In Remembrance
Disclaimer: I don't own Saiyuki.
Author's Notes: Uses scenes from the first volume of Saiyuki Reload, although it's meant to be more of a flashback from a later time. Not meant to have any pairings but I suppose you could see it that way if you want.
He doesn't think about it anymore, really.
It's a thought that lingers sometimes on the fringes of his memory. On the days that the sky was grey and bleak, in the rare silences of night when Goku and Gojyo had submitted to battling with snores, he would sometimes remember a sunlit afternoon in a field of wheat, Kanan's golden hair shining as the laughter of children echoed in the background. In the first days after her death he had been a man possessed, a man determined, a man convicted. This release into the world is something that altogether frightens him.
He doesn't believe in living in the past and so he doesn't dwell on these thoughts very much when they do occur. He had even put them sufficiently behind him so that later when Hazel showed up with his powers to revive the dead, he only briefly thought about how that power could have helped him before putting the idea away. It barely caused a pang of grief. While Sanzo complained endlessly about the incessant bickering and noise from their other two travelling companions, Hakkai was secretly grateful. They were always so rowdy or getting into some kind of predicament involving imminent danger that he barely had time to reflect on things better left alone.
But in the years gone by, time had given him ample opportunity to ponder the possibilities. When Kanan had first died his only thought had been of getting her back alive – after all, that was his ultimate concern. Yet lately the consequences of her survival had reared: ugly, uninvited, unmovable.
What would he have done if Kanan had had that child?
Logic kicks in long after her death. It was the child that was the cause of her actions – it was the child who killed her. But when she survived in his fondest dreams there had been no repercussions. Would he have killed it? The child of a monster could grow up to be no better than its seed. And yet had he not preached understanding and freedom from prejudice, that people shouldn't be judged by their stations in life? Perhaps he and Kanan could have raised the child properly. It would have been a different kind of massacre to kill a child. It would have been a different kind of punishment and retribution, living daily with the face of the man who raped the woman he loved. He didn't think he could have endured it, but to do otherwise was a most grievous sin.
He had once been a teacher, a thought that has turned ironic. The children he taught had brought warmth and energy to his life. His greatest desire had been, one day, to start a large family with Kanan as the figurehead, a household brimming with laughter and happiness. He cannot see it now, that ideal. He stopped teaching after his rampage; he shrank away from his fondness for children. The realities of his own actions and emotions have never been clear to him since.
But he doesn't have these thoughts often, usually only when surrounded by silence. It is an unwelcome revelation to discover that these thoughts could intrude on his mind even in the ruckus they had created. Buried in a snowstorm, trapped in a cave, Yakumo's refuge of youkai children unearth all his anxieties. Some of these children were about the same age as the ones he once taught, and he is more than acutely aware of his indifference toward them. Perhaps it is his imagination, but they seemed to notice as well. Even Sanzo's cold exterior didn't ward off several of the smaller ones from trying to engage his attention, but no child dared to approach him. The familiar feelings of warmth and paternal adoration he had once felt are nowhere in his heart. The children smiled back nervously when he spoke to them and tried to keep out of his way. He feels the laughter of helplessness bubbling to the surface and pushes back this telltale symptom of his malady.
Maybe he had already gone crazy, way back then.
When they discover the truth behind the tombstones his sympathy is more profound than it should have been. They were children and they were monsters. Who was supposed to be the judge? The scent of young blood fills his nostrils and suddenly he thinks he will lose it, too.
"You okay?" Gojyo turns a questioning eye on him as they survey the genocide. Gojyo always knows his thoughts, but there isn't time to answer because Yakumo has just chased the last human down. The sickening sound of severed ligaments greets their ears. Yakumo lets out a cry and so does Goku but this time the danger doesn't push those thoughts out of his head because this man is the monster he had wanted to become. He has enough of his wits to tell Gojyo to avoid close combat but his head is pounding, pounding so badly with the pressure of unshed tears and flawed fantasies.
It is only when Goku's hands hold them back that he is reassured of his own sanity.
Killing Yakumo, in that moment, was one of the hardest things he had ever done. When Goku asks Sanzo whether he would kill him, Hakkai feels the weight of Gojyo's hand clap down on his shoulder and he knows that no matter what would have happened on that day, on this day he had made the right choice.
He can still smell the wheat in that field and remembers every moment of that day – but he keeps these as cherished memories, rather than stolen tomorrows.
End