TILL THE LONELINESS SHADOWS THE SKY
Chapter 4 -- Journeys
It occured to Sanzo that the reason he did all this 'saving the world' nonsense, was because it was, after all, something that needed to be done. As much as he tired of running around on divine errands, he was not about to let Togenkyo fall into chaos... at least, not while he was still there.
And if something went wrong, or if someone else was sent and failed... it would be his personal fault.
He hammered on the door again. "Oi, Goku!" And again, this failed to elicit any response. Shaking his head in a combination of impatience and frustration, he snatched up the satchel and strode for the door.
--
Goku heard the banging, but it seemed too much of an effort to rouse himself from the bed. He wasn't upset -- he told himself that much -- he wasn't crying any more because it wasn't any use, and he just refused, without rationale, to have a break down.
He'd expected it. He'd hoped for a favorable outcome -- who wouldn't? -- but this was Sanzo they were talking about.
Sanzo's not going to come down from whatever icy mountain he's stuck on and become a real human being. Not in a hundred lifetimes.
"Gojyo," he murmured at the ceiling. "You were right."
But thinking of Gojyo made him think of Hakkai, and Hakkai's urging him to keep trying, and not give up.
I don't guarentee it'll be easy, Hakkai had said. In fact, it's probably going to be extremely difficult. But if you truly care for him, it might be worth the pain.
So he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to work out a Plan B. Difficult, that, considering that he hadn't even had a Plan A to begin with.
And when Sanzo came hammering on the door, he just wasn't prepared to face him, wasn't prepared to talk about it until his mind had cleared.
Something that might have been grief, might have been anger, and was likely both, twisted in his stomach. The less logical side of him wailed and grieved and yelled out accusations : how could you have done that? After all we've been through together?! How could you just turn away, knowing how much I care for you? How could you be so mean?
"I'm not angry," he told the ceiling, as the knocking stopped, and there was the sound of receding footsteps. "I'm not angry with him..."
He
didn't rise even when his stomach started growling. He simply stayed, afloat in
a sea of circling thoughts that tried to center around the question of what to
do next, but kept drifting away instead. He visited the worn tracks of memory,
recalling experiences from the journey, from before the journey, all the way
back to the first time, years and years ago, Sanzo had held out his hand to
him. Back on
And I opened my eyes and saw the sun...
Afloat on that shifting sea, he slept.
--
Morning came without a solution. Goku blinked at the sunlight streaming in through the window -- he had failed to draw the curtains the night before. Then his stomach, far too aware of the fact that he had skipped dinner, snarled ferociously at him.
"I... didn't eat dinner..."
He bolted for the door and made a headlong rush for the kitchen. The cook looked up when he entered, gasping for breath and clutching his stomach, which was making enough noise to wake the dead. "Morning, Goku! I'm surprised that you weren't there at dinner..."
"I'm starving!" Goku moaned, dropping into a chair. The cook grinned, all too familiar with his antics, and dropped a plate of meatbuns in front of him. "Freshly steamed. Enjoy."
"Mmmph," Goku voiced his thanks around the mouthful.
"I'm surprised that you didn't follow Sanzo-sama, this time."
He froze, a meatbun halfway to his mouth. "Follow?"
"You don't know? Sanzo-sama left last night for Chun Xiang. He said that he'd be a few days, maybe 3 or 4."
"He... left?" Emotions warred in him at that realization. "He left without me?"
"You were locked in your room all night, Goku."
"I..." He recalled the knocking, Sanzo's yells for him, his voice tinged with impatience and a sense of urgency...
"He'll be alright," Goku said, mustering a smile. "He's gone off without me before. Was it the Three Aspects?"
"Apparently. Some order about investigating the recent spate of youkai attacks. Nothing serious, I trust."
Goku nodded. Maybe it's for the best, a voice told him. Let us sort out our feelings before we talk again. Maybe he'll have forgotten about it, and I can think of a backup plan... or just... drop the issue entirely...
"How far is Chun Xiang?" he asked.
"Slightly over a day's travel, on horseback."
"North?" he hazarded a guess.
"South. Near the border."
"Oh." Not in the direction of Gojyo's residence, then. Which meant that Sanzo really was going on his own this time.
He tried not to feel betrayed by that. Sanzo did embark on trips without taking anyone but himself, his gun, and his gold credit card... And truly, nothing serious had cropped up since their return from Tenjiku. Except that he'd never walked off after a quarrel of this magnitude.
You should have talked to him yesterday, his inner voice chided him.
It's too late, he snapped back.
"I guess... I'll take the time to visit some friends, then. I'll be back before he returns," Goku decided, polishing off the last of his massive breakfast. He stacked the latest plate onto the pile with the rest.
"Hakkai and Gojyo?" the other asked, familiar with the company that he kept.
"Yep."
--
It would have been faster, and definitely less tiring, if he had a Jeep. But, no, the Three Aspects gave Jiipu to Hakkai [2], and left their errand boy to saddle a horse and 'proceed with all speed' to a damn village over a day's travel away...
It didn't help that the summons arrived in the evening, leaving him barely an hour of travel time before sundown, and the prospect of a night in the open.
Of course, he could have requested the loan of Jiipu from Hakkai, which would have come complete with a driver and some levelheaded backup if he ran into trouble... but Hakkai was in the north, just the direction that he wasn't travelling in. And it would have taken far too much time to ride out north and come doubling back, Jeep or no Jeep.
I hate you, he swore at the gods in a moment of self-indulgence.
Sanzo pressed on, even after the sun had set, following the road out of the city. He had passed the outskirts sometime back, and was into what used to be farmland before the whole Minus Wave nonsense three years back. Now the fields lay untended and overgrown, with no humans daring to venture far from the protected walls of the city. No humans, excepting one dumb priest, he mused.
Youkai territory was everything outside the walls of a city, town or village.
But it seemed to be clear, this night, with no youryoku to trouble his sixth sense. A large part of the youkai had retained their sanity, but some, either because of a real insanity or simple, innate bloodlust, continued their roving quest for human flesh and blood. And then there were the highly intelligent youkai, some of whom had determined that the glory of all youkai-dom was better achieved by the eradication of humankind.
So on it went: the killings, the fighting, the slaughtering.
He opted for a stop sometime past midnight, in an abandoned roadhouse. The occupents were long gone -- evacuated and fled for the city, it seemed, since there was no taint of blood on the interior. But it was a shelter, and in the event of an attack, a reasonable defensible position.
He tethered the horse by the door and, with his Smith and Wesson by his side, settled for an uneasy doze in an abandoned chair.
-
He set out again at first light, aiming to reach his destination before sundown that day. Even with a youkai exorcism gun, he wasn't keen on spending the night in territory known to be youkai infested.
The sun rose on a day that passed without incident, and Sanzo reached the perimeter of Chun Xiang just as the sky was turning red. The guards let him in without question. The journey west had succeeded in spreading his fame, and that of his companions', from shore to shore. There wasn't a single soul in Togenkyo who didn't recognize him, Genjo Sanzo, the single surviving Sanzo, the undisputed authority throughout the land.
And the one remaining errand boy of the Powers That Be, he thought skeptically.
Chun Xiang was a prosperous village, as they went. It was large enough to be considered a small town, housing several hundred residents. In recent years, its numbers had been bolstered by refugees from the rural districts and other, ravaged villages.
It wasn't difficult to find an inn, and, wearied by a day's hard travel, he opted to hole up for the night in favor of beginning inquiries.
Sleep eluded him, which he put down to the illusive trace of youryoku in the area. Youkai were on the prowl that night, not quite in Chun Xiang yet, but close.
Would they attack, he wondered. If this was an organized youkai clan, they might have garnered word of his arrival -- which could tip the scales in either direction. Certainly, if they thought that they could ambush the town and kill him, they would try. Otherwise, they might abandon the offensive entirely.
He frowned, studying the reports by candlelight once more. The last attack, involving explosives to bring down the stockade that surrounded the town, followed by an sweep on the town center and an organized retreat, suggested that this wasn't simply a case of youkai gone mad in the aftermath of the Minus Wave. Which simply compounded the problem. Rogue youkai were a threat, but their elimination was relatively justifiable -- they were not loved by either side. But mediated slaughter by sane youkai elements... would fuel the movement to wipe every youkai off the face of the earth, crazed or otherwise. Which in turn would fuel the youkai movement for human genocide.
The solution, in simple terms, would be to step in and stop both sides from fighting. The question was how.
And sending me, of all people, to deal with this. As if the youkai don't hate -- or want -- my guts, already.
If only everyone would just think, for a
change. Or not think. Morons, all...
Somehow, that train of thought made him think of Goku. He clapped a hand over his face, remembering the explosive confrontation and, superimposed over that, Goku's earnest proclaimation that night at the lake : My place is with you.
But the saru wasn't here, nevermind his vows to protect him. The saru was probably sulking in Chou'An, and, one fervently hoped, forgetting about the incident altogether. Given his short attention span, his mind would turn to new topics within the week.
...Right?
Because I love you.
Sanzo suppressed a groan. Alright, so the boy hadn't been brought up with the goal of seeking the middle path... but if he'd known that Goku was going to get this infatuated, he would never have freed him from that mountain.
It called to mind a certain disciple, who'd pursued him to the extent of obsession... whom he'd been forced to kill, at the bitter end. That was where obsession went -- not to the light, as one might have imagined, but to the darkness, ending on a bullet or youkai claws in the night.... [3]
Look where it got me, he thought bitterly.
It was late. He snuffed out the candle and headed for bed. If the youkai attacked, he would simply kill the lot for waking him up...
-
He was back at Kinzan temple. Logically, he knew that the temple lay in
ruins, perhaps burnt to the ground by the youkai... yet here he was, with the
strange surrealism of dreams, walking across the grounds again. Not his younger
self, all of thirteen years old, but as an adult, as if he had truly,
physically, returned.
It was empty. He'd expected as much. Dust lay in a thick blanket across
everything -- even the altar, which it would never have, if there was still
life on the grounds. The leaves, which he had painstakingly swept away, autumn
after autumn, formed a carpet across the ground outside. He frowned, peeved by
the sight.
He found the broom exactly where he always left it, out by the back,
and picked it up. It was shorter than he remembered, lighter, and more worn.
Grasping it, he took a tentative swipe at the offensive leaf litter.
Movement at the corner of his vision caught his attention, and he spun.
In the clear sky overhead, a single paper aeroplane struggled for height, then
caught the breeze and sailed, an orange dagger cutting across the blue.
"What is freedom?"
Sanzo turned, seeking the source of that voice, at once familiar and
beloved. He saw them nearby, his younger self, standing by the porch, and
Koumyou Sanzo, his mentor, seated. A stack of orange paper rested on the wooden
floor.
"A place to return to," he answered.
His master turned, and his gaze fell on him from afar. That knowing
gaze, the slight smile, the wisdom of the gods behind his eyes... it was
exactly as he remembered.
"Indeed, such is freedom of the body," his master said,
talking to him -- him, Genjo Sanzo, not the youth Kouryuu. "But what is
freedom of the soul?"
He started to reply, then fell silent, stumped. If freedom was not the skies, then, similarly...
"I don't know," he replied simply.
"You do know it," Koumyou Sanzo told him, still smiling that
sad, gentle smile. "But you have yet to accept it. The answer, Genjo
Sanzo, lies within, not without."
And then the dream was fading, seemingly solid walls turning to mist. He called out uselessly, trying to hold the strands together, but to no avail. He fell through grey, and plummeted into darkness.
***
TBC
***
[1]
[2] It's not stated explicitly in the manga or the anime that Hakuryuu/Jiipu was a gift from the Three Aspects, but neither is it stated how Hakkai acquired everyone's favorite white dragon. I'm taking a shot of artistic license here. ^_^
[3] Dougan, from Gensomaden Saiyuki : The movie, Requiem.
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