Disclaimer: Characters of Gensoumaden Saiyuki belong to Minekura Kazuya.
Turbulent Days: Chapter 1: Living DangerouslyHe nodded to a companion crouching at the other side of the entrance to the seedy building. They had the place surrounded tightly. He raised a hand, as if to sweep his bleached bangs away from his brow, and gave the signal. His companion spoke into the gadget clipped on the collar of his windbreaker. The raid had begun. They rushed into the gambling shop.
All at once there was chaos.
"Sanzo… the Houtou bastards…" an astonished shriek of recognition rang through the place. "Call the boss! They are raiding us!"
Mahjong tables were smashed, tiles and cards scattered violently as blows were exchanged between Sanzo's men and the patrons. A spray of blood followed a flash of steel. Screams were heard from terrified women. As he evaded a clumsy strike from a fleshy man, Sanzo wondered if any one of his men had been careless enough to get himself knifed in the guts tonight. Not that he cared if they lived or died, but recruitment had been slow and hard these days, what with the recent crackdown on the triad.
He heard a crunch as his steel-reinforced knuckles connected with his opponent's nose. One down, how many more to go? He heard a stealthy movement behind him even before a pair of brawny arms enveloped his shoulders in a stranglehold. Sanzo's eyes caught the familiar blue and white pattern snaking along the length of the arms. A Seika-An man. Probably assigned as a bouncer of that place. Shifting his weight backwards, Sanzo gathered all his strength into an elbow as he attempted to knock the wind out of his unseen opponent. He felt the hold loosen. The tattooed arms went slack.
Sanzo turned agilely to deal a finishing blow to the thug from the rival gang. His knuckledusters were getting caked with flesh and blood. He would have a bloody time cleaning them afterwards. Well, all part of the job, he thought as he felt the man's lower jaw crack under his fist. Maybe I could even get the kid to do the cleaning for me.
The kid… his mind went on a reverie as his body went on autopilot: lashing out here, dodging a blow there, feinting a move here, cracking some bones there.
Why does he come to my mind at a time like this?
As far as he remembered, he had never allowed any distraction during working time. For a person like him, it had been an easy thing to do. No attachments, no distractions. He was not impartial to cards, but he only joined the games with his cohorts for amusement, to while time away as they waited, on standby for orders on raids or gang fights or simply accompanying clan bosses to inter-gang negotiations. As for horses and other sports, he already found something more thrilling than simply betting on the outcome of such mundane competitions (the results of which were, most of the times, already known to those like him). He found that risking his life - every time he planned and executed forays into establishments controlled by rival clans - gave him a much higher thrill than the excitement of beating the house at the game of blackjack or scoring the green slot at roulette.
He came back to the present and brushed away a slobbering, scantily clad female. Her lipstick was smudged, her eyeliners running down in sweat of terror. Looking around him, Sanzo decided that the work was almost over for the night. That left one more thing to do.
You've never liked them either.
He dismissed the rogue thought immediately, the way he had just dismissed the unknown woman who had tried to cling to him in confusion.
You've never liked them women either. No attachments, no distractions.
But it returned with vengeance, mocking him with his own homemade aphorism, bringing back the memories of the jeers and taunts he had received for not being like the others, not being normal. When normal means visiting whores or taking a mistress among the willing club hostesses (of course not a few have been willing in Sanzo's case). They all wondered about him. Even his underlings. The whispers followed him everywhere he went. "Is he?" " I don't know." "Never seen him make a move on any of the boys either."
A distraction that kid had been indeed. But why him?
No, I am not! I am not that way! Sanzo argued with himself as he gave the orders to withdraw. He counted three injured among his dozen men and congratulated himself silently. As his followers headed for the exit, he drew a gun from the pocket of his jacket and aimed it at the man whom he had recognized as the main runner of the place. Like him, the man was also a rising star in the perilous ladder of the triad profession, but after tonight, Sanzo would see to it that he would never shoot birds with rubber bands again.
"You were in the Black Rain, weren't you?" he asked, gesturing with the gun. The other man, already nursing a broken leg, could only crawl backward in fear.
"Answer me!"
"What's the point? You already know!" The injured man somehow found strength in the futility of his situation to answer Sanzo in a highly insolent tone.
A shot rang out, followed by a scream of pain from the man as his left kneecap was demolished by the bullet from Sanzo's gun.
"Do you remember a man called Koumyou? He was there too," Sanzo said softly as he bent close to the man's face. He pressed the muzzle of the gun gently to a cheek, slick with sweat and tears of pain. "Search your memory carefully, my man. Else my fingers might slip. That would be a pity, wouldn't it?"
"There were several thousands there - the biggest gang fight of the decade," the man said, desperately trying to stall for more time. His eyes flickered towards the main entrance. Reinforcement should be arriving soon.
Sanzo followed his gaze, and it seemed, his thoughts as well. "They are not coming, Mr. Mu. Your small-time branch boss had been liquidated one hour ago. Now, be good and try to remember. True, there were many men there, but I happen to know the few who were closest to this man when died. You are one of the few men, and I want to know what exactly happened there."
Twenty minutes later, the twelve men huddling outside the gambling shop to wait for their leader heard a second gunshot. This time no scream followed.
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Okay, I play too much FPS games and I watch too much triad
movies. On the other hand, I might also be the same no-lifer who plays too
much Solitaire and reads too many romance novels.
It's just that I have always wanted to put a certain character into the shoes of a small-time,
but aspiring member of the triad, so this fic came to be.
The same way I have always
wanted to portray the other two characters as your normal, loving couple
bickering about their share of household chores (yes, Gojyo and Hakkai, in next
chapter!), never realizing how happy they have been until disaster (yup, that
spells b-l-o-n-d-i-e) crashes into their lives.
