"There were twenty five of us in the first squad -- those chosen to strive for Sanzo. Only three of us survived to the end," Koumyou confirms, just as serene and calm as though they're talking about their team colors or something else mundane.

"You can't go into that sort of thing without giving everything. Some just did it more quickly than others. Tenkai Sanzo died a few years after, and asked me to take charge of the Maten."

With his dying words, his blood-drenched hand straining for the sky. For Koumyou.

"Goudai Sanzo grew ill over time. It was like the Muten was eating him from the inside out, like acid. He had me oversee his final moments, and the passing of his sutra and title to his successor, who I gave a holy name to in his stead and trained for a year."

Because Goudai's successor had been the one to kill him.

Ukoku.

But then Koumyou cracks an eye open again, and glances over. "--I'm not trying to be dramatic!" he adds in a rush, realizing the tone this conversation has gone into. "That's just..." at a loss for how to even try to temper it all, for a second, "That's just how it is. We all knew what we were..."

...doing? Had they, though?

If the title 'Sanzo' means watching your friends die, then it's worthless.

Who'd said that? A much younger man...