Index
Chapter 1: Undertow
Chapter 2: Drowning
Chapter 3: Sinking
Chapter 4: Surface
Hakkai awoke.
Each of them would come to life in a different way. Sanzo, he liked to feign sleep while he slowly came to, rising out of his dreams and into awareness, opening his eyes only when he was complete and collected. Sometimes, Hakkai thought, the man would lay there listening to them, living a brief few minutes where he wouldn't have to react. Goku would drag himself forcibly up out of near-comatose sleep the best he could, warm and blinking fuzzily until breakfast turned him awake like a lightswitch. Gojyo slept as long as he possibly could, and only rolled out of bed, messy and crinkled, when he sensed that a) they were having breakfast without him or b) he was about to be shot for holding up the journey.
Hakkai was always thrown into awareness like a cymbal crash, a jolt of nerves slamming him from one moment of sleep into the next moment of wide-awake life, where memories all occurred at once. Still, somehow, today he had sensed something a second before waking, something that simultaneously drew him up from murky waters and made him bury his face in the pillow in some unnamed emotion.
It was a smell.
Before he even had a name, a place, a feeling for the smell, he knew it was deeply cruel. He curled around his stomach in a vague agony.
Cruel that he should have to smell that when it was gone. Smell her.
Kanan.
Sounds came to him. Soft footsteps of a phantom. Something simmering over a crackling fire in a dead hearth. A sweet song. The rough texture of their couch beneath him and her smooth pillow beneath his hands when he lifted his face.
Somewhere, he knew it was happening again. He was dreaming of her, and part of him screamed no no no while another part screamed please, please yes and still another part said I can't stop it, it won't stop until the end. I'll see her and she'll die again.
He didn't know why he opened his eyes. But he did. Everything was pleasantly blurry, a watercolor image from another life. He didn't need eyesight to recognize any of it, anyhow. He didn't have time to look at anything else but her.
Gentle. Soft, gentle movements and quiet, gentle voice, and sweet, gentle face. The light side to his moon that was swallowed up over and over again.
"Ah, Gonou, how was your nap?"
Hakkai didn't have the words to answer. Everything was spilling out the wound in his stomach to lay out in the mud, leaving him empty and filled and teased by this beautiful image he longed for every minute. He felt, rather than saw, concern blooming in her expression. She always knew. Her image resolved sharper and clearer with each step that brought her near, and Hakkai couldn't breathe. He was a body filled with ache as she curled her fingers into the long hair brushing against the back of his neck, as she let him bury his face into her warm, warm stomach. Not dead yet. Not bloodied yet. Not torn away from him yet.
As he drew his arms around her waist, Hakkai felt alive and dead at the same time.
Somewhere else, the delicate scent of someone's breakfast wafted into the air.
Gojyo rumbled to himself, wordlessly, as he kicked a twist of blankets off his legs. He smelled food, and smelling food meant Hakkai was awake to cook it, which meant the monkey was awake to eat it, which meant the monk was awake to be grouchy about the whole thing. But it was so good here. This bed, his bed, it was comforting and inviting and he wanted to sleep but even more than missing sleep he hated being left out. It was unsettling, sometimes, to find the rooms empty and everyone already gone, and that second's heartbeat of wondering why he hated waking up alone. Hey, without him around, the monkey would eat everything, swell up, and eventually explode in a mess that somebody would make him clean up. Plus, he valued the version of his head that didn't have bullets in it.
"Mmh," he mumbled at the too goddamn soft pillow.
Eventually, that wonderful smell reached right down inside him and tugged him awake with an insistent growl of hunger. Heh, he had the presence of mind to think, and with that he levered himself out of bed, stretching out corded, lanky limbs and peering around blearily. Sure enough, the other rumpled bed in his room was empty. Come to think of it, something about this place whispered at him in a place beyond reach. Tugged at him in an entirely different way than that food was currently tugging at his midsection. Hm. Probably just the fact that all these dusty inns look the same. He'd think about it after breakfast and his morning cigarette.
Barefoot, he padded across the old wood floor with sunlight laid across it in strips. He didn't remember getting to the inn last night, but he sure knew how to get to that kitchen and that smell.
"Oi, saru, save me--"
...It was not who he expected.
There, at the little round table with three worn chairs, sat Sha Jien with a satisfied grin, three plates, and...
His throat closed twice, rusty and terribly painful, before he forced the word out.
"Mother."
Sanzo was, any moment now, expecting some bastard youkai to peel up the corner of this illusion, like a beautifully painted tarp thrown over an ugly and stained reality. In fact, he hoped it would happen soon so that he could shoot it.
If he could find his gun.
One moment, he had laid his head back, and the next... there was an inexplicable, piercing, blinding light that threatened to shove his head open. He'd rocketed up to curse out Goku or probably Gojyo for shoving a flashlight or something in his face, when his hands met soft leaves and cool earth. Springtime air, the kind that held a bite of winter cold deep in its belly, entered his lungs and he opened his mouth and eyes in surprised reflex.
The sun.
Pure, bright, and warm sunlight had streamed into his eyesight and mingled with his breath. Sanzo had rarely stopped to think about it, beyond being irritated at its bothersome heat or noticeable absence. But today, a tree full of new, swaying leaves danced across its shining surface, and delicate patterns of shadows brushed soundlessly against his face. The brilliance made his eyes sting and water, but he wouldn't tear himself away from that natural dance. Its beauty drew him into a frozen stillness, and he stared like a child until a thought stirred the depths of his mind.
Where in Hell am I?
Even when they couldn't get to an inn, the four of them weren't stupid enough to camp out in the open, and they definitely weren't stupid enough to wander off and leave any of the party alone. They closer they got to their goal, the more cautious they would have to be. Sanzo hadn't woken up alone under this wide stretch of blue sky since he was young and scavenging for his own life. With a huff of air expelled through his nose, he rose swiftly to regain his feet, and with them some of his senses.
That was when he noticed the familiar weight, his dual shame and responsibility, had disappeared from his shoulders.
His hand rose up to meet his collarbone in reassurance the same way every day, but this morning, with its strange bright sun... his touch encountered a white sash, and beneath it, a smooth lay of black silk. He didn't have to look down to know what he was wearing. He'd seen it in the mirror time and time again.
He'd seen it in the past, the one that was supposed to stay firmly in the past.
And now, he was tearing a slow, vicious rampage through this godforsaken place in search of his sutra, his gun, his companions, Hell, even Jeep. A sick feeling wound into his stomach that said none of them would be forthcoming very soon. And it was hard to keep from admitting to himself that this was unmistakably and impossibly a temple. Chang'An, his mind supplied, while a quieter, more distant part of him whispered, Kinzan. It all tasted wrong, and he blinked defiantly up at the sun that had enchanted him a dozen minutes before, daring it to just give up and show him the real scene because he knew this couldn't possibly be real. Nothing flickered, and the leaves tossed as leaves always do, their every vein highlighted in the light, too real for dreams. He was finding it increasingly hard to keep his mind from falling to pieces.
It was especially hard when something that had Koumyou Sanzo's face was following him and calmly inquiring after his health.
With a yawn that threatened to split his entire face in two, Goku bounded down the inn steps in a loud clatter, still caught by traces of grogginess from his deep and satisfying slumber, but coursing with the kind of eternal, electrical energy anyone would expect from someone who spends every spare moment eating.
Eating was exactly what was on his mind at the time.
When he'd shaken awake that morning, he'd been dismayed to find that everyone else had already cleared the rooms and gone down to breakfast without him. A small whine of panic escaped his throat as he struggled into a shirt and pulled on half-laced shoes, speculatively eyeing the slant of light escaping through the window to determine the time. If it was too late, the kappa would have eaten all the good stuff, and then he'd have to last with a half-empty stomach until at least lunchtime, and possibly even later. That was something he definitely did not want to face today. It felt like the kind of day where there was a sharp hint of fight in the air, like the scent of autumn he can catch creeping into the depths of summer.
When he reached them, they were arranged as usual, settled into a corner table and forming a semicircle, leaving an empty place meant only for him. They never really talked about each other as a group, but Goku liked that mornings were like this, that Hakkai always found their shoes and put them at their bedsides and Sanzo and Gojyo tossed the lighter between them without word, and they all managed to get ready and out in Jeep at about the same time.
"Mornin'," he mumbled, part of Gojyo's breakfast already in his mouth, and therefore, all of Gojyo's fist in his side. He grinned around a mouthful of bread, dodged the next swing at his head, and collected more food from the plate.
From the looks of it, Sanzo had managed to find a newspaper at the inn, and was about as contented as he got, skimming headlines from far away events from behind thin-framed glasses and wafts of smoke. Sometimes Goku wished that he could pay more attention when Hakkai tried to teach him advanced reading, so that he could know what Sanzo was reading about and read with him. Hakkai would say that Sanzo probably wanted to read by himself, but Goku would say back that if he wanted to be by himself, he'd be up in the room.
Hakkai seemed just as contented, taking small sips of tea that curled a wet steam into his hair. He seemed to never really need a paper to think about far off things, and Goku knew that he was probably going over a dozen thoughts in his mind, invisibly tossing and sliding and turning in the air where just Hakkai could see them. That was okay with him as long as the smile on the man's face stayed in his eyes too, and he didn't curl his shoulders down in upon himself, and didn't startle at innocent touches and sudden noises. Goku thought that maybe the morning was Hakkai's favorite time.
Beside him, Gojyo had finally given up on his remaining breakfast, and resigned himself to testing his muscles against Goku's frame. After a few more bites, the boy reciprocated, diving in to struggle with Gojyo, and even though they both carried incredible strength on the battlefield, neither one of them ever really made so much as a dent on each other over breakfast. Crimson hair set the light aflame at the same time that Sanzo's fan took care of making dents on both of them.
It was business as usual.
"Heyyy, Hakkai! Where're we going today?"
Days seemed to flicker by here like the snowflakes outside--drifting, falling, melting, but always more where the others came from, gathering up to cover what used to be the ground in a thick layer.
Long ago, Gojyo had learned that when Mom was in a good mood, you shouldn't wonder why.
Things moved sluggishly slow, even with the sharp frost creeping in through the gaps in the walls. The air was thick as water, and he was walking through it, breathing in it. Something was supposed to be bothering him, he was supposed to be figuring something out. It whispered at the edges of his thoughts, but in the end--he didn't care. It didn't matter enough to make him want to wonder. Mom was acting like she used to in the dimmest and best memories he ever held... and there was a stranger in the mirror.
The first time it had happened, he'd thought he'd gone insane, and there was a window where the mirror used to be. He stared. It stared back. His fingers crept up to rustle in short, raven-black hair. The image gave him a wobbly grin. That won't cut it, he thought at it. Two more tries and he was looking at a damn handsome I am Sha Gojyo and I fuck your ladies smile.
In the mornings, it was him and Jien and Mom and they had breakfast with chipped plates and mended mugs, and Gojyo laughed without scars tugging tight and Mom laughed with him. He smoked sometimes, watching the smoke rise right there in the house to mingle with roof, and he left the cigarettes right there on the table when they died. He felt warm the same way he did when he used to have the luxury of lying in bed and not thinking, only moving to breathe.
Later on, there wasn't much Jien around even though his voice was clear and strong as steel, ever present the way it used to be. It was just him, and just her, and he stretched his feet onto the table and soaked up her smiles and it never rained, just snowed, endless until everything was white.
At first, he had been afraid to touch her.
Her doom in every dream always lurched forward like a terrible behemoth, spilling up from his depths, born from and denied by his fear that he could never stifle. It happened because he was afraid it would. He was afraid it would happen because it always did. And she would end up clothed in blood that seeped into his heart.
But not to touch her was a waste of the dream, and he wanted it down to the hurt in his bones, even though he knew how it would end.
He pushed his nose into her hair, pulling out the scents that flared to life in his memory.
She didn't die.
He crushed her into himself, soaking all of her into his empty spaces.
She didn't die.
He shuddered in her, around her, surrounding her, her surrounding him, and...
She didn't die.
The pale, soft skin beneath his hand remained warm and pulsing, interwoven with so much life that it was growing hard to remember the look of it torn open. Her mirroring hand found his stomach laid bare and smooth.
And he saw her with both eyes open, not the dead eye that his dead half saw with, but both, here now everything and vivid beyond all reason.
Weeks must have passed, and he wanted to know why, why this was happening, what snag in time had slipped to allow him to come here, but he was afraid to touch it too and it wasn't alluring like her and so he left it there in the corner. Let it be what it was until it forced itself into his mind and brought its fate with it. All he could feel was her her her and I'm alive. He felt as though it had been her and him together, from the beginning until the end, repeating endlessly like the resurrections of summer flowers, forming a perfect circle where the end of time met the beginning.
Cho Gonou nestled his face into Kanan's shoulder and wept without knowing why.
He refused to sleep.
Nothing would make him sleep, not with this happening. There was a youkai plot, or a drug, or just something gone bad in his mind but it could not possibly be real.
For one, nothing ever happened without the annoying monkey tripping him and badgering him and asking for food an hour after he'd eaten dinner.
He ignored gently tossing leaves and the pleasant wind they rode on. He ignored the calls of birdsong that lifted every fucking memory he ever had with their sweet voices. The hum of sunshine fell fractured and bitter on his skin, just the way that he felt.
Most of all, he ignored this thing called Koumyou Sanzo.
A refusal to sleep came with a refusal to stay still, and so he tore through the temple grounds over and over again, crushing spring saplings and stalking through serene buildings with all the ferocity of a storm. He never found the gun or sutra, but he felt confident that this cacophony of feeling tangled in his chest would make him a terrifying opponent enough for anyone, no matter what they were armed with.
By the third day, he was reeling unsteady from the constant movement without food, and his body felt like something far away, but he still moved. While he was still alive he would move and whatever it was would show itself and he could tear all this down and pack it far, far, deep where it belonged again.
After a week, he must have slipped on a stain of leaves, because he found himself hunched into a shadow in the angle of two buildings, covering his head with shaking arms. A slight sound alerted him to it, that persistent follower, and he launched up with strength he didn't have, and closed his fingers around his Master's throat.
Beneath his hand, twin pulses of life beat a slow rhythm and it made him shudder at how warm this skin was and how hot the blood on his face had been and how he had never, ever been able to touch him again, only stare at the cooling blood. The face was looking at him, so calm, one eyebrow crinkled in a silent question and unspoken concern.
Something in him broke.
The page had been worn, and some of the words grown faint, but he knew it by heart: "A flow of electricity is called an electric current. It is often important, particularly for safety reasons, that one side of a circuit be electrically bonded to an earth terminal. An electrical network or electrical circuit is an interconnection of analog electrical elements such as resistors, inductors, capacitors, diodes, switches and transistors. A circuit is said to be open when a break exists in a complete conducting pathway."
"But if there's no branch for them to return to," sounds of rustling feathers tangled with his voice, "they might regret having wings, don't you think?"
Jien swept up the toy from clutching fingers. "It won't work without all the parts in it, little brother."
"Hakkai, what is it?"
The driver had stopped, calm as could be. He paid no mind to the startled expressions of his companions, and only looked down at the map in his lap for a very long time.
"Hakkaaai?"
Wind ruffled through his hair, and as he handed the map to Sanzo, the corner of a smile flashed into view.
"Saanzoo!?"
The monk gave a huff that was almost a laugh, and tossed the map to the back seat, hitting Gojyo square in the chest with startling accuracy. That same smile possessed the half-breed's mouth even while he held Goku away with an outstretched arm.
"Stupid cockroach! Tell me! Tell me, you guys!"
"Please wake up," a woman said.
Goku awoke.
In the time after the dream and before reality, he awoke to starshine and wind--the gentle hum of power beneath him and the pulse of having no memory.
Then her voice grounded him, hard, and he turned his head down to see that usual sight of Jeep's interior, but it wasn't really like usual because he was curled up in the front and Hakkai wasn't driving.
"..um," he paused, trying to gather words, "..sorry, Yaone.. I'm awake now, I was just dreaming, I promise.."
"Don't worry," she smiled, and the words were meant as both a dismissal of his apology and a comfort. But she was worried herself, he could tell because he'd seen this kind of smile before. She drew in a sharp breath around the sound of a sudden jostle, and her fingers clenched tighter around the wheel. The fiery sun had already slipped past the horizon, and with it, all warmth. He pulled his cape closer around himself.
"Yaone...?"
"Yes?"
"Are they..." dead, he wanted to say, although the word wouldn't come and he wanted to reel the question back to his mouth. Two factors clashed ringingly in his mind--on one hand, if he turned his head to look, he would be able to see them awake and lively again. Hakkai would say good evening and Gojyo would tease him about something and Sanzo would move like an hour hand does, when you know it has moved even though it looks the same. But then, there was the heartsickening fear that he would look and there would be no one to say good evening, and that reality had the heavy pull of truth to it as soon as it was considered. So he waited, thinking that as long as he didn't look, they would be awake and safe in his mind.
Her soft breath and sadness stirred in his hair. "I'm afraid it's the same..."
The words tricked him into looking, and the faces in his imagination faded away.
Sanzo was beside him. Goku had insisted with a fierce emotion that the priest wouldn't be placed anywhere except his normal seat, and had carefully arranged Sanzo there just like he was only sleeping. He almost looked normal, except every now and then the motion of the jeep made his body sway forward, head bowing to the stars, and Goku had never seen him bow to anything before.
Wind flicked the ends of his hair into his eyes when he turned. There was Hakkai and Gojyo, all muted dark colors in the nighttime shadow.
"My, my," Hakkai's voice last night--no, night before last or maybe even longer--had been rich and warm in his ears. "We must cut your hair again soon, Goku."
"The pet needs grooming, hm?" Goku couldn't remember what Gojyo had looked like just then, but he was sure he'd been laughing. What he did remember was that Gojyo had shot Sanzo a devious look that said, Don't you want a haircut too? I'm sure we all could come up with something... interesting.
Sanzo hadn't even looked up from the paper to project his reply: The person who comes near me with scissors gets stabbed with them.
Looking at Hakkai and Gojyo laid still and silent in the back seat made his insides hurt worse than anything. He could hardly see them, but he didn't need to have light to know how they smelled. No Hakkai-smell, no Gojyo-smell, no Sanzo-smell. They had no smell at all, not even the overwhelming stink of death. The only traces left were wound within the threads of Sanzo's robe, but even that scent was fading fast into the rushing air. It was almost like they weren't even there, and Goku hated it.
He hunched his shoulders against the cold, and thought for moment about leaning against Sanzo since there was such little room in the front now and balancing was making his back ache. But then the idea that Sanzo was not-Sanzo, something there that looked like him but didn't really have him anymore made Goku pull closer into himself and lurch through a restless spatter of half-dreams.
Time passed. The only measurement Goku really used was a lot, and days passed by him in relentless monotony. It felt worlds different now than what it used to. Now all he felt was the lurch of bumps in the road, the dust that clouded his vision, the sharpevening air that made him cough when he breathed too fast. He slept. He slept as though every wearied bone his body was broken, although the wounds had long since healed and Yaone had mended the rips in his clothes with tiny, straight stitches that were not at all like the ones Hakkai made. He was aware enough to know he disliked when Kougaiji drove, because it seemed like Jeep wanted to bite him and he had red hair that looked familiar through the shade of his own eyelashes. The world was slipping closer into winter, and Goku frowned at the distant scent of snow, rolling down slowly and unstoppably from the bare wastelands.
They always drove until they found an inn, and Goku would struggle inside, dragging leaden feet. They tried to help him carry his friends inside, but he stubbornly did it himself without really knowing why. So, every night, they would carry Dokugakugi inside between them, someone would have to retrieve Lirin from chattering with their flying dragons outside, and Goku would have to keep hold of whoever he was carrying while trying to restrain Jeep from tearing into those same dragons.
Kougaiji had thought it better to stay all in one room always. Goku tried to imagine what Sanzo would have said to that. Lirin liked to play with him, so he played with her except when she tried to make him step outside the room. Kougaiji mostly stayed silent, even though sometimes he would play a scattered and distracted game of cards. Neither of them ever really won. Jeep remained stationed on Hakkai's chest, and only made a small and grateful piii when Goku offered him meat. Yaone spoke kindly with him, brought in their food to eat, and always found scratchy warm blankets for them at night. He didn't mind talking with her and smiling at her because she had a voice like river water.
Her eyes would be deep and dark after Kougaiji and Lirin went to sleep, and she would tell him with a strain in her voice to please be careful, not sleep too deeply, and her glance would flicker to Dokugakuji's silent form.
But she didn't have to tell him not to sleep. He never slept when they were inside.
At night, he sat and watched the still figures in the room with singular intensity. He wasn't afraid of slipping away, he thought he would have done it already with the others if it would happen at all. Instead, he was gripped by a heavy cloak of darkness and the fear that they would wake up without him or they would wake up with something else inside them, like what happened when that Hazel guy used to put souls in dead bodies and it would mess up. One night, his breath spread in a ghostly sheen across the window beside him. He peered through to find a fuzzy version of the world outside, starbursts of light in the town and colors diluted into splotches. Sanzo had told him a long time ago that Hakkai didn't have clear eyesight even in his real eye, and so Goku wondered if this was what the world looked like for him. He squeezed one eye shut. What is Hakkai looking at right now? What is everybody looking at right now?
Sometimes when it was very dark, he became angry that they had left him behind, and were keeping from him the biggest secret of all. But he promised to the unspeaking air that he wouldn't be mad anymore if they would please come back. Come back. Come back. The cold light of the moon cast a shadow of branches that swept across the room, back and forth and back and forth until it was morning time again and he was carrying them by himself outside again. They always made it out there together.
It was the same. Everyday.
Until the day it stopped.
Yaone looked down at her map in a ghostly echo of when it all began.
"I believe we've finally arrived."
Once Jeep had begun to fruitlessly spin his wheels against a tumble of rock, they piled out under the stretch of pale blue sky and let him settle dragon-formed on a patch of warmed ground. They looked ahead at the upheaval of rocks biting into the horizon, and Goku had thought it felt weird that they were here, already, because they always talked about following the sunset and going West and reversing the minus wave, but the end was always far away until it was suddenly right there. Maybe they would start going East that very day, and maybe that night they would go back to that same inn and maybe that very day the journey would be over. Somehow, he had thought it would be a lot bigger, there would be fantastic crashes of thunder and lightning, glint on blades and gnashing teeth and a real battle. Instead, there was a sky that looked like it was stretched too thin, a gentle breeze, and Gojyo yelling for him to start walking and stop staring around.
Sanzo's shoulders looked drawn and tense, and he walked ahead with his eyes on the rocks. Goku knew that he liked to draw together plans in his mind, and he wondered if there was a lot Sanzo had to remember. Hakkai and Gojyo were talking behind him, and he sensed their awareness drawing tighter like strings easier than he even heard their words. He felt the breeze brush against his face, and he drew it into his lungs. Smells blossomed--rocks, Sanzo, the other two, and a place where birds rested. All the unspoken thoughts in the air were putting him out of sorts, and so he ran forward over sliding ground to kick a red-tinged rock over the next outcropping. He tilted his head when the sound came back wrong.
"Hey, guys!"
He scattered himself toward the edge, and looked.
It looked like a strange drawing, and he blinked at it several times to make sure the image was right. The gigantic vast air of a crater howled lowly in the wind, sliced through with bird wings, and at the center was a castle surrounded by frozen waves of rock, as if the earth itself wanted to destroy it. Kougaiji, Lirin, Dokugakuji, Yaone, they matched this smell of desolate air. He didn't realize they'd caught up with him until Sanzo's shadow blanketed his back.
"Don't fight them unless they come against us first. It's a waste of time," he spoke in the voice that sounded like rocks too, somehow reading Goku's thoughts.
"Perhaps we won't be able to avoid it." He felt Hakkai's hand rest against his shoulder.
"Perhaps."
He wouldn't remember which one of them went down first, but soon they were together, sliding down the steep inclines and tearing up rusty dust in clouds that hovered behind them. He wondered what was inside the castle, and how far up they'd have to climb to get to the end.
And then he saw that someone was sitting on the steps.
Sanzo had seen it too, because when Goku tilted his head up to tell him, the priest's eyes were hard and narrow. Gojyo and Hakkai's steps grew heavy and purposeful, and he could hear the electric crack of the shakujou appearing a moment before he called for nyoibou.
They came to a stop before the steps began, looking at the man seated there.
A man he was, a slender figure shrouded in a lab coat and wreathed in cigarette smoke and something white in the crook of his elbow. Birds fluttered their black wings, stirring his clothes with an ethereal wind. Goku remained in the tight line the others had formed to either side of them, and could almost hear their hearts thrumming at the same pace. There was no sense in resting because now they were here and it would be over soon and they would win.
"Nice to see you again, Kouryuu."
But no one reacted the way the scientist thought they would, because everyone's attention had caught on the growing shadow spilling out on the steps behind him, and the blade glinting in dull sunlight.
At the last moment, he whirled out from beneath the whistle of air, and Dokugakuji's sword embedded itself with a clang in the body-warmed step.
Gojyo was running first because he knew what it meant, and the rest were soon following until it was nothing but a blur of motion, color, hard reflections off metal and the momentum of the nyoibou and whizzing bullets. They melded with Dokugakuji into the old dance, unswaying fire crashing up against their common enemy. A chill crawled up Goku's back that told him the man was moving just like Sanzo used to when he was teaching him to fight. Letting it happen. Letting it happen, grinning. Grinning even when Goku's staff collided with his face, shattering his glasses to rain down on the ground. Grinning when the glass crunched underfoot. Grinning when he extended a hand and unimaginable pain sprouted through Goku's mind.
"I learned this from a dear friend of mine," whispered a cold breath in his ear, before the searing coldness shot into his mind.
What do you want more than anything?
He was blinded, he was deafened, he was senseless. He couldn't hear the screams, or feel the ground slam into his back where he fell, or see the heavy curtains of smoke choking the air. Pain, until he drowned in it with its horrible whiteness filling up his mouth and ears and all his thoughts.
Sanzo, Hakkai, Gojyo.
He had to... had to help...
His mind roared back in excruciating sensation, ringing with the sound of his own scream in his ears. Smoke clogged his own throat and he coughed, squinting up at the shafts of sunlight that lanced through the billows of white, dancing in Yaone's hair as she threw the last of the bombs in her hands, and turned back to run toward them.
Sanzo was nearby, sprawled motionless, and it made him choke but he gathered him up anyway and ran for everything he had, Yaone beside him dragging Hakkai and Dokugakuji slung across Koujaiji's back, and Lirin dragging Gojyo by a handful of his hair and he might have even laughed if he didn't feel so much like throwing up everything he'd ever eaten.
A white-washed ceiling painted with a shift of morning light greeted him the moment he opened his eyes. Dimly, he remembered. Yaone had taken them to an expert pharmacist she knew of, but even she didn't know. A ray of light danced across his skin for a few seconds before he realized what it meant. He shot up in panic, wondering how he had fallen asleep that night when he was supposed to be carrying on his watchful vigil over the deathly silent bodies. The beds beside him were empty, and he opened his mouth, trying to push off the bed with trembling wrists.
"Oi. About time you woke up, idiot."
He turned around before he could even think.
There, bathed in the streaming light from a tall window, three men were playing cards.
Goku's feet carried him forward to the fourth chair and he plopped down nervelessly into it, hardly even looking at the cards dealt to him. He only clutched the wood underneath his fingers, and looked at the bodies that moved, breath rising in chests and subtle shifts of movement. Deep voices and the watery sound of cards shifting.
"WHAT THE HELL, YOU GUYS?!"
They continued without a flinch, as if he hadn't even spoken, but a few seconds later, Gojyo spoke around his cigarette in a deceptively conversational tone.
"You know, Hakkai, I had a weird dream. (Hit me.)"
"Oh really? (Ah, I do believe that's a bust, Gojyo.) So did I."
"Hm," agreed Sanzo, analyzing his cards with a hard stare.
"It was kinda nice. But then I remembered that if I slept too long, there was a monkey who might draw on my face."
"How odd. During my dream, I also remembered a monkey, and how he might get shot if I didn't step in. (Hit or stay, Sanzo?)"
"(I'll stay.) I kept thinking that there'd be no food left."
He thought he should get mad about the way they were talking about him, but he couldn't. They had all three turned to him, each one wearing a faint smile.
"Was there not anything you were wanting, Goku?" Hakkai's voice was deep and soft, like he imagined the bottom of a riverbed to be.
"I guess..." he mumbled down at the table, bowing his head to make his too-long hair fall in his face. "I guess I wanted you all to be okay."
There was a long silence before Sanzo spoke, and even then his voice sounded strange and rough. "Your turn, stupid monkey."
Goku lifted his eyes and gathered up the worn cards. Ace, ten.
"I FINALLY WON!"
For the first and most definitely the last time, no one cared how loud he was being.
Author's Notes.
Awww..
Ahem! Well, I hope those of you that have been reading enjoy this final chapter and the whole fic as much as I loved to write it. Your support and feedbacks have been a wonderful welcome to the Saiyuki fandom--thank you so, so much!! I'll definitely stick around!
I should probably explain a little better about what happened with the plot--since most of it was supposed to be Goku's POV, it was difficult to figure out a way to show things he wouldn't find out. So here's some explanation!
If anyone has read the Reload arc "Against the Stream," you'll remember Zakuro, the master of creating illusions. At the very end of the arc, he's attacked by a swarm of crows, which seem to be Nii's tiny little evil messengers. In this fic's universe, Zakuro has been held captive by Nii and most likely tortured until Nii was able to extract or learn the secrets of creating illusions. When the Sanzo-ikkou (and Doku) come up against him, he goes one step further and casts their spirits from their bodies. He intends to keep their spirits from returning by letting their memories create a powerful illusion resembling a place where they most wanted to be. WildeLamassu, you picked up on the key phrase right away--they were both alive and dead, living in spirit somewhere in their own personal heavens, but almost dead in body. What he didn't count on was that Goku already was where he most wanted to be, with the other ikkou. His remaining in his own body eventually drew the others back to themselves, since his spirit wasn't there with them and they began to miss the bond between the four of them.
Doku turning on Nii was a result of this fic's Kougaiji-tachi slowly beginning to realize that Nii was not a nice fella, Gyokumen Koushu was not a sweetheart, and both would probably kill the Kougaiji-tachi plus Kougaiji-mom the second none of them had usefulness anymore. I don't have a good enough grip on Kougaiji yet to know if he would stay with Gyokumen Koushu's plans to the end or not, but I feel like Doku would try to take down the evil duo once everyone's doom looked pretty clear. He waited until the Sanzo-ikkou were there to distract Nii, and Yaone was holding Lirin safe until the racket outside drew both her and Kou outside--at which point she threw smokebombs to keep Nii from killing everyone, and they all ran like heck.
The Goku-POV scenes in the first two chapters were real memories of the days leading up to the fight, disguised as illusions in the fic to be a red herring. They were also in a roundabout way, there to show that being with the Sanzo-ikkou was Goku's "wanting." And at the end, of course, they're playing Blackjack, since that's the only card game I know. ;)
Sorry about those long explanations! x.x; I had the feeling that some of you would want them, so there they are! Hopefully I'll figure out how to get the whole plot in the fic next time, haha.