"Your Voice, Your Heart" by: Setsuna X
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Summary: Stuck in a town for days Goku finds himself enraptured by a young girl. When the time to leave comes, will he leave with Sanzo, who always treats him badly, or stay with the girl who promised to love him forever?
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. They still belong to Minekura. Do you think she accepts Credit?
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"Che," grumbled Sanzo as he exited and walked through the bustling market place. It seemed that the villagers woke up early to be able to sell their goods first. Sanzo continued walking aimlessly through the many food stands, letting his feet lead him where they will.
He continued thinking over that 'demon-girl' as the villagers called her. On the outside she seemed like any normal teenage kid, her features were neither exceptionally ugly nor beautiful. Her hair was long and slightly miskept from not being cleaned often enough and her stature was a bit shorter than Goku, give or take a centimeter or two. Her frame was thin and seemingly weak, but for some reason a good nights rest seemed to do wonders for her.
It was not natural for a human under those circumstances to neither heal that quickly nor be able to function as if nothing had happened the day before. Sanzo knew that Hakkai had healed her wounds, and if anything, Hakkai was an exceptional healer, being healed by him more than he could count, and knew that the brat would probably be fine. Yet it seemed as if the healing process was too quick, even with Hakkai's assistance. In addition, Sanzo couldn't make out why it was so different.
Unless, she wasn't human…
The towns' people referred to her as a demon and cursed her whenever they saw the chocolate-haired girl. It was a known fact that demons had greater resistance to most things that would often kill humans. Poisons, deep wounds, and blood loss were just to name a few, but another exceptional trait that demons seemed to have was their healing abilities. Under the worst conditions a demon can naturally heal themselves with their demonic chi. It wasn't something that Sanzo really understood, he just knew it to be true.
Maybe that was how the child had healed so quickly? She was extremely undernourished and the breakfast they were having would have made her a little sick, seeing as if she shouldn't be able to eat so much food in one sitting after having been practically starving.
Sanzo pondered this further as he ended up on the outskirts of the town. It was also odd that Hakkai, their certified healer, had healed the girl, the starvation going completely unnoticed. It didn't seem right. Hakkai was sharper than their other companions were and readily trusted his assessments of the situations they seemed to always find themselves in, but this time it seemed that Hakkai was firmly on the girls side. Maybe it brought back memories of his own childhood or something, or he simply pitied and sympathized with the girl, but it seemed as if he wouldn't be leaving the little brat alone for a while. Especially since the other, two of their group seemed to be completely on her side as well.
All these thoughts were only giving Sanzo a headache. He should just leave those fools to fend for themselves. It wasn't his fault that they constantly refused to believe and obey him. Sanzo knows that something is not right about the girl, and despite not wanting to get involved with the situation and teach his fellow youkai companions a lesson he could not let this go.
Sanzo noticed that something was really not right. The speedy recovery, Hakkai's inability to diagnose and treat the girl properly, and Goku's fast infatuation with the brat. All these instances point back to the fact that the girls' aura was not what it should be.
Sanzo found a small, wooden bench under an abandoned buildings' roof on the very outskirts of the town and sat down. He pulled out a cigarette and tried to relax with a smoke. While he was walking through the market place he noticed several villagers pointing to the sky or constantly glancing at is saying words like 'not again' and 'the time is repeating'. Sanzo wondered what they were talking about, but was so engrossed in his thoughts that he ignored them. Now that he sat and thought about it, maybe he should have asked one of the villagers for more information.
He took another drag from his cigarette, allowing the smoke to invade his lungs before exhaling it into the sky. He glanced up himself, staring as the grey clouds let out small droplets of rain. It was not a heavy downpour like yesterday, but still annoying to travel in. Yet, now he rather just leave this boring town and that small girl and risk getting soaked. It wasn't as if they didn't have the materials for camping out. And if he, the one that was bothered by the rain so much (except for Hakkai) was all right with traveling in the rain then the rest of the group should have no problem with it.
They would probably be astonished that he was willing to travel in such conditions, but right now, he seemed he would do anything to leave early. He didn't want to get involved with this girl if he didn't have to and he didn't want his companions to be attached to her more than they needed to. Especially Goku. The boy was so naïve and kind-hearted that it would really break him to find out some horrible truth that this girl seemed to be hiding. Gojyo and Hakkai would probably feel the same disappointment, but it wouldn't be as deep as Goku would feel it. He was unnaturally attached to that girl, only having met her for a few hours. Sure, Goku was generally easy going, but he wasn't that great of an idiot and should have had his guard up.
That is, unless he didn't have the chance to have his guard up.
This whole situation made him uneasy. However, it looked as if his companions were ready for any type of negotiations. Sanzo rose from his seat and dropped the used up cigarette to the ground, grinding it with his boot. He took another cigarette from its pack and placed the stick in his mouth, lighting up the end. He took a long drag then exhaled, ready to make his way back to town to be able to gain more information on the girl in order to build his case against her and convince his dim-witted and stubborn companions that they should leave immediately and forget that they had ever met this 'human-girl' Teitiel.
Sanzo turned; ready to trudge back to town when he felt something behind him. The aura felt familiar as he turned sharply, drawing his gun in one swoop as his cigarette flew from his mouth in surprise. Behind him, about to strike with sharpened claws was a youkai (1). Sanzo noticed that something wasn't right about this demon right away, as he dodged quickly by jumping back, swiftly moving his gun in position and shot two shots directly into the chest. Another demon sprung from the bushes near by, followed closely by three more demons.
Something about them seemed odd though. Their eyes seemed empty, like they were being controlled. The also didn't declare themselves as assassins nor as wanting the scripture, they just attacked. They moved quickly, surrounding him in a loose circle. Their eyes held no shimmer of life in them and when they moved it didn't look natural. Sanzo dodged left and right as the youkai barely missed him. One or two managed to rip his white Sanzo robes a bit on the sleeves, but no real harm came to him. The blonde priest shot another two rounds into a demon that had rushed him head on, his body hitting the ground loudly and with a small splash because of the fallen rain.
Sanzo's footing wasn't really the best. This terrain was wet and slippery and it made it difficult to move with ease and dodge the oncoming attacks from the oddly moving demons. He only had one shot left in his gun as he shot another demon squarely in the forehead, letting him drop like a fly.
Only two demons were left and he had no more ammo in his gun. The situation looked grim, but he had been in worse. He easily moved away from two other attacks, despite the sucky footing, and pulled out five bullets to reload his gun. He slipped in the cartridges easily, the movement coming to him naturally, and fired off another two rounds into another demon, vaguely noticing the dead body hit the ground as he turned to look at his remaining opponent. He knew he could easily kill this one demon, before it had been a bit difficult because of their numbers, but now only one was left and he was able to figure something out that had been bothering him since the fight had started.
As he noticed their eyes were empty, void of any conscious thought, and their movements were unnatural and forced, as if being controlled. This one demon, now that Sanzo evaluated closer, had the same aura (2) that Kira Teitiel had.
Now this was some proof to use against that 'demon-girl'. He knew he had been right when he said that there was something wrong with her. She seemed a little fake, and her smile seemed a little forced. This looked bad. His companions would probably not believe him, claiming that it was just his usual sour attitude that forced him to come to these conclusions. That girl had to be weaving some sort of demon spell or something like that around Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai in order to subtly control them. It seemed that the villagers and himself were unaffected since they were humans. Maybe the spell was related to his biological makeup or something mysterious like that.
The blonde monk swiftly placed another bullet into the demons heart, killing him instantly. Sanzo pulled out another cigarette, looking at the fallen one on the ground in distaste since it was such a waste and blew the smoke from his lungs. Sanzo proceeded to walk back into town, ignoring the small torns his robes seemed to acquire along with the splattered blood upon the white fabric.
On his way back to the hotel Sanzo stopped periodically to talk to the towns' people. Ignoring the way they seemed to stutter the fact that he was a Sanzo priest, the blonde man was able to gather further information on the girl 'Kira Teitiel'. He finally finished his inquiries and had some solid information and witnesses to finally convince his three demon companions that hanging out and protecting this girl was really not in their best interests.
TBC
A/N: Yay, chapter 6 is finally up. Thanks for people who are still reading this. I really do love Saiyuki, but I find it a bit difficult to write fics for it since I want to get their characters perfectly. I hope I'm doing an okay job at not destroying their personalities too much.
Notes:
(1) Youkai – demon; I'll alternate between using both words. This is just for clarification.
(2) Aura – "a subtle invisible essence or fluid said to emanate from human and animal bodies, and even from things; the atmosphere surrounding a person." More information can be found in How to read the Aura, Practice Psychometry, Telepathy and Clairvoyance" by W.E. Butler.
Special thanks, as always, goes out to my reviewers, since this story is for you guys!
Thanks to:
Gerigirl-I'm glad that you like the story, and please keep on reading.
Gen 50- I hope my message answered some things for you. Please understand that I'm trying to write them IC as much as I can. Then again, this is fanfiction and OOC is allowed, yet I'd rather not write so much of that.
Yin-Sid- Haha, I was reading DeathNote when I first thought of the name, but originally both names came from Angel Sanctuary (which, for the record, does not belong to me either). I'm glad you like the story, and thanks for your review.
StarComets 04- Thanks so much for your happy review and uplifting words. It'd be easier if you put this story on your alert list, but I'll send you a message regardless. Thanks for reading and for your review.
Thanks everyone and please look forward to future chapters!