by Princess of Pain

Part II: Fairy Tales Lie

~NOTE: This is where the weird crap is going to start. Oh, man. When the big twist of this chapter was first written, I felt a horrible urge to interrupt the story with an author's note, saying "I swear to God I'm not crazy, please bear with me!!". Obviously, I am smart enough to not do this (thank God) mid-tale. So, instead, I do it here. I do think I know what I'm doing, and all I ask is that you, gentle reader, hang on for the ride. ~

"I'm looking for Cho Gonou."

Gojyo's heart fell loose of its moorings. Now, there was a name that he'd never wanted to hear again--certainly not in this context. The towel woven around his hair unwrapped itself, falling limply to the floor and puddling around his feet. He didn't move to pick it up. He only stood, blood-colored eyes wide, his symbolic hair matted and curling at the ends. Despite his dark skin, he somehow managed to pale out.

Cho Gonou. Stone the crows.

The hanyo slammed the door in her face.

He reached down, picked up the towel, walked back to the bathroom to hang it up, or Hakkai--Cho Gonou? his brain reminded him--would have a fit when he got back. Didn't matter much. For the first time in a fortnight, Gojyo wasn't walking around half-cocked. His dick was no longer the central focus of his thoughts. He doubted that he'd even be in the mood when Hakkai got back, a concept which, forty-five seconds ago, he would have regarded with the same likelihood of occurring as Sanzo becoming a nun. Two words had killed that off what good.

Cho Gonou.

That light, feminine rapping at the door. "Sha-san?"

He chafed at the noise. He wanted to scream at her to call him Gojyo, but that would involve talking to her.

"Sha-san? Please, I just want to t-talk to him!"

Oh, shits. Her voice had the cracked, warbling quality that only someone with a massive headcold or a crying jag acquired. He pulled on his A-shirt, the dampness from his skin sucking up into it and forming pale, see-through spots. He could ignore her. He was an ass-kicker and a ball-stomper, and he didn't get cocked around by anyone who wasn't Hakkai (gonou), especially not the fairer sex.

"Please, Sha-san, I... I j-j-just..."

The woman on the other side of the door burst into loud, braying sobs. She sounded like her heart was breaking. He stared at the door, the incessant thrum of the crooked and broken ceiling fan running across his nerves, an incomparably grim expression on his face. Most of him, his intellectual half (the part he didn't really think existed), knew that this woman could only be trouble. He knew that there were only a few people, and at least three minor gods, who were aware of who Cho Gonou had once been, and only those gods and Hakkai's teammates knew that Gonou and Hakkai were once the same person. Anyone who knew that little tidbit, and who was actively seeking Hakkai out... they had to be trouble. It had to be a trick, or a manipulation, and he was for once showing good sense in keeping her out of the room.

The far-more-dominating and emotional side of his personality only whispered, "... but she's crying."

And he had never, in his life, been able to resist trying to soothe a crying woman by any means necessary.

No. No, that was foolishness. It was probably what she wanted. He wasn't going to be duped by this woman, who--

What if she was still standing there when Hakkai got back?

The idea was a nasty one. Maybe she was someone who'd known Gonou, and if Hakkai came back with her screaming and crying at the door... shit.

His brain chanted that expletive as he jerkily marched over to the door and threw it open. "Get in here."

Hesitantly, she stepped inside. She was mousy and small, creeping back from him. He realized, as he slammed the door once more, that she was doing this because she probably believed that he was going to hit her. The idea made the roiling shit-storm of his brain calm down moderately.

He waved a hand towards the bed. "Siddown."

As she moved and sat, he produced his battered pack of cigarettes, pulled one free, and lit up. Once that was done (and he felt a little better still), he looked her over once more. She was sitting primly on the edge of the bed, her long fingers fooling with a crease in her dove-colored skirt. Really, she looked like most of the women he passed in most of these towns. The only difference was how friggin' short her hair was. He hadn't seen a woman with hair that didn't, at the shortest, tickle her shoulderblades in years, and this girl had her dark brown mop cut into a, whatdoyoucallit, a bob.

She looked up at him shyly. "I... Sha-san--"

"One," he said, raising up a finger. "It's Gojyo. Never been anything but Gojyo."

"If you say so, Gojyo-san."

He started a little. No one had called him that since he'd finally broken Hakkai (gonou) of the habit. "No -san, damn it."

Her eyes lowered at the vulgarity. "I'm very sorry."

"Two. This is not a promise. This is charity. You got five minutes to explain yourself and what you're about, and if you don't do it in that time, I'm going to have you thrown out."

Her eyes caught his. Hers were still shrink-wrapped with tears. "Th... thank yo--"

"Stop being so fucking polite and spit it out. Five minutes. Go."

"He... I... I really don't know where to start."

Gojyo loped across the room. He was going nowhere in particular; he was far too filled with nervous energy at the sight of this woman to stand still for too long. "The beginning would be nice."

"Well... I suppose I should start with my name," she said. Her small smile was hard and bleak, like an endless field of snow. "It's Kanan. I'm Gon--"

Oh, now that was the absolute grand fucking limit. Gojyo did not know if he wanted to be horrified or appalled. He stomped to the door, and threw it open so hard that it rattled on its hinges. "Out. Now."

Maple-green eyes widened. "Wh--what?"

"Out. Now. That's it. I've had it. If you were going to come up with a lie, you should have made it a more convincing one." He decided that he was angry. More: he was nearly consumed by a raging bitch-fury that threatened to overtake even the levels of wrath in which Sanzo normally dwelt. Hell, compared with him right then, Sanzo was a blind and toothless kitten. He literally shook with the restraint it took not to summon his shakujou and use the flat-bladed end to slap her into the stratosphere.

She stood, a nice-looking girl in a dark skirt and white blouse, pale and sadly pretty. A small, chunky silver cross glittered at her throat. A few quick steps, and she maneuvered so that the bed was between she and he. This time, the idea of her fearing him didn't make him feel guilty--it made him feel a wicked sort of gladness. "Please, listen to me--"

"Get out before I kill you." He wouldn't let this happen. Hakkai would not come back into their room and find a facsimile of his dead lover. Hakkai would not have to live through this. Gojyo would see to it.

Her eyes widened further, then narrowed down, her dark-brown eyebrows knitting together. Her lips twisted into an understated scowl. "You... You horrible man! You're not even giving me a chance!" Tears began to spill once more--goddam, was she a leaky faucet--but they were angry tears. "Would it actually hurt anyone if you listened to me?! You don't have to believe me, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, but please, at least let me talk to you!" Her voice wavered. "I haven't had anyone to talk to in years."

Gojyo rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. He felt feverish to himself. This was wrong, there was something going on here, but he wasn't smart enough to figure out what it was. Kanan was dead. The Sanbutsushin, Sanzo, Goku, Hakkai himself... they all knew it. They'd all confirmed it. He must be hallucinating this whole encounter.

... but the only one who had seen her die was Gonou, and Gonou had not been the most sane of men.

No, he was not doing this. He was not questioning Hakkai's account of things because of a few words from a woman he didn't know. This was crazy.

He waved his hand for her to sit down. When he shut the door, it creaked loudly, and did not sit right in its frame. He didn't want "Kanan" to stay. But he couldn't think of a good enough reason for her to go, that wouldn't involve him physically removing her.

She didn't quite sit down--she practically fell back onto the bed, facing the far wall, her back to him. His more homicidal, youkai side whispered that the center of her back would look much improved if he sunk the moon-blade of the shakujou into it.

"I... you know who I am."

"I know that you're dead."

She tilted her head the slightest bit, dark brown hair shifting with the motion. "... no. I wish I was. More often than not. But."

"How." A command. No question about it.

She spoke.

*~*~*

I was captured by Hyakugan-mao. That much is true. And I was his... h-his slave. But I wasn't... no. He never kept me in a jail cell. He, he always said that he wanted... "easy access" to his women. So I was locked up, but I was locked up in his bedroom.

Well. Not quite the bedroom. It was one of the alcoves. He had one for all the women he owned. The tributes that all those youkai tribes came up with. Other youkai, human women... and when a new tribute came in, he'd just kill off whichever one he'd had around the longest. When the room was pitch-black, you wouldn't even know they were there. He said. He said he liked having the illusion of privacy.

So when the attack happened, we were all there. He was in the middle of getting one of us to serve him, when the guards burst in, screaming about a god who had come to slay them all. He killed them. Finished with her, tied her back up into her alcove, and stamped out, cursing the whole time. We never saw him again. I was glad.

I only saw him for a few seconds--Gonou. He went into the bedroom to make sure there was no one in there. Only with all of us being gagged and in those alcoves, he never even saw us there. He... he frightened me. He'd never looked so wild before. I tried to scream for him. But we were all gagged.

We all heard the fight go for hours. It was loud.

After the silence, a few of the youkai women managed to break out of their bonds, and they freed the rest of us. We ran out of there. I mean ran. We ran for hours. We didn't look at the bodies. Just ran. Until we finally found a town.

We all split up. Looking for what we'd been taken from. And I, I stayed behind, looking for some sign of him... I knew he was out there, somewhere. Had to be. Then I heard that he was dead--that a man had been executed in a Temple. I cried for days. I thought about killing myself, but I couldn't.

Yes, because I was pregnant.

I was hoping it was Gonou's child. I prayed that it was Gonou's child. I wanted nothing more than that. But when he was born... he looked like you. I knew. He was the son of the youkai who'd raped me. But I just, I couldn't hate him for it. Because he was mine. So I named him Gonou, and it would have been fine, except that the youkai all started to slowly go crazy, and the longer the craziness went on, the more aware people became of why Gonou had red hair and eyes.

Four months ago. He was taken from my backyard. I was doing laundry. I only turned my back for a second. They bashed his head in with a rock and hanged him from a tree. Put a sign on his neck saying that they'd do the same to any youkai who dared to come to the village.

And that was it. I didn't... have any reason to stay there. It hurt too much. So I started wandering. Just traveling aimlessly. And I started to hear all these stories, about a band of youkai killers who were mostly youkai. I was angry about it, at first. I don't know much about why they're all going mad, but I don't think that it's their faults... that doesn't make sense. But then, I started hearing more detailed rumors. Their names. And what they looked like.

Cho, now, that's a pretty common name. I've met plenty of Chos in my life. But everything I heard about him... from what he looked like, what he dressed like, mannerisms... I wondered. I'd made it through alive. Maybe he had, too.

And, well, I didn't have anything else. Just an idea. So I started showing my only picture of him to anyone who'd look, as I moved West... and the more I did, the more people started to say yeah, that's him. Cho Hakkai. I didn't know why he'd change his name. I just knew that it was him. H-had to be.

*~*~*

Silence reigned, like an evil king. The only noise that reverberated through the hotel room after she stopped speaking was the agonizing thrum of the broken fan.

Gojyo had smoked his cigarette to the filter, stubbed it out in the cracked ashtray, then lit another. He was leaning amiably against the far wall, near the shitty ink-painting. And he didn't know what to say. If she was a fake, she was a damn good one, and he wasn't able to think of a single reason why her story could be untrue. Demons had created apparitions before, and they'd do it again, and maybe Hyakugan-mao--hell, maybe Chin Iisou--had conjured up a vision of Kanan committing suicide, to fuck with Gonou's mind in a very personal way.

The story of Kanan dying had a fairy-tale ring to it, a mythical tragedy, that had never ceased to amaze Gojyo when he stopped to consider it. This chick had to have been off her nut, to think she was pregnant so soon, with no proof or anything. And to stab herself in front of her lover, who had just moved heaven and earth to find her again... there was a certain irrationality behind it. "I love you so much that I'm going to scar you for time and all eternity by rendering everything you just did for me completely worthless"...

She sat on the bed, her back still to his, shoulders straight and square.

Cut her hair in mourning. Natural enough. He'd done it, and so had Hakkai. And he could understand the overwhelming urges Hakkai conjured up in the people around him, the ones that made people seek him out and follow him, even if they were only following him follow someone else. He was a magnet, and more often than not, Gojyo felt about as helplessly drawn to him as iron.

"Kanan" looked slightly over her shoulder at him, her hands resting smoothly on the bedsheets. He suddenly wondered if she was beginning to wonder about the fact that the bed was made for two, and that the hotel's manager had apparently told her that this was where Cho Hakkai was staying (the gods only knew the disaster that would have befallen them if she'd decided to try Sanzo's room first). And if she was, therefore, beginning to wonder what her boyfriend had been up to in her absence.

No. He wasn't thinking this. He wasn't buying this. It was too convenient and flawless to NOT be a trap of some kind. Just because he couldn't think up a loophole didn't mean that one wasn't there. And he was not sure if the bitter anger that felt like bile at the back of his throat was because of this, or because of the suddenly-dawning knowledge that if she was Kanan...

Hakkai would never pursue him again.

Was he more consumed with wrath or with envy?

It was an interesting question, and being a good little masochist, Gojyo fully intended on answering it, but before he could, the door opened and Hakkai stepped in.

~TBC~

Next section: "Damming It All". In which Hakkai expresses his opinion on "Kanan", and Goku and Gojyo have a drink.