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"Gosh," Houmei – no, Koumyou, ooh, that was going to take getting some used to, it was a name he rather thought he'd have to grow into – said, rolling over and peering contentedly at the others. "That was a great sleep I had yesterday!"
"You mean, during the ceremony of elevation?" Momo-chan said, shaking his head. "I thought you seemed more docile than usual while things were going on."
"I was just paying attention to my bits," Gen- Tenkai said. "Do you think it's usually that long, or did they stretch it out three times because of all of us?"
"They were probably praying for divine intervention, waiting for the Seiten to be snatched away to safety," Momo-chan said with a grin.
"Oh, ha-ha, I'll have you know that apparently I'm a downright natural bearer of the silly old thing."
"Yes, I'd heard that the previous sanzo was also an irredeemable idiot."
"You're lucky you're so comfortable," Koumyou said, leaning back against him. "We might have to have some sort of cosmic feud. Are you in for a cosmic feud, Tenkai?"
"Oh, don't start leaving me out now," Tenkai said. He tapped fingers against his lips, looking intrigued. "I wonder what a feud between sanzos would do?"
"I bet we could destroy the world!" Koumyou said with unholy glee. "Everyone should be very glad I'm so lazy." He poked Momo-chan. "You do it."
"I'm not doing your homework for you any more."
"But it would be easy with the Muten! Right?"
It was so normal and comfy to lie there, feeling Momo-chan's laughter shaking him, and to see Tenkai's smile at their silliness. He was cosy and didn't want to get up, because this was the last time they'd ever be like this, snoozing and warm in a room in Taisou. It wasn't even really the same as it had been before, because they had a room to themselves, and they were extra cosy because they were all wearing so much nice thick wool, all the way down to their ankles. But they couldn't stay in bed forever. Tenkai was already rolling to his feet.
"Let's get breakfast, Hou-san. I'm sorry, Kou-san. Gou-san."
"Up," Momo-chan said, shoving him. "I'm not a pillow."
"But you're so waaaarm."
"Interesting," Momo-chan said to Tenkai. "The whining doesn't stop now he's a sanzo."
"And meeeeaaaan."
"Heh."
They all helped each other straighten their robes, put on the breastplates, then waited as Koumyou carefully combed his hair neatly and tied it back in its ribbon. If he had to get up he might as well look nice. Then they looked as one at the dresser where the tightly rolled sutras waited.
Koumyou didn't even hesitate. The Seiten was so obvious. The others clearly thought the same about theirs. He unrolled it and draped it over his shoulders. Momo-chan looked at him in exasperation and reached out to help him, then stepped back, face reddening.
"Sorry. Sorry, Koumyou."
"No, it's all right." He adjusted it so it hung evenly and gave his friends a happy grin. "Let's eat!"
Breakfast was so embarrassing. People served them and called them Sanzo-sama until Koumyou finally just ran outside, unable to take it any longer. Phew. The others joined him on the balcony soon enough and they all stared at the mountains.
"I think I want to go for a walk," Tenkai said.
"I'll come with you," Koumyou said quickly.
"We'll all go," Momo-chan said. "That was –"
"Intense," Koumyou said. "It's just us."
"We're not just us any longer, Kou-san." Tenkai sat, his legs dangling from the balcony, and stared out at the mountains. "It'll do us good to get away for a while."
"It will," a voice said behind them, "but you shouldn't travel together."
Koumyou turned to see Jikaku looking at them in amusement. He strolled out amongst them and produced a pack of cigarettes, offering them around. Wow. Koumyou shook his head.
"Don't you know smoking's bad for you, Master Jikaku?"
"You three should just call me by my name, now," Jikaku said. "I'm glad to see you've got itchy feet. New sanzos usually do. Take one last piece of advice and travel alone, for a while at least. You want the sutras to get used to you, and you to them. There's a reason sanzos don't usually meet up, or not for very long: it's dangerous to have the sutras in the same place. It's even more dangerous to activate them at the same time."
"Why?" Momo-chan said, frowning.
"No one knows what would happen."
Koumyou exchanged surreptitious glances with Tenkai and Momo-chan and saw they were as consumed as he was by curiosity. All they needed was to get Jikaku off their backs and –
"Do you think wearing that robe makes your face less easy to read, Houmei?" Jikaku snapped. "And you two – try not to be influenced by this reprobate!"
"You could at least use my new name while you're yelling at me," Koumyou muttered.
"I'd go right back to your name as a novice if it would make you listen! Every new sanzo wonders what would happen, you idiots. Which is why I'm going to make sure you really do travel separately. Goudai, you leave today, Tenkai, tomorrow. Koumyou, you can go after that."
"I knew you liked me really," Koumyou beamed. "Giving me an extra couple of days."
"It's because you'd dawdle on the road," Jikaku said sternly. "The others will set a proper pace and it's very unlikely you'd exert yourself to catch up." He snorted in amusement at their faces. "You're not the first set of students I've seen."
"I'll get ready," Momo-chan said, when they were alone, and Koumyou felt his heart sink.
"Wait! We're not really going to have a cosmic feud, are we? We are going to meet again? We're all still friends?"
"Don't be an idiot," Momo-chan said, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Or try to be less of one. We'll all meet in a year, how's that?"
"OK," Koumyou said in a small voice.
"It'll be OK, Kou-san," Tenkai said as Momo-chan went to gather a few items for the road. "You'll see."
"Have you seen the future?"
"No. I just don't think anyone will want to go through all of this process again so soon. We should get at least a year."
They trailed inside and down to the temple gates, and within minutes Momo-chan appeared, a small pack, made smaller yet by his size, slung over his shoulder. Koumyou flung himself into an embrace.
"Take care! Don't fight anything bigger than you!"
"I think I'm all right there," Momo-chan laughed, and hugged back.
The Seiten and the Muten whispered to each other, and a very odd feeling crept into Koumyou's bones. He could tell Momo-chan was feeling it too.
"Let's set them off," he whispered.
"No," Momo-chan whispered back. "Let's at least start this without getting into trouble." He hugged, so hard Koumyou felt his bones creak, which distracted him from what the sutras were doing. "I'm going to miss your idiocy." Then he went to hug Tenkai, picking him right up, which was probably against a sanzo's dignity, but Tenkai hugged him tight too, and probably the Maten and the Muten were whispering to each other then, because Tenkai's eyes got very wide indeed.
Momo-chan walked away then, and Koumyou and Tenkai watched until they could no longer see him.
The next day Tenkai left. Koumyou felt so alone, even before they said goodbye. He flung his arms around him and held on, eyes squeezed shut.
"Let's just go together!"
"I don't think that's a good idea," Tenkai said, sounding stunned.
Koumyou opened his eyes and saw that the Seiten and Maten were – oh dear – playing patty-cake, the ends of both sutras delicately touching each other. They were whispering to each other as well, and he was sure that if he just listened for long enough he'd be able to understand –
"Kou-san? Kou-san! Please, let go –"
Oh dear, he was squashing Tenkai – who was a fully-trained sanzo, and fairly unsquashable, despite being small. He looked at him more closely, and saw the stunned expression Tenkai rarely had, the one he got when the future made itself known more than he wanted.
"What? What is it?"
"I, I'll see you in a year," Tenkai stammered, and fled.
Well, that was odd.
The next day he stood at the temple gates, a pack over his shoulder, a straw hat on his head and Jikaku firmly pointing him in a different direction than either of his friends had taken.
"Shoo," Jikaku said. "Kindly do not darken my doorstep again."
"I know I was your favourite student really."
"Off you go."
"You probably wrote glowing letters back to my original monastery."
"Only of complaint, I assure you. That's your road. Start walking."
"I could stay longer if you need comforting."
Jikaku applied his sandal to Koumyou's behind and booted him through the gates. They slammed with a loud finality. With a tragic sigh, Koumyou started strolling down the mountain path, smiling happily at sweet little birds and cute animals. After a day he was in an area he'd never seen before, and kept walking, wondering if he was totally lost or just homeless. He hadn't much liked sleeping in the open the previous night, so he kept walking until he found a farm, and asked if he could have lodgings. What a shame Jikaku hadn't sent him on the road to the town! There were all sorts of inns and interesting places to stay there.
Luckily he was still close enough to Taisou for the farm family to recognise his robes, and they gladly gave him a room for the night, and plenty of food. The next morning he strolled on, and when he heard rumours of unspecified trouble, he wandered towards it. Within ten days he was completely lost and had very sore feet, so he was terribly relieved to come across a small town.
It seemed very quiet, even in the inn, which was a little odd. But what did he really know about the habits of the laity?
"Hello!" he said to the girl with a glum expression who had been carrying drinks to some rough men. "May I –"
"Hurry up!" one of the men called.
She rushed over, leaving Koumyou standing there. Dear me, how terribly busy she was. She came back at last, looking very downcast.
"You should go," she whispered. "Quick."
"I was hoping you might be able to accommodate me," he said plaintively. "My name's Koumyou-Sanzo, and I –"
He got no further as she seized his hand. It was very alarming. He didn't think any lady had ever held his hand before – well, his mother of course, but he'd been a very little boy at the time, and not living in a monastery, so that had probably been forgivable, just about. This was exactly the sort of scenario his old novice master had always warned against, and then followed with regimes of strenuous physical exercise or meditating under waterfalls, to get rid of the salacious images of hand-holding from the youthful mind. Oh, the young lady was speaking –
"Could you say that again?"
"Have you come to save us?" the young lady whispered. "Oh, Sanzo-sama, you're an answered prayer! Gou Chun and his men have been terrorizing the town for a week!" She looked fearfully back into the main room, where the best-dressed of the men – it wasn't saying much – was now being toasted by the others.
Koumyou squared his shoulders.
"Don't you worry," he said. "I'll sort them out!"
He marched in and stood in front of Gou Chun.
"Excuse me, but why have you been annoying the good people of this town? Did you and your men even pay for those drinks? It's really unpleasant behaviour!"
There was silence, and then the men all laughed at him. Oh dear, he might have to wallop a couple of them. Gou Chun looked him up and down in a rather considering manner.
"Well, hello," he said. "Actually, we're leaving tonight, there isn't much else this shithole can offer is."
Koumyou gave the harried waitress a quick thumbs-up, and turned back to Gou Chun.
"I hope you'll apologise for the inconvenience!"
"I might, if you go down on your knees and ask real nice." More laughter, then Gou Chun shrugged. "Tell you what, here, have a drink with me and we can discuss my morals and what you'd like to do about them."
"I'm not used to strong drink," Koumyou said primly.
"I bet there's a lot you ain't used to. That'll change. Hey, Stringbean! Pour this cute priest a whiskey."
Stringbean proved to be a man almost spherical in girth, who took the bottle he'd been hugging and splashed a generous amount into a glass. Koumyou sipped it cautiously and coughed a little, but valiantly made his way to the end of it. The next one seemed to go down much easier.
When he awoke the next morning it was in a cave some miles away. He had, he discovered, been kidnapped as the new concubine for the gang leader. Gou Chun liked blonds.
* * *
"I can't engage in a whirlwind life of carnal pleasures with you!" Koumyou said, darting around the table again. "I'm a monk! I'm celibate!"
"Not any more," Gou Chun grinned, grabbing at him. "C'mere."
"No, seriously. And I don't want to, anyway."
"I think you're a little confused on how the process of being ravished works," Gou Chun grumbled, stopping to take a breather. "I want to, and that's what counts."
"Well that seems totally unfair," Koumyou said and somersaulted over the table to avoid a sneak grab.
"What the hell? Most monks are shrinking violets, not acrobats. What the hell monastery did you come from?"
"Taisou, most recently. Most monks aren't sanzos: I had to train a lot, and now you have me leaping around with a hangover, so I'm beginning to feel a little testy. I may have to physically chastise you."
For some reason that just made Gou Chun grin more. Koumyou sighed. He wanted a proper sit down and a nice hot cup of tea and something solid in his stomach to make it stop its own set of gymnastics.
"I seem to have mislaid my sutra – please return it at once, we'll discuss how you can become righteous and then I'll be on my way."
It looked like Gou Chun's own hangover was finally allowing thought to work through his mind.
"Most monks aren't sanzos," he said. "Hey, do you mean you're a sanzo?"
"Yes! I'm Koumyou-Sanzo. Where's my sutra?"
"No way! Like in the comic books?" Gou Chun made a few odd gestures that Koumyou slowly worked out were meant to be martial arts forms. He had no idea why a humorous book would say anything about sanzos.
"I . . . suppose?"
"You're kinda young and pretty to be a sanzo, ain't you? Are you sure I can't ravish you just a bit?"
"No! No ravishing at all!"
Gou Chun looked disappointed, then he perked up again. "At least I get my own personal sanzo," he said. "You can do your magic and stuff for me, right? And see the future, and summon lovely fairy boys and girls to suck my –"
"Please!" Koumyou said in horror. "The invitation is really quite generous but I have to decline."
"Too bad," Gou Chun said, "because you ain't getting your scroll thing back unless you agree. I suppose you could torture the hiding place outta me, but that's not very righteous, is it?" He grinned.
Koumyou sat down heavily. Oh, bum. He glared at Gou Chun: if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
"You have to agree that I can teach you and your people about Buddhism," he said.
"Done."
"And there will be no ravishing."
"Done."
"Not just of me! Of anyone!"
"Hey, hold on –"
"You agreed! No take-backs!"
"Fine," Gou Chun grumbled. "Your lessons had better be damn entertaining, that's all I can say. We'll need something fun as a replacement."
* * *
It wasn't so bad, being the personal chaplain to a bandit leader. At least, it wasn't so bad after the first month, when Gou Chun finally got the other bandits to stop slapping Koumyou's ass every time they passed him, and to actually show up to a dharma talk now and then. Koumyou kept it very simple for two reasons: first, they were all violent morons who wouldn't understand the finer points of the Lord Buddha's discourse if He descended and personally beat it into them with a branch of the bodhi tree. Second, he had slept through a lot of classes and wasn't up to speed on the finer points himself.
"Killing people is bad."
Hands went up all around the cave.
"No, it ain't! It gets you respect, like.'
"It stops the other guy from killing you!"
"It's fun!"
Koumyou pinched the bridge of his nose and refined his lesson plan.
"Killing people whom you're robbing is bad, because when you come back that way again they'll be dead and there won't be anyone to steal from."
Silence, then some nods of slow agreement.
"Makes sense."
He gave them all a guilty smile. He'd get onto Robbery is bad as soon as possible.
His biggest immediate challenge was one of the small number of women bandits, who approached him on his second day in the cave, slammed him up against a rock, and before he could say, Dear lady, I'm a celibate monk, had the tip of her dagger under his nose.
"Eep," Koumyou said. He was fond of his nose: Momo-chan said it was cute. Of course, all the candidates had been sneaking wine into Momo-chan's cup that entire evening to see how much it took to get him drunk, so it was possible that he hadn't quite been in his right mind, but –
"Give me one reason I shouldn't carve your pretty face up?" the woman said, which helped him to focus.
"If you tried I'd have to defend myself," Koumyou said. "That wouldn't go well for you."
"You talk big for a bottle-blond dancing-boy."
"I'm a natural blond! And I'm a monk!" He made himself stop going cross-eyed from looking at the tip of the dagger and looked at her instead. "One of the type from the, er, comic books."
"You stay away from my husband!"
"Your husband?" Wheels turned slowly in Koumyou's mind. He remembered this woman glaring at him before when Gou Chun smiled at him. "Are you Gou Chun's wife?"
"Yeah! And you’re his new pretty little thing – I poisoned the last one."
"Oh, for heaven's sake! I'm Koumyou-Sanzo, and I'm no one's pretty little thing! I'm acting as his spiritual advisor, that's all."
The blade tip poked in a little more and then withdrew.
"I heard you'll be summoning beautiful fairies to satisfy his debauched needs."
"Madam," Koumyou said fervently, "I will not." He paused. "I could make you look like one if you, ah, wanted him to spend more time with you?"
She glared at him again. "You're sick. Go on, then. My name's Li Hong. Remember it so you know who'll be poisoning you if you fuck this up."
Koumyou was offended. Mess up an illusion? Him? There was the slight problem that he had no idea what a beautiful fairy looked like, but he'd seen posters for movies in the town below Taisou. What a shame that Jikaku had always said they weren't allowed to go to the next town along where there actually was a small cinema. He knew what a movie star looked like, and he knew that Gou Chun liked fair hair. To add an extra dose of magic he conjured the air before her into a reflective sheet and she gasped at the transformation.
"You didn't wave your hands around or nothing!"
"It's very simple," he said earnestly. "What do you think?"
She was still staring at herself. He wasn't looking too closely, as she now looked exactly like the sort of brazen hussy he'd always been warned about, with too-red lips, far too glossy hair and clothes that somehow clung on by magic.
"How long will it last?"
"About an hour?" he guessed.
She ran off. Later Gou Chun was in a very good mood and laughing at the worst jokes Koumyou had ever heard grown men attempt to make. There were never any requests for actual fairy-summonings after that, but Li Hong came to see him at least twice a week.
* * *
The bandits weren't so bad when he got to know them. Gou Chun was violent and a terrible robber, of course, and Li Hong was violent and jealous, but they were a lovely couple for all that. And Gou Chun didn't philander half as much now that he had a wife with movie-star looks fighting beside him. Stringbean was spherical, and Shorty was nearly seven foot tall, but that wasn't enough to completely describe the way the bandits assigned nicknames, because Babyface did indeed have a babyface, being about fifteen. Another of the women called herself the Wolf, but everyone called her Kitten, because her pyjamas were adorned with kittens eating ice cream. He was just the Holy Man.
It had taken some time, but Koumyou really thought he was getting through to them all. They had reluctantly accepted that wanton violence was perhaps not the be-all-and-end-all of existence, and had given just robbery a try for some weeks. Then he suggested not preying on ordinary people at all, and there was uproar.
"How am I supposed to keep your holy arse fed?" Gou Chun yelled. "You're getting damn used to expensive drink! Do you think we just pick that off trees? No! We rob it!"
There was general disagreement, and a lot of mulish expressions of the sort he was more used to seeing in the mirror when he'd been assigned to write long essays on obscure doctrine. He was so sorry he'd been such a trial to all his teachers. Koumyou raised a finger, making it glow slightly.
"You misunderstand! I don't mean to give up robbery completely -" He looked cautiously upwards, expecting a lightning bolt to strike right down through thousands of tons of rock at his head, but nothing – "I mean, don't waste your efforts on ordinary poor people! Instead, concentrate on those who oppress the poor –" They were beginning to shift and mutter again, oh dear. " - because that's where the richest prizes are to be found!"
They all stared at him like he was a true bodhisattva. Koumyou felt a terrible urge to giggle, and swallowed it down. Here came the important part.
"And from the money you take – while keeping the majority for your completely legitimate expenses, of course – you should give some to those poor people you didn't rob at this time."
"And why," Li Hong said in a dangerous, flat voice, "Would we do that shit?"
Koumyou didn't attempt to get into the idea of reparations, instead he just smiled genially.
"Because by so doing, in your time of need the people will shelter you and come to your aid."
He watched the idea take hold in their heads, and then Gou Chun actually kissed the hem of his by now rather grubby robes, ugh.
"You're a marvel! You bring me luck! Boys, we're hitting a rich man on the road tonight!"
"Do be careful, he'll have guards," Koumyou said in an agony of worry.
When they returned, wealthy and rather beaten-up, he discovered he now had a reputation for seeing the future.
* * *
Three months after that, wealthier than ever before and well on the way to becoming tolerated if not loved by the local populace, Gou Chun fell from a rock while hideously drunk on imported brandy and broke his neck. It was a sad day, especially for Koumyou, as no one else knew where the Seiten had been hidden. He'd also grown fond of the terrible man and was sorry for his wife and his followers. Li Hong wasn't being violent at all, just sad and confused in her grief, while the rest of the bandits all seemed very lost.
They held a very nice funeral service, Koumyou officiating, and interred Gou Chun's ashes in a lovely silver jar that had once held Turkish Delight. Once the mourning period was over, Koumyou ferreted out his little pack and put away some supplies.
"I really do need to go," he sighed. "Perhaps you should all go home. Now, are you all sure you haven't seen a scroll? It's white with writing on it, bordered in green –"
"Wait!" Shorty said, "you can't go!"
"No," Stringbean said, taking up a position to get as much in the way as possible.
"My mom told me never to come home again," Babyface said and burst into tears.
The rest of them made similar noises. Koumyou looked at them all in surprise.
"But what do you want me to do?"
"We want you to lead us," Li Hong said. "Take over poor Chun's position, and I can be your wife."
Yikes. He tried not to look too alarmed.
"Madam, what an enthralling proposition! But I'm a celibate monk, so I can't marry you."
"I'll do it," Kitten said.
"Or me, if it's a boy you want," Babyface added.
"Hell, any of us," Shorty said. "Just stay on. We've never had success like we've had with you. Gou Chun was right, you're lucky. It's just his own bad luck that this happened."
Koumyou looked around. They all stared back, pleadingly. Oh dear. He'd created a monster, and he was responsible for it. Them. They were so silly; they made him look like a positive genius. If they were left to themselves they'd all be hanged within a week.
"I suppose I could stay for a while," he said, and they all cheered. "But I'm not sleeping with any of you." They all looked downcast. He knew how to fix that. "Let's drink to Gou Chun's memory and to our future success!"
They all cheered again.
It was surprisingly easy to be a bandit leader. He did have to go on raids now and then, just to make sure they were behaving themselves, but as they hit bigger and wealthier targets, more disaffected oppressed poor people joined them. It was quite a shock to realise that he had a little army. Koumyou didn't fool himself into thinking he was a good instructor, but he did manage to teach them the basics of self-defence and how to knock out an opponent and rejoiced in their rising skill at simply leaving unconscious foes behind.
With the greater wealth, he began funnelling more back into the local community and was very glad he had when Kitten was captured and held in a town twenty miles from the cave.
"We aren't going to ride in, all guns blazing," he said as the bandits yelled about revenge and rescue. "We don't have horses or guns. We are going to go and get her."
They got to the town the evening before Kitten's trial, which was also going to be the day of her execution, given the large gallows erected in the town square. Ferocious images of a snarling woman captioned The Wolf were plastered on walls, and it took a while to remember that was actually her.
The bandits slipped along in the shadows, rarely falling over their own feet. A very fancy carriage was parked in front of the town's only inn, and Koumyou thought it was most likely the visiting magistrate's. A couple of bored guards lounged against the inn's pillars, chatting. As the bandits sneaked around to the back of the inn and away, Koumyou felt himself overcome by wildness. A bandit leader should do something extravagant to increase his personal legend! Maybe after you rescue Kitten, his inner Momo-chan murmured. How boring!
He jumped up onto the porch roof and from there onto the carriage, landing lightly and dropping flat.
"Did you hear something?" one of the guards said.
"Just a cat," the other said. "Wait until the feline love songs start. Speaking of love songs, did I ever tell you about the girl I met in a tavern over at -"
"My God, yes. You tell me every other day."
Koumyou wrapped his hand around one of the gilded phoenixes on the far edge of the carriage roof and snap. It seemed very loud, but the guards didn't look up. He tucked the bird into the breast of his robes, waited a moment until the guards were lighting cigarettes, and leapt back for the roof. A quick, quiet scramble and he was right over it and dropping down at the tail of the bandits.
"Where'd you go, Boss?" Stringbean whispered.
"Just proving to the law that we were here," he said, giving him a quick glimpse of the phoenix. Stringbean looked impressed.
The lock-up was small and only had one guard Koumyou could see. As everyone snarlingly drew their weapons, he simply stepped forwards and knocked the man out with an open-handed blow. Really, now was not the time for backsliding into murder. They poured in and Koumyou started trying to work out which key was the one for Kitten's cell.
"Boss, Boss," she said, "I knew you'd come!"
"Of course! Let me try this one next –"
A door down the hall opened and another guard came out. This man, unlike the first, was a townsman, and Koumyou knew he'd received money to help him pay for a doctor when his wife was sick. There was a moment when no one moved, and then the man said,
"Sure is quiet tonight. Not a soul to be seen."
He went back into the room and shut the door. Koumyou got tired of trying keys and just pulled the cell door off its hinges. They all fled, right past a townswoman in the street outside. She pointedly closed her eyes and turned her back as they ran into the darkness.
It was a long walk back to the cave, but it seemed like a stroll to everyone.
* * *
A terrible noise was coming closer in the cave. It sounded like judgement.
"Get your lying, thieving, murdering asses out here! Surrender or face the consequences!"
Oh dear.
Koumyou cringed a little. This was bad. This was very bad. He ran around in a panic for a moment and grabbed hold of people.
"No, no! No fighting! Let me do the talking!"
"You'll never take us alive, cop!" Shorty yelled.
"Fine by me!"
Momo-chan rounded the last twisty part of the corridor and stopped dead, meeting Koumyou's eyes.
"You have got to be kidding me," he said.
"I did try to tell you," Tenkai said behind him.
"I'll get the big guy," Shorty yelled. "Babyface, you get the shrimp!"
Koumyou saw Momo-chan shift fluidly into a combat position, his hand lifting and – he jumped so fast that everyone was surprised, landing between them and shoving Momo-chan back.
"Stop! You promised!"
"I what? You're in enough trouble –"
"You promised you wouldn't fight anything bigger than you, and well – look at him! Shorty's at least six inches taller!"
"I'll pulverise him, Boss!"
"No! He'll pulverise you!" Koumyou looked around in bewilderment, wondering what on earth he'd been up to for so long. "These are my friends," he said weakly. "They're also sanzos."
"Ohhh," Li Hong said, sheathing her knife. "Have they come to join up?"
"I think," Tenkai said firmly, before Momo-chan could erupt, "we should perhaps start over."
Koumyou and the others sat in what was now his private chamber – or at least his private smaller cave – staring at each other.
"I heard of a renegade priest who'd become a bandit leader and was raising an army," Momo-chan said with admirable calm. "I thought I should deal with it before we all met up again. Tenkai said he'd come along."
"I did! Hello, Kou-san!"
"Hi," Koumyou said, smiling broadly.
"And what do I find? You! At the head of a goddam army!"
"It's really more of a peasant militia –"
"I tried telling him," Tenkai whispered as Momo-chan ground his teeth together. "At least I wasn't taken by surprise."
"Is this what you saw when we parted?" Koumyou said in interest.
"Yes – although things don't always come about exactly as I see them. I actually saw you in full armour on a war horse, about to charge opposing troops."
"Gosh."
"Hah! Like he'd have the discipline to do that! But robbery, murder – Koumyou, if you were an ordinary monk the very least you could hope for would be disrobing."
"I never actually stole anything myself," Koumyou said in a small voice. "And I didn't murder anyone. I've been weaning the bandits off murder too!" He paused. "I suppose I did commit some acts of minor vandalism."
"What about the rumours that the feared Holy Man abducts young people to be his sex slaves?" Tenkai said.
"What?" Koumyou sputtered. "No! That was the previous leader, and I stopped that right away!" He narrowed his eyes as he realised that Tenkai was laughing at him. Even Momo-chan looked amused.
"So what are you doing here?" Momo-chan said at last.
"I was, ah, rendered unconscious and kidnapped. As a sex slave," Koumyou said, mortified. They both doubled over, laughing. "Nothing happened! Honestly, you two. Then I was kept as a sort of lucky charm, a personal chaplain and finally took over when it was obvious I was the brainy one around here."
"Good God," Momo-chan murmured. "Seriously, Koumyou, why didn't you just leave?"
So. Embarrassing.
"The previous leader hid the Seiten," Koumyou said, hanging his head. "I don't know where it is."
Momo-chan buried his face in his hands. Tenkai got up and started rummaging around. A few minutes later he handed the rolled-up Seiten to Koumyou.
"It was behind that poster of the woman in the micro-bikini."
"I never even looked at that!"
"I know, Kou-san. I know." He patted Koumyou on the shoulder and smiled oddly.
"Did you see something else?" Koumyou said fearfully as he draped the Seiten about himself. Oh, that felt so much better.
"I don't think this is the oddest thing you'll do. I do think you'll get better at the oddness."
"He'd better," Momo-chan grumbled. "We can't keep hauling his ass out of the fire. Listen, Koumyou: the Holy Man has been dealt with, all right? Over and done. We get your idiots to do something else. Anything else. And then we get out of here and never speak of this again."
"What if I do end up actually leading an army?"
"Don't," Momo-chan said. "Come on."
The bandits were distraught. It made Koumyou feel quite teary-eyed himself. They clung to him and wept and begged to come with him, promising to become monastics.
"Now, now," he said. "Everything comes to an end. You could go and live amongst the people we helped. Or travel further afield and get jobs as bodyguards. Babyface, you really should go home: it's been over a year and I think your mother probably misses you by now."
"Are you sure you don't need a wife?" Li Hong said.
Koumyou risked a look at Momo-chan and Tenkai's faces and knew this was something he wouldn't be living down for quite a while.
"I'm sure," he said. "You should be the one to divide up the money – do it fairly. Everyone can live quite well."
"They should give that back," Tenkai frowned.
"It's mostly taken from landlords who charge too much rent," Koumyou said. "If it's spent in the local economy it'll be helpful to the people it was taken from."
"Let's go before you justify anything else," Momo-chan said, but he sounded cheerful.
"I need a bath," Koumyou said when they were outside and walking in the fine fresh air. "And clean robes!" He looked down in surprise. The lighting in the cave hadn't been great and he hadn't realised just how grimy he was.
"A wife would be helpful there," Momo-chan said.
"She seemed very nice," Tenkai said. "Are you sure you weren't leading her on?"
"What? She introduced herself to me with a dagger up my nose!"
"These modern girls," Momo-chan said in a musing way. "So forthright."
"Don't you think it's what Kou-san needs? Someone to manage things for him?"
"Hey, stop matchmaking!"
Momo-chan laughed at him and put an arm about his shoulders, pulling him close. Koumyou felt his heart lift and for the first time in a year knew he was where he should be. He'd missed them so much.
Laughing and teasing one another, the sanzos walked on into the bright day.