Notes and Afterword

Geek notes :

Notes on little technical details, for geeks like me who actually care about these things…

All of these are based on observational data, and are not official. If you wish to dispute them, you can always email me ^_^.

Sanzo's dominant hand

I've assumed Sanzo to be left-handed for the course of this fiction. He may be ambidextrous. Certainly, he uses both hands for the gun.

In Book 8 of the manga, he was using a brush with his left hand. That was when I first noticed it, actually. Checking back, I noticed that the incidence of him wielding the gun (and the fan!) in his left hand, is higher than the usage of his right hand. As Kouryuu (when he was young), he's almost always holding the broom in his left hand.

In the anime, however, he might be right-handed. Most of his scenes show him holding the gun in his right hand, and in Episode 5 : Pure Assassin, he was holding a pair of chopsticks in the right hand.

Being the sort of person who takes the manga as more accurate, however, I've followed the manga.

For the others, it's harder to tell. These are my postulations :

Goku – suspected right handed. While there's a picture of him holding a knife in his left hand, in the manga, he is shown with a pair of chopsticks in his right (Book 8 again). Since Nyoibu is a two-handed weapon, it's hard to tell which hand he uses primarily (and I don't know anything about wielding staves ^_^). There appears to be no fixed hand with which he summons Nyoibu.

Hakkai – impossible to tell! Suspected right handed.

Gojyo – suspected right handed, looking at which hand he holds the shaku jou.

Kougaiji – impossible to tell.

Hakuryuu – erm…

Why all the 'suspected'? One thing I do know for certain, is that Kazuya Minekura isn't very consistent when it comes to hands (either that, or characters switch hands really quickly from frame to frame!). But who cares, as long as they all look great? ^_^

Number of bullets Sanzo's gun can carry.

I told you this was Sanzo-centric!

5 bullets. Although he uses a revolver, and revolvers traditionally have a 6 bullet magazine, I guess this isn't your standard revolver. (Let's face it – your standard revolver doesn't kill youkai ^_^). While all forward views of the gun show four chambers and one obscured by the barrel, I always assumed that there was a second obscured chamber. What really convinced me was the scene in Book 3 of the manga where Sanzo reloads his gun, showing, assuming equal spacing, a 5 round magazine. While again, there may have been a 6th chamber that is concealed, it would 1. Have to be really small 2. Have to be really close to the two beside it. Since the rest of the chambers are well-spaced, the likelihood of a 6th chamber is neglible.

Attempts to ascertain this in the opening sequence of the anime were foiled by the lousy quality of my VCDs. -_-

Auras

The whole concept of an aura is my idea entirely. As Hakkai suggested, this aura is made up of ki (which you have to ask Hakkai if you want to know more about), collated, focused and sustained by the heavy usage of talismans. I wanted to include something on this in the main fiction, but there wasn't the opportunity. Like Hakkai's ki-barrier, it deflects both physical and elemental (fire, ki, levin etc) attacks. However, being more powerful, the backlash is sufficient to destroy weapons and toss attackers around. This aura is also selective – ie : the user can still pick up objects (otherwise, it'd be a major inconvenience!)

As suggested, it can be diminished by sufficiently powerful attacks. However, it can also be recharged, hence the minimal effect that Hakkai and Kougaiji's attacks had on it. The Maten-Kyomon was the only artifact with sufficient force and sustained power to both penetrate and completely dispel the aura such that it could not be recharged. On the flip side, if its power was added to the aura's, it would augment this aura, hence the reason for the enemy hounding Sanzo for it.

Afterword :

I was going to put a foreword, but I figured that most of the stuff should be left for after the story ^_^. Then I wanted to put a foreword and an afterword, but that would equate way too much ranting.

Firstly, I apologize for any ideas that may have been inadverently stolen, re-used, and recycled from other fan-fics. I try to stick to originalty, but some themes are just universal. Secondly, the ending is not as good as I hoped it'd be; this is not the best, not by a long shot. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed it; and reviews would be very much appreciated ^_^. (Reviews may equal more fanfics o_0).

I know there wasn't very much of Goku. I'll try to make up for that in subsequent works.

This fiction was written purely for enjoyment, and because I'm starved for Saiyuki fanfic! (*Goku-esque wail*) No animals were hurt in its production, except for those edible goldfish biscuits. If I owned Saiyuki, you would have heard about it earlier. I do own the ideas, the original copy, and a Sanzo keychain, though o_.

Special thanks to friend and fellow writer Toes, who introduced me to the great world of Saiyuki.

- sf, Dec 25 2001.