Disclaimer: looks around newly cleaned room for the rights to Saiyuki Nope! I don't own anything other than the right to occasionally mess around with the guys in the car (and the guys attacking the guys in the car) and it's quite likely I don't even own that!
Warnings: Spoilers for the first four volumes and probably a large part of the series. Mentions violence but it's not explicit in the least.
Laziness wasn't really a trait encouraged in the demon hordes of Lord Kougaji. Their leader would do his best to keep each and every one of them alive, all of them knew that, and to receive his attention was a great gift. Dokugakuji knew this better than most—who, after all, was closer to their lord than himself? And he did his very best to keep that spot. Kou needed someone who would always watch out for him, and there was no one better at that than Dokugakuji.
Still, sometimes there was doubt in the muscled demon's mind. How many years ago had it been when Jien killed his own mother to save his half-brother (half-human, to boot)? The kid—Gojyo—had been so scrawny back then, so tired that Jien hadn't been sure whether his little brother would have just be happier dead. And then he'd walked into a room he wasn't supposed to enter. He'd seen three things, and three things only: Mom's back, her raised arms. An axe, dull in color but sharp enough in blade. And Gojyo, sitting against a wall with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. Ready to die. Jien hadn't meant to pull out his sword, hadn't meant to take steel and flesh and join the two irreversibly. Jien hadn't meant to kill his mother, but she had died anyways. Jien had walked out the door that day, but Jien hadn't ever walked back in; to that room or any other. Instead, Dokugakuji found his way to Lord Kougaji's side, and his alliance lay with the demon prince, now and forever.
But it wasn't really betrayal, was it? If sometimes, fighting the Sanzo party, Dokugakuji's blows fell lighter than they should have. If sometimes, his footsteps were slower, his reactions dulled. Was it laziness? He'd never thought of himself as lazy, but better lazy than betrayal. Always. It wasn't that Gojyo came before Lord Kougaji, but it was hot outside, he hadn't eaten in a few hours and he was starving, he was tired, he was lazy. So his blows fell lighter, his steps sounded slower, his reactions would have gotten him killed had he been fighting anyone else.
But sometimes, Gojyo was lazy too.