Dammit. I can't see a thing. Gojyo cursed loudly to himself. Damn Hakkai with his damn ideas to go out in the middle of a fucking storm to go fucking ghost busting.

/"Stop treating him like your little wife. Hakkai can take care of himself."/

Little wife. He spat. Hakkai ain't my wife.

"The fuck?!" he shouted before falling into a ditch of five foot snow. "Damiiiiiittttttt." Gojyo crawled out and with a growl of frustration, whipped out his weapon and sent the surrounding snow into the air.

He plowed forward, holding his arm up against the wind. "Don't do anything stupid, Hakkai..." It sounded cheesy, but maybe if he said it enough, Hakkai would hear because Hakkai's sensitive like that and he would never do anything against Gojyo's will. "Wait for me..."

****

Tenpou gazed into lake's water where Gen had his men break the ice. It sat there, bleak and gray. Forbidding in its eerie stillness.

"I have to..." Tenpou's mouth suddenly went dry. His hand immediately went to the earcuff, clutched, unclutched. Let go. "...in there?"

Gen nodded severely. "Then do whatever you need to do to get that power before you're paralyzed. To switch the souls of thirty youkai and thirty gods, about fifty of their clan jumped into the lake and sacrificed themselves. It was apparently enough."

Litouten must have bribed them with some twisted promise of power, Tenpou thought sourly before gazing over the horizon to where the village was located. Nothing more than blinding whiteness. "Tell me...what happens after the switch? I'm back home in my study- cozy and all but..." His eyes switched to his bandaged hand which hid the lifeline he wasn't going to think about. "What happens to this body?"