A/n: Oh god, this practically ate my brain. Its 7.37 am in the morning, and I haven't slept since last night. I couldn't let the plot bunny get away, but you know. Dude. They should make the bunnies come at coherent times you know… Times when I'm actually sane. Oh god. Happy reading, and yes, it finishes there.

This probably won't make very much sense, if you haven't read past Volume 8 of Saiyuki, or watched until the very end of Saiyuki Reload. However, the sequence of the events I have written below, does not follow exactly the events that happen in the manga and the anime. Loosely would be an apt term.

Feedback would be very much appreciated, and thank you :)

Not admitting you are weak doesn't necessarily mean admitting that you are strong either.

Sanzo knew this when he started on this journey. Out of all the four, he was the weakest, in terms of sheer physical strength and stamina. It was only inevitable; he was the only human. But he had enough stubbornness to make up for his lack of strength; he simply didn't know how to stop. But, as Kami-sama laughed airily and continued raining down shikigami-powered toys on them, the words kept swiveling around him and running through his brain, like a video on replay.

Not admitting weakness, is just the same, as not good enough. It wasn't good enough. Holding on didn't mean winning.

And yet, he couldn't stop.

He couldn't.

Gojyo was slumped on a pile of broken toys, himself looking as wrecked as them, with blood spilling out from his sides and staining the plastic faces of the dolls below him. His eyes were closed, and from where Sanzo was, he couldn't make out whether he was still conscious. Or even alive.

Hakkai was lying on his back, against a defeated Goku at the far end of the auditorium of the temple. He was alive, Sanzo could tell from the faint up and down of his shoulders, but couldn't move. The rogue who called himself Kami-sama had attacked him first, making sure to injure his internal organs, so all his power had to go to healing himself first, instead of his comrades. His glass eye lay broken next to him, and his legs at an awkward angle. Perhaps, they were broken as well. Goku had tears on his face. Sanzo very well knew that they weren't tears of a defeated person, but merely, tears of frustration, that he couldn't fight someone as seemingly light-headed and delicate as Kami-sama and to be subjected to such a humiliation, with all four of them lying prostrate on his heap of toys while he himself upheaval against the roof of the temple, observing from above and liking what he saw.

Sanzo was the first to go down. He had to watch, as one by one, the three of them lose. His sutra was taken away from him, and he was very much a Sanzo by title only. His robes felt empty without the scroll draped across his shoulders, and he was forced to see, Goku forcibly kneeled against Kami-sama. The expression on his face was horrible; it was a mixture of rage, and shame and frustration. He also knew, that if they ever get out of this alive, Goku would be affected by whatever that had happened tonight.

Kami-sama had probably broken every bone and rib in his body. It certainly felt that way. His head was heavy; and the environment around him had changed. He was seeing things that weren't there, and the things that were, he couldn't see them. Purple and black dotted his vision, and in the midst of it, echoed Kami-sama's voice. It never left. He figured he was probably going to fade into unconsciousness in a little while more. Time didn't go on steadily any longer; it came and went, snatches of things he could remember, and struggle to sit up, and bits where he couldn't care and just wanted to fade out and join his master.

Their pride was probably cost for everything they suffered for tonight. Believing so highly in themselves, and upholding the motto they so loved to parade. Fight for yourselves, believe in no one but yourself. Sanzo wanted to laugh; they were in this sort of situation because of the hypocrisy of the principle itself.

If it weren't for Gojyo; if it weren't for Hakkai and his stupid righteousness, family first and all that—if it weren't for Goku's incessant whinings…

And yet, he followed.

They lost this battle horribly, they were toyed easily and defeated much too quickly. Kami-sama wasn't done with them yet; he even had the audacity to send them back where they came from, without killing them. At this point, Sanzo would have gladly took death; the humiliation was too much.

As they lay slumped in the temple, too broken and too pathetically weak to move, Kami-sama took his time. He laughed from above; and when he spoke, his voice echoed with terrible languor and bounced off the columns and walls. "Come back when you are truly strong enough," he said, with a touch of amusement in his tone. "It's no fun when it is this easy."

Then he left, leaping off a column in one graceful leap into the darkness; leaving no traces of his presence but for the millions of toys and a single feather. The lights shut off by themselves, leaving nothing but silhouettes of a defeated, uncanny crew, against the moonlight that streamed through the tiny windows.

It was a long while before any of them moved, but Sanzo thought it might have been Goku who was first. He gripped his hands in trembling rage, and he heard a whisper come out from the boy's lips. "K'so…" he raked his fingers at the toys, whose spirits have now left them and lay still in one big heap. He banged his hands against the debri. "K'so!" There were tears in his voice now.

Still, he couldn't move. He couldn't say anything. His ribs cracked with every aching breath, and his head pounded even more, the lapsing state between consciousness and unconsciousness increasing every second. It was harder to be aware of his surroundings now, but still, he struggled to observe.

There was laboured breathing, nearby of Goku. Hakkai. With his eyes closed, and one hand on his chest, there was a soft green glow, and a sharp intake of breath, and then silence. It was another twenty minutes, or maybe forty, Sanzo wasn't sure, before the scene repeated itself.

Gojyo was still out, never once moving. He feared the worst. He wondered if Hakkai had seen yet, or if he was simply too weak to get to him. Goku was too absorbed into his defeat that he hadn't noticed. Sanzo didn't want to think, if Gojyou was gone. He couldn't be, he was simply much too stubborn. But, if he had. . .

He wasn't sure how he ended up at the inn they had stayed at a couple of days before Gojyo had gone missing. But some time during his fading out, Hakkai had managed to get himself moving. He got to Sanzo first; which was surprising because Sanzo had figured Gojyo needed more help than him. It took him awhile to realize, out of all the four, he was the one who was the worst injured.

Goku had insisted on carrying him back to the jeep, from Hakkai's report that morning, and Gojyo had awakened enough to manage to stagger back to Jeepu without falling over himself. He had suffered a blow to his head, which was why he didn't move at all.

Sanzo had been out cold for four days, a record, even for him.

It wasn't fun at all, waking up to something worse than that of a hangover, it was like he had grown two heads and broken several more ribs than he had last remembered. His throat was dry, and squeezed unwillingly shut every time he swallowed. There was a piercing pain in his middle side, every time he took a breath.

There was a heavy silence in the air, even the birds had the courtesy not to chirp and intrude on the tense atmosphere.

Hakkai was not smiling. He had on a concerned expression, and a tray of bandages in his hands, presumably for changing wraps.

"How long have I been here?" He managed to croak, while getting himself into a proper seating position. Hakkai helped him, but he brushed off his arms. He managed by himself, and propped himself properly against the wall. The bed was edged against the wall, and facing the entire room. It wasn't big, but it wasn't miserly accommodation either. There were two beds, the other on the east-side of the room (Sanzo's was at the south), and he assumed Hakkai claimed the other one.

"You have been out of it for four days," Hakkai said. He passed Sanzo the bandages to do the wrapping himself. Sighing slightly, he crossed his arms and said softly, "It was a horrible defeat, ne?"

Sanzo didn't answer him. Not when the obvious was already spelled out and shown for them to see.

He struggled to get out of bed, only to be pushed back gently but firmly by a grim Hakkai. "You are not going anywhere," he said. "Not until your ribs truly heal."

"When has that ever stopped me?" Sanzo barked, annoyed, but he couldn't even manage that without stopping to take in some breaths.

There was another long silence while they waited out for one another. He didn't bother asking, and he knew already. Goku was brooding somewhere, most likely in his own room, and Gojyo was drowning his guilt trip in the bar downstairs. He pictured him with a mug of beer, and a foxy lady sitting on the stool beside him, trying to chat him up. Typical.

His sutra.

He had to get it back.

"Sanzo, we must have a strategy…" Hakkai said, sitting by the edges of the bed. "There's no way we can go back there and win with the situation we are in now."

Obviously. No way they were going to win, with their pride destroyed and the sutra gone. Then what?

"I don't care," he rasped. "I'm getting my sutra back."

"Sanzo…"

"Don't call me that." He edged to the side, and nudging Hakkai aside, he gripped the back of the chair that faced the bed, and tried to stand up. He couldn't even get one foot to the floorboards before falling flat on his face on the floor, chair legs in his face. Hakkai didn't help him up; he knew better.

He managed to lie against the bed, on the floor.

There was another exasperated sigh, and then Hakkai lowered himself on the floor too, and sat beside Sanzo. "At this rate, we'll never..." He stopped himself. "Goku is upset. He's never had a foe this strong before, and he was shocked by it. He never expected to lose."

"None of us did. Where are my cigarettes?" Hakkai dutifully reached into his pockets and passed him his box of sticks, and a lighter. He took one out and put it in his mouth before lighting it, and taking a long drag.

"And Gojyo…He's taking the blame for all of this."

"He should." If he was more able-bodied, and less nicer than he felt now, he would have long shot the damn kappa to death and trampled his body into fine dust.

"He didn't mean what he said."

The strange thing was, Sanzo wanted to laugh, was that Gojyo was right, when he said they weren't friends. They were not. Not in the least. They were on this twisted journey by fate, and fate had left him with three idiot companions with horrible personalities, and took away his master and threw him his title. He never asked for them to come along with him, and he had never asked for them to protect him or stand by him, as he assumed what normal friends would do for each other. They did what each of them wanted to do. However, saying that he went back for Gojyo only because the two of them wanted to, would make him a hypocrite. As much as it would kill for him to admit it and as much as he wanted to kill Gojyo for causing this mess in the first place, he completely believed that Gojyo did mean what he said that night to his little twisted friend.

He was still getting back his sutra, because he didn't know how to stop, because stopping would mean losing, and stopping would mean Gojyo was wrong, and that he didn't mean what he said. Being friends would mean wanting to protect each other, and in Sanzo's case, he saw it as looking down on each other's abilities.

"I'm going back," he croaked, and tried to get back on his feet again, if it wasn't for Hakkai's forceful grip.

"Don't make me repeat myself," Hakkai warned.

He stared at Hakkai. Then, he smirked. " Are we friends, Hakkai? Because I don't recall us ever being so. So don't try to stop me."

Hakkai shook his head. "No, but it doesn't give me any less of a reason to stop you." With one hand propping Sanzo under his elbow, and the other around his waist, he heaved Sanzo up and managed to get him onto the bed again.

"We're in this together," Hakkai said finally, leveling off Sanzo's icy glare with a cool glance of his own. "And whether you want to or not, we're coming with you. But going now would mean instant defeat. At least, like I said earlier, we should strategise. And that would involve getting both Gojyo and Goku into here so we can discuss this."

He accepted, grudgingly, even though he never said anything. Hakkai took his silence as acceptance, and was nodded at that, and then disappeared from the room, presumably to look for the rest of the two of them. He wondered about moving first; getting out of the inn before any of the others could notice, but drew back reluctantly to the fact that he wouldn't have made it past the first three bushes.

Goku rushed in the room with fervor and a loud bang as the door closed behind him, and his eyes lit up when he saw Sanzo, awake and tired and angry. "Sanzo!" he exclaimed, running over to the monk. He sat down on the edges of the bed, where Hakkai had last sat, and very gingerly, ran his hand down Sanzo's hair. Sanzo considered flicking away Goku's hand. "I thought you were dead," he said, as direct as ever.

There was a stare, and then Goku laughed nervously, and backed away slightly. He withdrew his hand. "Well, I didn't mean that, but yeah you know…" he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Time to probably put the monkey to use. "Get me a beer," he said, gesturing vaguely to the little fridge at the corner of the room.

There was a cheeky smile in Goku's face before it was gone. "Hakkai said you would say that." He got up, ignored Sanzo's scowl, and walked to the other end of the room where the refridgerator was. With his back turned, and his head buried in the fridge, Sanzo heard a muffled, "Ne…Sanzo.."

He stared at Goku's hunched back. "I couldn't… I wasn't strong enough."

There was a pause, and then, "…I couldn't touch him."

None of them could. None of them so much as laid a finger on him without getting at least one of their body parts pierced by an ofuda, or his beads.

There was a reason though, why Hakkai sent him up to his room. It was an unspoken thing; he worked on Gojyo and Sanzo handled the monkey. He imagined Hakkai's beaming face 'You are the only one that can make Goku listen.' He sighed inwardly at the parenting he was about to embark on, but continued anyway. "It's not what it seemed, stupid monkey."

"Huh?" Goku's head was peeking above the door of the refridgerator. He stood up, and kicked the door shut with a bang. Walking over to Sanzo, he popped the can on the way over, and handed it to the monk, a question etched on his face.

"We lost because he knew exactly what we were about to do." Sanzo took the can from Goku, and gulped down a few shots of cold beer in three swigs. Goku sat facing the back of the chair, and rested his chin on the back. He looked miserable.

"If I'm not even strong enough…"

"You are not weak."

Goku jerked his head up at this, and stared.

Sanzo stared right back. "You aren't weak. So, that's not even valid, what you're saying." He laid his cigarette gently on the top of the can, and let it rest there. Goku opened his mouth to make a comment on the cigarette, but shut it in an instant at the warning glance Sanzo shot him.

"Is it enough?" He asked slowly, contemplating.

Sanzo shrugged. "Who knows? We'll never know until we go back there."

"E-eehh!" Goku had pushed the chair back by this point, and stood facing the monk, his hands on his hips, and a shocked expression on his face.

"What? Don't you think we aren't going back there? My sutra is there, idiot."

Goku bit his lip. "What if we lose again?"

"Then we'll go again."

He smiled at this, and a new look of determination was etched across his face. Sanzo had the urge to smack him, just because. His expression looked annoying, his stance looked annoying. He looked as if he was about to say something, really loudly.

And he was right.

"You're right!" Goku bellowed, his voice echoing excitedly against the walls. "One defeat doesn't mean we've lost completely." He paced the room, and said things like "I'll kill that idiot this time for sure," and "That fucking asshole is so mine," until Sanzo couldn't take it anymore and rasped at him to get out of the room before he got out of bed and killed him himself.

Hakkai entered, just as Goku hastily exited. He wasn't alone. Gojyo had one arm completely draped around the other man, and he was grinning. He looked slightly tipsy too. Sanzo wondered suspiciously whether it was the alcohol, or something Hakkai had said. He would bet his credit card it was the latter. Gojyo was snide. He took one look at Sanzo and opened his mouth. "You're not dead yet."

"So everyone says," Sanzo spat out, somehow very annoyed with a pleased-looking bunch of youkai. What the hell, it wasn't too long ago that everyone was moping.

Hakkai stared after a disappearing Goku. "He looks happy, doesn't he?" he said, with a smile on his face that stretched to taking Sanzo's beer and dumping its contents out the window. He ignored Sanzo's scathing remarks that his personality was the worst out of the lot, and picked up Goku's chair to straighten it, which had fallen on its side just moments ago.

"We'll be leaving soon," Hakkai said. "As soon as you're ready."

And he was.

He didn't know how to stop. And as long as he could fucking move, he would.

They stood at the bottom of the stairs, and looked up. There wasn't much to see, since everything was obscured by the mist. They all knew though, what was waiting for them, at the very top.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Goku yelled excitedly, and ran up first, taking two steps at a time. Gojyo followed suit, and reached five steps before stopping, and throwing his head back. "It's a nice day out ne…" he drawled. Hakkai bumped into his back, and laughed, reaching out a hand to grip Gojyo's arms to steady himself.

"Indeed it is."

Sanzo was last, and the slowest. His ribs weren't fully healed, and he still needed to rest to catch his breath every few steps. His mood was getting worse with the fucking weather, the kind exactly Gojyo liked. All sunny and clear skies.

It didn't matter. They were going to fucking win.

He threw his cigarette to the ground, and stomped it with his foot. Then he resumed climbing, with the backs of his three non-friends ahead of him.

Hope you like. :)