Pain was the first thing that registered to his senses — a fire that spread outward from his abdomen and left ashes in its wake. Sanzo was lying on his stomach, and that only seemed to make the pain worse. He tried to open his eyes, but a great weight had descended upon them, pulling them down. It was nothing more than sheer force of will that got them to open even half way, and he nearly lost the fight when the incoming rays of light threatened to blind him.

That was when he noticed the dry, itching mass against his neck and cheek. He raised one hand — muscles trembling, a motion hard-fought and dearly won — to brush the object away. Something brittle crumbled beneath his fingers.

What the fuck happened?

He could still remember the dream, a nightmare in all its ethereal realness. He almost expected to see blood when he opened his eyes, but was more than relieved to see the leaf-strewn floor of a forest instead. But why did he have that dream? Why was he sprawled on his stomach on a forest floor? And why the hell did he feel so weak and drained?

Sanzo put his hand back on the loam and managed to lever himself into a half-sitting position. Branches and dry debris slid off his back and hit the ground with a hissing crash. The leaves were brown and withered beyond recognition, but still attached to the vines they had grown from. One vine had been caught beneath him when he — fell? tripped? — caught on the weave of his robes and —

No. Not caught. Impaled. There wasn’t much blood, but he could see that the robe had been torn by... thorns or something... the vine passing through the silk and the thin leather of his inner shirt. Taking a moment to make sure he wouldn’t fall over once he took away the brace of his arms, Sanzo pulled aside the robe to assess the damage.

Like the rest of the vine, this one was dead; brown and withered, bits of it crumbling away when his hands or clothing brushed against it. Didn’t look any different, either — except for the important fact that it had somehow injured him. He grasped the stalk and gently pulled — pain tore through his abdomen, causing the muscles to spasm. He just gritted his teeth and pulled harder.

The plant tore away from his flesh with a disgusting ripping noise, part of the vine crumbling in his hand. At the end of the vine was a wide sucker that reminded Sanzo of nothing more than the mouth of a leech. With teeth.

He tossed away the dead foliage and braced himself on one arm. So... this thing was somehow the culprit. Vaguely he could remember an attack on the jeep that had driven him apart from Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai, sending him deep into the forest. He had paused a moment to rest... and then...? The dream. He had no recollection of an attack, only the eerie silence of the forest and the

smells like grapes

strong odor of kudzu blossoms.

And there was the evidence surrounding him: dozens of limp vines and hundreds of withered leaves now littered the forest floor. The canopy overhead had been stripped bare, and above him the face of a full moon lit the new clearing.

His last clear memory was of lunchtime banter. Now the day had already progressed into the dead of night.

“Fuck,” he said. His voice was hoarse and it took too much effort to breathe.

The kudzu vine was somehow alive... mutated or ensorcelled in a way that caused it to attack anyone who entered the forest — like the villagers who had been so certain that a demon haunted the woods. Sanzo wasn’t entirely sure if it had been planning to suck him dry in the same manner as a leech, but he was sure that it had done something to him. Poison was still an option; the burning on his stomach had not ceased with the removal of the sucker, and everything felt sore to the touch. Even his nails hurt. And his vision refused to stay completely focused, blurring unnecessarily at the edges. He felt incredibly, horribly tired.

But Homura was still out there. Where Shien and Zenon were, the war prince ultimately followed. If he didn’t get up, it would only be a matter of time before he was found by either the gods or more of that plant.

To his left lay his discarded shoureijyuu, and he carefully leaned over to pick it up. It was still fully loaded. However the kudzu had come upon him, it had done so too fast for him to react. Apparently he hadn’t even had the time to shoot. So this time he would have to be more careful, and much more alert. Somehow the Maten scripture had been cast while he was in the depths of that surreal nightmare, but he knew he didn’t have the strength to do so deliberately again. At least it hadn’t been stolen from him while he had been under the kudzu vine’s spell. The only weapon he had left to him now was the speed of his feet and the bullets in his gun.

His vision blurred again as he stared at the weapon in his hands, and he absently dug his knuckle into one eye to help alleviate the stinging. His fingers came away wet.

Tears. From that dream.

“Fuck,” he said again, and scrubbed angrily at his eyes and cheeks until he was reasonably sure that no evidence remained.

This wasn’t going to be very pleasant.

---

Sanzo didn’t know how long it took him to get back to the road; once he reentered the darkness of the forest he had no way of telling how much time had passed. So little light seeped through the branches overhead that for a time he was certain he was going in circles, and it was only the fact that he had lost his lighter that kept him from making a torch to help him on his way. That had pissed him off to no small end. He could have used a cigarette right about then.

The kudzu — or whatever it was — had trailed him the entire way. He had heard it creeping along behind him, cautious, careful, but lurking like Goku drooling over a plate of meat buns that Hakkai wouldn’t let him eat, eagerly waiting for a moment of distraction to take advantage of. A few shots from his gun seemed to discourage it from getting too close — it wasn’t as if he could exactly see what he was shooting at, anyway — but neither did it leave him be.

He wondered if it had gotten to his comrades, and whether or not it had already drained them past the point of no return.

They’re demons, he decided, with no small bit of disgust. If I could survive this long against that thing, they should be fine. Goku would probably eat any plant that attacked him, anyways.

Moonlight streamed down on the rutted path, nearly blinding him when he stumbled out from under the canopy. There was no jeep in sight, and no tracks in the dirt to show signs of passage. He had no point of reference. He had no fucking clue where he was.

Sanzo let his legs collapse out from under him and knelt on the road, panting from exertion. He had barely recovered any energy in all the time that had passed.

If I find Homura any time soon, I’m going to chop him into tiny pieces and force-feed him to that kudzu vine.

Something rustled the bushes across from him. He had the banishing gun up and cocked before he saw the streamlined head of Hakkai’s dragon. It keened weakly at him.

Sanzo exhaled sharply and lowered the pistol, resting it against his thigh. Well, at least he wasn’t exactly alone anymore. If Hakuryuu was here, he mustn’t be too far away from where he started. Or from Hakkai. Unless the dragon was as lost as he was, which would really, really suck.

“You know where he is?” he asked. He had always felt a little stupid at the prospect of talking with something that couldn’t talk back, but the dragon obviously understood when Hakkai spoke to it. Trying wouldn’t hurt anything.

The little beast crawled out from under the bushes, creeping across the dirt path like some kind of demented white bat, and craned its head to look past Sanzo. It keened again, gathering its haunches and launching itself into the air before wafting over to the woods where the priest had just come out from.

Fuck. He must have done something very bad in a past life to deserve this kind of hell.

“Are you sure he’s back there?” he asked skeptically, glaring at the dragon over his shoulder.

Hakuryuu only cooed and disappeared into the forest.

Sanzo sighed and pushed himself back to his feet. He had a feeling this was going to be a very long night.

Following the dragon was like running after a ghost; Hakuryuu stood out in the darkness like a luminescent beacon just out of reach. It became apparent to him that he wasn’t going in exactly the same direction as he had come from, which was good, in a way. If, for any reason, it became known that he had passed right by Hakkai without seeing him being eaten by a fucking plant, he would never be allowed to live it down. Gojyo would find a way to bring it up in every conversation, and then Sanzo would have twice the reason to kill him once they stopped this whole stupid revival-of-Gyumaoh thing. Five times the reason to kill him before they reached India, because he would have been driven insane before they even reached their destination.

He tried not to concentrate on the very real thought that Gojyo or Hakkai might be dead already — if not by the kudzu vine, then by Homura and his flunkies. He knew Goku was fine — Homura, for whatever reason, wanted the monkey alive, if not entirely undamaged. He could also hear the boy watching him, faintly in the back of his skull; he always could, every time any manner of distance separated them. On the one hand, the constant silent staring was annoying and unnerving; on the other hand, it gave him one less person to worry about. Or one more person, depending on the situation.

But he had no way of ascertaining that the other two were alive, and that was bad since he needed Hakkai’s dragon to get to India, and the stupid beast wouldn’t go anywhere without his master. He forced himself not to dwell on either of those facts. Instead, he concentrated on making his way through the underbrush without tripping, listening carefully for the distinctive hiss of the kudzu stalking behind him.

In the end, the kudzu didn’t find him. He found it.

A huge slithering mass of it dominated the darkness before him; it crawled up the trees and snaked along the canopy overhead. Moonlight filtered through the leaves and lit them up from behind, casting the small area in shades of pale green and white. The sense of hunger was palpable, thick and heavy like humidity or youryoku, tickling the edges of his senses, and Sanzo felt more than a little miffed that he hadn’t noticed the air of menace the instant they had entered the forest.

Hakuryuu made no sound as he hovered in place, careful to remain a safe distance from the plant. Even so, it was apparent that the kudzu was already taking notice of them; some of the vines were beginning to slither in their general direction. One patch of it disturbed another item on the ground — the sudden glint of light reflecting off a metal object caught Sanzo’s attention, and he looked harder.

It was Gojyo’s shakujou.

The priest cocked his pistol and glared at Hakuryuu when the dragon fluttered to his shoulder, apparently unnerved by the closeness of the plant. “He was supposed to mean Hakkai,” he said balefully.

The coo he received in response sounded in no way apologetic.

More leaves were turning in his direction now, and several creepers were far too close for comfort. The greater mass remained concentrated in the center of the tiny clearing, and as the vines twisted he could occasionally see the muted crimson of Gojyo’s hair beneath the trembling leaves. So the water sprite had managed to get caught by a plant as well — Sanzo could only envision the comments the idiot would be making after this incident: “I’m so sexy even a plant wants to suck me off,” and so forth.

“Whatever,” he growled, and shot the creeper closest to his right foot.

The effect was pleasing; the sections of the vine that hadn’t been blasted into goopey fibers quickly withered and turned to brown husks, all the way back into the canopy and across the mass that covered Gojyo. The rest of the vines instantly stopped all their motions, before slowly starting to creep back away from his feet. The huge, spade-like leaves were vibrating at an even faster pace, but at least the plant had some survival instinct.

Not that Sanzo had any real sense of mercy. He continued firing into the plant, choosing the stalks that were furthest from the prone half-demon, as he was unable to see just where Gojyo’s limbs were under all that mess. One vine even had the gall to try and approach him from above, dangling from the heights of the canopy, but a warning screech from Hakuryuu and a single shot from the banishing gun quelled that act of rebellion. By the time the pistol clicked on an empty chamber half the clearing was a disarray of dried up leaves and woody stems, with the remainder of the kudzu backed away into the canopy or the edges of the clearing.

The priest reached into his robes for his spare bullets and reloaded the gun before stepping further towards Gojyo. The vines, still a good ten feet away, rustled backward with his every forward movement. That, indeed, was a vast improvement; that act of caution on the part of a nearly mindless enemy pleased him in a way that almost made up for how exhausted he was currently feeling.

“Hey,” Sanzo said, and kicked Gojyo unceremoniously in the arm. There was no response.

Fuck, he thought. If he’s unconscious I am so not dragging him through these woods with a hungry plant breathing down my neck. He kicked the arm again, harder, but Gojyo didn’t so much as twitch. He was lying on his stomach, face turned toward the Sanzo, dead leaves and a thin veil of red hair obscuring his features. He couldn’t even see if the man was breathing.

He quickly squelched the surge of panic that thought brought on.

Hakuryuu abruptly screamed, wings buffeting his head as the creature launched itself into the air. Instinctively he dove in the opposite direction, and felt the cool brush of foliage against his cheek. The damn plant was attacking him again!

His finger pulled the trigger three times before the rattling of the leaves subsided, the vines again withdrawing from where he had been forced to sprawl on the ground. He could no longer see the dragon, but at least from this angle he could see the rise and fall of Gojyo’s chest, and the rapid fluttering of long-lashed eyes. Dead foliage crunched beneath him as he rolled onto his knees and scooted forward to kneel at the other man’s side, warily keeping an eye on the plant that remained just out of sight in the darkness.

Sanzo grasped the back of Gojyo’s vest and heaved him over onto his back. Even unconscious the man was incredibly taut, fighting almost instinctively against the hands on his body. His fingers twitched spasmodically against the ground, rattling the dry branches; every tense muscle highlighted by the moon and even the way his eyes rolled beneath his closed lids screamed nightmare.

“I am not dragging you through his godforsaken forest,” he told the unconscious man, drawing back his free hand. “So you’d better do yourself a favor and wake the fuck up!”

He caught the glimpse of green amidst the brown, realizing too late that the plant was still attached to Gojyo’s calf. But then his hand connected to Gojyo’s cheek in an open-hand slap, and the instant his fingers touched the other man’s skin -

< ...no... >

- there was a door in front of him.

What the hell...?

It had probably seen better days; the white paint was chipped and peeling and dirt was caked in the molding along the edges of the jam, but it was obvious that the door had once been well-cared for. Painted and washed on a regular basis in order to make the house it belonged to all the more appealing and homey. But it had been neglected for some time now — years, no doubt — and now it looked like it had seen too many days of grubby hands and not enough days of soap and water.

Sanzo stared. What-?

For a moment he couldn’t react. What the hell had happened? One moment he was kneeling in a forest, trying to wake a dreaming kappa and fend off a voracious plant hell bent on eating them at the same time. Now he was standing in front of a door admiring the paint flakes? What the hell?

< ...don’t touch me... >

No. He had already gone to the mountain and freed Goku from the prison the gods had carved for him. There was no reason for him to be hearing that voice again. The boy hadn’t called out to him in years, not since he had reached the pinnacle of a holy mountain and broke numerous seals that had remained untouched for centuries. Why would he be hearing that voice now, when only a few minutes ago it had been silent? And what the hell did he mean by “Don’t touch me”?

Something landed with a muffled crash inside the house. It sounded like a vase.

Sanzo frowned and turned to look over his shoulder. It was day time, where ever he was, at direct odds with the moonlit-night he had previously been running through, with a watery sun not far above the horizon in a clear sky. There was a line of laundry drying a few feet away from him, an overturned basket of half-folded clothing lying beneath it. The yard was mostly dirt, with a few patches of half-dead grass desperately attempting to cling to life. But more than twenty feet away everything started to fade, the colors bleeding together until the images lost definition. There was a path leading away to what Sanzo presumed was the north, but the world beyond the weed-encrusted fence it passed was indeterminate. It was like the world outside the house he stood before only barely existed.

< ...just a dream... just a dream... >

That’s right. It was just like a dream.

Gojyo’s dream.

Another thud echoed from inside the house, so heavy that the door rattled in its frame. A thin, wavering voice rose up; the words were too muffled to be made out, but the feverish screaming of another voice — a woman’s voice, from what Sanzo could tell — cut it off in mid-sentence.

The words of the woman were easy to make out from the volume. “-disgusting creature! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch anything! You’ll make it dirty!”

The sound of another fragile thing breaking.

“You think you know?! You don’t know anything, you filthy animal! Get away from me! Get away from me!”

< ...no... >

Another dream. Another nightmare that was so real Sanzo could easily smell the scent of discarded laundry water in the tub by the door. The breeze that ruffled his hair and the warmth of the sun radiating off the filthy wood of the door was so real that any belief that he might be somewhere else, in a death-filled forest in the middle of the night, was difficult to comprehend. He grasped for the lifeline of Goku’s ethereal voice again, trying to find a link back to the real world, but it danced out of reach, jerking away every time he got near.

< ...don’t touch me... >

Perhaps this was what the kudzu vine did — it inflicted a dreamlike state, probably with poison secreted through the mouth-like protrusions Sanzo had found attached to his stomach. The nightmare induced was so vividly real that even if the dreamer did realize it was a dream, there was nothing solid enough that could startle them back into awareness. The physical slap Sanzo had administered evidently did no good at all; if anything, it only made the situation worse, because now he was in the dream as well. Somehow he had been sucked into Gojyo’s nightmares.

And from the screaming inside he had a pretty good inclination of just what nightmare he had stepped into.

The first logical motion he had to take was to find a way to wake Gojyo up. Somehow he needed to get through to the man that this was nothing more than a dream — there was nothing to fear in dreams. They were nothing more than memories, and memories could only haunt, not physically harm.

crimson-silver blade cutting a deadly arc through the air, the sharpened edge seeking to embed itself in his back

Sanzo squeezed his eyes shut and forced the image away, focusing on the reassuring weight of the pistol in his hand. If the Maten scripture hadn’t finally reacted to his plight, could he had truly died in that dream?

No. I can’t focus on that. I risk losing myself to this dream if I don’t stay focused on what’s real.

But what reason did the plant have to induce such horrible dreams?

< ... no, no, no, no... >

The weak thread of Goku’s voice wound through his mind, the monotonous chant an eerie backdrop to the war that suddenly fell silent inside the house. Goku must also be caught in a nightmare, Sanzo decided — but instead of reaching towards the priest, the way he had while still trapped inside the mountain, he was actually pushing Sanzo away. It had been years since Goku had spoken in that tiny voice that only reached the confines of Sanzo’s mind, and he had stopped having nightmares months before the trip to India had even begun. Even those the boy had been unable to describe, only able to convey them as black, faceless monsters that he was incapable of remembering after he had awoken, screaming in blind terror. But he had always reached towards Sanzo for comfort, and Sanzo had always stoically given it, if only because he knew that he’d be unable to return to sleep if he didn’t.

The priest abruptly felt irrationally angry. Not just because he was caught in another person’s dream, or that he was tired and needing a fucking cigarette right now. Not just because he was forced to defend his life — yet again — and the lives of others who should have been perfectly capable of defending themselves. But because this mindless stupid fucking plant was using their own nightmares as weapons. Their own deepest, darkest, unnamable fears had suddenly become the tools of their destruction.

That pissed him off to no small end. And the anger was real and bit deeper than the weariness and uncertainty.

Sanzo was going to wake the stupid water sprite up, and the two of them were going to find Hakkai and Goku. And then Sanzo was going to make the plant and whoever was behind it learn the true meaning of pain.

He wrapped his fingers around the handle and turned the knob.