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"New Zenmi's cranking up the taxes again."
"No surprise there. Keeping that Kendappa succession disaster from going up in flames is bleeding them dry."
"It's been ten years. You'd think after so long our young God King would go in and squash them already, no matter how squeamish he is."
"It has nothing to do with squeamishness, my dear. Ten years? That's barely a blink to Tenou and the Council of Gods. They have all the time in the world."
"Well, I don't. Go on, now. Some of us have work to do."
The farrier sketches a bow and starts back across the crowded street towards his shop, leaving the fruit seller, looking none too happy for losing the company, to attend to her customers.
Kujaku has been putting on a show of examining the plums in the barrel. Now he chooses two at random, flips the fruit seller a coin, and tosses one of the plums in the general direction of a child begging on the corner. In other times he wouldn't have bothered paying, would simply have made off with the fruit. Now it's clear that people are more worried about coins in their pockets than the protection of life and limb, and he can make a few concessions to the times. Earlier in the day, he found it appropriate to lift a full purse off a wealthy-looking, inattentive merchant, who, he judged, wouldn't miss it much.
He is still taken aback by this new mode of existence, where taxes and something newly titled "the government" are the subject of idle, mildly irate chatter. The fear that the previous God King engendered is not gone, but it is no longer howling and mindless. Perhaps if Kujaku had visited the towns more often over the last decade he would have seen the gradual changes, would have been able to follow it, but this is not something he has ever had to do before. He has been a hidden observer of the ebb and flow of history for so long that even stargazing could hardly tell him more of the future course than his own instincts. Until Ashura, nothing could surprise him. This new world, though, the world that Tenou has built up from the ruins, is something altogether different. Kujaku does not know what to expect of it.
What he does know is that he has only one more act to complete in this world, however different it may be, and he must wait many human lifetimes for the opportunity.
For now he is biding his time. He has decided to visit old acquaintances. It has brought him to this boisterous little town near the southern border.
For Tenkai's most senior living military commander, Zouchouten's home is almost embarrassingly modest. It is a simple stone keep with a paved courtyard, entirely functional. Kujaku steals easily past the guards at the gate. In the courtyard, a small girl is heckling a tabby cat whose only desire in life is an uninterrupted nap. The girl looks up and sees Kujaku. He smiles engagingly, but her eyes grow round and frightened. She picks up her skirts and dashes away, shrieking, "Papa! Papa, there's a man!"
Zouchouten steps into the courtyard from the main keep and deftly scoops the little girl up with his single arm. She hides her face against his shoulder, occasionally peeking back with bright-eyed curiosity.
"Kujaku," the general says, giving him an uncomfortable smile. He doesn't look pleased with his guest, but then, they didn't exactly meet under the best of circumstances. "What brings you here?"
"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by," Kujaku lies cheerfully. "Is that your daughter?"
"It is. I didn't want to risk bringing a child into the world before, but now..." He trails off as the little girl gestures to be set down. Watching her skip off to hunt for the cat, he neglects to finish his thought.
"You trust Tenou to make a world that's safe for her," Kujaku supplies, also watching the little girl.
"That's it."
"You like the way things are now?"
"Of course. I was never what you'd call at home in Taishakuten's court. And you? You helped make this possible, right?"
"I wasn't really thinking this far ahead," Kujaku says.
The words are flippant, but it is more fully true than he has admitted to himself. Now that he has taken a look at the world, he wonders if Ashura truly did avoid becoming the god of destruction. Something has been destroyed, perhaps something cruel and terrifying, but it is gone nonetheless.
He realizes that Zouchouten has been growing steadily more unhappy with his presence.
"Well, I'd love to stay," he says, flashing a grin, "but I have other people to see. Give my regards to the lady of the house."
Zouchouten, forthright as ever, doesn't even pretend to be sorry that Kujaku is leaving. His daughter, however, seems to have revised her initial opinion. As Kujaku makes his way out of the courtyard, she waves frantically, forcing the cat to do the same. Kujaku waves back, and thinks, as he leaves, that Zouchouten is right to prefer this world. It is a better world, where children teasing cats is an event, where scary strangers appearing in your home turn out to be friendly, if peculiar, old acquaintances.
His next visit takes a few days to arrange. Taishakuten, never one for neglecting security measures, has hidden himself well. Some time goes by even after Kujaku has located him; this particular shadowy crevice of the world has not changed, and demons are no more given to being friendly than usual. Which is too bad for them, really, since Kujaku has no patience for demons.
At last, though, he makes his way into the bizarrely opulent chamber Taishakuten has set up for his living death. Kujaku cannot even take his usual bit of pleasure in having surprise on his side: at this point, there is no appreciable difference between a surprised Taishakuten and one who is merely in a base state of brooding.
"What brings you here, Stargazer?"
Likewise, it wouldn't be any fun to lie to him. "Your son is doing a remarkable job. Hard to see the resemblance, really."
"I could say the same about you."
"Including the bit about the remarkable job?"
Taishakuten favors him with one of the small, serene smiles he has become so adept at, since giving up his position as terrorizer-in-chief. "Why don't you tell me why you're really here, Kujaku?"
"If you insist. It's different out there. Everything's changed."
"No more room for stargazers, now that the wheel of destiny has been thrown off its course, hm?"
There's something in his tone that Kujaku finds irritating, but he shrugs it off. "I've been trying not to think about it like that."
"But deep down, you've already acknowledged it. Even a cursed stargazer has a role to play, and you played it well. Now you feel the difference. You can't live without a place in the world for long and not know it."
"You speak from experience."
"Naturally. Do you see any place for me in this world?"
"If I remember right, you gave up your right to a place in any world at all, again and again."
"I wouldn't put it that way, no. I chose my own role, and now that it's done, all I can do is wait for death."
Kujaku can no longer find it in himself to put up a humorous front. He briefly takes his leave of the former God King, deciding that there is one more visit he must pay. Then, he feels, he will have the last piece necessary to understand all that he has seen and heard and thought since venturing out into the world.
He watches Tenou for the better part of a day before the opportunity to speak to him alone arises. The God King is busy all the time. He hears reports from his generals, he meets with disgruntled peasants, he attends sessions of the newly-instated Council of Gods. He does some things Kujaku can't even put a name to, though they are all clearly bound up in the weighty task of ruling Tenkai.
It is the middle of the night when Kujaku catches Tenou alone.
"Your majesty," he says with a flourish.
"You honor me with your presence," Tenou says, bowing, and Kujaku can tell that it isn't a mere formality, it is something Tenou genuinely feels. It is at once precious and irritating that a decade of rule has not worn down Tenou's sincerity and painful earnestness.
"I was hoping you would honor me with a moment of your time."
"Oh, certainly. I have no pressing engagements until the morning."
"But I'm keeping you from your bed, aren't I?"
Tenou shrugs. "How can I hep you?"
"Such a gentleman," Kujaku marvels. "Nothing at all like your father."
"My father?" Tenou echoes. "Have you spoken to him?" All the old hurts are suddenly laid bare in his unguarded expression, making Kujaku regret that he brought it up.
"For a little while," he says gently. "But that isn't what I came to talk about. I've been doing some traveling recently, getting a firsthand look at the fruits of your tireless efforts."
"Oh, I haven't done it alone," Tenou begins to protest.
"Of course not. Still, none of it would have been possible without you, and that's the final word on that."
Tenou doesn't respond.
"Moving on, then. I've been watching you. I know you've been out there, talked to people, seen how they're living now. I want to know if this is the world you dreamed of, when you first started out."
"I didn't have anything in particular in mind," Tenou says. "I only wanted to make it better. It's egotistic, I know, thinking that I know what's better for the world, but it was up to me. I think I did my best."
Kujaku nods. "You were given a role, and because your life had been preparing you for it, you did well." In a more light-hearted tone, he continues, "You really have done well, you know. They're happy out there. They feel like you're their friend. It's refreshing."
"It isn't all going well. The Kendappa tribe has been at war with itself for a decade. Lady Kendappa had no surviving family with a claim to be the next ruler, so know one knows who is to succeed her." With a look of anguish, he concludes, "It seems the only solution the self-appointed candidates can see is violence."
"Your job is to rule Tenkai to the best of your abilities, Tenou, not to save the entire world."
Tenou nods, looking unconvinced. Kujaku wonders how many times he has heard variations on this theme from Zouchouten, from various advisers. Still, Kujaku is glad that he has added his own voice to the chorus.
As he leaves all traces of civilization behind, he looks up into the sky, where the stars in their multitudes are still locked in their eternal dance, not realizing that they, like the ones who watch them, have become obsolete.
Yet they are still beautiful, he thinks, more beautiful now than they were before, now that they are no longer the symbols of inescapable destiny. Beauty is the only function left to them, and they are not failing in that.
He, too, will not fail in his final function. It is one that he has chosen for himself, he sees. In this new world without destiny, he must assign himself his own fate. He has chosen the fate of dying so that Ashura may see this new world.
Kujaku looks up at the stars and smiles. His fate is sealed, unchangeable, and he is pleased.