Goku liked to fight. He loved how battle made his heart pound, filled his blood with energy. He loved the competition, pushing yourself, striving against your own body as much as your opponent, how it forced out strength you didn't even know you had until it moved you. There were times it frightened him a little, because he knew some of the pleasure was the battlelust of his other self. Seiten Taisei Son Goku, godling of earth itself, who would charge until all life was gone to reach the purest victory. But most of the enjoyment he knew was his own, plain old Goku, the hungry monkeyboy.

He loved to fight, but not like this. Not when there was more at stake than his own triumph or defeat. Sanzo hurt--Sanzo was too often hurt, since they had begun this journey--and Hakkai too--why hadn't he woken up yet--and Gojyo to boot, who was pretending everything was fine, even as he leaned on his shakujou too heavily for it to merely be a cocky pose.

With the fire out, the cave's darkness was deeper than the night outside, but the wind blew so hard that he could barely see anything anyway. Over its howls, he could hear, as he had already, the lightest crunch of footsteps on the broken snow, an unhurried approach. Goku wanted to scream, wanted to rush outside to confront the coming monster head-on, but it wasn't worth the risk of leaving the cave's shelter, however meager it was without the door. The elements of the mountain were under this youkai's control, and one always tried to fight in a neutral arena.

A slim silhouette cut off a little of the sky visible through the mouth of the cave. It stopped at the entrance, and Goku braced himself, felt more than saw Gojyo do the same. The moonglow off the snow brightened, as if the clouds had moved away, and that pale shimmer illuminated her.

He heard Gojyo's quiet exhalation, the hiss of a disbelieving oath, but for once Goku could not fault him. She was beautiful, like no woman he had seen before, beautiful as iced branches sparkling in the sunlight after a storm, beautiful like the captured serenity of a frozen waterfall. Whitest hair cascaded down over skin clear and fair as fresh snow in dawn's rose light, fine silver brows arching over eyes blue like the deepest waters of the sea. She was no taller than Goku, with a woman's shape but slender as a child, and her ears rose into high, delicate points. She was youkai, by those ears, and the star-slit pupils of her midnight eyes.

She was youkai, and dangerous, and her pale, pale lips were drawn up in a terrible smile.

"YAAH!" Goku yelled, and threw a punch at her with his whole body behind it, but she slid out from his attack like water and glided into the cavern. As Gojyo raised his shakujou, she brushed the metal rod with her long fingers. Ice crackled, and when he brought it down, the pole shattered like glass against the stone floor. And then her slender hands closed around Sanzo's neck, brutally shoving him against the cave wall, while she examined his features like a mantis inspecting its prey.

"Before you killed me, I could freeze his throat so he would never draw breath again," she said, and her soft alto was as lovely and cruel as her smile. The voice in the wind, and Goku halted, two feet from her, his fists clenched, but impotent. "You might try it," she continued. "You may slay me even before he dies."

Sanzo hung in her grasp, limp and helpless. Goku growled, scarcely realizing that rumble came from his own throat until Gojyo had laid a hand on his shoulder. "Why not just kill us now, then?" and the half-youkai's voice was steel. "What do you want?"

"Kill you," she said, thoughtfully. "Should I waste further effort, when two of you are halfway there already?"

Her dark gaze angled down at Hakkai, and now it was Goku who had to hold Gojyo back. "Damn you," he seethed, red eyes blazing, "what are you doing? Who are you working for? Kougaiji? Gyokumen?"

At that she laughed, the ring of water rippling through ice chasms. "I? A servant? From the moment of my birth I've had loyalty to no one except my own self!"

"Bitch," snarled a different voice, "that's our line," and then Sanzo's arm came up, so the sleeve fell back and revealed the revolver in his hand, muzzle aimed square at her chest. The gun thundered, once, twice, thrice--

Three bullets lodged into the wall of the cave, and before any chips of stone fell she had risen from where she had thrown herself, ripped the gun from his hand and tossed it aside. But Goku was in motion by then, and as she kicked Sanzo down, he barreled into her, knocked her to the ground and pulled back his fist to pulp her crystal beauty.

"Goku! Stop!" Gojyo's sharp cry paralyzed him, so insistent was it, and panicked.

"Foolish," she hissed, still smiling as she stared up at Goku, even as he knelt over her, ready to pound her into the rock. "Weak."

Her white hair pooled beneath her head against the stone, and from it rose a different white, ice crystals climbing the walls like a backwards spring. He followed the moonlit trail with his eyes, up the stone arching into the ceiling, where the frost dripped down again, into an icicle as long and lethally sharp as a sword, suspended a yard directly above Hakkai's heart.

"What do you want?" Gojyo asked again, and now he failed to hide the desperation.

"Kill her." Sanzo's voice was a hoarse rasp as he picked himself off the floor, pain evident in every motion. "She's supposed to be dead. All her kind, centuries ago. Those the humans didn't finish off, the youkai did."

"But..." Goku stared down at the slit eyes, the pointed ears. "Isn't she a youkai?"

"Yes." She laughed again, and the sound ached like the cold. "One of the eldest breeds, but those younger, who wished peace with each other, with humans--they found us detrimental. Kill me, boy; enough of my kin died at the hands of those who shared our nature." She smiled wider. "Kill me, and you win, with that one," her eyes flicked back to Hakkai and the death hanging over him, "the only loss."

"Kill her," Sanzo commanded, so harshly it was a snarl, but Goku glanced at the icicle, at Hakkai, lying there unmoving, unaware. Slowly he stood and backed away from the demoness. She rose, gracefully, delicate face turning to follow his line of sight, and then her eyes narrowed slightly.

With a crackle, the icicle broke, plummeting down. Gojyo, who out of Goku's sight had sidled close, sprang forward, tackling Hakkai and rolling them both out of the ice blade's deadly path. The knifelike tip grazed his cheek, drawing blood to match his hair, and then it smashed to fragments against the stone, Gojyo hunching over Hakkai's body to shield him from the flying crystal.

"Bakazaru!" Sanzo had never sounded so angry, as far as Goku could remember. "That was our chance--" His fury was choked off in a gasp of pain as she put her foot on his splinted leg and bore down on it. When he slumped this time, Goku knew the monk's blackout wasn't feigned.

Before he could lunge for her, she raised her hand to her mouth, drew it away as if blowing a kiss. Goku tried to move, only to find his feet fused to the ground. He looked down to see a web of ice, silvery in the moonlight, biting into the stone and curling up his legs, locking him in place. "What the--!"

As the crystals climbed higher, he bent, smashed his fist against the ice encasing him. Some rained down, but there was more spreading, over his fist and up his arm, and then he felt the freeze against his neck, his chin, burning his lips.

"Goku!" Gojyo hollered, leaving Hakkai huddled against the wall to rush to his side. Not as dumb as he looked, the half-youkai stopped before trying to break the ice cocoon with his hands or boots, and risk getting trapped as well. Instead he glared at the white-haired demoness. "Why don't you just get it over with? What the hell are you after?"

Just as Goku felt the frost leech through his closed mouth and sear his tongue, it melted away, retreated from his skin until only his legs were still imprisoned. She was watching them, and with the moonlight on her face, he could see clear amusement in her gaze. Enjoyment, but not the insanity of the youkai lost to the Minus Wave. She did this of her own volition.

"I brought the blizzard against you, as I greet anyone who breaches my new kingdom, but when you were neither conquered nor driven back, I looked at you more closely," she said with lazy confidence. "Most of the youkai now are no better than mindless beasts, and while that meant I dared emerge from hiding--since none of them care to stop me now--they're boring in their brute madness. But you...you are special.

"I made to divide you, but finally I realized you're more vulnerable like this. Apart, you'd each fight me until the end; together, you are manipulated. Weak. But still dangerous enough to entertain me, and you have. For that, and the pleasure of knowing a few of our kind still have reason--I'll bargain your freedom. I'll let you cross the pass and leave these mountains. You'll be able to help him, I'm sure," and she angled her chin at Hakkai.

"So what would be the bargain?" Gojyo demanded.

"Just two conditions. The first, that once you leave here you don't return, nor tell anyone what you saw. It would be a shame to have to bring such an ancient mountain down on top of an avenging army."

"And the other?"

Pale lips drew back from gleaming teeth. "I keep the human."

"Sanzo?!"

"Don't tell me you've heard that old eat-a-Sanzo-for-immortality saw, too," groaned Gojyo.

She laughed. "Eat him? Hardly. My ice is my eternity, and I would share it with him. His is a rare beauty, for a human thing. A bearing all of power and coldness, but such a fragile being, all the same. I would keep it for myself, preserved always, to admire and...enjoy." She trailed her fingers through his golden hair.

Gojyo looked at her, at Sanzo beneath her. Looked at Goku. Then, out of her line of sight, he winked at Goku, before he turned back to her with a fierce grin and said, "Okay. Let's deal."

to be continued...

Ahh, ff.net is eating my reviews, not letting me see the newest ones! Nasty ff.net! Give them backs to me! My preciouses...

Short chapter, but I couldn't keep y'all on a cliffhanger forever, could I? Hope you enjoyed...dang action sequences! I like writing a serious Goku, K.Firefly; he does have a mature side, even if you don't see it often. And Umi-chan, yep, my favorite part of Saiyuki is undeniably the relationship between the four boys. Even if they don't want to admit that anything's there. ^_^