/Every night in my dreams I see you, I feel you,
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance and spaces between us
You have come to show you go on./
For the first time in a hundred years, the cycle had been broken.
She had been coming once a week for that long, long time, and this was the first time something different had happened. Normally, every time she came, the small form of the boy, with its pointed ears and blood hungry eyes, would throw it's self at her. Even though it knew it was chained, and bore the bloody marks that taught it so, the creature never stopped.
It was hard to believe that snarling body had once been a sweet and loving child. He had loved, and been loved in turn. He had accomplished the impossible and made her nephew live again.
Then, after Konzen's death, the boy named Goku retreated. He had been very similar to Nataku, but at least he still moved. If that had been all that happened to the child, or to Heaven itself, she would have been saddened, but unwilling to shake him from his self-imposed mental retreat.
Then Tenpo and Kenren, the only two beings that Goku still responded to, were also killed.
And something snapped in the boy.
Seiten Taisei Son Goku was born.
For almost two years, a single itan held Heaven in fear. That sweet and innocent child she had given into Konzen's care declared war on the home of the gods themselves. Only a few places were held sacred, places he would not fight. Those were the places that he had the best memories.
Finally, though, the boy had been captured. His punishment had been swift and severe. To be trapped in a cave until the one person who could control him was reborn. Alone and ignored, he would have to wait until Konzen had come once again to the mortal world.
He was still mad. The diadem that held his powers in check broke almost as soon as he woke from the sleep of having a new one placed.
This time, though..
This time a sane creature slept on the floor of the cave. The faintest of light entered the place, and glinted off what could only be gold.
Goku still wore his diadem.
///
He had woken up. Only this time something was different.
The pain that he had lived with for so long was still there, but it seemed muted, dulled somehow. He still hurt. It would always hurt, but he could breathe once again.
He was tired. Even having just woken up, he was so full of exhaustion that he did not feel as if he could really move. Distantly, he remembered a time from long ago. The sun had shone down on him, filling him with warmth. It had shone on a field of purple flowers. They reminded him of someone special.
As he leaned down to pick one, a voice came to him.
~sleep~
Gold eyes, once again full of innocence, looked around, confused.
~sleep. wake up when I come for you. sleep and heal.~
He knew that he was still in his cave, on a cool floor and hidden from the light. But he also wasn't. He was curled up, safe and protected in a pair of white-gloved arms. Arms that would hold him safe.
Goku fell asleep to the sound of a heartbeat.
/Near, far, wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
Something was tugging at him.
For the first time in too long to count, the still form moved. Golden eyes opened and slowly began to look around.
The tug happened again.
Stiff from not having shifted in ages, Goku sat up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He couldn't remember was his dream was about, but it had been a good dream. A long dream, as well. He could feel in his bones, through the flesh his mother had given him, that is had been hundreds of years since he had laid down to rest. The earth told him that, as she whispered to him that change was coming. His mother could be cruel, but she loved all of her children.
~hello~
The voice again. The one who had protected him. This time faint, but real. Young. Very young.
"He-llo," rasped Goku, voice rusty from lack of use. Did this mean he would be free soon?
~soon. too impatient. wait. am new here~
The voice faded until it was just a tiny whisper, and Goku settled back.
He could wait. He had done it for many years, now.
///
Kanzeon watched with interest as her reborn nephew moved up the mountain. Genjo Sanzo was following a thread that had formed long ago. He could not see it, but he could feel it tug at him. All he knew was that he was following the voice that had been annoying him for the last year. One he wanted to shut up.
Did he realize that he had heard that voice before, she wondered? When he had first come to the mortal world, he had reassured his charge that someone would be coming. Now, thirteen years later, that promise was coming into reality.
As he drew closer, both of the boys began to fidget. To the goddess's power sensitive eyes, she could see the flaring energy around them. Kanzeon could the spells surrounding the cave either shredding or building towards completion. It triggered a response in Goku, who could feel the tension. He moved from where he had sat to mourn the bird, and focused his attention on the path that nobody seemed to climb.
Around Sanzo, the Maten Sutra also began to act up. Its power reached out, sensing something similar nearby. Sanzo also began to focus on the things around them.
It was very irritating at how slowly the reborn god walked. Kanzeon was of the very serious opinion that he was doing it just to pick at her. Even if he was human now, Konzen/Sanzo had been one of the royal blood, and not even death could keep him from that entire heritage. It would be just like him, aware or not, to find the thing that would irritate her the most and do it. If he could have just turned and walked away, she was sure that he would have.
But the call of Goku outweighed everything else. If Sanzo could have ignored it, he would have. But that thread that bind them had not survived five hundred years because it was weak.
The flares were getting stronger as Sanzo drew closer to the cave-prison. The edges of the auras of power were intermingling. For a few moments, the pair stared at each other. Then her nephew had said something, Goku had replied, and then the hand was extended.
And it was taken.
Power exploded around the pair. For a moment, Kanzeon was blinded by the sheer brilliance of it. As her vision returned, she saw that everything had changed.
Instead of being connected by a single thread, the pair, including the now free Goku, seemed enveloped by a bright light. But it wasn't a solid light. Instead, she could see that it was actually countless threads, binding the pair tightly. It was as if every connection that the god Konzen had created with the itan Goku was recreated there. And even as she watch the pair start off down the trail, Kanzeon could see more threads forming and connecting.
The goddess had never seen anything like that before. From the looks of it, nothing would separate these two. Not even death.
How interesting.
/Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime,
And never let go till we're gone.
Love was when I loved you, one true time I hold to.
In my life we'll always go on./
This was all wrong.
Goku sat beside the bed, eyes on the unconscious body that laid in it. This part wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to beat Gyumaoh, and then all head back home. Maybe hang out with Kougaiji and his friends for a while, but everyone was supposed to be happy.
Not this.
Gojyo was hurt. Bad. Something had been damaged in his head, and Hakkai was afraid that his friend and lover wasn't going to make it. At his side was Yaone, who had suffered her own loss. Dokugakuji, Gojyo's older brother, was dead. Lirin was still too skittish to be approached without a lot of warning, and Kougaiji..
Kougaiji had taken the moment to gently hand Sanzo over, and then had vanished. No one had seen where he had gone.
That had been almost a week ago. Sanzo had woken for a small time, but it seemed as if he was made of glass. Goku would have been too afraid to touch him if it hadn't been for the long string of curses thrown at him. It wasn't the cursing that let him curl next to Sanzo for the few days he was conscious. It was what was in his eyes.
Sanzo was angry. He was also afraid.
It was that fear, which Goku saw so rarely (if ever) that let Goku go to Sanzo. It let him play the one who gave comfort for once, instead of the other way around.
He still remembered the smoky taste of Sanzo, the feel of his skin. The way that the violet eyes rolled up as Goku had nuzzled his way down Sanzo's body, or the way that they seemed to glow as Sanzo drew him down for a kiss.
What they did that night would have gotten Goku yelled at any other time by Hakkai. One should never interrupt a patient's rest like that. But there was no yelling. Not this time. Because they all knew what was happening.
Sanzo was dying.
He had helped save the world, to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and he was going to die because of it. The power of the gods could not be contained in a frail mortal body, and it was killing the person Goku loved.
Yesterday, Sanzo had not woken up. He still was alive, but the thing that made him the Sanzo that Goku loved was gone.
Now, even as he watched, Goku could see that the shallow movements of Sanzo's chest were growing even smaller. He held his breath with every pause in Sanzo's breathing, torn between willing the next one to come, and wanting it all over with.
The next pause came, and Goku held his breath. He released it slowly as Sanzo drew in another tiny breath.
Where were the gods now? Where was that bitch now that they needed her? Why couldn't they save Sanzo, as he had saved them in the past? If it wasn't for him, they would have been pushed out of existence by Homura's perfect world. And they repay him by letting him die.
Another pause. Goku bit his lip as this one lasted longer than the others. He refused to breathe until at last his lungs burned too much for him to hold it any longer. Then he held it some more, as his fingers reached out on their own violation to check the heartbeat.
The air escaped as a howl.
Without even realizing it, he ran. Out past startled people, he ran, tears blurring his sight. Nothing mattered by the running. Nothing but escaping the one thing he could not escape.
Sanzo was dead.
Goku ran until his lungs and legs and head hurt as much as his heart. Then he dropped.
He was in a forest. The soft cushion of decaying leaves, and the scent of fresh earth told him that he was in the woods that surrounded the castle in India. There, out under the moon that had shone down on him, Goku sobbed his grief out to his mother.
For the first time in a long time, his mother responded. She took his tears, and waves of soothing love washed over him. The earth was not alive as many thought of thing being alive, but she had birthed Goku. To him, she was a thing that lived like any other.
Except the one he most wanted to live.
And the earth spoke to him. It whispered that the one he loved was still alive, in a way. That the result of that resting in him, as he had rested in her.
Exhausted, and too grief stricken to understand what he was being told, Goku slid into the deep sleep that only being totally worn out could bring. And his mother made sure that he remained undisturbed. Both by potential enemies and by his friends.
Goku slept once more.
///
It was time.
He had to return to the others. It had been months since he had seen any of them. If it hadn't been for what was happening to him, he would have returned sooner. But he had needed time. Time to process, time to deal. His mother had been very helpful. She told him many things. What to expect, what to eat. It was the most chatty she had been since he had woken up.
But it was time to return home. He was not ashamed by what was happening, but it was something to be shared. It could bring healing to them, as it had to him. His mother had given him directions, had told him where she had felt his friends go. All it took was the single step to start the journey.
Goku started for his home, hand resting briefly on a slightly rounded belly.
/Near, far, wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
His baby. His and Sanzo's son.
Eyes wide, Goku stared at the bundle that lay in his arms. It started back; eyes still the milk-blue of a newborn. But already he could see that they were going to shade to a darker color. Most likely purple. Like his father.
"What are you going to name him?" Hakkai asked as he cleaned Goku's stitches.
Goku had the perfect name. It had been his secret from the moment he had known he was pregnant, and he had refused to tell anyone. Not matter how good the treats they had tried to bribe him with. He had simply ate the treats, then pleaded for more.
The baby had brought them back. Even Lirin had returned from her search as soon as she had gotten the message. She would be back out again in a few weeks, even though the last search had cost her eye. Goku wondered how long she would search for Kougaiji, but he put it out of his mind.
Pressing a kiss to the white-blond hair that grew thick on the baby's head, Goku smiled.
"His name is Koumyou. Son Koumyou."
Hakkai smiled. He knew the story behind the name as well, if not better, than Goku.
"Koumyou. Sanzo would have loved it."
/You're here, there's nothing to fear,
And I know that my heart will go on.
We'll stay forever this way.
You are safe in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
Something was coming. Something big. He could hear it on the edge of his mind. A voice called. One that sounded familiar. He had caught some of the others tilting their heads as if it catch it, even Koumyou. It had been building, but now he could take no more. He would follow where the voice called him.
Goku headed for the stairs. He felt more than saw Lirin moving a second later. As he turned to enter his room, he saw her go into hers.
It looked as if more than one of them would be going on this adventure.
As he grabbed a well-worn bag, Goku paused. On the table next to the bed was a heavy paper fan.
"Sanzo," whispered the demon. "I miss you. You live on, still, though. Our hearts still live on in our son. I don't want him to go on this, but I know he will. He's too much of both of us not to."
Touching the fan, Goku paused. His eyes closed, and he listened. His mother spoke to him once more. He nodded, and then his eyes opened.
With a faint smile, Goku packed his bag, then laid the fan carefully on top.
He had the feeling it might come in handy.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance and spaces between us
You have come to show you go on./
For the first time in a hundred years, the cycle had been broken.
She had been coming once a week for that long, long time, and this was the first time something different had happened. Normally, every time she came, the small form of the boy, with its pointed ears and blood hungry eyes, would throw it's self at her. Even though it knew it was chained, and bore the bloody marks that taught it so, the creature never stopped.
It was hard to believe that snarling body had once been a sweet and loving child. He had loved, and been loved in turn. He had accomplished the impossible and made her nephew live again.
Then, after Konzen's death, the boy named Goku retreated. He had been very similar to Nataku, but at least he still moved. If that had been all that happened to the child, or to Heaven itself, she would have been saddened, but unwilling to shake him from his self-imposed mental retreat.
Then Tenpo and Kenren, the only two beings that Goku still responded to, were also killed.
And something snapped in the boy.
Seiten Taisei Son Goku was born.
For almost two years, a single itan held Heaven in fear. That sweet and innocent child she had given into Konzen's care declared war on the home of the gods themselves. Only a few places were held sacred, places he would not fight. Those were the places that he had the best memories.
Finally, though, the boy had been captured. His punishment had been swift and severe. To be trapped in a cave until the one person who could control him was reborn. Alone and ignored, he would have to wait until Konzen had come once again to the mortal world.
He was still mad. The diadem that held his powers in check broke almost as soon as he woke from the sleep of having a new one placed.
This time, though..
This time a sane creature slept on the floor of the cave. The faintest of light entered the place, and glinted off what could only be gold.
Goku still wore his diadem.
///
He had woken up. Only this time something was different.
The pain that he had lived with for so long was still there, but it seemed muted, dulled somehow. He still hurt. It would always hurt, but he could breathe once again.
He was tired. Even having just woken up, he was so full of exhaustion that he did not feel as if he could really move. Distantly, he remembered a time from long ago. The sun had shone down on him, filling him with warmth. It had shone on a field of purple flowers. They reminded him of someone special.
As he leaned down to pick one, a voice came to him.
~sleep~
Gold eyes, once again full of innocence, looked around, confused.
~sleep. wake up when I come for you. sleep and heal.~
He knew that he was still in his cave, on a cool floor and hidden from the light. But he also wasn't. He was curled up, safe and protected in a pair of white-gloved arms. Arms that would hold him safe.
Goku fell asleep to the sound of a heartbeat.
/Near, far, wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
Something was tugging at him.
For the first time in too long to count, the still form moved. Golden eyes opened and slowly began to look around.
The tug happened again.
Stiff from not having shifted in ages, Goku sat up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He couldn't remember was his dream was about, but it had been a good dream. A long dream, as well. He could feel in his bones, through the flesh his mother had given him, that is had been hundreds of years since he had laid down to rest. The earth told him that, as she whispered to him that change was coming. His mother could be cruel, but she loved all of her children.
~hello~
The voice again. The one who had protected him. This time faint, but real. Young. Very young.
"He-llo," rasped Goku, voice rusty from lack of use. Did this mean he would be free soon?
~soon. too impatient. wait. am new here~
The voice faded until it was just a tiny whisper, and Goku settled back.
He could wait. He had done it for many years, now.
///
Kanzeon watched with interest as her reborn nephew moved up the mountain. Genjo Sanzo was following a thread that had formed long ago. He could not see it, but he could feel it tug at him. All he knew was that he was following the voice that had been annoying him for the last year. One he wanted to shut up.
Did he realize that he had heard that voice before, she wondered? When he had first come to the mortal world, he had reassured his charge that someone would be coming. Now, thirteen years later, that promise was coming into reality.
As he drew closer, both of the boys began to fidget. To the goddess's power sensitive eyes, she could see the flaring energy around them. Kanzeon could the spells surrounding the cave either shredding or building towards completion. It triggered a response in Goku, who could feel the tension. He moved from where he had sat to mourn the bird, and focused his attention on the path that nobody seemed to climb.
Around Sanzo, the Maten Sutra also began to act up. Its power reached out, sensing something similar nearby. Sanzo also began to focus on the things around them.
It was very irritating at how slowly the reborn god walked. Kanzeon was of the very serious opinion that he was doing it just to pick at her. Even if he was human now, Konzen/Sanzo had been one of the royal blood, and not even death could keep him from that entire heritage. It would be just like him, aware or not, to find the thing that would irritate her the most and do it. If he could have just turned and walked away, she was sure that he would have.
But the call of Goku outweighed everything else. If Sanzo could have ignored it, he would have. But that thread that bind them had not survived five hundred years because it was weak.
The flares were getting stronger as Sanzo drew closer to the cave-prison. The edges of the auras of power were intermingling. For a few moments, the pair stared at each other. Then her nephew had said something, Goku had replied, and then the hand was extended.
And it was taken.
Power exploded around the pair. For a moment, Kanzeon was blinded by the sheer brilliance of it. As her vision returned, she saw that everything had changed.
Instead of being connected by a single thread, the pair, including the now free Goku, seemed enveloped by a bright light. But it wasn't a solid light. Instead, she could see that it was actually countless threads, binding the pair tightly. It was as if every connection that the god Konzen had created with the itan Goku was recreated there. And even as she watch the pair start off down the trail, Kanzeon could see more threads forming and connecting.
The goddess had never seen anything like that before. From the looks of it, nothing would separate these two. Not even death.
How interesting.
/Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime,
And never let go till we're gone.
Love was when I loved you, one true time I hold to.
In my life we'll always go on./
This was all wrong.
Goku sat beside the bed, eyes on the unconscious body that laid in it. This part wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to beat Gyumaoh, and then all head back home. Maybe hang out with Kougaiji and his friends for a while, but everyone was supposed to be happy.
Not this.
Gojyo was hurt. Bad. Something had been damaged in his head, and Hakkai was afraid that his friend and lover wasn't going to make it. At his side was Yaone, who had suffered her own loss. Dokugakuji, Gojyo's older brother, was dead. Lirin was still too skittish to be approached without a lot of warning, and Kougaiji..
Kougaiji had taken the moment to gently hand Sanzo over, and then had vanished. No one had seen where he had gone.
That had been almost a week ago. Sanzo had woken for a small time, but it seemed as if he was made of glass. Goku would have been too afraid to touch him if it hadn't been for the long string of curses thrown at him. It wasn't the cursing that let him curl next to Sanzo for the few days he was conscious. It was what was in his eyes.
Sanzo was angry. He was also afraid.
It was that fear, which Goku saw so rarely (if ever) that let Goku go to Sanzo. It let him play the one who gave comfort for once, instead of the other way around.
He still remembered the smoky taste of Sanzo, the feel of his skin. The way that the violet eyes rolled up as Goku had nuzzled his way down Sanzo's body, or the way that they seemed to glow as Sanzo drew him down for a kiss.
What they did that night would have gotten Goku yelled at any other time by Hakkai. One should never interrupt a patient's rest like that. But there was no yelling. Not this time. Because they all knew what was happening.
Sanzo was dying.
He had helped save the world, to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and he was going to die because of it. The power of the gods could not be contained in a frail mortal body, and it was killing the person Goku loved.
Yesterday, Sanzo had not woken up. He still was alive, but the thing that made him the Sanzo that Goku loved was gone.
Now, even as he watched, Goku could see that the shallow movements of Sanzo's chest were growing even smaller. He held his breath with every pause in Sanzo's breathing, torn between willing the next one to come, and wanting it all over with.
The next pause came, and Goku held his breath. He released it slowly as Sanzo drew in another tiny breath.
Where were the gods now? Where was that bitch now that they needed her? Why couldn't they save Sanzo, as he had saved them in the past? If it wasn't for him, they would have been pushed out of existence by Homura's perfect world. And they repay him by letting him die.
Another pause. Goku bit his lip as this one lasted longer than the others. He refused to breathe until at last his lungs burned too much for him to hold it any longer. Then he held it some more, as his fingers reached out on their own violation to check the heartbeat.
The air escaped as a howl.
Without even realizing it, he ran. Out past startled people, he ran, tears blurring his sight. Nothing mattered by the running. Nothing but escaping the one thing he could not escape.
Sanzo was dead.
Goku ran until his lungs and legs and head hurt as much as his heart. Then he dropped.
He was in a forest. The soft cushion of decaying leaves, and the scent of fresh earth told him that he was in the woods that surrounded the castle in India. There, out under the moon that had shone down on him, Goku sobbed his grief out to his mother.
For the first time in a long time, his mother responded. She took his tears, and waves of soothing love washed over him. The earth was not alive as many thought of thing being alive, but she had birthed Goku. To him, she was a thing that lived like any other.
Except the one he most wanted to live.
And the earth spoke to him. It whispered that the one he loved was still alive, in a way. That the result of that resting in him, as he had rested in her.
Exhausted, and too grief stricken to understand what he was being told, Goku slid into the deep sleep that only being totally worn out could bring. And his mother made sure that he remained undisturbed. Both by potential enemies and by his friends.
Goku slept once more.
///
It was time.
He had to return to the others. It had been months since he had seen any of them. If it hadn't been for what was happening to him, he would have returned sooner. But he had needed time. Time to process, time to deal. His mother had been very helpful. She told him many things. What to expect, what to eat. It was the most chatty she had been since he had woken up.
But it was time to return home. He was not ashamed by what was happening, but it was something to be shared. It could bring healing to them, as it had to him. His mother had given him directions, had told him where she had felt his friends go. All it took was the single step to start the journey.
Goku started for his home, hand resting briefly on a slightly rounded belly.
/Near, far, wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
His baby. His and Sanzo's son.
Eyes wide, Goku stared at the bundle that lay in his arms. It started back; eyes still the milk-blue of a newborn. But already he could see that they were going to shade to a darker color. Most likely purple. Like his father.
"What are you going to name him?" Hakkai asked as he cleaned Goku's stitches.
Goku had the perfect name. It had been his secret from the moment he had known he was pregnant, and he had refused to tell anyone. Not matter how good the treats they had tried to bribe him with. He had simply ate the treats, then pleaded for more.
The baby had brought them back. Even Lirin had returned from her search as soon as she had gotten the message. She would be back out again in a few weeks, even though the last search had cost her eye. Goku wondered how long she would search for Kougaiji, but he put it out of his mind.
Pressing a kiss to the white-blond hair that grew thick on the baby's head, Goku smiled.
"His name is Koumyou. Son Koumyou."
Hakkai smiled. He knew the story behind the name as well, if not better, than Goku.
"Koumyou. Sanzo would have loved it."
/You're here, there's nothing to fear,
And I know that my heart will go on.
We'll stay forever this way.
You are safe in my heart,
And my heart will go on and on./
Something was coming. Something big. He could hear it on the edge of his mind. A voice called. One that sounded familiar. He had caught some of the others tilting their heads as if it catch it, even Koumyou. It had been building, but now he could take no more. He would follow where the voice called him.
Goku headed for the stairs. He felt more than saw Lirin moving a second later. As he turned to enter his room, he saw her go into hers.
It looked as if more than one of them would be going on this adventure.
As he grabbed a well-worn bag, Goku paused. On the table next to the bed was a heavy paper fan.
"Sanzo," whispered the demon. "I miss you. You live on, still, though. Our hearts still live on in our son. I don't want him to go on this, but I know he will. He's too much of both of us not to."
Touching the fan, Goku paused. His eyes closed, and he listened. His mother spoke to him once more. He nodded, and then his eyes opened.
With a faint smile, Goku packed his bag, then laid the fan carefully on top.
He had the feeling it might come in handy.