"Oh, hell," Gojyo bit out, his guts clenching into a single, tight fist. "You don't mean this is--"

"It would appear so," Hakkai said faintly, cautiously, his face frozen into the Why Isn't Someone Killing Me Yet Please smile Gojyo had dared to hope was gone forever.

"Goddammit!" he yelled, punching Goku's limiter for lack of a more convenient target and barely even feeling the inevitable kicks in the shin. "I am fucking sick of illusions and robots and dolls and shikigami and mindfucks and people who think we're dead guys! He--" pointing at his own Sanzo, "isn't Konzen goddamn Douzi and he isn't--he isn't! He's Hakkai, dammit! Cho Hakkai!"

He was ignored. The two Sanzos, the short and lanky one with the stubborn chin and the even shorter one with the sarcastically arched eyebrows, looked at each other and everyone's injuries at the name of Konzen and exchanged a dour, skeptical look. Meanwhile, Goku had detached himself and he and his C-cup counterpart were poking curiously at one another. A lithe, long-limbed redhead with two scars on her cheek alternated between biting her lip at the hard-faced brunette (and here Gojyo had always been under the impression that Hakkai's lady was a honey) and eyeing all of their trousers. It was enough to make a rat laugh.

Or it would have been, except that said steel-eyed brunette and Gojyo's monocled buddy were frozen in place, staring at each other as though neither was sure which one was the ghost, which the demon.

Hakkai's opened once, just a little, mouthing the first breath of a name. Gojyo had seen him do it a thousand times before, but never while they were both admitting to being awake. Then he closed it again, and screwed up his eyes into a blank, blank, happy smile. "Well!" he beamed. "This is certainly an unusual encounter. I think all ten of us can agree that it merits some sort of investigation?" Gojyo almost smiled. It was just like him to include the transportation.

"I can agree, anyway," the other redhead drawled.

"I merit some food, Sanzo," the C-cup said plaintively. "I fought really, really hard, and it was lots of fun but now I'm sooooooooo hungry!"

"Sanzo," Goku said dolefully, "I'm hungry, too! My belly's soooooooooooooo empty, Sanzo!"

"SHUT UP!" the monks chorused, squeezing the bridges of their skinny aristocratic noses, and the shorter one added feelingly, "Fuck. Don't compete."

"I'm not travelling with two of him," Sanzo warned everyone futilely, making his voice as grim as he could to compensate for the fact that he wasn't going to get his way since there wasn't, as Hakkai had pointed out, much in the way of a sensible alternative.

"Who you calling a him!?" C-cup screeched, bouncing entertainingly. On somebody with Goku's ape-face, that was disturbing. "Sanzo! Sanzo! He's calling me names and he's got the Sutra!"

"I'm still wearing it, dumbass," Sanzette pointed out witheringly. She, unlike her companions, was a match for their monk down to the what-is-this-'comb'-you-speak-of haircut and the leather underwear, and her chest was bound, but he could tell. There was the chin, and then there were the hips.

"Oh."

"Perhaps," Hakkai smiled, a little desperately, "if our maps agree, we might head for an inn to continue this discussion. One which is close to here." After a moment he added, thoughtfully, "Very, very close."

"Well, Sanzos-sama," he and the other redhead started in an identical drawl, and stopped to look at each other. He waved her on chivalrously, and she tossed her hair coquettishly back at him, like a spray of new blood. She had some of it pulled back into a braid, high on her head. and it pulled together at the bottom with a collection of sharp-looking willow leaves, glinting sharp gold. Not a bad idea, that, although it was probably rough on her jacket. "I know at least one of you hates like poison to backtrack," she went on, "but at least one of our parties left a couple of people at the inn we were at last night, and it's only an hour or two away."

Sanzo looked like he'd eaten a ten-day-old lemon. Then he looked at all the blood on all eight of them, the sun fallen halfway down the sky, and ended up on Hakkai's bone-white lips. He shrugged gracelessly. "Do what you want."

The redhead giggled, and clutched her monk's arm. "I can't wait to see what Jien looks like as a girl. I bet he's some ugly-ass youkai."

Gojyo stared. "I was just thinking that," he muttered. Their Jien was still Jien?

"We need to get back," the brunette said tersely, turning around sharply. "Sakari will be hysterical by now." He noticed with interest that the other pair of crimson eyes slid away from her over an affectionate You Go Ahead And Tell Yourself That smile.

"Well," Hakkai said pleasantly. His eyes were still closed, but Gojyo swore his eyebrows had crawled closer together at the unfamiliar name. "Hakuryuu, if you wouldn't mind?"

The dragon hissed warningly at Sanzette, but transformed. They all piled back into the two jeeps, the other redhead vaulting behind their wheel without hesitation, but Hakkai bumped into Sanzo on the way to the driver's seat. "If you think you're going to crash us into a tree, you're even more of an idiot than I took you for," he said flatly.

"Sanzo," Hakkai said, with a tinge of helpless gratitude in his astonishment.

"I said move," Sanzo growled, choosing to take it as a challenge for the sake of his precious reputation. He wasn't fooling anyone, though, and Sanzette looked at him as though she'd caught him cooing at baby squirrels. It was only in the interests of solidarity against an unknown element that Gojyo refrained from snickering aloud.

They followed the ladies, since it was more important for that party to get back to where they'd been, if it turned out to be the same place, and also because Sanzo, although not too bad at actually handling the car, wasn't used to navigating and driving at the same time. The drive back was unusually subdued, partly because they all felt like shit but mostly because Gojyo preferred looking good in front of beautiful women to fighting with the monkey. It was, for once, Sanzo who broke the silence.

"Goku," he said in a flat I Accept That Life Happens Just To Annoy Me voice, "what are those women?"

"Huh?" Goku stared up at him. His eyes were even wider than usual from the shock of being spoken to without hostility by the light of his infantile life.

"The women," Sanzo snapped, thus remedying the situation. "What are they?"

"Well, they're people, Sanzo," he said, frowning in confusion. "Just like us!"

Sanzo looked slowly at his three companions: the half-breed, the changeling, the immortal without a named species. He looked around for someone to exchange a speaking, suffering glance with. Hakkai's eyes were fixed on the clear sky, though, long lips pulled tight around the outside of an empty chuckle, so he had to have it with Gojyo, much to his disgust. Just to annoy him, Gojyo put a friendly arm around the kid's shoulders and grinned sunnily, which resulted in a surprised, delighted smile of Goku's own. Something eased in the monk's forehead at that, and Gojyo could have sworn he saw the corner of that dour mouth relax up a millimeter in the instant before Sanzo hmphed and turned around.

"They're real, Goku?" Hakkai asked in a tone of friendly, distant interest, his knuckles whitening on the top of the car door. "And not youkai?"

Gojyo had bullied his way into Goku's usual seat for the express purpose of being able to lean forwards and drape himself on Hakkai as though everything was business as usual (and so Hakkai wouldn't have to brace himself against loud monkey-qi at his back), and did so now, ruffling the kid's hair on the way forwards. "Yeah, apeface," he teased, "what'd you sniff out with your wonder-nose?"

"Don't call me an ape!" Goku screeched.

So, half a second behind him, did the other one.

"Oh, dear," Hakkai chuckled, sounding stressed. "It would appear that their conversation is progressing along similar lines."

"You mean their Sanzo is as much of a nasty, suspicious-minded bastard as ours?"

"I think, Gojyo," Hakkai smiled, "that we have no information yet to be suspicious of."

"Chop-logic," he said affectionately, tightening his grip on Hakkai's arm with the hand Sanzo couldn't see, and was rewarded by feeling one shoulder lower half an inch against his chest. "Our boy doesn't need any damn information to be suspicious. General principals are good enough for him."

"Which is why I REPEAT, FOR THE LAST TIME, Goku," Sanzo bellowed, eerily echoed from the other car, "What. Are. They."

"But Sanzo, I said!" Goku reminded him, wounded. "They're just people like us. Two humans and one of them who smells like Gojyo got some girl's perfume all over him, and the other one doesn't smell like anything."

"Two humans," Hakkai whispered distantly, going tight again.

Gojyo sat back as Sanzo's hand tightened on the wheel. "Whaddaya mean?" he asked, turning to Goku and frowning. "Like she isn't there?"

The kid shook his shaggy head, untroubled. "Uh-uh. Just no smell. Like my laundry."

Gojyo grinned, only partly in relief. "Believe me, monkey-boy, your laundry smells like something."

"Look who's talking, you stinking hentai roach!! And don't call me a monkey! SAN--"

"SHUT UP, both of you," Sanzo roared, nearly driving them off the road as he turned on pure instinct to clobber them both with his harisen. Hakkai went ash-pale and dove across his lap to grab the wheel, just barely keeping them on course.

"Shit, Sanzo, focus! Watch the fucking road!"

"Me focus, you lamebrain cockroach?" Sanzo spat, turning an ugly, incredulous red. "You've got yourself some--"

"Hakuryuu," Hakkai said softly, his hands still the only ones on the wheel, "Please stop." The wheels stopped turning at once, and he gave them all a strained, fixed smile of pure iron. "I think, Sanzo, that on the whole, I would prefer to drive."

Sanzo flicked a disdainful eyebrow and sat back with a careless shrug, waiting to get out until Hakkai had opened the door for him.

As soon as everyone was seated again, Hakkai zipped them up next to the other car. "Is it Miss Sha?" he asked politely.

"Sure is," she grinned at him appreciatively. "And is it--"

"In that case, Miss Sha," he cut her off with that same gritted, polite, end-of-the-rope smile, "If you will forgive us, we will meet you there. Please feel free to shout if we make an unexpected turning." And with that, he floored it.

The jeep's top speed wasn't very impressive without adrenaline in the fuel, but it was faster than the others were going. Goku waved cheerfully as they pulled ahead. Since their Sanzo was also in the front seat and their Hak--their brunette wasn't, Gojyo indulged in the kind of grin that made people lose their tempers and control of their game, and also waggled his fingers bye-bye.

The other redhead, seeing this, whooped, "Like hell you will!" Her jeep surged forwards, too, and before long they had overtaken the men again.

"Lazy-ass fat dragon," Sanzo sniffed disdainfully, and Hakuryuu loosed a hiss of steam out of his front vent. Suddenly they were in front again.

"Come on, Su-chan," the other redhead said to her jeep, half-coaxing, half a jeer. "You can do better than that!"

'Su-chan' could.

"Come on, Hakkai," Gojyo urged excitedly, leaning across Goku to shake his arm. "They're catching up!"

"I'm not trying to race, Gojyo," his friend gently corrected. "Only to return as quickly as possible."

"Well, gee, 'Kai," he drawled, "if we aren't as going as fast as possible, we obviously won't get there as quickly as possible. Chop that logic."

"Hmn," Hakkai frowned so cheerfully that Gojyo almost believed him. "You may have a point. What do you think, Hakuryuu?" The jeep pii'ed fiercely, and revved his engine just in time to not get passed.

"Ha!" Goku brayed indiscriminately to Gojyo and the other redhead. "Eat dragon dust!"

Gojyo bopped him on the head, saying, "I'm right here, idiot."

"Eat this!" the other driver crowed, pulling alongside and ahead.

Hakkai, pinned between eager pleading from the backseat and the twitching vein in Sanzo's stony jaw, sighed, "Oh, dear."

They made it in twenty minutes.

The SEME At The End Of This Fic

starring lovable, placid old HAKKAI
And adorably vague but considerably older TENPOU

Hakkai: (brightly brittle) Ne, Tenpou-san, I have a suggestion. If we don't click any links, we won't reach the end of the fic. Which would be a very good thing, because there is a seme at the end of the fic. So please don't click the link, if you wouldn't mind (heart).

Tenpou: Well, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Hakkai-kun. Ikuzou!

Hakkai: (youkai) Don't make me hurt you.

Tenpou: (kami) (eyebrow)

[end part 2]