"You loved Koumyou, didn't you? You loved my father."
The blond monk looked up at the raven. The other seemed amused, but vaguely uncomfortable.
"You loved him," he continued, "but it was a selfish love. You saw him as a rival, an equal in terms of power. But he didn't see you like that. He saw you for you. You both loved and hated him for that. He saw right through you, like he did me- like I do you now."
"What an interesting claim, Genjyo Sanzo." The glasses on the dark haired man's face shone, hiding his eyes- eyes that see nothing and everything. Eyes blocked out with the gift of the other, true darkness.
"You wanted him for yourself, but you could never have him, because he was mine." The older Sanzo snarled a bit at the blond, but he persisted.
"And not just mine. He belonged to the temple, to the gods. Never yours. So you decided if you couldn't have him, no one would. So you teamed up with those youkai, to have them kill my father and take what was closest to him, his scriptures. But you didn't count on one thing."
Amethyst eyes met unseeing obsidian. They were burning, unforgiving, accusing. They searched for the truth within the darkness.
"And what was that, little Kouryuu?" The scientist intended to get a rise out of the other man by use of his former name, the name he held when he was still to weak to protect his father. Sanzo, who was uncharacteristically calm, simply shook his head.
"That name is simply another gift from him to me. You can't use it to mock me. The name I carry now, this life, this scripture and the other not in my hands, these scars and his love- they are all his gifts to me. They are mine. And that is what you didn't count on. In his last moments, he gave everything to me. My name, his possessions, his title, his love, and his life. And by doing that, he became irrevocably mine. Even the Seiten scripture in your hands was not yours, nor his, but mine."
Ukoku Sanzo- now Nii Jyeni- flinched subtly, but Sanzo caught it.
"Frustrated that he would escape you even in death, you decided to do the only thing you could do- kill me. Take everything from me. Destroy me, erase my very existence. And you've been trying to do that since. Because you thought maybe if I wasn't there, he'd be yours."
Again, those lavender-violet eyes scrutinized the older man, gauged his reaction.
"But you failed, again and again. My companions, loathe as I am to admit, have protected me. Time and time again, they have thwarted you. So instead, you went for Goku. And I can't forgive you for that."
"You're scarily perceptive, you know that?" Dr. Nii admitted. "Like you said, you see through me completely. I think if I'd met you earlier, if you were older and my age when I'd first seen you... I could have lived for you. You're more like your father than you believe, Kouryuu."
This time, when the raven said his old name, there was no trace of mocking; there was only bitterness and a slight tenderness as his voice almost caressed the syllables.
"You think you're weak, that you can't save anyone. So you try not to reach out, so you can hold nothing, love nothing and mourn nothing. In spite of that, you've reached out, and whether you know it or not, saved so many people, including your companions. Including me, right now. Your heart is the same as your father's. You pretend not to care, but you do."
"Shut up. I'm nothing like my father. I can't protect anything, you liar."
"No? Then why did you come here to confront me, on your own, when you know so clearly the difference between my own power and your own?"
"Because it's my problem, not theirs," the blond proclaimed.
"That's a lie and you know it. You were just desperately trying to protect them, the best you can. They probably don't know I exist. You were trying to protect them from me."
"I know... I'm not walking from here alive, most likely. But I had to try. And I had to know why," Sanzo confessed, scowling.
The younger finally conceded, the bespectacled man smiled. A fire flared in the golden one's eyes.
"I'll have you know that if I die, I'm taking you with me. You won't ever lay a hand on the rest."
The former Sanzo laughed, and it's not at all what the other expected. It was a clear, free sound.
"You're not going to die here," he said. "But I am."
It startled Sanzo, that he would say that. But the next words he spoke explained it all.
"I intend to die here. It's like you said. I loved Koumyou. And I couldn't bear to kill someone so like him, so I'll spare you. But I'll burden you with the power that set me so far apart from the rest. The power that made me prisoner to my own madness. But you being exactly how you are, I think you'll manage to stay sane."
Ukoku, Nii- or whatever name he went by now- blurred out of sight. There was a sharp pain in his gut, and Sanzo collapsed. Nii nodded, satisfied with the success of the transfer of his power.
"A shame I can't see your face now. It would be an honor to see the face of the man who both gave me true darkness and saved me from it," the raven whispered. He glanced up at the sky.
"Dear selfish gods, in whom I have never believed and never trusted," he began, "I must thank you for this chance. Koumyou, I hope that one day, I meet you again, powerless, and this time able to love you in the way you deserve. Don't worry about your son. From now on, he'll definitely be able to protect himself. And he'll be surrounded by people who love him. And life, it's been fun. But it's time for me to go now."
Saying this, he took Sanzo's gun, and shot himself in the stomach, perhaps purposely to prolong the suffering, perhaps as penance to the pain he had caused. Collapsing next to the amethyst-eyed man, he silently stroked his hair until the life faded from his eyes.
And that was how Goku, hours later, found them- Sanzo collapsed on the ground, a dead man's hand frozen mid-stroke in strands of golden hair.