Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Shades of Time ❯ Strange ( Chapter 8 )

 

The glass slipped out of Tenpou's suddenly numb fingers, fortunately, Kenren had good reflexes and caught it before it could hit the floor. It just couldn't be, he thought. The woman he'd been lusting after while just seeing her back couldn't possibly the pest who'd plagued his doorstep for the past century. But it made sense, some other more rational part of his brain chimed in. The stance, the obvious strength in her body, the lean muscles from what he could see of her back, the fact that she'd been talking to Konzen for a long time. Damn it, damn it, damn it! This had to be some kind of sick joke, he thought and before he could reign himself in he'd started striding over to where she and Konzen were standing.

 

“Oh, hell,” Kenren said and downed his drink before following his friend.

 

***

 

“Shi,” Konzen said very carefully. “Were you serious about avoiding Tenpou?”

 

She looked up at him puzzledly. “Yes. Why?”

 

“I suggest you leave then, because he's headed this way.”

 

Shi-ne glanced over one shoulder and mentally sighed. <i>Damn it, just when I decide to stay away from him.</i> “Consider me vapor,” she said. Spotting a few members of her squad, she left Konzen and carefully walked over to them.

 

 

If Tenpou had thought it was bad to be leering at Shi-ne when she was merely standing, it was worse watching her walk. Her tread was measured and careful but still with that hip roll every woman walking in high heels seemed to have and his brain started presenting him with startlingly clear pictures of how her hips could be rolled in other circumstances. Like when she was straddling him in bed. Or bent over his desk, or up against the nearest wall. Damn it! This could <i>not</i> be happening, he thought. He could not be thinking utterly pornographic things about the bane of his existence but it seemed to be so. Worse, from looking at the other men and a few women in the room, it seemed that they were thinking along similar lines as she made her way to members of the team she ran.

 

He stopped in front of Konzen, who was looking at him as though he had completely lost his mind.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Konzen asked before Tenpou could even open his mouth.

 

“Nothing. Was that Shi-ne who just walked off?” Tenpou asked. Silently praying that Konzen would tell him “no” and that Kenren had been wrong.

 

Konzen's look and answer made his stomach sink a little. “Of course it was Shi. Who the hell else do I talk to for very long aside from you?”

 

Tenpou was saved from needing to reply or say anything else by the announcement that dinner was served. Everyone in the adjoining rooms started milling toward the dining hall. Konzen walked to where Shi-ne was talking to her squad members and started steering her toward the other room. Tenpou felt an odd stab of . . . something, watching Konzen put his hand on the small of Shi-ne's back and guide her toward the doors to the dining hall. None of this made any sense. Sure, he'd always known she was cute, not that he would have ever admitted that thought to anyone aside from himself, but he'd never had this kind of reaction to her before. It was really damn strange.

 

Everyone filed into the dining room and Tenpou found himself seated on the other side of the table and slightly angled from Shi-ne and Konzen. He found that he rather liked that particular spot because he could glance at her without being overly obvious. Unfortunately, it also put him in a position where he had the ability to watch several others leering at her. <i>Gods damn it, if they don't keep their eyes to themselves I'm going to rip them out.</i> Now where had <i>that</i> thought come from? Shi-ne herself seemed oblivious to all of the sudden attention and focused on her meal or talking to Konzen, who was seated to her right.

 

Watching her eat was a special kind of torture for Tenpou. He'd seen her eat a thousand times before and had never paid any attention to it. Like the time she'd decided that she and Goku needed to have a picnic in his office, using one of the large roll out maps as a tablecloth. There were still interesting stains on the map from where Goku had dropped what Shi-ne had called Ginger Kiss cookie filling on it. But somehow it was different this time. Especially when her tongue would occasionally dart out to grab some misplaced food particle from the corner of her mouth, he found his thoughts again straying to pornographic ideas. Like what her tongue might feel like against the skin of his stomach, or better yet lower on his body. That particular thought made him squirm uncomfortably in his seat.

 

“Uh, Tenpou?” Kenren said, nudging him in the ribs slightly.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Is there something wrong with the food? You haven't eaten very much.”

 

“Oh, um, I'm not very hungry,” he said, pushing his food around on his plate for a moment.

 

Kenren frowned, Tenpou had been starving not a half an hour ago. He looked at him worriedly then glanced over to where Konzen and Shi-ne were talking with their heads bent closely together. Konzen glanced at him from the corner of his eye and Kenren's eyes narrowed suspiciously. The pretty boy was up to something, he just knew it.

 

The rest of dinner passed without incident and the speeches were blessedly short this time. Which was a miracle within itself. The band had begun playing in the ballroom and all of the higher ranking officials were dragooned into dancing. Several dances in Shi-ne came to find Konzen and dragged him off to one of the balconies by a handful of hair.

 

“Now hear this, Konzen,” she said, letting go of his hair and glaring at him as soon as they'd reached fresh air. “I am <i>never</i> wearing a dress again to one of these things. Ever!”

 

“Why not? You look good in it.”

 

“Therein lies the problem. Several people seem to have forgotten how to comport themselves properly with a General. I can't count how many men's hands I've had to pry off of my ass in the past fifteen minutes.”

 

“Has Tenpou tried to put his hands on your ass?”

 

She glared at him. “Are you insane? Of course not.”

 

<i>Tenpou, you dumb-ass,</i> Konzen thought.

 

“I'm leaving now. I've fulfilled my obligations in this little nightmare and I have a better party to go to after I change clothes,” she said, stalking away from him.

 

Konzen sighed and watched her plough her way through the crowed ballroom toward the exit. He shook his head but smiled a little as he saw Tenpou track her progress through the throng of people then move to follow her.

 

“You planned this, didn't you?” said a voice off to his side. Kenren had come out the other door to the balcony and was grinning lopsidedly at Konzen.

 

Konzen stuck his nose in the air and looked primly at him. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

 

“Uh, huh. Well, if you <i>did</i> plan it, it's working. He's been staring at her like she's something edible all night.”

 

***

 

Shi-ne walked out of the building without anyone trying to stop or deter her in any way. She presumed it was because of the “Get the hell out of the General's way” expression on her face. She paused momentarily to take off the shoes and had to resist the urge to fling them as far as she possibly could. What the hell had Konzen been thinking? She walked along the many paths toward home, taking comfort in her bare feet against the cool ground. About half a mile away from the party, nearing a small copse of trees she thought she heard her name being called. The voice sounded vaguely like Goku's but it was strained. When she heard Konzen, then Kenren and Tenpou's names she started to move faster. No one would be calling the four of them <i>but</i> Goku. Finding the break in the trees she saw several of the foot soldiers surrounding someone they were all gleefully beating on.

 

“Shi-ne?” one of them laughed. “I don't think any of us are going to die, but you might.”

 

“I think,” Shi-ne said, coming into the clearing. “That he was calling for me.”

 

Everyone looked around at her and there was enough of a break between the bodies to see that it was indeed Goku on the ground. Her eyes narrowed and she felt her abilities start to stir in her, seeking release.

 

“Awfully big of you boys to all gang up on a child when there's what . . .” she counted off how many there were. “Eight of you against one.”

 

“He's a damn heretic. He doesn't feel anything anyway,” one of them said. “Bad enough he walks around here like he owns the damn place and he's protected by the Merciful Goddess' nephew, that stupid General and Field Marshal. Not to mention the Field Marshal's little slut from the Southern Army.”

 

“Really? What little slut from the Southern Army?” Shi-ne asked, her hands clenching to hide the sparks that had suddenly tried to come from her fingertips.

 

“The one Field Marshal Tenpou is fucking. She only got to be a general because of him, everybody knows that.”

 

“If you losers say so.”

 

“Hey, she's kind of cute. Maybe we should just play with her instead,” one of them suggested, leering at her.

 

“Nope. So never wearing a dress again,” she mumbled to herself. “If you limp dicks think you can. Bring it.”

 

“Oooh. The little lotus flower wants to fight,” one of them said and charged her. She sidestepped and put her fist into his solar plexus, doubling him over in pain.

 

“Fuck! Get that bitch!” one of them yelled. The rest of them piled onto her, punching and kicking. She fended them off easily but one actually managed to land a fairly hard blow to her face.

 

“Awww. Now look what you did. You made me bleed,” she said, wiping the blood away from her mouth. “I'm going to have to hurt you now.” A low rumble seemed to come directly from her body and all of them seemed suddenly frozen in place. The smile on her face was positively evil. “Shatter!”

 

The men screamed as every large bone in their bodies seemed to explode from the inside. They fell to the ground, piling on top of one another haphazardly. Shi-ne walked to the one who had said she'd only gained the rank of General through sexual favors. She put one foot on his neck, now wishing she had been wearing the heels, and said, “Now, let me make something perfectly clear to you boys. I gained my rank because I can do <i>that</i> to idiots like you. I will be having a little conversation with your commanding officer first thing in the morning about this incident.” She gave them all one last disgusted look before hurrying over to Goku.

 

“Goku, sweetie, are you okay?” she asked, noting the bruising along his face, shoulders and arms.

 

“Shi? That really you?”

 

“Yeah, it's me,” she said, lifting him up into her arms like the child he was.

 

“Hurts,” he whimpered.

 

“I know, sweetheart. I'll fix that as best I can.”

 

“Shi-ne!”

 

She looked around to find Tenpou coming through the gap in the trees, staring at the men moaning in pain on the ground.

 

“What the hell happened?”

 

“Ask those losers,” she said, shifting Goku to where his head leaned against her shoulder. “Would you go find Konzen and get a medical corps in for these idiots? Tell them that they've had a shatter spell worked on them and they'll know what to do with them. I want their names as well. If their CO doesn't do something about this I'm going to hunt them down and fillet them personally. I'm taking him to my quarters, Konzen knows where it is. Gods know Konzen and medical supplies are mutually exclusive to one another,” she said, striding off carrying Goku.

 

Tenpou resisted the urge to salute her even though she was apparently in full General mode. “As you wish, General Kai.”

 

“Wait!” one of the men on the ground said. “<i>That's</i> General Kai?”

 

“Indeed,” Tenpou said, looking them over.

 

“Fuck! We're dead. What charges can she bring us up on?”

 

“Assaulting a superior officer, attempted rape, drunk and disorderly, conduct unbecoming a soldier, probably slander as well,” another groaned.

 

Tenpou's eyebrows went up. “Slander?”

 

“Yeah,” one of them groaned. “About how she only got General rank because she was fucking Field Marshal Tenpou. Everybody knows it.”

 

Tenpou snarled a little and put his cigarette out against the man's forehead. “Funny. I don't remember that happening. I'm fairly certain I'd have remembered fucking her. I can safely assure you that hasn't happened.” <i>Yet.</i>

 

“F . . . field Marshal Tenpou?”

 

“That would be me,” Tenpou said, lighting another cigarette.

 

“We're <i>beyond</i> dead.”

 

“Yes, I believe you are,” Tenpou said before walking off to find Konzen.