Mokou woke up to the sound of drums. She clambered up from the straw mattress and de-wrinkled her robes, then still yawning groped for her overcoat.
The approaching winter ensured it was still dark outside whenever she woke. She made her way to the corridor and waved at Ichirin and Unzan as she passed by their room. Ichirin was too busy playing the drums to wave back, but both she and Unzan nodded in acknowledgement. Mokou didn't really know what to make of their recent enthusiasm for percussions, but at least they made for a better alarm bell than the actual bell had been.
She walked into the main hall. Byakuren was already there, sitting so perfectly still she might as well have been there the whole night.
Mokou sat down close to her. The drum concerto soon came to an end, and Ichirin and Unzan re-emerged, Unzan squeezing himself through the doorway to hover in the hall.
The morning chant began. Mokou did her best to forget about everything else.
After the chant and meditation were done, she headed to the kitchen to prepare their breakfast. Dandelions again. That was fine. They made for decent tea as well as salad, and this self-imposed deprivation was nothing compared to her past suffering in the wilderness.
They ate in silence. There were no news, after all. No word from Shou. Mokou was beginning to doubt she would ever return. She had been a venerable youkai, after all, and while still in excellent health, her essence had been stretched and dwindled to gossamer. She had insisted she was more than well enough to spread the teachings to the new continent, but...
So, it was just the four of them now. The rest of Byakuren's ancient followers had vanished long before Mokou joined the order, dead or simply gone, simply disappeared into thin air one night like Nazrin had. It was just as well. They didn't have any visitors, anyway.
After breakfast was done, Mokou returned to one of the smaller chambers and sat down to meditate. Learning to contemplate her physical existence had been excruciatingly difficult: she had realised only afterwards how readily she had divorced herself from both body and mind during her previous lifetimes, slipping into acting on mere instinct whenever her sanity failed her.
This was different, though. This was to find peace on earth. Which was something she wasn't supposed to desire if she were to achieve it.
Mokou frowned and opened her eyes. Something was nagging at her. Something that she had been trying to forget during her century and a half in this house of stillness.
She could no longer relax, and when the bell rang to announce lunch, she got up hurriedly, relieved to at least see other people.
"No visitors, Ichirin?" Byakuren asked as Mokou dug into the dandelion soup.
"None."
Byakuren nodded. The lack of people to instruct appeared to bother her even less than it bothered Mokou. Not for the first time, Mokou wondered how long her teacher would remain on earth if there were no new pupils.
She finished her soup in silence, then waited for the others to finish so that she could wash the dishes. The dishes done, she headed outside. It was her turn to sweep the courtyard, and she took her frustrations out on the dead leaves infesting the cracked stone path.
"I would like to speak with you, Mokou."
She turned. Byakuren's tone had been poised, but her face, usually smooth and without a single wrinkle belying her immense age, was creased into a slight frown.
"Sure thing. Mind if I keep sweeping?"
"By all means, go ahead."
Mokou turned her back towards Byakuren and returned to extricating a particularly stubborn leaf from between the stones.
"To begin with, I must clarify that you are welcome to stay here indefinitely. You have taken our creed with the utmost seriousness, and I am by no means turning you away. You have done nothing wrong."
Mokou stopped sweeping and turned back with a wan smile. "I think I see where this is going."
Byakuren nodded, just once.
Mokou left the stuck leaf where it was and swept the loose ones into a pile. "I'm not completely blind yet. No matter how hard I try to become aware of the world, something holds me back. It only gets worse the harder I try." She shoved the broom at an errant leaf. "I doubt I'll ever achieve satori."
Byakuren nodded again. "I will not say that it's impossible, nor that you should stray from the path, but..."
Mokou leaned into the broom and stared at the sky. As usual, the sun was shrouded behind a red fog, looming high above the shrivelled spruces with their orange needles.
"We don't belong in this world," she said.
Byakuren gave her a small smile. "Perhaps you have already reached an enlightenment of your own."
Mokou said nothing.
"You are more than welcome to stay."
Mokou kept sweeping. "That means a lot."
She eyed Byakuren. Over time, she had met countless people with one foot already out of this world. Byakuren had a thousand years left, give or take a few centuries, but she already belonged beyond. So much so that when she stepped into the light, she was all but translucent.
Mokou's thoughts drifted elsewhere. For the first time in centuries, she willingly thought of Kaguya. How long had it been? Three thousand years? Four thousand? Even in the face of an eternity spent together, the previous betrayal had seemed a rift that could never be mended. She had sworn, hadn't she? This time, it really had been unforgivable.
Ha.
She shook her head. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she struggled, at the end of the world nothing remained but the company of her fellow lepers. She was as cursed with them as they were with her.
Not that she meant to go back just yet. But it was then, as she finished sweeping and looked back at the mountainside temple, her fleeting respite in the endless sea of time, that she accepted that one day, she would have to face Kaguya again.
"I might return one day."
"The gate is always open to you."
They spoke no more as they retired to the front door and sat onto the step, staring at the sun until it set into the dusty horizon. Nor did they say anything as Mokou stood up and walked into the black night.
The next time I visited the mountainside, not a stone remained of the temple. Had there been some ruins, I could have guessed what had happened, but with the entire thing gone, and with none of the locals understanding my sign language, I'm left to wonder if instead of abandoning the building, Byakuren and the others took it with them as they moved to free the people of another land from eternal suffering.
I sat where I had slept for fifteen decades and closed my eyes, fixing my entire attention on the thirty-one parts of me as Byakuren had taught me.
It was dark when I next opened my eyes, and I was no more enlightened. But then, maybe knowing I never would be was an enlightenment of its own.
In any case, I hope those saints found their freedom.