Strangers on a Train

Chapter Two

Sanzo had deliberately told the other three that the train left an hour later than it really did that morning so he could avoid a big goodbye scene – this way by the time they came looking for him he would be long gone. He had left Hakkai a terse note with the AnEx card enclosed and figured that would take care of it. Hakkai would probably understand, and if he didn’t, fuck it. There had been too many goodbyes in his life already, some organized and formal, some simply slipping away by himself into the fog like this one, and he hadn’t liked any of them. But the formal ones involving other people had made him particularly uncomfortable, all smacking of unmet expectations, unexpressed emotions, and unbidden pain for everyone.

The train station was dark and damp, the wispy fog winding around in slinky fingers like those strange curling-line cloud designs you see on Chinese pottery and fabrics. It reminded Sanzo just how high up in the mountains they really were, as he realized that the fog drifting through the station was actually cirrus clouds wafting in slow-motion across the peaks. He did feel a bit of a twinge as he boarded the train, like perhaps there really should be someone there saying goodbye to him in the nearly-empty train station: like the scenes you saw in movies of tearful families, smiling bravely from the platform as they waved goodbye to loved ones. But then his life had never allowed for that kind of attachment with anyone, so why should today be any different? He boarded the steep steps onto the aging passenger car without looking back, and threaded his way down the narrow aisles to find a seat.

As he shoved his valise in the storage compartment and sat down on the battered leather bench seat of the smoking car, the nagging, pulling feelings preying around the corners of his mind would not leave him alone. He sighed as he lit a cigarette and grudgingly admitted to himself that it did feel a little strange leaving the saru and the others behind, without any sort of farewell, especially since he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he would even be seeing them again, that he would be coming back. Who knew whether the goddamn Sanbutsushin might not have some different fucking jackleg mission in mind for him now?

He also was haunted once again by that nagging feeling that he was being followed by some kind of a dark presence, which he had felt more and more strongly since that horrible day when Goku had been shot... A murderous intent like empty dark – that was how he had felt it that day, and it hadn’t changed, only become more familiar, closer, like it was circling around him in tighter and tighter orbits, and his vision of it was becoming less and less obscured. He hadn’t discussed it with anyone except for that brief moment of revelation when he had recognized the spoiled godling, Kami-sama, and made the connection with him and the Ukoko Sanzo of his youth – thinking back, that visit had to have been shortly before Koumyou’s death. The strange young protégé Ukoku had somehow acquired had given Kouryuu the creeps almost as much as the child’s master did- he remembered he had not been at all sorry to see them leave the Temple when their visit ended.

He didn’t know how much of his conversation with Kami-sama the rest of the Ikkou even remembered, in the midst of the chaos of that day – certainly it had never been mentioned by anyone since. Some months later there had been several brief, but frustratingly circuitous, discussions he had had with Hazel on the subject. Despite Hazel’s coy attempts to tell Sanzo only enough to keep him interested but not enough to be truly helpful, he had learned more than enough to fan the flames of his suspicion. And even then he hadn’t let on his growing concern that the fallen and very powerful Sanzo priest was behind Goku’s shooting and other evil happenings that had befallen them in recent years, and possibly a whole lot more.

In his gut, Sanzo felt like the rogue Ukoku had been a hovering threat on the fringes of his existence since his childhood with Koumyou: the darkness to his light, the night moon to his sun. From his days as the very young Kouryuu the river rat, at his Master’s side, the first person in his life he remembered ever being suspicious of or feeling wary around was the dark-haired teen Ken’yuu who showed up at the Temple one day and began hanging around at his Master’s side like a persistent fly. His mere presence had made the younger child clench his jaw, and shrink from his Master’s presence when the older student was around. He would find excuses to be elsewhere when they would sit and talk philosophy for hours on the benches outside Koumyou’s quarters in the evenings, or take long rambling walks along the riverbank.

As time wore on he questioned himself sharply, wondering if he was acting babyish and simply jealous of his Master’s time, which he had no right to be, given how lucky he was to even be under his care, and how easily he would have ended up on the rocks at the bottom of the cold, tumbling water, had Koumyou not heard his voice that fateful day when he had found him. But as he thought about it and watched them together, he knew there was something about the young acolyte that felt essentially wrong to him, that seemed to scream evil, to vibrate with danger, and it took all of his young will to remember his place and to not run screaming every time Ken’yuu visited, to not try to physically insert himself between the dark-eyed young man and his surrogate father, like every cell in his body was instinctively driving him to do. Even when Ken’yuu became Ukoku Sanzo, it didn’t mitigate his distrust of him, especially when he heard the rumors about how he had achieved his priesthood, and the brutal manner of his victory over the Sanzo Goudai. He had felt like his suspicions were completely borne out by the fact that the chakra point signifying divine ordination had never appeared on the new-made priest’s head.

When he had confirmation from Hazel that Ukoku was the shadowy figure in his early life as well, and that he had met up with the dark Sanzo again here recently on this continent, his suspicions began to come to full bloom and it all began to fall into place. He began to see how Ukoku’s malevolent manipulation of events could conceivably have begun far earlier than Goku’s shooting, that his black imprint could possibly be woven through their journey all the way back to the beginning.

At first he tried to tell himself he was being nuts, that all the talk of the Calamity, Hazel’s dark suspicions, and simple road-weariness and battle fatigue were all working on his mind and sending him into a full-blown case of paranoia. But as time went on he not only believed it, but began to wonder whether Ukoku Sanzo might even be the demonic force and mastermind behind the Minus Wave itself, and not someone from the Houtou faction simply trying to revive Gyumaoh as was suspected. He had managed to keep his suspicions to himself, but he had already resolved to bring the subject up with the Sanbutsushin during his audience with them, and ask them if they had any idea what had become of Ukoku or his Muten Scripture.

As the train slowly pulled out of the station, Sanzo’s mind turned to the traveling companions he was leaving behind, realizing suddenly in a moment of panic that he could very well be leaving them at Ukoku’s mercy, without the divine protection of his Maten Scripture to defend them from his extreme evil. If he had tried to kill the saru once, who was to say he would not try it again, determined to complete the job this time? He knew from Hazel that he had been asking him about the Seiten Taisei for some reason, perhaps perceiving the Great Sage’s power as a threat to his own.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered quietly to himself as he nervously lit a cigarette. “Fine time to figure that little detail out, asshole,” he chided himself bitterly.

He tried to convince himself that between the three of them, they could handle anything Ukoku could serve up, even without him and the Scripture and banishing gun. He thought back over the past year or so; about the three halflings, neither man nor youkai, that he had come to trust with his life on a regular basis. Despite his dogged determination to hold to his code of muichi motsu, to let nothing and no one ever mean as much to him again as his master Koumyou had in order to avoid the inevitable suffering from the inevitable loss, he knew deep down that the three idiots had begun to get under his skin. Every time one of them risked their life for him, or went out of their way to help him even when he knew he had been a flaming asshole to them, they got in a little deeper, like one of those tiny little bugs that burrowed under your skin when you sat in the grass, leaving a persistent irritating itch that you didn’t even feel until it was too late.

As he thought about it all, he decided it was probably just as well that he was getting away for a while, even if he did have to go back and they did have to go on with the fucking journey eventually – he could use a little perspective, a little distance at this point in the journey. Besides, the saru was getting so damn dependent on him, and it was really getting to be time for him to start growing up, and Hakkai had been on his own more than long enough now, he really didn’t need Sanzo to be his goddamn keeper, watching over him, anymore. And then there was the fucking kappa… He ground the cigarette out angrily under his boot and lit another one right away, thinking about those perpetually teasing red eyes, and that open sewer he called a sense of humor, always pushing him too far… He sighed heavily and his right eyelid twitched as he looked out the window and tried to steer his mind to another subject.

“You must be thinking about me, candy-pants, no one else makes your eyelid twitch like that.”

“What the fuck!!” his neck cracked audibly as his head whipped towards the sound of the familiar, taunting voice that was not supposed to be there.

“You didn’t honestly think I was going to sit on my thumbs and let you have all the fun, did you?” Gojyo grinned as he slid his bag into the overhead bin, and flopped down onto the bench across from Sanzo, stretching out his long legs and plopping his feet up to rest on the seat next to the grimacing, twitching priest.

“Fucking hell.” Sanzo stood up, and tried to get past the legs blocking his way. “Fucking, bloody blue hell. Get the hell out of my way, insect… Where is the goddamn conductor?” He shoved Gojyo’s legs down and stood in the aisle, yelling irritably.

“Conductor!! Stop the goddamn train. Now. Get rid of this asshole – he does not have a ticket. Throw him off and call the police.”

The elderly gentleman shuffled up the aisle to Sanzo, making placating gestures as he came, “Yes sir, yes sir. Please, please, if you will just sit down.”

“This red-headed troll doesn’t have a ticket. Throw him off the fucking train. Now.”

“Please sir, I need you to sit down, for your own safety. These mountain tracks have sudden curves that can really be quite hazard…”

As if on cue, the train lurched suddenly and Sanzo was thrown suddenly violently to his left, right into Gojyo’s lap.

“Now see, I knew you were really glad to see me, deep down,” the kappa smirked without missing a beat as he slid his arms around him.

Sanzo hastily squirmed out of his grasp and into his own seat. He was very close to pulling out the gun, but he decided, given the chance of ricochet in the closed steel train car, to give the conductor a short chance to get rid of the freeloader first.

“Get…rid… of … him… now…” he said between clenched teeth.

Before the conductor could even say anything, Gojyo held up his ticket, waggling it smugly right in front of the small man’s nose. The little man took it and studied it intently before responding to Sanzo.

“I’m sorry sir, but he does have a legitimate ticket. But he’s only going as far as Lanzhou, then he changes trains. This is a round-trip ticket for Chang’an. You’re welcome to go sit in the non-smoking car…”

Sanzo groaned and clenched his jaw.

“Go. Away. Now,” he managed to bite out at the conductor between gritted teeth. He didn’t have to tell the man twice, before he scurried away as fast as his short legs could carry him down the aisles of the jostling train.

“I got us adjoining sleeping compartments, too, Sanzo-sama. Told the ticket guy I was your bodyguard and it was crucial to the safety of the great Genjyo Sanzo the 31st whosy-whatsis that I have the room next to yours in the sleeping car.”

He watched a minute as Sanzo’s eyes started to get large and dark like they were going to completely detonate, waited just a tic for dramatic effect, and then dropped his final bomb, just for the sheer fun of it.

“And on the last train we get to share a sleeping compartment, cherry-chan.” He smiled sweetly and batted his crimson eyes flirtatiously, knowing he was living very dangerously, but enjoying the hell out of it, nonetheless.

Maybe it was because he managed to call on some kind of serene Buddhist acceptance of the inevitable that he managed not to pull out his gun at that moment, when he wanted so badly to, maybe it was just because he was so fucking tired, but he realized ultimately he was stuck, and short of just flat killing Gojyo, nothing was going to change the situation. Maybe it was because on some level he was actually slightly worried about his personal safety on the trip as well and just could never allow himself to admit it, not to mention what his being on this train might do in terms of endangering the other passengers, and deep down, and he would never on pain of death admit this to anyone, he realized he had been slightly foolhardy to insist on going alone.

And maybe, just maybe, on some level, and for reasons he was the least likely to admit or understand, he was actually glad to see that flaming red hair, framing that familiar handsomely-scarred face, and those glittering ruby eyes so full of sex and mischief and life, especially with dark, gloomy thoughts of Ukoku plaguing his mind. No one in this world was more dissimilar to Ukoku than the erogappa, and no one represented a better antidote to the realm of bleak, mind-fucking nothingness of that dark spectre from his past for Sanzo than Gojyo did… Maybe it was all of those things… Who knows? But suddenly his shoulders sagged slightly, and the fight went out of Sanzo, at least for that day. He wasn’t mad, or even defeated: he just knew he very, very badly needed a drink.

“I’m going to the dining car.” He got up and left, not even worrying about his bags. If Gojyo wanted to come along on this trip, he could start making himself useful right now, and take care of shit like that. Yup, he needed a drink, and now. Several, actually.

TBC