Disclaimer: I don't own Saiyuki.

Yoru: God, I'm just going off on a Saiyuki tangent.

Kuronue: You did this with Dragon Knights for a while.

Yoru: I haven't written another kind of story in a while. First Why You then Utsukushii, then Somebody Told MeNow this.

Kuronue: You did more for Dragon Knights.

Yoru: Not all in a frickin' row! I'm going crazy---or I just don't have enough to do. Warnings for this fic: Blood, rape (obvious but not shown), language, people that you like getting seriously injured, possibly dying. Also, this is the darkest fic I have ever written. Still reading? Brave, brave person. This might suck. I've never tried anything like it.

Gojyo stared at his hands. He was used to his shirt being splattered with blood, and used to some on his face and neck when he hit an artery and it sprayed on him. Not this. Never like this.

Never coating his hands so thickly. And certainly not completely covering them all the way to his elbows. He had never been so covered in blood. The splatters were more sporadic further up his arms and on his face. His front was covered in it, though, and it caked in his hair. None of it was his.

He wrenched his gaze away from his hands to stare into the sky. It was blue, so innocently blue, but to Gojyo it was red, because everywhere else was red.

The ground, the trees, the rocks, the people.

Oh, the people. Gojyo stood and went to one of them, kicking it roughly in what was left of its ribs. This one would never move again. None of them would.

Who knew that Sha Gojyo was this powerful as a demon? He was stronger than Goku, who was currently unconscious on Sanzo's lap. Poor, pitiful creatures who had tried to stop him. Would they live? Who knew? Who cared?

Certainly not Gojyo. He didn't care. He was stronger than them, stronger than Hakkai…

Hakkai!

Suddenly, brutally, his sanity came crashing back down to lodge itself firmly into his mind. Gojyo blinked.

"What happened here? This couldn't have been done by me. It had to be Goku. Yeah. He's covered in blood too. I hope it's not his. This, all over me, has to be mine." He checked himself thoroughly. He wasn't injured, not even a little. Not even bruised.

"No way." He went to Goku and checked him. Thankfully, he was more bruised than bleeding. Most of the blood had been splattered on him after he was knocked out. Gojyo must have kept enough control to know who his friends were and not kill them, even if they were unconscious.

"Sanzo?"

"I'm going to kill you," Sanzo snarled. Gojyo sighed. The monk was all right, wasn't he?

"Can you stand?"

"My back's broken, you bastard."

"…What?" Gojyo knelt next to the monk, "You're not serious."

"Do I look like I'm joking? The tree I'm leaning against is the only thing holding it together."

"No…you have to be joking. You have to be."

"I'm not, you fucking demon."

"I'll go get Hakkai! He'll know what to…" Gojyo stopped. His eyes widened.

"Oh, you remember, do you? The reason you went berserk?" Sanzo was speaking to empty air. Gojyo was running away, searching everywhere for his friend, his brother, his beloved…

"Hakkai! HAKKAI!!!" Gojyo finally saw him, and wished he hadn't. This was why he had gone berserk. He knew now.

"Ha…Hakkai…"

The man hung limply against a tree, not breathing. His clothes were in tatters, his dragon lay dead beside him, and he was bleeding. Everywhere. His hands were bound tightly around the tree. Gojyo could see the blood running down his arms, his back…his legs.

"Hakkai…no…" He slowly approached and reached out. Hakkai was cold, so cold. Gojyo couldn't believe it…how had this happened?

Flashback

"So, wait, we're not going to stay the night in this town? Why the hell not?" Gojyo griped at Hakkai.

"Because it's only noon, Gojyo. We can be past this town and to the next one by sunset," Hakkai replied calmly. He was always calm. Gojyo reflected that this was probably part of the reason he loved his green-eyed teammate. He was a foil to Gojyo's reckless hyperactivity.

"But we never just pass by!"

BANG!

"We're passing this one!" Sanzo shouted. Gojyo flinched.

"Okay, okay…"

Suddenly Hakuryuu lurched to the side. Goku and Gojyo were flung out of the car and landed in a heap a few feet away.

"GODDAMMIT, HAKKAI, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" Gojyo shrieked upon getting up. His next words died in his throat as he saw the man he loved hunched over the steering wheel, clutching his chest and gasping for air. Sanzo was still beside him, checking him for wounds.

"Hakkai!" Gojyo ran back to the car, worry making his voice louder than he intended. Grabbing his friend's hands, he pulled them away. Nothing seemed to be wrong.

"I'm…sorry…my heart hurt…too much…it's fading, I'll be…fine." Hakkai sat up, pale face drawn. Sanzo pulled out his gun.

"Can you do any chi attacks?" he asked, looking around. Hakkai shook his head.

"My automatic instinct was to heal myself, but I can't summon chi at all."

"Chi barrier," growled Sanzo, "Come out, youkai!"

Gojyo counted fourteen demons before they stopped coming. He smirked; they'd faced much worse odds and come out unscathed.

Of course, we've always had Hakkai's chi, but we'll still make it.

"Give us Cho Gonou, and you can go." The leader pointed at Hakkai.

That was new.

"Give you…what? Run that by me again," Sanzo snarled.

"Cho Gonou. Give him to us so that we may exact revenge."

"Who are you?" Hakkai asked. From the steady quality of his voice, the pain had obviously gone. He was ready to fight. Gojyo smirked.

"One who desires to see you suffer." Suddenly the leader was gone, and the other demons followed suit. Gojyo lashed out at one who was slow enough to see, and he heard Sanzo's gun go off behind him, followed by a scream.

He saw Hakkai fighting to his left. Even if the healer couldn't use chi attacks, his hand-to-hand fighting skills were nothing to scoff about. However, probably because of the barrier's effects, he was tiring quickly. Gojyo was about to help him when something blurred past him.

In an instant it was all over. The leader of the demons had grabbed Hakkai's arms and pinned them behind him, rendering him helpless. Sharp claws pressed against the healer's throat, forcing his head back.

"Let him go!" shouted Gojyo. The leader smirked as he deftly stroked Hakkai's neck.

"I was going to kill him, but now I've gotten a good look at him. He really is a beauty." The demon let his captive's head down enough to stroke his cheek. Gojyo saw Hakkai's eyes widen at the lust in his captor's voice.

"What are you going to do to him?" Gojyo asked in a low voice.

"Oh, I don't know. I'll decide once we get somewhere more…private." With only that as a warning, they disappeared. Gojyo ran to the place they had stood, but there was no sign of which direction they had gone.

"GOJYO!!!" came Hakkai's voice from the distance. Gojyo's eyes widened. He had never before heard terror in his beloved's voice.

"Goku, go left. Sanzo, right. I'll go straight ahead." He took off without waiting for their replies. He heard them move off in separate directions.

He ran for hours without stopping, afraid of what that demon could be doing to Hakkai. He had heard the lust in the creature's voice loud and clear.

"Hakkai…hold on…"

Several demons tried to stop him, but he made short work of them. He knew he was getting close. He heard the screams coming from ahead, but he forced them from his mind. That could not be Hakkai, Hakkai wouldn't scream. They couldn't do anything bad enough to make him scream.

He burst into a clearing and the sight he stood before now met his eyes.

He had come into the clearing to see Hakkai, roughly bound, being raped by the demon leader. By the smug looks on the underlings' faces, they had gotten some, too. Gojyo watched Hakkai's mouth open and close silently, voice too used to make any sound. His cheeks were streaked with tears, and his clothes lay in ripped tatters everywhere.

He was littered with bruises and deep lacerations, bleeding all over the place. And as Gojyo watched, he let out one more silent scream and collapsed.

Gojyo blacked out.

End Flashback

Actually, Gojyo remembered some of it. Or rather, he remembered flashes of red and distant sounds. Cracks, rips, screams. As he regained consciousness, he realized what had happened. Seeing Hakkai like this had caused his demon side to bury his human one.

Hakkai was his power limiter. He had no fancy jewelry to keep him from going berserk, only a single beautiful man. And now that man, his limiter, his love, was gone.

"Gojyo?" Goku had come up behind him. The boy was too powerful for him to have seriously hurt, even if he had been defeated.

"Don't come near me…us." He could feel Goku's anger.

"Did you do that to Hakkai? Like you did to Sanzo?"

"No, you idiot. I did that because of what those demons did to---What do you mean, is Sanzo dead?"

"Yes." Suddenly Goku was on his knees, screaming, sobbing, crying out to the gods who would ignore him. Gojyo stared at him, not comprehending.

"But…he's the stinking monk…he can't just die that easily." Gojyo wanted to comfort the boy, but he knew that Goku would never want to be touched by him again. Gojyo left Goku where he was and approached Hakkai's limp form. Shaking a little, he untied Hakkai's hands and gathered him into his arms. There was no breath, no pulse, no sign of life at all.

The beautiful healer looked so angelic in his arms, even with all of the wounds littering his slender form. His monocle was gone, making him look like the man he had been when Gojyo first picked him up. Gojyo brought the healer's head up and nuzzled his sweaty hair.

You can't leave me. Not after what I've done. I need you most now, Hakkai. Goku and…and Sanzo need you too. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. Please come back. Please.

"Please…" Gojyo's tears soaked into Hakkai's hair, washing some of the filth away.

"What are you crying for? You monster!" Goku's nyoi-bou was prodding roughly into Gojyo's back. He knew the only reason that he wasn't dead was that he was holding Hakkai, and Goku was afraid of hurting the healer further. Not that it mattered.

"We're both monsters, Goku. And we've both lost something precious to us. Isn't that enough for you? We're fucking even." Gojyo stood, carefully lifting Hakkai's body with him. Goku backed away, confusion in his golden eyes.

"But…you killed Sanzo."

"Because they killed Hakkai. I'm sorry." Gojyo looked into the tear-filled depths of Goku's eyes, willing him to understand. If Goku couldn't, then who would?

"I understand how it feels, don't I?" whispered Goku, "To kill - or at least try to kill – people you love."

"I think you do."

"Now what do we do?"

"I don't know."

They walked back to where Sanzo lay. Goku was right; the monk was quite dead. Gojyo laid Hakkai next to him gently.

"Gojyo, what are we supposed to…"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" Gojyo shouted. Not really at Goku. More at everything. Everything, the trees, the dead demons, the gods.

"You sure are loud."

Gojyo and Goku whirled to see Kanzeon Bosatsu walking sedately toward them, picking her way through the carnage. As soon as she got close enough, Gojyo threw himself at her feet and grabbed her robes.

"Bring them back. Please. Take me instead," he begged.

"Take you instead? What do you think I am, the Grim Reaper?" Kanzeon gently disentangled herself. Goku was laying on Sanzo, asleep once more. Gojyo stared.

"Did you…"

"Yes. I thought we should talk privately for a moment before I decide what to do."

"Decide what to do? Bring them back. It's easy." Gojyo walked up to stand beside her as she regarded the two fallen men.

"For Sanzo, yes. But unless I want him paralyzed, I'd have to bring Hakkai back as well."

"And that's a problem?" Gojyo snarled. He could feel rage curling up in his stomach. This bitch was thinking of bringing Sanzo back without Hakkai?

"I can't take away his memories, Gojyo. Do you really think he wants to remember what has been done to him? What killed him in the first place? And do you want him to see what you did?"

Gojyo stared at her, seeing the genuine concern and total lack of amusement in her eyes. This was a different woman from the one they had encountered before.

And she was right.

Hakkai would never get over the desecration of his body, and Gojyo never wanted him to see the death he had dealt.

Unbidden, his hand raised and ran over the scars on his cheek.

"Scars can make you stronger, you know," was all he said. Kanzeon studied him for a minute, and then nodded.

Several minutes of blinding light later, Gojyo found himself staring into a pair of familiar green eyes.

"Hakkai?"

"Gojyo…what…AAAAAH!" Hakkai clung to Gojyo, looking around wildly. His eyes widened further as he took in the carnage.

"What happened?"

"Later, please. Heal Sanzo."

"Sanzo? Wait, but aren't you hurt?"

"No." Gojyo directed Hakkai to Sanzo, who was moaning on the ground. With placement help from Goku, Hakkai managed to heal him. Goku handed him his cape, which gave him a bit of dignity as he wrapped it around his waist. Gojyo, meanwhile, hung back, afraid of both Sanzo and Hakkai. But the monk only pulled his robes tighter around him and looked around.

"Jeep's dead, then?"

"Yes." Hakkai had tears running down his face. Gojyo, conscious of the blood still coating him, was not expecting the healer to run into his arms.

"I know what you did, Gojyo. It's all right. I'd do the same." Hakkai held Gojyo tightly, promising to never let go. Goku held Sanzo's hand, and for once the monk let him.

"Now what?" the monkey asked softly. Sanzo shrugged.

"We're all recently alive and in one piece. Onward west, with a long stop at the next town."

Gojyo gathered a softly crying Hakkai into his arms and followed Sanzo and Goku out of the forest.

A/N Don't flame me. I almost left Hakkai and Sanzo dead, which might have given this fic more power. But especially with Hakkai, I couldn't do it. So I left it at Hakuryuu. Sorry about that. What do you think? If I get enough reviews, I'm thinking sequel…