Generic Disclaimer: Gensomaden Saiyuki and the characters contained within don't belong to me, much as I wish they did. sigh...
OMG I LOVE THIS CHAPTER. And I'm going to love the next one, too; this dream started to take waaaay too long to type out, so I'm afraid you've got two more chapters left to the end of the story. :3 Sorry to keep dragging things out on you.
R for blood, guts, and gore. This chapter is ridiculously bloody, so please don't blame me if you have a tender stomach and can't take the heat. There are a number of things that will need explaining if you don't get them, but I've attached footnotes, so all will be well. The only spoilers here are the ones I'm making up.
Review comments on the bottom.
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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
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SECTION TEN
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The transition from darkness to light was so sudden that it took an abnormally long amount of time for Sanzo to adjust to the change. It was so bright, in fact, that his eyes began to water, and he was forced to shift the shoreijyuu to his left hand in order to dig a knuckle into one offending eye. Absolute silence greeted his ears as he struggled to regain his vision; this switch, too, was so abrupt that he felt as though he might have gone blind and deaf in the same instant.
But when he was finally able to see again, without all that unnecessary squinting, all he saw was white. A pure, pristine, perfect whiteness that stretched on before him in a nearly unbroken hallway. There were a few doors, here and there, that lined the walls, but otherwise it was difficult to tell where the walls met the ceiling and floor – only a thin line of shadow betrayed where the connection occurred. There were no decorations, no rugs or paintings or statues or even any smudges of dirt where feet might have once tread. He could not tell where the light was coming from; it almost seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.
What the hell is this? the priest could not help but wonder. After Homura's lengthy discussion about the history of the kudzu vine, and all his blather about internal demons and bloody memories, Sanzo had expected something a bit more... animated than this. A battle, maybe, or the seiten taisei in all its insane glory. Something more than an empty hallway, so silent he could practically hear his own heartbeat. The scenery was just too... surreal... to be any form of nightmare.
And yet...
/ ...no...
no, no, god, no... /
That tiny, irritating voice that seemed to echo between his very ears had returned; the comforting connection he had shared with Goku for the past few years was back to its full strength, a vivid and completely undecipherable wash of pain, horror, and fear flooding the recesses of his thoughts. Adrenaline spiked in response, and Sanzo was forced to take a calming breath and remind himself that he couldn't react without thinking in this place. Such intuitive actions had served him well in dealing with Goku before, but he couldn't be so sure that acting on gut instinct would be wise while caught inside a dream.
Where are you? he wondered, wrapping ghostly fingers around the thread that bound him to the boy and tugging lightly, letting his presence and thoughts be known. There was no active response – there was no sign that Goku realized he was there, probably too caught up in the dizzying spiral of fear that seemed to have ensnared his mind. It was intoxicating, and Sanzo was hard-pressed not to let himself get sucked in as well as he tried to determine the boy's location.
He had never before sensed this level of terror from Goku before, or even from any other person he had encountered. So completely encompassing; there was nothing outside the panic, the wildly racing thoughts that bumped into each other at random but created no coherent meanings.
blind fear, the pain of skin stretched too tight over aching muscles
the hollow feeling of a sucker-punch to the gut that came from a sense of deep self-loathing
so sickened that he continues to dry-heave even though it's obvious there is nothing left to bring up
/ ...no no no no no nonoNONONONO! /
Sanzo forced himself away from the connection, wrenching his mind from the maddening whirl of emotions, practically gasping from the intensity of it. Just attempting to determine Goku's general location had brought him too close to that frantic state of panic; the priest's heart was thundering in his chest as though it were he who was so deathly afraid of – what? What in the world could possibly frighten Goku so much that Sanzo didn't stand a chance of consoling him from such a distance?
He closed his eyes and breathed deep, counting the time between inhaling and exhaling, willing his heartbeat to slow, walling himself away from the majority of Goku's emotions. It only took him a moment to regain control again, so that Goku's panic was just a faint sensation at the edge of his mind, but every second that passed seemed to intensify the silence that surrounded him, until the air itself seemed to throb in a soundless rhythm against his eardrums. It was beginning to greatly unnerve him.
Sanzo reopened his eyes, studying the passage before him in deeper detail. It appeared that the hall came to an end maybe thirty feet down, to a blank wall that bore no adornment. None of the doors were open, and nothing separated the importance of one doorway from another. With a slight turn, he could see that the hallway behind him had a similar dead-end, albeit a much closer one and with less doors in-between. He turned about again, facing back the way he had been when opening his eyes for the first time in this eerie nightmare. All his senses pointed him in this direction – that he needed to go forward, and not backward.
His sandals did not make much noise when walking, but in this peculiar silence every scrape of bamboo and whisper of silk seemed to echo painfully in his ears. His normal quiet grace sounded loud and clumsy, and he cursed himself for even thinking of holding his breath in order to make less noise. His own movements would not be muffled, but neither would the movements of any enemy who sought to sneak up on him. With this pin-drop stillness he would be able to hear an attack from fifty feet away – more than enough time to bring his gun into play.
Ten feet down the hallway he was violently assaulted with the scent of death, as surely as though he had hit a wall of caked and drying blood. Sanzo could not help but grimace at the foul taste it left in the back of his throat, and lifted his free hand to cover his nose with the sleeve of his robe. Something, or someone, had died very recently in this corridor, or behind one of these doors... perhaps more than one someone, because the odor of blood was so strong that it had to have come from more than one person. His stomach clenched with nausea and the memory of a nightmare not so far gone from him, and Sanzo was unpleasantly reminded of the headache and fatigue that lurked at the edges of his consciousness. But he forced back the urge to pause and give his stomach a moment to settle; he didn't have the time to waste on his own frailties right now.
The priest didn't know how he knew that time was quickly running out. He just did.
Twenty feet down he could see that the hallway didn't really dead-end, but rather intersected another hall at right angles. Sanzo could see the edges of a doorway to both the left and the right of the dead-end, but kept his gaze focused to the right-hand side – that was where his senses were telling him he needed to go. Anything that was prowling to the left would have made noise, and the only thing he could hear was the scuffing of his sandals and his own uneven breathing as he fought off the urge to gag. He would give it a cursory glance once he reached the junction, but would otherwise pay that end of the hall no mind.
Twenty-five feet down he could see the beginnings of why the air stunk so heavily of blood.
Sanzo lowered the sleeve that covered his mouth and nose when he entered the new corridor, not even bothering to hide his astonishment at the slaughter laid out before him. Dozens of men in black-and-silver uniforms were sprawled in boneless death across the once-pristine tiles, blood splattered on the walls and on their skin and pooling across the floor. There was no way to count how many lay dead here; some were slumped against the wall as though thrown there, or collapsed across a comrade-in-arms as though perhaps they had tripped in battle. Just at a glance, there had to have been more than forty. Far more than forty – perhaps even double that.
He took a breath through his nose, grimaced, and chose to breathe through his mouth instead. These men had been soldiers, no doubt about that – not just because of the identical uniforms they wore, but because of the weapons scattered about the carnage and clutched in stiffened fingers. Guns, mostly, with a cross-bow here and there; all of them long-range weapons that had apparently done these warriors little good.
Sanzo stepped up to the edge of the defeated crowd, meticulously avoiding the spilt blood, and stared down at the face of one of the soldiers. This one might have been the first to fall – even though his eyes were glassy in death, his face still held the faint remains of an expression of surprise, a man who had not expected to see death visit him so soon; the cross-bow in his hand was still loaded. The blood pooled under and around him had not yet dried. The wound that had caused his death was obviously perpetrated by a sharp weapon, probably a sword – out of place among all the guns that littered the massacre.
He stepped gingerly over the fallen corpses, attempting to avoid getting any more blood on his robes than necessary, but gave up the vain effort as a lost cause after only ten more feet. With further examination, he could see that all these men had likely died by the same hand, because the strokes were methodical, precise, and aimed to kill instantly. It was an incredibly large number for one man to kill alone, unless there was a group of people who were trained in the same technique. But something told him it was only one man, and he had not flown through this veritable army with the intent of slaughter – the injuries on the soldiers would have been more designed to cause pain, less designed to kill. No, such fastidious weaponry indicated a person who had a purpose, a strong reason to kill... or defend.
Sanzo paused and looked back behind him, down in the direction he had not bothered to look before. Beyond the intersection he had come from the hallway returned to its pristine, snow-white condition; no soldiers lay dead down there. None of the dead men were facing in that direction – they were all facing in the direction Sanzo was headed, as though they were planning to go to the same place and had been... stalled. Had this mysterious swordsman been defending, then, instead of attacking?
He looked back down at the warriors at his feet, at the ones who had their faces turned up so he could see their expressions of pain, surprise, and defeat.
All of them bore chakras on their foreheads.
The priest frowned, shifting his grip on the pistol in his hand. In remembrance, these uniforms were frighteningly familiar to the attire of the five gods who had attempted to crush his traveling party with a well-placed boulder... arrogant soldiers who had thought they could do what Homura's other lackeys could not. Were these, then, the soldiers of Heaven? Were these the walls of the Heavenly Courts?
Sanzo didn't know what to think of that idea. Goku had been imprisoned by the gods for some crime committed against them... but had he actually once resided in Heaven itself? It seemed a ludicrous thought – Goku in Heaven? – but somehow... right.
Even so, he was only drawing conclusions that might not be correct from the circumstances that surrounded him. The priest could not assume they were right – he could only tuck them away for acknowledgement later. For now, he would have to follow the whimpering of pain and fear in the back of his mind and decide what was true and not later. He sighed heavily through his nose and continued picking his way across the corpses.
Another junction interrupted his path fifty feet of slaughter later, and abruptly the mass of bodies came to an end... except for a trail of blood that took the left-hand turn and disappeared around the corner. Sanzo paused again before he reached the cross-path, cocking the shoreijyuu just in case, and then followed.
This passage looked no different from the rest: white ceiling, floor, and walls, with the occasional doorway thrown in to break up the monotony. The repetition in architecture was, frankly, beginning to wear on his nerves (which were already badly frayed just from the nausea and fatigue alone), not to mention straining his eyes. Life in Heaven must have been ridiculously tedious if they couldn't even throw in a splash of color now and then, he figured.
But halfway down this corridor, at the end of the trail of smeared bloody footsteps, was a man sitting slumped against the jam of an open doorway. Once-white clothing (what is it with all the white Sanzo thought in irritation) had been liberally soaked in blood, both from the soldiers in the passage behind them and from his own injuries. Multiple cross-bow bolts were still embedded in his flesh; two or three more littering the ground beside him, as though the warrior had given up removing them partway through. His dress was far more ornate than the men he had killed – silver and black guards on his wrists and shins, a decorative circlet holding back the bangs of blood-stained snow-white hair – as was the sword which had murdered so many, hilt resting in a lax hand. (1)
This man was obviously different from the other gods, even discounting the alabaster skin and hair. Sanzo could not see his face, but he wasn't so sure that this warrior was a god – something about him gave off a completely different vibe from the other men (god or demon or otherwise) he had encountered. Regardless, he was a skilled warrior, for it appeared that he had stopped the entire force that had been pursing – him? someone he was protecting? – without any backup. He could see that this was an honorable death for the man at his feet, and could not help but wonder if he had any connection with Goku.
Sanzo had a strong feeling he did.
But he was dead, his head bowed and chin nearly resting on the silver breastplate he wore, and Sanzo didn't have the time to wonder or ever take a look at the features of the warrior. The doorway only led to another corridor, shorter and narrower than all the others the priest had been following. Yet another open door lay at its end, and the entrance fairly screamed for Sanzo's attention. That was the direction where this white solider had been heading... the direction that Goku lay in.
He was almost willing to consider saying a prayer for this man later, but Sanzo had a feeling that he would not be interested in having prayers offered up to the very gods he had murdered. So he turned his back on the fallen warrior and stepped through the open doorway, following the path the other man was no longer able to walk.
The smell of blood receded the further he got from the butchered army, but did not fade entirely; most of the bottom edge of his robes had been soaked through with blood, cold and sappy on the fabric of his socks, and the scent clung to him like a cloud of disease. His stomach still roiled in protest, inconsolable despite the fact that he no longer had to pick his way across a floor of corpses less than an hour dead. It was difficult to ignore his fatigue and the stress headache that was now creeping down into his spine with nothing but the blinding white walls of the endless corridors to attract his attention. Sanzo followed open doorway after open doorway, ignoring the lure of intersections and the one ornate entrance that had caught his attention – the depiction of a man riding a nine-headed lion with a vase in one hand and a sword in the other. He had snorted at that, but continued onward without pause. It only made sense that one of the rulers of Hell make an appearance in such a grisly nightmare. (2)
When the sickly-sweet odor of death grew stronger again, the blonde priest was more ready for the appearance of black-clad soldiers slumped in death. The change in battle tactics was obvious, though; the wounds of the dead were still made by swords, but more ragged, sloppily made, and far fewer bodies littered the ground. It appeared as though they had been actively chasing something, as though those soldiers in the front had been brought down and the soldiers behind had simply kept running onward, ignoring the fate of their fallen comrades. What blood had been spilled was smeared with the tread of boots.
Sanzo followed the trail of gore with his eyes, how it made its way down the corridor before making a right turn at another intersection. Here the killers of the soldiers had been running, pausing occasionally to defend when their enemies drew too close, and then disengaging to flee further. Two large groups of military men had been dispatched in order to take down the white solider and whoever else he was affiliated with – and if Sanzo hadn't entirely lost his sense of direction in this maze of white halls, the two groups had probably been executing a pincher maneuver, to pin the renegades between their forces and then push them into a dead end. The first had failed, obviously, but within these twisted walls there had to be dozens of blind alleys that a fleeing band of people might be too panicked to avoid.
And the sense of Goku's presence was getting very close.
The priest followed the direction the dead soldiers had been heading, turning right once he reached the intersection. This hallway ended at a large entrance, though with the double-doors flung open like they were he was unable to discern any importance from decoration. Here was the impasse he had predicted; at the foot of the doorway numerous uniformed men lay draped over one another, forming a low wall of carcasses that impeded entry or exit. This room probably had no other exit, and so the doorway had been defended as long as possible before the enemies of these soldiers had been overwhelmed. The opening was too wide for one man to hold alone, so it made sense that at least two people had been fighting back against the tide of marital force. Their efforts had been in vain, apparently, for Sanzo could see the blood that stained the walls of the room even from where he stood.
Sanzo could sense that the boy he was searching for was inside that very room.
Six quick steps brought him to the heap of soldiers that barred the entrance of the large room, and from there he could see the large statue that dominated the far side of the room. A representation of the Buddha sat on a low pedestal, right hand raised in abhayamudra(3), polished bronze now splattered with the blood of the gods – the room had probably been used for mediation. One such god lay before the statue, hands reaching out toward the enlightened being as though begging for mercy on his immortal life. The remains of his intestines were arranged grotesquely around his prone form.
The priest averted his eyes immediately, clapping his free hand over his mouth in order to stall the violent heave of his stomach. It wasn't that he hadn't seen large-scale displays of death before; on the contrary, he was used to seeing and causing such carnage himself. But there weren't simply dead men in that room – but dead, eviscerated, torn-to-pieces men. Dark, viscous blood still trailed down the walls, puddled on the tiles, dripped from the very ceiling. Some of the damage wasn't so violent – a missing arm, a decapitated head with no body to immediately match it with – but there were at least one or two smears that could no longer be considered bodies anymore. There was hardly any place he could go without stepping in someone's guts, and even fewer places where he would not step in blood. He breathed in through his nose without thinking, and the stench of death forced an involuntary gag.
It was embarrassing that he had to battle dry heaves when he had witnessed similar butchery before, but his tired body didn't really give a damn about his pride at the moment.
Sanzo closed his eyes, forcing the churning nausea to subside by sheer will alone. He didn't need to be a genius in order to figure out what – or who – had gone on this twisted killing spree. There was only one creature he knew of that was capable of slaughtering so many in such a brutal fashion, and probably laughed maniacally the whole time he was at it.
Seiten taisei Son Goku.
He reopened his eyes, fixing them first on the bloody pile of corpses at his feet, losing himself in dry details to help suppress his urge to retch. As suspected, they had all died from some sort of sharp object, same as the soldiers killed by the white warrior and in the hall behind him. Cross-bows and their ammunition were scattered on the ground and seized in stiff fingers, some of the weapons not even discharged.
Just inside the doorway were two men riddled with bolts, each with a sword clutched in hand. One of them wore a uniform no different from the other soldiers – at least from the back, for he lay sprawled face-down on the tile – short black hair and half the face visible smeared with blood. The other appeared to be wearing a white lab-coat, which was strange enough amongst all the soldiers, one now more red than white. He had fallen somewhat on his side, one arm tucked to his chest and the other out flung – bloody brown hair stuck to a pale cheek, obscuring the features and the cracked set of glasses that peeked out from the messy bangs. It was obvious from their wounds that they had not died in the same manner as the rest of the soldiers in the room.(4)
Sanzo lifted his gaze once his stomach stopped threatening to rebel, taking in the rest of the details of the meditation chamber that he had missed before. On the far side of the room, pressed into the only corner that wasn't drenched with blood, sat a tiny figure curled in a fetal position, knees pulled to a narrow chest and arms wrapped around them – so still and silent that in the first few seconds Sanzo wasn't even sure he was breathing. But then a quick, hitched sob made its way across the silence of the death trap, and the priest found himself stepping over the low wall of corpses and making his way across the room without consciously deciding to move. The sound of his sandals slapping in the blood was loud, but he was halfway across the room before it occurred to him that Goku had not reacted to his presence. The sense of him through the connection they shared was numb with shock.
"Goku," he said – and winced, for even though the word was said softly, it seemed to ricochet in the deathly quiet, bouncing against the blood-stained walls and slamming back into his ear-drums at twice the volume he had meant it to be. Even this failed to stir the skinny figure that seemed to be trying to curl in on itself and disappear. He couldn't really blame that reaction – Goku was drenched with blood from fingertip to elbow, bright red splattered liberally over the black tank and jeans (that were familiar garb to the priest – hadn't that been the very attire Goku had been wearing when Sanzo freed him from the mountain?) and the iron cuffs that circled his wrists and ankles. The long, messy hair was spiky with blood as well, his face pressed into his arms and hidden from view.
There was a white-clad body(5) slumped to the ground not far from Goku, but the priest paid it no mind, his eyes focused on the dreamer of this nasty nightmare. Had this truly been what the heretic had gone through – a mad race against time and death, only to end up having everyone die but himself? Why had he been among the hunted? Who were the other three who had been with him? When the boy lost control and shifted into his demonic form, what had triggered the change? And who had replaced the coronet that supposedly could only be made by the gods?
Sanzo knelt slowly, no longer caring about the blood that would soak into his robes. "Goku," he repeated – softer this time, so it would not echo – and reached out to rest his right hand on the boy's shoulder.
The flesh was beneath his fingertips for less than a second before the muscles tensed and jerked away. Goku unfolded like a shot from a gun, bare feet and hands scrabbling against the tile to throw himself away from the priest. The back of his head hit the wall with an audible crack of metal against tile, but he made no sound of pain or fear. He just gasped for breath, sucking in short sobs of air, golden eyes wide and hugely dilated, fixated on Sanzo's face with the expression of a person expecting a very painful death. He was... absolutely terrified. Of Sanzo.
The jabbering in his mind rose again, the connection even stronger now that they were less than three feet apart, all the fear and pain flooding back over the line before Sanzo had a chance to strangle the link. Of all the things he had seen in this lurid dream, all the people dead and eviscerated, he was disgusted most by Goku's fear. Not disgusted at Goku, but rather that something so terrible had happened that the cocky self-sure attitude that he had become so accustomed to had fled in the face of all this blood. Disgusted at whoever had decided to order a veritable army after three ill-armed men and a boy. Quasi-demonic in nature Goku was, but he was still just a child, even more so in this memory than he was in the present. In that instant Sanzo wished that he had been able to kill at least one of those soldiers himself – there was nothing more sickening to him than a mercenary who followed orders without question, without wondering how a normally care-free child like Goku could be dangerous enough to send an army after (even if he was that dangerous when cornered – as these poor fools had discovered).
No wonder I lost faith in the gods so many years ago.
"Goku," he repeated, just as softly, pulling back his hand and resting it on his knee. He rested the chamber of his other gun on his thigh as well, deliberately keeping his movements slow in order to avoid startling the boy any further. "Goku, there is no more reason to be frightened. There isn't anyone here who's going to hurt you." And I'll murder anyone who tries, he could not help but add silently.
There was no sign of recognition in those eyes, no spark of understanding; panic was still coursing madly through the connection, pulsing in time with Goku's rapid bird-like heartbeat. The priest would not be able to calm him while he was like this – as long as the boy was lost in this (not completely) irrational fear, then there was no way that Sanzo would be able to convince him that this was nothing more than a nightmare that could be woken up from. So he allowed his stranglehold on the link to loosen, to take control of the connection and touch the awareness on the other end. The only thing he could think to do was try and calm the child, like he might a wild beast caught in a trap – wrapping up each wild tendril of fear with calm and quiet and folding it back in on itself. He wasn't aware of how much time passed before he realized that Goku was actually looking at him, without the unfocused glint of fear in his eyes. He was still breathing unevenly, but no longer with the frantic hitching sobs of before.
Nails scrapped against the floor as small hands curled into fists, and the boy dropped his eyes to the blood on his clothing.
"I didn't mean to do it," he whispered in a tiny, weak voice.
"I know," Sanzo replied softly. He didn't know what had happened – besides what he had discerned from the evidence he was presented – but it was difficult to believe that any of this had been done by Goku on purpose. Whoever was behind this was the true manipulator; not even this priest could blame a badly frightened child for anything he had done to defend himself. Not in the middle of this massacre.
"Goku," he said again, and was pleased that the boy was finally reacting to him when golden eyes lifted to stare at him beneath long lashes. "You have to listen to me closely. You – "
Something shifted, a clink of metal against tile, impossibly loud in the silence despite its quite nature, and Sanzo whirled, bringing his gun up to bear on the unknown intruder.
Already half-way across the room, although no other sound had been made to indicate his presence, stood the War Prince Homura, leaning on his sword – and if the frown on his face was any indication of his temperament, he was not pleased.
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A/N:
1 For those of you who didn't get it or weren't sure, this is Gojun, the past incarnation of our cute and cuddly Hakuryuu.
2 This is Tai Yi, one of the most important gods in Taoism and Buddhism; he is one of the highest rulers in the 10-stage Taoist Hell, and all humans must pass before him to be sentenced after death.
3 The abhayamudra position of traditional Buddhist statues has the right hand raised palm up – a gesture meant to dispel fear. These statues are used to symbolize protection and peace in one's home and garden.
4 Yeah, these two are Kenren and Tenpou – I know that Kenren has red hair in the anime, but in the manga he has black hair. I mean, if red hair and eyes are meant to indicate a taboo child, why would a god have red hair and eyes? o.0? So, in this story, he had black hair. Get over it.
5 Yes, this is Konzen. Yes, I know he's sometimes depicted in purple clothing instead, but I like the contrast of red on white. More visually appealing. :3 Yes, he will be explained in the next chapter. Woo-hoo!
Blades of Ice: I'm so glad my Homura at least appears structurally correct. –sweatdrop- I'll have more to work on this next chapter. Hope you're enjoying the Goku torture, too. Mwahahahaha!
keistje: OMG it's 2 in the morning and I really need sleep. Hope you enjoy everything at the end that I didn't let you read before I posted it. Woo!
Koinu-Chan: Bwaha! I gave you a quick update, but I'm afraid this might not tell you everything that happens. You'll just have to read the next chapter and find out! :3
Eat A Peach: No worries on missing the chapter 8 update, I miss these things all the time. But I'm glad that you like my version of Isou (as small a part as he had). And it took me a few minutes to get back into writing after I put down the 'buddha-humper' comment. I was laughing insanely and attracting the attention of my parents. It was funny as hell. :3 Although I didn't include so much of Sanzo's 'I hate everyone' in this chapter, I kinda figured all the detective work he'd be doing would push a lot of that macho "I don't care" stuff out of the way. I hope I managed to pull it off right, and that the Sanzo-internal-torture is enough. -heart-!
Me-Nuriko: Thank you so much for the compliments! -heart-! I guess I was just staring at that chapter for so long that I started to hate every word it – that happens when writer's block sets in too deep, I guess. Didn't have that problem with THIS chapter!
bleedformeee: I love you too! –squeal!- Oooh, and naughty voyeurism pictures of Sanzo/Goku! –drools- I hope you're not too tired when you get around to reading this (omg its 205 in the morning! –cries-), and I hope you enjoy it lots. :3
