[Commentary] Saiyuki: Promises Unbroken

[springgreen]

edonohana asked for the DVD commentary to Promises Unbroken, so here it is! The original story has spoilers for Gaiden up till ch. 20, and the commentary probably has spoilers for Saiyuki through the Burial arc.

I'm going to be a little biased here -- this is my favorite of all the pieces I've written. It was also one of the hardest, because it didn't spring off a challenge. Also, I think it's the longest thing I've written (uh... yeah, obviously, I haven't written much!).

This is going to be a really, really long commentary, btw, because this story gave me so much trouble!

You may want to skip this if you don't like knowing the behind-the-scenes -- this commentary is probably five times longer than the story itself and includes all the completely random references that I tried to sneak in, along with math, faux Chinese history, and my own personal Gaiden incarnation canon.

Spoilers: Spoilers for Gaiden up to ch. 20.
Disclaimer: Everyone belongs to Minekura Kazuya, who is wonderful.
Notes: I read vol. 2 of Gaiden, which broke my heart. Then I read chs. 18-20, which took all the leftover pieces and smashed them to dust, resulting in several extremely incoherent LJ entries. I desperately started hunting for fic with Sakura of Doom and pinky promises. Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of Gaiden fic out there, and so, I ended up writing my own.

Thanks to edonohana for the beta and the encouragement, and for letting me steal her soldiers!

The title was originally going to be "Yakusoku wa iranai," after the Escaflowne theme song, but I couldn't think of a snazzy way to translate it ("No Need for Promises" didn't quite fit). But I still liked the concept, so I snagged it for the final line. And I knew it had to be about pinky promises, promises that hold through lifetimes. So... I copped out a bit on the title.

To reiterate the bit in the author's notes, I read Gaiden, and I had to write something with the pinky promise and the four of them meeting together again to drink sake under the sakura. Well, actually, I had to read something about it, except I couldn't find anything that had reincarnation and sakura and promises and the heartbreak of lives and lives spent apart, which is how I ended up writing the damn thing just to get it out of my head.

Five days ago, they were caught.

Goku thinks the scaly guy with the creepy red eyes looked a little sorry about being the one to turn them in, but every time he tried to ask creepy red-eyed guy, Konzen glared at him. Normally he would have ignored Konzen's glares and fidgeted through a scolding later, but ever since Nataku, he doesn't know the rules anymore.

Goku is so hungry. They don't feed him enough, and even though he whines and begs and gets that tone in his voice that makes Konzen's eye twitch dangerously, no one comes.

He hasn't seen Konzen since yesterday. He's been away from Konzen before, but those times, he knew Konzen was coming back. Ten-chan and Ken-niichan are also not there. Nataku is gone too, and he's scared now that Konzen and Ten-chan and Ken-niichan have left like Nataku, even though they all promised him they wouldn't.

He hooks his own pinkies together, but it isn't the same.

The story really started with that first line. Before that, I wasn't sure how in the world I was going to write -- reincarnation drabbles, the ikkou under sakura, who knows? With the first line, I knew I was telling the story of them being caught, of Goku's imprisonment, of five hundred years, and of some sort of resolution between the four of them in Heaven and the ikkou we all know and love.

I tried to keep the sentences short and simple, without too much complicated vocabulary, since Goku is still wee!Goku and didn't even know what "pinky" meant. Ergo, Goujun became "scaly guy with the creepy red eyes." It felt a little weird to keep referring to Tenpou and Kenren as "Ten-chan" and "Ken-niichan," but since Goku uses it consistently in Gaiden, I wanted to stay with that.

I left it a little vague about the "gone;" I don't know how much wee!Goku knows about death. But he does know about leaving, and I think a very large part of him realizes just what is at stake. Plus, the Japanese that Konzen uses to explain Nataku's death isn't the straightforward "died," but the slightly more roundabout "ceased to be" (sort of like our "passed away" vs. "died").

And of course he's hungry, because Konzen isn't there.

The bit on Goku hooking his own pinkies together was originally a reference to Gaiden, but when I was revising, I realized that Goku was telling this from after Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou had said goodbye, so I think he's referring to the pinky promise between all four of them and that last goodbye as well as Kenren's first attempt to comfort him.

Three days ago, they were sentenced.

Ken-niichan tried to joke that they got off easy because Konzen was the nephew of a bodhisattva, which got him a half-hearted snort from Konzen. Then, Ten-chan started to say something about the pains of mortal life, but stopped as soon as he saw Goku. Goku remembers and just curls in the corner, torn by the realization that this is all his fault, that he was involved in Nataku's death, that he was claws and fangs and anger and slaughtered hundreds.

I started out with the count of days, and I just kept going with it. It took a while for me to figure out that would be the backbone of the story structure. Um, yes, I am very dense.

I'm not sure if the last sentence works with my attempts to keep Goku's POV simple, but at least they're still one-syllable words, and I liked the rhythm and the images. And I can see Kenren, Tenpou and Konzen all trying to pretend that things are ok in front of Goku, even though they all know it's bad, really bad. Of course, Goku knows better. I wanted a Goku who had a very plain way of expressing his POV, but a Goku who was very smart under it all, just young and scared and alone.

This part is also where I got horrifically stuck (the first time of many); I kept trying to describe the scene at court and what Konzen and Kanzeon and Li Touten would say.

I had several juggling acts going in my head as to why Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou would end up reincarnated while Goku ended up imprisoned. I think in the end, I had decided that Li Touten would demand that they'd all be horrifically tortured forever, since people in Heaven can't kill, or give Goku the chance to be the new Toushin, under his control, and allow everyone else to just be imprisoned. Of course, Goku would offer to do that, but Konzen would yell at him. Then Kanzeon was going to step in and somehow offer the reincarnation/imprisonment/promise of reunion as a sort of middle ground.

That really didn't work out.

So I handwaved everything that happened at court and told instead of showed, which seemed to work much better. Trust me. There was some truly awful dialogue and truly bad attempts at angstiness.

He didn't know what "slaughter" meant when they sentenced him.

Now he does.

Ow. More on Goku's vocabulary, and an explanation of why he uses the word earlier on.

And on a more emotional level, I hurt for Goku, having to learn the meaning of "slaughter" because of hands-on experience.

Konzen kept trying to tell him that everything would be ok, that it wasn't his fault at all, but the sad look in Konzen's eyes, so different from the usual irritation, convinced Goku more than anything else that it was his fault. Goku tried to persuade Li Touten, Kanzeon, the emperor, anyone who would listen, that they should be punishing him, and only him. That's when the sad look went away, replaced by the all-too-familiar tic in Konzen's eye as Konzen started yelling at him for being a stupid monkey.

He knows he's a stupid monkey, but he thought he could be a good monkey too.

This is more from the cut court scene. Be very glad you were not subjected to the dialogue. I put in the bit about the emperor because in Journey to the West, Heaven is ruled by the Jade Emperor. 

Despite cutting most of the wretched court scene, I did end up keeping the line about being a stupid monkey and a good monkey, because it made me want to hug Goku and tell him he was a most excellent monkey.

Of course it's the lack of irritation in Konzen that scares Goku the most.

They wouldn't let him, so his friends went away. They said "reincarnation" like it was supposed to make things better. Ten-chan explained it to him, and Goku thinks it's just a fancier word for people he cares about dying.

More vocabulary used for angstiness. I suspect Goku doesn't have much use for multi-syllable words like "reincarnation."

Yesterday, they said goodbye.

Creepy red-eyed guy brought everyone over to see Goku, even though Goku heard Li Touten say that no one was allowed to see him. Maybe creepy red-eyed guy isn't that bad after all.

I had figured that Goujun had to do something after turning in the four, particularly to incur the karma for becoming Jeep.

Ken-niichan poked fun at Ten-chan: "Didn't know you and Goujun were such good fishing buddies."

Goku doesn't get why Ten-chan always sighs when Ken-niichan mentions fishing (Goku likes fish).

That time, Ten-chan didn't sigh. He just laughed and said, "As though I would let anyone else drag me out fishing."

"Right. Sorry," said Ken-niichan, and Goku just stared at them, completely confused.

I was trying to stay tightly in Goku's POV, but to also show the effects on Konzen, Kenren, and Tenpou as well. But since I doubted that Kenren and Tenpou would ever swear undying love, much less in front of Goku, I put in bad fishing=sex/friendship/love metaphors that would go way over Goku's head, since he'd just focus on the food.

Also, I love the understatement in Saiyuki, how asking someone to not use a beer can as an ashtray equates "I was so angry and hurt and devastated that you left, please don't do it again." So Kenren and Tenpou get to express their mutual and undying affection (oh shush, I'm a total sap) via fish. I was originally going to write Kenren and Tenpou's last goodbyes under the sakura, in which neither of them ever mention anything serious, except perhaps, "Wait for me" or "Do you remember when?" but it didn't work with the Goku POV.

The confusion helped him forget why everyone was there.

He wanted to whine to Konzen, to ask for more food, for a name, just so things would be normal again. Konzen was being way too nice, like he was afraid for Goku, and Goku didn't think Konzen had ever been afraid before.

So he didn't say anything at all, because there was too much to say.

And then, Goujun came up and said Ten-chan and Ken-niichan and Konzen had to leave.

"Don't go," was all Goku could think of, though he really wanted to say, "Don't leave me."

I didn't quite realize till now how much of this is on people not having the vocabulary or the words to talk about things, on the shared silences and the unspoken being just as or more important than the spoken. By this point, I'm also running out of ways to describe Konzen being afraid. And of course, Goku's probably never seen Konzen afraid before because Konzen never had a reason to be afraid before, because Konzen had nothing he cared enough about to fear losing.

Ken-niichan knelt down, took Goku's hand in his big one, and hooked their pinkies together. After a few seconds, Ten-chan knelt down as well, but since he couldn't fit his pinky in, he just laid a hand over theirs.

Eeeeee! Pinky promise! That may be one of my very, very favorite Saiyuki moments ever, which is saying something. This time, I wanted all four of them in on the pinky promise, because while this fic was Goku-centric (and therefore, Sanzo-focused), it's also a piece on the bonds that held all four of them together through the centuries. I also liked the imagery of the hands all together, of three large hands over Goku's small one, of the hand imagery that Minekura scatters through later on as well. Maybe not Gojyo, but there's Hakkai's blood-stained hands, Hakkai's permanent marker lifeline, Sanzo's hand on Goku's hair, and of course, the iconic clasp of hands between a young priest and a caged animal.

Konzen rolled his eyes, and Goku knew this would be the closest he'd ever come to see Konzen crying.

"Saps," Konzen weakly complained, as he slapped his own hand down.

Goku couldn't help but grin up at him, and when Konzen said he looked like an idiot, Goku's view of Konzen's bright hair blurred for a few seconds as he blinked back tears.

Konzen would whack him if he cried.

Konzen, you dork. I had Konzen a little grumpier at first, but that was too Sanzo for the fic. Also, this is the Konzen who hugs Goku to him and thinks that he cannot leave this person for the world. Bonus points for the gratuitous mention of Konzen's hair, which ended up setting up the ending of the story.

"I don't break my promises, you dork," said Ken-niichan.

"We," Ten-chan added. "We don't."

Konzen just stood there for a few seconds.

Finally: "I'll find you. Don't you dare forget that."

More words, none of them complicated, all of them strong in their simplicity (at least, if I'm doing things right). I also wanted to keep that order throughout the fic: Kenren/Gojyo, then Tenpou/Hakkai, and finally Konzen/Sanzo.

It took a while to think of what Konzen would say to Goku, but once I realized that his reincarnations would be endlessly searching for Goku, it was easy. And of course, this is the crucial point of the story, the promises that will remain unbroken even through five hundred years. Only Konzen's is stated here; I was assuming that Kenren and Tenpou were referring more to sakura and sake and, more importantly, meeting again. But because of the strength of the Konzen-Goku bond, Konzen's promise had to be a little more proactive.

Konzen laced his fingers through Goku's hair and tugged lightly.

More hair imagery. My beta commented that it was a great echo of Sanzo slapping his hand down on Goku's hair in Saiyuki, which I hadn't realized at all. I was playing more off the first meeting of Goku and Konzen, when Goku yanks out Konzen's hair. But both work, and I loved the additional layer of hair motif with Goku and Sanzo.

Goku nodded and smiled so hard his cheeks hurt, even when they let go of his hand and his hair, even when they turned to walk away. He watched and smiled until he couldn't see clearly anymore, but even through the tears, he knew they didn't look back.

Because this is what I do when I say goodbye. Less so now, but as a kid, I would try so hard not to cry in public.

I added the not looking back as a riff off the Orpheus myth (obviously), as well as the riff off the Orpheus myth in Sandman, and Rheanna's "Vivere," which has a lovely moment in which the narrator watches someone going off to his doom after a smiling goodbye and wills him not to look back, because looking back means regrets, means attachment. In the story, he looks back. I knew that Kenren, Tenpou and Konzen wouldn't look back, though.

Today, he waits.

I had so much trouble with the structure of this story. I didn't realize what point in the time the narration was taking place in; originally, each bit was going to be section-specific. Naturally, that didn't work with the time structure of the piece. When I finally realized halfway through that I was writing from Goku's POV as they come to take him away, after Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou have gone, I had to go back and change the tenses and days and everything several times over.

They come for him after a while, but this time, it isn't creepy red-eyed guy. He asks for creepy red-eyed guy, but the guards just mumble something he doesn't get (he's not sure what "dragon" or "regret" means).

More vocab that Goku randomly doesn't know. I didn't want him to know what "regret" meant.

I suspect somewhere off stage, Goujun struck a bargain with Kanzeon out of guilt for turning the four in; ergo, Jeep. It was hard trying to fit in all the background bits on everyone while still being in Goku's limited POV, so he ends up overhearing things that he doesn't understand, but that the reader does.

Thankfully, they take him to Kanzeon Bosatsu, not Li Touten. Se tells him that his friends have been reborn on Earth and that they're safe, supposedly to make him feel better, but it just makes the loneliness worse.

He's not crying, not anymore; he's so empty inside that there's nothing more to give.

So when Kanzeon tells him that his memories of Heaven will have to be repressed, he takes it calmly. He's dry-eyed and expressionless, even though they're taking away the only thing he has right now, and he's not panicking and he's not so desperately hungry for warmth and love and people that he doesn't know how to bear it.

In his head, he's calling for Konzen, for Ken-niichan and Ten-chan, but no one hears him and no one helps and he's more alone than he's ever been before. All too soon, he's in the cave, meaningless paper strips scattered everywhere. The rock is cold against his knees, and even though his well-worn shackles have been warmed by his body heat, he still shivers when they clamp on the chains.

Here, I start slipping a bit out of the simple Goku voice that I was using before. I could fanwank (can you fanwank your own fic?) and say that it's no longer Goku remembering, but... I basically just wanted something a little more poetic than Goku-voice would allow.

I seem to use the "he's not feeling [insert emotion]" as a means to express that "someone is feeling it dreadfully and is in denial" thing a great deal.

I just... my heart breaks for wee!Goku, who's trying so hard to be brave and to sort of live up to Kenren, Konzen, and Tenpou, who of course only express deep emotion through extreme casualness.

I don't know why, but I'm particularly fond of the shackles warmed by body heat thing. I was originally going with how cold everything felt; the rock, the cave, etc., but I figured since wee!Goku has been wearing shackles for forever, they wouldn't be cold at all.

And this is the start of him calling out for people from the cave that finally leads to Sanzo finding him, because that image of Goku silently crying out for five hundred years kills me.

You may have all realized that this story is my meager attempt to distill why Gaiden gets to me so much; ergo, the constant repetition and motifs that I stuck in.

He tries to remember that he won't be here forever because Konzen promised to find him, and any promise Konzen makes with a hand in Goku's hair and a slightly choked voice has to be a real one.

But in a few minutes, he won't remember Konzen's promise, and when Kanzeon brings hir hand down on his head, he grasps at moments, but they're harder to catch than minnows in a pond.

More glimpses into why Gaiden breaks my heart; it's Goku under the mountain for five hundred years, waiting. Except, he doesn't know that he's waiting, and he doesn't remember that he was loved and protected.

Wee!Goku's resolve to be brave slips a bit here, because he can't let go of the memory of Konzen. The minnow bit is an attempt to use a metaphor that wee!Goku might have thought (albeit in fancier terms).

They slip away: rough bark against his palms and leaves against his cheek and Nataku down below; blood and swords and red, red rage; picnics under the perpetually flowering cherry trees and flurries of pink petals as Ten-chan talks about the arcane art of noodles; slamming into a tall figure in black leather and the sharp yank of hair; tangy oranges and nectar-sweet peach juice dripping from his elbows and blackberry seeds in his teeth; heavy silence and too many things unsaid that very last night before battle and capture; fear and loss and slaughter in an echoing room; a name so short that even a monkey can remember it; Konzen and three hands warming his and a promise that's all he has left.

And now, I'm no longer in wee!Goku voice. It's also a change in style; more fluid, longer sentences, stream-of-consciousness, as opposed to the rather short, simple sentences that wee!Goku uses. I wanted to try to capture to whirlwind of memories draining away.

It was interesting trying to pick out what memories wee!Goku would particularly treasure. I knew there had to be an iconic memory of Nataku, Tenpou, Kenren, and Konzen in there, but I also wanted other things from his (rather short) life in Heaven. Food was a no-brainer, particularly fruit, given Goku's list of shumi, though now, I think I should have picked more Chinese fruit. Blackberries don't feel very Chinese for some reason, but oh well, I got the peaches in.

I also wanted something not too white-washed or romanticized, something concrete, because I think that's how Goku would think. So there's peach juice dripping down elbows and blackberry seeds in teeth (both of which happen to me). I wanted both good and bad memories as well, so there's the memory of slaughter, which has been condensed to the color red (I think I do the color thing too much). There's the sorrow of impending doom. I don't know if the echoing room refers to the first time Goku goes Seiten Taisei, or if it's an unwritten bit on being sentenced by Li Touten.

Picking out the iconic moments for Goku's important people was a bit more difficult. I knew I wanted sakura and sake, because it's Gaiden, and ended up using that for Tenpou and noodles. I suspect Goku would very much remember Tenpou's odes to ramen. Nataku was easy, given his last words to Goku about tree climing. Kenren was more difficult; I didn't remember that much between Goku and Kenren besides Kenren's protection of him with a sword. And I didn't want his last memories of his improptu family to be tinged with danger or impending doom. So I picked the first meeting and the hair-yanking, which made me happy because it somewhat parallels the first meeting with Goku and Gojyo, in which Goku yanks Gojyo's hair.

Konzen, I knew, had to be something short and simple to contrast with the fluidity of the sentences before. So first, it was Goku's naming -- such a simple thing, but also an indication of parenthood, of care. And naming someone is just so intimate, and of course, names in Saiyuki are even more important because of Hakkai and Sanzo's name changes later on in their lives. In the end, I decided that Goku wouldn't have a single, iconic memory of Konzen. There's too much, Konzen infuses every bit of Goku's life, so as a contrast to the flurry of words before, Konzen is given one word -- his name -- that symbolizes everything he is to Goku, because Goku can't even subconsciously pick a single moment.

Despite Konzen's importance, I wanted this fic to be on the four of them, how Goku brings them all together, because that's what grabbed me so much from Gaiden. Also, pinky promise. So the final memory, the last one to go, is, of course, not the first pinky promise, but the second one, the one in which all three of them promise to Goku that they will meet again. I also wanted that last because I felt Goku would be clinging to that as a lifeline, that that was the one thing he could not let go of.

Faster and faster, and Goku can't hold on to them, even though he's aching for things he doesn't know he needs, until finally, he is alone under rock.

He pulls at his chains so he can sit in the slivers of sunshine, and he doesn't understand why his cheeks are wet when he touches them.

And now, the poor kid is alone. I keep saying this, but... I feel so bad for Goku, alone, wanting something that he doesn't know he needs. And the image of tears being shed without knowing why has been one that's always resonated with me. I think Goku remembers something, deep down; he knows something has been ripped away from him.

In the first year, he realizes his name is Goku, and that this is somehow important. He spends the rest of the year trying to think of more, but all he knows is that he has a name, that he hates the darkness, and that he's waiting.

And now, we are completely out of Goku!POV and into third-person omniscient, because there was no other way to write the reincarnation bits. I had figured out the structure of this section early on; I knew I wanted a sort of timeline of reincarnations. The day-by-day timeline of the first section was decided afterward -- now that I think back, it was such an obvious choice.

Also, the timeline drove me insane! I had to redo the math about five times to get it right; I knew it was five hundred years between Goku's imprisonment and the start of Saiyuki, but that discounts the years with Sanzo before their journey (at least, that's what the timeline in Saiyubito said. That left me about 490 years to figure out. Instead of juggling three reincarnation timelines, I decided that no matter how early one of the three died, they would always be reborn at roughly the same time, thanks to karma, or Kanzeon, or something.

I had a few incarnations in mind when I started the story. I knew that the final one would be the three mahjong players, I knew one of the first would be edonohana's soldiers, one would be a poet-scholar and one would be a courtesan/teahouse singer and her patron. I also wanted the incarnations to gradually evolve from Konzen, Tenpou and Kenren to Sanzo, Hakkai and Gojyo. And I knew that every single Konzen/Sanzo incarnation had to be looking for Goku in some way, because I wanted his promise to somehow be burned into lifetimes.

In the twenty-second year, a poet-scholar offends the emperor and is exiled to the hinterlands of the west.

Yay, west! And it has meaning apart from the Saiyuki journey reference! Chinese civilization started around the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and gradually spread out circularly. The western part of China (Xinjiang and etc.) was incorporated into the dynasties very, very late, around the Qing dynasty. Also, there's a long tradition of poet-scholars offending the emperor and getting exiled (Qu Yuan, Su Shi, to name a few), thanks to the bureaucratic examination system. Of course, I'm totally mixing up my dynasties here, since more of the poets I've read were from earlier dynasties than the Qing dynasty, but then, I figure, Sanzo has a gold card and a Smith Wesson. So neener. I keep putting Chinese influences into my fic, but I want it to feel like China. Even if it's a fictional China, and even though Minekura's setting doesn't much feel like China at all.

Oh, yeah, this is Konzen's first incarnation, though I realized while editing that it could possibly be Tenpou as well.

In the twenty-fourth year, a lieutenant polishes his captain's glasses under a gingko tree, bright gold leaves and red blood pooling around him.

I totally wanted to use edonohana's soldiers from "Autumn Gold;" she says it's part of the "Five Incarnations That Never Happened" series, but it's become my personal canon. It was really tough to summarize the story into a sentence, so I settled for the moments that caught me the most -- the glasses, the blood, and that wonderful line on gingko leaves as "a hundred tiny fans of old gold." I am also a sucker for color and liked the thought of gold and red together (very Chinese!).

In the twenty-seventh year, in keeping with tradition, the poet-scholar drowns himself in a lake. He leaves a poem bemoaning the emperor's policies, which his family expects, and another poem on the lure of mountains, which they do not.

And now, confirmation that this is a Konzen incarnation. The "keeping with tradition" thing is a bit of a joke for me; in Chinese class, I swear, every other poet got exiled for telling the emperor something he didn't like, and half of them ended up drowning themselves. Ok, maybe not half. But Qu Yuan set a pretty big precedent, since we still "celebrate" it today with the Dragon Boat Festival!

I imagine that not-Konzen's poem is a beautiful, seven-word, four-line Tang poem (seven words/line, not seven words total), with paired lines, probably with "moon/sun," "east/west," "water/mountain" matching imagery (classic Chinese poetry is very rigid in structure and pairs almost everything).

In the 55th, 56th, and 57th years, Goku hears voices as a very determined and very annoyed young man makes several attempts to scale the mountain.

In the 58th year, the voices stop, and Goku finds that he misses the shouting.

In the 59th year, he hears more voices but no shouting. A few months later, a widow buries her husband's bones, comforted somewhat by finally having a grave to sweep.

I can't actually imagine any Konzen incarnation married, heh.

I also wasn't sure if the bit on grave sweeping would make sense to people; Qing Ming Jie is a spring festival/holiday, and it's a bit like Obon for the Japanese. You go and sweep your ancestors' graves, basically. It probably used to be literal sweeping, but now it's more tidying things and paying respects. Like lots of cultures, I suspect ancient Chinese people would be horrified by not having the body but am not certain.

In the 133rd year, an old soldier-turned-teacher reminisces about past battles and the one headstrong underling who never listened. He still remembers the blood on his hands (not on his glasses and not on gingko leaves) and the heartbreak that led him to the schoolroom.

This used to be up higher, till my beta told me she thought it was the lieutenant all grown-up and old. It's actually supposed to be a Tenpou incarnation; I tried to clue people in with the bit on being a teacher and the headstrong underling. I added the glasses and gingko leaves later.

I think this is when Tenpou turns into Hakkai. My own personal theory is that Tenpou is the furthest from Hakkai, then Konzen from Sanzo, then Kenren from Gojyo. So I put in the turning points in that order. Tenpou, I think, hated Heaven most and therefore changed the most.

I wanted this to parallel the first Tenpou-Kenren incarnation, but in reverse. And I wanted some sort of ghost memory of the other incarnation; I think this soldier-turned-teacher is somewhat confused as to why he thinks of blood on his glasses and on the gingko leaves whenever he thinks of his dead underling.

In the 156th year, a tea-house singer heading home for the night finds an extremely drunken young man collapsed on top of her biwa case. Despite her many qualms, she keeps the tea-house owner from kicking him out.

In the 157th year, the extremely drunken young man's superior finds that his charge is now residing with a tea-house singer, causing much scandal at the Imperial Library. A fist-fight breaks out, but eventually, the tea-house singer wins.

I'm just happy female!Kenren gets to punch someone really hard.

I tried to put in some funny incarnations as well, so people weren't overwhelmed with the angst of DOOM! Originally, the tea-house singer was the Kenren incarnation and the drunk young man was the Tenpou incarnation, as indicated by the passing out on the biwa case. I wanted Tenpou/Hakkai incarnations and Kenren/Gojyo incarnations to always have a life-changing moment in which Kenren/Gojyo finds Tenpou/Hakkai passed out. On re-reading, I realized that people might think Hakkai was the tea-house singer, so I put in the bit on the library as well.

Originally, the drunken young man's superior at the library was supposed to be a Konzen incarnation (echoing his scholar thing), but I decided later that the three would never, ever meet until the final incarnation before becoming Sanzo, Gojyo and Hakkai. Maybe the superior is Goujun! I think that'd fit as well.

I also think this is a happy incarnation, in which the tea-house singer and the scholar have a lovely time together, and, of course, lots and lots of sex.

The tea house thing is another Chinese reference, although this is so based on the pop culture version of Chinese history instead of, you know, actual knowledge. I think tea houses weren't really tea houses; they served food and drinks and etc. and had entertainers. I suspect the female entertainers occupied that odd liminal space between respectable women and outright prostitutes, depending on how famous they were. The biwa is sort of like a Chinese lute; of course, given the complete historical weirdness of this story, I use the Japanese name to refer to it instead of the Chinese name ("pipa") just to fit the sounds of the names.

I think I got the tea-house biwa-player idea from Bai Juyi's lengthy poem about an old biwa player telling her sad life story to the poet (Pipa Xing, Eng. trans after the Chinese). I had to memorize the entire thing in eighth grade, and I guess it stuck! But there's this beautiful image in the poem of the biwa player's tears running through her make-up and making red... posts (fence posts/architectural beams, though that doesn't sound nearly as poetic!) on her face.

In the next twenty-one years, Goku tries to entertain himself by alternately arranging assorted leaves, rocks, and paper in patterns. He comes up with elaborate rules, but in the end, he's still bored.

This was supposed to set up the mahjong later on, but I don't know if it worked.

In the following 108 years, Goku sits and sits. He moves only when the sun does. Kanzeon Bosatsu watches in amusement or frustration as generations of blondes manage to fall off mountains.

Se is briefly appeased in the 287th year, when a group of monks rescue a young blonde man from a landslide. They are rewarded with many arguments. Despite constant provocation, the monks let the man live with them till his death at seventy-seven. He never leaves the temple.

I have to admit, the generations of blondes falling off mountains is one of my favorite lines.

edonohana commented during beta-ing that she had always thought the Konzen/Sanzo incarnations never found Goku because they died off too young. I always thought that the mountain was really hard to get to or climb for some reason (and that some of the Konzen/Sanzo incarnations never quite figured out what to do with their yearning for mountains).

Also, gah, the math bits! Argh! You think the years are random! But no, I debated for days with myself on what counted as a generation and how many generations counted as "generations."

And yay, obligatory reference to Goku and the sun.

I feel so sorry for those monks who rescued the blonde. I think this is the point when Konzen turns into Sanzo too.

And then I got stuck for several weeks before coming up with the next incarnations. I so ran out of ideas.

In the 375th year, a young girl plants a cherry tree with her mother. She wants to know when it will bloom so she can give the flowers to her mother, but in the wake of her father's death the next year, the tree grows on, forgotten.

I realized halfway through that I didn't have any female incarnations, except for the tea-house singer! This had to be remedied! (This is all because edonohana was telling me about the ikkou-as-women AU she was working on.)

I think the cherry tree was edonohana's idea when I finally gave in and made her read the unfinished story, just to see if I was going in the right direction. I loved the idea of a cherry tree being nourished by generations of ikkou-incarnations and decided to stick that in with the female incarnations. This was partially born of practicality; by the time I had finally rejiggered the incarnation timelines so that they made sense, I realized I didn't have many incarnations left!

I also liked the mother-maiden-crone trinity echoed in stages of each of the ikkou-incarnations and paralleled by the tree's growth.

Of course, I don't know if cherry trees actually grow in China but... credit cards! So there!

Also, I wanted more happy incarnations instead of incarnations of DOOM, so I gave the Gojyo incarnation a happier version of Gojyo's childhood. I think Gojyo's mother and Doku reincarnate with him through a few lifetimes, but as later additions (sort of how I suspect Goujun/Jeep pops in now and again but isn't in every reincarnation). I have this image of the ikkou gathering more and more karma/bonds through the centuries.

In the 392nd year, a woman and her twin sister come across the flowering sakura and giggle at the petals in their hair, remembering that even through a difficult childhood, they always had each other.

More happy incarnations! And enter Kanan's prior incarnation!

In the 421st year, an old nun finds the tree bowed down, branches cracking under the weight of snow and ice. She can't do much, but she comes by every day to clear off the snow. When spring comes, she sets out on her last pilgrimage, but not before she leaves her mentor's prayer beads at the roots of the tree. She will miss the feel of cold, smooth stone in her fingers, but no more than she misses her mentor's calm certainty.

I think after the one blonde is taken in by monks, all the Sanzo incarnations have been monks/nuns. I suspect Koumyou came into the equation before this, in an unseen incarnation.

I have no idea where the nun is going off to for her pilgrimage, but I wanted to give her peace. She's probably still grumpy and crochety, but she had her mentor the whole way through, as opposed to said mentor being slaughtered in front of her.

And I have no idea if prayer beads are made of stone, but I needed something that wouldn't rot away or tarnish or something!

In the 447th year, a bartender finds himself playing mahjong every week with the town's teacher and the scholar residing at the local temple. All three are baffled by the recurring games; they know they have nothing in common. Even so, they play for years, but they can never find a regular for the spot across from the scholar. After several more years of always having to look for someone to be West, they eventually drift apart.

Goku spends those years staring east and north and south and missing something that he doesn't know how to play.

And now, we are at the last incarnation before the ikkou we all know and love is born!

I never consciously decided this while writing, but now that I'm re-reading, I think this is when Kenren becomes Gojyo. Or maybe Kenren just never really becomes Gojyo until Gojyo, because they feel like they would have been the same, had it not been for Gojyo's horrific childhood.

The mahjong idea was one of the first ones I had for incarnations, largely because I adore mahjong, even though I suck at it. I loved the idea of the perpetually empty fourth chair (figuratively, of course, since you can't play mahjong with three people), of people continually rotating in and out of what should be Goku's position, because deep down, all three of the ikkou incarnations know that something is not right, that someone who isn't there should be there.

Goku is, of course, the player for the West. I was originally going to place the Sanzo-incarnation next to him, but I went back to vol. 9 to consult how they sat in that mahjong game, and found they were across from each other. So, for the record, not-Sanzo is playing East, not-Hakkai is North, and not-Gojyo is South. I found out later that in the anime, Goku actually plays East and Sanzo plays West (and flip Hakkai and Gojyo too), but oh well! As long as Goku-Sanzo are on the East-West axis (yay sunrise/sunset references that I just made up two seconds ago?), I am happy.

I also decided halfway through that the ikkou-incarnations would never share lives together as a trio, and that this would be the only time that the three of them ever got together, sort of as a preparation for finally finding Goku, the missing piece, the one who brought them all together in the first place. Yeah, Sanzo's the cornerstone in Saiyuki, but it was wee!Goku who brought Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou together, imho. The Kenren/Gojyo and Tenpou/Hakkai incarnations get a few lifetimes together, but I think the Konzen/Sanzo incarnation always goes through it alone, except this lifetime.

In the 501st year, four travellers in a jeep come across an old cherry tree in full bloom. Despite much arguing, they stop there. The youngest one runs around, climbs the tree, and gets into all sorts of trouble. He finds a pile of smooth, round stones in the roots of the tree and brings one to the monk, who glares. Later, when no one is looking, the monk rolls the stone in his hands and finds strange comfort in the cool rock.

Yay! We have reached present day! I just realized that this is so not in the Saiyuki timeline, given that they've been travelling for three years by the Even a Worm arc. Oh well. And I will probably be totally jossed by Minekura anyway, when/if Goku ever gets his memories back.

There was a lot in this story that wasn't planned: I didn't know that the cherry tree that not-Gojyo planted would be the cherry tree the ikkou met under; I didn't know that not-Koumyou's prayer beads would still be there. I feel weird, as though I created a canon within the fic, in a way.

I guess you could probably read a lot of symbolism into the old cherry tree (generations of incarnations) in full bloom (finally, all four together at last), but that was unintentional. But still cool! And probably a bit anvilly, come to think...

Today, Goku drags everyone out for a picnic under the cherry tree. Hakkai looks puzzled but goes along; Gojyo complains loudly but not strongly; and contrary to all expectations, Sanzo simply agrees, a distant look in his eyes and a stone bead in his hand.

And now, we are firmly back in limited third-person Goku POV. I wanted it to sound like wee!Goku, but a little older, more mature, more sophisticated vocabulary and speech patterns. I don't know how much of Goku is winging it through this part and how much is planning; I suspect it's a bit of both, since that's very Goku.

Goku knows everyone is confused by his insistence and his unusual gravity. He usually doesn't care if everyone thinks he's a simple, happy-go-lucky, hungry monkey. He likes simple. But this is important.

It's important like accompanying Gonou to the ruins of a castle was important, like going back for Gojyo because there was too much room in Jeep, like playing mahjong in the middle of defeat.

Sort of filler on fuzzy ikkou memories, along with a gentle reminder that Goku is not stupid, despite appearing to be simple.

So they picnic, and the falling petals get in everyone's instant ramen and sake. For once, Hakkai listened to Goku instead of Gojyo and got sake instead of beer, which just makes this day better. Gojyo fishes each petal out of his cup, insulted by the sake or the sakura or the world in general.

For some reason, I am totally amused by a grumpy Gojyo trying to get all those damn sakura petals out of his alcohol.

Gojyo spits out a petal that he somehow missed and says, "Spill. What d'you have up your sleeve?"

Goku doesn't say anything, just reaches over to grab Gojyo's hand. Even though Gojyo swears and pulls away, Goku twists his hand and manages to forcibly hook his pinky with Gojyo's.

"OW! What's up with you?" he complains, but he stops struggling.

When Goku still doesn't reply, Gojyo turns to Hakkai: "Don't tell me you're in on this too?"

But Hakkai's not listening; he's staring at Goku. He hesitates, but when Goku nods, he tentatively reaches a hand out and places it over Goku and Gojyo's intertwined fingers.

"Sanzo," Goku says. He's not whining this time, and he's not pleading like he did in the cave, but he still needs something.

Sanzo snorts.

"Oh, just do what the kid wants," Gojyo says. "Get it over w-- ow! Stop holding on so tight!"

"Goku does seem to think this is important," Hakkai adds.

"Sanzo," Goku says again.

Sanzo starts to reach inside his sleeve when Goku adds, "Please."

"Fine!" Sanzo rolls his eyes and slaps his hand down, hard. Their hands stay piled for maybe two seconds before Sanzo and Gojyo yank theirs back quickly.

"What the fuck, monkey?" Sanzo asks.

I kept the same order as before: Gojyo, Hakkai, Sanzo. And Sanzo's slap is much more forceful and grumpier than Konzen's, hee.

I also liked Sanzo and Gojyo's overly masculine display of pretend homophobia -- I keep imagining them thinking, "Ew, boy cooties!"

Goku looks at the three of them, lets himself remember.

"I keep my promises," he says. He doesn't know if he's talking to Sanzo and Hakkai and Gojyo or to the silhouettes behind them.

Wah! I don't know if the silhouettes are of Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou, or of all the incarnations, or if they're ghosts, or just visions Goku has, or what. But they're there, through the ages. And I liked the shift in power here. The first few promises to wee!Goku were from caretakers to a scared child. This is a mature Goku making sure the promise is kept, even though they were the ones who promised him. In a way, I see Goku here as taking responsibility for the group, acknowledging all that they've gone through because of him, and trying in some way to alleviate those centuries apart.

Just as Sanzo starts reaching for his fan or his gun again, Goku turns to him, reaches up, runs his fingers through Sanzo's bright hair, like he's always wanted to.

"So do you," he says, bowing down his head in anticipation of a blow that never comes.

"So do you," he says again, this time, to all of them.

Wah! Goku again being the adult, the mature one. His fingers in Sanzo's hair goes right back to their first meeting as Goku and Konzen, when he pulls out Konzen's hair. That time is an accident that ends up sealing their fates for centuries. Then there's Sanzo's hand in Goku's hair, and this time, Goku is very deliberately tempting fate (and Sanzo's patience, but aren't they the same thing...) in an echo of meeting Konzen. I think by this time, Goku fully remembers his time in Heaven, and it's an acknowledgement that he's Sanzo's equal now.

And of course, to the group, to Kenren/Gojyo, who made the first promise, to all of them who protected him and shielded him in Heaven. Goku is paying his debts; Goku is growing up.

Goku's going to make sure that this time, there won't be a need for promises.

Unbelievably, I had more going into this line. Thankfully, my beta knocked some sense in me and said it worked just fine as a single line.

So there you go! The ginormous commentary, with probably much more than you ever wanted to know!