Warning : Major Sanzo abuse in this chapter --;;. (toes, you can stop reading now.) Major, major violence.
Muse : To make up for earlier.
Sf : *growls*. So much for not getting him hurt.

CHAPTER 8
Where things fall apart.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
-- The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats

"Hakkai, can't you hurry?"

"I'm afraid not, Goku.. we're going as fast as we can but the terrain's a little.. rough, to say the least."

"Ah, stop worrying, bakazaru."

"Easier said than done, Gojyo!"


"Calm down, minna-san. We'll be there in an hour or so."

***

Footstep.

A click as the heel of Isir's boot chimed against the stone floor. The gun was in Sanzo's hand and the sight at eye level at the speed of thought. But he didn't fire.

5 bullets, an insidious voice whispered at the back of his head. Why didn't you wait to get more?

No time..

"Of course, if you kill me, you'll never find the scroll," Isir nodded. He was holding a katana, silver steel still hidden in its matt black sheath.

Another footstep, echoing into the vast reaches of the hall. Somewhere, a candle flickered and died. Sanzo glared, but did not answer.

"And if you fight me, you'll never win," the youkai continued, taking another step forward. In the background, another candle winked out. Sanzo tracked Isir's movement with the barrel of his Smith and Wesson.

"And since you were so good as to visit me, it won't do to leave too early, would it?" That smile again, as chilling as the winter wind. One hand on the hilt, Isir casually unsheathed the blade. The sheath clattered softly to the floor.

Another step closer.

Another candle dimmed out of existence.

Footfall.

The gun's report split the silence into a cacophony of echoes. Sanzo swore as Isir dodged the round with inhuman speed. A footstep behind warned him in time to avoid Isir's sword thrust. Air whistled past his ear as the silvered blade sliced through space.

He sprang aside as Isir struck again. The gun buckled in his hand as he sensed an opening and fired--

--and the jarring screech of metal resounded through his eardrums as Isir blocked the round with the katana blade.

"Well," Isir nodded. "I'm fairly impressed." He inspected the blade, which was cracked along its length. "You're excellent, for a human. Looks like I'll need to craft a new sword."

A whisper of movement was the only warning.

Isir literally disappeared from his view, leaving only the katana falling to the floor in slow motion--

--Sanzo spun, searching for his enemy--

--and suddenly, all he saw was the darkness that hid the ceiling and the walls moving past in the corners of his vision--

--a curious sense of weightlessness--

The impact with the floor stole all breath from him. The sudden surge of pain through his ribs hit him then, seconds after Isir's punch. I didn't even see that coming..

"But humans are humans," Isir said, stepping into view. "Weak. Inferior. Yet they somehow believe that they have a divine right to rule this world. To drive us out of it."

Sanzo rolled out of the way as Isir's foot swished past, using his momentum to push himself to one knee. The youkai turned to regard him with a bemused expression.

The gun. I dropped it... where?

"Well, you're certainly not out of it, I see. But aren't you going to retaliate?" Isir inquired.

The candle light bounced off the barrel of the Smith and Wesson. It was just a few meters away. Sanzo's eyes flickered from the gun to Isir and back. The youkai was still talking.

In a single movement, Sanzo was on his feet and lunging for the gun.

Before he'd taken two steps, however, Isir was in his path, grinning, clawed fingers raised to strike...

Sanzo caught him with a kick hard enough to send the youkai reeling backwards, surprise washing across his features. Unfortunately, the distraction had been enough to make his lose sight of his goal...

Damnit, where is it?

As he glanced through the darkened room, Sanzo nearly missed Isir's blow. He evaded at the last moment; too little, too late. The claws caught him across the shoulder and ripped backwards, as blood spurted to match their trajectory. Sanzo staggered backwards, clutching his shoulder and swearing. Blood seeped through his fingers, tracing patterns down his glove and his sleeve.

Isir was smiling.

Fucking... bastard!

Sanzo lunged forward. Isir parried his first blow, and the second, missed the third. There was a thud as Sanzo's fist slammed into his jaw, a blow that would have been hard enough to crack human bone. But youkai were tougher than humans, and even as Sanzo rallied for another attack, Isir lashed out, too fast to avoid.

There was crunch as Sanzo slammed against the wall and fell to the floor. Blood splattered the stone from the impact.

"You ought to be proud, you know. I don't use so much force against humans, normally. I don't have to."

Sanzo blinked furiously to clear his vision. His right arm, which had taken the brunt of the impact, was wellnigh unusable. I can't match him strength for strength. I need--

Perhaps it was the light, perhaps it was the way the room had been swimming, perhaps it was that Isir genuinely moved too fast for him to see...

But suddenly, a blow stole his breath away, and there was a clawed hand grabbing the front of his robes and hoisting him to his feet--

--And before he could even summon the strength to hit back, he was slamming against another wall some distance away.

Vision went.

It came back, slowly, stained red by the blood that seeping down from the gash in his head. In time to see Isir stepping fastidiously forward.

Panic welled up. He had to move before the youkai closed to attack range, get the gun, and put a bullet through the bastard's head...

Desperation gave him enough strength to stagger to his feet. His head swum madly and pain raced through the assorted wounds. Something was definitely broken somewhere.

"Good. I like an enemy with some fight in him," Isir said approvingly.

Sanzo's knees were buckling. "Fuck... you..." he said in reply. Wait for him to attack. Watch him, a voice was saying in his head. Avoid the attack and then counter attack...

He saw the blow sailing towards him in slow motion and darted to one side, heard the crunch as the youkai's fist hit the wall behind. His eyes fixed on the glint of metal in the darkness, and he raced towards it.

He felt the youkai coming even as his hands closed around the pistol grip. Instinctively, he tried to sidestep and bring the gun to bear, and it might have worked if his reflexes hadn't been shot to hell by all the earlier injures...

A foot caught him across the ribs. He tried to break his fall, hit the floor on his bad arm instead, and the world went under in a wave of pain.

Get up.

The gun was still in his hand, he realized, held in a death grip.

Get up. The fight's not over.

It wasn't. He could hear the sound of Isir approaching, the steps ringing through the stone beside his ear and louder than even the sound of his own harsh breathing.

Get up...

But gods, it hurt. Everything hurt. Nothing felt like functioning at all. Perhaps it would be better to let that sinking darkness pull him under again--

No, I can't afford to... I can't lose... I can't...

With an effort, he forced his eyes open. He was in the floor. In the hall. And Isir was approaching...

I can't lose. I don't have backup. And losing means I'll never get the sutras back.. I'd have failed..

I can't fail...

I can't...

He was crawling to his knees before he knew it, as Isir raised an eyebrow in surprise and slowed his footsteps. "Amazing. I almost thought I'd killed you by accident."

"I'm ... harder ... to ... kill ... than ... that..." he gasped, and on that note, he was on his feet, swaying unsteadily, but standing nonetheless.

"I applaud your efforts," Isir said gravely. "Perhaps I will give you a quick death, seeing that you're a worthy adversary."

"Bastard," Sanzo hissed. Despair was slithering in around the edges, obscuring rational thought. He's practically unscratched..

No. I can do this. I have to.

He fired.

There was a splash of blood as the bullet slashed past Isir's side. Ringing laughter. "Well done. That almost caught me by surprise."

Sanzo clenched his jaw tight around the distress that was welling up. Two bullets left.

Isir was in front of him again. "Bravo, bravo. You intrigue me. Very well, I'll give you a chance to fight back. Give it your best shot, Sanzo-sama." A grim smile. "The pun fully intended, of course."

The hand holding the gun was starting to shake. Badly. Sanzo tried to steady it with the other hand, but stopped short, wincing at the pain lancing through elbow and shoulder.

He's up to something, his senses warned him, as he regarded the youkai standing before him.

It was then that he noticed how dark it was. How many candles had inexplicably been extinguished. The shadows had crept up on them, dark and devouring, potentially lethal to a human with inferior night vision.

Then Isir's form started to shift.

What the--?

Sanzo blinked, but it was still the same -- the youkai's form had blurred out, into two, three, four different copies, each identical, each wearing the same self-satisfied smirk.

"Which one's the real one? I'll leave it to you to guess," the youkai said, laughing. The voice sounded from all directions.

Five, six...

Sanzo unleashed a bullet at where Isir had last been standing, and growled in frustration as it swept through the illusion and hurtled into the distant wall.

The light was failing faster now. He could barely make out the details of the enemy -- enemies. There were just silhouettes, seven, eight, nine of them...

"My turn now," Isir said mockingly. And as one, the forms moved in.

Damn, damn ... it didn't help that the pain was throbbing through him now, clamoring for his attention, endeavoring to pull him apart. Sanzo backed up against the wall, the waves of agony strobing in tandom with the drumming of his heart.

Which one which one.. they were closing in, a semi-circle of death, the same insane, self-assured grin on every face, every grinning fang...


The light was fading even further...

Wait for him to attack. Then I'll know which one's the real one..

He hated the idea, hated the menacing slowness in which the specters closed. Hated the fear that raced through his veins, a fear that he hadn't tasted in a long time, not since he was thirteen and confronting youkai for the first time. That night. That night where one life had ceased and another had started.

One bullet left. One chance. I'll nail him good and proper this round.

There.

The touch of air from the side gave the youkai away. The gun recoiled in his hands.

Blood, splashing across his vision.

Red mist.

Isir, smiling, blood seeping through a bullet wound, one arm hanging limply.

Isir, hurt, but very much alive.

Slowly, Sanzo became aware of the searing pain through his stomach. He glanced down and beheld the blood-stained the katana, Isir's hand wrapped around the hilt, and the blade.. lost in.. him. In the haze that was rapidly obscuring all thought, he realized that it was buried far in enough that the point was had to be protruding from his back. In morbid fascination, he watched as the blade, cracked and weakened where the bullet had hit it earlier, splintered and snapped into two an inch from the hilt.

His legs gave out at that moment and he dropped to his knees, and a split second after, the gun fell from fingers gone suddenly numb. The pain was going curiously dull -- the nervous system going into shock, he thought. He felt a warm hand on his injured shoulder in an almost companionable fashion, except that the grip was going tighter and the claws were dugging furrows into existing wounds. But it didn't hurt. Tingled, but didn't hurt.

The numbness engulfed him, and his vision was tunneling.

His last thought was something confused about failing someone -- a man with long, brown hair, dressed in the some robe that looked vaguely familiar, with a scroll draped about his shoulders.

Then the world faded away.

***
TBC
***