Tell me, whose idea was it that the two of you become lovers? Certainly not yours."

     And because Kenren knew that it would be clear from his face that it hadn't been his idea, he said again, "What does that have to do with it?"

     "Heaven is filled with Celestials who plot and scheme to overthrow the Emperor, or at the very least circumvent his decrees. Those in charge know this. And so those who are both intelligent and prudent know that it is in their best interests to be unremarkable, or failing that, unthreatening."

     "Tempou," said Kenren heatedly, "was never one of those men."

     "Wasn't he?" Konzen demanded. "Tell me, General, who is as unthreatening as a man who enjoys being sodomised by his subordinates?"

     "You son of a..."

     "Do you think it's accidental that you and your aide were the gossip of the whole Celestial Realm? Do you think that someone like Tempou could have gotten away with half of what he did if there hadn't been something about him that told people that despite all appearances to the contrary, he really was nothing but a..."

     Bitch. The word hung in the air more loudly than if it had been spoken aloud.

     Kenren wanted so desperately to deny it, but it was suddenly there, had been there, in front of his face the whole time. Don't thank me for this, Tempou had said after informing him that he had been reinstated as General. I do the things I have to do. And Kenren had thought at the time that it had been selflessness, or at least friendship, that had compelled Tempou to treat with Goujun on his behalf. Now, now, he saw it differently. Don't thank me...

     He spent the next few days, thankfully, in something of a haze, moving in and out of consciousness, occasionally waking to drink some of the stale water they left for him and Konzen. Konzen, as far as Kenren was aware, never stirred from his corner, just stared at the ceiling, stared at the walls. Maybe he was thinking about Gokuu, maybe he was thinking about nothing at all; Kenren couldn't tell and didn't truly care. He slept as much as he could, and tried not to think about anything himself.

     It had to happen sometime, he knew, and he told himself he was beyond caring, would be beyond caring by the time it happened, but when they finally came and unlocked the doors, rusted hinges screeching in protest, he thought, No, too soon...

     They had to drag him in, he had been beaten so badly. Blood oozed from his eyes, his nose, his ears, his scalp, caking in his brown hair so that it looked almost black. His face was swollen, riddled with bruises in shades of purple, maroon, sickening yellow. His legs, twisted. And, Kenren noticed, his fingers. Those long, clever fingers...

     But no, he didn't care. Not about that. Not any more. He turned his head to the wall, rested it against the cold, sweating stones. None of this mattered now.

     The chains shrieked as they were dragged across the floor to manacle him, as though he could have moved in the state he was in. Heaven, he had said once, to Kenren, is not kind to heretics. Or to traitors. And then came the screech of the door being wrestled back into place on unwilling hinges. And then silence.

     "I was wondering," said Konzen in that deep placid voice he had adopted ever since Kenren had awoke to find them sharing the cell together, "if you might make it out after all."

     A noise, something which might have been a laugh struggling up from a battered throat. "And did you think it likely?"

     "Knowing you, I thought you had an equal chance either way."

     "For a while, it looked as though my role might be overlooked in the general uproar. But as it turns out, too many people wanted too passionately to see me fall for it to escape notice." His voice evinced nothing but mild disappointment. "They were quite industrious. I hadn't thought anyone in Heaven's bureaucracy actually had it in them."

     Konzen snorted, whether in commiseration, amusement, or disgust, Kenren couldn't tell.

     "And yet--" Tempou began at the same moment Konzen started, "So--" There was a brief silence as each waited for the other to speak.

     "Please, continue," said Tempou solicitously.

     "So, seeing as you've been free several weeks," Several weeks? thought Kenren, "longer than we have, I was wondering whether you might have some idea about what is to become of us."

     "Yes, I do have 'some idea' about what is to become of us," said Tempou carefully. "Or by 'us' do you really mean Gokuu?"

     Without opening his eyes, Kenren felt the subtle shift in Konzen's aura, a sudden suppressed alertness. Konzen wasn't going to admit it, but he truly had been asking specifically about Gokuu.

     "You will be happy to know that his sentence is, shockingly enough, rather merciful. If my information is current, he'll most likely be placed within a kekkai on some mountain Down There. I believe," a pause, "that they were rather awed by the havoc he managed to wrack on the Emperor's elite troops."

     "Idiot monkey," Konzen said, but the relief was naked in his voice. "And as for us?"

     "We," Tempou paused, "are a different story entirely. I believe we are to be executed."

     Konzen snorted. "In that case, I would not trust your information. Such a thing would never be permitted to occur in the Celestial Realm. And besides, Nataku is still comatose, is he not? Certainly, the Toushin Taishi is the only Celestial permitted to draw blood, anywhere."

     "I do not believe that they want for a Toushin Taishi at the moment," said Tempou.

     "But Nataku...in the condition he is in," said Konzen, "How..."

     Tempou laughed. "I think, Konzen, that you underestimate what a priority we have become."

     Kenren did not know which was worse - the days when Tempou had not been there, the fact that Tempou was now here, or the fact that he was ignoring Kenren so completely. As if the Field Marshall could read minds, he said, "Kenren." And then, "Please, open your eyes."

     "Why the fuck should I?"

     "Because this may be the last chance we'll have to look at one another."

     "Just looking at you, Tempou," he said, "is like digging fingers into an open wound." And he did open his eyes, but it was Konzen that he looked at, and felt the weight of their previous conversation settle like lead in his stomach. And then he dropped his head into his hands and spoke aloud the first lucid thought he had managed in days.

     "I need a fucking cigarette."

     "Kenren..." That gentle, solicitous voice, the same as it always was, if one listened past the bruised vocal cords.

     "Why?" he said finally. "What the hell for? Pretty much everyone in all four corners of Heaven was trying to get themselves into the Emperor's throne. Why did it matter if one man and not another held it?"

     "Because," Tempou said evenly, and it was the evenness of that voice, the utter surety of purpose it expressed, that finally broke him. "Because the current Emperor is at least incompetent. He hands down orders and edicts and rules with perfect royal arrogance and as long as you bow at his feet when his eyes fall on you, you can do as you please when they don't. Litouten, however, would not have been so easily fooled. For my sake, your sake, the sake of our men, our sake," and his tone embraced all of Heaven, "I couldn't allow someone who wasn't incompetent to take the throne."

     He gasped into his hands. "Yes, you fucking could have," he snarled. It was hard to find enough air to speak. "Everyone else was willing to.

     "You used us."

     "Ah," said Tempou. "And now we come to the true objection. Had I prevailed, it wouldn't have been a problem."

     "You didn't prevail," Kenren spat at the floor. "And then you tried to escape."

     "Only to keep fighting. Had I managed to--"

     "Yeah, well, guess what? You didn't manage."

     And now they were all going to die. He supposed it was better, in a way, than being bound. Slap someone in a kekkai and that was it. They were there forever. No rebirth for them, because they hadn't died in the first place.

     So it was better, he supposed. The cycle of rebirth at least meant they were getting a second chance, of sorts. Be virtuous enough over the lifetimes and they might just make it back up to Heaven. But then he thought about how many hundreds of deaths and rebirths it took for humans to pay off their karmic debts and break free of the cycle. How many hundreds more for fallen Celestials?

     "This was not for nothing, Kenren," Tempou said into the silence. His voice was firm, harder than Kenren had ever heard it before, even on the field of battle. "I swear before Heaven, I will prove that to you, not matter how long it may take."

     Kenren said nothing in response. He did not look at Tempou again.

     It was perhaps another two weeks before they'd regenerated to the point where they could walk to the execution grounds under their own power. The pure light of Heaven's sun was blinding after so long spent in the dungeons. Kenren's eyes watered mercilessly and he couldn't keep them open for long periods, which was a blessing, because the entire surviving population of Heaven had turned out, compelled by Divine edict if not their own curiosity, to see the first executions in the history of Heaven.

     They walked the entire length of the ceremonial processional from the Gates of Heaven to the main hall of its grandest temple. And when we reach the end, thought Kenren, we're all going to die.

     It was such a foreign concept it held no real weight at all. After all, no one ever died in Heaven. Not Konzen, not Tempou, not himself, not the man he'd killed in the dungeons beneath Litouten's mansion.

     He allowed himself to be marched up the stairs of the main hall, and waited docilely while first Tempou and then Konzen were led to the lip of its patio. And then it was his turn. He raised his head and looked, for the last time, at the sea of courtiers assembled on the grounds before the main hall; at the cherry trees beyond the temple gates, perpetually in bloom; and at the blue sky beyond all of that.

     "...ren Taishou of the Western Army," a distant voice was saying through the roaring in his ears, "know that you are to be executed for crimes of high treason against Heaven and against the order of the Emperor of the Celestial Land, in accordance with Divine law. Step forward." A strange hush, a strange frission descended over the assembled masses below, and Kenren felt a hand against the small of his back as he was pushed roughly to his knees. The stink of fresh blood assailed his nostrils as his eyes traveled down the length of the stairs to the crumpled, empty bodies of Konzen and Tempou below him.

     This was not for nothing, Tempou had said. I swear I will prove that to you, no matter how long it may take. Kenren caught the swish of a flame-colored robe from the corner of his eye, heard the clink of a chain and a slight susurration of air, and then the sword descended, slicing through his neck.

A/N: I started this story back in 2002, and started crunching on it when it looked as though Minekura was never going to finish Gaiden. (Then it was announced that she would finish Gaiden, and I really got crunching.) Silver Lining is a bit that got excised from EW proper rather early on; it still works as an epilogue now.