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Disclaimer: I don't own Saiyuki. Kazuya Minekura (a.k.a God) does.

Notes: I was sitting down and I thought, How do you get purple eyes anyway? And then I realised that Kanzeon's are a blue-purple, and I needed red eyes, and can't gods impregnate any species anyway? They're /gods/. Also, I use the pronouns 'se' and 'hir' deliberately, although I believe that in other such situations the person should be referred to by their preferred pronouns. I figured, Kanzeon is PROUD of what se is, and flaunts it.

AaAaAaAaAaAa

Red plus Blue equals Purple, or, Kanzeon Bosatsu's year (and a half) as a human

"Oh, crap!"

Kanzeon Bosatsu picked hirself off the ground, brushing dirt from hir robe. Well, dress. Er, actually, three bits of gauze and a lot of gold jewellery. Clothing.

Se walked up the stone path and barged through the towering doors of the temple, upending several unwary novices. The deprived monks gaped at the scantily dressed bodhisattva before throwing themselves to the ground in obeisance.

"The great Kannon has graced our temple with her presence!"

Se emerged into the courtyard and was immediately hit between the eyes by an orange paper airplane. Se spun around angrily.

"Get your ass down here now, Koumyou!" Se hollered, batting away another overzealous monk.

Koumyou Sanzo slid out from between the trees, hastily putting out his pipe. He took in the chaos around him with an expressionless face and gestured for Kanzeon to follow him to his chambers.

AaAaAa

"And so you see, I'm mortal, for a whole year! I asked for 'interesting', but this is not what I had in mind!"

Koumyou frowned. "So let me get this straight, your holiness. You felt that Heaven was getting a little repetitive, and complained to the almighty God, /in front of his courtiers/, that there needed to be more excitement. He reprimanded you, and in return you called him a...what was it?"

"Stuck up pompous old windbag who wouldn't know excitement if it dived up his-"

"/Yes/, and then you went on to suggest that he needed to get laid, and that if no volunteers could be found you supposed that you could take on the task of deflowering him."

"Such a virgin."

"Taking into the consideration that it was the eve of your holiness's birthday celebration and that you had been drinking steadily for several hours-"

"What's the point of a party if there's no booze?"

"The almighty one then sentenced you to a year as a mortal, and that if suicide was attempted the sentence would be extended."

Kanzeon shifted guiltily. "A year and a half now, actually."

The look on Koumyou's face said it all.

"Just before I arrived here I threw myself into the river. The return was quite painful." Se scrutinised hir perfectly manicured hands. "The jump was quite sobering, though."

Koumyou looked at hir measuringly. "What do you intend on doing now?"

"Well, I figured I could stay here for a bit, you know, as one of Heaven's higher-ups. Goddess of Mercy and all that. It'd do a temple good to have someone who makes them stand to attention."

Koumyou smiled. "Of course." If the bodhisattva thought se was going to lie around and do nothing, se had another thing coming...

AaAaAa

Turned out in pristine white robes, Kanzeon looked almost respectable. It was easier for hir to dress as a woman; there was no point breaking the illusions that the monks, barring Koumyou Sanzo, shared.

It made bathing awfully difficult, though.

By the end of the third day, Kanzeon was at the end of hir tether. Wherever se walked, there were monks. This small group steadily coalesced into an entire entourage, all seeking enlightenment.

"Lady Kannon, is it true that-"

Kanzeon snapped. With a secret smirk, se spun slowly on hir heel, turning to face the monk that had spoken.
"I," se said, "am no lady." And with that, se pulled hir robes open with a flourish, displaying her unique physiology for the world to see.

With a gurgle, the loud mouthed monk collapsed in a heap, several others following his example. On cat soft feet, Koumyou came up behind her, closing hir robe with a roll of his eyes and a bestowal of his constant smile.

"Must you misbehave?" he hissed in hir ear.

"He had it coming," se said with a wicked smirk. "Like what you see?"

"Hardly, you shameless hedonist."

AaAaAa

"You want me to do /what/?"

"Milk a goat. It's very simple."

Kanzeon eyed the goat. The goat eyed hir back. Se slowly backed away.

"Perhaps another day." The goat bared its yellow teeth in a grimace and began to advance. Kanzeon started to run.

"I'm becoming a vegan!"

AaAaAa

"No, look again. You fold the paper like this, and then like /this/." Koumyou held up the airplane for Kanzeon to see.

Kanzeon took another piece of orange paper from the pile, eyes flickering to the failures dotted over the courtyard. Today se was sedately dressed in a tunic and baggy trousers, nearly all the nail varnish chipped from the toenails of hir sandal-clad feet. Se had to admit, cotton really let the skin breathe.

Dressing like this did have its merits.

Exhaling slowly, se carefully folded the paper, smoothing the edges with careful precision. Biting hir lip, se launched the paper airplane into the air, suppressing a whoop as it arched across the grass.

The orange paper really did look lovely against the blue sky.

"Well done. Do you now understand the harmony between the orange of the paper and the blue of the sky? There is contrast, but even in contrast the two colours can find a common ground. The striking beauty outweighs the discord that we are first presented with."

The bodhisattva rolled her eyes internally.

"All this fuss about creating a simple paper airplane?"

"I think that you have missed the point."

AaAaAa

Kanzeon slammed the shop door behind hir.

"That's the last time I'm coming here! I can make you bread, you said! Certainly, enough for the feast next week, you said! Well it does not help that I now have more than a hundred shaven-headed bastards snapping at my heels complaining that their festival is ruined! Bastard!" Se kicked the door with a booted foot and trailed off into furious muttering.

"Er...are you all right?"

Kanzeon spun around, wiping the palms of hir hands on her cotton trousers.

"What are you looking at-" Se stopped in mid word as se took in the appearance of the speaker. Young, red-haired and red-eyed, with breasts that would fit perfectly into-

Best to stop there, really.

Suffice to say, the character that stood in front of her really was an odd one. Half-breed, obviously, and dressed in a wild motley of garments in blinding rainbow colours.

"What the hell are you supposed to be?"

The woman grinned at hir. "Circus performer."

Kanzeon looked her up and down. A perfect fifty-six centimetre waist, if se was any judge.

"Buy you a drink?"

AaAaAa

"So he says...so he says, this orange paper, right? Is the fucking answer to the universe. Contrasts against the blue. Answer to universal discord and all that."

The bar was dingy and near deserted so early in the morning; the only other occupant, excluding the ex-bodhisattva, hir companion and the bar-keeper, was a youngish man passed out quietly in the corner of the room.

"What's your name, anyway?"

The woman blinked at hir. "An hour of drinking, and now you ask?"

Kanzeon blinked, a slow grin spreading across hir face.

"I wasn't exactly looking at your face, babe."

AaAaAa

When Kanzeon returned in the afternoon, Koumyou decided not to comment on the bright red slap mark that was splashed across hir cheek.

Se scowled. He was laughing at her every time se turned around, se was sure of it.

AaAaAa

Kanzeon gravitated towards the plume of cigarette smoke like a moth to a flame. It seemed to be coming from somewhere around the other side of the -

- circus tent.

Ah. This had some promise.

Se sidled up to the woman. "So, I didn't catch your name." Se grinned depreciatingly; a facial expression that se was unused to but one that se believed could come in useful.

The woman rolled her eyes, fighting an amused quirk of the lips. "Fen."

"Eh?"

"My name. It's Fen."

The bodhisattva felt a stirring of hope, another unaccustomed human quirk. Being the Goddess of hope and mercy was all well and good, but it wasn't hir hope.

AaAaAa

It seemed that hope had benefits.

From the disarrayed bed, Fen grinned up into Kanzeon's face. "You don't think I'm fast, do you?"

"Whatever you are, I'm not complaining." Fen's deft fingers twisted at Kanzeon's robes, yanking them open.

There was a pause.

Fen was not an easily surprised woman, but this did stop her in her tracks.

"Um..."

"/Yes/?" said Kanzeon impatiently, leaning down.

"Is that..."

"Yes."

"And that..."

"/Yes/."

"Both -"

"YES."

"I've always prided myself in being open to new things."

"Good. I'm glad we had this conversation. Can we please continue? I live at a monastery and I haven't had any in /months/."

AaAaAa

And after that minute blip, life continued on as normal. Fen discovered that she was indeed open to new things, and Kanzeon realised that se had been on earth now for eight months.

And sunrise faded into sunset, and sunset into sunrise, until -

"I think I'm pregnant."

AaAaAa

"But you can't be pregnant! You're half youkai! You're naturally /infertile/!" Kanzeon sank back onto the futon, cursing hir godly - er - procreative powers.

"Someone forgot to tell the baby that."

Kanzeon grasped at straws. "But...but...how do you know?"

Fen rolled her eyes impatiently. "I'm puking my guts out in the morning and my stomach is starting to stick out. Do you have any other suggestions?"

Se had to admit that se didn't. After a moment of stunned blankness se tried to think of something to say. "You'll have to stop smoking. I heard it's bad for -"

"My baby will just have to deal with the nicotine addiction."

"It's going to be a chain smoking alcoholic before it's twenty."

"Have you so little faith?" Fen didn't see what was so wrong with smoking anyway; a Marlboro or thirty a day never hurt anyone.

"You just wait..."

AaAaAa

At two months.

Fen twisted her shirt in her hands, biting her lip. "I don't think I can look after a baby...what about the circus? You couldn't possibly..."

Kanzeon widened hir dark blue eyes in horror. "Me and children do not mix. I had a nephew once and you don't want to know how he turned out."

AaAaAa

At four months.

Kanzeon held Fen's hair back as she retched.

"I'm only doing this because I don't want you to stink of vomit."

"You are so very considerate."

Kanzeon felt flattered. Maybe se was beginning to get the hang of this human thing.

AaAaAa

At six months.

"I'm fat and ugly and I'll never be beautiful again!"

Kanzeon stared into her unique, droopy eyes. "You look fine, honestly."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"I never wanted this thing in the first place. It's all your fault and now I'm hideous!"

Se ducked as a brush came whistling towards hir head.

Koumyou ducked his head, making sure to hide his amusement.

AaAaAa

And finally, at nine months.

"I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT I'M PREGNANT AND ONCE I GET RID OF THIS STUPID THING I'M GOING TO DROP IT IN THE RIVER!"

"Uh huh." Kanzeon continued to read her magazine.

"I mean it."

"What sort of idiot would drop their kid into the river? You wouldn't have the guts."

"Watch me."

AaAaAa

"I have to say, I've never seen a baby with such unique eyes. Mine are blue, yours are red, and his are -"

AaAaAa

The child was now a month old, and Kanzeon still didn't understand it. He was so quiet, staring at hir all the time without moving.

Fen hated the thing. Well, perhaps hated was the wrong word, but it was some kind of severe, resentful dislike. Kanzeon wished she could just take him away and reintroduce them as adults. They'd get along like a house on fire.

AaAaAa

" -purple. Yes. They could almost be purple. After all, that's what red and blue make."

Konzen. You remind me of Konzen. Such lovely purple eyes...

AaAaAa

And then-

"Lord Bosatsu, it is time that you return to heaven."

And hir power came rushing back; an awareness of life, of every single cell, flower, tree, in the world. And with it came a curious sense of displacement, like squeezing out of a skin that was too tight. Not Kanzeon, the human, but Kanzeon /Bosatsu/, the god.

All thoughts of Fen fled, and se ascended the sky.

AaAaAa

"You know, Jiroshin, I could swear that I've forgotten something."

AaAaAa

And down the Yangtze River, there floated a small, unwanted bundle.
But that is another story.