Less well known, if it was indeed known at all, was the fact that Kenren was a card-carrying Librarian, trained during the wee hours of the celestial night and in the anything BUT wee wrinkles of the time-space continuum that was L-space.
The real reason he was transferred to the Western Army was to keep an eye on an uninitiated celestial who had collected enough books, scrolls, stone slabs and assorted napkins with hashish philosophy doodles to get connected to L-space. It really won't do to have non-librarians bumbling around in the strange and dangerous dimensions of bookly knowledge, so Kenren was to watch, catalogue and eventually either recruit or annihilate the Field Marshall.
Despite his affections for the orally skilled geek, Kenren was very much contemplating annihilation one night, when he after a particularly intense date with Lady Sake returned to Tenpou's office only to find that the man had wandered off into L-space again. Even after all the careful tidying and arranging Kenren had done, Tenpou had still managed to find a path out. Blast and buggerit.
Fortunately it didn't take long to locate Tenpou; he was sound asleep, happily cuddling a rather impressive volume of Toushin Taishi memoirs from Tentei's grandfather's days. But there ended Kenren's joy...
On a shelf far too close to Tenpou's head, he spotted a suspicious book. "The Universe of the Four Gods" was its title, and when he carefully reached out to touch it, it emitted pink and purple sparkles. Kenren gritted his teeth grimly. Wonderful, just great. Well, he was buggered if he was going to let some magical, mystery book lure his Marshall off to silly places!
He removed his coat, folded it, and then carefully used it to pick up the nasty intruder. The sparkles made the little hairs at the back of his neck rise, and he could feel his hangover starting early as he stalked deeper into L-space.
For the second time that night, he nearly tripped over another wanderer, but this time it was a colleague. "Oh, hello mate, how goes?"
"Ook!"
"Aw shucks, I hope he recovers."
"Ook."
"Heinh, that's so true. Good assistants take a lotta time to train. ..hey! Be careful, this is..." Kenren's voice rose in alarm, as the orangutan reached out to poke at the Book.
The Librarian grinned toothily at Kenren and leaned in to sniff experimentally at the book. "Eek!" he observed and stood back to eye the thing with something akin to a frown.
"Yeah, it's one of those damn magical fairy tale books. Fucking parasites, the lot of them. I'm taking it to the containment lockers," Kenren groused. "I caught it trying to sidle up to my recruit."
"Ook?" The Librarian produced two bananas, and offered one to Kenren.
"Nah, he's sound asleep. I think it was arranging itself to drop onto his head and wake him up. -Thanks!" Kenren accepted the banana, and they munched quietly for a moment's time.
The Librarian thought for a while, then looked up at Kenren with a sly expression. "Ook!"
Kenren raised an eyebrow. "Well... Sure, why not." He held out the coat with the nesting book to the Librarian.
...who promptly grabbed it and chewed experimentally on the book's cover.
Kenren later reflected that this may not have been the very wisest of courses. The amount of sparkles and glitter alone was enough to make a grown man cry. The sakura leaves and pink lotus petals were completely overkill. And the effects on the orangutan Librarian, oh, they were just too awful to contemplate. The poor ape had started to transform into some long-limbed, androgynous, big-eyed, silken-haired freakshow right before Kenren's very eyes! Fortunately for his sanity, the book had swallowed the Librarian before the polymorph had even come half-way. He never saw either of them again.
But later still, when a little itan newcomer had a particularly loud objection to being called a monkey, Kenren felt a chill surge down his spine...