az: Doing this now after reading the rest of Gaiden and the rest of the series. So I should be able to gauge how this would end up as.

Old Nightmare

Chapter 1: Uphill

Written by Izzu alias honou-no-izzu

o

o

"Sanzo... are we there yet?"

"Shut up, not yet!"

"Sanzo are we there yet—?"

Sanzo slapped his palm onto his head. Every day, every single similar ritual... for some reason he wondered if this cycle would ever end! It was not like they haven't climbed any other mountains like this before—and Goku kept asking about it every few seconds going to drive him crazy. But taking out his paper fan right now would be wasting even more energy than necessary—

"Goku? Could you bear with it for a while? The next town should be somewhere near... and hopefully the town would still have people living in it—so after that we'll get our rest, okay?"

Goku glanced at Hakkai miserably before nodding. His stomach started rumbling again and his feet getting even more painful—but Hakkai's right, he should bear with it. He sighed.

"But can I just whine about it—?"

"No," quipped Sanzo sternly as he continued walking.

"My feet hurt—I'll walk! I'll walk!" Goku hastily said as Sanzo gave him a glare. Gojyo snorted to himself before started running as Goku chased after him. Sanzo shook his head as Hakkai chuckled.

"Lively, aren't they? I can't believe they could still have so much energy left to play around—"

"It's because they were idiots, that's why," said Sanzo plainly as Hakkai laughed again. Hakuryu perched on his shoulder as Hakkai turned to watch Goku and Gojyo raced towards the top of the mountain. He sighed as he turned towards Sanzo.

"So how about you? Feeling better now?"

Sanzo shrugged.

"Guess so, though I still couldn't shake this feeling I had. And with those two... I'll expect more headaches coming."

"Hahaha... should we get some umbrellas out? The sunlight right now seemed pretty strong as well—"

"Don't say such lame joke...", Sanzo sighed. "And I thought that monkey said his feet were hurting!"

Almost on cue, Goku collapsed on the ground somewhere in front of them as he started whining again. Gojyo started making gestures to tease the boy as Hakkai and Sanzo quickened their pace.

"Like hell I'm gonna carry you around, idiot! Go crawl then if you can't walk. Sanzo probably gonna say the same thing to you—" exclaimed Gojyo.

"How flattering... you managed to save my breath for saying that." said Sanzo as Hakkai shrugged at the kid.

"Well... you brought it to yourself, dear. You shouldn't have been running around like that."

Goku pouted at them.

"Okay... FINE. I'll crawl if I had to—"

Hakkai hastily rushed forward to stop Goku before another hand caught it. Goku looked up towards Sanzo as the man knelt beside him.

"Get up. I can't believe I'm doing this... but leaving you behind is not really an option. Get on my back!"

Goku blinked at him before doing it hesitantly. Sanzo groaned under his breath as he got back to his feet.

"You're so heavy... don't move around so much."

Gojyo snickered. "Aww, ain't that cute. The little monkey and his papa out on piggy ride trip—oww!"

Sanzo raised his eyebrows at him as Hakkai elbowed him sharply.

"Don't forget, you were also at fault for this—"

"Yeah... yeah, but I bet secretly Sanzo was loving it—"

"You wanna die?" Came the warning tone as Sanzo trudged forward with Goku on tow. Sanzo smirked as he got his temporary peace. He could still hear Hakkai admonishing Gojyo with low voice, which made him feeling even more cheered—but he would not admit to that. Goku, on the other hand...

"Sanzo... are you mad?"

He snorted, a part of him started to recall the smaller version of the monkey asking the same of him. That adorable dumpling...

He wished he was carrying that shortie instead of this grown up monkey.

"No. I was just feeling... uneasy. So shut up and keep still. Feet still hurt?"

Goku shook his head.

"Not much, but I did feel a little dizzy..."

Sanzo snorted again. As he had thought.

"Serves you right then, for getting sunstroke. Did you even eat anything earlier?"

"Not much..."

"Hnn!"

"... sorry."

xxx

The ambush arrived almost as he had sensed it earlier. As if their fatigue for having climbed and descended a mountain and driving through a desert had disappeared into thin air, Sanzo and the three immediately jumped out to receive their hosts. Watching from a distance, three youkai were watching them with interest.

"Master Jinno... it seemed that rumour was indeed true. Those four are indeed strong. No wonder that even Prince Kougaiji was defeated by them." said one female youkai.

"Trying to catch them unawares would be tricky." Shoji, another of their companion commented. He took out a compiled notes he had with him as he skimmed through it. "From what had been written here, our people had gathered a lot of information about Genjo Sanzo, Cho Hakkai and Sha Gojyo and used it against them. It doesn't seem to have much help to aid us in defeating them."

Jinno, eyeing Goku from afar frowned.

"What about Son Goku?" he asked.

Shoji shrugged. "Aside from the legends involving him and information we've had of him, not much was gathered. It was assumed that those three rogue deities that had attacked the castle before knew something more about Son Goku, but what was it... we do not know. From the heresay, his true form... Seiten Taisei was very strong. It doesn't seem that that guy had any weakness spare Genjo Sanzo. And that monk... was also not someone that we could underestimate."

Jinno nodded. "True. Genjo Sanzo had the Maten Kyomon... we cannot be careless of its power. But I disagree about Seiten Taisei not having any kinds of weakness. The legends about him... we knew nothing about what happened before his imprisonment at Mount Gogyo. Perhaps we could use that...illusionary magic was my speciality after all—"

Shoji and Yuka, the female youkai, turned towards Jinno. "What did you mean?" Both of them had asked.

"We don't even know about Seiten Taisei's past! How—"

Shoji frowned at their leader.

"You think of using that old incantation? We had not even mastered using it, how—"

Jinno smirked.

"It's because we haven't met the right conditions to make it work. If the spell worked and we manage to uncover a vital weakness of Seiten Taisei, perhaps we could receive even more rewards from Mistress Gyokumen Koushu herself. We might as well as elevate our position among our youkai ranks!"

Shoji and Yuka glanced worriedly to each other as Jinno continued smiling proudly.

"I will succeed!"