This is the final chapter of "Void". I have researched Chinese customs and Buddhist ceremonies to get the mentioned details right; if I should have made a mistake, please notify me of it, and I shall gladly edit to achieve greater authenticity.

DISCLAIMER: Saiyuki and its characters are property of Kazuya Minekura and the respective distributing companies, and I do not intend to make money with her work.

WARNINGS: Angst, Character Death.

SPECIAL THANKS to Zelgadis55, who has betaed this chapter and has been a great help overall.

Further Author's notes can be found at the bottom.

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VOID
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CHAPTER 3
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It was another mockingly sunny, yet cool day when Gojyo and Hakkai decided to pay their respects. The official mourning period of 49 days was over, so the youkai and the hanyou hoped they would be able to avoid any masses of people at the temple cemetery. Although it was proper to wear normal clothes again, they were still clad in white – the color of death. A small black piece of cloth pinned to their shirts signified that they had experienced a personal loss.

They found that people had indeed gone back to their everyday lives when they arrived at the small graveyard – aside from a few monks minding their own business, the place was deserted. After passing some quite impressive and well-tended graves of great minds passed away long ago, they finally arrived at a simple headstone engraved with nothing but a name, laden with wilting flowers. Genjo Sanzo.

When Hakkai and Gojyo had visited the monk nearly four months ago, they had not known that it would be the last time they would see him alive. Two weeks later, they had been told that, regrettably, their companion refused to receive any further visits. What they hadn't been told was that Sanzo still did not touch the food brought to him – he had not accepted anything but a jug of water a day. Even his regular delivery of cigarette cartons had remained outside the door as they were left. The people of the institution had obviously taken all that for a good sign – they had assumed that the monk had been engaging in spiritual fasting and recitation of prayers, since they had heard him muttering whenever they passed his door.

They had been wrong.

After a month of 'fasting', they had become suspicious that this had not been the intention of the priest, and had left food again. It had remained untouched. One of the servants had even tried to enter his room and place the food on the table - and received various small injuries for daring to cross into Sanzo's territory. There was nothing they had been able to do.

Barely two weeks after that, all sound from room number 16 had ceased.

And another week later, a young acolyte had come from the monastery to ask for their personal appearance...

When they were led straight in front of the Abbot, they knew that something grave had taken place, and that it most likely involved Sanzo. Even Gojyo, who had quipped about the blonde having left the institute and them having to find him, knew that it was nothing so harmless when the old man greeted them very sternly and bid them to sit down.

After they had folded their legs under them, the Abbot wasted no time and said, without preamble,

"Your friend, Genjo Sanzo, has passed away four days ago."

Even though they had somewhat expected this kind of message, the finality of it rendered them silent. The old monk patiently waited until one of them spoke up. Finally, Hakkai managed to ask, "Can we see him?"

The Abbot nodded.

"That is why I have summoned you here. He is to be cremated soon, the priests have done their initial chanting and are in silent prayer now. To my knowledge, you were the closest thing he had to a family, so it is only proper for you to see him once more before his body is given to the flames. Come with me, I shall lead you to him."

Gojyo and Hakkai got up, following him out of the room and through a long hallway.
Neither of them spoke; their thoughts were filled with grief, with guilt at not having been able to prevent their companion's death.
Finally, the old man stopped in front of a simple wooden door.

"Here it is."

The door swung open with a small creak that nevertheless seemed like sacrilege to them. The smell of smoke hovered in the air, the only thing remaining of the incense and paper slips burned to grant the soul easy passage into the realms of Death.

And on an altar-like table in the middle of the room lay the mortal shell of Genjo Sanzo.

The monks had washed the body, clad it in a new, clean robe and brushed the hair, yet despite their efforts, it still left the impression as though this person had been dead for weeks instead of mere days: The golden hair was dull and had fallen out in places, the fingers protruding from the sleeves were nothing but bones and sinew, the incredibly pale skin had an almost gray hue to it. Yet his gaunt features were oddly peaceful, displaying a kind of serenity that the monk had never shown in life.

Hakkai, healer that he was, immediately recognized how Sanzo had died.

"He didn't eat... for weeks," he breathed.

The Abbot nodded sadly. "When he was finally so weak that they could force some food into him, it was already too late."

A moment of silence passed before he seemed to want to say something more, but Gojyo spoke up first.

"You should take the sutra off him – otherwise you'll burn it with him." His voice wavered ever so slightly at the word "burn", as he pointed at the scripture draped over the lifeless body's shoulders.

The old monk shook his head, a sad smile on his lips.

"No, everything is as it should be, young man. There won't be a successor to Genjo Sanzo."

If he had not had their full attention before, this announcement definitely managed to capture it. Green and crimson eyes widened as the Abbot continued,

"He was the last Sanzo dwelling in the mortal realms, the Maten sutra the last sutra to still exist here after the Gods recovered the other four scriptures from the ruins of Houtou castle. The Sanbutsushin decreed that it is to be sent back to the Heavenly lands, where the Halls of Tentei eagerly await its return. If the Gyuumaou-Experiment has taught us anything, then it is the fact that mortals cannot deal responsibly with the scriptures of Heaven. They shall be removed from Tougenkyou, so there will be no bloodshed over them anymore."

Silence filled the room once more as the two young men returned their attention to the body, committing his likeness to memory one last time before his mortal shell would be reduced to ashes. Neither of them noticed that the old monk quietly left the room, giving them time to be alone with their companion...

When the announcement of Genjo Sanzo's death had reached the public, the whole region had joined the monastery in traditional mourning – he had not only been the highest ranked monk, but also one of the heroes who had saved Tougenkyou from the madness of the negative wave and the revival of Gyuumaou. Groves of people had visited the grave and left tokens of their appreciation, and everybody had been wearing white. At any given time, there had been more than ten people flocking around the grave in prayer.

Hakkai and Gojyo, who had been the only non-clerical people to be permitted at the funeral, had preferred to mourn in the privacy of their own home; they knew the people meant well when they expressed their condolences to them, but it felt wrong to willingly accept them, if only because Sanzo probably would not have appreciated the attention his death received from the general public.

But now the traditional mourning period was over, and since no one had really known the monk and everybody believed that such an exalted figure surely must have achieved Nirvana, nobody bothered to visit the gravesite anymore. Nobody but the two people who knew better.

Hakkai spent a couple of minutes with cleaning the fallen flower petals off the grave and stacking the wilted stems on the side – the monks would later remove them. Neither he nor Gojyo had been raised in the Buddhist faith, but they knew that, if everything the religion proclaimed about rebirth was true, Sanzo had committed far too many sins to receive the final salvation of the soul. He would be reborn into a new vessel to try for a life without flaws again and again until his soul would someday succeed.

After returning from the temple the day they had learned of Sanzo's death, they had spent hours wondering just why the monk had decided to part from life willingly. Had he just refused to eat because food reminded him of the always-hungry Goku? Had he wanted to end his uncontrollable rage in the only way he knew? Had he felt that his life had lost purpose after the journey had been completed and he had lost the person he had watched over for so long? Or had he longed to reunite with Goku, who had been, so Gojyo had mused, the extroverted part of himself in a way?

There was no way for them to ever find out the ultimate reason, yet their musings had helped them to accept that it had indeed been Sanzo's wish to leave the realms of the living. Only now, as they stood in front of the grave in silence, both of them remembered how peaceful he had looked – the burdens of his existence lifted from him permanently, all pain and regrets forgotten.

An expression of mild surprise crossed Hakkai's features when Gojyo spoke up quietly just as he had been about to do so himself.

"Sanzo, I hope you find happiness wherever you turn up next – after all you've been through, you deserve it. And I hope you will find the monkey again. You might have denied any attachment to him while you were still with us, but all of us had seen through that mask a long time ago. Even he did. You two share a common destiny, I'm sure of that. And until you find him, watch out for yourself."

Hakkai nodded silently, smiling; he could not have said it better. And for a single moment, the two remaining members of the famous Sanzo party, who had spent years on the road together to rid the world of a great evil, shared absolute certainty that everything they hoped for their friends would come true.

-THE END-

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Here we go – the end of this story. Writing it was rather hard for me, since I never wrote a fanfic featuring the death of a character before. I hope this last chapter was worth the wait, and that the hope at the end was not too overdone. If you feel it was, feel free to tell me. If you have anything else to say about this story, go ahead, I am very happy about any kind of feedback received.

I hope that I will find the time to tackle my next project sometime within the next week!

My thanks go out to those of you who have reviewed the previous chapters – you have been a great help, and your comments have made me happy! Thank you for reading!