Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well, almost nothing.
PART FIVE
In Which Hakkai Gets His Revenge
or,
The Long Awaited Smackdown of Gyuu-zilla
-
Gyokumen Kyushu was dead. The thought should have been exhilarating or at least satisfying. Jien found only that his lip hurt where he'd bitten through it under the influence of the Minus Wave and that he was mortally tired. He wanted Kou here, just to see for himself that the Prince was safe, so he could go ahead and take a week long nap and have no reason to feel guilty about it.
Sanzo was frowning as he stared at the melted tower, something occurring to him belatedly. There was a sutra somewhere under all that mess. Probably two. Also his gun and Hazel's pendant, which he really wanted an explanation about on how it had come to be here.
"Dammit!"
He'd worry about it later. The sutras were holy artifacts and nigh indestructible. So likely was the pendant. The gun was not, and he was missing it sorely, but he'd proven already today that he didn't need a firearm to kick ass. Plus, a gun would do nothing against a demon king anyway. He took a quick inventory of his other weapons; namely, party members.
Not himself and not Jien. Obviously.
Rasetsunyo was looking somewhat worse for wear, having fireballed more people and things in the last few hours than she had in the last few years before her sealing. Sanzo had seen enough of Kougaiji's fights to know that the Empress' pyrotechnic skills and related endurance ability far exceeded her son's, but the fact remained that she was tiring, little by little. Evidently incendiary magic was something like chi, and needed to be regenerated after extensive use.
The ugly look she was giving her resurrected husband had plenty of fire left behind it, though.
Sanzo came to the inevitable last of the lineup with a purely mental sigh. He had known the answer all along anyway, as he stepped up behind Son Goku and asked, very quietly, if the boy was ready to earn his keep.
"What if I end up hurting you?" Goku asked just as softly, his eyes aging five hundred years in an instant. He watched the towering form ponderously making its way towards them through the inferno.
"Che. I'll kill you if you try."
Goku pretended to think about it. "Will you give up smoking if I win?" (This had been a common argument lately, upon learning the phrase 'death by lung cancer' from an ever informative and sneakily insidious Hakkai.)
The monk snorted. "Hell no."
"Okay." A deep breath. "Just..."
"What?"
Goku turned and buried his face against Sanzo's chest, fists clutching tightly at the remains of tattered white robes. Hiding from the world, if only for a moment, taking comfort in his own personal sanctuary before he would be forced from it.
Moved by some strange sense of finality, Sanzo allowed the embrace, his own arms settling naturally around the boy. Goku had not clung to him so desperately since the first few days of his release from imprisonment. Doing so again, here and now, was a strange, almost ominous symmetry.
It implied that they had somehow come full circle.
No longer a child, Sanzo repeated to himself in vague incredulity, chocolate hair soft and silky and familiar under his hand. Had not been a child since……since when? How had he missed the arrival of this sudden stranger in his arms, who talked back and not because he was whining but because he was right and asserted (somewhat) valid opinions and expected things from Sanzo like a modicum of civility and the consideration adults gave to other adults?
Freaky. The child he'd rescued from a stone prison had at last grown into his own mind. Really, where had Sanzo been, to miss it happening right under his nose? (Not to mention between his sheets.)
How very...unexpected. He'd never gotten to this part with Koumyou, the sole source of knowledge he had to draw on for his own stellar (har) parenting skills. How very…
Bittersweet.
Goku mumbled something inaudible against him, voice muffled and indistinct. Sanzo heard it clearly anyway, the words both silent and endlessly echoing inside his own mind.
"I still love you, you know."
Fuck their audience. Sanzo leaned down to kiss him deeply as he removed the limiter.
I know.
The Seiten Taisei stepped back from an insignificant human, golden eyes slitted, and turned its little bloodmad half smile on the approaching Gyumaoh.
-
And A Short While Later
In hindsight, Sanzo reflected as he ran for his life, perhaps letting the Seiten Taisei loose to battle Gyumaoh hadn't been the best plan he'd ever come up with.
Oh sure, it seemed like a good idea. Berserker god thing versus undead god thing made much more sense than anybody else versus undead god thing. And Gyumaoh really was undead, rather than resurrected with all memory, intellect, and ability intact, as Gyokumen had surely intended. Her scientists had either not been doing their homework or neglected to tell her on purpose how impossible such a thing was. Sealings stamped with the signature of Heaven were not meant to be undone. So while the demon king's body moved, and the organs functioned, his mind existed only in the eternity of his last moment of life. Not quite the textbook definition of undead (see The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks for further details), but close enough for government work.
And goody for Our Intrepid Heroes, because the undead were also unfailingly stupid. Usually. Too bad for Rasetsunyo, who had wanted her husband to perceive and know that she was free, that she was rebelling, and that she was going to do her damndest to send him on his merry way to Hell so he would never bother her or her son again.
She was disappointed at the near mindless zombification. She would get over it.
Undead or not, Gyumaoh evidently possessed enough brainpower (or memory) still to recognize certain aspects of his surroundings as well as speak. A single name was all he seemed to be able to manage, half growling, half articulating it, when his baleful red glare fell on the slight figure before him, fierce golden eyes utterly devoid of anything resembling sanity.
"Na…ta…ku…." Like an avalanche of gravel; sonorous, earth shaking and eerily hollow. The castle's foundations trembled.
It was hard to tell from a distance, but Sanzo could have sworn he saw the Seiten Taisei freeze, stiffen. The name meant nothing to him, except in the legends and history of five hundred years past he'd learned about in his youth, that it had been --
"Nataku! His name's Nataku and he's my friend and can we go visit him today, can we Konzen?" begged a bright eyed child wearing chains
-- Toushin Nataku Taishi who had first assaulted Houtou Castle and subdued its self-proclaimed Emperor, Gyumaoh. Other than that, Sanzo had no clue. Goku had never mentioned anything, but then Goku might not remember it.
The Seiten Taisei was a different story, and reacted to the name with a shocking display of violence that left even Sanzo, who'd seen the creature's methods before, momentarily speechless. He, Rasetsunyo and Jien could only watch (and occasionally dodge or destroy incoming debris) as the battle tore down half the castle around them. Things only escalated from there when Gyumaoh, crashing out into the open, suddenly had room to maneuver and bring that huge ass sword of his into play. The Seiten Taisei really didn't seem to mind too much. Or even notice, for that matter.
It had been a very, very bad idea to wear white (as Jien and Rasetsunyo and Sanzo all were, coincidentally), because there was no way one was ever going to get the stains out when blood literally started raining from the sky.
And then the zombies had shown up.
-
And Elsewhere
Jiroushin returned from refilling another bucket of popcorn (this would make the third or fourth) to find the Merciful Goddess' throne….not occupied by the Merciful Goddess.
"You!"
"Me," agreed the ghost in a pleasant drawl, lanky form sprawled all over Kanzeon's white chair thing. "Nice to see you again too."
Jiroushin realized he was gaping and his jaw abruptly snapped shut with a click. It was impolite to stare. He then floundered for something appropriate to say, and settled on the rather lame, ".....what are you doing here?"
"Sitting," the ghost deadpanned. He got a Look of Not Amused from the popcorn-bearing kami.
Touche. The ghost relented enough to state that 'Hir Hermaphroditeness had stepped out for a few moments, and he was just there to keep the seat warm.'
"Oh. Well. I see." Not an unfamiliar explanation. Kanzeon was fond of taking off at a moment's notice, usually after coercing someone at random to sit in hir throne and 'watch things' while se was gone. Jiroushin didn't like it and the bodhisattiva knew it, but there was really not much Jiroushin could do about it, and se knew that too.
Kanzeon's second set down the bucket of butter smothered popcorn (shudder) and squinted at the newcomer with faint suspicion. "Did someone amend your sentence when I wasn't looking? I thought you were supposed to be sealed down in Gekai until...."
"Shhh." The other gave him a golden eyed, conspiratorial wink. "I'm on probation for good behavior. Half a day of free wheeling astral existence and then I go back." He shuddered slightly and affected a morose expression. "That river is bloody freezing this time of year, I'll have you know."
Jiroushin eyed the ghost flatly. "There's no way Tentei would have approved a change in your sentencing and besides, you don't do good behavior."
The 'criminal' grinned up at him. "So call it unofficial probation, courtesy of your employer."
Sigh. "You begged hir let you come and watch the finale, didn't you." It was not a question.
"Bribed, actually. I do have a certain vested interest in the proceedings and I'd like to know how everything turns out."
"You'll get in even worse trouble if you're caught here."
There might have been an iota of concern in the kami's voice, and the ghost pounced on it gleefully, teeth bared in a wicked grin. "Oi! What's this? Jiro-chan the hard ass feeling sorry for little ol' me?"
"Absolutely not," Jiroushin huffed. "You brought all of this on yourself."
Tiger gold eyes pinned him with a piercing stare, utterly devoid of previous humor although the tone of voice remained light and easy. "That's right, little kami. I did this all to myself. My actions were carried out with full knowledge of the consequences. I chose to pay this price." His words were slightly forced, as if he'd recited them before (or been forced to recite them before) many, many times.
Jiroushin said nothing, uncomfortable.
The ghost watched him for a second and then, deciding the bodyguard (fidgeting like a errant schoolboy, he noted with satisfaction) was appropriately chastised for speaking so inconsiderately, changed the subject like lightning.
"By the way, have you seen the keys to these handcuffs?" Something rattled behind the throne, and Jiroushin got an answer as to why he hadn't yet seen the ghost's hands as they were lifted enough to show off shiny, velvet lined silver handcuffs. "I want some of that popcorn before Kanzeon gets back. I'm sure I'll need the extra energy, given what se's got planned." The ghost made a face. "Way too much compensation for breaking me out of stasis, if you ask me. I hope I don't pull a muscle or anything in the middle. I'm so out of practice."
Jiroushin went red and made a strangled noise, seemingly on the verge of a stroke or something, and only after a long moment was recovered enough to coordinate shoving the popcorn at the prisoner-about-to-be-victim of his mistress' decidedly undivine entertainments (not that the 'victim' was complaining at all, being an old, old acquaintance and long used to How Things Worked within Kanzeon's system of 'favors for favors'). Then the poor much abused bodyguard turned and fled.
"Thanks!" the ghost called after him, pleased at having successfully rattled the kami's composure. He knew Jiroushin probably hadn't meant to offend, but even forgivable rudeness had to be met with disciplinary measures before it blossomed into full blown Asshole Syndrome (current posterchild, one Genjyo Sanzo).
Still, that was neither here nor there. He tossed some of the nasty dripping popcorn in his mouth and returned his eyes to Kanzeon's lotus pond/big screen TV used for watching over Gekai (and sometimes peeping at the Ikkou), waiting patiently for the battle that would decide the fate of the world.
-
And Other Elsewhere
"Uno," said Gojyo, smacking down his last card with a smug expression. "I win, ladies."
Lirin promptly accused him of cheating. And tackled him, which was not very nice because Gojyo, while mostly recovered thanks to the work of a certain chi manipulator, had still been shot in the throat earlier that day. He attempted to point this out to his attacker and got a boot to the forehead, which evidently reminded him of squabbling with Goku, because he stopped trying to be polite and soon had the youkai girl in an unbreakable headlock.
"Don't make me sit on you, kid!"
Lirin squawked in rage and tried to punch him in the nuts.
An also recovered Kougaiji, who was trying very very hard to pretend that his sister didn't exist while reshuffling the cards, still got one of those twitchy vein things going in his forehead.
Hakkai and Yaone both sighed.
"Where the fuck are they all coming from?" Sanzo growled, dodging another swipe from youkai (undead youkai, too) claws. He let the slavering creature lunge past him, turning and targeting its spinal column with the side of his hand, stiffened into iron. Sanzo really wasn't much for wasting time dancing around kicking peoples' asses barehanded, but he'd been drilled in martial arts at Kinzan like every other apprentice there and his skills, while admittedly a bit rusty, were still quite good enough to dispatch the mindless walking dead.
"Hell if I know," Jien snapped back, slicing through the vacant drooling grin of another with his sword and, predictably, getting it stuck in the process. "Shit!" He tugged uselessly, very very much not liking the closing distance between himself and the next oncoming wave of zombies.
"Idiot." Sanzo broke the neck of one trying to come at them from the side. His temper was fraying quickly due to nicotine withdrawal. And he wanted his gun. Really, really, really wanted his gun, and his sutra. "Don't you keep that thing sharpened?"
Jien only snarled in reply and, planting his boot on the offending corpse, yanked back with all his strength. The sword came free with a disgusting noise and a spurt. His triumphant little grin turned abruptly into a grimace as the first of the new wave drew within range, forcing him to retreat a pace until he came up short against Sanzo's back. There were more of them facing the monk.
Surrounded.
"Don't suppose you can call your monkey off the big guy long enough to get him to give us a hand?" Jien drawled softly, calm tone at odds with the white knuckled grip on his sword hilt.
"Not a chance." Exhaustion was making the monk's voice almost normal, flat only with strain instead of irritation/superiority/disdain.
"Hm. Didn't think so. You ready to go, then?"
"....yeah."
They turned as one and charged straight at the zombie horde, aiming for a thinning of the ranks where they might, maybe possibly if their luck held, be able to break through. They were. They ran like hell.
Back to Rasetsunyo, the only one of them having any success in mowing down large numbers at a time, which was more or less the only effective way of defeating a zombie army. They'd initially abandoned her (gotten the hell out of the way, truth be told) because, for some reason, zombies really, really seemed to offend the Empress and her firestorms grew less controlled and discriminating in their targets as her rage intensified and her strength ebbed. As the saying went, 'friendly fire isn't.' So they'd struck out on their own to avoid getting charred crispy by accident. Now, spontaneous incineration was a risk they were prepared to take if it meant a chance to get their wind back.
"You do it," Jien panted, leaning forward with hands on his knees and too tired to watch his mouth. "We suck at this." Sanzo glared and retorted, "Speak for yourself."
The Empress obliged. Dozens died (re-died?) in mid drool/slaver, erased to nothing but grease and ashes in the blink of an eye. There was triumph in her eyes, but no blood left in her pale, taut face and no reserves at all in the gaunt weariness that had become the reality of her body. It becomes painful when she goes past the limit of her magical endurance, not unlike a pulled muscle, but this is an ache in her spirit and she can recognize the telltale signs of impending burnout.
"I'm fine," is all she says to answer the monk's wordless, suspicious scrutiny. She wondered if he could tell she was lying.
Sanzo could. And it was he who caught her when she finally staggered, vision dimming to gray and deadly flames fizzling away to nothing, as the undeterred undead youkai charged them in a tidal rush.
Gojyo would have been proud, Sanzo thought distantly. Here he would get to die with a beautiful woman in his arms, which according to the halfbreed, was the best way to go. Sanzo didn't see anything so great about it, but then he was admittedly feeling a tad pessimistic at the moment. No, even with that aside. This bit. Hard. Gojyo was such a strange person to insist otherwise.
And Gojyo's brother was a stranger person, stepping between them and the oncoming throng to brandish a dripping sword, the very image of stalwart heroism. No wonder the kappa was so hung up over him.
"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Sanzo demanded wearily, levering a barely conscious Empress up to her feet with one arm thrown over his shoulder. He couldn't exactly run with her, but they could probably make it to a defensible pile of debris ….if someone volunteered to play decoy and keep the zombies at a distance in the meantime. Sanzo, however, was not going to admit to himself that he needed the help, much less articulate it as a request to another person.
Jien must have guessed anyway, for the tall youkai only spared a glance at what to him seemed an incredibly dumb question. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Something stupid."
"You would say that." Jien turned back to face their attackers. "I'm just doing my duty to protect the Empress, priest. That's all."
Sanzo shrugged. "Your funeral." Nobility was such an exasperating trait.
"Guess so." Jien might have been smiling.
They made it halfway to the nearest likely defensible position before they were overrun.
-
With a most gawdy FLASH of lightning and CRACK of thunder, the great Kanzeon Bosatsu descended from heaven and appeared directly in front of Hakkai, Gojyo, and the others. Unfortunately, as impressive as the special effects were, they had precisely the wrong effect on a group who had today endured Sanzo's foul temper and gunshots. So when Kanzeon demanded irately just what the hell they all thought they were doing, se promptly got 1) chi blast, 2) fireball, 3) pinless grenade, 4) shakujou blade, and 5) boulder heaved by Lirin, all in the face at the same time.
"Oh, sorry. We thought you were the monk." Gojyo sheepishly retracted the chain of his weapon.
Kanzeon glared, singed but otherwise unhurt. The crescent blade se'd caught. The boulder se'd batted aside. The grenade, fireball and chi blast ....got through. Jiroushin was going to have a cat over the state of hir silks when se got back, which under normal circumstances concealed hardly anything and now concealed absolutely nothing.
Kougaiji made a strangled noise and clapped his hands over Lirin's eyes. Hakkai's eyebrow twitched. Yaone averted her gaze politely, blushing.
Gojyo ogled shamelessly. "Well, surprise surprise. What can we do you for, Miss Bloodsucker?" he asked amiably, as if the figure he addressed was not a nearly omnipotent bodhisattiva and he'd not been trying to decapitate hir three seconds ago. Presence of cleavage did strange things to Gojyo's mind. "Need a transfusion for blondie again or were you just dying to get another taste of a good thing?"
Kanzeon restrained the urge to deck him, holding onto hir temper by thinking of what was waiting for hir, chained to hir throne when se got back to Tenkai. "General," se said firmly, ignoring the way he twitched uneasily at that particular address, "I'm here only to sort out what seems to be a very big misunderstanding."
"Oh?"
"As I recall," se began, letting hir annoyed gaze shift to the Marshal and, for the moment, ignoring the three youkai who were all discretely edging away, "there were four of you on a divine mission to go West and attempt to stop Gyumaoh's resurrection. Four. And yet I see two of you here now, quite far away from where said attempt to stop the resurrection is going on. You can count, can't you boys? Four minus two equals two, and two is not the number of people I sent on a divine mission. Pray tell, what sort of excuse do you have to explain this simple mathematical error?"
Hakkai refused to look guilty in the face of hir irritation. "Sanzo left us behind," he replied blandly. "He seemed very adamant that we not follow him any further."
"Fucker shot me," Gojyo muttered sulkily.
"And the Prince as well," Hakkai added, polite self-righteousness oozing from his tone. "I was obliged, and ordered by Sanzo, to stay and heal them."
"So that absolves you of any wrongdoing in this fiasco, does it?" A lesser man would have quailed in the face of such falsely, dangerous sweet venom.
The reincarnation of Tenpou Gensui was not a lesser man. "Yes," he said simply.
Kanzeon restrained the urge to deck him, too.
"But now that your eminent self is here," and Hakkai swept into a deep bow, "perhaps you can suggest how we might correct the situation to your satisfaction?"
Hakkai was being catty, Gojyo noted. Hakkai only got catty when he was really pissed off, which meant he was still stewing over the shooting of allies thing and being left behind. Which was all well and good, Gojyo was still kinda pissed about it too.
The halfbreed nearly ruined the atmosphere by chuckling. The monk was way in for it when they caught up to him.
Kanzeon had several suggestions, as it turned out. One of them being that Hakkai was no longer allowed to speak. The other was that when they were dropped off at Houtou Castle by 'hir Eminent Self,' (and honestly, ran the common unspoken thought, why couldn't the bodhisattiva have just teleported them there in the first place instead of making the ikkou drive all the way from China?) that they really quickly come up with a way to defeat zombies.
"The Makai Tenjyo?" Gojyo submitted cautiously in place of the Hakkai ordered mute. Kougaiji muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'and why do we have to go along?' but didn't put up any real protest, because going to the rescue of the monk was also going to the rescue of Jien and getting a chance to beat the hell out of said monk afterwards.
The Goddess of Love and Mercy clucked at them all in reproach. Se seemed in a better mood after describing in great detail the long and difficult (and likely fatal, se stated gleefully) battle they were all about to face. At least se'd had the decency to dump a few Curagas on the injured/exhausted before booting them off to fight.
"Not this time. The resurrection of Gyumaoh hasn't only destroyed the balance of the universe with the Minus Wave, it has broken down the barriers between worlds. In order to retrieve a vanquished spirit, one must open a path to the place where they reside. And once that path is open, it is impossible to halt the flow of souls between the two worlds."
"In other words..." Kougaiji shut up and backed off when Kanzeon looked at him. After Nataku and Homura, the direct attention any kami made him nervous. Kanzeon and Kanzeon's direct attention made him very nervous, and not just because of hir impressive .....temper.
"In other words," se finished for him, jiggling just a little to watch him squirm (how cute when he blushed like that, se thought in malicious delight. The boy really was a very pretty piece of ass. Rasetsunyo had done something right when she'd brought his father to bed….despite all the messy, messy problems that had caused afterwards. Still. Who knew heretics threw such lovely children?) "Anything that's been killed in the vicinity will not stay dead, because the souls just flow right back out through the rip in the barrier."
Yaone went a shade paler than normal. "Anything?" She got a nod of confirmation from the still (slightly) jiggling (and leering) bodhisattiva. "But....but that would mean all of the soldiers in the castle ......every garrison in the area....they're all unkillable?"
"Bitchy, ain't it? Anyhoo, not my problem, and this is your stop. Have fun!" Kanzeon was suddenly in a bit of a hurry to get gone (sharply reminded by Red Boy and subsequent speculations on the prettiness of Red Boy's ass of the feast chained conveniently to hir throne at home) and se disappeared in flash of light.
Everyone else was dropped into the middle of a nightmare.
-
Houtou Castle was on fire and half collapsed to boot. Huge chunks of stone and timber had been strewn haphazardly over the rocky earth like children's toys across a playroom floor. Silhouetted against the flames was the towering form of what could only be the demon king/god of destruction/pain in the celestial ass Gyumaoh, bellowing gutturally in rage and trying without much success to crush….
"Goku," whispered Hakkai, stunned despite himself. Well, not Goku. Goku's other extremely bitchtastic unkillable unstoppable hell monkey self. He could feel it from here; only the Seiten Taisei generated such a massive aura of raw, primal energy, like the power behind a thunderstorm or an earthquake. Jiipu vacated his shoulder quickly, offering a squeaky "kyuu" before seeking someplace safe to wait out the impending battle.
Gojyo, for once more on the ball than his lover, was shouting someone else's name in the other direction. The sudden whistle of the shakujou's chain brought Hakkai back to himself. He wheeled, taking in at a glance the sight of Jien and Sanzo (holding a….woman? With red hair?) going down under a veritable tidal wave of youkai (Kanzeon's zombies, evidently) not more than ten or so meters from their own position. The crescent blade of the shakujou (and bless Gojyo for choosing a weapon that could operate at a distance) decapitated four of the zombies before burying itself messily in the gut of another. Kougaiji and Lirin were already charging, the former disinclined to use a fire attack that might hit Doku in such crowded quarters.
Hakkai, always quick on his feet, wasted no time in letting loose a massive burst of chi to plow through the thick of the horde. Yaone's explosives followed, targeting the ones that scattered, and by then the two red headed youkai were close enough to smash their way physically through the remaining ranks to reach the trio currently drowning in undead.
"I'm not thanking you," said a sulky and gore-splattered Sanzo five minutes later, when zombie corpses littered the field and they were all ensconced behind the relative safety of a large chunk of fallen castle wall. Jien gave the monk a disgusted look and rolled his eyes. Then he winced suddenly as Yaone pulled a bandage tight around one of his many oozing wounds. The deep slashes had already been taken care of, thanks to a generous application of chi. Lirin was out chasing zombies away from their makeshift shelter (and they really did keep getting back up, again and again, unless you shattered all their limbs into uselessness or otherwise caused them to violently lose structural integrity), preferring to deal damage rather than mess with people who'd sustained it.
Hakkai managed to look completely unsurprised at Sanzo's lack of effusive gratitude. Gojyo, playing sentry, was privately amused but not about to say anything. Between pissy monk and equally pissy healer, he sure as hell was staying out of the crossfire.
Kougaiji, for his part, was staring utterly speechless at the female youkai slumped senseless against the blackened wall, her beauty in no ways marred by the blood liberally coating her pale kimono and skin. The Prince seemed torn between going to her side and running the hell away.
Professional as ever, Hakkai sighed and steered the shellshocked youkai out of the way so he could at least see to the unknown woman's injuries. As it turned out she suffered only from exhaustion, and a brief surge of chi to coax her body out of burnout shock brought things back into order fairly quickly. Her labored breathing eased immediately and the strain left her face.
"Ah, may I assume that this is your lady mother?" Hakkai inquired delicately of the Prince, noting resignedly how Kougaiji's violet eyes were still unfocused (was everyone around him really so maladjusted that they went into shock at the drop of a hat?). Yaone had to answer for her lord, sending a brief, half worried half annoyed look at him over his unresponsiveness. "Correct, Hakkai-dono."
"You can thank me anytime, by the way," Sanzo drawled, leaning back against the wall and craving nicotine so badly it hurt. Or maybe that was his cracked rib. Ribs. Whatever.
Kougaiji's gaze wandered to the monk. "You did this?"
"You certainly didn't."
That woke the redhead up, and he bit off a curse, looking away.
Hakkai wasn't about to let Sanzo get away with it, however. For one, it was needlessly rude and two, Hakkai still had a bone to pick. "Maa, one really shouldn't be wasting breath on unnecessary words with such damage to the torso and possible internal bleeding, Sanzo-sama," the healer said pleasantly, a merciless glint in his green eyes. "It may be some time before I can safely risk a full trance to repair everything. So in the meantime, please consider that the more you aggravate your injuries, the longer it will be before your insides are well enough to handle food or alcohol or even…" he paused for effect, "cigarette smoke."
The blond's eyes widened slightly, then abruptly narrowed. "You wouldn't."
Hakkai's answering smile was sunny and about as compromising as granite. "Wouldn't what? Do what's best for an injured patient so he or she may recover as soon as possible, even if that means breaking them of their unhealthy vices for their own good?"
Sanzo made a strangled noise.
"And don't think you're gonna mooch off me," Gojyo added over his shoulder, unable to resist joining in. "I think I might abstain for a week or so. Or maybe cut down to only one a day, as penance for my sins or something."
More garbled incoherency. Hakkai caught the word 'gun.' "Hai hai, of course," the healer agreed amiably. "I'm sure your gun survived the castle's collapse just fine and is waiting to be found underneath all that wreckage. Once it's recovered, you will most certainly be able to shoot us."
Sanzo swore at him; loudly, viciously, and at length.
Hakkai continued smiling serenely, secure in his victory.
Jiipu caught up with them moments later, clutching something proudly in his tiny little jaws. Hazel's pendant, which he had somehow dug out of the castle ruins (oddly enough, it had been waiting at the top, gleaming conspicuously in the afternoon light). He cheeped around the silver and deposited it in Sanzo's lap.
Sanzo scowled, but picked the ornament up. "My gun," he told the little dragon. "Next time, bring the gun."
"Pii," replied Jiipu in utter incomprehension (or self-amusing maliciousness. Who knew how much the dragon actually understood and inferred from his humans).
And still they had no solution to the zombie problem.
"You're sure Kannon told you nothing about how to defeat them?" Jien demanded of his brother's back, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that a bodhisattiva had actually come down from up on high to chastise them for abandoning (not like they'd had a choice) the monk. Privately he thought Sanzo himself could use a little divine chastisement. Honestly, didn't the gods care what sort of mentally disturbed, foul-mouthed mass murderers were representing their image on Earth?
"Not a damn word." Gojyo was watching Lirin beat up the same zombie for the sixth time in a row.
"Only the mechanism for their re-animation," Yaone added in quietly.
"Their souls flow right back..." Sanzo repeated, racking his exhausted brains. Stupid hag. Stupid companions who hadn't somehow forced or tricked a decent answer out of the stupid hag. Did he have to do everything himself?
Gojyo hefted the shakujou, a grim line hardening his mouth. "Sorry to cut the conversation short, ladies," he called back, not quite turning his gaze away from whatever he was looking at, "but we've got company." He stepped aside to let Lirin dash past, no longer quite so chipper and just a little bit creeped out by enemies that refused to stay down.
"Nii-chaaaaan, they just keep getting back up!" she whined, seeking assurance that her inability to win wasn't really her fault.
Hakkai stepped up next to Gojyo. Another sizeable crowd of undead had indeed gathered, staggering erratically but surely towards their little shelter. "They do seem to be persistent."
"We'll see how persistent they are after a Summon," Kougaiji said grimly, slowly getting to his feet. He was reluctant to leave his mother but knew, practically, that going out to take the fight to the zombies was far safer for her than letting them close in. "It should buy us some more time, at least."
Gojyo was eyeing the scattered horde. "I dunno. It'll be like trying to smash ants with a hammer. This isn't some big convenient target like that ugly crab shikigami thing, y'know."
One could almost see the lightbulb over Sanzo's head turn on.
"Shikigami," the priest breathed, intuition leaping to life in his mind. He sat up straighter, holding up the bit of silver Jiipu had brought him. "The pendant. The pendant can catch souls and keep the corpses from being reanimated."
It was a better plan than any other they'd come up, but Hakkai still sounded dubious. "Will we even be able to use it?"
Sanzo smiled humorlessly. "I saved that prat bishop's life," he said, his eyes focused on some far off point on the eastern horizon. "His God fucking owes me a miracle."
-
Despite the general implausibility of the whole thing, it went off without a hitch. The pendant was glowing faintly when the dust finally settled, and the dead youkai appeared finally inclined to lie still and rot quietly like normal corpses.
"Nice little fight," Gojyo commented, cleaning the blood off his weapon's blade.
An exhausted Jien gave his brother a Look, which Gojyo summarily ignored. Instead he queried of the party in general, "Sooooooo...now what?"
Hakkai was watching Gyumaoh and the Seiten Taisei (STILL fighting, amazingly enough). "I would suggest we retreat to a safe distance, and..."
"And?"
Hakkai spread his hands helplessly. "Wait for Goku to finish up so we can go home?"
Everyone agreed with Hakkai's sensible assessment that there was little point to interfering with the Seiten Taisei. He seemed to have things more or less under control (and would probably not take the intrusion well). Plus, no one really wanted to fight Gyumaoh.
Sanzo was scowling off at the general direction of the castle. He had finally suffered Hakkai to heal him, but the relief of vanished pain apparently wasn't enough to lighten a continuing foul mood. He wanted his sutras back, dammit.
Gojyo invited him to go ahead and start digging.
Sanzo punched Gojyo.
Yaone punched Sanzo, thus halting the brawl in its tracks as the monk landed ungracefully on his ass in the dirt.
Everyone gawked.
"That," Yaone said fiercely, shaking out her aching hand, "was for shooting Kougaiji-sama earlier. And Sha-san. Honestly, how do you expect people to stay around you with such violent and rude habits?"
Sanzo was for once without words, staring. This was the final piece of evidence. The entire world was against him. Everything and everyone in it, apparently including mousy little alchemists. He glared balefully at all of them.
Until he met Hakkai's cool gaze, and the pendant in his hand seemed to grow inexplicably warmer.
"How do you expect people to stay around you with such violent and rude habits?"
Dammit all.
He gave up and accepted Gojyo's hand when the halfbreed reached out to pull him to his feet, and was also the first to shrug agreement at the suggestion of a poker game while they waited for Goku. When he thought no one else was looking, he slipped the pendant on underneath his robes.
Hakkai petted Jiipu and smiled to himself.
A short while later Rasetsunyo finally woke up, and introductions were made all round. Gojyo couldn't seem to get over the fact that Kougaiji's mom was a hottie, as he called her to her very surprised (and amused) face. Kougaiji bristled and had to be restrained from leaping up and throttling the halfbreed. He was suffering from a terrible case of guilt after all for not having been the one to rescue his beloved mother, and overcompensated for it by being annoying protective. Rasetsunyo, in the midst of having her pointy ears talked off by an ecstatic Lirin (a real mom wooooow!) merely favored her son with a gently reproving smile.
To the surprise of all, Rasetsunyo was not only an Empress but a bona fide card shark. The captain of her personal guards had taught her to play long ago, she confessed to her very shocked (and in Kougaiji's case, slightly scandalized) audience.
Gojyo declared war.
After a full hour of straight losing games (against Jien, Hakkai and the Empress, he never had a chance, and he dared not cheat in front of his brother), the halfbreed was ready to kill something, and nearly did when a youkai in a bloody and ripped uniform (livery of the castle forces, actually) popped out of nowhere.
The youkai just barely managed to bring twin swords up in time to deflect the crescent blade. He knocked it away forcefully and demanded, with an indignant glare, "The hell was that for?!"
"Chen?" Kougaiji was on his feet, surprise and clear recognition written across his face.
"Oh, sorry," Gojyo said unsheepishly, retracting the chain of the shakujou. "Thought you were a zombie."
The youkai was not. Rather, he was Chen, one of the survivors of the units Gyokumen had taken from under Kougaiji's direct authority, but most of whom had remained loyal to the Prince. They were the ones who had traveled briefly with Rasetsunyo, Sanzo, Jien and Goku, and had been ordered to guard the exits to make sure Gyokumen didn't get away. Fortunately for them, however, they abandoned those posts when the last huge Minus Wave briefly divorced them from their sanity and sent them all running about like chickens with their heads cut off, and thus were no longer in the castle when it started falling down. Once outside they'd been immediately set upon by zombies (and there was still a raw horror in Chen's eyes as he reported the incident in a remarkably steady voice) and had made their way to a defensible high ground and held their position there.
"And then, suddenly, the zombies all just fell over and stopped moving."
"Oh," Kougaiji said absently, wondering how many other soldiers had survived (or hadn't) the ruin of the castle, "you'll have to thank Sanzo for that."
Chen cast a suspicious Look at the monk, knowing very well who and what Genyo Sanzo was. Sanzo returned the Look right back.
"We're waiting for my husband to die again," Rasetsunyo informed the young soldier bluntly, waving a hand in the vague direction of the epic battle still raging unchecked some distance away. "Why don't you bring your people on up here and watch the show?"
Jien, who knew Chen quite well actually (because there were times when one just needed to get out and have a drink or a gambling run with the boys, away from oh so elegant and refined Princes and polite females and rambunctious little children), grinned in delight that the other armsman had escaped with his life and his sanity intact. "Yeah, and then you can drag your sorry ass over so I can own it in our little poker tournament." He indicated the cards everyone, with the exception of Lirin (no gambling for brats), was holding.
"Deal," Chen said instantly, a vicious gleam suddenly alight in his eyes. Gojyo groaned silently. Never invite rounders or soldiers to a poker game, because the former were professionals and the latter as good as, and by trade even more bloodthirsty about everything they did.
The youkai soldier bowed deeply to the Empress and to Kougaiji before wheeling to dash off the way he'd come.
"You should've ordered him to search the castle wreckage and find the sutras," Sanzo bitched, flicking ash off the end his fifth cigarette. "They're all so eager to kiss your ass and follow orders anyway."
Kougaiji appeared to actually consider this. When Chen came back, followed by a bedraggled and exhausted bunch of his comrades, the Prince took him aside and asked him something. Chen looked startled for a moment, but shrugged and barked an order at one of his men (he'd been promoted to unofficial leader in the absence/death of everyone else in charge). The youkai soon returned carrying …a shovel.
Rasetsunyo's son handed it to Sanzo, his expression cultured blandness. "There you go. Unworthy youkai shouldn't be handling such items as divine scriptures anyway, right?"
Sanzo stared at the shovel, stared at the Prince, swore at him and then snatched it and stalked off, muttering something about goddamn ingrates and never agreeing to saving the fucking world ever ever again. He did manage to find the scriptures, though (his gun being as he suspected, probably melted and long gone), and fairly quickly, and having the Seiten Sutra in his possession after thirteen years or so of hunting for it finally mellowed out his temper a bit.
"Bleeding fuck, Sanzo, stop petting the damn thing. It's creepy."
Sanzo's only reply was to smack his winning hand down in front of the kappa and rejoice in Gojyo's furious, inarticulate spluttering.
Oh yes, life was good.
Now if only the monkey would hurry up and kill Gyumaoh.
There came a tremendous CRASH from behind them, shaking the ground and upsetting all their card piles. One dead god of destruction, right on cue.
Sanzo actually smiled.
-
END Part Five
OUTTAKES
(Scene: SANZO reflects on the fact that GOKU is no longer a child as the monkey clings to him)
GOKU: (mental dialogue) "I still love you, you know, but I'm old enough to be on top now, right?"
SANZO: ..... (shoots GOKU)
SANZO: I'll just deal with Gyumaoh myself. .
-
(Scene: SANZO leans down to kiss GOKU, and then removes the limiter)
SEITEN TAISEI: (promptly tears out the throat of the human with head so obligingly placed near his fangs)
SANZO: (dies)
-
(Scene: Zombies rush at SANZO, JIEN, and RASETSUNYO)
RASETSUNYO: (screaming ala Ash) Come and get it, cocksuckers! (revs chainsaw)
(cue splatterfest)
SANZO & JIEN: (look disturbed)
RASETSUNYO: Groovy.