Generic Disclaimer: Gensomaden Saiyuki and the characters contained within don't belong to me, much as I wish they were. sigh...

I have to say it: although writing this chapter was almost as hard as writing an essay on the fungus in your bathroom, it turned out to be my favorite so far. I love it every time I read it, especially the brief conversation between Sanzo and Gojyo at the end. XD! I could just squeal.

The story goes up to R again, for language and bad mothers. Spoilers for Gojyo's past – I am aware that in the anime Gojyo's mother attempts to kill him by strangulation, but in the manga she goes after him with an axe. I liked the idea of having him run away from an axe instead. So there. :P!

---

---

italics indicate emphasis, internal dialogue, and dialogue that has occurred in the past/memories.

FEAR ITSELF

"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address – March 4, 1933

---

---

SECTION FOUR

---

---

He flinched when another plate crashed too close to where he stood, back pressed against the wall. His mother had effectively cornered him; if he went to his right he would fetch up against the dining room wall, and before he could make it to the kitchen door or the bedroom hallway she would be in his face, scratching and clawing until he backed up again. The burning on his cheek and the cold sensation of blood dripping on his collarbone was testament to that tactic. Bolting to his left would have better results, as the living room would provide more space for him to maneuver – but going left would mean trapping himself, as there were no windows through which he could escape. He could only go to his right – into the kitchen and out the side door, into one of the bedrooms and out a window – or straight through his mother, to the ill-fitting door that let sunlight in through the seams.

But Gojyo couldn't even attempt that passage. His mother was a full-blooded demon, taller, stronger, and more vicious than he could ever think to be. The nails at the ends of her fingers were wicked and sharp, while his were blunt and easily broken. He didn't want to hurt her, and probably couldn't even if he tried – he was only twelve, a bastard half-breed, and lean for his age. She was an adult – and she wanted to hurt him badly.

Mama had been a pretty woman once, he knew; the sun-streaked brown of her hair and the golden tone of her skin complemented each other, and when she smiled her eyes would light up and sparkle like the sun on the stream not far from the house. But there were lines on her face now, lines of grief and possibly insanity. The only things that sparkled in her eyes these days were tears.

He wanted her to smile at him. He wanted to do anything that would make her smile. But the only thing she did was cry.

Gojyo dodged a drinking glass, reflexively raising his arms to guard his face when the chips flew in his direction. He made another dodge to his right, towards the kitchen, but the movement was aborted by the vase Jien had managed to save the last time Mama had thrown it at her adopted son. This time she threw it with such force that the delicate object fairly disintegrated; there would be no gluing it back together this time.

Jien is going to be pissed when he finds this mess, he thought dolefully.

Jien would be back from work soon. Then he'd grab Mom and drag her away from Gojyo, into the bedroom to calm her down. And Gojyo could go back outside, down to the stream, so he wouldn't have to listen to her cry, or listen to the faint squeaking of bedsprings. When Jien got home, everything would be fine again. He just had to keep from getting hurt until then.

"You filthy brat!" she screamed, grabbing the last plate from the table and hurling with both hands. He ducked again, and felt the porcelain shards catch in his hair. "Evil, nasty child! Why did you even touch the dishes?! What have I told you all this time?!"

He had only set the table because doing so made it easier on Jien when it came time for supper. Jien worked all day at the lumber yard, coming home filthy and exhausted only a few hours before the sun set. Neither of them trusted Mom in the kitchen anymore – the last time she had tried to make supper she had left a hand towel on the stove, and the propane flames had set it on fire. If Gojyo hadn't come straight home from school that day, he would have found a smoking pile of rubble instead of a house.

So now, instead of getting washed up and having a decent meal before resting, Jien would have to cook and wash the dishes as well. Mama wouldn't eat off of any plate Gojyo touched. And while Gojyo could live with his mother hating him so much (After all, when hasn't she hated me?), he couldn't live with the lines of exhaustion on his brother's face. Both of them tried so hard to please their mother, but Jien was the only one that succeeded. And sometimes, in the dark of the night, he wanted very desperately to be jealous of his brother for succeeding where he couldn't. But Gojyo simply couldn't be so cold-hearted as to leave all the work to Jien.

He had hoped Mama wouldn't notice the table after he had set it; she rarely did all the times he had before. But this time she had caught him in the act, with the silverware still clutched in his hands like evidence of guilt, and that was all it took to set her off.

"I just thought I could help Jien –" he tried, extending one hand towards her in a helpless gesture.

A wordless scream of rage escaped her, animalistic in its hoarse savagery, and she overturned the dining room table with one swift movement. The silverware and remaining cups smashed to the ground, and he could feel the frame of the house shudder against his shoulder blades.

"Don't you dare!" she ranted, twisting her fingers in her long, sun-burnt tresses. "Don't you dare say that about Jien! He doesn't need your help! Jien is perfect! He's the only thing that helps me survive such a disgusting creature! Don't touch me! Don't touch anything! You'll make it dirty!"

Gojyo withdrew his hand, crossing his arms defensively across his chest, struggling to shove away the deep relief he felt now that Mom didn't have any projectiles to aim at him. But the floor was still littered with glass and porcelain, and his feet were bare. Even now he risked pain, if he tried to run or tried to stay. What kind of fucked up choice was that?

His mother sobbed abruptly, choking on her tears, and half-fell to her knees. One hand dug gouges in the sanded wood of the table when she caught the upturned edge to support herself. It was everything he could do not to race forward and comfort her; she would never, ever accept comfort from him. He could never make those tears stop flowing.

"You don't understand," she whispered, the long bangs of her hair obscuring her eyes at last. He could still see the tear tracks on her cheeks. "Your eyes, your hair... so red. Like the blood of that filthy, human woman..."

But he did understand. Every time he looked in the mirror or brushed his hair he saw the remnants of the woman that bore him. He had never seen his true mother, or even his true, demonic father – the father that he and Jien shared – but every morning when he woke to wash his face, the first thing that greeted his eyes was red. It was those crimson eyes and hair that earned him rocks and insults in the school yard, demeaning remarks and bad grades from his teachers, accusations of theft in the marketplace, tears and pain in his own home. Cutting off or hiding his hair didn't help, because his eyes always remained. He couldn't very well gouge out his own eyes, as many times as he might have contemplated it. He was a taboo child, the illicit result of a relation between demon and human, with the blood of both running through his veins. The red of his eyes and hair was a reminder of the mother he had never known and the father who had defied the laws of the gods to be with her, despite the demon woman he was already legally married to.

I understand, he thought. Perhaps even better than you do.

It was when another wordless scream erupted from his adopted mother that Gojyo realized he had accidentally said that thought aloud.

The fragments of a broken glass smashed on the wall beside his head, and he could see blood on her hand from where she had grabbed the broken edge. "You think you know?!" she screamed in fury. "You don't know anything, you filthy animal! Get away from me! Get away from me!" The overturned table screeched against the wooden planking of the floor as she shoved herself to her feet and ran desperately into the kitchen. The bat-wing doors smacked loudly against the walls, swinging rapidly back and forth from her hasty entrance, and from within he could hear her banging pantry doors and throwing the dishes drying in the racks. Her sobs were audible even under the sound of breaking glass.

Gojyo pressed one shaking hand to his narrow chest, feeling the speedy pulse of his heart through the thin cotton of his tee-shirt, letting his legs fall out from under him and sliding down the wall to a seated position. He could hear his pulse in his ears as well, felt it in the veins of his eyes and in his throat, and yet inside he felt incomprehensibly numb. His limbs felt heavy, and breathing came in shallow gasps. Why did he feel this way? Why was he so frightened of his adopted mother? He knew it wasn't normal, knew that normal mothers didn't hate their children like this. Normal adopted children didn't evoke this kind of revulsion, either – he knew a girl whose parents had been killed in a house fire, and two elderly folks who had never had children, never even known her before the incident, had taken her in and treated her as if she had always been their own.

Was it simply because he existed? Would it have been easier for his mother, Jien's mother, to accept his father's adulterous acts if he had never been born? Could she have been satisfied with sharing her husband with a mortal woman if that mortal woman had never conceived a child? Had his father hated him on sight as well, and given the taboo child to his legal wife as a way of 'getting rid of the evidence'?

His father should have simply drowned him in a lake. That would have saved his mother all those tears.

Something other than blood trailed down his cheek, and Gojyo struggled to hold back a sob. He didn't deserve to live. Not only was he a bastard and a child born out of wedlock, he was also an adopted son and an abomination to the natural world. Things like him didn't deserve to live. Things like him only brought tears and pain.

The handle of the door rattled, and dimly he realized that it was too early for Jien to be coming home. Jien wouldn't leave the lumber yard for almost half an hour, and anyone who might bother to visit his mother would at least knock before entering. He couldn't let anyone see the house like this. He needed to get this mess cleaned up before Jien got home; Jien worked too hard to have to clean up after his mother's tantrums as well. Besides, it was all Gojyo's fault. If he hadn't set the table she never would have gotten worked into such a frenzy.

Maybe Mom will stay in the kitchen until Jien comes home. That'll make it easier to clean up the dining room and stand the table back up. Gojyo sniffled and wiped the back off his hand under his nose, felt blood and tears smear against the skin, and absently wiped it off on his jeans. The broom and pan are in the kitchen. I guess... I guess I'll just pick this up by hand... He twisted his legs to the side in order to sit more naturally, and leaned forward to reach for the largest piece of the busted vase.

That movement was the only thing that saved him from the axe that lodged in the wall above his head.

Gojyo froze, hand still outstretched towards the shattered pieces of porcelain. He could see his fingers trembling. The wind from the passing of the axe disturbed his hair, and he could feel the bits of plaster knocked out of the wall scattering on the back of his shirt.

He couldn't move. He couldn't breath. She just tried to kill me... his mind told him, but his body couldn't or wouldn't accept the facts.

Mama planted her foot at an angle to the wall and grunted heavily when she tugged the axe loose. More plaster rained down on him, and it was only then, when she had stepped backward and smacked the thick handle of the weapon into her palm, that he dared to straighten.

Gojyo recognized the axe. Jien had bought it only days ago, when the old one they had used to chop firewood had finally gotten so old and nicked that it simply couldn't be sharpened anymore. This one was black and silver (the other was red and silver, but Jien and Gojyo both knew how Mom would react to that), the edge still polished and sharp as new. One blow of that heavy blade could take a boy's head right off.

She's going to kill me, he realized. She's really going to kill me this time.

And maybe it was only proper that she did. Nothing he did was right – he could only do elementary maths, he could barely read or spell his own name, he couldn't get along with the children at school, he was weak and got upset easily, he couldn't even swim... about the only thing he had any talent with was fishing and the battered deck of cards Jien had given him for his birthday a few years back. What kind of skills were those for a boy who was almost a man? He was undoubtedly pathetic. He would never amount to anything, no matter how often Jien would smile at him in that tired way and tell him otherwise.

He was a bastard and an abomination, a disgusting creature that had no place on this earth. He didn't deserve to live.

And if I die... maybe all those tears will disappear.

Mom took a bracing step backward, tears streaming from those beautiful eyes, and began to lift the axe above her head. "I'll make it better," she whispered, her chin quivering and her chest hitching with suppressed sobs. "Don't worry, I'll make it all better..."

Once I'm gone she'll be able to smile again.

Gojyo couldn't take another breath, his lungs had frozen inside his chest – and yet in the same moment he felt as though a weight had been lifted off of him. He knew what to do now. He knew what he could do to finally make everything right again. He just... had to close his eyes. And then Mom would be happy again. And Jien, too.

The axe quivered upward at its apex, and Gojyo let his eyes flutter shut.

The door handle rattled again, harder this time, like someone was trying to get in. It didn't matter; by the time anyone got inside he'd be dead, and everything would be right again. He could only hope the visitor wouldn't take Mom away for killing him. Then she'd be sad all over again, and Jien –

It's almost time for Jien to be home. I wish I could have cleaned up this mess before Mom-

Wait a second. He did clean up the mess before Mom brought out the axe. Then why...?

The door handle rattled again, far more furiously, and then the whole door shook with a violent bang. The door was locked, and someone was throwing their weight against it, trying to get in. Why was the door locked?

Gojyo opened his eyes and looked up at his mother. She still had the axe lifted high over her head. Though he couldn't see her eyes, he could see her lips.

Mama was smiling.

"It's okay," she whispered. The muscles of her arms twitched with the weight of holding the heavy weapon. "Jien can't come and help you this time. This time I'll do it right."

Jien couldn't help him this time? "Mom...?" he whispered, not comprehending. The mysterious person on the outside threw themselves against the door again, but the old lock stubbornly held tight.

Then he realized:

It's too early for Jien to be home. Who's outside the door?

I never heard Mom come back out of the kitchen. Why didn't I hear the kitchen doors?

I didn't lock the door behind me. When did she lock the door?

Mom's never tried to use an axe against me before. What does she mean by 'this time'?

And he realized:

This has happened before.

This happened almost ten years ago. I'm not a child anymore; I'm a card shark and a drunk and a womanizer, traveling west with a bunch of nutballs who are crazier than I am. Mom's long dead. Jien killed her when she tried to kill me. He walked in that door and killed her with the sword dad left to him.

This is just a dream.

But when had his dreams been so vivid? He could feel the blood on his cheek, from the scars he would end up carrying for the rest of his life. He could taste the burn in the back of his throat from repressed tears. He could feel his heart racing in his chest. He could smell –

grapes

Mom brought down the axe, and he threw himself to his left, unthinkingly. The weapon whizzed past his form, missing by scant inches, and the floor shuddered beneath his hands as the blade impacted with the wood. Splinters flew like daggers, and he could feel them catching on the weave of his jeans. His feet slipped as he staggered to his feet.

"Gojyo!"

He shouldn't turn to her. He knew he shouldn't look at her. He should take this moment to get to the door, unlock it, and run out. That way –

But what the hell was he thinking? This was just a stupid dream. It didn't matter if he died, or if he couldn't get away from her in time. You couldn't die in dreams. If that was true then he would be dead a hundred times over.

And yet the pain in his cheek was so real...

"Be a good boy and stay still, Gojyo... mama will make it quick... just..." – the sound of the axe being tugged from the floorboards, and the sound of glass crunching underfoot as she staggered under the weight of the weapon – "...just stay still..."

The door banged again, and still the lock did not break. What kind of lightweight was trying to break the door down, anyways?

"Get the hell away from her, Gojyo!"

He knew the voice of the unknown person. He knew it. He just couldn't place it. It wasn't Jien, it wasn't anyone from in town, it wasn't ...

The axe whizzed by again, and this time he fell forward, dropping to his hands and knees and scuttling away from her like a bug he had once seen in the kitchen. She overbalanced again and crashed into the end table, knocking over the lamp and falling to her knees. The door was only inches from his grasp, and yet he hesitated, looking back after his mother. If he left her like this, she would only succeed in hurting herself... and yet if he stayed...

Snap out of it! he swore at himself. This is just a dream! Mom is dead, there's nothing you can do for her now!

"If you don't wake the hell up right now, I swear I am going to beat the fucking shit out of you!"

He looked back to the door. And yet, and yet...

"Don't listen to him, Gojyo."

He looked back at his mother. She had straightened again, the weapon held loosely in one hand, the axe head dragging on the floor. The shadows obscured her face, and in the hollows where her eyes should be he could see the pale blue gleam of hunger.

"Don't listen to him," she said again. "It's okay to dream. In your dreams you can do what you were always meant to do... die for me..."

Wasn't that what he had convinced himself of only minutes, seconds ago? Once he was dead her tears would stop and she could be happy again. Dead, she could not cry, but neither could she smile. She had died where he should have. He should have died.

"Goddamnit, Gojyo! You couldn't have accomplished anything by dying! Dying now won't accomplish anything! Now either wake yourself up or open this fucking door!"

Mom took another step forward, and he could see where the axe was gouging a line in the floorboards. Only two more steps and he would be within striking range again. "Die for me," she whispered. She was in the light again, but he still could not see her face. There was only a shapeless black mass and two bright blue lights for eyes where her face should have been.

If he had died back then, he could have stopped her tears. His death seemed a small price to pay in return for her happiness. If he had died, Jien would never have had to kill his own mother. He could have stopped Jien's tears, too.

But if he had died, Hakkai would also be dead, because no one would have stumbled across his broken and bleeding body on the road that rainy night. No one would have stuffed a dead man's guts back into his stomach and brought him home like a lost puppy. And if, by any chance, he had survived, no one would have been there to protect him from an overzealous monk and his pet monkey.

Maybe... maybe he deserved to live. Maybe he deserved to live past this horrible point in his childhood, if only to save Hakkai from himself seven years later.

Mama lifted the axe and took another step, the wiry muscles in her arms jumping as she lifted it above her head. "Now hold still," she murmured. "It'll only hurt for a second... just a pinprick..."

She brought the axe down, and this time he threw himself backwards, scrabbling at the floor, the back of his head connecting solidly with the door. For a second all he saw was white, and when his vision cleared he saw he had barely pulled his feet back far enough to avoid being struck. More splinters had flown with the impact of the blade, and this time one had struck true – there was blood on his calf from where the wood

plant

had pierced through the jeans and embedded in his flesh. His mother loomed over him, and her knuckles were white from where her fingers clutched the wooden handle.

"Hold still," she said, and tugged the axe loose from the floorboards.

He couldn't die. He wasn't supposed to die. You can't die in dreams.

"Gojyo!" Sanzo shouted from beyond the door. He sounded pissed beyond belief, even more pissed than that one time Goku had stolen all the towels from his room in the bath house and accidentally dropped his robes in the mud.

We're all closer to Buddha when we stop breathing.

We're alive, kid. We're all alive for a reason.

Find out why.

Gojyo turned and threw himself at the door, fumbling for the dead bolt, drawing it back. The knob twisted underneath his sweat-slicked palm, and he was forced back when the door slammed open, striking his forehead and threatening to blind his vision again.

But this time everything went white except for the person who came in through the door, dressed in off-white robes and with hair as bright as the sun, leveling a pistol at the crazy mother with an axe, snarling "Fuck you," before pulling the trigger and –

---

Sanzo wasted no time in blowing away the remnants of the kudzu vine the moment the night returned to him. He emptied the remaining rounds into the darkness, grabbing the still-groggy Gojyo by the arm and dragging him to his feet. When his pistol clicked dully on an empty chamber, he tucked the gun away and bent to grab the discarded shakujou, then turned and ran, pulling the half-demon along behind him. Gojyo staggered for a few feet, but then roughly shrugged the priest off and ran under his own power.

That was fine with Sanzo. He didn't need to take care of the other man in real life as well.

Hakuryuu had rejoined them by the time they began to run, floating before Sanzo like a beacon to safety, leading them back to the road that was thankfully free of plant life. If the kudzu followed, he couldn't hear it over the sounds of him and Gojyo crashing through the underbrush. Even if it did, there was none to bar their way to the path and none at their heels when they burst back into moonlight and fell to their knees, gasping for breath.

Sanzo recovered first, rolling off his knees to sit more naturally in a cross-legged position, the kappa's weapon forgotten at his side. He said nothing, staring in silence at the half-demon struggling to catch his breath, hunched over with his forehead pressed against the dirt. It was a pathetically vulnerable position. He doubted Gojyo particularly cared in that moment.

When Gojyo finally straightened again, the first thing he did was pull out a cigarette. It seemed the most natural thing to do in this new situation; there was no expression on his face as he fished for his lighter and put flame to cigarette tip.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled, his crimson eyes following the trail of smoke up into the sky. Hakuryuu keened quietly from its perch on a nearby bush.

"What took you so long?" he asked quietly.

Sanzo leaned to his side, reaching into his robes to remove his own pack of cigarettes, withdrawing one and extending it towards the other man.

"I lost my fucking lighter," he said.

Gojyo wordlessly lit the cigarette in reply.