Disclaimer: Gensomaden Saiyuki and its characters belong to Minekura-sensei. We've done nothing to gain profit from this little fic. Well, nothing financial that is, just the rippling warmth in our hearts when we set these guys in yaoi scenes…..

Warning: Before you read it, please be warned that this fic has a very dark tone with twisted angsty plot and sexual abuse content. Don't read if you don't have a heart to read these kinds of stuff or to see the characters in distress and pain.

Heal the Healer

A fanfiction of Gensomaden Saiyuki

Plotter: Yoong

Writer: Sumeragi Sakura yami_no_tsubasa@otakumail.com

Part X: Desperation

Son Goku watched in horror when the youkai magic hit Hakkai squarely on the chest. He could feel his mouth opening, yet didn't hear anything coming out of it. Hakkai, half unconscious from the pain and the shock, was thrown on his back to the hard iron bars, sending the bars to reverberate in Goku's gripping hands. Hakkai's battered body slid senselessly to the stinking dungeon floor.

"No….," was feebly choked out of Goku's mouth, as painfully as if he had to literally pull the words from his throat.

He scrambled to Hakkai, hands reaching out from between the iron bars. He clutched the man tightly, checking for signs of life, immensely irritated with the cell bars that stood in the way. The chains binding his limbs rattled as they were grazed over the bars.

"Hak….kai….."

"It's no use, boy, no one could survive a direct blow of my magic to the heart," said the voice from the door.

Fuck the voice. All he cared about was the safety of his unconscious friend. He wouldn't believe anything that voice said. Nothing. He tried to reach for Hakkai's face, turning it so he could see it. His monocle was gone, probably shattered from the blow. The face looked pale, but Goku had strongly denied in his heart that his friend was dead.

His friend. Yes, that was his first thought. He didn't remember anything about that…that… incident…. the one which made Goku ran out of the inn in the first place. He did now, though. He knew, he should've still been angry to this man. Even after he was captured, he was dreading the possibility of this man coming to rescue him.

As if fate was trying to pull a sick joke on him, Hakkai did come to rescue him.

And now…. Now having the person he had been hating for a few days lying here in his arms, unconscious, Goku couldn't bring himself to really hate him. Not now. Perhaps he would later, if they got out of here. If all of this had passed.

But would they get out of here?

Of course. Hakkai was here to save him, right? So, somewhere in this god-forsaken place, Sanzo and Gojyo must have been looking for him too. Suddenly getting an enormous confident boost, Goku leapt to his feet and began kicking at the cell bars.

"BASTARD! GEMME OUTTA HERE, YOU STINKIN' SLIMY YOUKAI!!!"

Jin, who was starting to walk into the room, raised his brows at this sudden display of wrath.

"Calling me stinking and slimy won't certainly make you get what you want, foolish monkey."

He stood looming over the motionless figure of Hakkai. He gave a loud scoff, as if he thought the whole situation was, somehow, hilarious.

"What was this stupid sort trying to do by coming here. Surely he couldn't possibly be thinking that he would defeat me, in any way? Me, Boushu Jin, the leader of the mighty Kyogei Rhyaku, would lose against this…this…common man. Even Genjo Sanzo couldn't kill an injured me. Hmph…"

Using the tip of his leather-booted feet, he kicked Hakkai to the other side of the room, away from the cell bars. Then again, and again, and again, until Jin was satisfied to know that Hakkai wouldn't regain consciousness so quickly. Goku went on a rampage watching his friend being treated like garbage. He shouted curses and swearings while kicking at the stubbornly strong bars. Jin's lips were up curled in a bemused sort of way at some of the curses.

"Oh, really?" he asked. "And how do you suppose you are going to do all those things to me while I'm out here and you're in there?"

He chuckled merrily. "Sanzo-sama really has many interesting friends. Weak, yes, but interesting nonetheless. Hey, monkey, do you know that your foul-mouthed monk is out there right now? He's facing my brother, whose physical power is even stronger than me. He might as well just give away that blasted sutra so we all can go on with our duties."

"Sanzo will never give you his sutra, you bastard!" spat Goku, who was more than angry now.

"Oh, but he will. He's here, isn't he? He won't be able to win this time. He's not going to survive both Ren and I. We've come a long way up until now not to be easily defeated by a corrupted monk like him."

He gave the last kick to Hakkai's stomach, before pulling his neck up and shoved him against the wall opposite of the cell. The sound of cracking bones echoed through the stale air of the dungeon, meddled with the desperate screaming coming from Goku.

Anger, frustrated anger, choked painfully in Goku's throat while he watched Hakkai being mercilessly tortured before his eyes. Blood was trickling down his blistered hands, which he injured by hitting on the cell bars repeatedly. He could no longer feel pain, for his mind was numbed with blind fury. Even the chains cutting the skin on his limbs had stopped hurting him.

Jin stalked over to the cell, black robe and cloak billowing graciously around his leather-clad body. Goku didn't stir an inch, determined to show his captor that he wasn't afraid of him even a bit. Jin stooped over him, tall as he was, with his hands leaned on the bars. His black hair fell down the both sides of his face, like dark curtains closing ever slowly. His ill-humored smirk was gone, replaced with a stern set on the thin lips. His eyes, gleaming dark yellow in the dim of the cell, were sharply fixated on Goku's.

"We will win, monkey boy," his voice the icy coolness of frost, "and the world will see who deserves the power then. Seventeen years. Seventeen years it took me to build Kyogei Rhyaku from scratch. Ren and I, we gathered the straying youkais, sheltered them and trained them how to depend themselves out there. Against the humans. The humans, they think of us as scums, a failure the God made in creating the world. We were all shunned aside like monsters. We gathered all those strays and we formed our own tribe. In which we live like normal creatures, with respect to each other. We were strong, even when we were just a bunch of youkais trying to survive.

"When more youkais joined us, we were already bigger than any youkai tribe ever exists in the world. People fear us. They respect us, although the respect comes out of fear. But no one treats us like scums anymore."

Then, the yellow-slitted eyes began to burn with intensity Goku knew impossible to do with human eyes. He was wondering, why was this youkai telling him this. He didn't want to hear this. He wanted out, he wanted Hakkai to be safe. He wanted to see Sanzo and Gojyo again.

Damn it!

"We were kings in Middle Togenkyou, and we still are. I bring my people riches and glory and respect they deserve everywhere we go. We're not even minding the humans who used to mistreat us. For once, we can taste the luxury of living in total freedom.

"But only until that bitch Gyokumen Koushu started the movement to resurrect Gyumaoh. Our peace has been interrupted, jeopardized ever since. I need more power, much more power, to keep my people away from the resurrecting influence. We're the only youkai tribe who's still surviving against them. We watch the other youkai falling, losing themselves to madness. You won't ever understand, boy, how does it feel to see your own kind ruined to oblivion without knowing how to stop it. Kougaiji's hordes have been suppressing us from all sides, but we're still surviving. Then I heard of your infamous, filthy monk. This…this supposedly holy monk who has been given a blessing by the Goddess Herself to bring peace to this world. But I've heard and seen it from myself, while we scouted your little group from afar, that you are, in fact, no better than the Gyokumen Koushu herself. How can someone as immoral and corrupted as your Sanzo be given such a blessing from the Goddess? The world must have gone mad! Moreover, how can a human—a mere human—who is the worst kind of the rest of those who have shunted us away, can easily stand up to the power of the Gyumaoh, while we can not?"

"Such madness must be stop," hissed Boushu Jin viciously. "I won't let my people to suffer more than they have been. How unfair this whole thing is! People like you won't be able to fight the Gyumaoh. I'm not going to risk losing my people, and a powerful weapon such as the Maten Kyomon, just because the Goddess has gone insane. I will have the sutra. I will protect my people!"

"Sanzo will defeat the Gyumaoh! And he will first defeat you!" howled Goku furiously. "There's no way he will lose to the likes of you! Saving your people, my ass! You only want to save yourself from the humiliation if you can't protect your people! You're acting superior while you're nothing more than a coward!"

Jin banged on the bars, his eyes scorching heatedly at Goku. "What did you say?!"

"COWARD! You're a coward! Your people are out there fighting the ones who are actually on your side! And you let them be, sacrificing themselves for your personal interest, for saving your won ass, while you could've led them to fight side by side with us, against the Gyumaoh! If Sanzo has to kill them, it's only because of you!"

"We are not going to fight alongside with lowlifes like you!"

"We're not lowlifes! You are! There isn't anyone else who deserves the Goddess' blessing but Genjo Sanzo!!"

Jin was shaking from head to toe. His head didn't want to hear what his ears were making him listen. He would not let such impertinence, such insult, to go by unpunished. Rage hadn't only blinded him from his own rational thinking, but had forced him to yield to his own youkai's beastly nature. He growled, growled so loud and feral that it sounded like a mad animal's. He shot his hand inside the cell, between the bars, and grabbed the wretch by the hair. He pulled the boy until he was slammed against the bars. Then with a louder, madder, growl he stabbed his other clawed hand into the boy's stomach, throughout the back, splattering thick blood all over the cell.

+ + + + +

Goku dropped to his knees. A sudden, sharper pain—far more painful than he had been feeling—struck him senseless. He could hear the horrible growl his captor made. A growl tainted with ache, hatred and fear. Yes, even on the brink of the mind-numbing unconsciousness, he could still hear that hidden fright that Goku's words were probably right.

But it didn't matter anymore to him. Nothing did.

The world had gone under a strained stretch of time, as if someone somewhere had slowed down the clock, for everything seemed to be happening in a dragging sort of way. He looked down, watching in silence as blood was surging out of his body. He watched it, as if fascinated to see so much blood coming out of him. Something in the back of his head informed him that he should've felt the pain anytime now. He had a sudden urge to laugh. Pain? What pain? He could barely even feel his body.

He looked up, seeing the monster who had just attacked him. A bemused look was upon the monster's face. Jin was really glad that he had wounded Goku this terribly. A question popped into Goku's mind. Would everybody feel the way this monster did? Would everybody be happy too if he died?

He thought of Sanzo. Of the grumpy, cranky man who had often told him that life would be so much fun and quieter without Goku pestering him about food all the time. Then he thought of Gojyo, who would probably grin in mad delights to see him go.

Then he thought of Hakkai.

As his mind tried to imagine how Hakkai would react, his head was instinctively raised, eyes searching for the unconscious body lying across the room. The man was sitting on the floor, his back glued to the wall, leaving a trail of blood from the place where Jin had thrown him. At first Goku thought Hakkai was already dead. He wondered why he could think of it as casually as he did. His head must have gone numb too.

But Hakkai hadn't been dead. The man stared at him from across the room, eyes wide with terror, mouth opened in a silent scream. Such a terrible, terrible mask of expression Goku had never seen on Hakkai's face. Of agony. Of despair. Of the gruesome combination of those two. It went straight into Goku's heart, along with a dawning of understanding that always came too late. Goku understood then. Somewhere, in the blurry mess of his mind right now, he once felt it too. Sometime in his unrecalled past, that he had never succeeded to remember before, he had too felt that desperate feeling of losing. At once, he realized just how much he meant to Hakkai. How important his existence was to the man. In that slow-motioned, silent world, a thread was stretched between both of them. Connecting each of them to the other, invisible to human senses.

He knew, then, that Hakkai needed him as much as he needed the air to breath. He was the only thread that kept Hakkai alive all through the long suffering. That deep a feeling he had never come to realize, only until too late. And the last thing they had talked about was how Hakkai had let him down. How he bellowed his rage that Hakkai had betrayed their friendship.

How foolish it was of him. He had never thought how wrongly mistaken he was. Oh God, how much had he hurt the man's heart by such accusations? His ignorance of Hakkai's feeling had served him right. This was his karma. This was his punishment. He had to go now. Leaving the person, who actually needed him, behind without having the chance to say that he was wrong.

That he understood now.

That he was sorry.

+ + + + +

He had survived through the first magic attack. Even though the pain was undoubtedly excruciating, he survived it. Even though his upper body had suddenly lost its ability to move; though his heart had undergone an almost lethal jolt of shock; though his senses were taken away from him momentarily that at some point he had really thought he was already dead; he survived.

He also survived the furious kicking he received with his stomach, which made him feel as if he was going to vomit all of his inner organs.

He also survived the violent drag on the neck, which caused him several minutes of oxygen-less torment. He also survived when the youkai threw him against the wall. He felt his body was torn in two, and the pain had rendered him unconscious again, but he survived. In that half-conscious moment, even his highly-educated brain had marveled about the amazing durability human body had.

But as he realized how human body could sustain even the harshest physical torture, he knew that the mind wasn't as strong. That was why he didn't wonder, as he witnessed the very person he held so dear in his heart, was being killed, he felt his sanity was slipping away.

Something broke inside of him, snapped and crushed into little pieces; irredeemable to repair. The demon in him had awakened once more, and this time it looked like there was no turning back.

He could only recall vaguely how he leapt to his feet—that was, if those were really his feet. He didn't feel like he own his body anymore. He was just this tiny little existence, taking up some small space in the head of this thing who called himself [Cho Hakkai]. He saw his own hands reaching out to the youkai, but couldn't remember if he really moved them or not. Those hands spun the youkai around. The youkai stared at him, with an expression that could only be defined as frightened. He saw those hands move again, this time one of the palms was flattened over the youkai's face, while the other one was holding him down. His foggy head could indistinctively felt a gathering of energy somewhere in his body. In the hand, perhaps, thought his logical mind. Then he watched, emotionless, as pure energy blasted from his hand, piercing through the thick skull of the youkai and shot far back across the room.

What he had done with the lifeless youkai afterwards, he couldn't really remember. It was because his eyes were immediately nailed to another prostate body lying on the floor, behind the cell bars. He knew he approached the cell. He knew he put his hands around the bars and pulled them off until they bent and broke. He remembered going inside the cell, picked up that cold body into his arms and everything had once again blurred out.

+ + + + +

"DAMN IT! Where do you think they keep the boy, Sanzo?"

Gojyo was positively at lost. He was standing in the middle of a very large foyer, somewhere in the middle of the mansion. He scratched his non-itchy head, while looking around for any helpful sign. A nice, little sign board with a direction of where they should be going, would be more than welcomed, he thought. But of course, that was just some silliness his head made up out of frustration.

The mansion was humongous. There was no other word to describe it. It wasn't a surprise, though, since the hundreds and hundreds of youkais they had killed just now must all be living here. They couldn't just roam around and check every room. Besides, even though they have wrecked most of the Kyougei Rhyaku's power, there could still be some youkais hiding somewhere in this place. And from the look of it, they wouldn't survive the next major battle.

Sanzo came up behind Gojyo. It took him longer to follow the kappa around in their desperate attempt to search Goku. Sanzo had spent most of his energy by using Maten Kyoumon consecutively until he destroyed half of the youkai tribe. Gojyo took care of the rest. But still, the hardest part was when Sanzo had to deal with Boushu Ren himself. That youkai was quite powerful and as stubborn as hell that he'd rather die than to surrender to a human being.

Unfortunately for him, Sanzo was also one stubborn prick. One of the worst cases in the world, in fact. He had left Ren as a twitching heap of flesh—still alive, but just barely. He was determined not to kill Ren just because Ren had asked him to do so. Even the minions of the devil had more forgiving hearts than the immoral monk.

They could say that they were victorious, though—obviously—not unscathed. Gojyo had a nasty cut over his torso, among other minor wounds, that would positively leave a nice, long scar. Perfect to impress the ladies in the taverns; giving him a chance to boast how he had slain a mansionful of youkais. While Sanzo sported gushing stab wounds in several places of his lean frame, caused by the very sword of Ren. Plus, his a-week-old wound on the waist was starting to throb again. That turned him cranky and bitchy all over again.

"There are some stairs up there," Gojyo pointed at the two stairs; one leading up and the other one leading down. "Okay, I'll go up and you go down. Let's check the whole floors."

Sanzo let out a dangerous growl. Gojyo turned and raised a brow at the monk.

"What? I'm hurt too, you know! Don't whine, Sanzo, it's so not becoming."

"How many wounds did you get?" Sanzo scanned his friend's body, eyes narrowed, determined to leave the most work to Gojyo.

Gojyo rolled his eyes. "What the hell are you thinking? Come on, we've got to find the monkey. And Hakkai too. Where is he? I haven't seen any sign of him since he left us. Do you think that he got lost somewhere in here and…"

It was then that they heard the horrifying scream. They both went tense and alert all of a sudden. Sanzo's first guess was that it was a howl of some sort of animal, for it didn't strike him as something human. What was it? A wolf? No, it was deeper than a wolf's. A bear? But a bear wouldn't howl that long.

He was starting to doubt that it even belonged to an animal. Animal's sound wouldn't give him that prickling sensation all over his skin, or the spine-chilling cold. But to believe it was coming from human was not a prospect he liked to know. What kind of a human who could make a sound as hideous as that?

"It's coming from downstairs," said Gojyo, keenly listening with all his might. Something tucked his guts in a terrible way. "Oh God… Oh no…. Sanzo, we must hurry. Let's go down!"

Sanzo followed the red-haired man down the stone stairs, all the way cursing the pain caused by his wounds. They arrived in a dimly lit hallway that smelled strongly of mould and decaying carcass. A dungeon, from the look of it. Let's just hope that the decaying smell comes from rats' carcasses, he told himself.

Gojyo seemed to know something about the awful scream. He was running down the hallway, following the sound of the scream. Down here, the scream sounded much louder, and much more hair-rising. Every step they took brought them closer and closer that the scream had begun to be unbearably loud.

They saw a door, half-closed. Without saying anything, they both kicked it open. Gojyo ran into the room, followed closely by a very wary Sanzo. Then they saw it. The body of Boushu Jin, whose face was ruined beyond recognition. They could tell it was the youkai leader from the dark skin, the black hair and the lean figure. Beyond the body, there was the cell. The dark, blood-smelling cell. Death-smelling.

Gojyo stopped abruptly just outside the cell. His eyes found what he feared he would find. He brought his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle a moan. Oh God. They were too late. Goku had…. And Hakkai…

Hakkai….

It was the same [Hakkai] Gojyo had seen running amok in the forest before. His face bore an expression that wasn't human. The eyes, blurry and empty, looked as if they were only glassy surfaces, useless for anything. His mouth, opened wide, was letting out the scream they first heard from upstairs.

The creature that took over Cho Hakkai was holding a smaller body in his hands, stiff and motionless as a rock. Oh God…. Don't let it be…. Don't, God, just don't….

Sanzo walked past him without saying anything. He rushed into the cell, totally ignoring all the wounds that must have been stinging him like hell. He looked into [Hakkai]'s eyes, in the same way as he looked into the bear that broke into the temple's yard years and years ago when he was still a child. It was the only way he knew how to talk to a 'beast'. And it worked.

[Hakkai] let him take Goku's body. [Hakkai] then went into a quivering curl on the floor, by the pool of Goku's blood, and started to whimper violently. Sanzo ignored him for a while, as his attention fell on the boy whom he once saved. The boy's face was as pale as a corpse. Methodically, Sanzo checked for a pulse, unaware of the frustrated prayer he pleaded himself in his heart. If that blasted Goddess had decided to make Herself useful, now would be a very nice time to do so, he thought.

Seconds passed.

A few most frightening, despairing seconds in the world passed.

And he found a pulse.

It was weak, very weak, so weak he almost missed it. But it was there. Slowly repeating itself. It was definitely a pulse.

Unashamedly, Sanzo held the boy even tighter in his arms. He didn't care what Gojyo would say later when he bent down to kiss the boy on the forehead. A choke of sob escaped his lips, and he let it for a while, allowing himself to drift in a blissful relief, before then steeling himself.

"He's alive," he said to Gojyo. "But won't be for long if we don't do something."

He heard a rustling sound from behind him and had a mental image of Gojyo sliding to the floor in a great relief. He didn't waste time to look. He reached a hand to touch the ruined [Hakkai] who was still whimpering on the floor.

[Hakkai] raised his head—afraid—looking at Sanzo with a face stained with tears and blood. Sanzo touched a finger on [Hakkai]'s forehead, then chanted a purifying incantation softly under his breath. At the end of the incantation, he channeled some of the little energy he had left in his body.

Gojyo watched in utter silence what Sanzo was doing. A purifying spell, of course, he knew that. So Sanzo was going to tame whatever 'thing' that had taken over Hakkai and set him free. [Hakkai] fell backwards the instant Sanzo's incantation was over. The one who got up again after a few minutes was the Cho Hakkai they all knew.

"Goku….. Goku……," sobbed Hakkai in agony, reaching out for the boy huddled closely in Sanzo's arms.

"He's alive," Sanzo tried to comfort him, as much as a Genjo Sanzo could do to comfort others. "But only if you heal him. Now stop that useless sniveling and do heal him before he actually dies."

***TBC***

yoong's A/N: Whaaaa~ I really feel pity for Jin. In my opinion, he had the right and reason to hate Sanzo. Yet, he really did a big mistake, confronting the most hardheaded team of Sanzo-ikkou with such cheap method. That's a villain's fate, so don't blame us, ne? Eventually, we're through with the angst mode (sighs of relief coming from readers) now, get ready for the final chapter in ROMANTIC mode plus a little comedy in the ending scene. What? You want LEMON? I can't promise anything here, my part in plot making is done. It's left to Sakura. You have to bombard her with your request, okay?

Sumeragi Sakura's Little Note:

God, that was dark. One of the darkest scene I've ever written in this fic, I think. I've read the plot Yoong gave me over and over again before writing each chapter, and still I can't stop being amazed at how bleak and twisted this story is. Well, I hope you enjoyed it! ^__^ No, no, this story isn't finished yet. One more chapter to go. Please sit tight and read how they're going to solve all those problems. And mind you, the last chapter is a reward for the 10 angsty chapters you've all gone through! ^____^