by K.A. Rose
Gensomaden Saiyuki characters et cetera © and ™ Kazuya Minekura, ENIX and TV Tokyo, 1997. Used without permission, for nonprofit fan appreciation.
This was originally posted exclusively on livejournal. It may be continued someday, but for the moment it's stalled at two chapters. It recycles material from an untitled project tentatively in development with Fenko, though I hope she doesn't mind.
Presently this story is rated T:V, meaning it is rated Teen (content suitable for ages 14 and up) for violence. This rating is expected to go up.
----
Part 1
There came a knock.
Anticipating it to be one of the others up for some
ungodly purpose, Sanzo went to the door and opened it without hesitation.
Slowing only when he found, standing under the porch light, the Westerner,
face pale and eyes dark, none the better for the shadows his hat made,
or how small he looked in his robes.
"I need your help," said the bishop.
Sanzo had heard that before, but never in that voice.
His eyes narrowed reflexively, and kept the hand
on the handle of his door. "How is that?"
"Listen to me," Hazel rasped, swallowing dryly.
"There is a young man in a village not too far from here, to the south.
His body has become host to a malignant spirit and requires an exorcism
as soon as possible. I am qualified to perform the ritual, but I cannot
manage it alone."
Sanzo lifted his chin a little. There was an edge
to the foreigner's desperation that he'd never encountered before, not
on him. Not on anyone.
But he was still too wary to acknowledge it.
"I'm not that kind of priest," he told him.
Hazel shook his head, unkempt silver hair shivering.
"It is immaterial. You are strong in the spirit, moreso almost any Christian
priest, and it is strength that matters now, nothing else."
"Find someone else."
"There is no one else."
Sanzo started backing up from the door way. "Don't
ask me to involve myself in this. I've no reason to be concerned."
"Please--"
The Buddhist stopped, not for the word as startling
as it was, but for the more shocking sensation of Hazel's hand on his wrist,
gloveless and smooth skin marred by a recent slash across the palm, and
shaking as the foreigner was silent for everything unsaid, until the world
unfreezed and sound faded back to Sanzo's ears.
"--There's no one else," Hazel insisted, throat
tight. "Please, Sanzo-han. If I cannot have your help, he will die. Please,"
he said again, strongly. Stricken eyes locking and as refusing to release
Sanzo as the hand on his wrist.
Sanzo cursed and went to get his cloak.
-----