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Part 8
Page 18
In the depths of the quiet library of the Beijing
Office of Records, the midnight hour was marked by the crash of another
book thrown hard and frustratedly against the wall.
"Damn it."
Silence fell in again, just left breathing. He was
doing that more and more now. He was finding it harder to stop. Breathing,
that was. He'd only thrown a few discs so far.
Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
It was going nowhere. This wasn't doing anything
for him.
He sunk back, resting his back against the metal
beam of the shelf, pinching the bridge of his nose. The data intake was
bordering on actual full-fledged pain, and the wear of eyes and body parts
wasn't helping things. He was slowing down, and he had still made no ground
at all.
Thus curled in on himself, Kougaiji barely looked
up at the bell chime.
"I didn't ask you to come here," he told hir, muffled
against his wrist.
Kanzeon Bosatsu shrugged, stepping away from the
doorway. "Heaven is quiet and watching. We're far more interested in what
you're doing down here, highness."
"Quite the honor," the king remarked, "that the
whole ethereal realm should be waiting with bated breath for my little
pet project."
"So I lie," se admitted, shrugging again, more irritably.
"Heaven's a racket and I want to know what you've found. Afraid to say,
I can't tell anything about my own findings until I know your direction."
"I have nothing," Kougaiji groaned through his hands,
pushing at aching eyes.
The goddess examined the heaps of uncased books
lying at the youkai's feet. "Volumes of nothing, by the shape of it. Care
to detail?"
Kougaiji's grin tugged up far enough to see his
canines. Humorless silent laughter.
He stood to his feet. Stooped and picked up some
of the scattered discs, spun them around the tips of his claws.
And then tossed them violently aside.
"Not Kami-sama," he said. A disc hit hard against
the wall. Then another. Another. "Not Homura, or Zenon, or Shien." Another
hit. "Not Ensui or Chin Yisou or Go Dougan or Ren Li." Cracks and clatters
on the floor. "Or Rikudo or Zakuro or Nii or any of the hundreds
of people that have ever tried to kill him! Who the hell is it?!"
He slumped back, hitting the shelf hard. He rested
his head against the beam and exhaled sharply. Closed his eyes so he could
hold back on the last few curses, for what good that did.
Kanzeon blinked. Which se wasn't much in the habit
of doing.
"You're a foolish boy," se said eventually. "That's
what you've been doing with yourself?"
"Leave," he told hir quietly.
Se refused, shaking hir head. "This has really been
your process, your whole logic? Did it never occur to you that Shen Ying
might be no one at all?"
"He has to be..."
"Who said?"
"You said!" Kougaiji erupted at hir, turning.
"This is what you were talking about! This is your gravity, your E pattern!
The faster it moves, the more gets drawn into it! Hazel and Koumyou prove
that!"
"You understand so very little..." se told him sadly.
"How many of the people in Konzen's life do you think reemerged in his
time as Genjo Sanzo? Of those, how many do you think have met him here
as Shujuan? We meet thousands, many no more than once, and there are billions
in the life stream we'll never even see! Shujuan's gravity means nothing
to all that!"
"He has to mean something," Kougaiji said
adamantly. "He has to relate somehow."
"Why should he?" Kanzeon asked, to no answer. Se
folded hir arms. "Calamity. Destruction. That's the only thing really following
that girl. That's what's been happening to her for a thousand years. Her
soul doesn't know the meaning of a peaceful life."
"...she should."
"What was that?"
"Nothing." He straightened up again. "That's all
it is, yes, nothing? We're back at start with not a thing to go on. If
this man's no one, then I don't know how to deal with him."
Kanzeon spread freshly manicured hands. "What did
you use to do, highness? Back in those old days."
"No." The King of Youkai shook his head. "We're
not going to fight it, not like that. Those days are long dead."
"I find you have an interesting view," the goddess
noted, "on what lives and what dies."
He paused at that. Looked back at hir, slower and
more cautious. "...What do you mean by that?"
"I wonder."
And said no more. Se went without another word.
In the silence, something broke. Namely the iron
beam of the shelf that Kougaiji had just punched hard enough to crack.
Nothing fell. All the books were on the floor anyway.
"Shit," Kougaiji hissed under his breath. To no
one.
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