Sanzo didn't have too many high expectations in life – not with the company he was forced to keep. Cigarettes, bullets, the occasional booze, peace and quiet. These things were not too much to ask, even given his errant companions.

Of course, it was also best left unsaid that when he shot something or someone dead, he expected it to stay dead. It wasn't about high demands or dignity, or maybe even his sanity, much less common courtesy. Furthermore, he really did not need to see the man sit upright, the bullet entry wound in his forehead squirting blood as he frowned unhappily, and said, "That fucking hurt, seriously."

Gojyo, who had stopped in mid-swing when he saw the strange man go down, absolutely certain at the time that Sanzo's point-blank shot to the head was a killer blow, stumbled back a step. "That's… not normal," he said finally in a rusty voice, his grip upon his weapon tightening white-knuckled

The man stood without a single sweat-damp silver hair out of place, unperturbed by the critical wound that should have killed him – would have killed anyone else, even Kogaji. He dabbed at the blood with the sleeve of his billowing black robe, decorated with red clouds. "What the hell was that about?" He glared at Sanzo's gun, as if daring the weapon to bark its deadly cloud of smoke and powder once more.

When Sanzo refused to reply, his mind frantically going over everything he knew about immortality, the man dabbed a few more times at his wound before its profuse bleeding slowed to a mere trickle.

"Shall we continue?" the man asked nonchalantly. The bizarre weapon with the three scythe blades spun in his hands, flashing silver from the overhead noon sun. He eyed Goku like he was inspecting a choice piece of meat at the butcher's display. "I don't have all fucking day to get the jinchurriki, seriously. It's fucking hot out here, I have sand in my shoes, and a heat rash on my ass."

Goku frowned. "The what?"

Gojyo grimaced. "Way too much information, man."

If it wouldn't remove his eyes from the enemy, Sanzo would have slapped a hand over his forehead in exasperation. "Goku is not a jinchurrikki," he snapped impatiently, just as he heard Gojyo mutter something of, "Well, at least it isn't about the scroll this time…"

"What's a jinchuwazzit?" Goku asked.

"It's a carrier of a demon," the man replied as he slid his legs apart and bent his knees in preparation for another assault. He quickly swiped away the sweat that drenched his chin.

Goku's face fell, and Sanzo gritted his teeth. "A jinchurriki is a tailed beast demon sealed inside a human. Goku doesn't qualify on any of those accounts."

The man blinked as his expression screwed into a thoughtful frown. His legs straightened. "You fucking serious?" He pointed at Goku. "The kid ain't a jinchurriki?"

"The kid is over five hundred years old. He doesn't have a tailed beast demon sealed within him, and therefore doesn't qualify."

The man seemed to wilt from a mixture of heat stroke and disappointment. "Well, shit. Are you sure?"

"Positive. I found him sealed up in a cave."

He tapped an irritable finger against the lowest of the three scythe blades. "This sucks, seriously. It's too hot for carnage and I don't give a flying fuck anymore. Are you absolutely sure?" He once more dabbed away the blood from his forehead with his sleeve.

Sanzo had a sneaking suspicion that the bullet to the brain had not affected the man's cognitive abilities in the least. Maybe he ought to shoot him again for the principle of it.

The man swung the scythe backwards, stuck it into some sort of sling on his back, and then turned his back to them, either confident or arrogant enough to figure that he had nothing to worry about exposing himself to enemies. "Oh well. No hard feeling, right?" He took two steps forward, stopped upright, and then turned around to face them once more. "Say, anyone know the hell where I'm at?" he asked as he looked around the desert they had been fighting in.

"China," Hakkai replied helpfully.

The expression of outrage and horror that swept cross the man's face was almost comedic. "Fucking what? China? How the hell did we get… here…" Another expression chased away the other emotions on his face, this one hinting towards something darker, deadlier. "Itachi," he hissed, then gritted his teeth. "I knew we shouldn't have trusted him with the fucking map, seriously." He waved a hand at the others. "See you later, guys." Then he was gone, with nothing but a whirl of sand swirling gently upward as proof of where he had been standing.

oOoOoOoOo

"Apparently your partner was too cheap to buy one in a language the rest of us could understand," Kisame snapped back.

oOoOoOoOo

Author's notes: It all began with a random LJ entry of how I was captivated with the idea Hidan from Naruto and Genjo Sanzo from Saiyuki having a long philosophical discourse of gods and religion - intersperced with dead bodies, rampaging enemies, Goku chowing down while Kakuzu bitches about the cost of food, and poor Hakkai is wondering how the hell they managed to get mixed up with Akatsuki in the first place.

My friends egged me on. So it's all their fault. I'm just an innocent bystander - er, writer. Yeah.