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It had been a few days after...Well, after that fight. The fight against Macaque made MK feel like the biggest idiot in the hemisphere for trusting Macaque. Monkey King tried to make him feel better—talked about how Macaque was always good with manipulation, how he could eavesdrop on people from hundreds of miles away, and that even he had been tricked in the past by him—none of it made him feel better. In fact, they made him feel worse because he learned he'd likely been stalked for weeks, if not months, and didn't know it.
Later, after MK calmed down from that revelation, and waited for Dajing to leave to stargaze, MK and Monkey King left to talk. They were in Monkey King's room, with MK on the bed, while Monkey King stood, leaning on his desk just inches away from the lone laptop on it. They'd closed the doors and windows and kept the desk lamp low to ensure that, when Dajing came back, he wouldn't immediately notice they were talking about him.
Monkey King sighed, whispering, "Okay, kid. What've you noticed about his magic?"
"Other than being powerful?" He joked. "He seems to be getting more powerful the longer he's here. But, it's slow. Not as slow as mine, but, slower."
Monkey King nodded. "I've noticed that, too. But you're observant, what else have you noticed?"
MK didn't feel like 'observant' really matched who he was, but he'd take the compliment and screwed his eyes shut to recall everything he could. He ran through the spars, the fights, the casual moments—and landed on a memory. "That spar between us. Just after he arrived here." He fought his instinct to snap his fingers with the realization. "His eyes looked the same as they did after the fight with Macaque."
Monkey King hummed, rubbing his chin. "Now that you mention it. Yeah, you're right." He hummed again, walking away from the desk and towards MK. "There were two, no three, other times I noticed that same look. I had thought that it was just him being. Well, him. Given everything he'd gone through. He'd been walking or training with me or by himself. It was like he was trying to figure something out," Monkey King recalled, rubbing his furred chin. “Like he was trying to make something work but was figuring the sequence out by trial and error.”
"What has he said about his journey?" MK asked, his brows furrowing. "We know about the Monkey genocide, the Heaven-being-the-bad-guys-"
Monkey King cocked his head to the side, grimacing. "-Arguably they could be the bag guys here-"
"-and that he's far too young to be on a journey, let alone the journey he was on," MK finished, ignoring the interruption. "He shared something with me, but." He stopped, grimacing. "He told me not to tell you."
Monkey King raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"It's not great," he said, raising his hands as if to appease him.
"I doubt it could be worse than anything he's already told us," Monkey King said, smiling wryly. "You can't get much worse than genocide."
"Do you promise to stay quiet?" MK asked, glancing outside. "Dajing would kill us if he found out we were talking about him behind his back."
Monkey King rolled his eyes. Pressing his hand to his heart. "I promise to keep quiet," he said, staring down at MK. "Now tell me."
MK sighed. "There's no good way to put this," he muttered to himself, rubbing his hands together and biting his lips. "Heaven tried to put the headband on him."
Monkey King froze, his tail stilling and his golden eyes flaring. "Headband?!" He said, his voice nearly shrill.
MK gestured with his hands, palms facing downwards. "Quiet!" He whisper-yelled. MK grimaced at his mentor's anger. It rolled off him in droves, suffocating the room. Monkey King nearly snarled, his tail whipping behind him as he paced. He stuffed his hand in his mouth, his fangs just peaking between his fingers. Monkey King, as a demon, could straddle the line between human-looking and monkey-looking. Most of the time, he acted pretty human. Gesturing, walking, talking, existing, he nailed it all easily. But there were moments when he almost acted more like Dajing, uncaring about the audience looking at him. A tinge of feral to his eyes or demeanor that put MK on edge. MK was never scared of his mentor. But his expression of pure fury made him understand why others were scared of him.
After a minute or five of Monkey King pacing and stifling his boiling rage, he managed to control his breathing. "Okay," Monkey King whispered. "Okay, that's. Bad."
"Yep."
"He probably didn't want you to tell me because of how angry it would make me."
"Most likely." MK didn't actually know if that was the reason. The few signs Dajing had gotten out before he fled to have his panic attack elsewhere didn't leave any definitive clues to his intentions. But not angering Monkey King was possibly one of those intentions.
"Alright, I can. Understand that," Monkey King said weakly, running his hands through his hair. "So. Entrapment. Why would Heaven do that?"
"Well," MK started, then stopped, humming as he thought. "Heaven killed the Great Sage, right? In Dajing's universe?" Monkey King nodded, and MK continued. "That means that, well, they may have realized that they kinda failed when Dajing popped up. Since killing him wouldn't do anything, maybe they realized they had to control him?"
Monkey King's face flashed with fear, anger, and hatred before settling into resignation. "Heaven did the same with me. With my headband." Monkey King's hands drifted to his forehead, rubbing his temples. "I shouldn't be surprised, honestly. Heaven can be real assholes when they feel like it."
"Then-" MK said slowly, "-they realized he was a threat."
"Because of himself, or the relics he held," Monkey King said, putting the pieces together. His eyes widened with realization. "The relics have to factor into this somehow. They're probably the source of his magic or an enhancement."
"And the source of the strangeness," MK added.
"Exactly," Monkey King snapped his fingers, pointing at MK. "But, I would never put my magic–or my powers–in physical relics like my armor or weapons, even the staff. The armor pieces are too easily-stealable, and being able to pick up the staff is rare. Selecting a successor by that measure alone is ridiculous,” Monkey King said softly, pacing in his room. “Relics, relics, what would I turn into relics…” Then, Monkey King paused. "That's not even the worst of it, actually."
"Oh?" he asked.
"Yeah. There's not much that can actually contain my amount of power," then he tilted his head. "Or yours, actually. We'd destroy anything that tried to contain it. Like a bomb of epic proportions."
"So, we're back to the staff, then." MK sighed. "It's the only thing powerful enough, and that isn't stealable, that could contain it." MK frowned, tilting his head backward. "Then why did you select me as your successor? I thought lifting the staff-"
Monkey King smiled softly, looking behind him with warm eyes. "Kid, you're pretty great," he said, as if that were obvious. "You're kind, enthusiastic, got a good head on your shoulders-"
"Mooonkey Kiiiing," MK said, blushing, covering his face.
"-You've got a hell of a lot of potential stocked away in that body of yours. Lifting the staff was just a marker that you were perfect," he finished, leaning down with that trademark smirking smile. "Need I go on?"
"Stop it!" MK laughed, pushing him away. "We're getting distracted!"
Monkey King sighed, pulling himself back and rubbing his chin. "I know. I still can't figure out what another version of me would turn into relics of all things." Monkey King chuckled. "Though, I also can't imagine myself dying, either."
"Yeah," MK said softly, laying back on the bed. "Is it weird to think of yourself dying?"
Monkey King huffed, his tail flicking. "A little. I strived so hard for immortality, became immortal in nearly a dozen ways, and in this other world I-" He stopped, looking at the wall. Looking in the vicinity of where Dajing would be stargazing. "I don't get how, I don't get why. Why would another version of me..." Monkey King paused. The room lit up around him. His eyes were gleaming red.
"Monkey King?" MK asked, sitting up.
"There'd have been something to do with the immortality itself," he said, voice lacking any intonation or emotion. Pure numbness. "Heaven might have spoiled it. But, the only one who could have planned such a feat would have been...Me."
"You're not saying-" MK asked softly. The word came to his mind, but he couldn't say it. Couldn't breathe life into it lest it become real.
"The other me committed suicide," Monkey King said gravely, walking to the desk and leaning on it, his back turned to MK.
Silence filled the room. Words, condolences, anything and everything that he could have said failed him. Nothing could have made this better. How could it get worse than this?
How do you confront the fact that another version of yourself didn't just die, but killed himself?
Monkey King saved him from having to answer or respond. "Doesn't clear up motivation, or, final wishes." He sighed, pushing away from the desk. "Nor does it clear up the relics. Maybe this other me could have sealed them away before his death. He'd have to have thought this out intensely. Maybe even had a friend help him. Heaven forbid who'd that be but-" and Monkey King rattled on about the possibilities. Who would have the Great Sage go to help plan a suicide? How thoroughly did he search and plan his relics? Monkey King retraced how he would have planned his own suicide, and fucking hell if that didn't depress MK. So, he mostly tuned it out. Thinking instead of what could have contained that amount of power. It would have to be something powerful. Something enormously so, to contain the King's power. Powerful relics were sometimes made from dying demons or celestials, he'd heard tales from Tang enough to know it happened. But none of them were on the scale of the Monkey King. The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. The one entity in existence that brought the Jade Emperor and the Buddha together to stop him and his rampage in Heaven. The only known thing that could contain that much power was…
The idea flew past his mind. The only thing powerful enough to contain his power was the Monkey King, or the Great Sage. What if, to contain it, they used his dead body to contain it? Just splitting it up into more manageable pieces. The six main body parts ran through his head. Eyes, tongue, ears, nose, body, then mind. The only one that wouldn't be easily containable would be the mind. It was ephemeral, out of mortal and immortal grasp. So, five pieces, then.
Five body parts of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Each contained one-sixth of his power, with only one lost in the dying process.
"MK?" Monkey King spoke, leaning over him. "You okay? You're staring into space there."
He stared at his mentor. His eyes were wide and tense, the red bleeding through his normal golden eyes. He'd called it a glamor. Something that made him less intimidating to others, and hid the pieces of his form that he didn't quite like. An illusion for privacy, one vigorously maintained. One that slipped within an hour. The man who nearly broke his promise to keep quiet when he'd heard how Dajing was nearly shackled the same way he was. Who just might rampage through Heaven again if MK told him his theory. The sheer indignity, the sheer anger he could expect from him. How Dajing still might be in danger if their Heaven ever knew his true origins. He was nearly chained once; who was to say that their Heaven wouldn't try the same? Dajing was powerful. On par, if inexperienced, against Monkey King. A young sage, near equal to the Great Sage.
"It's nothing," he lied. "Nothing at all."
A creak caught their attention, their heads shooting to the bedroom door. It was closed.
It was the front door that opened, then shut.
They glanced back at each other. The same thought on their minds. Dajing was back inside. "Table?" MK asked in CSL.
Monkey King nodded. "Table."
Dajing's footsteps pattered through the living room softly. Despite the months, he'd never grown used to, nor interested in, shoes. Because of that, he was always preternaturally quiet. Able to sneak up or sneak away if he so chose.
The footsteps paused, just outside Monkey King's door. Then they walked over and quickly opened it.
Dajing stared at them, his brows furrowed. "You do not sleep this late." His hand signs were flighty and quick. And, with the darkness, MK almost hadn't understood what he'd said.
"Uhhh," MK said eloquently. "We were chatting about...Monkey Cop. Yeah, Monkey Cop!" He lied, much less confidently than before. It wasn't convincing. Not enough. Dajing's frown deepened. Monkey King's eyes darted to the floor, avoiding the younger kid's gaze.
Finally, the King sighed. "I'm not gonna lie. MK told me about the headband."
Dajing's eyes flickered wide, his mouth falling slightly. Then, a furious look overtook his face, and he directed it straight at MK. The monkey growled, then tried to walk away.
"Kid. Dajing. Stop. Hey!" Monkey King followed, yelling after him.
MK stayed right where he was. Not after Monkey King threw him under the bus there. He wouldn't make things better. Probably would make things worse, actually, and he didn't want to intervene between those two.
Besides, he had his own horrifying thought to digest.