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Part 7
Page 20
When High Priest Genjo Sanzo died, they took his
body to the Yangtze River.
Buddhist traditions of those days commanded a
burial, but he would not receive one. It had nothing to do with his ties
to Hindu friends, or even the skepticism with which he approached his own
faith until the time of his death. It was that, simply, no one could ever
think to stick Genjo Sanzo in a hole in the ground, to give him a gravesite
for the young to come to pray and honor. He would never want that.
There was the fear, also, that Sanzo's spirit
would not depart the body if provided with an earthen burial. He had clung
on to his body until his last breath, after all. Ties that strong had to
be severed the cleanest way possible.
Kougaiji arrived on the third day of mourning,
and he came alone. Dokugakuji had been needed to handle affairs at home.
With Tomoko gone, Lirin dying, and Kougaiji's grandson as inept as his
father, there was only one member of the royal family that could be trusted
to take care of things in the king's stead. And Dokugakuji would not have
wanted to come anyway.
The procession to the river was long and quiet.
Monks sang burial hymns and apprentices waved censers and chimed the bells,
and they matched the beat of a hundred silent footsteps.
Kougaiji walked alone, near the lead. Behind
them in the crowds were the Sha-Cho family, three generations of, dignitaries
from state headquarters present to save face, and various acquaintances
and contemporaries who counted themselves among Genjo Sanzo's friends,
whether he'd have agreed with them or not. There were religious leaders
as far away as Europe, there more for political reasons than any sort of
personal connection, and though there was a representative of Hazel Glosse's
sect present, he knew nothing of the bishop, and had only come on command
of the Pope.
There were very few warriors. The ones that had
fought alongside the priest, or often against him. Those were all dead,
for the most part. Warriors lived hard and fast and didn't care to prolong
themselves. They kept their memories only as long as their blood deigned
to flow.
There were very few youkai as well. There weren't
many youkai that liked Genjo Sanzo, even after the Minus Wave. And of the
ones that did, most were barred from attending. Tensions in Shangri-La
were still very high.
At the waterfront, the senior monk and newly
crowned Kitan Sanzo, 32nd Successor of the Seiten and Maten Sutras, delivered
a speech in the old tongue, more sounds than words. And then there was
another funeral song.
When the time came, Kougaiji stepped forward
to bear the funeral berth into the water.
There was only one other. Precedent asked that
family or senior monks perform this rite, but Kitan Sanzo could not bring
himself to move, and there was no one that Genjo Sanzo would have called
family. Of those that came close, Hakkai could not walk on his own, and
the other was weak himself, not by his body but by his heart. But he still
guided it into the water, and so did the Youkai King.
They'd arrived at the Yangtze at a peak in its
flow, and the river ran too fast to stand against, even at its shore. But
still they went, and a young apprentice with a torch followed behind them,
hot charcoal dripping and hissing into the flow.
The funeral berth was a weave of branches plaited
into a bed, draped in ceremonial cloths and lined with flowers. The body
was wrapped in white so thick that it became its own casket, and bound
in scriptural charms meant to aid the passage into the afterlife. Dry paper,
the better to burn with.
"I wasn't expecting to see you," said the other
bearer, as they walked and the river floor dipped from under them. They
were up to their waists now. "I'll bet you think he would hate it, if he
knew you came."
"Yes," Kougaiji admitted.
"Don't. This is your right more than anyone's."
Kougaiji moved his head, watching the bearer
out of the corner of his eye. Surprised.
"Goku..."
When they were up to their chests in the river,
the boy came forward with the torch. Goku took it silently, held it with
more resolve than he really had, and fixed Kougaiji's gaze.
"You remember the words, don't you?"
"I've never forgotten them."
The earth sprite nodded. And lowered the torch
to the funeral berth.
And the Youkai King Kougaimaoh fulfilled the
promise, the one true promise, he had ever had to make to his old and dearest
friend. He said the words. The last words. The rites of passage into death.
And the great High Priest Genjo Sanzo burned
to smoke and ash upon the water, to drift away in the very flow that had
once borne him.
They walked in the grass afterward, the two of
them. There were chants and rituals still being conducted over at the procession
camp, but their part in them was done. And they much preferred each other's
company to anyone else's right now.
"He died in his sleep," Son Goku said, not meeting
the youkai's gaze. "I heard it, lying next to him. One second he was breathing,
and the next moment he had stopped. Just dropped off. A peaceful death.
You could ask for worse."
Goku had aged since Kougaiji had last seen him.
All the members of the Sanzo-ikkou had grown into old age, but Goku, owing
to his peculiar genes, aged slower than the rest. Ignoring the five centuries
of stasis, he was still over eighty years old, but he looked closer to
fifty. He was still fit, still strong. Still very sharp in his language,
though the boyish quality of his words had gone away since last they'd
spoken.
"He held on a lot longer than we thought he would.
After Gojyo died, we all knew he wouldn't be so far behind. It's a wonder
lung cancer didn't get him too, in the end."
"He always had a way of hanging onto his health
somehow," Kougaiji said, "in spite of all logic."
"He lived," Goku agreed, nodding confidently.
"He was always alive. Always vibrant. You couldn't take that away from
him."
"When he died..."
"I couldn't cry. I tried, but it didn't come
out. It was... past all of that. It felt like everything got drained away.
Just-- You love something so much, and then you find that it's gone from
you, and nothing in the world can bring it back..."
They walked a while further, in silence. Kougaiji
knew it wasn't his place to offer anything, just to listen.
It was penance.
He'd had everything in his power to save Sanzo.
He could have kept him young and alive forever. But he hadn't. And Goku
had had to watch the most important person in his life fade away and dissolve
before his very eyes.
"I loved him," said Goku, some time later. "More
than anything. Just knowing it is a comfort. Knowing there's someone else
you can put your soul into. Goes past all this normal life shit."
"He told me that you'd said it to him, once,
a long time ago," said Kougaiji. "I never heard of when he said it back."
"He didn't."
"What?"
"He never said it. It doesn't matter, of course,
I don't mind if I wasn't that person for him or whatever. I don't know
if he ever found out just who it was instead. I know he must have died
without saying it. Though-- I mean, some people, it just isn't important.
Maybe it wasn't for him either."
"It was."
"Yeah, well..."
They reached the edge of a wood and stopped there,
watching the trees. The drift of the leaves against the breeze. This far
from the river, you could still smell the smoke from the fire.
Kougaiji looked up at Goku. His old sparring
partner and rival and a close friend in his own right, that the king was
as guilty of abandoning as he was Sanzo. Who was aged and frailing and
weaker on the inside than out.
Who said, "Kougaiji? ...I want you to kill me."
The Youkai King started. "What?!"
"You're the only one who can do it," Goku went
on, eyes going dark as they watched the trees. "If anyone else does it,
I'll just die and come right back. Regenerate. Even if I try it on myself,
it won't work. But you..."
"Goku, you can't--"
"I know you can do it. You can break the
seal."
"I can't kill you. You can't ask that of me.
Are you insane?" Kougaiji spread his hands. "What would you have me do
to Hakkai? You'd leave him with no one?"
"Hakkai has a family to look after him," countered
Goku. His voice was starting to break. "I just lost the only thing close
to family that I've ever had. What do you expect me to live for?
"I have to die. I want to be with him
again. I have to be. I can't stand this. Being apart. I don't want to be
alone again." He reached out on an impulse and took the monarch's hand
by the wrist. "Kougaiji-- No, Kou-- If you're a real friend, you'd
do this for me. You're the only one who can."
"I can't..."
"You have to. Please. Please kill me."
"No."
Goku watched his old rival's expression. The
pain and agony. The suffering of the words.
"If you don't," Goku decided, "I'll take off
the diadem."
"I'll put it back on you," Kougaiji said immediately.
"Only one mortal person could do that, and he's
dead."
"Then this is suicide."
"Yes."
Kougaiji lowered his gaze to the ground. "Sanzo
will never forgive you."
"I know," said the earth sprite. "But I don't
care anymore."
And moved his hand to the golden band around
his head.
Kougaiji fled before the group found the blood
in the forest. He knew if he stayed, even if he was absolved, the look
on Hakkai's face would condemn him to his soul's own death.
So he went, and washed the blood off downstream
in the Yangtze River. Found his dragon up on the cliffs and flew, fast
and hard and blitzing close to the tree-line, not caring, just wanting
to get away.
Had to run away, before the adrenaline faded
and he was forced to think of what he had just done.
Or that it wouldn't be long before Hakkai came
to him to ask him the same.
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