Genjo Sanzo and the Chamber of Pot
By sf
Begun : March 20 2003

Dedicated to the ones who gave me the idea in the first place : Eline, kit, ange. I sincerely hope that this will brighten up your days, no matter how briefly.

Rating : PG-13

Disclaimer :

This idea was blatantly stolen from the above mentioned. The characters, settings and events were blatantly stolen from Kazuya Minekura (Gensoumaden Saiyuki) and J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter). I am not responsible for any permanent trauma incurred in readers.

And this fic is clearly my beloved teacher's fault. Not to mention my beloved teacher's evil colleague and other associate.

In the beginning, there was the Word.

The Word took shape where no others had existed before, it was the First of the First, the Beginnings of Beginnings, the Seed whence all other words sprang.

And the Word was 'Oops'.

From this Word came other words, and they grew in length and syllables, changing immeasurably over the years until they evolved even unto the ultimate Evil : the Four Letter word of Fornication, which I shall not utter here.

After many years had passed, the words came together to form the Story. And this was the original Story, the First of the First, the Beginnings of Beginnings, the Seed whence all other stories sprang.

From this Story came other stories, and they too grew in length and complexity, changing in the telling until they passed out of all recognition. Finally, forth from this story came the great tale of the Journey to the West, known by the wise as 'Gensoumaden Saiyuki'. From it came also the quainter tale for children, known in the common speech as 'Harry Potter'.

As with all stories, both yet held a grain of truth in their very core, imparted even over the centuries from the original Story. Yet they are but pale shadows of the First, recounting events as seen through a shattered mirror.

The original Story tells us of the great quest of Genjo Sanzo and his long search for the mystical Chamber of Pot, of which his famed Journey to the West is but a part.

And this is the Story we recount herein.

Chapter 1 : Genjo Sanzo and the Philosopher Stoned

Genjo Sanzo was an unremarkable man. If you ignored his stunning looks and utterly impossible dimensions, if you managed to miss the Smith and Wesson handgun and the Maten sutra about his shoulders, if you were used to seeing priests in billowing white robes chain smoking and guzzling beer, you might easily mistake him for the next man.

But Genjo Sanzo was famous, because, quite aside from being the highest priest in the land and the most powerful man on earth, he was renown for a foiled assassination attempt on his life. Little is known of that incident, save that then thirteen-year-old Genjo Sanzo succeeded in repelling a full scale assault on Kinzan temple, involving an entire youkai army and one raving bear. Sanzo's teacher sacrificed his life for the child, and Sanzo would wear a quaint scar in the shape of a chakra on his forehead for the rest of his days.

This particular incident would get blown out of all proportion later, and common folk would worship Sanzo as a god for his amazing looks-- I mean, his amazing powers-- and everything he did thenceforth would be construed as miraculous, his quest for the Chamber of Pot most of all.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

***

Koumyou Sanzo of Kinzan temple was proud to say that he was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He was the last person you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because the moment you inhaled any of the smoke from his pipe, things went a little blurry and the world went a little weird, and after you recovered, anything that Koumyou Sanzo did was perfectly ordinary by comparison.

He didn't actually do much work, except for stand around under a tree and smoke, and fold paper aeroplanes. He was a tall man with long brown hair, and a continual smile on his face. Being a priest, he had no children whatsoever.

Koumyou Sanzo had everything he wanted, but he also had a secret. Actually, he had a lot of secrets, but this one was the biggest, and his greatest fear (if Koumyou Sanzo actually feared anything), was that someone would discover it. He didn't think he could bear the theft if anyone found out about the Pot.

The Pot was the Pot of the Gods, of the Crack variety. It was also the Pot from whence all other Pot came, and its modern derivatives, such as Ecstasy, Heroin and Marijuana (to name but a few) are so watered down as to be incomparable to the Pot.

When the world was made, the Gods concealed a small store of the Pot upon the surface of the Earth, storing it in a chamber so secret that everyone knew about it. This was the Chamber of Pot.

Ostensibly, five Sanzos were charged with the guardianship of the Pot, passing the secret of its location down to one successor as they passed on. However, over the generations, the Sanzos fought each other (not to mention all contenders for the Pot) to a standstill. When our story begins, there are believed to be but two Sanzos remaining, unless a third has fled beyond the grasp of all rumor.

Rather than contend with his colleague, Koumyou Sanzo squirreled several years worth of Pot away, then departed, content to live out the rest of his days in a quiet backwater temple with a small supply of Pot.

*

When Koumyou Sanzo awoke on the dull, gray Friday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening. (Although it must be stated for the record that nothing was ever strange and mysterious to Koumyou Sanzo; not after the Pot, at any rate.) He hummed as he picked out the standard Sanzo uniform for... work... and wandered out to the yard with a pipe and a precious snatch of his supply of Pot.

Before he could light the pipe, however, something odd happened.

He heard a voice.

Let us just state for the record that Koumyou Sanzo does not typically hear voices, even under the influence of the Pot.

Specifically, he heard a voice calling his name, and, if such a thing were possible, directing him down to the river at twelve noon sharp, with a biting order not to be late.

Koumyou smiled and lit his pipe. It was ten o'clock in the morning.

***

At an hour past noon, Koumyou ambled down to the riverside and sat upon the bank. It was a very pretty day, with a clear blue sky and clouds in the shape of white clouds arising from his pipe. There were dancing unicorns and phoenixs and flocks of owls streaking across the sky, not to mention falling stars, but these were visible only to him.

After a while, he spoke. "You're late."

And the voice spoke back : These stupid rivers. Never trust them to get you anywhere on time. We were making good progress until we encountered that darned undertow which slowed us down to a crawl... the voice trailed off, grumbling.

Koumyou Sanzo smiled and nodded. In the distance, a cat turned into a woman and a giant motorcycle flew across the sky and through several trees. But he was used to things like that.

Eventually, a little wicker basket came floating down the river. The current nudged it gently towards the bank.

Koumyou peered into the basket. There was a baby in it, with a few strands of golden hair and big amethyst eyes.

And Koumyou Sanzo smiled, picked up the basket, and went back to the temple.

***

Thirteen years passed in a Pot-induced haze. To the annoyance of all those around him, Koumyou Sanzo hardly changed at all. The cloud of smoke around his head was a little thinner, but signs of aging were conspicuously absent, not to mention any signs of his appointing a successor.

The sun rose on a quiet morning, falling across the temple grounds, which were littered with fallen leaves. Autumn was approaching.

The silence was shattered by the sound of a voice cutting through the air : "Up! You! Get your lazy ass out of there!"

"I am up," another voice said quietly. The owner of the first voice, a monk of twenty-odd years, spun. Standing behind him was the owner of the second voice, a boy barely into his teens, with a crop of brilliant golden hair and narrowed amethyst eyes.

Thrown off balance, the monk shoke his head in annoyance and gestured hurriedly towards the yard. "Get sweeping. The entire place is covered in leaves. Make sure there isn't a loose leaf in sight by the time Koumyou Sanzo takes his afternoon stroll!"

Kouryuu raised an eyebrow. Personally, he rather thought that Koumyou Sanzo didn't care about the leaves -- he rather suspected that Koumyou Sanzo wouldn't even notice whether there were leaves or not. But sweeping the yard meant an entire morning or more away from People, so he was quite content to take a broom and trot off.

The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and the day was bright, cold, and crystal clear. Kouryuu swept ineffectually at the piles of leaves, and reflected that, if he swept slowly enough, he would be able to drag this out for a few more days at least.

That was when he saw the paper aeroplane. It came round the corner, swirled, wobbled unsteadily, then curved around to hit him on the side of the head.

Feeling an odd sense of anticipation, he picked the paper aeroplane off the floor, unfolding the orange paper as if expecting to find a message secreted within...

There wasn't, of course. It was a plain piece of orange paper.

But, he reflected, there was only one person who would be folding orange paper aeroplanes in the middle of the day...

"Ah, there it is," Koumyou Sanzo beamed, when his pupil appeared, carrying the errant aeroplane.

"...Aren't you supposed to be teaching?" Kouryuu asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah... Kouryuu. I'm folding paper aeroplanes." Koumyou indicated the pile of orange paper beside him. "There is nothing I can teach anyone" -- enlightenment stems from the Pot, after all, and I'm not teaching anyone about that -- "...except, perhaps, how to fold paper aeroplanes." He held one up, then released it into the air.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Koumyou asked. Then, failing to remember the reason why he'd been folding aeroplanes, he came up with one on the spot : "The orange of the paper goes well with the blue sky. The contrast brings the color out better." Mistaking the look on Kouryuu's face, he felt slightly chagrined. "I know it sounds silly--"

"--No," Kouryuu replied. "It's beautiful."

And Koumyou knew that he had found the one to pass the secret of the Chamber of Pot on to.

***

The days came and left, and the year rolled into a new one. Spring came and slid quietly by, and summer crept in.

It was a year for rain, and rain it did, continuously and incessantly. Some said it was a bad omen, some said that there were strange stirrings in the West, and Koumyou Sanzo's thoughts turned to the Chamber of Pot and his dwindling Pot supply.

One of these rainy days, Kouryuu was wandered around the temple grounds, avoiding people as usual, when something struck him on the back of the head. He turned, and something hit him again, and then another, and another. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by piles of orange paper aeroplanes whizzing through the air and floating to the ground.

Kouryuu smacked his hand against his forehead. "Oshou-sama..."

A short while later, Kouryuu delivered all the paper aeroplanes and dinner to Koumyou's chambers. Koumyou, surrounded by a bright halo of smoke, looked up and smiled.

"Your paper aeroplanes, Sanzo-sama," Kouryuu said wryly.

"Ah, yes. They don't fly well in wet weather. No blue sky," Koumyou said, happily claiming them. "Perhaps I should use a different color..." he glanced at the window, knowing that he'd wanted to talk to the boy about something, but had forgotten what it was again. So, like anyone trying to make conversation, he decided to talk about the weather.

"This rain does get the spirits down, doesn't it, Kouryuu?"

"That's right. But it should stop by tonight," Kouryuu replied.

And then there was nothing to talk about.

The Raving Bear Incident occured later that night. Elsewhere, it has been chronicled as a case of Genjo Sanzo -- then Kouryuu -- talking to a snake, specifically, a Boa Constrictor. But in the original Story, it was a Bear. And while the incident has been glamorized in the retelling, the truth is, it involved only two sentences.

"There's nothing for you here, twit," Kouryuu said bluntly. "The Chamber of Pot is in the West."

And with that, the bear turned and headed West.

That was a particularly long night.

Koumyou Sanzo, having recalled his reasons for looking for Kouryuu after the Raving Bear incident, summoned the youth once more.

"I see you know about the Chamber of Pot," Koumyou said without preamble.

"Everyone knows about the Chamber of Pot, Sanzo-sama."

"Ah, but no one knows where the Chamber of Pot is. Legend tells us that it is in the West, but no one knows exactly where in the West it is."

"Except for the Sanz--- wait a minute." Kouryuu looked suspiciously at Koumyou.

"Except for the Sanzos," Koumyou replied amiably. "Kouryuu, I have an important task for you."

Kouryuu sat up straighter, and looked more suspicious.

"I have, in truth, a small supply of Pot," Koumyou admitted. "However, this supply runs low. I would like to return to the Chamber of Pot to retrieve some more. Alas, the road is long and I am getting old." He paused. "How would you like to be the next to know where the Chamber of Pot is?"

"I... I don't think I'd make a good Sanzo," Kouryuu replied, thinking of the how far away the Chamber of Pot must be.

"There was never any criteria for choosing Sanzos," Koumyou replied. "You're here, you're a bright boy, and I like you, so you're Genjo Sanzo. It's not an easy thing, fighting off youkai and humans to get to the Chamber of Pot, so... be strong.

"Now, here's the Maten sutra and the Seiten sutra. You'll probably need them on your quest. Now, get me a map so that I can show you where it is--"

At that, youkai who had overheard the conversation and were looking for the Chamber of Pot themselves, burst into the room. Misinterpreting the mystic symbols on the Seiten sutra for the map, they murdered Koumyou Sanzo, stole the sutra, and ran off as fast as they could.

And that is how Genjo Sanzo ended up a Sanzo without knowledge of the exact location of the Chamber of Pot. Traumatized by his predecessor's violent death, he swore to find this mystic Chamber, claim his share of the Pot, and retire happily to a backwater temple for the rest of his life.

***
To be continued in
Genjo Sanzo and the Chamber of Idiots
***