Disclaimer: None of the characters contained within this story belong to myself, much as I wish otherwise.
Rating: PG13
Warning: Language
Summery: A nights reminiscence around the campfire turns to talk about Sanzo's strangest day ever!
A Saiyuki Challenge from Zelgadis55
Story By Tora Macaw
"HAHAHAHA!" Pointing a long index finger at Son Goku, Gojyo's mocking laughter rang out in the cool evening breeze. Across the crackling fire, the young looking youkai grinned sheepishly.
"Oh yeah baka saru, I remember very well! Boy were you ever running scared that day!" trembling with barley contained laughter, Gojyo cheerfully recalled the time they had been to a bathhouse, and how the baka saru had been totally convinced that Sanzo was slowly turning into a demon.
Briefly leaning against his friend, Hakkai smiled in his quiet way then spoke up about his fondest memory.
"The little kitten we once found. Remember her?"
Raucous laughter once more rang out, only to be abruptly cut off as Sanzo swept the trio with a sour glare.
"I remember that I was sneezing non-stop. Still beats me just how the hell that miserable flea bag kept getting into my room."
Perched on Hakkai's shoulder, Hakuryu suddenly found his own left wing incredibly interesting. Turning to Goku, the blond haired priest spoke around the cigarette dangling from his lip. "What's your fondest memory?"
Sitting bolt upright, Goku grinned at his friend. "I've got a lot of them, but my favourite of course is the day you released me from the cave. It all started when..."
"Oh god no!" growled Sanzo irately, as he swung his fan at the back of Goku's head. "Not that old wheeze again."
"Yeah stupid monkey" agreed Gojyo "We've heard it about 20 million times over already. Tell us some thing else" the fire haired youkai's fingers snapped together, an eager look filling his face. "Hey! What about the time we met those other guys you know ... the ones like us?"
"Oh!" chuckled Goku, his amber eyes shinning at the memory. "You mean 'Tripitaka dismayed' that is one of Sanzo's stories and I'll let him tell it, but meeting him does remind me of another one that took place around the time we all first met."
Hakkai's green eyes went wide, a smug smirk crossed his features. Digging Gojyo in the ribs, he gasped, "Do you mean..."
"Yes Hakkai, I do" Clearing his throat, Goku gazed about at his eager audience, then settled back to speak. "It's the story of Sanzo's strangest day, a little tale I like to call...
THE DAY SANZO LOST HIS TWITCH!
"It was about the 500th or 600th coldest day I'd ever known in my life. Sanzo and I were walking through a forest together, on our way to meet up with you guys in the town. I can remember it well cause I was so hungry..." began Goku
"What else is new?" grumbled Sanzo.
Goku shot him a quick hurt glance, then continued his story "...when Sanzo stopped and told me to shut up, he then pulled out his gun, I thought he was about to shoot me for being noisy but... he started to look around. He then told me he could feel something weird approaching. That's when I took out my nyoi-bo ready to help Sanzo fight. We could both now sense it getting closer, when suddenly, out of the bushes sprang the Tengu. He was a big brute with fiery red skin and a huge long red nose that looked like a birds beak! Sanzo at once shot at him, but that damn youkai kept avoiding the bullets, then attacked with his sword. I of cause, jumped in to defend Sanzo. I hit the Tengu's hand with my nyoibou, but then, more of them appeared. They were around us, swinging their swords or slashing at us with their tiger like claws. Crow Tengu, they were. Smaller than the first guy with black wings, crow's beaks and big round eyes that glowed bright with hell fire. I wasn't afraid for myself but I was worried for Sanzo 'cause these youkai knew how to fight. Oh yeah, not only do they excel in sword play they also whipped up a hell of a wind and driving rain that almost knocked us off our feet, but we fought on. It was a battle like none other. Sanzo shot down at least five of the bastards and I know that I took out three more but they just kept coming at us. The trouble with Tengu's is that they don't know when to give up. They could see we were beating them but they decided it was high time to play one of their little tactics ... Huh! I guess trying to kill Sanzo wasn't good enough, Those miserable youkai knew they hadn't a snowballs chance in hell of winning so they circled, getting closer and closer, Sanzo shot down a few more of them, but the biggest one suddenly appeared right behind him. He used the magic of a yatsude leaf fan to cast a quick spell then they all just vanished. Now poor Sanzo was left looking a little dazed but otherwise seemed to be ok... Sanzo do you remember what happened when we got back to town?"
"Yeah!" Smirked Gojyo, which earned him of Sanzo's darkest looks. "He spat out his cigarette then strode up to me and slapped my cigarette out of my mouth then snapped 'No smoking you fool!' at me. Hah... I knew at once the darn shitty priest had gone nuts. There was no freaking way in the universe I was going to obey that fuckingorder."
Hakkai chuckled softly while he gently stroked his little white dragon friend.
"Maa maa, Gojyo. You had him twitching quite badly when you flatly refused to obey him. Hey Goku could you continue with your story and tell us how Gojyo looked when he had Sanzo's gun aimed at him for the first time."
Sniggering Goku resumed his narrative. "Now days it nothing to see Sanzo pull his gun on the ero kappa as he does it all the time but back then, it was early days for us. We were still learning each other's ways and moods. He whipped out his gun and pointed it right at the cockroach's face when suddenly he got this shocked look on his own face and dropped the gun like a hot potato. While we were all wondering about what had gone on, Sanzo then up and told us that he wanted some fried octopus. Anyway Sanzo hates fried octopus. So we all just followed him, didn't we, heh heh, to this food stand and then he just stood there while his whole face twitched so much that it was like he had epilepsy or something. Then he growled... 'What the hell am I doing?' Sanzo then lit a smoke and turned to us threatening to kill all three of us. He then walked off with a glazed look in his eyes. Not long after that Sanzo started acting like himself for a little while before stopping dead outside a roadside inn about mid-morning. Then he strolled inside without a word but then, that's Sanzo for you. That's when we all followed him up the stairs to a large dining room. We then all sat down at a table near the window for a few minutes while Sanzo sat in silence. We knew we were in for trouble then because without warning Sanzo jumped up and tossed both his and Gojyo's smokes out the window and announced that we must act as true Buddhists from now on. And Gojyo the look on your face..." At this Hakkai was snickering while Goku was laughing .
Sanzo closed his eyes and let out an amused grunt that escaped him when he went for a drink of his beer and a drag on his cigarette. Gojyo folded his arms with an indignant huff, before closing his eyes with a smirk. He stubbed out his own cigarette all while simultaneously lighting up a fresh one.
"Well, it wasn't at all funny back then, but now I can look back and see how it would look." Drawled Gojyo. He then turned to Sanzo and asked "What about you, ya damn twisted monk?" Leaning back, Sanzo blew out a huge cloud of smoke as he cocked his gun at the impudent kappa. Then he fixed him with a sour look "I'd rather forget about it but since the baka saru is so hell bent on reminding us all about it, lets let him get on with it so that we can get some peace and quiet." The rest of the little group chuckled, then turned eager eyes onto Goku who grinned wickedly, before speaking on. "As you can all no doubt re-call, this little announcement was met with oh, let's say a distinct lack of enthusiasm and a certain amount of horror." Gojyo, let out a kind of strangled yelp then leapt straight out of the window after his smokes, while Hakkai and I just stared at Sanzo as though he started to sing praises to heaven above!"
"Oh... Funny you should say that!" drawled Gojyo from within the thick nicotine haze about his head.
"Yeah," laughed Goku "because about 10 seconds after you your leap, that's exactly what he did start doing and ooohhh boy! Sanzo can not sing!!"
"He howled like a dragon in pain." smirked Hakkai while softly apologizing to Hakuryu.
"It was pretty bad," sniggered Gojyo. "I could hear him from the street. Set all the dogs howling. Now that was funny."
"It was the first time I'd ever seen you look so truly horrified Hakkai." Grinned Goku as he once again picked up the story's thread.
"As for me regarding Sanzo's singing, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or kill him on the spot. All I didn't really knew at that point in time, was I had been holding my hands over my ears…"
"While grimacing in terrible pain." interjected Hakkai
"… And seriously considering following Gojyo out of the window! Damn. That singing was hellish… thank Buddha that he abruptly snapped his jaw shut, asked us what the hell we are playing at and started searching his robes for his smokes. Now, as you both know a smoke deprived Sanzo is a very dangerous thing."
"Oooooh yes." snorted Hakkai as he held Hakuryu in his arms.
"He came as close to a major explosion as I've ever seen, when he realized that he didn't have any." At this even the little dragon jeep joined in the round of laughter at the sour priest's expense. While Sanzo flicked away the butt of his most recent expired cigarette, Goku took up the tale again.
"Suddenly, all his anger evaporated, and he seemed to completely calm down. He went very quite and his face became rather still, almost contented… And that my friends was when he …"
"LOST HIS TWITCH!" exclaimed Hakkai and Gojyo in unison, big grins splitting their faces with glee.
"That's right… he lost his twitch, and his mind. He actually apologized to us for the way he had yelled, then sat down and started to pray hard. Somehow, that was scarier than his gun in my face. Finally… Gojyo came back and Sanzo insisted that we continue our journey. Well … I'm telling you guys, it was weird. He never complained when Gojyo and I started to fight in the back of the jeep… nor did he threaten me when I moaned non-stop about being hungry. Then if you re-call, a couple of youkai attacked and Sanzo just sat there, watching us while we despatched 'em. Then… then Sanzo calmly told us that we shouldn't indulge in violence… Told us!! Can you believe that? We had to do something, because this new twitch-less, quiet Sanzo was getting on our nerves. But, how to deal with him?"
"I remember wanting to throw him off a cliff." smirked Gojyo.
Sanzo shot him a very dark look before hiding behind his newspaper while the others laughed.
Then Hakkai spoke up "I reasoned it was the magic of the yatsude leaf that had set the spell off in the first place, so maybe a similar leaf could heal him."
"Oh yeah." sniggered Goku. "Remember how we all agreed? Trouble was the yatsude trees are very rare and grow only in the deeps depths of the greatest swamps. And searching those swamps was no picnic…. What with that foul smelling mud…."
"Kappa's," said Hakkai "…quicksand…"
"Rotten kappas!" Muttered Sanzo.
"…Dangerous monsters…." continues Hakkai as if Sanzo had said nothing.
"Stinky kappa's…" added Sanzo as an afterthought
"Perverted kappa's!" chuckled Goku mischievously with one hand covering his mouth while his amber-gold eyes danced with laughter.
"Enough with the kappa's!!!" snapped Gojyo as he leapt to his feet so that he could silence Goku with a spectacular flying tackle. The pair then spent several minutes in an all out, hair flying, oath spitting brawl that ended when Hakkai dragged a snarling Gojyo off to one side for a calming cuddle, while Sanzo soundly up smacked the back of the saru's head with his fan.
"WAAA!!! Sanzooo! What was that for???" asked Goku holding his hand to his head where he had been hit.
"Because you are an annoying, noisy ape who doesn't know when the hell to shut up!!" Sanzo growled savagely. The next ten minutes or so was spent with two sullen combatants licking their wounds and nursing their wounded pride.
Then Hakkai decided to take up his little friend's story in an attempt to lighten the now hostile mood. "We searched far and wide, with Sanzo preaching Buddha's teachings to anyone who would listen. He became a strict vegetarian, refused to fight anyone or anything and grew very angry every time we fought off any attacking youkai with every passing day, he became more like that pacifist priest from the other world, Tripitaka and we were all left wondering how long we could take it."
"Yeah!" said Goku coming out of his sulk and getting back into the groove of the storytelling.
"It was after nearly a week of searching before we found a swamp with yatsude tree's growing in it. They were on a small island in the middle of the swamp but as we had no boat and Hakuryu was all worn out after so much travelling, the idea of sending him over to collect the leaves was out of the question. So I decided to swim across. It was suppose to be easy but… damn! That lake had one of the biggest, nastiest, ugliest water monsters we had ever seen… Oh boy… What a fight that was."
Holding one finger while closing his eyes, Hakkai smiled as he remembered. "Best fight ever… and it was immensely strong. Resisted all my energy attacks but things turned really nasty when it dragged Gojyo into the water." As all eyes turned to a squirming Gojyo, even Sanzo lowered his paper at that point to add his amused stare to those of the other two.
"Well hell… I couldn't swim back then." Gojyo muttered
"You swim well enough now though." Murmured Hakkai while he absentmindedly stroked the kappa's long fiery hair.
Shaking out his newspaper, cigarette smoke curling about his head, Sanzo rumbled "So tell us about it monkey."
Rounding on the priest, Goku snapped, "I'm not a monkey!!!" He then briefly held one fist up to his mouth while he cleared his throat before continuing. "Gojyo kept on fighting even while screaming for help. You sprang to his aid Hakkai and I hit it several times over while calling to Sanzo to shoot it. Sanzo, however just sat on the bank telling us 'No violence!' He then held up two fingers while trying out some weird useless chant."
Tapping his lip, Goku muttered to himself, "It sounded a bit like the chant that Tripitaka guy used on Monkey, if I remember correctly." Speaking up, he laughed at his friend. "It had no effect what so ever but then that bastard of a water youkai had hold of the three of us. That's when Sanzo seemed to snap. He jumped up and fired off several rounds from his gun before he bound it with his sutra and blew it into the middle of next week. After that he reached into the water to dragged Gojyo out by his hair and shoved the gun barrel fair up his left nostril and screams blue murder about the stinky kappa wasting our time… 'We journey west… Now!!!' He then screamed at the rest of us, and praise heaven, his twitch was back. But just to be on the safe side, we managed to convince him…."
"By knocking him out!" whispered Gojyo to Hakkai.
"…to stay by the lake until our little friend here was fit enough to fly to the island and bring back several leaves. Hakkai brewed up a special tea and then …" Goku stopped to grip his sides as he fell about with laughter. The other two also indulged in their own fair share of merriment over the memory of them sitting on Sanzo's chest to hold him down while Goku forced him to drink down the bitter, disgusting mixture.
"Oi, oi, oi!!" growled Sanzo, slowly standing as though drawn by strings. For a moment he threatened his comrades with death by lead pill, then strode off into the darkness.
"Isn't it great to have him back to normal?" Goku asked a smiling Hakkai
"Indeed my friend, that tea really did the trick."
"I think I like him better as he is meant to be!" snorted Gojyo while striking fresh life into a battered looking smoke.
Away from his chattering followers, Sanzo breathed deeply of the clear night air then tipped his head back to gaze quietly at the half moon riding overhead. Closing his eyes, he allowed a serene half smile to curve his lips as his mind wandered back to the nights little ride on the train of memory.
"Back to normal…Hmm?" Opening his mouth, Sanzo drew breath and began to sing. Only this time, he sounded perfect.
Endless