The door was locked. Goku started forward, summoning nyoibou as Sanzo shook at the door handle. Sanzo waved him back irritably, then drew a deep breath and elbowed the entire door in.
This limiter is far too weak for even the lowest level youkai.
The smell of blood assaulted his senses full force. He almost gagged on it, grasping the doorframe as his eyes pierced the gloom. A forming puddle on the floor. A hunched figure on its knees, bloodied dagger in one hand, blade levelled—
--Sanzo threw himself across the room. His fingers closed around Hazel’s hand even as he brought the blade down in an attempt to lay his wrist open to the bone. Hazel snarled and pulled back, and Sanzo lost his grip on the bloodslicked hand. A flash of silver as Hazel turned the weapon on him. Sanzo dived for the floor, too late to avoid that edge that slashed across one arm.
A flash of light heralded the ki blast that smashed into the dagger and sent it hurtling across the room. It crashed into the wall and melted, fusing against the wood. Sanzo grabbed Hazel’s arm as the bishop made to rise, sending both of them crashing to the floor.
Hakkai was there next, attending swiftly to the one arm that Hazel had slashed open from wrist to elbow.
Sanzo felt a pent up breath leave him as green light flooded over the wound, stitching its edges shut.
“Damn you,” Hazel whispered, defeated.
Sanzo glanced at him, working words into his mouth. “You stupid prick! Dying solves nothing! Killing yourself—“ He stopped short at the sight of Hakkai’s warning stare.
Out, Hakkai signalled with a Look.
Sanzo glared back. Their gazes crossed, but neither yielded.
“Are… are you ok?” Goku asked tentatively from the doorway.
“Goku, please take Gojyo and Sanzo and go downstairs,” Hakkai said. He did not take his eyes away from Sanzo.
No one moved.
“Out,” Hakkai repeated.
“Fine.” Sanzo shoved himself to his feet and made for the door. Saves me the trouble of having to deal with it. If you want to handle the mess, so much the better. He stormed out, boot heels thudding across the wooden floor.
*
It was almost an hour before Hakkai stepped into the dining room again, blood splattered down the front of his shirt and a grim look on his face.
“Is he okay?” Goku asked immediately.
“For now,” Hakkai replied. His gaze fell on Sanzo.
“What?” the priest demanded.
“It would not be advisable to leave him alone for too long. One of us should be near.”
Sanzo flicked his cigarette at Goku.
“Hey why me—“
“He trusts you, Sanzo,” Hakkai said.
“He is not my responsibility,” Sanzo replied, his voice icy. “You were so keen in taking him in hand earlier.”
“Do you know how to break a man?” Hakkai said, seating himself. “You can level any amount of physical assault on him, but to break his spirit, you have to attack his mind.”
Sanzo said nothing.
“Nii starved him. Starved him until the monster in him went wild, then unleashed it to let it hunt for its food. The blood we saw on him – that wasn’t entirely his own.” Hakkai’s voice dropped. “He recalls killing at least two human children. A boy and a girl. He hears their bones crunch in his nightmares.”
Goku looked furious. “That’s horrible.”
“You saw him more often than any of us could,” Hakkai continued. “You must have seen the change. Did it occur to you to ask why?”
It hadn’t, not really. Sanzo had put it down to drugs or pain or something. He hadn’t thought about the specifics. Hadn’t wanted to do, when it came down to that.
“And when your world is filled with nothing but poisoned lies telling you how inhuman you are, when you have blood on your hands and look, for all intents and purposes, like a monster… it’s easy to believe that you’re a demon worthy of nothing better than a swift death.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Sanzo cut in.
“You…” Gojyo started, but subsided when Hakkai waved him into silence.
“Hazel looks to you. We four are the only constants in his life since he recovered his memory, and you more than any of us. And he sees you as human. The only one who can acquit him of his guilt, who could possibly convince him that he isn’t the monster he thinks he is.”
“I don’t save anyone.”
Hakkai slammed a hand down on the table top. “Tell him that. I dare you. Go up there, look him straight in the eye, and say that to his face.”
Sanzo was dimly aware that he was staring. So were Goku and Gojyo. The placid smile that they were used to was conspiciously absent from Hakkai’s face. In its place was a glint in his visible eye -- hard as stone and cold as the depths of the sea. A glint that spoke of another lifetime, and the blood of a thousand youkai. And another suicide.
His blood will be on your hands, that look said. If you do not save him, you might as well pull the trigger yourself.
Sanzo cursed. And for the second time that evening, he shoved his chair back and made his way upstairs.
*
The room was dark when Sanzo entered, but the moonlight flooding in from the open window was enough to illuminate the winged silhouette that leaned against the frame.
Sanzo let the door click quietly shut behind him. Sheer force of habit made him reach for a cigarette, only to return his hand to his side when he found the pack missing. A light breeze toyed with Hazel’s fringe, and the seconds stretched out to minutes without either breaking the silence.
Finally, Sanzo could stand it no longer. “So,” he ground out. “You sane now?”
Hazel bowed his head and chuckled humorlessly. “Was I ever?”
“Relatively.”
There was a rustle of fabric as Hazel drew up a sleeve. “It doesn’t even leave a scar,” he noted.
“Look,” Sanzo snapped. “I said it to the rest and I’ll say it again. If you want to kill yourself, that’s your choice. Dying changes nothing. And in dying, you’ll never have the chance to change anything. But if you live on, there’s always that chance.”
Sanzo found himself holding his breath in anticipation of the sudden burst of revelation … that never came. Those words had touched Hakkai once, grabbing his attention and pulling him away from the brink of suicide. …But with Hazel, they fell like raindrops on a pond, sinking soundlessly into the depths.
“Sanzo-han,” Hazel sighed, sounding infinitely weary. “I am a monster. I kill. Little better than those youkai who went after you. Tell me: why pull the trigger on them but spare my life?”
“No reason.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No reason,” Sanzo repeated. “None. No special significance. Just the plain fact that you’re alive and you’ve been given the chance that they weren’t. Are you going to take that chance?”
Hazel half turned from the window. “Now I see why they deem the Sanzos Enlightened. You answer no one’s questions.” Drawing himself away from the window, he strode towards Sanzo. Paused before him, expressionless. “And yet by doing so, you give an answer of sorts. So. If I accept this chance, then what road lies before me? The one that leads back to my gilded cage in Chou’An Ji?”
Something twisted inside Sanzo, something that cast all his presumed plans to the wind. Something that made him grasp the amulet around his neck, that made him wonder: You wear his limiter. How different are you from him?
He smirked. Those idiots downstairs were wrong. I am no one’s keeper, and they can’t change that, even if they think otherwise. “I’ll put it bluntly. Wherever you go is none of my business. Cause trouble and I’ll hunt you down; stay out of trouble, and trouble won’t come looking for you. But before you run off, I’m getting a new limiter so I can return this one to you.”
“That would be lovely. I’m rather fond of that pendant, myself.”
“And,” Sanzo continued, ignoring the interruption. “Just on the offchance that you notice you’ve been beaten to a pulp and won’t last a second on the road without some serious downtime, there’re spare rooms at Chou’An if you need a place to crash. I won’t lock the door behind you.” This time.
Hazel’s expression gave nothing away, but a wing twitched in the near-dark. Clearly tempted.
“Idiot,” Sanzo felt compelled to say. “Free bed and lodging. The best offer you could get around these parts.”
Hazel raised an eyebrow. “For all that you profess not to care, there is something more to you than mere callousness.”