A Visitor

“Do you know us?” Hakkai asked politely. His false cheer was starting to grate on my nerves. If he kept it up for too much longer I was going to get a headache.

I snorted. “I’ve heard stories,” I said. It was true. My son, Hai, liked reading manga and watching anime, and Saiyuki was one of his favorite series. I liked anime and manga, too, but I didn’t have as much time to kill as he did.

But the best part of my statement was that they interpreted it differently than the way I meant it. They thought that I’d heard rumors, which was pretty normal. Everyone in this world had heard about their quest to India in order to prevent the resurrection of an evil demon named Gyumaoh.

There was a long silence that I allowed to stretch out and become awkward. Then I broke it by saying, “Well, excuse me.” Then I turned on my heel and tried to leave again, but Gojyo was standing directly behind me and I accidentally knocked him to the ground.

“Ouch! That hurt!” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly as I held out my hand to help him up. Unlike most girls I actually helped to pull him to his feet. He stared at me in surprise.

“Damn, lady, you’re strong,” he said. At this point I was getting very irritated, so I pushed past him and headed for the door. Gojyo reached for my shoulder, but his grip wasn’t strong enough to stop me. Goku was probably the only one in the entire town with strength enough to make me pause, but since I’m pretty clever I doubted he would be a challenge.

As I passed by him he grabbed my shoulder firmly and pulled back. My feet kept moving and I bent over backward, making my body into a bridge. Then I kicked my feet up and slammed them down in front of me. Goku had bent forward to keep his hand on my shoulder – my movements had been very fast and he hadn’t reacted to them – so when my feet came down they pummeled him in the shoulders.

Sanzo’s gun was pointed at me again as I straightened up, my feet right next to Goku’s head. I turned my head and gave him my best evil-death-glare as I looked at his aura for the first time. There was a certain amount of possessiveness in the colors surrounding his body, and I realized that in hurting Goku I had harmed something precious to the monk. The pistol pointed between my eyes was a special banishing gun that could turn a demon to dust in just one shot. Although I realized that I’m tougher to kill than most demons, those bullets would hurt so much more than normal ones. I also didn’t know if I could block them. At this distance I didn’t have enough time to dodge.

I suddenly broke into a wide, friendly grin and picked Goku up. He wasn’t hurt badly, but his shoulders would probably have foot-shaped bruises on them within a few minutes. “I’m sorry about that,” I said gently. “You took me by surprise. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Goku answered.

“That’s good. Take off your shirt for me, please?” I asked politely, adding more sugary ooze than was normally found in pancake syrup. Be warned: never mess with me when I’m having a truly bad day.

“What?!” the men around me all asked at once.

Gojyo threw an arm around my shoulders and gently leaned on me in a subtle attempt at moving me away from Goku. I planted my feet and refused to move. The redhead was the sensual one, born from the taboo union between a human and a demon. From what Hai had said, any subtleties Gojyo used were sexual in nature. “Hey, babe, if you want to see someone naked, why not me?” he offered softly in my ear.

“Right now I’m mimicking the monk in my general attitude,” I snapped. Genjyo Sanzo was a very high-ranking Buddhist monk who carried a special sutra, which he carried like a shawl on his shoulders. He was known for his bad attitude. “I’m having a really crappy day. I’m lost. I’m hungry. I have a headache. You guys are detaining me from leaving here and figuring out what is going on. Here is the big difference between me and Sanzo: I don’t carry a gun. I have weapons like you. I can manipulate ‘chi’ like Hakkai. I’m strong like Goku. If you want to take me on then you had better gang up on me and prepare for the fight of your life, although I would prefer it if you would just let me leave.”

Gojyo removed his arm from around my shoulder. I speared Goku with a stern look and ordered, “Strip.” He did.

I looked at where I’d hit him on his shoulders. There was a faint discoloration that was quickly swelling, so I closed my eyes as I placed my hand on the abused flesh. I pulled a few drops of power from my core, moved them through my arm and pushed them into Goku’s skin, forcing his cells to regenerate themselves. The swelling went down and the discoloration disappeared. “How does that feel?” I asked gently. Using my magic always made me feel a little better when I was scared.

“It’s like you never hit me!” Goku said, impressed. He turned to Hakkai and said, “She’s just as good as you!”

I smiled at the compliment and stood up. There was a flash from outside the window and I turned in time to see a streak of lightning disappear in the distance. Rain was heavy in the air outside and dark clouds hung ominously low. I noticed the suddenly pensive looks that Goku and Gojyo were shooting at the suddenly pensive Sanzo and Hakkai. I sighed loudly to gather their attention and laced my fingers behind the back of my head. “I’m going onto the roof to dance in the rain and possibly get electrocuted. Join if you want!”

I expected nothing.