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It was the power to annihilate all existence. Memories, histories, people. An entire lifetime. With a flick of his wrist, he could do this. His eyes reflected nothing but calm detachment. Maybe there was even some amusement there, but only the temporary kind that would soon lose its fleeting interest when it was all over and done with. The sutra snaked around him in an endless whirl, like a black hole that would suck away the past, piece by piece until there was nothing left. A chilling disappearing act that would leave no witnesses to remember it.
Ukoku raised his hand, and the shadows gathered round to do his bidding, smoky tendrils springing eagerly from his palm. They twisted and moved like living things, slithering between his fingers as they awaited his command.
“You know...the problem with this world is that it’s too tedious. The people, I mean. Wouldn’t you agree? I’d say I’m doing you a favor here. People are hardly worth their while, and they’re more trouble than anything else. Though some are more interesting than others, I grant you,” he said almost sympathetically. “Now...how does this spell go? Ah...yes of course.”
Sanzo struggled up from the ground where he lay, grimacing from pain while still fighting to stay lucid. He could feel the taunting words seeping in, a wretched sound that foretold the cruelty to come. It was just like before, when he’d first met him that faraway childhood afternoon on the temple grounds. The dark monk had a voice that could crawl under his skin and send a nasty shiver down his spine. And just like then, Ukoku’s lips were curved up in a disturbing smile.
He looked at Sanzo like he could see right through him.
“Where do I begin? You’ve had a relatively busy life, I see...such colorful characters.” His fingers curled gently as though he were tugging on a string. Each little tug sent a jerk through Sanzo’s mind, inducing a hollow gasp.
“No...!” Sanzo took a shaky step, his hand grasping onto a nearby tree for support. He had to make it stop. The bark on the tree felt coarse and sharp under his fingers, but he hung on tighter until his knuckles turned bone white. His feet barely kept upright under the shooting pain of his broken leg, but if he could keep his consciousness through this ordeal, then maybe the bastard couldn’t extract anything else from his mind. “Stop....no...”
Visions assaulted his head, each scene playing out like a silent film, rewinding, fast forwarding, one place to the next as though they were being played back one last time. Gojyo...Hakkai...Goku. Their faces came and went in a blur of soundless color.
“Stop it!!”
Sanzo’s voice echoed through him, desperate and anguished. The visions were fading from the peripheral corners, dark spots forming like burn marks and spreading across the images until they were devoured into the shadow. No, no, no! The words pounded repetitively in his head as he grasped for the last lingering hint of light. It curled away and slipped from his fingers like a wisp of smoke. He could see nothing, now. Nor could he hear anything in the pitch black, save for the hitching gasp of his own breath.
For some reason, he could still feel the harsh bark of the tree, death grip holding fast. He pushed himself off it, lunging forward toward the sinister presence of that bastard monk. He still had a chance, if he could get his hands on that sutra...
His fingers swiped through empty air, and he stumbled forward to his knees. Cursing, he gathered himself up again, squinting, though it couldn’t possibly help him to see in the dark. How much further he had, he could not tell, but he willed his feet forward one step at a time. As he staggered on, the heaviness in the air seemed to lift with each passing moment.
Suddenly, his foot connected with something on the ground. It was hard, but not unyielding, and it shifted away when he pushed it with his boot. He took another step and his other foot bumped into something too, only this time it was a large stack of somethings that teetered and collapsed.
“Ng---!”
Normally, Sanzo would have had the reflexes to leap clear of the obstruction, even in the dark, but he had no such agility in his current condition. He pitched forward as his feet slipped out from under him, but to his great confusion, he was caught by a pair of slender but surprisingly strong arms.
“Whoa! Hello there!” a voice beamed. A warm breath, smelling of cigarettes, fell upon his cheek. The voice sounded strangely familiar, but Sanzo couldn’t quite place it. It was definitely not that nasty voice he last remembered hearing. He furrowed his eyebrows, but his memories were foggy, and he could barely recall why he’d been stumbling around in the dark to begin with.
“I thought I heard you coming. I’m glad I rushed out here just in time!” the stranger continued. His fingers curled securely over Sanzo’s arm, steadying him on his feet. The darkness was fading little by little, bringing the stranger’s features into focus. He had pale skin and curious eyes that peered out from behind a pair of spectacles. Where had he seen this face before? A memory flitted somewhere in the corner of Sanzo’s mind, teasingly out of range. The man looked at him fondly with a touch of nostalgia in his gaze. But then he said rather frankly–
“You look terrible.”
Sanzo scowled. He really was in quite a state, however. His robes were bloodied and torn, and his body was a bruised mess from head to toe. He pushed away from the man and staggered back, leaning up against a bookshelf that had seemingly materialized out of nowhere behind him.
“Where the hell am I?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
The man chuckled good naturedly and drew his hand back when Sanzo brushed him away.
“Well that’s quite a greeting. You’re the one who called for me. Quite a surprise, too! I hadn’t expected it, and I nearly tripped over some books myself, coming to find you.”
“Why would I call for you? I don’t even know you,” Sanzo frowned. A pain shot up his leg just then, and he grimaced, leaning heavily on the shelves.
The man’s smile faltered for a moment.
“You should sit down...you might hurt yourself. Please, feel free. I’m sorry about the mess. I’m afraid my couch is a bit occupied at present by some odds and ends...” He started pushing away books – including the stack that Sanzo had tripped over a minute ago – to make room on the floor for his unexpected guest.
The smell of something burning wafted through the library, coming from the direction of the adjacent room.
“Oh! My cigarette!” The man turned and rushed away, leaving an agape Sanzo staring after the retreating back, perplexed. He had no idea what to make of this stranger nor of the odd environment he found himself in, but he had little time to assess it on his own. The gentleman was already ambling back through the makeshift footpath carved into a mountain of books, ashtray in one hand and half smoked cigarette in the other. At least, it was something vaguely resembling an ashtray.
“I dropped my cigarette when I heard you coming, and nearly burned through the Arthurian manuscripts! Ahaha!” He laughed jovially and settled down on the floor across from Sanzo, placing the gaping frog-mouthed ashtray on top of a short stack of books beside him. “So what can I do for you? You require medical attention, but I don’t figure you’ve come all this way for that.”
“I’m not looking for your help,” Sanzo growled. If he remembered one thing about himself, it was that he did things his way, and didn’t need anyone’s assistance for anything. Much less the help of this oddity he’d never laid eyes on before.
“But you’re here, now,” the man replied, undeterred.
“I dunno how I got here, all right? Che...” Sanzo sucked in a pained breath as he pressed his fingertips to a bruise on his cheek.
“Aah, yes. Well let’s just say you simply...wandered in, shall we? You say you don’t know me, and that’s fine too. But as Blanche would say, ‘I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.’ How about it?”
“Who the hell is Blanche?”
“Nevermind.”
Sanzo’s eyebrow was furrowing deeper and deeper. There was something that kept nagging at him about this man that he couldn’t set his finger on, and it unsettled him. The man sucked in a long drag from his cigarette and then went on to explain carefully.
“What I did hear just moments before you arrived – and take it however you like, but I did hear it – is you, asking for it to ‘stop.’ What were you referring to?”
“....” Sanzo sighed and shifted his fingers from his cheek to the crease at his forehead. A dull headache was beginning to form there from all the effort he’d unconsciously been exerting trying to make sense of his cloudy memories. “The sutra,” he found himself saying.
“Sutra? What sort of sutra?”
“The Muten Sutra...it was...it was making it disappear.”
“Making what disappear?”
Sanzo glanced up, his heart all of a sudden pounding in his chest. Had he forgotten everything already?
“Me.”
“Oh...”
The man paused, cigarette hovering by his lips as he took in this new information.
“...I see. That’s a problem, indeed. How much of the incantation was he able to cast? Do you remember anything?”
“....just....images. They’re a little fuzzy.” Sanzo had no idea why he was admitting this to some suspicious looking man in a white lab coat, but he decided not to think about that too much for the moment.
They fell into an awkward silence as the man scratched at his head with his free hand, deep in thought. A few flecks of dandruff drifted down from his hair and disappeared onto his shoulders.
“I’ve read about them before, of course. The Sutras from the Dawn of Time. The best way to counteract the activation of one sutra is to use another.” He thoughtfully set his eyes upon the scroll resting over Sanzo’s shoulders.
“...I tried that already,” Sanzo muttered, somewhat offended that this man would think he hadn’t considered it before.
“Mm...” The stranger fell into thought again, so much so that his cigarette burned on unattended until it was just a long tube of ash. “Well, let me consult some books, then. I do think it has something to do with memory loss, and some other kind of mental manipulation.” He pushed the stub into the ashtray, not really caring that some stray ashes scattered carelessly onto the floor. Another cigarette was pulled out from a pack he kept in his coat pocket and lit before he rose to his feet to browse his collection on the shelves.
“Let’s see...Freud? He’s got some interesting theories on suppressed memory. ...Perhaps not quite what we’re looking for, though. I’ve got some books here on amnesia and other neurological disorders...”
“Disorder? I don’t have a disorder.”
“Of course not.” The man cleared his throat and quickly corrected himself, shifting his fingers over to some other books on the shelf right below. “Ah ha! Here’s a handy little thing. The sutras do have some magical qualities depending on how you interpret it, so a little magic to counteract might do just the trick.”
He eagerly began flipping through the pages of a leather-bound tome, pausing every so often with a “hmm” or an “aah.” The mental processes in his mind seemed rather scatterbrained but perhaps there was some logic to the ramble. He certainly had a strangely calming atmosphere about him, like a comfortable aura that was curiously familiar. Maybe this man could prove himself useful. Sanzo was almost about to ask him if they’d met before, when the man broke out with enthusiasm:
“What do you think of this? It’s a strengthening potion for your mind. Bring a mummified hand of a kappa to a boil in a cast iron pot filled with purified water. Add a couple sprigs of rosemary and half a teaspoon of crushed ginkgo seeds...hm, hm. I’m not sure I’ve got a cast iron pot, though. I do have a stainless steel sauce pan that may work just as well...”
“No.”
“No? Okay. I can check the mess hall and see if the kitchen stocks any cast iron—“
“No...no kappa hands,” Sanzo corrected, frowning irritably. Whatever generous thoughts he’d just had of this man were quickly receding, replaced by exasperation. This was getting absolutely ridiculous.
“Oh, don’t worry. Kappas are quite harmless creatures, you know. A mummified hand might be a little tricky to secure, but I think there are some special markets I know of that could prove fruitful.”
“I said no kappas,” Sanzo hissed. The very mention of the word seemed to raise ire in him as if by reflex. The stranger arched an eyebrow at him curiously, but wisely decided not to pursue this line of cure any further.
“All right, no. Uh....I think there’s another potion in here that’ll give a similar effect with different ingredients. It was in here somewhere....there! Pour 9 ounces of monkey brain into a wooden bowl and add—“
“What the fuck are you reading?” Sanzo broke in with frustration. Kappas! Monkeys! None of these witch doctor’s potions could help him, he was sure of it. The man must be teasing him, and it aggravated him to no end.
“Uh...it’s a book I picked up a long time ago that I thought might be useful someday...” the man replied rather genuinely as he turned the book over to show him the cover.
‘Fun With Black Magic,’ the title read.
Sanzo narrowed his eyes sharply at the book. He had a nasty feeling he’d seen it before, and that it was just as ‘useful’ back then, too. He raised his glare up at the person holding the book, who smiled at him sheepishly.
“Do I....know you?” Sanzo finally asked after a lengthy pause.
Instead of answering, the stranger coughed and hurriedly took another long drag from his cigarette before leaning down and stubbing it out into the ashtray. He pulled out another one immediately and lit up, inhaling the smoke like he would a breath of fresh air. He exhaled and stared off into space for a minute, watching the tendrils of smoke circle around him in a gray cloud.
“Have you ever heard the saying ‘You are what you eat’? I’m not sure who said it, but it’s something that’s often mentioned in the World Below. The late Ando-san even took it so far as to say ‘Mankind is Noodlekind.’ What noodlekind are you?”
“......what?”
“Noodlekind,” the man repeated helpfully, as though Sanzo had just misheard him the first time. “I, for example, am salt-noodlekind. Or I should say, salt-ramen. It’s the oldest of the four soup stocks, and has the most subtle and delicate flavor of them all. I prefer to take it with shredded cabbage, bamboo shoots and sesame seeds. What about you?”
Sanzo’s brow furrowed deeper, but more out of confusion than annoyance.
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Humor me.”
“....I take it with okra and may....” Sanzo began hesitantly and then stopped, as though suddenly remembering something. Memories of food? Or talking about food? With whom?
There was a faint voice, echoing somewhere in the back of his mind. Achingly familiar...
“Taste, you know, is closely related to smell. They’re both associated with memory...” the man trailed off as he leaned forward and adjusted his glasses, distracted by something he saw in the distance. He glanced back down when Sanzo called out to him from the floor.
“Oi, you never answered my question.”
“Ah...yes, that.” The man chuckled awkwardly and then said with a guilty smile, “It’s a secret, so I don’t know.”
Sanzo’s eyebrow quirked.
“Well, it looks like your friends have arrived just in time!” the stranger changed the subject, elusive as ever.
“Friends? What are you talking about?”
“Over there.” He pointed with his cigarette to some vague place beyond. “Can’t you see them?”
“See wh— ”
Before Sanzo could finish, he felt something yank at him almost violently. He was being pulled away by a very determined force, vibrant...warm. His eyes widened as he saw the room fading away around him, as though the twilight was falling in quicktime, casting long shadows across the books and shelves. The stranger hesitated, then turned away and began walking, making his way back through the maze of books and scrolls scattered haphazardly across the floor. The pull was so insistent, Sanzo wanted to yield his tired body to it, but something kept him here. He stumbled forward on the shifting ground and reached out with his hand toward the receding back of that eccentric stranger. He found his voice, and to his surprise he called out with a name he did not know he remembered—
“Wait!! Come back here! ....Tenpou!”
Even in the dimness he could see the man give a start. Tenpou paused in his steps, standing there with his back to him for what felt like a small eternity before he finally glanced back over his shoulder. There was a sad but hopeful look in his eyes as he murmured gently—
“They’re waiting for you.”
Sanzo sucked his breath back, his hands fisting hard against the floor. There was so little he could remember of this man, nothing explicit. Just feelings that reached out from the deepest part of his heart and gripped him so tightly it took his breath away. They were buried in the depths of his consciousness where no one – not even Ukoku – could touch. And here, he had called out to him in the final hour of his diminishing memories, called out to the first person he had ever trusted so wholly. How could he have forgotten him?
Tenpou smiled at him and nodded encouragingly.
The force pulled at Sanzo again, and this time he let it take him, out into the blinding light, where all his memories came flooding back into his mind to wipe away everything he’d just remembered. The ground flew up at him and struck him cold and hard, slamming him back into a reality that had never really left him. He blacked out for a brief moment, but there were sounds of incessant yapping that called him back.
When he came to, opening his eyes painfully against the flickering sunlight, the first thing he saw was a gentle gaze, and a pale hand that hovered above him with a healing touch.
“Hakkai...” Sanzo said faintly.
The man smiled down at him as he answered warmly,
“Welcome back.”
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