Disclaimer: Please. If we owned Saiyuki, Kougaiji would be my slave. And I don't mean the domestic kind. (Kudou: For God's sake, need I remind you that I'm innocent?!)

A/N: We apologize for the incredibly long time taken to post this chapter. Our exams are over (thank God) and right now we're going to focus on finishing this ficcie because we're such nice authors and don't want our readers to die of anticipation On a side note, Solarwind has been selected for national service and will be gone for 3 months. We miss her lots, but this fic will go on, yesiree.

Warnings: OOC-ness, a pathetic excuse for a plotline, hazardous pairings and horrible, gaping plot holes. What's not to love, eh?

Chapter 11: That Darn Key, And What The Coffeemakers Didn't Tell You

Yaone hurried through the seemingly endless stone corridors, wondering where on earth Kougaiji and the others could be. 15 minutes of searching had brought her no luck and her legs were starting to feel numb.

As it turned out, she wouldn't have to search much longer.

As she rounded a corner, the unmistakable sounds of a battlefield reached her ears. Yaone hesitated. She warily eyed the doorway on her right, wondering if she had stumbled upon a different party. The last thing she needed was to be "kidnapped" again by another bumbling excuse for a knight.

A loud explosion made Yaone jump back reflexively. From inside the doorway, she heard unmistakably familiar voices: "Don't touch that, you godforsaken hentai!!"

"I was just trying to protect it – uh, you – from the Balrog!!"

"YEAH, RIGHT!!!!" Wham.

Yep, Yaone was definitely in the right place.

"Kougaiji-sama!" she called, running into the room. Or, to put it more accurately, the remnants of the room.

3 youkais (one of them looking very pissed off and folding his hands just above the waistband of his jeans to protect a certain part of his anatomy from, ahem, further intrusion), 2 gods (one of whom sported a large bump on his cheek, no doubt caused by a crescent-shaped blade) and a miniature white dragon greeted her vision, each looking as if they hadn't bothered to shower for a few years.

"Yaone-san! You're alright!" Hakkai tried to smile, but it's hard to do so when one of your buck teeth has just been punched out by a angry (and heavy) Balrog fist. In the end, he looked like he had stuffed a grapefruit into the side of his mouth.

"What happened to you, Yaone?" Kougaiji asked as he carefully navigated his way around the motionless Balrog which was buried under 20 lorries' worth of stone and rubble.

Yaone filled them in on her encounter with the knight. Shien snorted. "So I was right about this dungeon being clichéd, I guess I don't have to eat my boots after all?"

"If it'll shut you up, eat them anyway," Gojyo sneered, ignoring Hakkai's attempts to pacify him. Shien's latest hand trick had finally sent him over the edge. "And while you're at it, why don't you eat your shirt? And your turban? And your frilly pink underwear?"

Shien's eyeballs inflated to impossible sizes. "Why you – "

" – should both be quiet and listen to what our tour guide, the little ragged piece of paper has to say," Hakkai interrupted. The ominous note in his voice did not go unnoticed. As his previous outburst was far from forgotten in the minds of everyone present, they took the cue to shut up.

Satisfied, Hakkai began reading. "You are nearing the end of your quest (Here, very audible sighs of relief could be heard). All you need to do to complete your journey is to take 3 steps to the left…"

Everybody immediately did so, anticipating the end of their tiring ordeal.

"Now 5 steps forward…" They were now out of the room.

"3 steps to the right…." The tension mounted.

"4 more steps forward…"

"6 steps backwards…" Eyebrows began to rise.

"And 2 steps diagonally…"

Zenon snatched the piece of paper from Hakkai's hands. "Is this a ing joke?" he demanded. "Someone's trying to toy with us here!" He scanned the paper.

"Take those 2 steps, dumbass," it read.

Zenon flushed. "I'm being insulted by a scrap of parchment…?" Shien rolled his eyes and dragged his colleague over to the required spot.

"Now what?"

"I don't know, the paper's blank. How odd – "

"Ya might wanna look this way."

As one, everyone turned on their heels. A large set of ornately-decorated doors had mysteriously materialized in front of them. A lone figure stood before it.

"Welcome."

-------------

Dr. Nii rued the day he had first heard of coffee.

From his hiding place under a table, Nii watched as Huang ricocheted madly around the lab, providing a rather screechy soundtrack as she did so. "Aaaaah! AAaaaaarrrrrgh! AIIIIIEEEEE!!!!"

The source of her terror could be located just a few feet above her. A floating figure that greatly resembled a maniacal banshee glided gleefully after Huang, in the process destroying everything in sight. "Me want! Me want!" she cackled.

Nii grabbed Huang and dragged her under the table beside him. "What's happening?" he hissed. "This was not in our list of hypothesizes!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Huang hissed back, her eyes overly bright from her impromptu exercise. They cringed as a nearby shelf bearing years' worth of research and potions crashed onto the floor. "That's not Kougaiji's mother! Too much caffeine has made her insane!"

A flashed of tattered red cloth streaked past them. "Me want pork buns! Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!" Crash. Boom. Bang.

Nii shuddered. "We need to stop her…if only we could get our hands on a Limb-Numbing potion or such…"

"WOOOOOO! PRETTY PORK BUNS! WOOOOOO!" Kougaiji's mother did a somersault in the air and flashed a peace sign at a camera that only she could see.

Huang stared at Nii. "…not a chance, Nii. Not in all that havoc." She leaned forward, yelling to make her words heard above the noise. "I believe that she will cease to be conscious once the effects of the coffee wear off! The excessive compound of coffee extract must be giving her an extreme adrenaline rush! If my estimations are correct, once the caffeine's efficacy dies down, she should be able to be SUBDUUUUUED! Aack!" They both scrambled out of the way as some coffee mugs smashed their way into the legs of the table.

"Of course, it depends on how much coffee you fed her!" Huang continued. "How much coffee extract did you pour in, Nii?"

Nii tittered nervously. "Well, you know, it's funny you should ask…"

"….Nii?" Huang had a very bad feeling.

"…"

"Nii!"

"About three-quarters of our stock."
"WHAT?!!!"

------------

The group looked appraisingly at the woman before them. She was definitely middle-aged, with a plump figure and a waxy complexion that suggested she didn't spend much time out in the sun. She wore a very odd costume made out of many pieces of different fabric and material (cotton, glass, artificial hair, badges, sheepskin, etc) sewn together to shape a dress. Her arms were decorated with bracelets fashioned from mismatched beads of all shapes and sized, wire, clay and even little jigsaw pieces. Ditto for her hair, which was braided with odd-looking strings and feathers, some of which glowed and caused the illusion of feathery fireflies in her hair.

"Welcome," she repeated. Her words were drab and dull, as if she were used to uttering them at least 50 times a day. "You've finally found your way to me, the Oracle of Small Missing Objects."

"Oh, so you're the goddess in charge?" Hakkai inquired politely.

The woman snorted. It sounded horribly like a fart. "Goddess, right. They gave me the lowest position a goddess could have. Ya think they're gonna give ya superpowers and make ya look gawgeous and have your life handed to ya on a silver platter, but no, I got the boringest job possible, guarding stinky dungeons and petty objects that mortals keep losing – most visitors don't even make it this far, even though I give them perfectly plain directions."

Zenon coughed. "So…those instructions on the paper, they were given by you?"

The goddess (who from here on will be referred to as Osmo) grinned. "Damn straight, dumbass. I call them the way I see them," she added bluntly.

"But you…you gave us twisted orders…"

"What, an old lady like me can't have a little fun on the job? Besides, you lot are the most interesting visitors I've had in over 50 years. Now, what've ya lost?"

"A key," Hakkai answered.

Osmo raised an eyebrow. "Tut, tut, young man, you're going to have to be more specific than that. We get an average of 25 abandoned keys here per hour."

"I wonder how many hours it's been since Homura lost his key?" Kougaiji wondered aloud in a strangled tone.

"It's silver," Shien said, recalling the times he had seen his boss with us. "About as big as my palm and it has little flowery patterns around the edges." When the others shot him quizzical stared, he shrugged and simply said, "Rinrei liked flowers."

"And it had the words, 'Property of Homura Taishi' stamped on it," Zenon put in.

Osmo listened intently. "Homura Taishi, huh? Saw him at a festival of the gods about a century back. Skinnier than a pole, that man. Needs more meat on his bones." She retrieved a scroll and pen from in between the folds of her clothes and said clearly, "Homura Taishi."

The parchment seemed to suddenly grow in length until it reached the floor and continued for a good ten feet. The goddess huffed.

"Homura must have lost a lot of things in his lifetime," Gojyo remarked, trying not to laugh.

"I'll say," Osmo grumbled as she scanned the scroll of parchment. "Shampoo, weapons, fabric softener, socks, boxers…there's not a thing this guy hasn't lost at least twice. Ah, here we are. The key ya want is in Section 2153."

She proceeded to open the giant set of doors and beckoned them in.

-------------

Huang's lips were pursed in a thin line, as they always were when she was exceptionally displeased about something, like, say, if Kougaiji's mother were to be revived as a flying lunatic after having consumed too much coffee. "Well, Nii, thanks to you and your decision to pour in almost all of the coffee, I'd say it'd be at least 6 months before she stops this disorder!"

"Watch it!" Nii petulantly wiped some off Huang's saliva off of his precious stuffed rabbit. They had shifted from the table to the back of a big machine in a corner of the room. Kougaiji's mother had now graduated from requesting pork buns to belting out rock songs.

"Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be! As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy! And I swear that I don't have a gun! I don't have a gun! DON'T HAVE A GUN! AH…!!" She spiraled crazily in the air, playing an invisible guitar.

"Well, I suppose I have no other choice," Nii sighed heroically. "If I could manage to get to the storeroom and get the right potion, I think we could put an end to this problem…"

He gave his rabbit to Huang and patted it tenderly. "Take care of it Huang," Nii said stoically, like a general giving his troops one last order before they marched into battle. "Make sure he doesn't get hurt. That way, if I should die, at least he'll be alright…" His lower lip trembled dangerously as he gazed at his treasured rabbit. "Tell my little bunny-wunny googoo that I was a good trooper…"

"Oh, shut up and go." Huang grabbed the lapels of his coat and threw him out into the pandemonium.

-------------

Beyond the doors was a long stretch of stone corridor. On either sides of the room were roped-off sections piled high with every item imaginable: carousel horses, broken refrigerators, cymbal-banging monkey figurines and even cardboard cutouts of the entire Saiyuki cast (Everyone did a double take at this; Zenon wanted to smuggle the one of Hakkai but to his dismay, the head had been ripped off. Likewise, the face on Sanzo's cutout had garnered several "additions": namely, a crude moustache over his mouth, obscene holes in his nostrils, blacked-out teeth and hair extensions. Someone had scribbled "I don't trim my nails because I'm a wussie" across Kougaiji's cutout, much to his annoyance).

"Feel free to look around." Osmo gestured around her. "The place doesn't get cleaned up that often which is understandable; no sane idiot would wanna spend their days down here." She caught her words as everyone glanced discreetly at her. "Er…so, interesting stuff we got down here, eh? For lack of better things to do, I like to wade through all this junk sometimes, make things out the lost objects that most definitely will never meet their owners again."

"Is that how you made your dress? From all these random items?" Yaone asked, impressed.

"Ya bet, honey." She pointed at her behind. It was covered with a combination of tiles and bricks pasted artfully on fabric. "These bits here are from the very tower Gyumao was in when Nataku battled him all those years ago!"

Kougaiji politely turned away. Doku's butt is so much better to look at…

"I thought you were the Oracle of Small Missing Objects?" Gojyo wondered aloud. "Why do you have all these not-so-small objects then?"

Osmo pursed her lips. "Yea, I'm pretty pissed with that myself. The Oracle of Large Missing Objects – that'd be Olmo, my cousin – decided that his job was for the bees quit. Did he send in a resignation letter or at least give us a confirmation before he jetted off to Malibu or wherever the hell he is now? Noooo. He decided to dump all his stuff here. The worst part is that nobody else wanted to take on his job, so who gets stuck juggling double duty! Osmo! Osmo this, Osmo that. Who wants to do the laundry? No problem, Osmo'll handle it!" She continued muttering to herself in this vein for some time. The others wisely decided not to interrupt her rambling.

They continued down the corridor until Osmo stopped at a section to her right. It looked just as jumbled and disorganized as the rest of the sections. Yaone stared as an eyeball the size of a beach ball strayed out of the pile and rolled placidly past her.

Osmo raised a finger and moved it slowly across the pile. Almost immediately, a small silver object flew out of the pile and into her outstretched palm.

"There ya go." She gave it to Hakkai, who placed it carefully in his pocket. "Tell Homura he should be more careful."

"Thank you," Hakkai said gratefully.

Osmo nodded towards her left. "There's a shortcut to the exit back there, and don't worry, ya won't be meeting any demons or evil creatures this time. By the way, dear," she added to Yaone, "how was the evil knight? Mean, lean and scary?"

"…not at all. Not at all."

"Damn. I'm gonna have to fire him – that's the 5th one in a row. Authentic evil knights are so hard to come by these days. If you happen to know of any, send them my way." She waved goodbye as they strode towards the exit.

---------------

Nii whimpered as he crawled across the cluttered floor at breakneck speed, painstakingly trying to protect a small vial of blue liquid in his hands. Tampered electronic devices emitted weird beeps and gurgles around him.

It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, he chanted over and over. It became his mantra. He conjured a mental image of his beloved rabbit. I must do this for my little bunny-wunny googoo's sake. Emboldened, he continued to crawl –

"YAKAYAKAYAKA! COME PLAY!" Kougaiji's mother swooped down on him like a hawk cornering its prey. She grabbed his pants and dragged him playfully a few feet.

"NOOOO!!" Nii instinctively curled up in a fetal position, refusing to move. And so it was that Kougaiji's mother began dragging him across the room, stars spinning before his eyes as his head bumped on uncomfortable objects. He struggled. "Let go!"

"YOU COME PLAY FIRST!" Kougaiji's mother's superhuman grip on Nii's pants led to its being ripped off completely. She gathered the torn material in her hands and tried to make it hover beneath her feet. "MY MAGIC CARPET, HYUK-HYUK!"

In the face of this distraction, Nii swiftly uncorked the vial and threw its contents of Kougaiji's mother. Come on, don't fail me now…

Kougaiji's mother froze in midair as the contents of the potion seeped through her skin and numbed her veins. Nii sighed in relief at this positive sign. At last, she would fall down and they could keep her under wraps until the caffeine was completely gone –

Nii suddenly stiffened. Kougaiji's mother had begun her descent, all right. And it looked like Nii was her landing zone.

"Nii, MOVE!" Huang's warning came too late.

"NOOOOO – " THUMP.

---------------

Hakkai was starting to think that arguing must be the cast's natural talent. He assumed he had seen and heard the last of his companions' bickering when they finally retrieved Homura's key, but truth is always stranger than fiction.

"I'm keeping the key!" insisted Zenon.

"No, I am!" Gojyo argued stubbornly. "Haven't you learnt anything? Gods are more prone to losing things!"

"Homura, yes. Gods in general, no."

To return to the inn the chained trio had been dropped off at, they had to walk. Yes, walk, simply because one dragon was not happy with the idea of having a pair of disputing dup (namely Gojyo and Zenon) on it. And Hakkai thought Goku and Gojyo were the worst pair…

Kougaiji was relieved. They had made it out of the labyrinth-slash-dungeon-slash-temple alive, and he was still watching a live slapstick, and no horde of angry and nutty gods was destroying his castle as they were right here beside him.

Yaone was having fun. Despite the previous ordeal with the evil blundering knight, which had now conveniently passed from her mind, she busied herself scrutinizing the plants and herbs in the forest they were passing through with her occasional cries of "Oh, I need this ivy for that potion I've been trying to mix…" or even "Mushrooms! Shall I pick some for dinner, Kougaiji-sama?"

Shien was depressed. Not only did he fail profusely to secure the positive attention let alone affection from Gojyo, he found himself becoming a death-glare target by the half-youkai. If that was not bad enough, Gojyo had decided to use him as a punching bag even when Shien's finger had inadvertently grazed against Gojyo's hair.

Zenon was vexed. He needed coffee, what with his dry throat due to an unending round of arguments with Gojyo. Exhausted, because they had stopped every one metre to exchange blows. And it did not help either to see Hakkai attending to Gojyo's non-existent bruises.

"Ah…I wonder what's going on at the inn…" pondered Hakkai loudly, indubitably trying to spark some sort of conversation among them.

"If the impious monk and daft god are still alive, I'll really be surprised," murmured Kougaiji. "If they're indeed dead, that would mean we went through all those death-defying and suicidal mission for nothing."

"I still pity the saru," Gojyo said with a grin, which contradicted enormously from what he just uttered. He had wisely kept a distance between him and Shien, but that did nothing to fend off the glances Shien were giving him. "Of course, I could be sympathizing with him for no reason, since he might be enjoying himself as we speak…"

"With Sanzo?" asked Shien.

"I was thinking of him eating, you pervert!"

"I'm more worried about Homura and Sanzo," said Zenon, looking at anything but Gojyo. No eye contact meant no senseless arguing. "Imagine if Son Goku's diadem is knocked off…"

Silence.

"Sanzo'll be able to take care of him," Hakkai reasoned after much thinking.

"If he is still breathing," Kougaiji interjected.

"The innkeeper," Yaone voiced out.

"Eh?" from the guys.

"Ah…the inn would be reduced to dust, so my sympathy goes to the innkeeper."

The five men and one dragon exchanged looks. "Aaaahhhh…" they said in unison, seeing some logic in that.

-------------

"I say Homura'll be black and white once we find them," Gojyo was declaring.

"Sorry to burst your bubbles, but I believe Homura'll be the last man standing," Zenon objected.

"Nope, neither of them will last longer than Son Goku," Kougaiji chipped in.

"Kougaiji-sama, I don't think joining them in this little bet is a shrewd move…" Yaone hissed urgently, but was waved aside by an absentminded Kougaiji.

"Ano, Shien…" Hakkai's eyebrow had been twitching all night that he was afraid it was becoming a habit. "Pardon me for asking, but precisely, why are you looking at Gojyo like that…?"

"I was not," Shien lied, trying to appear truthful. "I was thinking how pretty…those flowers are…"

"Shien-san?" Yaone squeaked meekly. "They're weeds."

"I'm talking about that one over there…" He pointed in a random direction.

"That's a cluster of fungi."

"…Botany has never been my strongest subject."

Hakkai was starting to feel suspicious. Hakuryu, who understood his moods most of the time, had tried to fly as far as possible from his owner without getting left too far behind.

"Hakuryu…" Hakkai had called incoherently.

Oh, yes, Hakuryu knew exactly what Hakkai was implying underneath that supposedly placid tone. Mind you, after the day's event, there was a high chance of seeing Hakkai unclipping his limiters at the next episode of Annoyances-of-the-Day, however small it was.

"Hakuryu…" A little strained this time.

"So, like, Hakkai…" Gojyo threw an arm around Hakkai. "What do you say? Which of them survives in the end? The corrupted monk, the bottomless pit of a saru, or that manic god?"

Hakkai regained his composure immediately, lightened up by the mere feel of the hand on his shoulder. "I say all three are fine."

"Is that so, Hakkai-san?" asked Yaone, relieved.

"Oh, yes…" Hakkai adjusted his monocle. "At least, I hope so."

"Aw, Hakkai, so thoughtful as always…" With a delighted chuckle, Gojyo touched the tip of Hakkai's nose with his index finger, making him blush slightly.

Shien, on cue, felt like he just hit rock bottom.

"Hey, watch it!" Kougaiji exclaimed as Shien walked straight into him. "Pay attention to where you're going!"

Shien was too depressed to retort.

"Gojyo, were you teasing me?" Hakkai, with a mischievous twinkle behind his closed eyelids, slapped Gojyo's back.

Subsequently Zenon felt depressed, taking this as a hint that he just lost to Gojyo.

"Uh, Zenon-san…you're stepping on my foot," Yaone said helpfully, trying to bear the pain at the same time. She silently wondered which of them was heavier, the god or the tin can she faced previously had he stood on her unfortunate foot. The female youkai winced as Zenon, still disheartened, stepped on her other foot.

---------------

Poor Kougaiji and Yaone had blisters by the time they reached their destination. It turned out that Zenon practically walked on Yaone's feet the whole way, that she suspected he was doing it on purpose. She said nothing, which would not be the case if she had not brought along a small jar of foot-balm.

Kougaiji was irked, to put it simply. Shien had pushed him more than ten times per minute, that on one occasion, he was in danger of falling into a swamp if it wasn't because of his timely act of grabbing hold of Gojyo's vest; Gojyo in turn tightened his hold around Hakkai; who grabbed hold of Hakuryu; who grabbed hold -perhaps 'bit' would be a more appropriate verb to describe it – of Zenon's jacket; Zenon then grabbed hold of Yaone's hair; who as she shrieked grabbed hold of Shien, whose whips seized the trunk of the nearest tree. It had looked pretty silly to see the human(oid) chain stretching from the tress to the swamp, but Kougaiji, for once, did not find it funny, especially since he just had his hair primped and nails manicured.

"What the heck could you possibly be thinking of that brought your attention all the way to the other side of the world?" Kougaiji had bellowed angrily.

Shien, out of spite, released his whips. Everyone else shrieked. Nonetheless, the award Hero of the Day went to Gojyo, whose quick thinking and shakijou helped to save the day.

"Thank you, Gojyo…" Hakkai thanked him, climbing up the metal chain.

"Think nothing of it." Gojyo winked, flattered. "Anything for you."

From depression, Shien and Zenon felt suicidal.

------------

Back to the present situation, the adventurers entered the still standing inn, not without whispering prayers of longevity before everything else.

Hakkai greeted the sleepy innkeeper behind the counter amiably. "We're looking for some people. One of them is a blond monk, another's a brown haired teen, and the third a go—I mean, a raven-haired fellow with mismatched eyes."

"Oh?" The innkeeper checked his registers. "You're referring to the chained gang?"

"Sanzo'll castrate him if he ever heard that," Gojyo, grinning, remarked.

"Err, yes…" Hakkai affirmed. "Their room number, please?"

They found themselves standing outside the aforementioned room with bated breath. The quiescence that clouded the room was starting to give them the creeps.

"They're too quiet," commented Kougaiji, speaking on behalf of everyone present. "Do you think they, you know, are still alive? This silence beats the graveyards anytime."

Yaone shivered at the thought. "K-Kougaiji-sama…"

"I don't smell blood…" Shien pointed out.

"Really?" jibed Gojyo. "I heard you sniffling a couple of times. You sure your nose isn't blocked?"

"Shall we break the door, then?" suggested Hakkai.

They agreed without a second of conference. Kougaiji and Gojyo threw themselves on the door, followed by Shien and Hakkai. But it was Zenon's machine gun that pocked holes into the door and at the same time woke almost every breathing life form in the vicinity. Once the door looked no different from a layer of cheddar cheese, all five men kicked it down. The residues of the door collapsed to the floor, revealing three bishounens on the bed, sleeping peacefully.

The spectators gawked. As one, their jaws hit the floor.

"They didn't hear Zenon-san's racket?" Yaone asked, incredulous. Being the one standing behind, she craned her neck for a better look, and she blinked at the sight.

Goku was lying on Homura's lap. Sanzo was leaning against Homura, while his left hand was entwined in Goku's. Homura's arm, meanwhile, was draped around Sanzo.

"Eeto…I believe I won the bet?" Hakkai, who was the first to recover, stated.

"This is…unbelievable!" Kougaiji managed to sputter even with his mouth open.

"Well, I never thought they would…" To everyone's surprise, she left her sentence hanging to make way for her giggles.

"Does this mean we'll be hearing 'Konzen' instead of 'Rinrei' from now on?" asked Zenon.

"Aa…" from a depressed Shien.

"I take back everything I said about my pitying the saru," Gojyo murmured. "He's so lucky he doesn't need my empathy anymore. Eeoowww!" He jumped when Hakkai pinched him without warning.

Goku yawned, and when he opened his eyes and saw them, he broke into a grin. "Look, Sanzo, Homura! They're back!"

That woke his companions up without further ado. The rest took a step backwards once Sanzo and Homura's glares were on them. It did not take the smartest being on Earth to tell they were somewhat embarrassed to be seen in that state of affairs.

"We, uh, brought the key," explained Zenon lamely, holding the key for everyone to see. "And, as you can see, none of us got killed."

"Aah…" Homura looked indescribably ambivalent. "Bring it to me."

Zenon did just that. Homura surveyed the key before installing it into the lock. A frown crossed his face.

"What's the problem?" asked Goku.

"The key…it…it doesn't fit…" mumbled Homura, perplexed.

"What the !?" cursed everyone but Goku. From the look of things, Hakkai and Yaone were too overwhelmed, too upset that they went all through that trouble and still got the wrong item.

"Are you sure?" Sanzo seized the key to give it a try for himself. True enough, the key could hardly slide into the opening. He cussed. "Are you sure you got the correct key?"

"Well, Sanzo…that's the key Osmo – the goddess – gave us," Hakkai appraised. "We, uh, presumed it was the one we're looking for…"

"Then again," interrupted Kougaiji, "with the perpetual number of items Homura kept on losing, she might've made a minor mistake…"

Sanzo glowered at Homura, to which the latter replied, "Hey, Tenkai is a big place…"

"So…do we go back to the temple?" questioned Yaone. "Frankly speaking, I'm not looking forward to play the role of a damsel in distress all over again."

"I'm out too," announced Kougaiji. "I've had enough trouble you guys call adventure or quest or whatnots to last me my entire lifetime!"

"How bad could it be?" said Hakkai. "We've been through it once, so we should be able to watch our steps in our rematch."

"The problem is, Hakkai, that we're too tired to begin our pursuit from square one!" Gojyo insisted. "I don't know about you, but I'm dead beat."

Goku, who was starting to not mind being chained to his lovers, shifted his head. As he did so, he became aware of a hard, solid thing in Homura's pants pocket. "Um, Homura…" He raised his head inquiringly.

"Yes?"

"There's something stiff in your left pocket, and it's poking my head. What is it?"

Homura looked puzzled. He dug into the said pocket, widened his eyes, and pulled out what could very well be a piece of platinum key.

Everybody gasped if not deadpanned, but Sanzo was the first to throttle Homura's throat. "You &%$#& #&%#! You had the ##$& key all along! Why you brainless—"

"Sanzo, maybe he just forgot…" Goku tried to be the peacemaker.

"I did forget! I usually kept it in my right pocket, so it's only natural that I—"

"That's no excuse, &&%!"

Kougaiji, seething in anger, joined in. "&%! I condescended myself for no &%ing reason! This is outrageous!"

"So where does the gold key go?" asked Gojyo, a slightly sore look on his countenance. "His treasure chest?"

"If my memory serves me correctly, there's this other pair of handcuffs Homura shoved into his storeroom a few months back because its key had gone missing," Shien recalled. "Yes, probably this is the key he lost before…"

Hakkai is shaking his head in anguish. 'My mood was ruffled for no reason…'

"You know, if it wasn't because I'm under Homura, you'd be seeing me putting him up as my target practice," muttered Zenon.

"Zenon-san, as a follower you're required to serve your boss loyally no matter what…" Yaone said, but truth be told she was endeavouring to level down her fury too.

Goku, who now had the useless key closely guarded in his hands, sighed. "Sanzo? Homura? How about we settle this tomorrow morning?"

"No, I'm going to make this &%&$ pay—" cried Sanzo wrathfully.

"For finally hooking the three of us together?" jibed Homura.

"No, &%&$, for having a lower IQ than Goku! I can't believe a stupid &%&$ like you still exists!"

"Sorry, mister, but it takes an idiot to love another idiot." Homura fought back laughter.

"Did you just call me an idiot, you &%&$!!??"

"Eh, Hakkai, where are you going?" Gojyo looked over his shoulder, at his lover who was descending the staircase.

"I'm trying to get everyone to evacuate this area just to be on the safe side," Hakkai informed him. "There's no telling what could happen next…"

A/N: The lyrics belted out by Kougaiji's mother come from the song "Come As You Are" by Nirvana. Who knew she could be so rock-savvy, eh? I don't believe that Kougaiji's mother's name is ever mentioned in the anime (of course I could be mistaken), so I couldn't include it here. If anyone knows her name, feel free to tell us. Not that it'll matter anyway, because by the time we start writing the next chapter, I (Avarice Riot) will probably be dead. Killed by Kougaiji, to be exact, because he's so not going to be happy when he finds out what I did to his mother.

Avarice: And that concludes our chapter! Please do review –

/BANG BANG BANG/

Avarice: What the hell –

Sanzo: /Aiming his gun at the 2 authors/ Which one of you es dared to pair me and my saru with that despicable Homura?!

Avarice: /pointing at Kudou/ Don't look at me, it was her idea.

Kudou: Rice-chan, I thought you were my friend!

Avarice: I told you this was a bad idea, now we've pissed him off!

Kudou: Now, Sanzo, I know you're very attached to your, er, saru, but surely you cannot deny that somewhere in your heart there's a special place for Homura…

Sanzo: STOP YAKKING! I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!

Avarice: Now, wait a minute – no! NOOOOO! /BANGBANGBANG/

Kudou: I'm innocent!! /BANGBANGBANG/

Halfway across the country….

Solarwind: /marching with the other trainees/ Eh, what's that faint shooting sound? And those screams…they sound so familiar….nah, couldn't be. Alright now, left, right, left, right, left!

Editor's Notes: As of posting time, Solarwind (i.e. me) has been home for months. All of us are also now in college/university, and as such, are busy… and separated. The next (and possibly final) update may or may not be even slower. Sol signing out.

…No, Rice-chan's not dead yet. But we're keeping a close lookout for people with pointy ears and blonds with guns…