Shinku no En: The Crimson Bond
by UltraM2000
Disclaimer: Don't own Saiyuki…yet. Severe fluff, M2000 style, and slight PWPness. Watch out for still more flying youkai bits. GREAT liberties taken with portrayal of Chinese/Tougenkyou hell.
Have uploaded 2 chapters first, as I am having exams soon and am ditching the Internet for my textbooks. Have fun reading, and oh yes -- HAPPY 46TH INDEPENDENCE DAY, MALAYSIA!!! *does little dance*
Dougan saw the blaze of blue fire issue from Houran's hands with his own eyes, felt the heat of its backwash upon his own skin, heard the screams of his soldiers dying with his own ears, and still couldn't believe what had just happened.
"Houran, WHAT IN BLUE HELL WAS THAT?!" he screamed, his voice rising in pitch and volume by the second.
"A piece of proof," came the reply from the maid, thrown back herself by the force of her ki blast, "that I refuse to have died in vain. You controlled my body with the charm you stabbed into my heart, but you couldn't take hold of my mind. Even if you cast me into the darkness of Avici, even if I lose myself in it, I don't care if I can just prevent someone from going my way."
"You mean all this time, you…!" spluttered Goku.
Houran smiled weakly and gave him a small bow. "I acted well, didn't I, Goku-san? Now go. Don't waste the advantage!" She unsheathed her kyoujin and prepared to fight alongside them, but Gojyo stopped her.
"Yametoke [1]. You've done enough for us as it is, and I couldn't be more thankful. I will not let you sacrifice yourself again for our sake—it was too painful the first time round."
"Gojyo-san…" Houran began, awed. The fellow half-demon turned, fixing her with a not unkind gaze, then solemnly winked. Houran felt something being pressed into her hand.
"Besides, you might want to rub this onto that kyoujin before you do anything, or it'll be as much use as a butter knife," he continued, indicating the gourd of elixir.
"ATTACK!!!" shrieked a certain red-haired demon, and the demented souls surged forth with a cacophony of bloodthirsty shrieks.
"Less talk, more fight!" yelled Goku, leaping forward eagerly to engage their opponents. There were pained screams of horror as the merciless Nyoibou tore through their ranks. "Come on, erogappa, don't get left behind!" the heretic child grinned hugely.
"No such intention!" Gojyo barked and summoned his faithful shakujou. He threw himself into the fray, fighting with the ease and grace of one who has done it all before and was willing to do it all over again before breakfast. The blade of his shakujou weaved and whirled through the air, cutting through the ranks of the spirit foes. "Houran! Ya with us, or not?" he called over his shoulder with a rakish grin as he engaged another snarling beast.
"With you!" Houran called back. "So please, Gojyo-san…DUCK!" She sent a furious hail of ki-blades, sharp as the real thing, at the demons behind Sha Gojyo. They screamed and fell beneath the onslaught, running in all directions. The others found it very easy to pick them off after that.
"A simple matter of illusion," Houran later said blushingly in response to a piece of praise from Gojyo, "but it IS effective."
"Cho Gonou! You will die, and you will die NOW!"
A braver man would have turned white as a sheet at the sight before him—Hakkai settled for ivory. It was hard to blame him, considering the souls around him were some of the stronger demons he had fought while trying to save his Kanan from the Hyakugan Maou—the Hundred-Eyed Demon, the perverted creature who had captured and deflowered his lover. The man's grip around his sword tightened as the old anger rose afresh, and he leapt towards them with feline grace and almost lupine ferocity.
"You must have the wrong person," he sighed gently as he obliterated a demon soul with one quick slash, and fell upon another, plunging the blade into its festering ribcage. "My name, sir, is Hakkai, not Gonou...and I have no intention of seeing Avici's tortures before I have to."
As Hakkai hacked through another wave of demons like they were so many blades of grass, Sanzo had plenty of problems of his own. Even as he fired relentlessly into the ranks before him, occasionally just landing hard, compact punches on those demons who stepped too near to him, those sharp eyes of gentian were looking around and taking in the situation. At last, somewhere above them, looking down on the fray, he spotted a flash of red hair that wasn't wielding a shakujou. A smile flashed across his lips for the briefest instant. "Hakkai! Gojyo! Goku! Try and hold them back while I take down that hentai yarou!" [2]
"Don't play hero, bouzu!"
"Who's playing hero, eh?" spat Sanzo, reloading on the run and taking out another group of small fry with a fusillade of bullets. Despite his long, flowing robes, he managed to move with surprising agility, and leaping up over the head of a snarling, snapping Silver Horn, he landed squarely on the beast's back and took off up into the air from there. Clasping his hands together in the appropriate mudra [3], he recited the chant that would invoke the sutra he wore about his shoulders and…
"MAKAI TENJOU!!!" [4]
...With a whoosh and a flutter, strips of Evil Sutra swirled away from Sanzo's body, wrapping tight around the offending demons like ropes many times stronger. He drew his gun as he landed, and had fired off several shots before he even touched the ground. As the last of the dying screams faded, he recalled the sutras with a single Sanskrit command and charged. Dougan raised his axe and swung it at Sanzo, but the monk dodged and slammed the butt of his gun into the demon's face. There was a satisfying crack as blood spurted from the wound.
"Oh Sanzo-sama, I'm so upset," Dougan mock-whimpered, clutching his bloodied nose. "What have I ever done to you?"
"You've been an even bigger pain in the ass than the saru," Sanzo said flatly, but his thoughts were of a more frantic nature.
Shit! Does he feel no pain?!
"No, Sanzo-sama, I passed that stage a long time ago." Sanzo stiffened and involuntarily flinched at this sudden intrusion into the workings of his mind. "I am no longer a burden to anyone. I have grown stronger, stronger than you could ever imagine. Under the earth you walk on, here in the dark of Avici, I have cultivated myself for the past years. No longer am I inhibited by a mortal shell like the other three still are. I am glad you came, in any case, Sanzo-sama. There's so much I still have to show you." Dougan purred, "Houran's insubordination notwithstanding, my plan is almost complete. Come, allow me to explain further." He snapped his fingers and pointed over Sanzo's shoulder. Despite himself, the blonde monk glanced in the direction of Dougan's outstretched finger as his eyes widened in shock. So did the eyes of the others, transfixed by what they saw.
The darkness parted to reveal that the men, women and children that Dougan's scouts had kidnapped and taken to Avici were all bound in the middle of a strange construction of curved pillars. Many of them had heads shaved clean, signs they were devout practitioners of the faith. At the very top of the hub of pillars was a strangely constructed charm of some sort.
"Recognise that component right at the top, Sanzo-sama?" Dougan grinned. "It will fly in a sky no longer blue from now on." Sanzo nearly choked. It was a small paper plane, its bright orange colour visible even from his distant vantage point.
"Those idiots won't survive...!" Sanzo spat, realising immediately what Dougan was about to do. "You have too morbid an interest in those freaking pieces of folded paper."
"Perhaps. But still, you know as well as I do that there isn't much time left for these poor souls. When the sun reaches its nadir at sunset, the charm will be activated. These people, or rather, their souls, those ever-so-strong-and-faithful souls will give Avici the power it needs to break its bounds. And then I'm sure you know what'll happen, don't you? The darkness will run wild. Tougenkyou, the land that scorned the likes of me, will be no more but a part of my territory. I will rule the land as its only ruler, and what a pity…you can't stop me." Dougan smiled irritatingly and burst out into raucous cackles. These were quickly answered by Sanzo's firing several bullets point-blank into his face. Luckily for Dougan, he raised one hand and closed his hand on the bullets, effectively stopping them.
"Ooh, Sanzo-sama…that's kind of dangerous. Why don't I show you how we do things in Avici? To me, men! The time has come to put a stop to this game!" He dropped the still-smoking bullets as he issued his command.
The inhabitants of Avici that had been until now fighting the other three members of the ikkou turned from their targets, immediately making a beeline for their cackling commander. Too late did the four realise what Dougan was about to attempt. The souls swirled around the demon in a roiling mass, clutching at him desperately as if to tear the very flesh from his bones. Dougan's laughter was soon drowned in the crowd.
The dark mass began to take a definite form and shape. Powerful arms appeared, and hard, curved claws like the talons of some feral beast forced their way out of the fingers. Equally powerful legs, too, made their appearance, rippling with knotted muscle. The beast gave a spine-tingling wail like a banshee as fangs like machetes erupted from its jaws. Its eyes flew open, glowing a murderous blood red, and fixed immediately upon the ikkou. It stood upright, a black and well-muscled behemoth towering well over them much like Gyuumaou had at one time not too long before. A low growl rumbled from its throat, sounding like distant thunder.
"He managed to assimilate all those souls into his system?" Hakkai gasped, slightly disconcerted.
"He looks pretty strong, guys," Goku muttered grudgingly. It took a lot for him to get that out.
"Still getting others to do the true dirty work for him," Sanzo replied.
"Silence! Now, Sanzo-ikkou," Dougan screamed in a voice distorted almost beyond recognition, "you will all DIE!!!"
"Not without a pretty lady, we don't!" Gojyo countered.
"Not without good food, we don't!" Goku added his two zeni.
"Not until we return the others to the world of the living!" Hakkai shouted up at the behemoth.
"Not until we can defeat you!" yelled Houran at the top of her lungs.
"And definitely not before I kick that @$$ of yours in eight different directions!" Sanzo spat.
Raising their weapons, the Sanzo-ikkou raised their weapons and charged. Houran sprinted alongside them, eyes burning with a fury very much familiar to Gojyo, as the same spark burned in his own.
I don't want to let them down this time.
The powered-up Go Dougan was decidedly not impressed. He snarled and slammed a mighty fist into the ground. The impact literally shattered the floor beneath the ikkou, and before they could react they were sent flying. Dougan reached out instantly, raking his talon across Goku's chest. The youth screamed with undiluted agony as he landed with an unholy crash on the far end of Avici.
"Goku…Urkk!!!"
Dougan seized Hakkai in his mighty paws and began to squeeze him into a pulp. Hakkai fought bravely, but there was soon the cracking of breaking bones—six ribs, a radius and a humerus, to be exact. He was flung right into a nearby wall and left a large crater where he made impact with the cold stone.
THWACKKKK
Another well placed swipe, and Sanzo had been dealt a blow upside the jaw. The monk had a vague sensation of tasting blood before Dougan's foot made contact with his skull and he slammed into Gojyo. The two men, one unconscious and bleeding, the other just the former, rolled over and over across the stones before coming to a stop somewhere in the middle of the floor.
Gojyo tried to get Sanzo off him and up onto his own feet when he felt a force like a Scottish caber go thudding into his midriff. What passed for breakfast laced with quite an amount of blood flew up his gullet and out his mouth as he was flung aside like a rag doll. Dougan smirked, and seemed to shrink upon himself. He returned, momentarily, to his old and more human form.
"I think, Sha Gojyo, that I shall start with you," he smirked, and raised his heavy axe to cleave Gojyo into two.
"NO!!!" Houran cried out desperately.
There was the swish of an axe blade falling, and a wet thud as it embedded itself in living flesh. The hoarse cry of a man echoed through the emptiness.
[1] Yametoke = corruption of yamete oke (leave it be)
[2] Hentai yarou = perverted bastard
[3] Mudra = gesture
[4] Makai Tenjou = Heavenly Purification of EvilKurtain & Ashura A. -- Don't worry, you'll get what you're hoping for ;) And by the way...what makes you think the Kougaiji-ikkou is dead? Do you want to see them in a subsequent chapter?