Impossibility 6
Extended scenes in italics are flashbacks.
Rated R for graphic violence.
Hakkai was a trifle surprised when the youkai leapt down from the treetops to land right before him. "A new species of tree climbing youkai?"
"The sutra," the youkai growled, ignoring the jibe.
"Oh no no," Hakkai said cheerfully. "Payment on delivery only. Where's Sanzo?"
The youkai shifted, affording him a view of the clearing beyond. The priest was on the ground, evidently unconscious. Blood was splashed across his robes and traced a trickle down the side of his face. But he was alive. Not unharmed, but alive.
"Ah," Hakkai said quietly, noticing movement out of the corner of his eye. There was something strange about this forest; either that or it was the youryoku, but something kept trying to drag him back into the shadows of yesteryear.
"The sutra," the youkai repeated.
"Hm. Yes," Hakkai replied. He took a step forward...
...he stepped through the large golden doors, and straight into a dungeon. "Oh," he blinked, somewhat disappointed. He'd expected to see the gods before he died, but perhaps the gods did not appear to mortal eyes after all.
He took another step before he noticed that Sanzo had not followed him. A glance backwards revealed no Sanzo, in fact, it revealed no doorway, just the blackness of a stairwell winding up behind him. He turned back, and realized with a start that this dungeon was familiar. Too familiar.
"So this is what hell is," he mused. Reliving this scene over and over, seeing her die again and again before his eyes, until the far reaches of eternity. He stared blankly at the gray walls beyond, his fists tightening.
The hilt of a knife dug into his right hand. He looked down, seeing the blade that he'd carried into the castle, and an idea began to grow. This ... was the blade that Kanan had taken; the blade that she would secretly sneak from its sheath to end her life with.
But, he wondered. But if not for this knife...
He hefted it in his hand, fully intending to fling it away into the darkness.
That was when the youkai attacked.
That was when the youkai attacked.
Hakkai whirled smoothly, letting the clumsy attack fly past. He took two steps towards Sanzo, noting the youkai guards.
He fired before they had a chance to kill their captive, eliminating one then the other in rapid succession. His elbow slammed into the gut of the third, sending him staggering backwards, as Hakkai gathered enough ki to vaporise him. Then he was standing over Sanzo as the rest of the youkai swarmed towards him.
"My, just one of me against all of you," he smiled genteelly. Just one of me against a thousand of you. He looked around at the circle as he gathered his ki, ready to concentrate it into a weapon as soon as the first youkai made his move.
But the youkai weren't striking. They stood, staring at him with narrow eyes. Tightening the circle, yes, but not attacking as yet. Afraid, perhaps, or waiting for something.
Hakkai's eyes sweeped across the clearing against, and locked gazes with one very familiar enemy.
"Ah, Zakuro. Sanzo thought it might be you."
Zakuro stared back at him, unspeaking. Then very slowly, he blinked his eyes once.
He dispatched them with minimal difficulties, retreating into the stairwell to force them to come at him one by one. Then he'd simply cut them down. Stepping over their corpses, he moved cautiously into the dungeon.
He couldn't rid himself of the knife yet. Not until he'd gotten her out of here. Somehow, somehow he'd talk to her. Persuade her. Show her that there was a life worth--
--that was when he saw himself.
He was stumbling through the dungeon, lost and blood splattered. Stumbling towards Kanan's cell, the blade still tucked in his belt.
He lunged forward, intent on stopping his other self, when a step behind him made him turn.
Hakkai surfaced from the memory like a drowning man, one hand grasping the side of his head. He flung himself back, just in time to avoid being gutted. Zakuro learnt something from the last encounter, at least, he thought furiously. He could always read our memories, but he never thought to use them against us. Until now.
In the moment of introspection, he barely avoided the attack. Claws raked across his forearm before he landed punch to the youkai's jaw, shattering it. He concentrated, and several ki blasts later, he earned himself a breathing space.
He moved even before he really recognized the face. His blade came up, sweeping downwards towards the youkai's exposed face... only to crash into the other's katana as he parried swiftly.
Chin Isou. The name came belatedly, straggling into his memory. The one who...
...he glanced back briefly. The other ... that copy of him... was still staggering, slowly but surely towards Kanan's cell. He didn't have time. Chin Isou was speaking, his tone high and mocking. But he couldn't hear the words; couldn't hear anything besides the rush of rain and thunder. He disengaged and came in for a low side strike, closing the distance to deny his enemy the full efficiency of the longer katana.
There was a clash as Chin Isou parried again, and he grabbed the opportunity to lash out. His knee connected solidly with the youkai's gut, and his knife came up in same motion, plunging through the bottom of the ribcage into the heart.
He leapt back, abandoning the blade, as blood splattered onto his hands. He eyed the youkai for one second to make sure that he was dying, before turning back--
--and promptly collapsed on the floor as the transformation took place.
The flare of pain across his cheek snapped him back to reality once more. He couldn't fight when he was this distracted. And time was running out; Sanzo was probably dying as he dallied. But he couldn't find a clear way to get at Zakuro -- there was always another youkai in the way, always someone attacking from another direction. He had to find another way of breaking Zakuro's hold on his mind.
The answer came in a flash as another youkai came at him, screaming in crazed blood lust. Of course. Zakuro worked on the conscious mind, played on one's thoughts and memories. The mind showed a scene, believed it, trapped the viewer into a nightmare of Zakuro's creation, nevermind that it was merely an illusion.
But Zakuro could not work on an empty mind.
He smiled, very slightly. Then he reached for his limiters.
When he could see again, his other self was already kneeling by the cell. He lunged forward, claws already raised to strike--
--but this is myself-- something said, in that little part of his mind that still existed. --And if I kill myself...--
The claws came down in a spattering of blood.
It's over. She's safe now. Safe.
Then he turned to look at her.
The claws came down in a spattering of blood. The youkai stumbled, screaming voicelessly through a throat that wasn't there any more. Hakkai looked up slowly, regarding the blood that dripped off his hands. Blood mixed with rain water to trail away.
There was one more, he knew. There was one more he had to kill. He scanned the clearing slowly. There was a flash of movement to the side and he glanced that way--
--he turned to look at her and saw himself instead. Lank hair fell into his eyes, mask the start of the trail of leaf markings that wound down his hair to disappear into the collar of his shirt. It was a white shirt, hanging loosely out. The ends of the sleeves were tattered, torn away. Blood splashed across the length of the cloth, red and black.
He raised a hand, and his reflection mirrored it. Blood ran down the length of deadly claws.
Youkai blood. His blood.
He blinked, and he saw her face, saw shock and horror, saw fear and ... loathing. He blinked again and saw his reflection, saw the corners of his mouth curl up into a smile--
--and his gut wrenched in denial and hatred as his vision ran red.
Something was wrong. He'd closed his eyes. No, he'd been seeing something else. It was hard to think in this state, not with the smell of blood flooding his senses and making his clawed fingers twitch.
There was a corner of his mind still his own that screamed desperately at him to find the limiters again. He'd assumed wrongly; or something; either way he could not escape the ghosts of the past so simply and events were spiralling desperately out of control...
Kill it, the mind said. Kill that monster in front of you. Save your sister. His reflection regarded him with a lazy smile.
What use is a monster in this world? Even if this is not reality and Kanan is dead, does the monster not still exist? I should strike it down and end it now, go to the darkness whence I came, and inflict no more hurt on the world...
He clutched his head as the present clashed with the past until he could barely tell one from the other. There were voices in the back of his head, whispering, but he could not make out the words. The subtle touch of the Minus Wave, boiling like an angry sea in the distance.
He took a deep breath even as he clawed blindly in front of him. Someone screeched and there was the sound of running feet. Blood sprayed across his face, and he shuddered violently. His hand spasmed, itching to drive claws into flesh, to rend, kill, destroy.
Rend, kill, destroy. To dispatch the monster in front of him. There was no doubt in his mind: if he killed that other self, he would die too, but it would be fitting end. Cho Gonou was long dead, dead when Chin Isou had cut his stomach open and left him dying the floor of the dungeon. It would be so easy. He would be able to join Kanan, to turn his back on the sins laid at his feet, turn away and care never more for the world.
"No-- no," Hakkai gasped. His own claws raked down the side of his face, drawing blood. That way lies madness. Disaster. I am not -- not -- in the temple of the Sanbutshin.
'How do you do it?' Goku had asked.
Will power. Self control. But none of that more important than that very experience back in Chou An--
--He could see the jugular, outlined starkly against the pale skin. Nine major arteries leading to the brain, was it? And nine major veins. Crush the windpipe. Tear out the throat. It would be over so quickly. He narrowed his eyes and leapt forward.
His claws impacted solidly on flesh and ripped downwards. There was a vicious curse, but the voice wasn't his own. He forced himself to see beyond the miasma of red and the darkness clouding in around his vision, and saw...
White and gold.
Sanzo stood before him, his forearm shredded from wrist to elbow. He'd gone as pale as a ghost, but the amethyst eyes narrowed in pain still stared at him with the same force of old.
"You idiot. You thrice-blasted, pig-headed, idiot," Sanzo hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Justice," he replied calmly. "He who kills must be prepared to die in turn. That is the cycle of karma."
"And you think that you're the one to dish out..." his lip curled in a sneer "...justice?"
An interesting question; one that intrigued the philosopher in him and moved him to stay his hand. "If not myself, then who? This is evidently the will of the Gods-- to put my own incarnation before my eyes and bid me kill. What greater justice is there, that the one who kills should ultimately die by his own hand?"
"Your concept of justice is screwed up, to say the least," Sanzo said gravely. "No one bid you act, to kill all those youkai or yourself. No one determines actions that we chose of our own volition; not even the Gods. To put it in a way your addled brain can comprehend : Your 'will of the Gods' line is an excuse, plain and simple. And it's not even a good one."
They traded glares, and nothing existed in that time but the cold of infinity and the iron smell of blood.
"You could die. Run away." Sanzo said at last. "It wouldn't change anything."
"But living would change some things?"
Sanzo shrugged eloquently. "It all depends on what you do with your life. But it is not given to us to chose when to end it." A shadow of bitterness flashed across his face.
"Kanan did not see it that way."
"And what good did her death bring?" Sanzo's eyes never left his face as he held out a hand. Silvered objects glittered in his palm. "Either kill yourself or don't. Stop wasting my time."
But I want to die, he realized. What more is there to life? I have loved and lost and the sun may rise tomorrow, but I cannot see it; I cannot see beyond the darkness and the blood...
"Oh, for the gods' sake," Sanzo said sarcastically. "Since when did 'I want' ever matter?" He stepped closer, and raised his uninjured arm to Gonou's face. Let it hover there for a moment, so close that he could almost feel the warmth from his fingers. Then with a swift motion, Sanzo wiped away the blood on his cheek.
"Blood," Sanzo said, dusting his fingers off on his robe, "Can always be washed away." And he held out the limiters once more.
Hakkai raised a trembling hand to the blood trickling down his cheek. Blood... can always be washed away. He couldn't see Zakuro; although he knew with the certainty of madness that he'd struck and drawn blood. He could smell it. Could vaguely remember the look of shock and horror, then the twisted fury as Zakuro leapt away. He must have run. There was a trail of blood leading further into the forest. He could sense the youkai, fleeing with the speed of desperation.
He could follow, cut him down, and rid themselves of this enemy once and for all.
Do, a voice said in his head. Cut him down. Draw out his screams, watch the blood wash across your fingers.
Blood can always be washed away.
He took a step forward, peering at the trail. Somewhere, someplace, there was a task he'd embarked on, something that needed to be done, but the hunt was more important. The hunt, and the kill. He sniffed the air delicately.
There was movement behind. Hakkai spun instantly, instincts clamoring for the fight and the blood. Had there been an enemy he'd missed? Was there something more to kill?
His eyes, piercing the gloom, met white and gold.
Sanzo said nothing, one hand clutching a tree trunk for support, the other extended, palm upwards. Three limiters lay still in his hand. His arm never wavered, despite the almost unbearable agony that standing brought.
Seconds passed, and neither side moved.
"Don't make me do that bullshit all over again," Sanzo growled at last. His left leg was buckling first, threatening to give. "Stop wasting my time."
"Stop wasting my time." Sanzo glanced at the limiters in his palm. "And don't expect me to put them on for you. You're old enough to look after yourself."
He never understood why he'd done it that first time. It wasn't Sanzo's eloquence. It wasn't his own logic. It wasn't... it wasn't anything, except...
...it felt right.
I couldn't explain to you, Goku, because I don't know. It is a choice we make. To rule our own destinies, to choose our path, to deal with the consequences of our own actions. I cannot explain it to you because you were never given that choice; it was never given to you to remember what happened, five hundred years ago, it was never given to you to replace your limiters, it wasn't even given to you to choose to leave the mountain and follow Sanzo.
He reached for the limiters, in the past and present, and neatly clasped them to his left ear.
I chose... the harder road. Because it is not given to us to run from our sins, to ignore the sacrifices of others, to tear the world apart and give nothing back.
The last limiter slipped into place, and the world faded gratifyingly black.
Just for a little while, he promised himself. Just a little while.
***
Goku sprawled backwards, skidding across the wet cobbles. Hakuryuu shrilled, distressed, darting out of the way of an axe strike. He hovered by Goku's shoulder, staring nervously at the approaching youkai.
It wasn't that the youkai were strong, or quick, or anything like that, Goku reflected. It was just that the footing was so treacherous, and he had Gojyo to look after, which meant that he couldn't make full use of his superior speed and reflexes.
"Kyuu," Hakuryuu said, and the urgency was clear in his voice.
"Hakuryuu... you go look for Hakkai and Sanzo," Goku told him. "I'll look after Gojyo. I think I can find shelter, even if I can't get him back to the inn."
That was all the dragon needed, and with a flash of white wings, he set off at full speed. Goku turned to face the oncomers. "Nothing I can't handle," he said loudly.
"Is that so?" a voice said from behind. Goku spun, not nearly fast enough, and met an oncoming club head on. He stumbled backwards and fell, stunned. The youkai he hadn't seen advanced, lifting the heavy club to strike the killing blow.
"Shit," Goku breathed. Numb fingers refused to curl around Nyoibou, and he couldn't even feel his legs. Scratch that, he could barely see -- black spots were dotting his vision and there was blood in his eyes. "Shit."
He saw the club descending, a black shadow against the darker sky. Despite his best efforts to stare death in the face, he blinked.
He missed the stone that sailed out of the dark. But he heard the thud as it hit the club, deflecting the blow. His eyes were open in that second, sensation rushing back to his body. Ignoring the exploding pain in his skull, he grabbed Nyoibou and leapt to his feet. The staff switch to a flail with a single thought, and he whirled, striking out at the attackers who'd crowded round. There was the crunch of bone as he caught one across the ribs, a yelp of pain as the flail hit a shoulder, and the third youkai crumbled as he nailed it neatly across the temple.
"Nothing you can't handle, eh?" a familiar voice called out.
"Yeah," Goku called back. "If only I didn't have to babysit the kappa as well!" He rammed his elbow solidly into a youkai's gut, whirling Nyoibou behind him to dissuade further attacks. The youkai scattered. With a leap, Goku fell on the slowest, bringing his staff downwards in an overarm stroke that split the youkai's skull. He dived beneath the swipe of a hastily aimed club, Nyoibou impacting solidly on the youkai's torso with enough force to shatter ribs and drive them deep into the lungs. As the youkai fell, screaming, Goku turned to face the remaining two.
"So which of you is going to be first?" he called out.
The two youkai exchanged glances, then turned tail and fled.
Goku waited until they'd vanished, before collapsing in an exhausted heap. His stomach was churning with nausea, and he was sure that he was going to have a splitting headache for days. In fact, it seemed like a wonderful idea just to go to sleep now...
He flopped backwards, ignoring the rain that had started up again. Hakuryuu would find Hakkai. Gojyo was probably okay, if he was awake. Hakkai would look after Sanzo. He didn't care any more. He was going to sleep, and no one was going to stop him.
***
Hakkai came awake as the first raindrops splashed onto his face. He blinked, momentarily disoriented. Rain, wind, leaves... the sky was still not bright, although dawn couldn't be very far away--
--panic hit him with the force of a sledgehammer.
He sat up abruptly, dislodging the arm that was around his shoulders. As it fell limply to the ground, he turned and stared in horror.
It was Sanzo, who'd obviously tried to move them both. There was a trail of mud and disturbed foliage where he'd evidently crawled from the clearing, dragging Hakkai with him. Trying to do the impossible, but that was Sanzo for you...
Gently, Hakkai rolled the priest over onto his back, staring in concern at the reopened wounds. Sanzo wasn't just pale; he was going a sickly shade of gray. There was a trickle of blood down his chin, still fresh, and as Hakkai moved him, a fresh bout of coughs wracked his frame.
I... why... the rain was starting up in earnest again, and they were still in the middle of forest. Goku and Gojyo hadn't put in an appearance; goodness knows where they were. Or if they were even--
--Hakkai pushed those thoughts from his mind. I trust you to look after yourselves, he thought vehemently. There was nothing he could do for them know. But there was someone whose life did hang in his hands right now.
And in my absurd stupidity, I fell asleep and nearly let him die. If he isn't dead yet, he's going to be... Hakkai laid a hand against Sanzo's forehead and frowned in alarm. He wasn't even feverish any more; between the rain and bloodloss, it was miracle he had any body heat left.
I don't have the time to get him back to the inn, Hakkai thought desperately. I have to do what I can here, and hope for the best...
He'd have to start with the open wounds first. Concentrating, he called on his ki reserves and bent over his patient. He needs more energy. Just more energy; that's all I can do for him.
That was the last coherent thought he had before he plunged into the glow of a healing trance.
*
It was almost dawn before Hakuryuu found the clearing. Sensing his master's presence, he winged downwards. Both were rain soaked, blood splattered... and unconscious. Concerned, he tugged at Hakkai's sleeve, but the other failed to respond. When chirps, tugging and even head butting failed to elicit Hakkai's attention, Hakuryuu took a deep breath and puffed a small fireball in his face.
Hakkai's eyes flickered open, and the smallest of smiles lighted his face. "Hakuryuu, thank goodness. Where are the others?"
Hakuryuu chirped in a reassuring manner, and nudged Hakkai's arm.
"I'm afraid I can't move just yet," Hakkai murmured. "I must have overdone it a bit." Green eyes drifted shut on this pronouncement. Hakuryuu's frantic efforts to wake him a second time did not succeed. With a cry of despair, the dragon darted off to look for help.
* * * * *
*waves hand airily*. That chapter took forever and half to write, had to be rewritten at least twice (no thanks to Microsoft Word crashing and losing data), and still didn't come out well. And the guys just kept blacking out on me. Hang it all. *stalks off to the recovery room to brew up enough coffee to wake the dead*
(No outtakes; this chapter is already 3,900+ words long!)
This story is a beast, I tell you. A beast. It was supposed to be 1,000 words long in the beginning!
*looks hopefully at the review button* I know it's not the best thing I've ever written, but... (But that gives you an excuse to comment critically, does it not? ^_^)