Lost Memories

Prologue

Day in, day out everything is still the same. I've already lost count of the months, years we've been traveling and doing the 'routine'. Routine as in – waking up and finding out we're still alive, getting on the road to find numerous assassins here and there, bickering with the saru, having a brief rest, going to sleep… Then I start the whole thing all over again the instant I wake up to face a new day. New day?! New day my ass.

How can you call it a new day when you do everything exactly the same way you do everything yesterday and the day before that and the day before… Oh, well you get the picture. My point is, it's getting old. Fast. I'm bored and quite tired with the way things are going. If I pondered about the situation hard enough, and I already did, I realized that the whole journey had been pointless, so far.

Sure we eliminated some 'bad' guys, which if you think about it hard enough, have nothing to do with us really. They're just idiots who had been used by some mighty woman called Gyokumen Koushu. Now that is one woman worth defeating. A real pain in the ass. She sends these thousands upon thousands of poor youkais to get rid of us.

Well of course she has the power to do so, because she's queen and all that crap. But queens and kings for that matter should have some concern and responsibility over their subjects. But this hag queen have no concern whatsoever for her men. She knew perfectly well that numbers don't matter. Not with us anyway. But as I was talking about earlier, she dispatches her men to their respective deaths. And for what? To retrieve the buozo's sutra? Come on.

They die without meaning. They sacrifice themselves for a self centered bitch who wants to take over the world. And that's sad. Very sad. So now, the journey so far had been fruitless. No big pins down so far, the Gyumao revival test is still on going… Yup. Still hopelessly fruitless.

I sigh as I looked absently at the setting sun. Another boring day to its end. I thought vaguely as I smelled the glorious smoke coming from the buozo's cigarette at the passenger seat. Instinctively, I reach for my own pack, realizing that I haven't smoked for about an hour and a half now, when I heard growling noises beside me.

"Ne? Sanzo hara hetta."  I told you nothing ever changes around here. Goku and his ever present growling stomach. Actually, when we were just getting acquainted here at the back seat, his growling noises always scared the hell out of me. I always thought that 'something' gruesome has infiltrated out the jeep only for me to find out that Goku's feeding time is well overdue. Now even when his stomach growls I don't even flinch. Got the sound of his stomach by heart now.

"Urusai." Now, now. What do we have here? The buozo just confirmed that everything around here is a routine. You see, when Goku says 'hara hetta', Sanzo says 'Urusai'… well now that we're at the subject, Sanzo replies 'Urusai' at every word that comes out of Goku's mouth. If that isn't routine then what the hell is it?!

I opened my mouth to chip in to all this routine madness when Hakkai stepped on the brakes so hard, me and Goku were almost thrown out of the jeep.

"Hakkai, what do you think you're doing?!" I ask indignantly as I rubbed at the sore spot in my elbow that I obviously rammed into Sanzo's seat. Instead of answering me, Hakkai jumped out of his seat and landed on the ground in a fighting stance. Sanzo did the same and so did Goku. I looked up just in time to see three powerful-looking youkais bearing down on an innocent kid civilian.

I leapt up to join the fun when all hell breaks loose. Sanzo starts firing but fate wasn't on our side this day I suppose because Sanzo kept missing. It's either Sanzo's getting rusty or the youkais are a tad better than the rest we've met so far. I would bet all my money on me that it's the latter one. Sanzo is a damn well fighter and you know it. Goku calls for his nyoibo and bears down on one particular youkai and started fighting.

Well, Goku too seems to be having quite a challenge. From latter observations, I learned that Goku finishes an enemy in about one minute flat. If it's a stronger opponent than usual, about two. Now he's taking three and he's about landed about just one blow so far. Creepy.

I got my weapon out and started attacking one of them as well. I wonder briefly if these youkais have any relation to Kougaiji whatsoever. All of them had wine colored hair (not necessarily real though, if you ask me it looks like they had a hair-color job) and their clothing was more or less Kougaiji like. One of them had tight fitting black shirt and white jeans and three piercings in one ear. The other two are more Kougaiji-like with open jackets and the jeans. They had numerous bangles in their hands as well as ear piercings. Hmmm… They couldn't be his brothers… I don't think that Gyumao was that popular with the ladies and I don't think Rasetsu-Nyo had the guts and the time to fool around Gyumao's back. Hence the conclusion that these three are Kougaiji groupies. Strong groupies that is.

My shaku jou clashed with the youkai's sword and we fought intensely from then on. The only thing I was aware of was the clang and the cling of metal against metal. Being the talkative person that I am, besides Goku of course, I started a conversation with the youkai I was fighting.

"So Kougaiji sent you?" I ask casually as he dodged Hakkai's ki ball. I took the chance of him being distracted to hurl my shaku jou at him. Because of fast reflexes, he evaded it again.

"None of your business." He said grunting as he swung his heavy sword at me.

"You're killing me here and it's none of my business?" I asked irately as I dodged a stray bullet of Sanzo's.

"I told you, it's none of your damn business!" He raged as I successfully managed to cut his arm with the moon shaped end of my weapon.  

"Hmmm… Since you won't answer me, I'll conclude that Kougaiji did indeed order you to be here." I said hoping he'll be distracted. He just snarled and thrust his sword hitting me squarely in the shoulder. Ahh.. So who's distracted? I asked myself irritatedly.

He loomed above me, a smirk adorning his ugly face. He raised his sword to give me one last fatal blow when I rolled to my side, adeptly evading the blow in the nick of time. I may be wounded but I'm not invalid dammit!! I smirk at him as I stood up and vaguely noted that his other two companions are gone courtesy of the joint effort of Hakkai, Goku and Sanzo. Wanting payback for his arrogance earlier on…

"You know… Even if Kougaiji ordered you to kill us, you don't have to steal his style you know!!!" I think I made him mad because he restlessly thrust his sword at me causing me to only block, (he was unrelenting!!) and stepping back as he went along attacking like crazy.

"Gojyo!!! Look out!!!" I hear Hakkai yell after me. What's he so worried about? I had this all under control…… I was just asking myself that when I noticed that we are at the edge of a cliff. The youkai was still gaining on me and I had no other choice but to step back… I thought I was a goner for sure when Hakkai's ki ball came into view and rammed into the youkai… Unfortunately the youkai rammed into me and we both fell into the steep, super tall cliff.

I yelled, I know I yelled, and I even tried to use my weapon to hurl the chain of my weapon to snag something but… I failed… And I continued to fall…

"Gojyo!!!" I heard Goku and Hakkai scream before I fell into unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where is he?!" Hakkai asks worriedly as he and Sanzo and Goku raced down the cliff to search for Gojyo's body. They had watched in horror as Gojyo fell… He would have been dead if it weren't for the bush of plants that softened his fall. His limp body had rolled over the side and fell into the sea.

"Are you sure he fell over here?" Sanzo asks as his eyes continued to roam the sea searching for Gojyo's body.

"Positive." Hakkai asks as his voice broke. Several thoughts ran through his mind. They really must find him now or he might drown. Gojyo couldn't swim after all, and besides he was unconscious. Another was that this was his entire fault. If he had analyzed the situation first, then he wouldn't have launched that ki ball in that angle. This was all his fault.  

"Hey, look at this!!!" Goku yelled from his place. Sanzo and Hakkai raced to where Goku stood below the bush of plants that saved Gojyo's life. A large expanse of a rock wall stood. In it the words: "Surrender the Evil Sutra or your friend dies." Were painted in blood red, looping letters.

t.b.c

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I wrote this completely on a whim. I just watched the season 1 ender of Saiyuki and well, I was inspired to write. Actually this was supposed to be Sanzo's POV but hey when I reread it, it sounds like Gojyo!! Oh well, tell me what you guys think!! *grins*