A/N : No, this is not going to become a shounen ai fic -- I never write romance and I don't intend to start. I write about hope and the lack thereof, I write about life and relationships, relationships that have nothing to do with love, but more with friendship. Because love is short-lived, but friendships may last forever.

And having stood on both sides of the divide, I appreciate that some fans do not enjoy yaoi in any form, even a platonic relationship, and therefore strive for a middle ground, much as Saiyuki itself does. I present the facts as they stand in the canon; the rest, gentle-reader, I leave to you.

Warnings : Violence, Angst, Swearing

Dedicated to Lux, for countless insights into Saiyuki and many interesting comments.

RESPICE FINEM

Chapter 2 - Silver Inches
Who can tell me if we have Heaven,
Who can say the way it should be.

"Huh? No, I don't know where they went..." Goku sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "But I ..." Abruptly, he sat up, traces of alarm fleeting across his face. "Youki. Outside."

Sanzo glanced towards the window. The rain practically obscured all visibility. If there were youkai outside--

--a high pitched whistle cut through his thoughts. Gliding in on silent wings, Hakkai's little dragon, Hakuryuu, appeared in the doorway.

Goku sprang to his feet and raced towards the dragon. "Where's Hakkai?" The little dragon went nowhere without its master. That Hakuryuu was here and Hakkai was not... could mean nothing but trouble.

Hakuryuu glanced significantly towards the doorway of the inn, and chirped urgently.

Sanzo shot him a hard look. "Hakkai's outside?"

"Kyuu!"

Hakkai was outside. There had been a sudden peak in youki. Gojyo was gone. Hakuryuu was worried. The nagging suspicion that had been at the back of his mind solidified into icy worry. Swearing venomously under his breath, Sanzo stalked towards the door.

***

Light illuminated the night sky. It reflected off raindrops, refracted, split by those tiny prisms into a kaleidoscope of color. Death could be beautiful in its own way.

Gojyo plunged through the shimmering rain to reach his companion's side, fending off youkai that were fleeing in terror from this new apparition in their midst, fending off youkai that stood their ground and fought, fending off stray ki blasts that scorched past him, hot enough to ionize the very air.

"Hakkai!"

The youkai that was Hakkai did not hear him -- it seemed that, with nothing to restrain his full youkai form, Hakkai had passed beyond his reach into madness.

Indeed, there was nothing but madness in those emerald eyes now, half shadowed by his damp hair. There was madness in that feral look, there was a madness in the very way he struck -- not just to kill but to rend and maim, tearing youkai from limb to limb in showers of blood.

The silver rain had been stained red.

He could only watch in a combination of shock and awe as Hakkai dispatched the last youkai with merciless efficiency, tearing out the jugular in one sweep. He did not even require his ki attacks. The deadly claws that tipped his fingers, each three inches in length, proved more than sufficient for the task at hand. The incredible strength that lay in muscles of steel overcame obstacles such as a bone and cartilage with terrifying ease.

He was not smiling, Gojyo noted with a sick sense of irony. The usual, placid smile that graced Hakkai's face had not been corrupted into a dreadful parody in his bloodlust, and Gojyo was privately glad for that. Hakkai as a youkai was as wild as Goku, but his was a chilly dementia, a cold, calculating one. Hakkai had more control than Goku, and Gojyo could only hope that that control would prove sufficient.

He found the limiters, lying in a pool of blood, their silver surface scarred with red streaks.

And as Hakkai turned, he fought down the sense of dread and terror that welled up in his throat, and held out the limiters.

Cloud shifted, and for a moment, moonlight struck them, bathing them in a gentle white glow.

And Hakkai delicately extended clawed fingers to pluck them from Gojyo's hand.

Then the clouds moved again, chased by the wind, and the moonlight was severed.

Hope died in a flicker of sudden foreboding.

Hakkai spasmed, a wave of agony and indecision washing across his face. He cried out, an inhuman howl that tore through the air and drove chills into Gojyo's very bones. Then he struck, a blow that raised fountains of blood and sent Gojyo flying backwards in a spray of crimson.

The limiters fell from his hand in midflight, tumbled into the darkness... and were lost.

It burned. The pain burned like flames torching through the bloody gashes across his chest. It consumed, a raging inferno, unstoppable and uncontrollable--

--With an effort, Gojyo terminated that train of thought. He heard the dull thump of Hakkai's footsteps across the watery ground, and cursed himself for being a fool. He had thought, nay, he had hoped that Hakkai would listen to reason, that he would have taken the easy course...

...and he almost had. Almost. There was a flicker of pain at the sheer closeness of it all, a pain that had nothing physical to it, but cut as deeply as his wounds.

So close.

So far.

Hakkai stood over him, his face enshadowed. Any expression he might have worn was hidden from Gojyo.

There was no way he could overpower Hakkai. There was no way he would win in a fight between them both. So he resorted to the last course of action at his disposal.

"Killing me won't solve anything."

Claws, raised to strike, paused.

Gojyo struggled into a sitting position, one hand clasped over his injuries. He could feel the blood seeping through his fingers, trailing down his jacket, lost in the rain that trickled through his hair and down his face. "I'm on your side, remember?"

Hakkai's hand dropped to his side and he cocked his head, evidently considering the words. Then, in a voice as deep and dark as the night that surrounded them, he spoke. "She is dead. There are no sides. There is no hope. There is no life."

Gojyo swore silently. He had hoped that it would not come to this -- Hakkai had lost himself in memories of the past, had torn open emotional wounds that they had all thought had healed, had returned to another rainy night and another life.

"There is life," he retorted, desperately searching for words. "There's plenty of life. We found peace, of a sort, remember? You and me and Sanzo and Goku, journeying west together. If you want death, there's plenty of that. We don't need any more."

"She is dead." Anger and grief whispered through those words, words of a man who had lost himself in his guilt.

"She's been dead for three years," Gojyo told him gently. "But we learn to put the past behind and move on. Grief passes; new joys can be found." He cursed the clumsiness, for he lacked the eloquence that Sanzo had. Lacked the knowledge of how to deal with circumstances like this, with a grief-stricken and guilt-crazed youkai standing over him. He was simply, completely, at a loss at how to handle the situation.

"Hakkai..."

Something in that name sparked a reaction. Perhaps it was recognition, perhaps it was denial, perhaps both. But far from inspiring a return to sanity, it achieved the opposite effect.

Hakkai shuddered, obviously fighting some inner battle... and losing. There was a tortured whisper of air, a word that could have been 'No', rapidly drowned by a snarl of sheer rage.

And Gojyo flung out his shaku jou in a desperate attempt to forestall the blow.

Hakkai side-stepped the flat blade and dodged the mobile one, and leapt back, preparing to charge in for the kill.

Gojyo muttered obscenities. Leaning heavily on his staff, he forced himself to his feet, reeling from the pain. He hadn't expected to perish here, in this god-forsaken place, between the sun-scorched deserts and the dank forests that never saw the light. He had not expected to die at the hands of the man he called his best friend... this cheerful, smiling man, the one who held the strongest purchase on logic and sensibility.

He did not know why Hakkai had removed his limiters. As he could not understand this sudden transformation, this sudden regression. He knew that the rain was to blame, but they had survived rainy nights before. He could not comprehend why this night would be different...

...And why this night would have to be their last. This not so special night, drenched by rain and blood.

For, with the limiters lost, one of them would have to perish in this encounter.

Sha Gojyo did not fear death. It was a reality that all of them faced each day. It was a reality he had faced as a child, faced and embraced and accepted, that fateful day that his mother had tried to kill him. He had wished for death then, if his own death could only bring joy to the one he loved the most.

But it had not been him who had been appointed to die that day.

And it was only irony, only cruel fate, that he should die at the hands of another he cared for, of the one he had saved, 3 years ago, on a night as cold and deep as this. Destiny was unforgiving, it seemed.

It was with regret that he stared into the eyes of his companion, those green orbs that had once harbored smiles. They were barely visible now, and they were black with the pain that clouded them.

Regret that this was the end.

Regret that it had to end this way.

Gojyo hefted his staff. I'm sorry, old friend. Sorry that it had to come to this.

Then Hakkai charged.

And stopped short as the night was punctuated by a bullet streaking past both of them. Stopped short as a streak of brown leapt into the space that lay between them, a golden limiter glinting and a red staff held at the ready. Stopped short as Goku, taking a defensive stance, glared him down and yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing, baka?"

A mixture of surprise and relief swept through Gojyo. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was some hope after all...

There was a quiet footstep as Sanzo materialized behind him, the Smith and Wesson held his left hand, a bullet missing from the magazine. The monk wasted no time with preamble. "Where are the limiters?"

Gojyo shook his head slowly and glanced towards the darkness that lay under the trees.

Sanzo growled under his breath. "Fools. Both of you."

***
TBC
***