"you understand now?"

the healer gulped, his hands grog stantly ld "so you are sayg that you can be talkg to and thk it is , but perhaps i a really not here, but down there is that it?"

"but of urse i a not ag you-"

"of urse not"

silence descended upon the o of the, terrupted ontarily by a long ded, "ten-chaaaaaaaan!" and a brown br racg towards the goku leaped up and cng to hakkai's neck

"goku" like a onkey, the boy was hangg off hi pyfully "you shouldn't terrupt adults while they're talkg" inse brown orbs looked up at hi, silg widely

"gon, ten-chan! but konzen's super by dog paperstuff and got ad at and ken-niichan's sad so i thought i uld get you to e cheer hi up becae i uldn't and if i uldn't i thought you uld becae you can on yeah, and konzen taught how to unt! you want to hear? oneothreefourfivesixseveneightne ten"

"not now, goku ter perhaps" with nsiderable difficulty, hakkai anaged to unwrap the little goku's iron grip around his neck and pced hi gently down on the ground "fifteensixteenseventeen" all the while, shien said nothg, scanng the send story s and ickly pullg the three of the further to the shadows as the ary passed their section of the street

goku sniffed the air, then scrunched up his nose "ack" he pouted while potg to the file of archg kai

"entyenty-oneenty-o"

then it dawned on hi that feelg returned, unfailiar to this body, but to his d the ory of it all was only too acute the only thg as paful as ra was youkai

the boy hid behd hakkai's at with childish spicion "they slllike blood"

"i reested that they not be allowed to return" shien nfessed ietly "but it sees that it never reached the higher ups"

goku's oblivio-to-the-world untg resud "enty-five, enty-six"

youkai, hakkai thought freically, youkai heaven youkai the bodies of kai jt as he was a youkai, the body of a kai hell heaven

"enty-seven, enty eight"

there was no estion of who, but what- and he uld dive that as well thirty youkai the bodies of thirty, now-dead heavenly soldiersthey didn't arch, they stalked, their hunger barely suppressed they gred beneath those gzed eyes, thirty pairs of the, thirsted, licked their lips, thirty tongues grazg over sharp teeth

"they'll spill blood here" hakkai choked out as he looked to shien who had returned to close his eyes

"and i can only thk of o n who have the fence to stand their way" the an with the bandaged ars turned started to walk the direction opposite of the holy city's a street "i a afraid that with y position nataku-saa's ary, i can do no ore for you see to your foolish general," he sped thought, as if wonderg whether to ntue hat he was about to say "take back his heart before the archer up there ps it to his body"

"enty-ne! aren't you proud of ten-chan? i unted all the soldiers enty-ne!"

heaven seed like a better pce, now that he was tipsy it gave hi a lighter heart- a way as light as it was before he t tenpou as (besides physically satisfyg) like a foggy day the iddle of an under heaven surand alhol ade hi poetic heavy, hot, bldg, fatalistic fatalistic and he didn't care either learned to live with it, fatalistic, hot, naked, bldg, jt close your eyes and letand alhol ade hi fetful of the present, and reiscent so that the now suddenly stuck out like a sore thub it was over fuck you, tenpou; you aniputive bastard i've enough, drop dead at y feet and i wouldn't have the pity to look down likewise, i'd bet

litouten had grown unually iet and nataku pretended not to notice, dutifully watchg the parade like a dutiful son litouten was sirkg like a cat who had jt sed a canary and nataku jt sat there, bored, and dutifully watchg the parade like a dutiful, bored son- pretendg not to notice the fact that they were one an short and the pce was festive and the cherry blossos flew and the fte sounds danced the dead d as the heavy drus beat a dead sound to a happy death arch and a across the happy dancg death archg parade, nataku didn't pretend not to see the glt of tal that reflected off a dead sun the poty tip of an arrow pretendg not to be there

and they say that gods can't die

hakkai ran

but surely, gods can bleed

where the hell is he? konzen stalked through the crowd, up and down the street "goku!" this day, out of all days, borg day and borg day outt be the worst of the all he looked around hi to ake sure nobody paid attention, then spat dignantly a nvenient pce where people would ost likely not walk