CHAPTER 3 - Meetings
It rained. It rained and his mood, already bad, became worse.
He hated the rain, hated the sound of it and the memories that it brought. The rain meant death and disaster to him, it drummed into his subconscious and brought nightmares with it, it drove him to distraction.
He finished the rest of the bottle at one shot, and started on a second.
Outside, it continued to rain through the night.
He awoke to the sound of hammering on his door and Gojyo cursing outside. He also awoke with a hangover. Ignoring the thumps and the yells of 'Open up, you bastard!', he staggered to the bathroom and heaved up what little he had eaten the night before.
The world continued to sway as he splashed water across his face and began filling up the bath. The thumps on the door, however, stopped after a while. There was the sound of retreating footsteps. Through the blinding hangover-induced headache, Sanzo smiled to himself.
By the time they forced the door open, he was standing by the window towelling his hair dry. He snapped the headband back into place before he turned.
Gojyo glowered at him. Sanzo raised an eyebrow and glanced out of the window, where it was still raining. "I trust we're not going anywhere in this weather."
"Damnit, man, didn't you hear the door?"
Sanzo shrugged.
Gojyo growled obscenities under his breath and stalked over, slamming the door behind him. Through the closing doorway, Sanzo caught sight of the innkeeper and several of his staff scurrying away.
"Look," Gojyo said to him. "I know you don't like this. I don't like it either. So let's not make it more unpleasant than it already is, alright?"
Sanzo gave him a level stare. "I was in the bath."
"Freaking hell you were in the bath for forty five minutes!"
"I was. Besides, what's the hurry?"
"We've lost a whole morning's worth of travel time, that's what's the hurry!"
Sanzo indicated the rain with a tilt of his head. "As I said. We're not about to go anywhere in this weather. Chou'An's not going to go under in a day, so why hurry?"
"Gods, I've known you for fewer than 24 hours and I hate you already."
"Excellent," Sanzo replied dryly. "If you don't mind, I'm heading back to bed."
"You just woke up."
"Does it matter?"
"You got drunk last night, didn't you?" Gojyo asked, giving him an accusatory glare. "This whole place smells of brandy."
"Whiskey. And what I do is of my own concern."
"Let me tell you, mister. If you get drunk on the road and--"
"I don't have to listen to this," Sanzo snapped, striding abruptly off. The door slammed quite violently behind him.
"Bloody monks and saving the world..." Gojyo groaned. He glanced at the second bottle of whiskey on the table, and it occurred to him that a drink would be a good idea. Locating a shot glass, he tipped some of the amber liquid into it. Damn, but this stuff was strong. He wouldn't be surprised if the monk was harboring a massive headache at the moment.
It took one drink before he suddenly recalled that letting Sanzo out of his sight was a decidedly bad idea. Cursing, and hoping that his momentary carelessness would not prove disasterous, he bolted for the door and slammed it open.
A scrape to his left was the only warning, and he caught a flash of gray before something extremely hard collided with the back of his head. Stars exploded across his vision, and the world went dark.
***
Sanzo fled across the corridor and into Gojyo's room, which the man had been careless enough to leave unlocked. A hurried search for his gun and his sutras proved futile, and he headed back to the corridor again to execute plan B.
When Gojyo exitted his room in a hurry, Sanzo slammed the shaft of the shaku jou across the back of the man's skull. The half-youkai went out like a light, and crumpled to the floor.
And, as fate would have it, some stupid serving wench happened to chance by the entire scene.
She screamed. Sanzo swore viciously as doors banged open. He rifled through Gojyo's pockets as fast as possible, locating his gun in the vest pocket and the sutra in another.
And the sight of the sutra set even more people off. For an entirely different reason.
Shit. He really did not want to handle a chase with a hangover. He really did want to hide somewhere dark and quiet...
Instead, he charged back into his room, grabbed his knapsack, and headed for the window.
He'd loosened the bars the first night he'd stepped into the room, and they came apart in a matter of seconds. Seconds were still too slow for him, however, as people came crowding into the room after him, the door with its broken lock providing no obstacle whatsoever.
The sight of a loaded gun, however, stopped them dead in their tracks.
Until the man from the night before forced his way to the front of the crowd. "Not a Sanzo, huh?"
The words seemed to break the spell, and suddenly, the crowd was surging forward, all willing to risk their life for whatever reason their addled brains had conceived.
Sanzo graced the man with a death glare of his very own, before heading straight out of the window.
It was one floor to the ground. He misjudged the distance, and slammed his gun hand against a ledge on the way down, hard enough to crack bone. Landing hard and dropping his revolver, he hurriedly retrieved it with his right hand, swearing through the pain.
The doors of the inn burst open as he staggered to his feet, still swaying from the after effects of all the alcohol the night before. He was truly starting to regret that second bottle now...
"Stop right there!" "Stop!"
Snarling, he fired one shot into the wall, a shot that silenced a great majority. Taking advantage of their momentary surprise, he turned and fled.
He could hear alarms going off all around the city, the shouts of the mob closing in on all sides. He fired a warning shot above the crowd, which stopped them long enough for him to vanish down another street.
Doors slammed open as he passed, curious onlookers appeared at the windows, and began talking hurriedly amongst themselves. By all the gods, he hated all of them at that point. Hellfires and damnation... just how had it gotten this bad?
He skidded on puddles as he rounded a corner, and came up against a deadend. Without pause, he pocketed the gun and launched himself at the wall.
His weight came down on the fractured wrist and he collapsed into a painful heap at the bottom.
"Shit..." Cursing his ill fortune, he fumbled for the gun and pulled himself to his feet, studying the wall again. It was quite a bit higher than his head, and there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to scale it one handed.
He was going to have to fight his way out.
He slipped two more bullets into the magazine, frantically scanning for escape routes. None availed themselves to him, except for---
--the door that he was looking at slipped open. Instinctively his gunsights were trained on it, and he was a hair's breadth away from pulling the trigger when the shadowed figure that emerged beckoned him in.
"Like hell I'm going to follow you," he grated.
"You don't have a choice. There are too many of them to fight off, with a small handgun like yours. If necessary, they can simply besiege you."
"How--"
"Are you coming or not?"
He really didn't have a choice. At any rate, facing one person was better than facing a mob. Keeping his gun on the figure, he slipped through the door.
He found himself in a darkened room, bare of any furniture. The figure headed for the other door. "This way."
"Do you know who I am?" Sanzo asked.
"I do, Sanzo-sama. Neither do I care," he inclined his head. "The gates have been locked and the guards are on full alert. It would be best for you to go to ground for a few days until things die down. Then you can slip out quietly."
Cautiously, Sanzo stepped over.
"The cellar would be the best idea--" the figure stopped short as he came face to face with barrel of Sanzo's gun.
"An explanation would be the best idea," Sanzo said softly.
"Not here. This way."
Swearing, chaffing at his own perceived lack of choice in the matter, he followed.
***
"So. You're a school teacher," Sanzo said disbelievingly, seated in the cellar as the search thundered through the city overhead. His gun, laid on the table in plain sight was a clear warning, even as he struggled to splint his wrist one handed.
"Let help you with that," the other offered. Sanzo shot him a glare, unwilling to accept additional assistance. Common sense, however, eventually won out over his mental protests, and grudgingly, he acceded to the offer.
"I teach at the local elementary school," his mysterious benefactor continued, fingers deftly wrapping bandages around the splint. "Bear with me, this might hurt a little."
No outward flicker of pain passed over Sanzo's features, except for the slight intake of breath. "Are you living alone?"
"I'm living with my wife, actually. And I guess you'd want to know why we're--"
"Your misplaced assistance is liable to cost you dearly, if discovered," Sanzo said flatly, "On the otherhand, if you betray me, I can assure you that you're the first to go."
"You don't mince your words, Sanzo-sama. It's quite simple... really. I don't believe in forcing anyone to do anything. Even if it's saving the world."
"You're helping me out of the goodness of your heart," Sanzo allowed a note of skepticism and disbelief to creep into his tone. "Congratulations. You're only the second most stupid person I've met today."
Green eyes regarded him, passively absorbing the insult. "No. I spent my youth conforming to expectations. Perhaps, in assisting you, I'm correcting some things that went wrong in the past." He tied the bandage in place and gently released Sanzo's hand. "One may not approve of your actions... however, one can hardly force to embark on a journey you do not want to undertake."
That caught him offguard. Perhaps it was the injury, which, with the shock wearing off, was starting to hurt. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the adrenaline, both of which were still burning through his veins. Whatever it was, it made him stop, replay the conversation in his mind, and frown slightly.
"Is it that hard to believe?" the stranger asked, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He pushed the pair of metal-framed glasses further up his nose, a reflex action that belied no nervousness... a warning sign that would have alerted Sanzo immediately to a trap.
"From past experience, yes," Sanzo replied. "In a world on the brink of madness, such idealism is... dangerous at best. Suicidal at worst."
"Perhaps. Yet if we abandon our ideals, what purpose is there left in life?" a new voice said.
Sanzo glanced sharply across, the fingers of his good hand instinctively curling around the trigger of his revolver. A lady stood in the doorway, at once so similar in appearance to the man who sat just across him that Sanzo experienced a brief sense of disorientation.
"My wife, Kanan," the man affirmed, as Kanan stepped daintily into the room and settled in the remaining chair.
They looked far too alike for comfort. Suspicions quietly made their presence known in the back of his mind, but he chose to ignore them. Whatever transpired between this couple was irrelevant to him.
Kanan smiled, a gentle replica of her husband, and regarded him with eyes the same shade of emerald green. "It's an honor to meet you, Sanzo-sama."
"Under such dire circumstances, I think not," Sanzo replied wearily. The effects of the adrenaline were slowly dissipating, and in the aftermath of the chase and the new injury, he was starting to feel his previous hurts more keenly. Suddenly exhausted, both in body and soul, he felt a brief pang of longing for a quieter, happier place with no obligations and duties to be met and no pursuers to evade. Unconsciously, half of his mind drifted back to a temple and a time far away, long before the days of being a Sanzo and all the subsequent grief that had burdened that title.
"Sanzo-sama, please trust us," one of the pair in front of him said, and his mind, half-wandering in the past, could not distinguish who had said it. And his heart, aching for that very thing, answered before his head could, in a slight nod and the brief shuttering of amethyst eyes. In a move swiftened by long practice, he stowed the gun away in a sleeve pocket and leaned back in his chair.
Glancing up, he directed his gaze towards the man. "And might I know the name of my benefactor?"
The smile touched that face again, such a mild, happy smile of someone perfectly at peace. "Gonou. Cho Gonou."
Cho Gonou. The name sent an inexplicable chill through him -- the effect of a karmic bond snapping into place across five hundred years of separation and a destiny long avoided, although Sanzo could not have known that. But the sound of the words engraved themselves deeply into his memory, and remained there, long after both had parted ways.
And in the Heavens, Kanzeon Bosatsu nodded in approval of the events unfolding below her, a sequence postponed for far too long.
"It will be difficult this time," she murmured to herself, contemplating the future and the invisible threads of Fate drawing inexorably closer. "But you always did have a mind of your own.. nephew."
***
TBC
***
A/N :
That's it on the drawing board for a little while. Real life beckons, and alas, I can't ignore this time.