"You understand now?"

The healer gulped, his hands growing instantly cold. "So you are saying that you can be talking to me...and think it is me, but perhaps I am really not here, but down there. Is that it?"

"But of course I am not accusing you-"

"Of course not."

Silence descended upon the two of them, interrupted momentarily by a long winded, "Ten-chaaaaaaaan!" and a brown blur racing towards them. Goku leaped up and clung to Hakkai's neck.

"Goku." Like a monkey, the boy was hanging off him playfully. "You shouldn't interrupt adults while they're talking." Immense brown orbs looked up at him, smiling widely.

"Gomen, Ten-chan! But Konzen's super busy doing paperstuff and got mad at me and Ken-niichan's sad so I thought I could get you to come cheer him up because I couldn't and if I couldn't I thought you could because you can. On yeah, and Konzen taught me how to count! You want to hear? One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine... ten..."

"Not now, Goku. Later perhaps." With considerable difficulty, Hakkai managed to unwrap the little Goku's iron grip around his neck and placed him gently down on the ground. "Fifteen...sixteen...seventeen..." All the while, Shien said nothing, scanning the second story windows and quickly pulling the three of them further into the shadows as the army passed their section of the street.

Goku sniffed the air, then scrunched up his nose. "Ack." he pouted while pointing to the file of marching kami.

"Twenty...twenty-one...twenty-two..."

Then it dawned on him. That feeling returned, unfamiliar to this body, but to his mind the memory of it all was only too acute. The only thing as painful as rain was youkai...