Crossings

By Eline (Kanzeon on ff.net)

Note-type-thingies: This is a little bit AU . . . as in a small side-track off the main timeline.

Warnings: Sanzo-abuse and violence.

Worn-out disclaimer: I own nothing and this disclaimer is about as effective as wet tissue paper when it comes to ass-covering.

Timeline: A little while before Sanzo found Goku.

* * * * * * * * * *

The next day continued as usual for the inhabitants of the inn. An established routine kept the ferry running from the crack of dawn to dusk like a well-oiled machine. Cursing and hollering a quaintly obscene chant to the beat of their labours, the morning crew hauled at the thick oiled ropes to guide the morning load of livestock and patient-eyed farmers across the river.

There was a lookout posted on the roof, ostensibly to watch the ferry in case of any difficulties. His vantage-point also covered the flat area of the river bank that the inn was situated upon as well as a good mile or so terrain. It was also boring work. The sudden appearance of something totally unexpected around the late morning made the lookout freeze for a moment before he issued a shrill whistle that had a lot less impact due to the advent of lunch.

The sharp-eyed man on watch signalled frantically at the resting crews in the courtyard, but owing to the lack of anyone looking in his direction, his gestures were ignored. A well-thrown pebble got him the attention of one of the burly ferrymen, who dropped his lunchtime ration of beer and swore at the man on the roof.

The lookout merely gave him the finger and then a well-rehearsed signal that stopped the man in mid-tirade.

"Shit," the man was heard to mutter before turning to his crew of ferrymen, porters and part-time criminals. "Horses spotted . . . men coming from the north!"

That got everyone's attention in an instant.

"Kyoba's men!"

"What, right now? It's barely *midday*!"

"Get moving then!" someone barked. "We've got to tell him not to come by the front again--you know how the boss hates that!"

"Imagine what *that* would do to the business . . . Those hillmen--"

"Boss usually sells him wine and anything else he's got on hand," said one of the more practical members of Lu'dan's staff. "Business is still business."

"I heard from Shibun that they've got something more to Kyoba's liking than wine."

"Someone get Lu'dan then!"

There was much scrambling as a runner was sent to redirect the riders from the north and another hurried to find the innkeeper. The rest milled about, passing information in whispers as the inn's operations practically halted in the wake of the excitement.

One lone figure in the middle of the tumult continued her work, knife glinting dully as the scales were neatly removed from the body of a trout. It was as though she had not heard a thing, but then they were used to that sort of thing from the old woman and paid her no heed as they moved past her.

It was not the first time that the northerner had came to do business with Lu'dan, merely one of the few times he had come in the day instead of under the cover of night. It was . . . unexpected to say the least, not to mention unwelcome for at least two people.

Unnoticed and unremarked upon, the old woman stood up and headed for the inn again, shaking the silver scales off her hands as her clogs beat a steady tattoo on the ground.

There was not much time left now . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

Dropping in and out of a fitful but much needed rest, Sanzo was surprised when the door to the storeroom burst open to admit the dark bulks of men with enough metal on them to rival a blacksmith's shop.

With them came a lean vulture of a man with metal discs sewn in his belt and well-oiled boots--obviously the leader from the way he was deferred to. There were knives in his belt, sharpened and polished with care and constant use.

They were not the soft men of the cities and towns--their weathered skin bespoke of days and nights spent under the open sky. Sanzo knew instinctively that they were not like the innkeeper and his motley crew of crooks. When these people attacked, they didn't start with clubs and work their way up from there.

The display of shifting weaponry stopped as the vulture-like man moved in with Lu'dan at his shoulder.

"Only one?" the stranger said in a rather pronounced northern accent.

"Times are tough, Kyoba. Mass disappearances attract attention," Lu'dan said with a shrug.

"And the sausage trade is very convenient as winter approaches, I know," Kyoba said, a hint of a sneer in his voice. "Well, let's see her then."

"It's a boy."

"Is it? Looks undernourished to me," Kyoba said sceptically and Sanzo struggled to stay very still and harmless-looking as they loomed over him--even though he sincerely wanted to deck someone for that last crack at his appearance. He would have to bide his time . . . for now.

"The hair is nice . . ." The speaker took a handful of that hair he had been admiring and jerked his head up. Sanzo fought down the urge to swear--he was getting *extremely* tired of having his hair pulled on by all and sundry.

Face to face with the sharp features of the slaver, Sanzo got to see Kyoba's expression of scepticism fade into a brief moment of surprise, and then of calculativeness. "Well, well--if you didn't tell me it was a boy, I wouldn't have known it at first. Gave you trouble, did he?"

"A little," Lu'dan lied. "So you're interested?"

"We'll see," Kyoba said and gestured to his henchmen.

They pinned his shoulders down on the none-too-clean floor. Sanzo knew that he could be free of his mock bonds in a second, but the shed was too small to attempt retaliation as his speed worked to his advantage only when he had room to manoeuvre in, without several people practically sitting on him. And he was without his gun, which did not bode very well when the numbers were stacked against him and he was still one of the walking wounded. He did not even know if the old woman had found his firearm and belongings--including the all-important Sutra--yet.

And so he endured the efficient hands that pulled his robes aside and stripped his pants off. Endured the hands that wrenched his jaws open and the slaver's presence as he bent close to check the state of his teeth. Endured the prying eyes that raked over him as though he was a piece of meat on the butcher's slab. Endured as his thighs were shoved apart and his genitals subjected to that invasive yet cold touch. Endured it all when Kyoba slicked a finger with some sort of oil and shoved it into--

Sanzo had been half-expecting it, but the revulsion at the slaver's probing finger almost made him retch. He settled for clamping his teeth in his lower lip, silently seething.

"Nice and tight . . . How ever did Lu'dan come across a pretty piece of flesh like you?" Kyoba wondered softly as he wiped his hands off fastidiously on a cloth.

Sanzo looked up, blood welling up from the place where he had bitten his lip.

Hardened as he was, Kyoba stepped back involuntarily. That icy violet stare promised death.

"Well?" Lu'dan asked from somewhere behind the slaver.

"He's over sixteen, Lu'dan--rather overripe for the market, I'd say," Kyoba said in a bored tone. Sanzo knew what this was. This was where the haggling started and both sides would attempt to get the better of the other. If *he* had not been the merchandise in question, he would have found it all very amusing.

Now all he wanted to do was kill a lot of people in an extremely messy way.

Unfortunately, they were not about to leave him alone at the moment. Two of the hill bandits stayed behind as their leader and the innkeeper moved out of the shed to conduct negotiations. A mistake on their part because it was obvious that they were keeping an eye on the prospective goods--Lu'dan would get what he thought was a good deal and Kyoba would walk away thinking that he had got the better of the fat innkeeper.

Which made it imperative that he escape soon. *Now* was a good time.

The timing was unfavourable and he was lying half-naked amidst the clothing that Kyoba had not bothered to replace, damn him--but that was just how fucked up his luck was at the moment. The only thing advantage he had going for him was that they thought he was helpless . . .

Sanzo looked up at the two guards. They stared back but made no move as he struggled into a sitting position.

"I need to take a piss."

"What?" one of the men barked.

"I said I need to piss. I haven't been able to take a piss for the whole fucking day," he said loudly and jerked his bound arms meaningfully.

"The boy says he wants to piss," said the other bandit who sounded better versed in the local dialect.

"He's not our problem yet."

"Yeah, but when Kyoba's done dickering with that fat ass of an innkeeper, he's going to be our problem anyway," his comrade pointed out. "If he pisses all over himself, you know someone'll catch Hell from Kyoba cos it makes them stink."

If they had been Lu'dan's men, they might have done a little more than just haul him upright. But these bandits appeared to be professional slavers. One of them even stood to one side, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

That sort of set-up would have worked if their prisoner was as secure as Sanzo appeared to be.

He cast all caution to the wind and freed his hands with one pull. The man holding him upright got a hard chop to the windpipe, effectively silencing him and sending him choking to the floor. Before the other guard could even react, Sanzo had already moved. Surprise was on his side, as well as an entire childhood's worth of training and strength born from sheer bloody-minded desperation. Hindered as he was, hobbled as he was, he was still able to deal his opponent a crippling blow to the gut. The elbow to the side of the man's head made certain that he would be out of it for now.

Wincing at the strain that the manoeuvres had caused, Sanzo got up and set his clothing to rights. He was going to pay for all that exertion eventually.

He freed himself of the remnants of the wire and chain and stretched carefully. A moment of concentration with his ear pressed against the wooden surface of the door told him that there was no one outside. According to the old woman, he was in the compound furthest from the inn proper and closest to the river.

He could not wait for her to come back. In a situation like this, he knew he could only depend on his own resourcefulness.

The two slavers had weaponry aplenty--just not the kind he was used to. Genjo Sanzo relied on his gun and his own skill at hand-to-hand. The heavy swords were just not worth the aggravation. Nor the damn bullwhip or the odd bolas that were probably more common in the north than here either.

His gaze fell on the wooden doors. They were sturdy and not easily budged, but the handles were more like wooden rods that could be detached . . . with a little bit of force.

When the handle broke off, it had left him with a spar of wood roughly two feet long with a jagged point. It was at least *something*.

He gripped the rough stake firmly and tensed when he heard footsteps. A heavy tread that probably belonged to one of the ferrymen or the innkeeper's minions--he was willing to bet that the two were one and the same anyway. Flattening himself against the wall, he waited for the owner to come around the corner. There was nothing for it now but to go all out on an offensive--he was pissed off enough to try.

The man who rounded the corner was not expecting the foot that tripped him and blow to the back of the head that brought instant unconsciousness. Sanzo was not expecting the second man coming up directly behind the first. Stunned at first, the man's chagrin at being ambushed quickly changed to anger and a predictable turn of violence.

Damn and damned again . . . There were just too many people at this inn and no time for subtlety at all.

Sanzo feinted and struck out with the crude piece of wood and caught the man square in the gut as he rushed past like an angry bull. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to keep him from screaming as he went down, clutching at the stump buried in his flesh.

So much for the element of surprise. The courtyard began to fill up with armed men. They were robbers and murderers after all, already for the day when the authorities or more dangerous rogues than they came knocking. But at the odds of a least a dozen to one, Sanzo knew that he was the one being hunted. And they looked like they would dearly like to give back what he had dished out a day ago.

They had all the exits from this yard covered and the only reason why he wasn't neck-deep in steel was because they still remembered what he was capable of.

Cornered, he was forced to give ground while desperately seeking an opening. Maybe he could try the walls . . . and be a target for all and sundry the moment he leapt up. Better to look more incapacitated now to lull them for a while. He took another step back and staggered a little, feigning weakness.

"Give it up, boy, and maybe we won't be too hard on you." The thin man with the unpleasant smile was probably the innkeeper's lieutenant, Shibun. "But you did Kuro a really bad turn the other day and Ryuu'da down there doesn't look like he's going to get up again. Time for a little payback, no?"

The ring of weapons closed in.

Rats would fight when cornered. Kill or be killed. Sanzo prepared to go for Shibun. If the leader could be taken down, he could have a chance yet--

The gunshot rang out in the still afternoon air. Familiar, yet odd because Sanzo was usually behind that gun when it was discharged.

Whether used on youkai or humans, the exorcism gun was still a gun. A weapon that discharged bullets with a force unusual for its size. A hefty chunk from the left side of Shibun's head disappeared in a spray of blood, tissue and cartilage.

"Boy!"

Just behind the modest-sized lynch mob was the old woman. His gun was flung up in a high arc over the heads of the momentarily stunned henchmen. By the time they had turned towards the sound of her voice, Sanzo had already caught his weapon and fired on them without hesitation.

Men scattered even as several of their number were ruthlessly taken out of the equation. In the resulting panic, Sanzo ducked through one entryway in a wall that divided the inn from the rest of the compound. Exhibiting a surprising turn of speed, the old woman joined him there.

"You took your own bloody time getting here," Sanzo muttered, marginally relieved now that he had a fighting chance. "I suppose I should be lucky you can shoot--"

"The moment Kyoba showed up--I went to Lu'dan's rooms to get that," she said, indicating the gun. "There were some bullets in it. And I was aiming for his back," she added neutrally. "Can't see very well, I'm afraid."

Sanzo opened his mouth. And shut it, refusing to get into a discussion about where the bullet would have lodged in his skull if she had missed Shibun completely due to the cataracts that obstructed her vision. He realised at last that she had not been using her eyesight at all in the dark last night.

"Did you find the rest of the bullets?" He hoped that she had the sense to get them as well.

She pulled the heavy pouch out of her sleeve. "I thought you might need them. That's only five of them down so far."

Sanzo noted that down somewhere as he reloaded his gun. "The rest of it . . . Did you get everything else?"

"I kept my end of the deal. I hid it in the eaves outside the kitchen because it would look too conspicuous if I dragged it all out here."

"Don't give me that!" But some part of him grudgingly admired her manipulativeness. He would have to fight his way through the rest of them to get to his objective.

"You said you would get out of here on your terms, priest. I merely added my own terms."

"Your death is going to be on your own head!" Sanzo snarled as he reloaded and fired on one man unfortunate who had been trying to sneak up on them.

She only pursed her lips and pulled out a thin but sharp knife that looked like it had been used to clean fish. "You needn't worry about me, priest. Lu'dan's got eighteen men--mostly stupid louts and three of them aren't in any condition to move after what you did to them. Minus five now. Kyoba's men are the ones you have to watch out for--I think there are around a dozen of them."

"Ten of them at the moment." Silently reviewing the odds, Sanzo knew that he could not really blame the old woman for the current mess. After all, he had thrown his lot in with a madwoman, which would make him equally insane.

Hitching up his torn robes, he pulled himself up on the wall, ignoring the ache in his stiff muscles. Then laid down flat on the tiles to start picking off the men that had been closing in on their position. And not a moment too soon. They had hauled out some old firearms and crossbows to begin an offensive.

* * * * * * * * * *

End Part 3.