It's sorta amusing what comes out in one perspective that's
background chatter to another....

Don’t worry, Mr. Nameless Half-Dead will be MUCH more talkative
after some of those nagging life-threatening injuries are dealt with.

----------------------

----------------------

One
would think that having a lock on my door and shutters on the window - even
broken ones - in the temple would allow some peace in the mornings.

"Sanzo! It's
time for breakfast!"

That
assumption, of course, does not plan for Goku.

"San-zooo! Come on!
You can't sleep all day!"

Sunrise
was what...an hour ago? I haven't been
asleep the last twenty minutes, just lying in bed trying to ignore the monkey
banging at my door. "Come on Sanzo, stay in bed much longer and we're
going to miss breakfast!"
Sometimes, I suspect that his insistence on dragging me to eat when
we're in the temple is just an insidious ploy to make sure I can't skip meals;
he's known enough here that he could go get food from the kitchen all by
himself. "Saaanzoooo!"

He quits
banging on the door and yelling when I get out of bed, and actually gives me
the time to get cleaned and dressed. When
I open the door, he's standing right in front of it expectantly, then takes up
basically running circles around me, launching into a narration of everything
that'd gone on yesterday while I was busy, how cranky the groundskeeper is,
that all the monks were stuffier than usual at him, and the one handling dinner
had practically begrudged feeding him, and wait this isn't the way to the
kitchen why were we going to the basement?

"I'm
going to check on him first." And
hopefully haul him to the healer, before anyone around the temple can come up
with anything else to distract me with.

"Aaaaah.", he nods, and runs ahead, still talking a red
streak; as I head down the stairs, one of the monks is only just lighting the
candles in the dark stone hallway, and there's a few annoyed mutters and brief
glares into the hall at Goku's chattering passage, which includes a "Heey Sanzo, they put someone in that room they tried to
stick me with!"

I get
curtly directed to the right cell by the monk lighting candles; after the
initial murmur, there's a stony silence as everyone down there is waiting for
us to finish our business and leave them in peace. The door clicks open with a creak onto the
dim, small, bare stone room. There's
little in the room but a small table, a rough wooden chair, and a small cot,
where my now-nameless charge is asleep under a rough-woven blanket, curled
uncomfortably. He doesn't wake at a
nudge to his shoulder, though he cringes more into the blanket with a soft
mumble; he seems chilled, trembling, and definitely doesn't look healthy. Dried blood is crumbling down his face from
the bandage on his wounded eye. Even
keeping a slow pace, making him walk three days was pushing hard with how much
blood he'd lost and how badly injured he was; forcing him into more activity
might be worse than leaving him rest, but if his condition gets any worse, rest
won't help either.

I put a
hand to his forehead to check; he's clammy and noticeably warmer than he should
be, but not dangerously so, and once again his aura crawls up my arm in a dark,
dismal, bloody spiral, coiling inward to devour itself. I pull my hand back with a chill of my own
before I start overhearing his nightmares; the way he's been the last few days,
I should've known that touching him to see if he's miserable was like sticking
my hand in a campfire to see if it's hot.

"Is
he gonna be OK?
Shouldn't we get him to a healer?"

"We'll
take him when he wakes up; for now he needs rest just as much." And to get cleaned up, and fresh clothes,
which will mean I can't stay here and watch him and get that arranged, but if I
leave him alone like this, I won't know if he starts getting worse. "I have things I need to get done while
he's out; you keep an eye on him, and if he wakes up or seems to be getting
worse, get me immediately."

"Right!" He
pulls the chair over by the cot backwards and hops to perch on it. "Wait - what about breakfast?"

"We'll
eat once we've gotten him to a healer."

I shut
the door behind me as I leave, catching a few disgusted and irritated stares as
the acolytes realize Goku's not leaving with me. The monk in charge of taking care of the
lower cells tries to avoid me at first on his way out, until he realizes I've
stood in his path and am not passing by as usual.

"Yes,
Honored Sanzo?" His tone carries
the dread of the realization that he's going to be seeing a lot more of
me.

"I
have a charge here; we've just come in from a long trip, he's injured, and will
need a bath and a change of clothes before anything else. He's not in a condition to deal with the
normal baths."

"Yes,
Honored Sanzo." He's not
acknowledging any action, just that yes, he heard me, and he comes within a
fraction of an inch of rolling his eyes at me.

"He'll
need a tub, soap, and water brought to his room, as well as a clean robe and a
towel." If I leave anything out,
they'll avoid it and pretend it wasn't obvious what I meant; saying it like I'm
talking to a small child is only natural, since that's the level they keep
making me work at to get anything done.

"Of course, Honored Sanzo." He hasn't looked directly at me once.

"See
to it that's done as soon as possible, right after you're done here." No time loopholes to blow me off on either, I
know he doesn't have much to do for another few hours unless some trouble
starts. If one of the other acolytes
starts trouble today, so help me I'll step in and deal with it myself, and
there'll be a few more acolytes with permanent nervous twitches this year.

"Yes,
Honored Sanzo." He doesn't budge
until after I've turned and started to walk away.

I'm
used to some degree of the other priests and monks here trying to distance
themselves from me, but it's usually just the ones I've dealt with directly; as
I try to get minor business done going over arrangements for my charge, even so
much as flagging someone down seems to be pulling teeth, and whispers follow my
back, everything dragging out ten times longer than it needs to be. It seems I've managed to walk into another
time when gossip outweighs Right Speech and "Do Not Speak Ill Of Others"; even trying to get an idea who I need to
look out for leads in circles.

There's
only one place I can get straight answers without threats of violence on a day
like this.

The
library's silent and almost seems empty as I push the doors open and enter; no
sign of the librarian or anyone else. The
shelves and balconies form their own little labyrinth where it's easy to
disappear, the very structure of the room seeming to muffle sound; there's
total silence until I ring the chime on the desk by the door.

"Yesyesyes what?", comes from a
set of shelves with a series of thumps; he must've been putting books
away. The old man bustles out of the
shelves on a balcony to my right, stopping when he sees me to adjust his
glasses from the side and squint.
"Oh. It's you." He takes a slower pace down the stairs, still
squinting at me through his narrow lenses.
"Taking in strays again, I hear.
One can only hope this one will be better behaved than the last." He pauses at the bottom to lean on the
railing. "Speaking of whom, the
groundskeeper figured I'd see you before he did; do you want his message as he
worded it, as he meant it, or do you have both versions memorized by now?"

I wave
it off; the sky is still blue, grass is still green, the groundskeeper still
hates Goku. "I'll get it from him
directly later. I take it you heard
about the trial yesterday?"

"Even
the younger acolytes heard about the trial yesterday, and several permutations
thereof; of course, I got tired of the gossip and read the functionary's
verbatim record when I filed it.
Frankly, I've never seen why the Temple should even be involved in
deciding legal affairs that do not otherwise concern it, so it was doomed to be
a farce from the beginning, although I'm surprised you two kept such civil
tongues through that argument."

"Do
you know whose idea the original sentence was?"

He sits
down at his desk with a wry chuckle. "Politics - a fate only marginally worse than being devoured
alive by ravenous wasps."
There's a bemused glimmer in his eye as he looks up at me, still
standing in front of the polished wood desk.
"No; they didn't even inform me of when the meetings were to plan
for this, and I haven't had a reason to check the archives for records of those
discussions. You seemed quite irritated
that they meant to hold the trial immediately, I understand; any particular
reason?" He holds motionless
waiting with a sharp, prodding gaze, blue eyes bright.

He
would catch that through all the rumours.
"He's wounded - stable for now, but as soon as he wakes up, I will
be taking him to a healer." The
wheels are turning in his head, I know it.

"Aaah....so you have taken a personal interest in this
one." That voice was too close to
his lecture voice. "Something
must've caught your interest, for you to agree to be tied to this mess for so
long so easily; but then, I guess it was just a matter of time before you found
a kindred spirit dealing with murderers and criminals."

I favor
him with a withering look. "Did you
expect me to leave that original judgement standing? An execution would have been one thing, that was sadism."

He
hunches forward in his chair, poking a finger in the air at me. "You're just annoyed because you'd
wanted a shot at some of the people he killed yourself - you've tangled with connections
of theirs on the waterfront district, correct?" My withering look narrows and
intensifies. "As rarely as it
happens, I agree with you - the original sentence was something a temple of
Buddha should've been above. However,
not everyone can stay above mortal law as you are, and no one escapes karma,
not even you, Honored Genjo Sanzo."
He adds my full title with a quiet, sarcastic slant to it.

"I'm
not trying to."

"As
long as you're aware of what path you're on." He nods slightly to that. "Well then, is
there anything else you wanted to ask?"

I speak
flatly, with a slight bow as I leave.
"No thank you. That will be
all."

I
manage to catch most of the others on the council that have enough spite in
them to have come up with something like that; within the space of the first
part of the day, my title has been thrown back at me with every possible shade
of derision they can manage, and if I weren't able to sense when they were
lying, there would've been a runaround taking a week. Soon there's only one person from the trial
left who'd consider something like that without prompting.

The
door into the office room of the chambers of the head of the temple rattles
against the wall as I brush it aside; he looks up, briefly startled.

"It
was your idea." The door swings
shut behind me with a swift click.

"Come
again?" He gives me a shaded, blank
look. "Is something wrong, Most
Honored Genjo Sanzo?" Correction,
there's one form of derision the others missed; the slight, chiding barb, as if
the full title should be a reminder of something I've forgotten.

"That
first judgement was your idea."

"Aaah, that."
There's just a slight hint of exaggeration to his moment of
comprehension to betray that it's feigned; he knew what I was here for from the
start. "Well, fasting and
meditation of this form has often been the atonement for murder; usually it's
more than merely a day for each death, so you see, it was actually cut shorter
than the traditional form."

"The
traditional form was never intended to be fatal."

"Forgive
me for needing to adapt things slightly; there was nothing in the traditional
records for genocide save outright execution, and we are not to shed
blood." Undertones
of venom in answer to my sharp edges.

"Ah,
I see, it is preferable to kill by torture than just to kill. Your sense of mercy is astonishing."

He puts
down his pen, losing even the badly faked veil of courtesy. "Is there something you wished to
discuss, or were you just looking for an argument?"

"I
merely wished to confirm who I need to be wary of; of course, I find this to
have been a very redundant line of inquiry, as I already knew you were a
spiteful, deceptive worm that only paid lip service to the ideals you're
supposed to stand for, so I should've expected this."

"You
are hardly one to speak of another who actually follows the Eightfold Path,
being one that doesn't even bother to try."

"It
doesn't matter how much you gild carrion - it's still rotten, only now you're
lying about it."

There's
a minute of boiling silence while we snarl at each other, then he stands
resolutely. "I believe,
that there is no more purpose to your presence here, Most Honored Genjo
Sanzo." He seems unsure of whether
he should be hissing or snapping my title, so settles for spitting each word.

"Quite
right, I have better things to do than listen to your lies and
hypocrisy." I stalk out, heading
back for the basement.

That
simplifies things, and answers who in the temple is against me on this one -

Pretty much everyone.

-----------------

As I
get close to the basement, I can hear Goku sporadically yelling; "Go on, I
don't hang around your door staring at it, so what're you doing? Hey, I heard that! Aren't you people supposed to not say bad
things about others? You! Don't even start!" The monk in charge of the lower cells is
sitting by the door with his head in his hands.

"Please
tell me you're here to collect him?", the monk
whimpers weakly.

"Oh,
I don't know, he certainly seems to be making things here
interesting."

He only
cringes in response as I pass by.

There's
a knot of acolytes hanging in the hallway at the spectacle that scatter at my
footsteps on the stairs like carp at a thrown rock, disappearing into their
cells. Goku's outraged ranting fades to
a more worried agitation, as he's standing in the cracked-open doorway to the
cell. "Sanzo, he's still not awake;
when are we going to take him to a healer and get something to eat?"

"When he wakes up." I walk into the cell barely looking at Goku;
if all the noise Goku was making didn't wake him up, maybe he's worse than I'd
thought. He's still curled up where I'd
left him, his back to the door; if he weren't breathing and trembling slightly,
I'd have been worried he was dead. At least
the tub of water is in one corner, soap, a towel, and a folded white robe on
the rough table beside it. Goku slips in
himself and closes the door, leaning in the frame.

He
still doesn't wake up at a nudge to his shoulder. He doesn't look any better, and there's a
good chance the light fever hasn't broken.
The flecks of dried blood from his face are spreading over the thin
pillow, one hand curled almost under his face where he's been scratching at it
in his sleep, clawing at the fresh scabs through the bandage.

I reach
down carefully, trying to tug his wrist through the blankets to shift his hand
away from his face; he stirs with a faint grumble, still asleep, pulling it
right back.

It's a
small consolation that he's not picking at it enough to do damage, and that
it's not conscious.

I back
away to stand next to the door, leaning against the cold stone wall. The one candle on the table is burning down
as we wait, making all the shadows flicker on the walls dimly; the room's
washed out to greys. Goku's mountain
cage was a less depressing prison.

Five
minutes pass, then ten, then a few hours of watching for any sign that he might
be getting worse, before he finally starts stirring more than simple murmuring
at nightmares; sitting up limply, back to me, his attention blankly focused on
his hand and the dried blood on it, unaware of me or Goku. His clothes are still stiff with older blood,
almost stained to black in places. He
shifts with an odd tilt to his head, then itches at his eyes absently.

My
tongue tries to stick in my throat briefly; I point to the tub, one word
crawling out of a combined need to distract him from his self-destruction
before the eye gets any worse, get him cleaned and out of the bloody old
clothes, and get him to the healer. "Strip!" He
starts, realizing we're there with a fast backward glance. "Wash." I point to the tub and other things brought
in to spare him the semi-public baths, trying to untangle a few nerves enough
for full sentences.

He
slinks painfully off the cot, shedding the old clothes in a rumpled, stiffened
heap in the center of the room. His
shadow flickers and twists on the wall in the guttering candlelight, warping in
the darkness. Besides the bandages on
his stomach and eye, he seems mostly unhurt; any other injuries he'd had
must've healed cleanly. To have fought
through two entire clans of youkai close-quarters and come out of it with that
little in the way of serious injury - what did he do for a living before
this? He doesn't act or carry himself
like he's used to fighting without being pushed. He's still shaking and unsteady, distant,
only barely more aware than he was on the walk back. It's likely that the disorientation is more
because of his injuries than anything else; I don't dare take any more time
getting him to a healer. Anyone getting
in the way once we leave this room, is going to end up
in pain.

He
dresses shakily, still moving like it takes an act of
effort to keep any kind of coordination.
The white acolyte's robes hang oddly off his frame, awkward and
incongruous. "Come on." When I turn to leave, he follows haltingly,
Goku falling in behind me and just in front of him. Goku starts rambling as
we're walking, a steady stream of “Hey, Sanzo,
where are we going? Are we going into town? Will you buy
me something to eat? You made me miss breakfast, so you'd better make up for
it! You should remember to eat something
too, y'know…” My now-nameless
charge is actually showing signs of acknowledging our presence, but still seems
dazed and distant. The other monks and
acolytes giving us a wide berth; I keep catching myself moving faster than what
he can manage with his injuries, and needing to stop and wait - as much as I
want to get him to the healer and get away from the temple for a while, making
him keep up with my usual pace in his condition will only make things
worse.

One of
the monks guarding the gate moves halfway into my path, torn between the
confused realization that my charge isn't supposed to be leaving, and fear of
me - he was one of the students involved in the fiasco a few months ago where I
got "strongly suggested away" (in other words, banned) from watching
the self defense classes.

"I
was told, Most Honored Sanzo, that he wasn't to leave temple
grounds..." He's holding still, but
it's less standing his ground and more trying to not make any sudden moves
around something dangerous, even though I have to looking up at him.

"He's
badly injured and technically needed to see a healer yesterday. I'm not about to trouble a busy chi-healer
that doubtless has other patients to attend to by forcing them to drop
everything and run to the temple."
If he makes me actually say 'stand aside', he's not going to be
standing.

He
frets it over; I've left him with a choice between risking getting in trouble
with the other temple authorities, and the more immediate threat of getting in
trouble with me when I'm in a foul mood.
It only takes a couple seconds for him to decide, then
he edges out of our way.
"Understood, Honored Sanzo." The honorific isn't said so much with a sense
of respect as, 'if I follow the rules of courtesy maybe he won't hurt me'.

Chang'An
is a large and noisy city once outside the temple gates, split between squares
and main roads with the spaces between filled with large buildings and narrow,
winding streets. The nearest chi-healer
that I know and trust is off the main thoroughfares, somewhere more the
direction of the waterfront but still in the safer areas of town; someone less
familiar with the city would get lost in two turns, but it's become a path I
could almost follow blindfolded.

The
healer's shop is small, worn, and about on par with the area around it; it’s away
from the main streets and busy districts, where the lower classes most in need
of a good healer who doesn't need tools tend to congregate, and there isn't as
much need to keep up appearances. I
stand just inside the doorway while the other two wait outside; the old
healer's already waiting, and had probably sensed me coming.

“This
is a bit of a surprise, Sanzo. I hadn't
even heard you were back in town…and usually, when you come here with someone,
it's because they're carrying you.” The
last part of it was a very intentional, but relatively gentle prod, a
not-openly-stated repeat of his old admonishment for me to try and keep myself
in one piece more.

“He's
hurt - badly.”

“Not
very hard to see…what, exactly, happened?”

“A long story not worth repeating.”

“…One
of those cases, hmm? Would this relate
to your recent trip out of town?”

"I
have no reason to explain." I might
trust him, but this is far too close to the waterfront, my ward has far too
much of a reputation, and if anyone overhears in the slightest -

I hand him
coins, enough to easily cover something this severe, and another signal that
the discussion was over.

The
doctor can handle things, I just need to wait, avoid attracting attention, and
make sure the patient stays put - a couple wrong turns from here and he might
run straight into some old friends of Hyakugan Maoh's.

Goku's
a few feet away, staring at a bakery a couple doors down as if it were an oasis
in the desert - I know this's longer than he usually
goes, but can he get a little patience
to make sure this guy survives?

"Goku!" He hesitates, turning back reluctantly,
already knowing he's not done yet.
"Stay here and make sure he-" I point back at my ward
-"doesn't go anywhere until the old man's done with him. Then bring him along, and come find
me." If I just
hang around, I'm going to attract attention, and questions, quite possibly of
the kind I really don't need right now.
Goku's one of the people that's carried me here before, he knows why I'd
be cautious of saying much here.

He nods
and stands by the door soberly, guarding, while the doctor waves my ward
in. Goku can handle anything that might
go wrong here; I turn down the street, to get out of sight and maybe hear what
I might need to watch out for outside the temple.

There's a small bar around a few side streets, closer
to the temple - close enough to it to be safe, but in the city enough to hear
about the other places. It's a narrow,
spare place wedged in between two other buildings, and a common enough retreat
of mine that nobody looks twice at me entrance; it's counted with the temples
as "mine" to the waterfront bosses, after I got drug into a squabble
here. There's only a few people, old
regulars, besides the staff, and nobody comments as I drift back to my regular
table in a back corner near the bar.

The
owner brings over a bottle of brandy and hands a glass down to me, leaning on
the bar so that he could easily feign indifference. "Back in town
already?"

"Trip
didn't take real long." The pack's still in the pocket with my lighter - they haven't
managed to make my cigarettes disappear yet.
"Did I miss much?"

"Not
really. The waterfront crowd's in a
tizzy, but the Temples dealt with the only target they could aim at, so all
their confusion's sorting out internal politics." I go through the first glass, and he hands me
a second without blinking. "They're
nervous, I will say that - I think it's sinking in that they just lost major backup,
and they're the kind of nervous that makes them more dangerous than
usual." Polishing off the second
glass, some of the nervous-sick that's been a perpetual state loosens its
grip. "I wouldn't recommend showing
yourself around them for a while; they're looking for targets, and they don't
like you even if you did just do their work for them." He hands down a third glass.

"Shouldn't
be a problem; I'm going to be too busy to get in their hair for a good
while. I ended up getting stuck with a
new acolyte on the trip, and this one's going to take up all my time." Everything I said was true; it's the parts I
left out that'll hopefully stave off too many questions from the wrong quarters
about a certain new responsibility. "Might not even be able to make it out here much." I don't have to feign disappointment at that;
part of the reason I've kept the organized crime types out of this area so
vehemently, is that this place's close enough and discreet enough that I can
get a drink here and there while I'm staying at the temple without it turning
into a major debacle every time.

Things
trail off into quiet, nothing but the usual background noise as people are
filtering in and out; just keeping an eye on things and handing me a glass now
and then without paying much attention to me is practically an old ritual for
the bartender. Somehow, places like this
feel more calm than the temple, for all that it's
noisy, dimly lit, and replaces incense with smoke. I've been here often enough that most of the
patrons don't pay any attention to my presence; I can fade into the background
with my drink and my cigarette without any prickle of disapproving looks or
people watching me just because I have a title and a relic draped over my
shoulders. It's gotten worse since I
brought him back, to boot; the Temple's feeling almost as much like enemy
territory as some waterfront boss's home, just because I altered the ruling in
favor of sparing Gonou's life.

It's
hard to miss when they catch up; the murmur's
punctuated briefly as the few others there notice Goku coming in accompanied,
I'm sitting where I can see the door, and even avoiding paying attention it's
hard to miss Goku's too-bright aura and the irked sort of surprise from behind
him.

He
still seems frail, but less distant, steadier on his feet; less a ghost
trailing behind, disjointed from his surroundings. His right eye is tracking with the left, but
there's now a silver-framed monocle perched on his nose, reflecting the
flickering lanterns.

Goku's
swiftly leaning on one of the chairs across the table from me, going complete
begging puppy. "Hey, Sanzo, can I
eat now?" The expression of utter
pleading promises that if I come up with one more delay, I'm going to get
whined at for hours, but there's not really anything else I need him for. I toss him the rest of what I had left from
the travel money.

"Here,
go buy something to eat. Meet me back
at the temple later."

He
clutches it with a grateful grin and bolts out happily, leaving my ward in his
wake, still giving me and the empty glasses that bewildered look. I get up, ignoring it, and head out, followed
by the continued confusion.

"Doc
give you that for your eye?" I try to keep it offhand - it can only really
mean that the eye didn't heal right or completely for some reason; I've never
known that healer to leave scars, even with delicate damage like eye
injuries.

His
answer's thick with barbed sarcasm that stings all the harder for coming from
him behind me, dragging part of my stomach right back into my throat. "Yes, Honored Genjo Sanzo."

I
almost miss a step reacting. "Don't
call me that!" Take a breath and
turn enough to look at him, I have enough to fret over
without this... "Just 'Sanzo' if you must call me anything at
all." Damnit, he can ignore me if
he wants, but if I have to face that attitude from him when I'm digging my own
grave defending him, it'll be more than I can handle.

He's
silent for a moment, whatever train of thought he'd had thrown off, and at
first he's just starting to mouth words without quite seeming to know what he's
trying to say. "....Er....alright....Sanzo."

"That's
better." Confused I can live with,
at least for now.

We make
it back to the temple without incident, and the guard opens the gate before I
even say anything. The trees are casting
shadows almost to the far end of the main courtyard - the sun's going down;
it's later than I'd thought. Now that
he's coherent enough to be aware of his surroundings, I make the rounds of the
temple rattling off where everything is, in the hopes that he catches enough to
get around on his own when I'm not there.
He doesn't even try to comment until the end, when I stop outside the
kitchen. "...and that's the
kitchen. You missed dinner, so if you
need to eat, you can grab something here."

"Dinner?"
He looks more dumbfounded than when I told him to drop the title. "But....I thought it was
morning...."

The
sun's been dipping lower as we've been circling the temple, and it's not just
called "The Temple of the Setting Sun" for show - the main courtyard
faces west; it's hard to miss sunset here.
Is he that disoriented still?
"It's close to sundown."

"I
see." Lost and dazed; like sundown
threw off whatever grasp he was starting to have of things. "I'll take my leave then." He bows, turns, and heads off into the main
complex.

I'd
stopped at the kitchen because I'd intended to finally catch something to eat,
but now that I'm faced with it, I'm not sure I feel up to keeping anything down
again; I'm still staring at the door debating when Goku catches up.

"Sanzo!" He
looks around, peering around the doors.
"He go to bed or something?"

"Something
like that."
I shrug; it's not like I need to keep track of where he is every moment,
so long as no one harasses him. It
doesn't seem like there's much risk of him getting into trouble.

"Already? He practically
slept all day...did he get anything to eat?"

"He
knows where the food is."

Now
he's in front of me, giving me the poking, studying look. "Did you get anything to eat?"

"I
came here for dinner almost half an hour ago." It's not a lie, that is why I came to the
kitchen, and I think that's about when we got here.

He
almost doesn't let me off the hook on it, but doesn't question any
further. "Alright, I'll be
around." He dashes off
outside.

The
baths are empty, which is nice, since I don't really feel like the usual hassle
that goes with getting a private bath; after that I head back to my room, after
sunset.

On
opening the door, I'm immediately greeted by what usually happens to a
closed-in, unventilated room during the hottest part of summer in a warm,
coastal area - it turns into a sauna and stays that way. I shut the door, fold the sutra, and get out
of the thick cotton outer robe before facing the broken window-shutter.

The
metal shutter folds up lengthwise along the large window; I usually only close
it when I'm not staying here, since rain only gets in when the wind is blowing
it horizontal. It wouldn't be such a
pain if Goku hadn't broken it getting into the room from the outside when I'd
first brought him here; I was too frazzled last night to care, but it's getting
to be too much.

I have
to kneel on the bed to deal with it; the latches flip open easily enough - they
were replaced, being inside and easy to get to without a three-story drop. The rest takes bracing against the bed and
struggling with the handle while holding the left hinge together.

It
starts to give, then the hinge starts catching my hand, cutting into it; my
grip on the handle slips at the same time as the covers on the bed, and the
next thing I know, stars are clearing out of my vision from cracking my head on
the floor, and I'm sprawled half off the bed having gained three inches open on
the window.

I'm
seriously considering giving up on it when Goku sticks his head in the
door. "Sanzo! What happened, are you alright?"

I give
him the level best "Go hang yourself and die" look I
can achieve while seeing him upside down.
"You broke it, you get the damn thing
open."

He
slinks behind the door with a nervous, "Oh...eheh...",
then sidles in and shuts it behind himself.

He gets
it open by bracing not on the bed, but on the wall beside it; it screeches open
while I'm sitting up rubbing where I hit my head absently. The nick the hinge gave me on the hand is a
papercut-thin line of red on the side of my hand; it won't even be visible by morning,
probably. The breeze that comes in is a
welcome change from the stifling humidity.

Goku
perches on the edge of the bed next to me.
"It's not that hard to open, even if the hinges are a little funny
-" He cuts
off at the sideways glare that gets.
"I'll go to bed then, if you're alright..." He hops off and leaves.

I fall
back on the bed, not bothering with my underclothes or picking up the blanket;
it's not like I need it tonight. The one
thing that keeps me from just passing out is the paranoid reflex, to sit back
up, cross the room, and move the folded sutra and my gun to rest under the
pillow, then just collapse into the bed.
Still, I find myself staring out the window at the cloudless sky for a
while. I seem to've
outdone myself on turning the temple against me, and not even by doing anything
worse than, for once, holding them to their own teachings. I don't have the
slightest clue what the now-nameless Gonou is supposed to do when his time here
is up; from how I found him, it looks like any life he had to go back to is
gone, assuming I could send him back without the crime lords hunting him
down. The one time I got a coherent
reaction from him besides disorientation, it was sarcasm and scorn, and it's entirely
likely that's what I'll be looking at for a while; between him, the criminal
element, and the temple, I'm the only one that wants him to live, and I'm not
sure if making him live at this point even counts as mercy.