Koumyou listens to the retelling, a little chuckle starting up and turning into a full laugh by the end. "That sounds exactly right, yes. Seeing you must have really flustered him!"

The older priest is just so unspeakably fond of the both of them. The image of blunt, grumpy Kouryuu trying to figure out Devero, while Devero totally tripped over himself and undoubtedly put both feet directly in his mouth...

"I rather wish I'd seen it. At least he had no reason to try to lie to you about anything; he's so bad at deception of any kind. Even little ten-year-old me saw right through him when the train turned me young one time, and I wasn't even very perceptive!"

Koumyou glances back over his shoulder, smiling one of his squinty, amused smiles.

"He means well, but he's from a very soft world. He wears his heart directly on his sleeve with a big target painted right on it."

Which is, you know.

Fucking.

Terrifying???

For anyone from Shangri-la to find himself so attached to.

"We fought alongside one of you, a version from one of the infinite copies of our world, on a mission. That world was full of illusions, but you were real; the Maten was real. I suspect every layer of the multiverse has its own copy of the sutra that was used to create it."

They've arrived at the dining car, and Koumyou holds the door into it for his son before leading the way to the famed ice cream machine.

"Honestly, Devero was probably just relieved to not have your gun pointed between his eyes again, that's apparently how he met the other you. He startled you in a tense situation."

Which, you know, would do it. With any Sanzo, Genjo or otherwise.