Title: Reincarnation
Summary: Up in Heaven, the Merciful Goddess muses on the passing of her primary source of entertainment. This acts a bit like an epilogue to the Saiyuki series. Oneshot.
(Hopefully Minekura-sensei doesn't do anything in canon that will render this fic obsolete.)
Disclaimer: Saiyuki belongs to Minekura Kazuya and respective animators.
~X~
When the three souls re-entered the cycle of reincarnation, the Merciful Goddess couldn't help but muse at absurdity and mundaneness of it all.
Konzen, or rather, Sanzo, passed away peacefully from liver failure. He left no children, and no successor. It took a great deal of head-scratching and self-important hissing between various monks before a new Sanzo was named. Only the Gods and Sanzo will ever know if his secularity extended to all aspects of his lifestyle, though it was hotly debated by some his companions.
In a sense, the answer was so like Konzen that Kanzeon Bosatsu couldn't help but chuckle.
Goku was present at his bedside the entire time, never leaving his vigilance – not even to eat nor drink nor sleep. He made up for this deprivation over the next few weeks, devouring all the temple's food with gusto. When Gojyo, the longest living of the three mortals, was laid to rest, he chose to enter a deep sleep – one that he would awaken from without his earlier memories, just in time to catch the next reincarnations of his friends.
Gojyo, in an unsurprising surprise, had settled down with a single woman – marriage, children and all. At first glance, she seemed like a mousy, homely woman, but further inspection would note the sparkling amethyst eyes that twinkled with mischief under a crown of brown hair so dark it gleamed ebony. As sharp as she was dull, her wit and prickliness were unfamiliar charms for the half-breed who had supposedly sampled all. The juxtaposition between her demure homeliness and fiery temper drew him in further. And, as horrified as he was with the discovery, she finished her charms with her status a school-teacher and part-time librarian, and her thirst for knowledge as great as his for alcohol.
When a certain green-eyed man made some noticeable comparisons, Goku jumped at the chance to tease the kappa endlessly.
Perhaps the journey to the West left him a bit touched in the head?
And finally, Hakkai. Despite being a youkai, his enduring friend out-lived him by half a decade. He did not really settle down, but nor did he roam. By the time of his death, he was in a steady relationship with a boisterous, wild redhead. Unlike his friend, she was fully human. Her eyes were green and not the red of a Child of Taboo, though she was given a lot of grief over the misunderstanding in her youth. As such, her temper made even the great Sanzo quiver in his sandals, and her wildness was so that even Gojyo seemed tame. In fact, had his friends not known better, they might have thought she was the kind of woman Gojyo would have liked.
Hakkai and her never married, despite their lengthy relationship. Perhaps it was out of fear of loss. Perhaps it was homage to the impossibility of marriage for the man in both present and past. Or perhaps it was a show of understanding. Regardless, this prevented them from legally adopting a child.
It certainly didn't stop Gojyo from adopting said children for his friend, then dramatically dumping the pair of siblings (a sour-faced bookworm boy and a tomboy girl with braids) onto the couple. Said sour-faced bookworm was slowly coaxed out of his shell both by his patient (albeit forceful) elder sister and his not-so-patient pseudo-mother.
The girl eventually grew up into a happy marriage.
Twirling her hair half-heartedly, the Goddess tapped the pond once, twice and thrice. The human world was so terribly boring sometimes.
She would have to settle for watching re-runs.
~X~
A/N: Yes, I'm aware that the Merciful Goddess is technically a hermaphrodite, but I felt it would jar the flow of the story by pointing that out.
Side point to anyone waiting on my other fics: DON'T WORRY, THEY'RE NOT DEAD! I've just hit a wall with some of them, and logistical problems in others.
