Inspired by Alan Parson's 'Days are numbers, The Traveller'.
Started : September 23rd, 2002.

Foreword :

This idea came from two sources of inspiration, the first being Alan Parson's 'Days are numbers, The Traveller' (main idea), and another being an unnamed, science-fiction short story by a friend (itch to write an AU fic). Later, when contemplating taking my leave from fanfiction.net, the start of an idea unfolded in my mind -- an alternate universe fiction in which they were travelling, but not to the West. Dropping 'The Shadows Beyond', literally in the middle of a sentence (transcribing from paper to computer), I hit Ctrl-N in Microsoft Word and began typing as fast as I could. Somewhere, this protoplast fused with an earlier speculation on Sanzo, the mission, and the Three Aspects, undergoing a serious metamorphosis into its current form.

This piece I dedicate to grace -- best friend and constant source of inspiration. I only wish I could inspire you in turn.

Summmary :
AU fic. The world has fallen into chaos, the ones destined to save it have not been found.

Warning :
AU, no real plot. Sanzo-centric.

Rating : PG

It was ... the search for a clearer sky. Some place where the sun shone and the rain didn't fall.

The search for a place... where the grass was always greener than on the other side.

And, most importantly, the search for a place that lay outside time, for happiness is temporal, and fades in the wake of the passing Hour.

But such a place... perhaps did not even exist. Not in this world, where Time was the master, and Change was the only constant.

So he wandered, from place to place, staying only a few years, then moving on as experiences soured and the initial welcome faded.

He was a wanderer by nature, and, so some said, by choice, although he saw no choice in it all. There was simply no place worth staying. Villages fleeted by, towns came and went under his feet, cities came, stayed, then passed in their own time. Of memories, he carried few; all places became the same after a while.

Gray walls.
Gray streets.
Different people who looked the same.

It had become worse in recent years; the destruction had spread with the Minus Wave. The stories were always the same - youkai going berserk and destroying villages, tearing apart towns, assaulting cities.

The carnage raced like a plague through the land, demolishing all in its path and broking no resistance. The homeless and destitute were everywhere, desperately undertaking the journey to find a sanctuary.

Wagons creaked past him as he strode through their midst, brushing past toiling humans and toiling animals. He spared them not a glance; he cared not about their plight, for all of humanity was in the same dire straits.

He was human and therefore counted as one of these poor, lost souls... and yet, he did not. For him, the road was as close to home as anything had ever been, except, perhaps, a distant temple from the even more distant past. That place, where he'd spent thirteen brief years as a child, had been razed to the ground the night he had left, or so the rumors said. And since then, there had been no turning back. Ever.

Everywhere he turned, people glanced at him, noting the priest's robes with a glimmer of hope, a glimmer that faded as soon as he passed. He was not the one the legends spoke of, the Sanzo whom the Three Aspects in Chou'An temple were searching for. The last Sanzo, the one guardian of the Firmament Foundation Sutras who had not perished or forsaken his duties. The one who was destined to save the world.

No one knew whom that Sanzo was. No one knew where he was.

The thought of a mere human stopping the Minus Wave made him shake his head in disgust. An impossibility. A vain hope. The 'last resort' propagated by temple authorities to give the masses faith in them and their abilities.

He knew... that all hope was futile. If the one so appointed as mankind's savior had not appeared by now, he never would.

There was a tug on his sleeve, and he glanced over irritably. An old man grasped the gray fabric of his robe and squinted myopically at him. "Priest..." he rasped.

He detached the clutching fingers from his robe with more than a flicker of annoyance. "I'm not the one they're talking about," he snapped.

"You're..." the man frowned, and uncertainty flickered across the wizened features. "Are you certain?" he said, the hoarse voice barely above a whisper. "They said, that he had hair of gold..."

A jolt of icy panic raced through him, as his hand instinctively fled to his temple, where the bandanna that he wore kept his identity a secret from all and sundry. It was, thank goodness, still in place. So the old fart was just making wild guesses.

"I'm not him," he said vehemently, and stalked off before the situation could degenerate further. It was bad enough that those nearby had started to give him odd looks. If the secret were revealed--

--no, it did not bear thinking about.

Pulling the wide-brimmed straw hat further down over his face, he quickened his footsteps.

Behind him, on the long and winding road saturated with fleeing refugees, the sun sank towards the Western horizon.

***

He came to the city a few days later.

There was the usual trouble at the gate. Guards who listened to too much gossip for their own good noted the golden hair and leapt to conclusions, detaining and interrogating the young traveller in hopes that he was the Sanzo that everyone was desperately searching for.

"I'm not him," he repeated, for the umpteenth time that day.

Yes, they looked alike.

Yes, they both had golden hair.

Yes, they were both priests.

But no, they weren't one and the same.

His name, he told them, also for the millionth time, was Kouryuu, not Genjo Sanzo. He was a journeyman, far too young and inexperienced to possibly hold the highest title in Buddhism. The priest that they were looking for could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be twenty three years old.

No, he had never met the esteemed Sanzo houshi, no he was not from Chou'An temple, he was from a little local temple in a small village, a small backwater affair that had been destroyed by youkai...

That, at least, was the truth.

Relunctantly, nursing fallen hopes that they had fooled themselves into raising, they let him pass.

It had been a long day, and he was mortally glad to disappear into obscurity at the nearest inn. The innkeeper at least, did not ask shrewd questions about why he wasn't holing up at the local temple. The innkeeper knew cold, hard cash when he saw it, respected that his clients did not welcome questions, and did not make life difficult for one priest who wished to escape notice.

He did not argue with the requests for strong drink and cigarettes either.

It was, after all, business.

He had never been more glad to disappear into his room and barricade the door against the world outside, a fresh pack of cigarettes and a lighter in one hand, and a bottle of whisky in the other.

Some of those questions had come too close for comfort. It wasn't lying that made him uncomfortable - he was used to it, and it bothered him about as much as smoking, drinking and killing did, which was to say, not at all. Nor was it the guards themselves - such people held no fear for him. Rather, it was the constant threat of discovery that hung over his shoulder.

Discovery of who he was. Discovery of the burden that he carried.

It was that scroll, that innocent scroll that was made not of paper, but of the very substance of memory. That scroll, one of the five that had been involved the in creation of the world and entrusted to five, mortal keepers and their appointed successors for all eternity. That scroll, that sutra.

It was last legacy of his master and embodied within it his masters' last command -- to protect it with his life. That was the one and only command that he respected, the single order that he would obey, no matter the cost.

It was the reason why he fled East now, away from the source of the Minus Wave, away from those who were hunting for this very artifact. It was the reason why he had forsaken his real identity and ignored the summons. It was the reason for the loaded gun by his side and the trail of corpses that he had mapped in his long travels.

There was no point in bringing the Maten Kyomen into danger on a useless mission. Assuming the rumors were correct, then it was the only one that had not fallen into the hands of the enemy. If that were so, then his first and only duty was to guard against its capture. For that was the only way to forestall the resurrection of the Demon king - to deny them the very thing that they sought... and, as such, the only way to ensure the survival of mankind.

He would find a place a where it -- and him -- would be safe, forever.

And if he failed in that, then he would flee to the last place on earth. And when all other courses had failed and all sanctuaries had fallen, when darkness had finally taken over the entire world and all hope was lost, then he would make one last stand at the ends of the earth, a stand as futile as it were desperate.

And he would lose, the sutra would pass into the hands of the enemy, and an end would come of humanity and the world as they knew it.

But by then, it would have long ceased to matter.

***

Author's Notes :

1. Count The Stars was originally written for posting on my blog only. However, I decided not to be a prig and to post it on ff.net... what's the sense in DoSing (Denial of Service-ing) the ones who love you? --;; Please be gentle; I'm still very much in love with this fic, seeing that it's as good as Respice but not as dark and is Sanzo-centric. Yes. Sanzo-centric. Very Sanzo-centric.

2. For those who have been wondering about my other fics -- I haven't abandoned any of them, except for Gakkou and perhaps No Angels -- which, in the spirit of junk fics, should be left incomplete. I am, however, hopelessly stuck for Reverse Psychology, and I'm relunctant to move on for And Time Again, since the next chapter will change the entire flavor of the AU. Also, I've been concentrating everything on this fic and Respice Finem in an effort to finish them -- unfinished fics are a major, major pain.

3. Due to the advent of Real Life, to whit, Examinations, updates will be slow across the board. I am also suffering from a dearth of good Saiyuki fanfic, a situation that is feeding my writer's block.

4. Chapter 1 to follow soon. Alternatively, you could always read it off my blog (linked my author's page, fics found under 'SF WORKS')