THE SHADOWS BEYOND
CHAPTER 14
Where morning comes without a dawn

"What time do we have?" a new voice called. "You're claiming that we have time? When the great Sanzo-sama is always ordering us to hurry up? And now you say that--"

Sanzo held up a hand, silencing Gojyo in the middle of his tirade. He reached for the pack of cigarettes he had placed on the table, when a hand atop his stopped him from retrieving a stick.

The priest glared at Goku. "Let go."

Goku shook his head. "Smoking's bad for you, with all those injuries." A hint of defiance sparked in the golden eyes. "Either you get Hakkai to heal you or you wait until you're well." Swiftly, he grabbed the pack and pocketed it.

The other two members of the group waited for the explosion.

It never came. The tension was shattered as the waitress arrived with the requested drinks and food. Goku took the opportunity to break out of the staring game, and focused on splitting his chopsticks.

"You haven't answered my question," Gojyo said, as he joined them at the table.

Sanzo gave him a patient stare. "If I have to spell it out, you're even more of an idiot than I thought."

"Then we are idiots," Hakkai said quietly. "Because none of us understand what's going on."

Sanzo glanced at him. Then, very deliberately, he flicked at the shoulder of his shirt, where a sutra would have hung.

"Sanzo--" Hakkai began, when a level stare from the priest cut him off.

"Don't call me that."

"What?"

A thin smile. Sanzo emptied his cup and made to leave. Halfway, he turned back, took the gold card from a pocket and tossed onto the table. "Take it. Use it. We might not have it for much longer."

*

"Hakkai!" Goku's distressed cry broke the silence, once the priest was out earshot. "What's going on?"

Hakkai stared at the card, his features betraying shock.

"The idiot," Gojyo breathed. "The idiot! How can he do that?"

"Do what?" Goku pressed.

"He's given up," Hakkai said. "He's... given up on the sutras..."

Goku flung the chair back in his haste. "He can't do that! I won't let him!" With that, the youth was out of the door, heading with all speed in the direction that the former priest had taken.

Gojyo started after him, when Hakkai pulled him back. "Don't stop him."

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't follow him!"

"At a discrete distance," Hakkai advised.

***

Sanzo had headed out of the inn, Goku noticed. It was hard to spot the man, when one was used to looking out for flashy white robes with a flash of gold and green. The crowds blunted his speed, allowing him to keep within visual distance, but barring him from getting any closer.

He's headed towards the river, Goku realized. And, with a certain sense of relief : He's not headed out of town. He's not going to challenge Isir again. But ... what if he gets attacked again?

"Excuse me, 'scuse me," he shoved his way past townsfolk, who complained at his retreating back. He turned the corner that Sanzo had taken, and paused.

Sanzo stood at the river bank. He was not alone.

"Stop," a whisper by his ear instructed, and Goku turned to see Hakkai and Gojyo appear silently. "This audience is for Sanzo alone."

Goku looked back. "That's... Kanzeon Bosatsu, isn't it?"

"My dear nephew. You're delirious," the goddess said.

Sanzo stared at her. "Assuredly not."

"Then you're deluded. This isn't a 9 to 5 job that you can quit as the fancy takes you."

"I know," Sanzo replied.

"Then why do you insist on this madness?"

"A dislocated elbow, a fractured wrist, severe abdominal stab wounds..." Sanzo raised an eyebrow. "I didn't become a Sanzo to escape death by inches every week. Frankly speaking, I'm sick and tired of it all."

"That's a lame excuse, Sanzo."

He sighed. "And I thought that you, at least, wouldn't be a moron like the rest." He narrowed his eyes. "I'm sick of this -- of everything. Of running. Of nearly dying. Of a title and a position I never asked for, never wanted, of a job you damn well forced onto me. Of risking life and limb on a long journey with no hope of success at the end."

"No hope of success?"

"Are you a fool? Do you expect just four of us to take on all the youkai Kougaiji can throw at us.. and take out Gyuumao as well? A youkai that nearly killed a god? If you're the Goddess of Mercy, you can damn well extend a little bit of that compassion to me!"

"Sanzo, this is most unlike you."

He might have shuddered slightly as he turned away to face the river. "You've been watching. You know what happened. The bastard barely lifted a finger to take the sutra... and I nearly died trying to get it back. Let's not even go into the fact that I'm still standing here without it."

"Has it ever occured to you that... it might take more than your strength alone to retrieve the sutra?"

"And what if we get it back? There'll be a next time. And the next. And the next. Until the damn thing is in Kougaiji's hands and Gyuumao is set free on the world and.. what then?"

"Then it is your responsibility to ensure that such does not come to pass."

There was definitely a shudder this time. "I can't." The words were almost too soft for the listeners to catch.

"And what if you could?" Kanzeon asked, but her tone was gentle.

"Then I wouldn't want to. Because there comes a time when you take pride and tell it 'Screw it' -- this isn't worth what it takes any more. Because... the world could end, and honestly, I couldn't care less any more. I'm not your puppet. I'm not your pawn."

There was definitely some emotion on the goddess' face now, visible to the onlookers, even if Sanzo wasn't looking. A bit of what might have been sympathy, a little less of her normal suave smugness. "I cannot accept your renouncement, when you are obviously injured and not in your normal frame of mind. Rest. We will talk again when you are well."

"Time won't change my mind."

"But time is what you have wished for, and now time is what you will get. I am the Goddess of Mercy, you say, and this mercy I grant you -- time to rest, recovery, and reflect. Time to make a choice that you will not come to regret."

Sanzo continued to stare at the river.

"I will not attempt to persuade you either way," Kanzeon continued, "Yet if you should choose this path... then know that there is no one else we may dispatch to Tenjiku. Isir is currently ignorant of the sutra's purpose, but that may change in due time. Sanzo... would you bear the responsibility of the entire world dying on your behalf?"

The words struck home. Sanzo spun to face her, jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed in what might have been anger or suppressed guilt, or both. It was impossible to tell.

But Kanzeon had gone -- thrown her punch line and disappeared without a trace.

***

"So... my little eavesdroppers..."

Without ceremony, Kanzeon stepped out of a seemingly solid wall to face the remaining members of the group. "Did you hear all that transpired?"

"How did you know?" Goku asked.

"I know everything," Kanzeon replied lazily.

"Is there something that we can do?" Hakkai asked.

"First, you might like to settle your internal quarrels. And then..."

"And then what?" Gojyo prompted, when she trailed off.

"And then it is hard to see. A human heart is hard to predict, and Sanzo is less than predictable under the best of circumstances. He has lost that which drives him, and even I do not know what that is."

Goku frowned. "But it's true... we can't keep on like this. If Sanzo dies, it's all over, and he's barely escaped with his life!"

Kanzeon looked squarely at him. "I would not have sent you if there had been no chance of success."

"What were you saying about giving time to us?" Hakkai queried.

"Oh, just a little bit of disturbance in our dear Isir's domain -- a whole lot of youkai going rabid and attacking his castle. Enough matters to turn his eyes away from you lot for about a week or so."

"A week or so, eh?" Gojyo muttered.

"Thank you," Hakkai replied.

"Don't mention it. I've done my best, given all the non-interference rules of Heaven. The rest, shall I say, is up to you."

***

"Don't say a word," Sanzo snarled, turning and storming into his room.

"Sanzo, don't be unreasonable," Hakkai returned, following him calmly. "You can't just give up being a Sanzo..."

"I can, when the sutra is out my reach and beyond retrieval!"

"If all of us work together, we can get it back."

Abruptly, all the anger seemed to drain out of Sanzo. Sighing, he fell into a chair and cast an amused look at his companion. "Hakkai, Hakkai... stop spouting the old party lines. You sound like a broken record."

"I would, if you would listen to me." Hakkai took another chair.

"Oh, but I am listening," Sanzo replied. "I always listen. Except that I can't always act on your advice. Consider..." he leaned forward. "When you were going after Kanan, did it ever occur to you to turn back?"

"But I didn't turn back."

"But did you get her back?"

Hakkai couldn't stop the wince. Sanzo had an uncanny way of hitting you with words, and not just with insults either. "I would never have known if--"

"And you will say -- it is certain failure against uncertain failure and the slender hope of success. But -- entirely hypothetical suggestion : If you had turned back, you would still be human." He grabbed Hakkai's wrist, turned his hand to face palm upwards. "The blood of a thousand youkai and a whole village on your hands. The price of going on." He held out his own left hand, slightly callused where the pistol was wont to rest. "To what end, Hakkai? To prove your stubbornness? To prove that your persistence is worth the extravagant waste of life?"

"Our situations are not the same," Hakkai said quietly. "The fate of the world did not rest on my shoulders."

"Which was why your burden was light enough to bear to the finishing line." He released Hakkai's wrist and turned away, glancing at the window. "Go away."

Hakkai bit back a flash of annoyance. Oh, very well. Let's start this conversation from the beginning. Settle your internal quarrels first, she said... "Sanzo. Kanzeon talked to us. She said that she's given us about a week before anything happens. I don't know what will happen after that week but--"

"Nothing will happen," Sanzo said shortly.

"And what will you do? Go back to Chou'An?"

"I have a week to decide. Maybe I'll pay Isir a visit, after all."

"At least allow me to attend to your wounds. You'd never heal in time otherwise."

Sanzo flinched. There was no mistake about that -- and this from a man who wasn't accustomed to revealing his emotions.

"What's wrong?" Hakkai asked, probing gently. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Just... nothing." Sanzo took a deep breath. Goku's corpse in his hands, stiff as a board, lifeless... He had nightmares about that -- he'd had nightmares about it every single night since their return. Fact and fiction were already starting to blur in his mind.

"You know we can't continue the journey like this--"

"Who said anything about continuing the journey?"

"Stop being so stubborn, Sanzo! Since when was it yours to decide to throw away the hope of the world--"

"--since it involved my goddamned life!"

"I give up," Hakkai ground his teeth. "You're just too damn obstinate to reason with. Since when has the welfare of the rest of the world mattered to you? Or even the welfare of the group? It's always 'Me, I, Myself -- I don't need your help, go away, I never asked for your assistance, I don't care if you die, if you throw your life on the line, even if it's for me--"

Sanzo ground his teeth. "One more word and you die."

"That's the way you argue, isn't it? He who shoots first... wins." Hakkai allowed a ball of ki to shine through his fingertips. "Well, you can't kill me."

Sanzo was paler than usual, and a mishmash of emotions warred in his eyes. The calmer part of Hakkai's brain noted that he had hit on something especially sore, something that could be the heart of the issue, if the other half would just calm down and reason it out...

Abruptly, Sanzo spun and stalked to the window. "Get lost." His voice was shaking. His shoulders were.

Embarrassment overrode Hakkai's anger. He had come here to settle a quarrel, not start a new one. Hesistantly, he moved to Sanzo's side. "I'm sorry."

The priest was clutching the window sill so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He was staring blankly off into the distance. "Fine," he whispered. "Since you want to know what happened." Dispassionately, he related the facts of the incident, from the time he had left the inn in search of the sutras, up until the time they had met again. Hakkai held his peace, listening in silence.

"Sanzo... it was a dream. Nothing more," Hakkai said, when Sanzo's account drew to a close. "I'm sorry... for saying the things I did."

"It doesn't matter any more."

"But it does. Now that we know that Isir is messing with our minds... we can avoid the same trap the next time we attack him. We can get back to trusting each other and avoid the disaster that befell the last time. He's trying to break us apart."

"You don't understand. The reason why I didn't bring any of you the first round was that -- no matter how much I trust you, I cannot trust that, by accident, by trickery or otherwise, that some mishap will not occur. You can say that you didn't intend to hit me with that blast, when we were first here, but the fact is : You did hit me, regardless. What happens if your aim is more accurate the next time?"

"Sanzo-- none of this will be resolved until Isir is dead."

Sanzo sighed, recalling his own encounter with the youkai. "I think it's beyond our ability to kill him. Even if all four of us were to attack him. And we would be in each other's way, besides."

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"Nothing. There is nothing that we can do."

***
TBC
***

A/N :


Much dialogue, yes... so I crammed all the things that needed to be said into one chapter. We'll see about more things happening in the next.
Rush rush rush... 3? 4? 5? chapters to the finishing line.

sf -- January 10, 2003 ; 11:29am