The four companions traveling to the west found the road leading into a thick wood. As they sped into the forest, the road got rougher and it began to drizzle. Hakuryuu splashed through a puddle, startling glares from three of them. Hakkai laughed at the expressions on his friend's faces. Then it started to pour. Sanzo pulled a poncho over his robe, him being the only one that remembered to bring one.

Goku shook water off his face and tried, unsuccessfully, to stuff himself under his seat. "It's too wet," he complained.

"Damn right it's too wet," Gojyo agreed. "We're all gonna freeze and die off pneumonia! Except for Mr. High-and-mighty Monk here."

"You're not going to die of pneumonia," Sanzo informed him. "And if a bit of rain is going to kill you, maybe I should shoot you now and spare you the pain."

"Hospital bills."

"What?!" The three others looked at Hakkai in bewilderment.

"If you have pneumonia, you have to go to the hospital. And if I know Gojyo, his gambling money is not nearly enough to pay the bills."

"Oh."

"Hey Gojyo," Goku piped up. "Aren't water sprites supposed to dance naked on the flowers, playing their harp whenever it rains?"

Hakkai and Sanzo snorted into their hands as Gojyo scowled at him. "You stupid monkey! I'll make you dance!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Goku retorted.

"Dumbass, button up!"

"You first dim-wit!"

"Both of you, shut up!" They looked up to see Sanzo glowering at them, hakusan in hand. They decided it would be wiser to resort to hand gestures and mouthing threats, then to get smacked.

"We're almost there." Hakkai pointed ahead where the town walls were barely visible through the trees.

Goku squinted, then frowned. "Sanzo…"

"I see."

Above the walls, a thick column of black smoke rose, drifting in the wind.

"Maybe it's just a fire," Gojyo offered.

"And maybe I'm just a priest."

Hakuryuu speeded up and in a few minuets, they reached the gates. One of them was burned and blackened. The other was hanging from one hinge, swinging crazily in the wind.

The four of them got out of Hakuryuu, who screeched, and turned back into his natural form, curling himself around Hakkai's neck. They pushed the gate aside, and stepped into the town.

It was a disaster area. Every house was burnt to the ground, except for the few which happened to get rained to in time. Bodies filled the street; most dead, some almost there. Piles of rubble blocked streets and sidewalks, and spilled through open doors.

Goku's golden eyes filled with sorrow at the sight that lay in front of him. "This is horrible," he breathed. "Has it gotten this bad here?"

"Demons," Gojyo informed them.

"Yea, I feel it too." Hakkai bit his lip.

As they surveyed the town, Goku tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "Do you hear that? It sounds like someone…crying!" He started running over to a side street. "Maybe someone's still alive! Come on!"

Goku turned a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. A sobbing toddler wrapped her arms around his legs, her black hair mussed and tangled. The others arrived and they too froze at the spectacle.

"Sanzo?" Goku asked helplessly, but as Sanzo turned, Gojyo scooped the child up and balanced her on his hip. She turned and buried her face in his chest, shoulders heaving with sobs.

"Hey sweetie," Gojyo asked soothingly. "What's your name?"

She looked at him, red eyes wide as she stared at him. The girl mumbled something unintelligible at him. "What's that?"

"H-Hitomi."

"Hello Hitomi, I'm Gojyo."

The others offered their names.

"Hello. I'm Hakkai."

"Hi Hitomi! My name's Goku!"

Even Sanzo bent over and peered at her.

"I wonder if there's anyone else," Goku wrinkled his forehead.

As if on cue, a small boy, maybe ten, raced around the corner and froze, seeing Hitomi in Gojyo's arms. His eyes widened, seeing four of them, then narrowed. He put his arm up, as if to punch them and put his feet in a fighting pose. "P-put Hitomi down!" he cried. "Go away!"

"Is he gonna hurt you Gojyo?" Goku asked, grinning.

Hitomi reached her arms out toward the boy. She laughed "Kuwiya! Kuwiya!"

He scowled, then decided they were not a threat if his sister was laughing. He stepped forward and carefully took her from Gojyo's arms. "That's Kuriya. Kuriya."

Kuriya looked up at them and made a decision. He beckoned to them and cautiously led them through the town to a house in relatively good condition. Kuriya stepped up to the door; he knocked once, paused, knocked again, then knocked three times. "Secrete knock," he confided in them.

A young woman, maybe 18 opened the door and saw Kuriya. Her face relaxed before she saw the four travelers. She snatched the child from his grasp and pulled him inside.

"Satoru! It's OK! They found Hitomi!" Kuriya protested his new friend's treatment.

She inspected them for a moment, then opened the door wider, admitting them to the slightly burned house. They filed inside, noticing how few beds there were. Satoru knelt by one of the beds, and tapped an old woman on the shoulder. "Yuki. Yukino! Wake up. We have guests and it's time to eat."

The old woman sat up and stretched as Satoru went to the door and stuck her head out. "Taisha! Oh Taisha! Dinner!" She pulled her head back in and set plates at a burned table propped up with books. As they were sitting down on makeshift chairs from around the room, a tall young man, older then Satoru stepped into the house. Hakkai noticed he didn't use Kuriya's secrete knock. The man, Taisha, was holding a bag sagging with its weight. He set it carefully on the table and took out its contents. A slab of meat, a flask of water, some half-rotten vegetables, and a knife.

"Found it in Hitomi and Kuriya's old house," he explained, sitting down. "Other then this, it's mostly a wreck." He set the food on the nine plates, just enough to go around.

As they set upon their meal, Hakkai quizzed Taisha about the fate of the village.

"What happened here?" Hakkai asked carefully, not wanting to awaken bad memories.

"Demons. They came, about a-hundred of them. We're alive because we were gone, up at Yuki's house, which is out in the forest. Hitomi and Kuriya were sent be their parents to get them out of the way of the adults. It saved their lives. Satoru is Yuki's niece. And me? I was taking them lunch. The only reason we're here is the demons found Yuki's place after we left. Killed her husband and burned it to the ground." He sat back with a sigh, finished with his meal.

"Hey guys?" Goku stood up. "Can I talk to you outside?" He stepped out, soon followed by the other three."

He looked at them, golden eyes wide. "I know we're not 'Champions of Justice,' but have you seen this?" He motioned toward the burned town, bodies and dropped items littering the street. "Look at what the demons here did. If we're going to stop this, we have to take care of the whole thing. How do we know if they're not gonna come back and kill the five of them. Five! A whole village reduced to five people. We have to stop this. I say we kick some demon ass. Maybe save Hitomi and the rest of them." He lowered his arms which had been gesturing freely throughout his outburst.

Hakkai nodded silently, and Gojyo joined him. They would help. The three of them looked expectantly at Sanzo, who's only answer was to pull out his gun, and carefully load it.

"So you're in."

Hakkai opened the door of the house and stuck his head in. "Thank you so very much for the meal, but we have to go now. Don't worry about the demons coming back, but soon you should head to the next town. I doubt supplies here will last long."

After goodbyes, Hakkai unwound Hakuryuu from his neck. "Hakuryuu, transform!"

They piled into the jeep and drove off in the direction the demons had come from. Following the trail was easy. The demons had left a clear path of destruction in their wake. After a few miles, Sanzo had them get out and walk quietly, as so not to alert the demons of their presence.

Soon, all four of them heard voices, angry shouting and yelling. They could see light from a fire coming through the trees, flickering madly as they came closer. They crept closer, silently, until they came to the demon camp. Peering through the trees they saw about one-hundred demons, as Taisha said, and tents set up near the large fire.

"Think we can take 'em?" Goku whispered, leaning closer the others.

"Yes," Gojyo answered. "But look." he pointed at the middle of the camp next to the fire, showing what the others had already noticed. Twenty demons, strong men with weapons, guarded a seated figure with his or her back to them.

Sanzo pushed his head into the conversation. "That person is important to the demons. Don't kill that one. Maybe he or she can tell us why they did this." His face was unreadable in the flickering fire light, but Goku knew that no demon would stand before his gun.

"Ready?" Gojyo asked.

They nodded, as one.

"Go!" Sanzo shouted.

They ran into the camp, knocking down demons as they came. Hakkai conjuring chi balls, Gojyo wrapping his weapon's chain all about, Sanzo firing round after round into the masses, and Goku flattening demons with ________. Soon, heaps of bodies filled the clearing, but still more came.

Gojyo knocked a demon into the protected circle, almost knocking the figure down. Still it did not move from it's hunched over position.

"Idiot!" Sanzo shouted over the fray. "When I say don't hurt them, that means to be careful not to!" He fired a bullet into demon coming up behind Gojyo. "And watch your back."

The first casualty was Hakkai. As he caught his breath from a particularly powerful chi ball, killing a crowd of demons, one sneaked in behind him, wielding a heavy bladed sword that would be effective, regardless of its owner's ability.

Goku spotted the trouble. "Hakkai!" he yelled, just in time.

But as Hakkai whirled, chi ball growing in hand, another demon slashed his unprotected back. A long rip appeared in his shirt back, with blood welling up from the wound and spilling down his back. He killed the original threat while Gojyo finished off the one that had wounded him.

And as quickly as it had started, it was over, with Sanzo and Goku slaying the remaining few and Gojyo wrapping cloth over Hakkai's wound.

They stood together, ready to confront the demons seeming leader, though it had done nothing during the fight, when Sanzo staggered, clutching his right leg. When Gojyo lowered him to the ground, and moved the robe away from the spot, a long slash, from thigh to ankle was revealed, blood spilling to the ground.

"Sanzo!" Goku cried.

"He'll be alright," Hakkai assured him. "Just help me get him to that glade over there, the one we passed on the way over. It's not far, and it's not piled up with demon bodies, stained with blood.

They, with some protest from Sanzo, got him to the grassy clearing and set him down. Hakkai immediately set about healing his leg. When the wound was closed, Sanzo looked up. "Go get the demon's leader. I want to ask him some questions, starting with the destruction of that town."

Hakkai and Gojyo walked off to do that, while Goku stayed with the grumbling monk.

Hakkai and Gojyo arrived back at the camp finding the figure still hunched over in the sitting position.

They walked over to find a demon girl. Her short black skirt barely covered her knees as she sat Indian style. The tight shirt she wore was blue, and as covered with repaired rips as anyone's would be living in a camp in the forest. Medium length light brown hair spilled over her tilted face, peering down at her lap.

"You. Up. Now." Gojyo nudged the girl cautiously with his toe.

She ignored him, fiddling with something in her lap, and twitching a booted foot.

"I said now!" He nudged her harder.

She looked up, hazel eyes behind glasses annoyed. "Not now, I'll be there later. I'm just at the good part!"

Hakkai looked at Gojyo with amazement. "She ignored this fight because she was reading a book!"

She looked down again. "Yes. Now go away."

"I think not." Gojyo leaned forward and snatched the volume from her grasp. He stuck it in his pocket and grabbed her arm, Hakkai taking the other.

"Give that back!" She jerked her arms, trying to get out of his grasp, not succeeding.

They dragged her back to the clearing where Sanzo and Goku awaited her arrival. She kicked and screamed and protested the thievery of her book. They got her to the glade and sat her firmly down in front of Sanzo, hands on her shoulders.

"Give me my book back!"

"No," Sanzo said calmly, while studying her. She looked to be eighteen or nineteen, twenty tops. Her hair was mussed from the struggling and her glasses hung off of one ear. Delicate hands with short claws snatched at the air in front of Gojyo, not quite reaching. Her pointed ears poked out from under her tangled hair, cheap metal ear-bobs hung from them.

"Why did the demons kill the town?" Sanzo leaned as far forward as his seated position would allow.

She shrugged. "How in the goddesses name should I know? Why the hell did you kill the demons I was with?"

Sanzo leaned closer, if possible. "First of all, I don't believe you don't know. Second of all, they killed a whole town. We took revenge for the few left, and third of all, I'm asking you questions. Answer them." And his gun was in his hand, pointed at her head. "I'll ask that question again soon. For now, what's you name and what were those demons to you? I noticed you only called them, 'the demons you were with,' not your family or tribe."

"Won't give you my name 'till I've got yours," she replied stubbornly, though they noticed a quiver in her voice as she looked at the gun.

"Very well. Give her your names," he gestured at the others.

"Goku," came the grudging reply.

"Hakkai."

"Gojyo."

"Priest Genjo Sanzo."

She scowled, obviously not expecting them to listen. "Ryuko."

"All right Ryuko, what were those demons to you? Your family, friends, kidnappers?"

"No clue. That's where I grew up."

"Sure. I believe you." Gojyo leaned forward, his hands tightening their grip. "You were the only girl in the camp. Also, they all had black hair, while yours is brown. You're not family and you have to be important to them."

"So what if I am?"

"Important enough to get consulted on matters like, oh say, the mass slaughter of a village!" Hakkai joined the conversation, glowering at her, his sunny disposition gone at the thought of Hitomi's village.

"I may be important to them, but not for that kind of stuff. And what's the big deal? They were just humans? You all aren't, with the exception of trigger happy here. Are monks even allowed to carry guns?"

"Just a human, huh?" Sanzo put his gun to the side, keeping in easy reach. Ryuko noticed that detail. "If we're just unnoticeable humans, why did you attack that village? If humans are so low, why did you stay with them until all the trouble started? If humans don't count, why do you pay attention to us at all?"

"I told you, it's not my decision to make, whether or not they attack a village! I sit here at camp and act like a lady for all the remaining guys! If it had been my decision, they wouldn't have attacked at all! If I was in charge, those lives would have been spared! I'm just traveling with them 'till we get t--!" She realized she was giving them more information then they asked, and shut her mouth.

"Get where?" Gojyo let go of her shoulder and peered into her face. "Where were you headed with them?"

"None of you damn business!" Ryuko spit in his face and wrenched away from Hakkai; she sprinted to the woods and took off running through the trees.

"Goku! Get her!" Sanzo struggled to his feet as Goku dashed after her.