Now for something completely different! Sorrynotsorry. Iâve been hyperfixated on Saiyuki lately.
Where is this?
That was Konzen's question, but amongst the void he found himself in, there was no one to ask. His surroundings were hazy... not empty, but hazy. There were no details he could make out. Even his body, when he looked down at his hands, seemed to only half exist. There was mercy in that, at least. He could feel none of the pain or fatigue from the injuries he'd taken before he died.
Wait... he'd died.
"What's going on?" The question left his mouth and drifted away, not even echoing in the space around him. Then, his hazy surroundings rippled. Nothing was entirely clear, but shapes began to make themselves visible: trees, roads, houses... people? Humans and demons, denizens of the lower world, wandered about in a still-blurry sea of shapes... but Konzen's eye caught on one that was clearer than the rest. A small blonde child, walking with one hand held by a woman and the other hand clutching a frozen treat.
Konzen realized what this was. What it had to be. "That's me."
He was no longer questioning, and the simple scene disappeared into haze again. His surroundings became a whirl of events and scenes, each one with a single individual clearer than the rest: a farmer's son proposed to his sweetheart, a little girl chased butterflies in a field, a baby wailed hunger while the mother hurried to the cradle, a politician laughed a false laugh in a meeting.
The last one would've made Konzen chuckle if he wasn't working so hard on tracking everything he could of what was going on. Everything felt out of order, somehow. He'd see an old woman in her bed, and then he'd see a middle-aged man chasing his children, and then he'd see a young girl he'd swear was the same person as the old woman.
Life after life, death and birth and death and birth, these people carried his soul through time. Sometimes he swore he recognized other people, but the image always shifted before he could be certain.
Everything slowed down, as if whatever was doing this was saying "pay attention." Konzen watched a man, in the robes of a Buddhist monk, approach the door to a small house. This scene was the clearest it had been so far, and Konzen could see slivers of light across the monk's face as the door cracked open so the home's resident could look out.
"Kenren...!" He covered his mouth a second after the name left it, but of course his voice couldn't reach the men: a gap of time held them apart. The man who'd answered the door had long, red hair, and though Konzen couldn't see much of him, he knew beyond a doubt whose soul resided there, as surely as he knew that his rested with the monk.
The scene continued in silence, Kenren's future stepping out of the house to speak to Konzen's. Even in this strange preview, the tension was obvious in both of them, though what they were at odds over, Konzen couldn'tâ the redhead grabbed the monk's arm, and in the next second took a knee to the solar plexus for his trouble.
Well, at least this guy was more competent in a fight than Konzen was. Even if he did get punched in the jaw right afterward.
The next few seconds went by hazily, but resolved into the monk holding a gun on the man Kenren would become. Konzen barely had time to worry before the door pushed open again, revealing a man who looked more worried than someone with Tenpou's face ever should. This man instantly became the gun's new target, but the redhead knocked it away before the trigger could be pulled. The monk was knocked to the ground. The scene began to fade, but before it was lost completely, a fourth person dropped in. Konzen caught a glimpse of long, brown hair, and his throat tightened before the scene vanished completely.
What was the point of this? Was there some will that wished to show him these things, or was it just something that happened naturally...? These men wouldn't exist for years, and surely wouldn't bear much resemblance to the gods whose souls they carried.
... Okay, Konzen couldn't say he'd never wanted to try knocking Kenren's lights out. But besides that..
Things were still out of order. When the images returned, a younger version of the monk walked the wilderness, climbing a mountain path with an irritated look on his face. Konzen didn't have to move to follow him: the vision did it naturally.
The path eventually ended at a small cave, barred naturally by stone, and Konzen forgot the monk entirely. Sitting in the cave, wrists chained and ankle shackled to a heavy iron ball, was Goku.
His heart broke, the ethereal nature of his form not protecting him from emotional pain as it did physical. How far into the future was this vision? How long would Goku spend locked away in solitude?
"I'm sorry..." For what, he couldn't articulate, and he knew Goku couldn't hear him. But he had to say something, give some voice to the pain tearing at his soul.
Goku's eyes held none of the grief and desperation Konzen remembered last seeing in them. Indeed, the little monkey was looking up at the monk with a face strikingly similar to how he'd first looked at Konzen what felt like a lifetime ago.
He looked back at the monk, who'd lost all of the ire he'd been carrying up the mountain. He deflated in a visible sigh, one hand against his hair, and then the hand lowered, but not to his side. The monk's hand extended out to Goku, through the bars of his cell. Goku reached up in turn, and the chain on his wrist disintegrated as he clasped the hand offered to him.
It took a minute for Konzen to realize the absurd sob-laugh he heard had come from him, and he shook his head at his own ridiculous reaction. The scene before him faded away, and he was left with nothing but that sensation of grief and happiness and something closer to hope than he'd felt since starting on the path to the dimension gate.
Nothing replaced the last scene he'd witnessed, and he sighed, closing his eyes.
It would be centuries before a nameless baby, rescued from a river, would grow to become the highest ranked priest in China. It would be years more before that priest followed the voice in his mind to the remote mountaintop.
But here, now, as the god called Konzen relinquished his being to eternity, he found comfort in the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, he would keep the promise he'd made.
