Crossings

By Eline (Kanzeon on ff.net)

Note-type-thingies: This is a little bit AU . . . as in a small side-track off the main timeline.

Warnings: Violence--I mean a lot of it.

Timeline: A little while before Sanzo found Goku.

Dedicated to sf--I'm crap at doing these action sequences, really . . .

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It was supposed to have been a simple transaction. Lu'dan had done it many times. Sweeten the flesh trader's disposition with a little brandy before getting into the bargaining--and by the gods, the man could haggle. He had also been hoping to get Kyoba to buy up those tuns of wine that were rapidly turning into vinegar.

Midway through the preliminaries in his office, they had heard the alarmed shouts of the men outside. And then came the gunshots that were the precursor to more sounds of carnage.

Lu'dan felt his mouth go dry and his eyes swivelled back nervously to the lean figure of the man sprawled out in the chair meant for guests.

Kyoba arched one wisp-thin eyebrow sardonically. "A *little* trouble, you say?"

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Reload. Fire. Reload. It would be easy to think of them as youkai . . .

When humans became beasts, when they fought like animals to survive, when they fought *others* to survive . . . no better than youkai. But that would be to judge and no one, least of all himself, had that right.

Reload. He knew only the acrid smell of gunpowder and the cold ceramic titles under his belly as he searched for targets. The courtyard had been picked clean. The survivors had the sense to put something solid between themselves and Sanzo's aim.

It had been barely three minutes, but Sanzo kept count of the hits and rare misses. Nine . . . No, eight more down. One wounded in the right shoulder and probably bleeding to death at the moment on the ground.

Taking a chance that no one would stick their heads out so soon, he scrambled over the tiles and hopped over another wall just as someone fired a crossbow bolt that grazed his arm--

And practically landed right on top of another batch of heavily armed men. By their dress and appearance, they were Kyoba's men. Their reaction time confirmed this and he had to dodge various swords and spears more urgently than before. It was a mercy that none of *them* had crossbows . . .

And Sanzo realised that he was temporarily out of bullets with no time to reload.

Shit--

But they were human and not youkai. Slower. More prone to depending on limited senses when fighting. Sanzo knew he could duck away from their blades and the predictable paths they would follow because they had gripped the hilt in one way or another, whether they depend on the right foot or left foot . . . But that would be playing with them now that he was armed.

Or so he would be in a moment or so. He evaded a wild slash from a heavy curved blade and dispatched his would-be assailant with a punishing kick to the gut. That bought a little more time for him to fit five more shells into his gun. Going hand-to-hand would reduce the number of casualties, but none of them were particularly concerned for *his* welfare and he was getting impatient.

There was a fine line between fighting for survival and toying with the other side.

He ducked a set of bolas that whirled past, shoved the cylinder back into the gun, thumbed the hammer in place and found the thrower almost a second later.

They did not stand much of a chance after that. Sanzo had barely ducked behind the woodpile stacked in one corner of the yard before the remainder of Lu'dan's men came rushing in--or staggering in the case of the last man who looked like a casualty of the very first altercation. One more set of bullets and a few moments later, he was moving out cautiously amidst the newly downed men.

From the corner of his vision, he could see a figure in grey slinking along in the shadow of one wall. If he had not been specifically looking out for it, he would not have noticed her presence following him.

She had come to see the end of this. And she would probably get her way. Anyone in the inn with a functional set of ears would have heard the noise by now, so he only had to watch out for the last key players on this bloody stage . . .

The back portion of the inn was now empty and the way to the kitchens lay open and inviting.

Sanzo declined to move from the archway in the wall and kept a careful watch, paying little heed to the growing noise level from the building.

A moment later, a pair of kitchen drudges ran out, caught sight of him and fled screaming. Somewhere in his mind, outside the coldly focused zone that was all he allowed himself at this stage, he supposed that no one really looked their best with a quarter of someone's brains splattered over them.

Sanzo silently counted to ten. He sensed movement before he reached seven and shifted slightly to the left. The blade meant for his head thudded into the archway next to his ear.

"That won't work."

A bitten-off curse was heard from the opposite archway that opened up to the passage leading the taproom. "Can't blame a man for trying," Kyoba called out and stepped out into the open. "I take it that you've finished off most of my men? That's something that demands your blood, boy."

"You can try," Sanzo said levelly and moved away from the archway.

"So you want to play now, is it?" The northerner's fingers were inching to the throwing knives at his belt even as he made to draw the large blade slung over his shoulder.

"No," Sanzo said flatly and fired even as he heard the soft snap that signalled the discharge of a crossbow. Someone else had been hiding beyond the archway, waiting for a shot. He had known that from the start of the entire suspicious set-up and he had realised that it would probably miss from that kind of awkward angle, but he caught the nasty little bolt in mid-flight anyway.

His bullet tore into the slaver's gut at practically point-blank range. Blinking in surprise, Kyoba looked down at the bloody wound in his midsection.

"Well . . . for a city boy, you sure fight dirty," Kyoba said calmly before slumping back against the wall to breathe his last, the throwing knife falling from his numb fingers. The slaver had been ready to die any day, unlike certain other people who were trying to make a break for it along one side of the inn proper after throwing aside a currently useless crossbow.

He strode past the slaver's body, cocked the gun, aimed and fired, neatly shattering Lu'dan's left knee as he ran.

The innkeeper went down, howling in pain and shock. He started gibbering for mercy when Sanzo walked up to his writhing form.

"I'm not particularly interested in taking your life. I think someone else wants it," Sanzo said and stowed his gun in his sleeve. He did not have to look behind him to know that the old woman had followed.

Swearing incoherently, Lu'dan flopped over on his belly and started to crawl away. Even though it was futile. Even though there was not a chance that he could go even ten metres with a wound like that. But that was to be human. To desire survival.

Like a dread spectre, the innkeeper's wife approached, he shuffling gait no impediment when her objective could barely even move.

"I sharpened this every night, thinking of the day I would use it," she said stoically.

Sanzo did not look away when she hauled Lu'dan's head back and drew the knife across his throat. The idiot had it coming for keeping a viper like that so close to his heart.

"So you've had your pound of flesh," he said dispassionately as Lu'dan gurgled and twitched on the blood-soaked ground. Sanzo wondered briefly why he had even felt enraged by this dead lump of flesh. In the end, they all died the same way. Graceless, ungainly and emptying out their bowels as death overtook them.

"Do you feel vindicated?" he asked the old woman holding the bloody knife. A rhetorical question to be sure. No fanfares heralding the end of evil. No sudden light from the heavens announcing the deed. Just a body and a bunch of other bodies on the ground.

Humans killed other humans. And bathing in the blood of humans did not make one more human. Survival merely meant that some were better at being human than others.

The knife dropped to the ground. "Right now, I don't feel anything much . . ." And she crumpled forwards gracelessly in a dead faint.

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