"sanzo please...i don't want to..."

"go ahead. give me an excuse to shoot you."

without warning, a screech like a dying hyena's ripped through the wind and a strangely shaped white bird came up behind the blonde. "sanzo!" he couldn't help it...he let go. and the world was engulfed in bright green as shattered snowflakes fell in sparks around them.

had he? could he have...tenpou blinked and adjusted his eyes.

sanzo was still standing, teeth clenched and gun halfway raised. his hand was visibly shaking. "how did you..." it had passed right through him, without even touching a single hair...

"ch' looks like the monk gets scared after all!" proclaimed gojyo as he slung an arm around tenpou's shoulder. "man, and i thought i would never live to see the day..." a bullet whistled past his ear and into the head of another snow demon.

"save your breath, asshole! they're coming to get us." sanzo snarled.

goku could hardly begin to contain his excitement. "bring em' on!"

****

they hissed. the doors and windows burned their hands as they touched. like animals from the wild put into a circus cage, they went raging about the complex, overturning tables, ripping curtains, and clawing at the walls. locked into the library, hakkai contemplated the situation.

absently, he ignited tenpou's lighter over and over again, looking into the flames as if the answer to all his troubles resided in that tiny piece of fire.

chances were fair that he'd get out alive despite the fact that he was now deprived of his powers. there was also the chance that he might not. he lacked anger- and it was anger that drove him to kill those one thousand. for kanan. but this time it wasn't really for anybody. it was for an "entity" whose goodness he was already beginning to question.

perhaps he would live. and within several days time, perhaps less, the problem wouldn't be his anymore. it would be tenpou's. hakkai could just imagine it...tenpou waking up and finding himself arrested for breaking the highest sacred law in heaven: he had shed the blood of his own kind.

however inevitable, it seemed rather cruel of him to leave his predecessor with such a mess on his hands.

"have i taken things too far?" hakkai asked the air in front of him. "yes. i think i did."

oh well.

"like i said, heaven deserves its share of heat." he ignited the lighter once more and brought the dancing flame to touch the cover of a single book. "i'm sorry, tenpou. you must have treasured this little heaven of yours." dry and dusty, the pages quickly flamed up and spread to the other books of the shelf. 'the art of war' turned into a heap of cinders, as did 'the seven steps of revolution.'

hundreds and hundreds of years of war crackled in a gold-orange brilliance, beautiful... their stillness finally becoming un-still; the life contained within the pages realizing itself...as if a spell on the brink of completion had finally heard its magician utter the final chant. burn burn burn. with satisfaction, hakkai pushed over the shelf, causing ash to jump and the fire to diffuse from its source.

hakkai grabbed the oil lamp that stood on his desk and hurled it over tenpou's bed, liquid fire like molten lava creeping in rivulets over the soft covers. at last he re-lit the lighter and locked it. he opened a desk drawer and dropped the living flame inside.