After the flashback: the I-3 are attacked by another PoRY calling them "Sanzo-ikkou" and demanding the sutra, and G&G are royally ticked off by it, bashing the hapless youkai with a lot more force than is usually called for. We're not his group! ("Sanzo-ikkou ja nai!") snarls Goku, and he and Gojyo--having KO'd all the youkai--go into a stamping and yelling tantrum, while Hakkai mildly asks if they really ought to blame everything on Sanzo. We have to get there before him no matter what! insists Goku. Let's go!--but then yet another PoRY pops up from nowhere, also yelling "Sanzo" and "sutra"! G&G literally see red, roaring "We're not in his goddamn group!" as they rip into the demons, and Hakkai rolls his eyes and wonders just what Sanzo's doing right now... their angry racket is so deafening that in the Heavens it even disrupts Kanzeon and Jiroushin's shogi game, and the Merciful One Hirself snaps "Urasai!"
--Meanwhile, Sanzo is sitting in a desert canyon, having a smoke, when he hears a chiming of bells. Hm? -he pauses, and the jingle comes again, echoing off the Monument Valley-like stone pillars...and then, ta-da! the foe appears. I've found you! calls down Zakuro; long time no see, Genjyo-Sanzo-houshi. He leaps down to face the monk. You should feel honored, he says, cackling with glee; I've been summoned from hell just to defeat you. --Sanzo, who we thought had killed this creep in their last meeting, takes the sight of him with admirable calm. Zakuro cackles again and holds up his string of bells. Who are you?--asks the monk. You can't have forgotten me, retorts Zakuro, and after a second Sanzo growls, "Oh, it's you, bastard." (Then a flashback to make sure we too remember the illusionist youkai--like we could forget the one who put Gojyo through such torment.) Zakuro, wasn't it? he asks. That's right: the Master of Illusions, Lord Zakuro! No man is more beautiful or elegant than I, there's no way you could forget me! crows the youkai, and Sanzo snorts that that's only because he's never met a bigger show-off. =) He reminds Zakuro that he was beaten last time, but His Lordship replies that the bullet only grazed him, and that this time he's sure to send Sanzo to the depths of hell.
The priest chuckles, and--how does Seki do this?--it has that unmistakable slightly-mad note we only hear when Sanzo is parted from his companions. Seems everyone's looking for ways to make me die these days, he says; bring it on. Zakuro laughs eerily and jingles his bells; but Sanzo draws on him without looking at him, snarling that idiots just love to run their mouths, and drills him straight through the heart. The youkai chokes and falls. Sanzo scoffs that he shouldn't've thought the same trick would work twice--he knows his illusions don't work if you don't meet his eyes.
But Zakuro laughs and says 'who's the fool here?' and vanishes before Sanzo's eyes--and the desert landscape turns to a torchlit cavern piled with skulls. I've got you, Genjyo-Sanzo-houshi, gloats the youkai; pretty naive to think you were safe if you didn't look me in the eye. The bells ring again, and Sanzo gets it; the spell was in their sound all along. You'll never escape! the mighty Priest Sanzo, nothing but a bird in a cage! taunts Zakuro. Sanzo fires off random shots, but no use. And what do you think you can do with a gun like that, anyway? adds the illusionist; Sanzo looks, and sees his banishing gun has apparently turned to stone. He cusses in helpless frustration. I can see your ugly form [!] so clearly, jeers the youkai, who's standing right in front of Sanzo but is invisible to him. Prepare to die, little bird--he raises his bells--
and a white-gloved hand grabs his wrist. Zakuro snarls, but Hazel just smiles, and a very large pistol jabs into the youkai's back. That's far enough, says the bishop, it'll be troublesome if you do somethin' stupid now. Zakuro freezes; Hazel sweetly tells him he should keep his promise, and Z agrees. (Sanzo, still seeing only the cavern illusion, is unaware of any of this.)--On a cliff above the valley, Dr. Ni and his bunny oversee the scene, and Ni decides Hazel can take it from here; give it your best shot, aoi-me no tenshi, he smirks.
In the illusion cave, Sanzo stands tensely, waiting for something to happen. What are you waiting for? why don't you kill me? he challenges the empty space. But when someone does appear, it's not Zakuro but Hazel, who the priest greets in outright surprise. What are you doing here, he demands; had a change of heart? are you working with demons now? Hazel touches his hatbrim and gently chides him that it couldn't be helped, since Sanzo always draws the attention of demons yet refuses to heed Hazel's warnings about dealing with same. Sanzo snorts; you've joined forces with the demons you hate so much, just to teach me a lesson? I'm just usin' him, Hazel replies; he's the one who can make Sanzo-han stop and listen. ==Outside, still at gunpoint, Zakuro thinks to himself 'that Hazel is one arrogant little bastard, but I [he uses 'ore-sama'=)] will have the last laugh yet'.
Sanzo-han, asks Hazel, that close friend of yours who was slain by demons--he was your master, wasn't he? [the word he uses is 'oshou' which means a senior monk or priest.] --Taking his glowering silence for assent, Hazel smiles that he'd thought so, and that it must have been fate that drew them together. Don't jump to conclusions, rasps Sanzo, but Hazel replies that if he doesn't listen to Hazel this time, he really will be killed by youkai. --The Violet Death Glare is the monk's only reply. Hazel observes that in a way Sanzo reminds him of his own master, and that if he'd just listened to Hazel from the start, he wouldn't have been the demons' victim.==Hazel flashback: himself as a small boy, pleading with the elder Bishop to stop helping the monsters. You can't trust them, he urged, if you keep doin' this they'll kill both you and me. He wanted his master to kick out the wounded youkai he was sheltering in the church, but the older man gently told him that all are equal in God's eyes, and that there's no difference between monster and man when a fellow-creature is in need. We see small Hazel walking home, bitterly thinking that Master was wrong to trust those heartless creatures; then a huge, red-eyed youkai loomed over him in the street, and he raced back to the church, only to be shielded--in a pose exactly like the one Koumyou used to protect little Kouryou--by the Bishop. And, of course, he woke to find the man's lifeless body.
---I don't want to have those memories anymore, he tells Sanzo; I don't want that to happen to you.
Impervious to the continued Violet DG, he goes on: You hate demons, don't you, Sanzo-han? so much that it torments you. Wouldn't you like to travel with us? We're so much alike, we'd be a great help to each other. [This sequence, I do believe, contains the most reused animation of anything in Gunlock so far; it's literally been the same five or six arcs and stills ever since the conversation began. Sheesh.] Hazel does tire of people ignoring his warnings--he can only count on them doing as he says after they've been resurrected, he sighs--but he's sure Sanzo is different, and will understand that Hazel needs his strength. Sanzo, however, only replies testily that Hazel never shuts up. The little bishop lowers his head in dismay, then says it can't be helped; we do have other means of persuasion, he says, and raises his hand. Sanzo looks up in quick suspicion--there's a gunshot, and from nowhere a bullet wound appears in his shoulder. As he clutches it, gasping in pain, Hazel reminds him that this illusion world isn't the only place he's vulnerable. Gato can attack your real body, he says, and since you can't dodge, he'll take your life. --Sanzo snarls that he's a bastard for the nth time this ep, but the little bishop is unfazed. He delivers an ultimatum: will Sanzo join the Hazel-tachi of his own will, and have his life spared; or will he die here, and join them as a yellow-eyed zombie? Hazel doesn't truly care which, so if Sanzo-han will kindly make up his mind... [Whew.]
Silence. Don't look down on me like that, Sanzo grits through clenched teeth, breathing harshly with pain. Decide or I'll shoot, replies unmoved Hazel. Silence...
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