Chapter Five

The Power of a Name in the Absolute Silence

Hakkai pushed his door open, glad of the little electric light that met him upon entering his and Gojyo's room. It was a local Inn, and not very wealthy. Lights went out in the hallways after ten o'clock. How did Hakkai know this? Because the Sanzo Party had been staying at the same Inn for three nights in a row.

"Any luck?"

Hakkai shook his head. "I brought him up dinner, but he hadn't even touched his breakfast. I'll have to apologizes to the cook. After all, he's hardly eaten anything for these last few days."

"Lilly-handed spoiled bastard," Gojyo spat, glaring holes into the ceiling as he lay on his bed.

"…I take it you don't have a wink of sleep in you either?"

"Ha. You're kidding me, right? …So, what was his holiness doing, apart from catching up on his last half a year of penitent fasting?"

Hakkai shrugged, walking across the room and sitting down on his own bed. He was stiff in his right shoulder. Must have been the stress. He tried to rub out the knot. "On one bed, you have Goku, peacefully asleep. On the other you have Sanzo, sitting up, meditating, and glaring holes into his pupil." Hakkai and Gojyo spoke quietly, never raising their voices above a murmur. It was as if… as if they were not the ones who were allowed to start a racket. That member of the Sanzo Party… he was gone.

"…Throw me a smoke."

Hakkai leaned over to the drawer next to his bed, swiped off the pack of cigarettes, and tossed it across the room. Even the sound of hand catching package was somehow quieter than usual, rather than being louder in this silence. There was a gentle 'click' as Gojyo flipped his lighter open, and Hakkai vaguely wondered if it was the same lighter they had found in the closet with Goku.

Hakkai thought back to Goku and what he had said about how he, Hakkai, had only lost his name after committing heinous sins, whereas Goku had lost his very identity. The question was…

"A penny for your thoughts," Gojyo exhaled a stream of smoke.

"…I'm wondering at the logic behind erasing Goku's memory in the first place." Gojyo turned his head to look away from the ceiling and to Hakkai. Hakkai could rather sense than see one crimson eyebrow arching in a question. "You see, let us say that the memories that Goku had were good memories – why erase them? Surely any good memories he had would have served as a greater tormentor for him when he was in the cave. So then, they could have been bad memories – in which case they were taken from him for his own protection, as much as for the protection of the gods. But then, bad memories are a tormentor, but they're very virtue of being…bad. So why erase them?"

Gojyo brought the cigarette to his lips again, his eyes fixed on Hakkai. "…Sounds twisted…"

"Hm."

...

Again, the whispers faded to silence. Gojyo hated it. He was so going to kill the monkey when he got his hands on him. He just needed for Goku to return to a state where he could appreciate the punishment…

…How long were they going to stay here? Well, that was easy: until Sanzo decided to move. The question was, what was the bastard thinking? Gojyo had once heard Sanzo say that he 'didn't take any extra baggage.' Did Goku now count as extra baggage? In all sincerity Gojyo could no more imagine Sanzo leaving Goku behind then he could have imagined Goku leaving Sanzo behind.

But then, isn't that exactly what Goku did? And they couldn't exactly just travel with Sleeping Beauty. He would be too easy a target for youkai attacks. Suddenly, what with all this brooding, Gojyo was seeing how Sanzo had lost his appetite.

There was an impatient knock on their door. Gojyo looked up from his bed and exchanged a glance with Hakkai. Could it be Sanzo? Given what he had been thinking about him just them, the entrance of the monk would be too cliché. But then, Sanzo seemed as prone to cliché entrances as Kougaiji was to arriving on the scene from high places. He had noticed the former; Goku the later.

Another knock, and another, and then, "Oh, for crying out loud boys! Get up, get decent, and rally in your leader's room! Come on. I expect you in five, so haul your little booties for the first time in three bloody days!" The voice that came as a shout through the door left a more complete silence than ever. Then, like racehorses out of the gate, he and Hakkai bolted into action.

What the hell?

Gojyo knew that voice. It, the voice, was female. Its owner was slightly less so. Slightly. He heaved himself off his bed, scrambled across the room on two feet and one arm, the other occupied with his cigarette, yanked at the belt he had discarded on the back of a chair, and was out of the room a hair's breadth behind Hakkai. The hallway was already deserted, but that famed radar had gone off in his head again only moments before two gunshots were heard from Sanzo's room. So, the bastard is alive.

...

Oh, he was no in the mood for this witch or her walrus-mustached flunky.

His gun cocked, his every nerve on fire, his head light from lack of sleep, his stomach empty and his boy breathing regularly and unresponsively on the bed across from him, he was not in the mood for this god damn–

"Hello to you too, darling," said the old hag, uttering the first words he had heard clearly in days.

"Announcing," the mustached man said wearily, as if he wanted to be there as little as Sanzo wanted him to be there, "The Merciful Goddess, one of Five–"

And in crashed the backup. It took all of Sanzo's self-restraint not to shoot them for good measure. After all, he might need the bullets for the crone. The crone was none other than the goddess responsible for sending him on this thrice accused journey with these thrice accuses three idiots – the Merciful Goddess who, to top it all, had copped a feel on him more than once.

Two more shots went off, because he felt like it. The walrus twitched. One left.

Even with the gunshots the silence that followed was only the more absolute. Without a word, Hakkai closed the door behind him, and they were enclosed by four walls.

"What. Do. You. Want?"

"For. You. To. Move. Your. Asses," she answered, mimicking his voice, already so strained on the leash that was 'self-restraint.'

And there went the last shot. She yawned, a bored expression on her face. Her lackey, however, looked ready to wet himself. "Let me remind you that you boys are on a mission. I don't pay you to sit around and mope in your rooms."

"I'll move when I feel like it."

"Really? Well, there's this funny thing called the police. They come and deal with reprobates, which is exactly what you'll be when you hand the Inn keeper an expired credit card." She smirked. "Got me?" Then she looked over her shoulder at Hakkai and Gojyo. "Oh, come on. Get in front of me with your friend so that I can see you all. Go on, move!"

Gojyo looked about to protest, but Hakkai just grabbed him by the upper arm and steered him around the divine pair to stand next to Sanzo. He, it seemed, had taken the credit card threat seriously.

Sanzo, however, was beyond caring. Here she came, so high and mighty and damn full of herself. He had been utterly neutral to the idea of gods when he was a boy at his Master Koumyou's temple. What use were the gods? It was his master who had saved him and brought him up. It was his master that held his utter devotion. No gods.

His opinion had not changed when he met the Three Aspects, though even he was in sight awe of these three being that connected the Lower and Upper Word. That awe faded however, and by the time he released Goku from his cage and heard how they spoke of the little ape as of 'a great and terrible being,' he pretty much knew they were as full of it as any mortals. And that was just a few months after meeting them.

It was only when he began to come into contact with true gods that he began to breed a sincere dislike for them. First it had been merely 'the direct order of the Merciful Goddess' that he must take Goku, Hakkai and Gojyo on the longest road trip in history. That had pissed him off royally, but because Goku and Gojyo were closer to him than any aloof goddess, he had vented on them with gun and paper fan.

Then, after waking up from a comatose state after a near death experience with Shuei, one of the only friends he'd had in his childhood, Gojyo had informed him that The Hermaphrodite on High had come down and made out with him… but that was only after making out with Gojyo, so technically they had shared an indirect kiss. Fantastic.

At that point Sanzo had decided that he hated gods about as much as he hated everyone else and never mind that, as a Sanzo Priest, he was one of their five representatives on Earth. This was before he had woken up with the old bag straddling him and cupping his chin in her hand. Then, around the same time, he met the War Prince Homura, who then proceeded to try and take away his Maten Scripture and Goku.

No, Sanzo held no friendship toward the gods, and it did not help that the Merciful Goddess had, between sexual innuendos, informed him that he and his companions were something of a form of entertainment to her. Now, there was probably only one thing Sanzo hated more than being a pawn in some twisted celestial game, and that was being a pawn in some twisted celestial game, unable to get his monkey into the clear.

He blinked, and a blinding flash of the obvious struck him.

So…let's presume that I am the pawn, and that she moves the pieces on the chess board. In that case… His grip tightened on his gun and he snapped it open to reload it. …in that case she can cut through the bullshit I've been wading in for the last three nights.One, two, three, four, five bullets. Provided she's willing to fork over the information…Well, he would just have to shoot it out of her if she wasn't. He would rage, kill and mutilate, but he was going to get to the bottom of this.

He cocked his gun and aimed. "Start talking." Again, that maddening silence filled the room. The only sound now was Goku's steady breathing.

She smiled at the three men in front of her. It was not the smirk she had been giving him a moment ago. There was none of the usual sarcastic seduction about it. The look she was giving Sanzo now was almost… motherly.

She walked over to Goku's bed and, despite how Sanzo tensioned, sat down at the end of it. She leaned back comfortably. "Once upon a time there was a man. He had long golden hair, which he kept tied back away from his face, and he wore pearl white robes. He bore a chakra on his forehead. One day, a very long time ago, he took in a dirty urchin of a boy. A lot of jazz happened, but in the end, he died trying to save the child."

The momentary anticipation that had risen in Sanzo at the prospect of getting some answers deflated in the most dissatisfying, bitter way. "What is this?" he hissed. "I don't need you repeating my life story, thank you very much."

"Oh, but it isn't your life story." That cynical smirk was back on her face now. "It's Goku's."

"…" He had never hated silence so much as he did now. Never.

"I said 'a long time ago.' This all took place long before you or Koumyou Sanzo were born. It's ancient history." She shrugged, looking at the sleeping boy. "The only one who would care about it now is Goku."

"But I thought," Sanzo jumped at Hakkai's voice, "that Goku didn't have any memories of his past, and he never mentioned a man to us." It was satisfying, having Hakkai's cool reasoning at his back when his own mind was somehow going into reverse. It was at times like this that the three idiots came in useful. Of course, their use was canceled out by the fact that Hakkai's good reasoning was only in response to a problem created by Goku. Damn monkey.

And there was that smirk again. Sanzo really hated this hag. "He doesn't need to. He's carried the token of that man all his life."

Sanzo actually swallowed as she looked at him now. "Didn't you wonder how your Scripture activated without your chanting the sutra? It was his name – the only thing he remembered from before the cave. The only thing that connected him to his past… until now."

Something inside of Sanzo cracked. Silently. It couldn't have been his sanity. That had gone long ago. He had never questioned where Goku had gotten his name. Hell, the fact that he could remember that much was good enough. Why ask questions? Sanzo had never even considered that at some point, at some time… someone had named him. There was power in a name. A name shaped a person. His own name was proof of that. As a child: Kouryuu, the river orphan. Being called by that name had made him sullen and resilient to the bullies of this world. It had taught him before his time to be guarded against everyone. But it had also been a name that he treasured, as it reminded him that he had been named after something as beautiful and majestic as the Yangtze River. Then his second name: Genjo Sanzo. Everything he was now was because he had inherited that name and tried to live up to it. His very existence revolved around his name. Everyone's did. Everyone had a name and a feud attached to it. That was why Hakkai had his changed – so that he might start his life afresh.

Sanzo had always thought of himself as Goku's keeper, his teacher even – and, in the deepest confines of his mind, his father. He had felt that, for better or worse, Goku had been molded by his example. Now, however, entered another figure. This had been the unnamed foe that he had shamefully feared. This had been the reason he refused to help Goku in his quest for the past. Now he knew for certain that somewhere, buried in five hundred years of history and in a boy's lost memories, was a man who had given his ward the name 'Goku.'

Shakily, he lowered his arm. He had not said anything for minutes now. "I thought," his voice did not sound like his own, but he did not stop talking. He could not let them know that he was shaken. He was not shaken. "…that you were all about our 'going West.' Why send the chimp running down memory lane now?"

Another deafening silence, with only Goku's oblivious breathing to make it the all the more quiet. "…I didn't."

"He said he met a dame that gave him the package that started all this. We found it on him." That's right… Gojyo's still in the room, Sanzo thought vaguely.

"Not one of ours I'm afraid," the Goddess responded, getting up from the bed and straitening her dress.

"Then whose?"

"Can't say. I'm just here to get you boys going." He. Hated. Her. Smile.

"…Then tell us where Goku is right now." Hakkai.

"Him? He's in his own mind. Oh, don't worry, he's perfectly healthy. It isn't your normal comatose state. He can stay like this for quite a while, as long as you feed him. And the upside is you don't have to catch all the fish in the ocean as you do when he's awake." She motioned to her lackey. "Just keep heading West, will you? You're not going to resolve anything, universal or local, by staying around this dump. And do remember what I said about the credit card–"

"–What was his name?"

She was already turning to leave when he forced that question out of his mouth. He hated that he cared, but he needed to know.

She looked back. "Whose?"

"His guardian's."

"Oh." On slid that foul smirk. "Konzen. Konzen Douji." The smirk wavered, and again became that eerie motherly smile. "He was my nephew."

I don't give a fuck! Sanzo fired off five rounds then, and all of them embedded in the back wall. The Merciful Goddess and her walrus were gone and Sanzo was left in rage. He knew that name. And he knew that Hakkai and Gojyo would know it too. It was the name by which Homura had always called him. It was the name he had been dreading to hear.

Suddenly he hated Homura a thousand times more than he had before. So… so they had all been laughing at him? He wasn't worthy of being called 'Sanzo.' Why? Because he didn't stand alone as 'Sanzo.' He was just… just a second 'Konzen,' whoever the hell that was! He was just the replacement for Goku's original guardian!

Homura…Zenon…Shien…the old hag… They all looked at him as merely a replacement figure. He wasn't even a pawn. He was the bit of wood they picked out and put on the chess board after the pawn had rolled between the floorboards and couldn't be reached anymore. What. The. Fuck!

He swallowed hard. And…His eyes slid across from the blank spot where the goddess had stood to where Goku lay on his cot… And what about you? Eh? Subconsciously? How often did you clutch onto me because somewhere in the back of your mind I was your link to your old master? How many of those stupid hugs were really for him?! It hurt to think. Yet to not think meant to listen to this infernal silence!

"…Sanzo?"

He blinked. Right, the two morons were still here. "Out," he barked.

"Listen man–"

"Out! We leave in the morning," he rasped. He kept his head turned away from the door as Hakkai and Gojyo brushed past him. His eyes were fixed only on the boy lying on the bed.

The door clicked shut. Silence. Farther down the hall another door clicked shut.

"…You bastard," he hissed. "You selfish, fucking bastard." His only answer was steady breathing in the silence.

...

"Sir? Mr. Ukoku?"

"Huum?" The Raven Sanzo looked up from the whiskey he was savoring. This eatery was quite charming, backwater as it was. He sensed rather than saw the rustling of braids. Just as he had sensed them three days before when he had sent the girl across the room and to a certain table that sat four.

"Why hello my little dear."

"My mission is accomplished."

"I know," he smiled rakishly at her through the cool darkness of the evening hair, the boredom never lifting from his eyes, hollow as they were.

He took a long drag from his cigarette and reached across the table. "Here you go," he said, sliding and envelope forward. "Here's your reward as promised. That should be more than enough to aid your sickly mother, eh?"

There was a brief, delicious, silence. Then she walked across the room, reached out a hand, and took up the envelope.

"Whoops,looky there." He caught her by her outstretched wrist and felt her stiffen in his grip. "You've got a smear mark here." Smirking, he slowly licked his thumb and trailed it in circles over a spot on her forehead, which he found with ease. "There you go," he whispered silkily. He felt her trembling. How nice.He trailed a hand under her chin and brought her face down against his. Again, he smirked as he let her slip back through his fingers.

"Careful now with that package," he hummed as she half walked, half staggered from the room. "You need to be weary of how you use the stuff inside. It's a temperamental antidote." He slipped his cigarette once more between his lips and drew a breath. He knew the white parchment was now stained with the red paint from his fingers that had been smeared onto her forehead. Like a chakra.

He once more directed himself to the dusty chess set that he'd laid out before him. Apparently, the restaurateur kept a number of board games in the back, for children. Kougaiji had been the knight. But now… a change in casting was required. Ukoku reached across and plucked up what he knew was a black pawn. He weighed it momentarily in his hand, then threw it into the surrounded darkness. It clanked and clattered as it fell out into the street, but then went still, lost forever down some drain.

Ukoku felt for the whiskey bottle by his side, and uncorked it. The bottle he would finish within the hour. The cork, however, he set down squarely on the chess set. A fitting replacement.

...

Those references to the Merciful Goddess, Kanzeon Bosatsu, that are not from the manga are from: Gensomaden Saiyuki, Episode 29.