The Soul Within

No, not abandoned.. I just got distracted by life and other stories. As for the review that talked about proof reading my story, I do, but I'm so use to seeing what's there that sometimes I miss what you'd pick up. Sorry 'bout that and I'm trying to be more careful.

***
Sanzo stared at the man that the Old Hag had saddled him with – as if the three bastards in the jeep with him weren't bad enough – and part of him wondered if the man would even be good in a fight or if he'd be the first to fall to a youkai's claws. Concealed in a long black robe of some kind with silver hair flowing down around his knees, the man gave Sanzo the impression of being thin and delicate, and Sanzo had to wonder how this person would be able to help them when he looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over at any time.

“I apologize for barging in on you like this,” the man said, his voice gentle as he smiled at them, the expression reminding Sanzo of Hakkai's usual mask. “I am Father Abel Nightroad, a traveling priest from the Vatican.”

Growling, Sanzo jerked a thumb towards the back seat where Goku and Gojya were sitting. “Get in,” he ordered, and Nightroad easily scrambled into the empty spot between Gojya and Goku, his pack on the floor between his feet as he pulled long limbs inward so as not to crowd the perverted kappa or the stupid monkey any more than they already were. Sanzo didn't invite Nightroad into the jeep simply because Kanzeon Bosatsu ordered him to take the silver haired priest with him but because it was easier to get questions out of someone when they weren't expecting to be attacked in the middle of the wilderness.

Besides, there was an inn in the next town with a hot bath and separate rooms for all of them, and Sanzo wanted to enjoy it as much as he could before dragging answers out of the priest in the back seat. With his gun if needed.

When they arrived in the town, it was easy to find an inn with four rooms free, which was changed to five after Nightroad laid a second credit card on the counter, and the bath was commandeered for the next few hours.

As they all started for their rooms, Sanzo grabbed Nightroad's arm and glared at the other three who nodded before following Sanzo up to one of the rooms. He didn’t care whose because he wanted answers and he wanted them now damn it. Nightroad was stuttering out questions as Sanzo dragged him along the hallway, almost stumbling over his own feet. Sanzo wasn’t going to be delayed, and he dug his fingers into the black cloth as he hauled the taller man into the closest room, nearly throwing him on the bed as they stormed into the room.

“Now really, I don’t see why you have to treat me in such a manner,” huffed Nightroad in a whiny voice that was putting Sanzo’s teeth on edge as the silver haired man straightened his robes, brushing out imagined wrinkles. “I mean, I am here to help you, and yet you are treating me like some common hoodlum...”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” snarled Sanzo, his gun out and cocked between startled blue eyes as the door was quietly closed behind Hakkai. “I’m going to ask questions and you’re going to answer them. No babbling. No whining. Your voice gets on my nerves.”

The silver haired man shrugged, a simple roll of his shoulders before there was suddenly a gun pointed in Sanzo’s face. Sanzo blinked, surprised. He hadn’t seen the other man move. There had been the shrug and then there was a gun in Sanzo’s face, held in a rock steady hand.

“I am not sure about the custom’s here, but where I come from, it is considered quite rude to haul someone around like a sack of flour before pointing a gun in their face and making demands of them,” remarked Nightroad, his voice no longer whiny but with a dark deadliness that promised violence and death if Sanzo pushed him too far.

There was a suspicious snicker from behind Sanzo. “Sanzo’s always like that,” drawled Gojya, and Sanzo could almost see the redhead smirking. “You get use to Grumpy here.”

Without blinking, Sanzo swung his gun around to point it at Gojya. “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

“I am more than willing to answer what questions you have as long as it is in a civilized manner,” continued Nightroad, his gun remaining trained on Sanzo as if to discourage the blond from pointing the Banishing Gun at him or taking a pot shot at the silver haired stranger. Sanzo wanted to laugh at the thought because there had been worse pointed at him by people more deadly looking than Nightroad. “I’m not normally this rude, but I’m tired, hungry and still have blood and dirt from my last mission on me. A mission I had returned from just moments before I was whisked here.”

“Why were you brought here?” asked Hakkai, giving voice to the first of many questions that were swirling through Sanzo’s brain. “I confess our journey has been troublesome with the various youkai attacks but not enough to warrant a fifth person.”

Nightroad lowered his gun as he pulled the small cape around his shoulders back to reveal a holster nestled under his left arm. “You have a new opponent now. One I am quite familiar with,” he began, slipping the gun into the holster with a practiced ease that bespoke of years of formality with the gun. “Before you were only attacked by youkai, but it probably won’t be long before vampires swell their ranks for the attacks.”

“What are vampires?” Goku asked,

“Vampires are beings that are superior to humans while requiring their blood to survive,” Nightroad explained. “Their strength, reflexes, and senses are heightened to those of a human’s, and they enjoy playing with their prey. They have their weaknesses, however. They are vulnerable to sunlight which badly burns them, and silver is a poison to them. Destroy either their brains or their hearts and they will die. Just cutting one in half, however, means that it will live to torment you another night.”

“So why you?” drawled Gojya. “Why couldn’t the Kanzeon just pop in, tell us about these things, or even let us find out about them on our own like we’ve usually had to do?”

“What makes you so fucking special that you were picked?” Sanzo demanded, finally putting away the Banishing Gun to fond his arms across his chest. Despite the speed and deadliness that Nightroad had shown in handling his gun, there didn’t seem to be anything special about him.

Nightroad smiled slightly at them, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have been trained to fight vampires, and for whatever reason, the Kanzeon asked for me by name. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m tired, dirty, and very hungry.”

With that, he pushed past them with his pack in his hand and quietly shut the door behind him, leaving the four travelers alone to stare after him. Sanzo’s eyes narrowed as he continued staring at the closed door. Nightroad was lying about something, he just knew it, but what it was exactly was hard to tell. He had told the truth about these ‘vampires’, that was obvious enough, but there was more to the story about why he had been picked by the Old Hag.

“Is something bothering you, Sanzo?” inquired Hakkai, his voice cutting through the blond’s thoughts.

That got a glare and a snort. “This whole trip is bothering me,” he grumbled before following Nightroad out the door. Turning to head to his own room, Sanzo glared down the hall towards the rest of their rooms.

Why did he have the nagging feeling that he was suppose to know Nightroad when he’d never set eyes on the man before in his life?

***

As he shut the door behind him, Abel sank against it and let out a small sigh of frustrated relief. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been threatened by people before or even allies, but for some reason, the thought of the blond holding a gun on him with every reason to pull the trigger made his heart ache in misery. The strange feeling of familiarity that had started with the hermaphrodite had only increased with the introduction of the four travelers.

“Damn you, Cain, why couldn’t you have just stayed dead?” he sighed, lightly thumping his head against the door behind him. His life would have been much simpler if his brother had never survived being shot out of the space station’s airlock. Then the Rosen Kruenz Order never would have been created, families wouldn’t have been destroyed, and there would have been peace between the human kingdoms and the Empire by now.

Of course, I wouldn’t have met Catarina or any of my allies back at the Vatican, he mused with a wistful smile as he pushed away from the door. Walking over to the small table, he placed his pack on it and dug out his toiletries and a clean change of clothes, before he poked around to see what was provided in this strange land.

The small set of drawers revealed a couple of long bathrobes with towels, but that was all that his search of the room yielded. Any bathing facilities were located elsewhere and were probably public ones at that. There went any ideas of lounging around in some hot water to soak the lingering aches from that last mission away. It wasn’t a luxury someone could indulge in when there was a line of people waiting for the hot water themselves. Well, he could still get cleaned and have a nice hot meal before retiring to his room for the evening.

It didn’t take long to discover where the baths were, but when Abel slipped into the room, he stared at the strange set up. The floor was tiled with a drain in the center of a large area where a small stool was placed near a bucket and ladle while a large tub was sunk into the floor with steam rising from the water. A small table was placed against another wall while a faucet emerged from the wall above the bucket.

Placing the robe, towels and toiletries on the small table, Abel knelt next to the tub, carefully studying it. It didn’t look like there was a faucet to allow water to run into it but there was a drain in the bottom to let water out. Apparently, he wasn’t suppose to wash in the tub because it would take quite a while to fill it back up with the bucket provided, but the faucet was placed too close to the floor to stand under and use like a shower.

Suddenly, the door opened behind him, and Abel swung around, his gun up and tracking the target. There stood the young man wearing a green tunic and monocle with a surprised look on his face while his arms were filled with his own bathing supplies. With a soft sigh, Abel holstered his gun before offering an apologetic smile.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” apologized the young man with a gentle smile on his face as he moved farther into the room to place his own supplies on the small bench next to Abel’s. “I thought you might be bathing by now.”

An embarrassed blush spread across Abel’s cheeks as he waved to the room. “I would if I could only figure out how to use the facilities.”

That got a surprised look from the young man. “You don’t know how to bathe?”

Abel shook his head. “Not here. I’m use to a shower or washing in the tub, but unfortunately, I can’t do that here.” He didn’t realize just how different this culture was from what he was use to until now.

The man stared at him as if trying to figure out if Abel was telling the truth when he walked over to Abel. “Showers are rare, but they are available to certain people. This is a more traditional set up. You undress and sit on the stool before pouring water over yourself. Then you wash with soap and shampoo before rinsing off. Once the soap is gone, you can soak in the tub to relax.”

“Created in a region where water was more precious than in others,” mused Abel, thoughtfully before he started removing his robe. From the young man’s attitude when he entered, bathing together wasn’t as intimate as it was in Europe, and Abel wasn’t body shy no matter how he might have acted in the Vatican. After all, when scientists and soldiers practically stared at a person in various states of undress for ten years, it was hard to be modest.

“We were never properly introduced, Father Nightroad” apologized the young man, and Abel turned from folding his outer robe to find a hand outstretched towards him. “Cho Hakkai.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hakkai,” replied Abel with a smile as he grasped that outstretched hand. “May I ask what Mr. Sanzo’s issue with me is? I realize that I was thrust upon you quite suddenly by the Kanzeon, but I am only hear to help.”

Hakkai released Abel’s hand before turning his attention to his own clothes. “If there is one thing Sanzo hates, it’s being ordered what to do by any of those that call Heaven home. Don’t get me wrong. Once given his duty, he will carry it out, but to the fullest extent of his ideals instead of what some god wants.”

Abel nodded, not truly understanding, but willing to accept the explanation. He grimaced as peeled off his shirt, feeling it stick to his skin where the blood dried on it. He stared at the shirt, feeling every one of his centuries weighing on his shoulders. He was so tired of the fighting, of getting only a few days rest at the most before being sent out on another mission. Perhaps, he should take Seth up on her offer to live in the Empire with her.

“When this mission is over, I’ll think about it,” he murmured, shaking his head as he dropped his shirt off to one side. He pulled his hair over his shoulder to keep it out of the worst of the mess on his back. The small shoulder cape that was a part of his robes could hide a multitude of sins, including where the last Methuselah had run him through after transforming her nails into long blades.

“Oh my,” murmured Hakkai, and Abel glanced over his shoulder at the young man who was looking at his back with wide eyes. “You certainly weren’t kidding about the blood and dust from your last mission. But, where are the injuries?”

Abel offered a small smile before turning his attention to his pants. “I’m a fast healer, a benefit in my job.”

He unfastened his pants and let them fall to the floor before moving over to where the bucket was. Kneeling next to the bucket, he easily filled it with water and dumped it over himself, sighing softly as the dried blood was partially washed from his skin. He filled a second bucket and moved a bit away from the faucet to start washing his hair and skin, allowing Hakkai the space to begin his own washing.

It was with much relief that Abel dumped water over his head some time later, washing the soap off his skin to leave unblemished skin behind. He shivered as the water trickled over the scars on his back, the thin skin where his wings emerged highly sensitive before pulling his hair over his shoulder to wring the water out. There was a faint sound behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at Hakkai, unaware at the picture he presented, kneeling on the floor with wet, pale skin and his long hair pulled carelessly over a shoulder to pool in his lap.

“Forgive me for being rude, but those scars on your back look quite nasty,” apologized Hakkai, one hand reaching out as if to touch them, and Abel leaned away from him, not really thinking about the action.

“They don’t bother me, honestly,” Abel replied, a bright smile on his face. “I can’t remember where I got them, probably on some mission.” It was a lie, but he was use to telling those. He had been lying to everyone around him since he had donned the mantle of a Vatican priest. He was tired of the lies as much as he was tired of the fighting, but unlike the fighting, he truly doubted he would ever be allowed to stop hiding what he was from everyone.

Feeling tears of frustration and exhaustion prick at his eyes, Abel turned back around, quickly drying off before wrapping a robe around himself. A murmured apology and he was hurrying back to his room, trying to reign in the emotions before they spilled out of him, threatening to drowned him this time. He could feel the cracks in his walls starting to spread, and he knew if he lost it now, he would be spending a long time getting things under control again. Time wasn’t something he had in abundance at the minute, and he doubted he would have the time to spare anytime soon.

He didn’t notice Sanzo emerging from his room to stare thoughtfully at Abel’s back before Abel was closing his own door behind him, locking it with trembling fingers. Pressing a hand against his mouth to muffle any sounds, Abel sank to the floor and closed his eyes as he battled his rampaging emotions before he was consumed by them.

***