Wanting
Fourth Chapter: Surface
Once Jeep had begun to fruitlessly spin his wheels against a tumble of rock, they piled out under the stretch of pale blue sky and let him settle dragon-formed on a patch of warmed ground. They looked ahead at the upheaval of rocks biting into the horizon, and Goku had thought it felt weird that they were here, already, because they always talked about following the sunset and going West and reversing the minus wave, but the end was always far away until it was suddenly right there. Maybe they would start going East that very day, and maybe that night they would go back to that same inn and maybe that very day the journey would be over. Somehow, he had thought it would be a lot bigger, there would be fantastic crashes of thunder and lightning, glint on blades and gnashing teeth and a real battle. Instead, there was a sky that looked like it was stretched too thin, a gentle breeze, and Gojyo yelling for him to start walking and stop staring around.
Sanzo's shoulders looked drawn and tense, and he walked ahead with his eyes on the rocks. Goku knew that he liked to draw together plans in his mind, and he wondered if there was a lot Sanzo had to remember. Hakkai and Gojyo were talking behind him, and he sensed their awareness drawing tighter like strings easier than he even heard their words. He felt the breeze brush against his face, and he drew it into his lungs. Smells blossomed--rocks, Sanzo, the other two, and a place where birds rested. All the unspoken thoughts in the air were putting him out of sorts, and so he ran forward over sliding ground to kick a red-tinged rock over the next outcropping. He tilted his head when the sound came back wrong.
"Hey, guys!"
He scattered himself toward the edge, and looked.
It looked like a strange drawing, and he blinked at it several times to make sure the image was right. The gigantic vast air of a crater howled lowly in the wind, sliced through with bird wings, and at the center was a castle surrounded by frozen waves of rock, as if the earth itself wanted to destroy it. Kougaiji, Lirin, Dokugakuji, Yaone, they matched this smell of desolate air. He didn't realize they'd caught up with him until Sanzo's shadow blanketed his back.
"Don't fight them unless they come against us first. It's a waste of time," he spoke in the voice that sounded like rocks too, somehow reading Goku's thoughts.
"Perhaps we won't be able to avoid it." He felt Hakkai's hand rest against his shoulder.
"Perhaps."
He wouldn't remember which one of them went down first, but soon they were together, sliding down the steep inclines and tearing up rusty dust in clouds that hovered behind them. He wondered what was inside the castle, and how far up they'd have to climb to get to the end.
And then he saw that someone was sitting on the steps.
Sanzo had seen it too, because when Goku tilted his head up to tell him, the priest's eyes were hard and narrow. Gojyo and Hakkai's steps grew heavy and purposeful, and he could hear the electric crack of the shakujou appearing a moment before he called for nyoibou.
They came to a stop before the steps began, looking at the man seated there.
A man he was, a slender figure shrouded in a lab coat and wreathed in cigarette smoke and something white in the crook of his elbow. Birds fluttered their black wings, stirring his clothes with an ethereal wind. Goku remains in the tight line the others have formed to either side of them, and can almost hear their hearts thrumming at the same pace. There's no sense in resting because now they're here and it'll be over soon and they will win.
"Nice to see you again, Kouryuu."
But no one reacted the way the scientist thought they would, because everyone's attention had caught on the growing shadow spilling out on the steps behind him, and the blade glinting in dull sunlight.
At the last moment, he whirled out from beneath the whistle of air, and Dokugakuji's sword embedded itself with a clang in the body-warmed step.
Gojyo was running first because he knew what it meant, and the rest were soon following until it was nothing but a blur of motion, color, hard reflections off metal and the momentum of the nyoibou and whizzing bullets. They melded with Dokugakuji into the old dance, unswaying fire crashing up against their common enemy. A chill crawled up Goku's back that told him the man was moving just like Sanzo used to when he was teaching him to fight. Letting it happen. Letting it happen, grinning. Grinning even when Goku's staff collided with his face, shattering his glasses to rain down on the ground. Grinning when the glass crunched underfoot. Grinning when he extended a hand and unimaginable pain sprouted through Goku's mind.
"I learned this from a dear friend of mine," whispered a cold breath in his ear, before the searing coldness shot into his mind.
What do you want more than anything?
He was blinded, he was deafened, he was senseless. He couldn't hear the screams, or feel the ground slam into his back where he fell, or see the heavy curtains of smoke choking the air. Pain, until he drowned in it with its horrible whiteness filling up his mouth and ears and all his thoughts.
Sanzo, Hakkai, Gojyo.
He had to... had to help...
His mind roared back in excruciating sensation, ringing with the sound of his own scream in his ears. Smoke clogged his own throat and he coughed, squinting up at the shafts of sunlight that lanced through the billows of white, dancing in Yaone's hair as she threw the last of the bombs in her hands, and turned back to run toward them.
Sanzo was nearby, sprawled motionless, and it made him choke but he gathered him up anyway and ran for everything he had, Yaone beside him dragging Hakkai and Dokugakuji slung across Koujaiji's back, and Lirin dragging Gojyo by a handful of his hair and he might have even laughed if he didn't feel so much like throwing up everything he'd ever eaten.
A white-washed ceiling painted with a shift of morning light greeted him the moment he opened his eyes. Dimly, he remembered. Yaone had taken them to an expert pharmacist she knew of, but even she didn't know. A ray of light danced across his skin for a few seconds before he realized what it meant. He shot up in panic, wondering how he had fallen asleep that night when he was supposed to be carrying on his watchful vigil over the deathly silent bodies. The beds beside him were empty, and he opened his mouth, trying to push off the bed with trembling wrists.
"Oi. About time you woke up, idiot."
He turned around before he could even think.
There, bathed in the streaming light from a tall window, three men were playing cards.
Goku's feet carried him forward to the fourth chair and he plopped down nervelessly into it, hardly even looking at the cards dealt to him. He only clutched the wood underneath his fingers, and looked at the bodies that moved, breath rising in chests and subtle shifts of movement. Deep voices and the watery sound of cards shifting.
"WHAT THE HELL, YOU GUYS?!"
They continued without a flinch, as if he hadn't even spoken, but a few seconds later, Gojyo spoke around his cigarette in a deceptively conversational tone.
"You know, Hakkai, I had a weird dream. (Hit me.)"
"Oh really? (Ah, I do believe that's a bust, Gojyo.) So did I."
"Hm," agreed Sanzo, analyzing his cards with a hard stare.
"It was kinda nice. But then I remembered that if I slept too long, there was a monkey who might draw on my face."
"How odd. During my dream, I also remembered a monkey, and how he might get shot if I didn't step in. (Hit or stay, Sanzo?)"
"(I'll stay.) I kept thinking that there'd be no food left."
He thought he should get mad about the way they were talking about him, but he couldn't. They had all three turned to him, each one wearing a faint smile.
"Was there not anything you were wanting, Goku?" Hakkai's voice was deep and soft, like he imagined the bottom of a riverbed to be.
"I guess..." he mumbled down at the table, bowing his head to make his too-long hair fall in his face. "I guess I wanted you all to be okay."
There was a long silence before Sanzo spoke, and even then his voice sounded strange and rough. "Your turn, stupid monkey."
Goku lifted his eyes and gathered up the worn cards. Ace ten.
"I FINALLY WON!"
For the first and most definitely the last time, no one cared how loud he was being.
end.
Author's Notes.
Awww..
Ahem! Well, I hope those of you that have been reading enjoy this final chapter and the whole fic as much as I loved to write it. Your support and feedbacks have been a wonderful welcome to the Saiyuki fandom--thank you so, so much!! I'll definitely stick around!
I should probably explain a little better about what happened with the plot--since most of it was supposed to be Goku's POV, it was difficult to figure out a way to show things he wouldn't find out. So here's some explanation!
If anyone has read the Reload arc "Against the Stream," you'll remember Zakuro, the master of creating illusions. At the very end of the arc, he's attacked by a swarm of crows, which seem to be Nii's tiny little evil messengers. In this fic's universe, Zakuro has been held captive by Nii and most likely tortured until Nii was able to extract or learn the secrets of creating illusions. When the Sanzo-ikkou (and Doku) come up against him, he goes one step further and casts their spirits from their bodies. He intends to keep their spirits from returning by letting their memories create a powerful illusion resembling a place where they most wanted to be. WildeLamassu, you picked up on the key phrase right away--they were both alive and dead, living in spirit somewhere in their own personal heavens, but almost dead in body. What he didn't count on was that Goku already was where he most wanted to be, with the other ikkou. His remaining in his own body eventually drew the others back to themselves, since his spirit wasn't there with them and they began to miss the bond between the four of them.
Doku turning on Nii was a result of this fic's Kougaiji-tachi slowly beginning to realize that Nii was not a nice fella, Gyokumen Koushu was not a sweetheart, and both would probably kill the Kougaiji-tachi plus Kougaiji-mom the second none of them had usefulness anymore. I don't have a good enough grip on Kougaiji yet to know if he would stay with Gyokumen Koushu's plans to the end or not, but I feel like Doku would try to take down the evil duo once everyone's doom looked pretty clear. He waited until the Sanzo-ikkou were there to distract Nii, and Yaone was holding Lirin safe until the racket outside drew both her and Kou outside--at which point she threw smokebombs to keep Nii from killing everyone, and they all ran like heck.
The Goku-POV scenes in the first two chapters were real memories of the days leading up to the fight, disguised as illusions in the fic to be a red herring. They were also in a roundabout way, there to show that being with the Sanzo-ikkou was Goku's "wanting." And at the end, of course, they're playing Blackjack, since that's the only card game I know. ;)
Sorry about those long explanations! x.x; I had the feeling that some of you would want them, so there they are! Hopefully I'll figure out how to get the whole plot in the fic next time, haha.
permetaform: Woww, that's such a flattering review.. thank you! :)
runefallstar: Aw, thank you for sticking with the fic the whole way through! I hope you'll enjoy the ending, too.
rasinah: Heehee, I'm evil, I love cliffhangers. : Thank you for the compliments, I hope I didn't make you suffer too much the last few days!
Thank all you again for your wonderful feedback. I will most definitely keep writing Saiyuki fic, since I'm hopelessly addicted now. 'Til next time! love, snowyheart.