Title:  Entanglements
Fandom:  Saiyuki
Pairing:  Hakkai/Sanzo, some suggested past Tenpou --> Konzen
Categories:  AU, action, angst, perhaps creature, romance
Length:  Long [31,000 words]
Warnings:  kinda tentacle-fic (but with plants)


Author on LJ:  n/a
Website:  Their Fanfiction.net page

Author's Summary:  "Vegetative propagation means sometimes vines spread. Particularly youkai vines... Kanzeon has a plan, and Sanzo is Not Happy."

Review:  This story goes in a very different direction than other Saiyuki fics - actually, that seems to be a specialty of Vathara's work, so it's really no surprise.  Hakkai's youkai form possesses in canon what appear to be vines, looking like mere tattoos until they are roused to erupt outward; in this fic, an injury inspires the vines to grow, and to look for other hosts.  What could've been just a crack concept worked wonderfully, once Vathara tied in the "why are the vines like this?" answer to the demonslayer legend (in which he who kills 1,000 youkai becomes one himself), and thereby connected this event to the larger storyline of Saiyuki. 

On another note, I very much enjoyed the unusual pairing, which when done is often quite awkwardly done, but in this fic meshes perfectly with the group's characterizations.  Sanzo/Goku and Hakkai/Gojyo are the canon and fanon OTPs, but Vathara makes an excellent case for putting the two more - er, intelligent? certainly more neurotic - characters together.  Why should the relatively easy-going ones have to put up with their complications, after all?  (And of course, it becomes much harder to fool someone just as deceptive as you.)

Entanglements