Drawn to the Light
By Kanzeon
Spoilers: A lot of them. At least until the first twenty or so episodes of the anime and most of the manga.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the fanfic idea.
Warnings: Serious possibility of shounen ai, bad language and Men Behaving Badly
Surgeon General's Warning: Smoking cigarettes may cause lung cancer.
* * * * * * * * * *
Sanzo had been expecting something to happen. A vague, nagging expectation in the back of his mind. It had not been too hard to put two and two together after Gojyo had uncovered that last news of interest in this little backwater town.
When it did happen, he had been surprised to find the source of the disturbance so close. And drowning in this arid region had been such a ludicrous idea only a few moments ago . . .
This was not natural. But he could sort that out later. Survival came first. He could count on Hakkai to take care of the kappa and Goku could handle himself, so he was free to concentrate on getting out of the river.
Except that the confounded current was not letting him make any headway upwards.
Cursing at that point would do him no good.
So this was how it was, eh?
There was another way . . . Focus . . . Inwards. There was this technique that could slow the metabolic processes down to the point where he would not need so much air—
His body had different ideas though. And he was sinking into a different kind of darkness.
It is the moon-dark. The twilight. Suspended between life and death. It is the dark shadow of the soul.
Where had he heard *that* before? This was getting repetitious . . .
Still sinking. Sinking down to the place he seemed to know from the dreams.
Why do you want to live? It's just a habit for you . . .
Bad habits. Habits like living died hard. Somehow, it had came to him more easily than he had thought it would. This knack of living.
Just breathe and the rest is easy.
Why do you go on the way you do?
Because there were things he had to do. There was a ten-year long search that had not ended yet . . . He would have gone on this stupid crusade to the west without an order the moment the Three Aspects had told him that his Master's Sutra was involved. He *could* think about his improbable future after he was done surviving his past and present. If he wanted to. If he—
Just breathe—
"Sanzo . . . Sanzo? You've got to get up—"
Something was clogging up his nostrils. His body took over and he sneezed, expelling the blockage in his nasal passages. Which then triggered off the coughing fit to clear his throat as well.
Nearly drowning like that . . . would have been *pathetic*. He rubbed at his eyes and forced them open. To meet Goku's worried eyes directly above him.
Oh-Good-Sanzo-Really-Is-Okay.
He pulled himself up and away from that look. "Get off, stupid monkey!"
"Na . . . Sanzo, you--you're--"
Not dead. Not going to leave me here.
He could hear the unspoken fear, see it in Goku's not-so-dumb-now expression. It rankled . . . Oh, yes it did--to have someone so . . . *dependent* on him.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered irritably. "I won't die so easily."
Soggy robes. Soggy *everything*. Shit.
He picked himself off the ground and glared at the dripping rock walls. They were underground now. Apparently, this cave was not accessible from anywhere else besides the river. Something or someone had invited them in.
Whatever it was, it was somewhere down here. Sanzo started forward and heard his wet socks and sandals squelching as he moved. His robes were also heavy with accumulated moisture.
Whoever it was was going to pay for this . . .
"Fuck this . . ." This ridiculous waste of time. "Goku! We're going!"
"Uhh . . . okay. But where are we going?" Goku's eyes darted back and forth nervously—no doubt the dark cavern was stirring up some unpleasant recollections—but he looked as though he had his phobias under control. Yet he was not complaining that he was hungry, so he was more distressed than he let on . . .
"We should move. The faster we find Hakkai and Goyjo, the faster can get out of here." It would not be that easy, of course. It was *never* that easy. Which was why he loaded his Smith & Wesson and kept it in hand as they moved on.
It was a dank and hardly pleasant walk through the underground caves. Some kind of fungus grew in clumps on the walls, giving off a sickly pale glow in the darkness. But there was enough light to see that these walls had been cut into the stone and not hollowed out by subterranean waterways. The fungus obscured some of the markings on the walls and the cracks in the corners that could have been the result of some catastrophe that had sunk this series of caves even deeper into the ground.
The never-ending passages were getting on his nerves. Goku looked as though he was expecting something to jump out at them.
"Oi, does your nose tell you that there's anything down here?" Sanzo could normally sense most youkai—or rather more accurately, he could sense the violence or madness in attacking youkai. That sort of obvious aura was nowhere to be found here.
"I don't think so. It smells . . . dead. But it's still creepy," the youth said slowly. And then he whipped his weapon out in a flash. "Sanzo! I-I heard something . . ."
"Where?"
"Can't you hear it? It's coming this way!" Goku whispered urgently.
His own ears picked up on the noise a second later.
Footsteps. From behind them. Someone—several unknown entities—running along the passageway. Then voices. A man's voice. And a woman's as well. The words became clear as the speakers came into sight.
Hurry! This way!
Is it safe down here?
It should be as long as we can find a way out.
Are you sure?
The man ran past them, towing the woman in his wake. They did not appear to notice Sanzo and Goku at all as they ran past them and vanished into the darkness ahead.
What the hell?
Sanzo straightened up from his defensive crouch and glared in the direction the pair had taken.
Frozen in his fighting stance, Goku's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Sanzo—they—they—"
"What? Stop stammering!" he snapped irritably.
"But they—"
And then other, louder voices could be heard behind them. Sanzo spun about to see several people dashing their way.
They said it was this way—
I don't see them—
Come on—we can meet up with them later!
They continued running and up close, it was easy to see their panicked expressions.
"Oi—" It had been his intention to stop one of them and ask what the hell was going on. What he had not counted on was how the man ran through his arm.
Fuck.
"—they aren't real . . . Couldn't smell any of them. S-Sanzo?" Goku's voice echoed through the damp passage, the only noise to be heard other than the sound of his own quickened breathing. "What was *that*? G-ghosts?"
So, that had not been real people. There had been no one yelling. Just hallucinations.
"Illusions."
Correction: illusions of the past. Very strong imprints of something that happened here not so long ago, if the clothing that the non-existent people were wearing was anything to go by.
So, it was not that simple after all. He had felt something else during that brush with that visitation. A whisper of some fleeting presence. So elusive . . .
Realisation dawned upon him. He had been looking for the wrong signs after all. It was like being underwater and searching for the ocean . . .
"Goku—we keep going. Hakkai and Gojyo are bound to be blundering around somewhere in here."
"What if they're in trouble or something?"
"Who knows?" They would get to the bottom of this, by accident or otherwise. Sanzo hated that sort of feeling.
* * * * * * * * * *
The visions of the past did not only affect one area of the caverns. It swept through in a wave, causing various spectral scenes to appear at random.
And elsewhere a sleeper awoke.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Oh man . . . This place is huge!" Gojyo exclaimed.
They had been walking for some time now. The cavern had narrowed down into a passage that branched out regularly at intervals. So far, they had been following the main passage, searching for signs of the others but not daring to call out in case there were any other inhabitants in the catacombs.
In other words, it was spooky.
"Think it'd make a difference if we went down one of those?" he asked Hakkai, jabbing a thumb down one of the branching passageways.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I only hope that Sanzo and Goku are all right."
"It'll take a lot to kill that dumb ape and its master," he said as they crossed another intersection. "But we could run around here for ages and not fi—"
What Gojyo had been about to say was cut off as the walls started to tremble. A rumbling noise—the kind one got when stone was subjected to a great deal of stress—surrounded them.
"Shit! Not again!" They were stuck underground with the whole place about to come down around their ears—
No, wait—the ground was *not* moving. But his eyes were telling him otherwise—
"Gojyo—it's nor real! Shut your eyes!" Hakkai called out.
He shut his eyes and found his feet on firm ground.
Nope, not moving . . . So now what?
"Hakkai?"
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Aa."
Gojyo opened one eye. The cavern still appeared to be moving, but he could see that it was an illusion now as the real thing lay solid and firm behind the shaking walls.
"What the heck was that?"
"I can't be sure . . . An earthquake. It probably happened some time—"
They both felt it then. A strange, choking miasma that chilled them to the bone. So *odd*. And definitely unwelcome . . .
Gojyo found himself sweating and gulping in large breaths of air. It was like that time with that bastard Chin Iisou. Something alien injected into his veins—the creepiest feeling in the world. Only it was as though his blood was boiling over with the strangest urge to rend, tear and kill . . .
It was the sound of voices that brought him partially out of the internal battle.
People. Panicked people running towards them as the ground shook under their feet. Some of them were screaming in fear. It was an awful, animalistic noise that seemed to resonate with the bloodlust in his mind. The next thing he noticed was that some of the mob were no longer human.
Not human. Youkai.
The transformation was overtaking them one by once. Ears growing and sharpening to a point. Elongated teeth bared in terrified grimaces. Their eyes . . . becoming blank with the loss of reason.
Swearing viciously, Gojyo got ready for a fight. With the youkai in this state, it was going to get messy . . .
His shaku jou flashed out at one youkai running straight for him.
And the youkai ran right through the scythe blade and then him.
*Through* him?
There was nothing, not even the brush of air from their passage and then . . . nothing. No youkai or humans. No miniature earthquakes. No strange bloodlust. Only Hakkai and himself in the dark passageway. It was okay now—just him and Hakkai—
Hakkai—who was almost bent double and clutching at his head.
Concern overrode his initial shock and he pulled his friend up hastily to check for the cause of his friend's distress. "Oi! Hakkai! You okay?"
And then he noticed that Hakkai had one hand up over his left ear--as if he was checking if his limiters were still in place.
Oh shit.
"Was that—was that a Minus Wave?"
"No . . . just a residue of one . . ." Hakkai said slowly. "Those . . . spectres . . . They were youkai who were trying to escape the Minus Wave."
Spectres. It was a good bet that those youkai had either gone mad or perished in the cave-in. Gojyo was not so inclined to believe in ghosts, but that encounter had been an eleven out of ten in terms of freakishness.
Hakkai looked mildly unnerved. In Hakkai, that translated to very-unnerved-and-hiding-it. "It's almost like—like—"
"Like a memory," Gojyo stated suddenly. "Someone else's very bad memory."
Gods alone knew they had enough bad memories to know what another one looked like.
* * * * * * * * * *
End Part 5
(Exams. Argh. Spawned much fanfic. But that's irrelevant when you've got an Internet Firewall that won't let you do e-mail attachments or use upload-managers. I have to run around with a floppy disk to find a computer that lets me upload stuff . . . xian naaa . . .)