A/N: Well, here it is. Chapter two. I actually had this done a couple of days after I posted chapter one, but then I realized that Gojyo wasn't as in character as he could be.

I named the barkeeper in this chapter; it's a Chinese name. Actually, just as a note for future reference, any characters either added or not named in canon will have Japanese, Chinese, or Hindi names. There will be no 'made up' names in this story.

Anyway, enjoy this chapter.

Oh, and please tell me if anyone seems out of character or if there are spelling/grammar mistakes. Thanks.

Round 2: Conversations

"Is that really him?"

"Yeah. There's a rumor—are you listening to me? There's a rumor that they just went and killed a god."

"A god? That's not what I heard. I heard that it was a giant monster. You know, the one that's been living in the forest?"

"I heardthis loudrumbling sound that came from the forest the other day. I reckon it was him."

"Yeah? I reckon it was your stomach."

Sitting in the bar, wearing a black shirt and khaki pants—not his normal fare—Priest Genjyo Sanzo had to endure the glances and whispered words. It didn't bother him that much, just as long as they didn't come and begin to beg for him to bless them or something like that.

"They don't know you're a priest, just in case you're wondering." Hakkai sat down on a stool beside the blond. "All they know is that we came out of the forest, having killed something. A number of them saw our return, so there's a number of rumors."

"Feh." Sanzo exhaled, a white cloud of smoke blowing up in front of his face. "So we've got a whole bunch of idiots claiming to know something about what happened."

Hakkai waved a hand, trying to disperse the smoke. "Look, Sanzo, they all knew that there was something…wrong…with that forest. And they know that whatever was in there is now dead."

"And they're smart enough to reason that we killed whatever it was?" Sanzo rested his elbows on the counter, sitting in a very relaxed position, or at least it was relaxed for Sanzo, his eyes on the newspaper in front of him. "It's not my problem, in any case. I could care less what they think."

Hakkai regarded Sanzo with expressionless eyes. "You know, it's most likely a good thing that you have your head bandaged like that. If they figured out that you are a prie—"

"Well, they won't. At least, not for awhile." He smoked away steadily, the lit end of his cigarette glowing red for a moment as he tapped off the excess ash. "How long do you think before we are ready to head out?"

Hakkai shrugged. "Depends entirely on whether we think it is a greater risk staying here or leaving. Youkai could show up at any moment, here or out in the wild. Here, at least, there are others around. Before you say anything, I know that we are trying not to get others involved. But I think we would all prefer not dying. If we stay here there are people around who could protect us in case—"

"I don't need protection, Hakkai," Sanzo said irritably. "Especially not from a bunch of piss-for-brains idiots who have no clue what they are up against. Got it?"

"Yes, well…" Sanzo's words seemed to have momentarily shaken Hakkai from what he had been trying to say. "Wrong word choice, then. What I meant to say was that we could lie low here for awhile. At least three more days. I would recommend far longer—say a week to a month—but I know that we can't afford to wait that long. Either way, we will want to wait until you and Gojyo can have you stitches safely removed."

"I don't want that damned kappa slowing us down!"

"Talking about me, Sanzo-chan?"

Sanzo grit his teeth as he heard the singsong voice. "What do you want?"

Gojyo draped himself over one of the barstools, propping his feet up on another, cigarette in his mouth. "I happened to hear my name. Didn't know I was so popular with you, oh great Sanzo."

Sanzo pulled out his gun. "May I shoot him?"

Hakkai gave a short laugh. "I thought you didn't want to attract attention?"

Sanzo set the gun back in its holster. "I suppose I will have to make yet another sacrifice for you, Gojyo. So shut up or next time I won't worry about what anyone else notices."

"Is that a threat?" Gojyo continued to taunt the priest, regardless of the repercussions.

"Gojyo, I agree with Sanzo on this. Be quiet." Hakkai crossed his arms, regarding the two of them calmly. "We were just talking about how long we are going to have to stay here. How are you—we might as well ask, Sanzo—feeling? Or rather, how is that rather nasty wound in your chest?"

"Better then when Sanzo shot me," said Gojyo, smirking. "Though it might be nice to stay here. They've got beer, so it's all good."

Hakkai frowned. "Speaking of beer, you're not supposed to have alcohol so soon after being injured. I would advise against smoking as well, but I'm afraid that it would take something far more drastic to stop the two of you."

"Damn straight." Gojyo blew out a breath of smoke, right into Hakkai's face.

"Hey, guys! Guys!" Goku bounded up like an exuberant animal.

"And the monkey's already perfectly fine," muttered Gojyo, crushing his cigarette and lighting another.

Goku leapt onto a chair, bouncing slightly, his feet tapping the floor. "Hey, I was—"

"If you say that you are hungry, I'm going to shoot you."

Goku wilted slightly, though his energy still stayed high. "I wasn't going t' say that! Really!"

"I'm sure."

"Really!" he protested, leaning forward towards them. "I was just going t' ask if—"

"Does it have anything to do with food?" cut in the kappa, smoke curling around his head. "Does it?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Don't want to hear it," said Sanzo sharply. "Can't you keep your mouth shut for ten seconds?"

Ten seconds passed before an agitated Goku responded. "Yes, I can! Anyway, I was just going t' ask when we were going t' go get th' ramen! Remember?" he asked, seeing the blank looks on their faces. "Come on, don't you remember? On the stairs? Hello?"

"Ah, yes." Hakkai broke the sudden silence first. "Those never-ending stairs. We all agreed that when this was over we would go get some ramen."

"With pork ribs," added Gojyo, remembering. "And Sanzo wanted mayonnaise in his, right?"

"I seem to recall that he said something like that. But I don't think that we can go get the ramen now."

"But why, Hakkai? I'm so hung—"

"Silence!"

"Because we are still recovering," explained Hakkai, the most patient of the three. "Don't worry, Goku. We'll have ramen before we leave this town."

"Yay! Ramen!"

"Silence!" Sanzo slammed his hands down on the table, crumpling the edges of the newspaper as he did so. "I don't want to hear anything else about ramen, do you hear me?"

"Come on, Sanzo—"

"Not one more word."

…

Sha Gojyo was fond of women. Actually, he was more than simply fond of them: in his mind, if there were no women in the world than life wasn't quite worth living. With his good looks it was easy enough to charm all the women he wanted into his bed. One would think that being injured would make him take a break, maybe make him stop trying to seduce women for a while.

Instead, Gojyo used his injuries to his advantage. After all, you can get a lot of sympathy off of a fabricated story where you're the hero, get hurt, and kick ass all at the same time.

With all of his companions gone—including the priest, who would normally beat the kappa over the head with his fan whenever said kappa tried to pick up chicks—Gojyo was able to try this tactic on any good looking woman who passed his way.

He had several problems with this, however. The first was that there were not a lot of women in the bar that was adjoined to the inn. A few serving girls, who he had already tried flirting with, gave him a myriad of different reactions. One or two of them were too shy to do anything but blush and giggle, another had given him a teasing smile only to hold out her hand and show him that she had was wearing a wedding band. The last had glowered at him, telling him to leave her alone—though with much less polite wording—or she would shove the serving tray up a certain body cavity of his.

Not a very polite girl, he thought, watching the sway of her hips as she stalked away. But then, I might have been a little too persistent. What could he say? The girl had been uncommonly good looking and it was only someone who was incredibly stupid who would pass up an opportunity to get her between the sheets. So maybe the girl had a reason to fling exceedingly vile expletives at him…

There were a few other women in the room as well, though a few of them already had male companions. One sat alone, which would have given Gojyo a reason to try his luck on her, but from what he could see she was not particularly attractive. Not ugly, but not attractive. And from where he was sitting, he couldn't quite tell how old she was. Oh, her shape was curvaceous and her she seemed young, but her hair was completely white with silver streaks, prematurely grey.

When she turned so that he could fully see her face, he decided that he might try to get her into his bed. She was young, with far-set dark eyes and pale skin. Pretty enough. But, then realizing why she had turned around, he reasoned that he probably shouldn't try at all.

There had been a shout, a high pitched cry that cut through the relative silence in the room. Short, loud, and then a small dark shape streaked across the room towards her.

"Mother!"

A child normally meant that there was a father somewhere around and Gojyo really didn't feel like getting into a huge mess at the moment. Besides, he reasoned, there was probably no way he could get an extra room and even if he did Sanzo would most likely rant and rave at him for hours about going off by himself. And then Hakkai would lecture him about doing certain things in his condition. And then that naïve little monkey would make some comment that would shut everyone up, as they didn't want to explain everything to him at the moment.

"What is it, Vatsa?" the woman asked, picking up what Gojyo could now see was a very small, very muddy boy.

"Goro pushed me in the mud," the boy said with a sniffle, sitting in his mother's lap and getting mud all over her clothing. "An' he called me a bunch of words. But I don' know what they mean."

"Well, do not repeat them, whatever they were," she said, smoothing the boys muddy hair. "And do not worry about Goro. Now, you are all dirty. Your aunt is in our rooms; go and get a bath."

"But Mother!"

"No buts," she said sternly, though there was a smile playing around her lips. "Go."

The boy pouted but he left the room, climbing the stairs that lead up out of the bar and passed out of Gojyo's sight.

"Cute kid," he commented. The woman turned, startled at first, and them smiled.

"Yes, he is. But a handful." Gojyo noticed that she wasn't wearing a ring on any of her fingers. Maybe he would…no; not when there was a kid involved. But that didn't mean he couldn't have a conversation. After all, a conversation with a woman wouldn't end up with a bullet being shot at his head, would it? Then again, he thought to himself, would he really be able to have conversation with a woman without hitting on her?

"Looks like it." He tapped off the ash from his cigarette in the ashtray. "How old is he?"

"Oh, around seven," she answered. Gojyo noticed that she kept glancing up at his hair and he felt only minutely uncomfortable. After all, he had gotten used to all the looks that his hair and eye color got. But this woman didn't seem to be looking at him in revulsion for knowing what the color meant or with fascination at the strangeness of it. She simply looked—there was no other way to put it—surprised. "He's been getting into fights, or rather, one of the kids around here has been getting into fights with him."
"Comes in covered in mud often?" Gojyo asked, thinking back to a few good memories from his childhood that involved mud puddles.

She nodded, looking down at her now mud covered clothing. "Yes. But his aunt will get him cleaned up. Though I'm probably a bit mean to be dumping him on her." She gave him a warm smile. "Oh well. I'm Kioko, by the way." She held out her hand to him.

"Gojyo," he said, shaking her hand. "Pleased to meet you, beautiful. And what was your son's name?"

"Vatsa." Kioko picked up her glass that had been sitting on the table, taking a sip of its contents. "The boy, Goro, has been teasing him about it for quite a long time. I'm fairly certain that that was what sparked the fight this time. Though it could have been something else."

"Knowing boys, it could have been anything," he commented, stretching slightly, cat-like, and wincing as a touch of pain lanced through his chest. Damn Kami-sama for giving him that wound. "I'd say that he'll grow out of getting in fights, but that would probably be a lie."

"Speaking of fights," Kioko began, setting down the glass, "you are one of the men, the ones who got rid of whatever was in the forest, weren't you?"

Gojyo nodded. "Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

Kioko pointed to his heavily bandaged arm. "Everyone here knows that four men showed up, terribly wounded, the other day. No one else here would be covered in bandages unless it was one of them. Anyway, I would like to thank you, Gojyo-san."

"For what, exactly?"

"For making it safer for my boy to go outside. Not that it is entirely safe, but with that—that thing in there…" She shuddered. "I would prefer not to think about it. Just…thank you."

"You're welcome." Well, he hadn't really tried to hit on her yet. She really wasn't that that bad looking. The hair was more silver than grey and was pretty, in a unique sort of way. She was attractive; come to think of it…He switched chairs so that he was sitting opposite her at the table. Only one question to ask now, since he had noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding band. "So," he began, taking the cigarette from his lips and leaning closer to her. "Your husband around?"

Her eyebrows rose in slight confusion. Then she gave a small laugh that she turned into a cough. "My husband? No. He's…well, I don't have a husband."

Well, then, so the boy was—

Before Gojyo could finish the thought, Kioko continued. "Vatsa's adopted, actually. I became his 'mother' when he was three. His aunt is actually the one that he was with before, but she says that she isn't his mother either. I don't really know the entire story, but she's been around his entire life. He hasn't known a time without her. Well…when she travels she is obviously not around, but other than that…" Her voice trailed off and she looked down into her glass before picking it up and taking a sip. "But he's a great kid. Don't know what I'd do without him."

"Well, I do like women who love kids." He winked at her.

Kioko smiled at him. He couldn't quite tell if she had picked up on his true meaning of his words or not; she wasn't blushing, as some girls did when they realized he was hitting on them, and she didn't look particularly interested, as was the response of others. Other than her smile, her only reaction was to pick back up her glass and take a sip of whatever was inside it. He figured that it was coffee from what he could see.

"So, beautiful," he said, leaning back and propping his feet up on the table, "you live around here, or are you just passing through?"

"Vatsa and I live here," she replied, pushing a silver lock of hair out of her face and ignoring his 'beautiful.' "On the other side of town, actually. We moved here two years ago. Lok-san and Vatsa's aunt helped us to settle down." She set down the empty cup. "And you? Well, I know that you don't live here, obviously, but how long are you staying?"

Maybe she was interested. He was sure that he could detect something in her voice. Gojyo shrugged. "Until we're ready to move on. Hakkai would probably like us to stay for a couple weeks, but it'll be two or three days if Sanzo has his way. Why do you ask? Is there something you want?" He leaned closer to her and was content to see that she had definitely gotten his meaning this time; her cheeks colored slightly.

Kioko, her cheeks still rosy, looked at him and smiled. "Might be." That was good. She was flirting with him now. Then she frowned. "But…but did you just say Sa—"

"Kioko!"

They both looked towards the stairwell. Another woman—who looked to be around Kioko's age—had just entered the floor. Gojyo looked at her in surprise; she was soaking wet.

She walked over to where Kioko was sitting, leaning on the back of her chair. "I'm going to get you back for this, Kioko."

It looked as though Kioko was trying hard not to laugh. "What did Vatsa do now?"

The woman sighed, indicating her sodden clothes with her hands. "He flooded the room."

"What?"

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. "You heard me right. He flooded the room. Where is Lok-san?"

Kioko pointed to the bar, still struggling not to laugh. "In the back room."

She sighed again. "Wonderful." She wrung out her long braid over Kioko's head, causing the woman to leap slightly in her seat, then headed off to find the barkeeper. "Lok-san!"

The barkeeper appeared at the door leading into the back room. "What is it?" He stopped, noticing the state of her clothes. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he could get the words out. "What happened?"

Gojyo watched with amusement as the woman leaned on the counter. "Vatsa. And I need towels. Lots of them."

"Hold on just a moment. Do you need anything else?"

"A bucket and a mop, most likely. The water's probably running out of the room by now." Gojyo laughed at the expression of panic on the barkeeper's face. Then he turned his attention back to the woman, taking the opportunity to see what he could of her, as her drenched clothes were sticking to her body in a very revealing manner. He was disappointed to see that she did not have the most curvaceous body.

She turned, walking back to where he and Kioko were sitting. "I'm sorry, I forgot my manners. I am Eshana."

"Sha Gojyo."

Eshana pulled back her friend's chair. "Well then, Sha Gojyo, please excuse us. Kioko, you are going to help me clean up this mess."

"Fine. Just hold on a moment…Gojyo-san, it was nice talking to you." Kioko rose from her chair, following after an irate Eshana.

"And you, Kioko-san." He gave her a very sly smile. "Maybe I'll see you tonight?"

Kioko just returned the smile and followed the other woman out of the room.

That had gone pretty well. At least, he thought so. He leaned back in his chair, still smoking, the smoke swirling in the air before him.

Yes, it had gone well.

…

Hakkai had taken to pacing, quickly getting very tired of staying in one small room in the inn. A constantly smoking Sanzo and a hungry Goku could wear on someone's nerves easily. At least Gojyo was gone, probably drinking at the bar, trying to pick up women. And Hakkai was still healing, too injured to leave the inn and do something else. Not that he didn't mind being able to rest and not having to worry about where they were going to sleep that night or having to cook every meal…

Sanzo was sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall with a newspaper in one hand and a cigarette in the other. White smoke curled around him and Hakkai could smell the ashy scent, which was not a smell that he particularly liked. The monk was still wearing the black shirt that the barkeeper had obtained for him and he was barefoot, one of his sandals finally wearing out during their sojourn in Kami-sama's castle.

They were all wearing borrowed clothes. With rents and tears, along with huge bloodstains that were not coming out, their old clothes were practically useless. Pretty much everything they were wearing now was something that had been supplied by the barkeeper.

He was a very kind and considerate man, Hakkai thought, to help four men who were obviously not the type you would want to meet on the street. They were paying him, of course, but there were not many that would still be willing to help them if they didn't know that Sanzo was a priest.

Of course, they couldn't go on wearing these clothes. Some of their old garments could be fixed and cleaned, Sanzo's robes for example, and most of Goku's ensemble, but his own clothing were pretty torn up and Gojyo's were stained completely with blood. Even if they were fixable, sewing was the one thing that Hakkai would not do. Cooking, driving, healing, all that he would do. But there was no way he was going to sew for them.

Which meant one thing: they would have to find a tailor in the town and buy new clothes. Not something that he looked forward to doing. Not with his current company, at any rate.

Hakkai stopped pacing and sat down in a chair, sighing. Within a moment Jeep had flown over, settling himself in his lap, cheeping and cooing as Hakkai scratched the dragon on his head. At least the dragon was good company.

He looked over at the blond monk. "Sanzo?"

The man didn't even look up from his paper as he answered. "What is it, Hakkai?"

Hakkai sighed again. "You've noticed the state of our clothing, correct?"

"Yes. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, before we can leave this town we are going need functional garments."

"Your point, Hakkai?" Sanzo glanced up from his reading, looking over the rims of his glasses.

"Sanzo, we're going to have to go…shopping."

"Shopping?" asked Goku, bounding over to him. "For food?"

"No, Goku," said Hakkai with an amused smile. "Not for food. For clothing." He thought that he heard Sanzo mutter something along the lines of 'wonderful' in the background.

Goku wilted visibly. "But we can't eat clothing."

Sanzo glared at him. "Are you being an idiot on purpose, monkey?"

"I'm not a monkey! Stop calling me a monkey!"

"Now, now, Goku." There was a very amused note in Hakkai's voice. "We can get some food while we are out."

"Yay! Food!"

Sanzo threw down his newspaper. "Damn it, Goku, be quiet!"

Goku continued to move around the room in an excited fashion, though he limped every other step because of his wounded leg. "Hakkai, I'm hungry now," he stated after a few moments. "Can we go get the food now?"

There was a dull thudding sound as Sanzo let his head fall back against the wall in an exasperated manner. "Idiot. Don't you think of anything other than food?"

"Yeah, sometimes…so, Hakkai, can we go get food?" Goku was not easily distracted, especially where food was concerned. "Can we?"

"We'll go shopping in a few days, Goku," said Hakkai, still scratching Jeep's head. "But you can head downstairs if you're hungry. The barkeeper's keeping a tab on how much we owe him, so we'll just pay before we leave."

"Food!" Goku scrambled for the door as fast as his injured leg could take him. He opened the door and looked outside. "Hey, guys? Did you know that there's a river in the hallway?"