God, this chapter just did NOT want to come out... it was pretty impressive. I'm going on a trip, though, so I had to finish this before I left.

For disclaimer and warnings, see first chapter.

All right, here we are, y'all, the long awaited last chapter! I'm sorry if it sucks, it's one thirty in the morning right now, but I am NOT redoing it.

Installment Seven

In Which a Bunch of People Talk

OR

The End

Goku sleepily opened his eyes and frowned, trying to make out the strange dark green haze that was playing in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that the haze was not, in fact, a hallucination, but simply the back of a sofa, which he now lay on. He frowned. There were no green sofas in his house. He sat straight up, looking out over the back of the couch, and was met with the eyes of five people. A chill crawled down his spine as, one by one, he placed them in a memory that was impossible; that he was certain was not his own.

"Where am I?" he started to say, but was cut off long before he got the words out by Yaone laughing.

"You see, Kou? I told you he would win." Yaone turned her eyes toward Goku, and another chill went down his spine as he traced not the similarities, but the differences between this woman and the one from his memory. She was the same woman, it was undoubtable, but it was more in the way that she stood and talked and held herself then in her physical appearance that proclaimed this truth. Goku frowned as, one by one, he sought the eyes of the four others who sat around the kitchen table, and one by one, noted the same thing in each of them.

"We had a bet going," Yaone explained, eyes dancing. "A bet over who would be the last to wake up. I said you right off the bat, but Kou thought that Sanzo would wake up last, because of his injury." Goku took a sharp intake of breath as a flash of something that wasn't quite memory jolted through his mind. He looked up at Sanzo, then dropped his eyes hurriedly, and opened his mouth, but was once again cut off.

"Don't," This time it was Kougaiji who had spoken. Goku looked at him questioningly. "You were about to apologize." He continued. It wasn't a question, but he wasn't wrong, so Goku chose not to answer. "Don't apologize for something you had no control over."

This time Goku did not even bother opening his mouth, just made it sufficiently obvious that he was about to disagree and allowed someone to begin speaking. Again, it was Kougaiji.

"Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that you and… that, that –"

"Saiten Taisei," Yaone supplied helpfully.

"Thank you," Kougaiji gave her a curt nod and continued. "Don't ever think that you're one and the same thing. You may happen to inhabit the same body, but…" he trailed off, apparently at the end of the amount of reassurances he could make in one day.

"But how is that right?" Goku asked. Sanzo, Hakkai, and Gojyo jumped. It was the first time any of them had heard him speak. "The… the Saiten Taisei or whatever you called 'im, he is me. I could, can feel 'im. He's what kept me alive for so long when I was out on the streets."

"Could you have stopped it from hurting Sanzo?" Yaone asked, quietly. Goku turned to her, eyes wide, mouth opened to speak.

No one interrupted him. But no sound came out.

"Did you want to hurt Sanzo?" Yaone continued after a moment's pause.

"He did," Goku began, but was cut off.

"Did you want to? Not the Saiten Taisei, but you?" Goku dropped his eyes.

"Of course not." He said quietly. He jerked his head up and glared at Yaone. "Of course not!" he repeated, louder.

"Exactly," Yaone said happily, flashing her brilliant smile. "So, anyway, it turned out that Sanzo woke up first after all. Gojyo almost beat you, though; he only woke up a half-day before you." It took Goku a moment to connect the pieces of the scattered conversation. After he understood what she meant, frowning, he asked,

"Why did it take Gojyo so long to wake up?" Hakkai snorted loudly, and even Sanzo looked like he had the barest hints of a smile starting. Gojyo was carefully looking at no one in particular, so it was Hakkai who answered.

"He O.D.ed on ibuprofen," he said with a remarkably straight face. Goku looked at Hakkai for a moment, then turned his gaze on Gojyo. His blank look quickly changed to a smirk, which was not lost on Gojyo.

"Squirt! If you have something you wanna say to me, then say it!" he roared, making as if to get up, then thinking better of it. Shaking his head, Goku placed his head in his hands. His small frame began to shiver uncontrollably, and Yaone was halfway to her feet before she realized that Goku was laughing.

He hadn't laughed in such a long time that he had almost forgotten how. It felt so good to have an emotion as purely human as mirth that Goku laughed for far longer then was warranted, but then the last eight years of his life came bubbling up, and he knew that he wouldn't stop until he was finally free of the weight of them.

All five of the people sitting around the kitchen table turned to stare at Goku; all except Sanzo, who pointedly turned away. Yaone, who was sitting across from him, thought she might have seen a smile cross his face, but it was probably her imagination.

"Wait…" Goku asked after he was done, changing position so he could see into the kitchen more easily. "Didn't Sanzo lose a lot of blood? Why did he wake up first?"

Yaone badly stifled a laugh. "Lirin was attempting to see to his wounds while Kou and I worked on you. I… believe he woke up from discomfort."

"That reminds me, Ms. Yaone," Hakkai said. Gojyo rolled his eyes at the formality, a gesture which Hakkai obtrusively ignored. "Why was it that Lirin was the one who was… attempting to bring Goku back?"

"She feels things too strongly." To their surprise, it was Kougaiji who answered.

"She has an… ability. She can make other's emotions her own, which makes her… ideal for dealing with these kinds of situations." Yaone continued.

"'These kinds of situations'?" Sanzo asked, raising his eyebrows. "How many times have you dealt with something like this?"

"Well, never," Yaone admitted. "We've had two other problems that we resolved the same way, though," she added brightly. "And she wasn't the only one who could do it, she was just the only one who knew how… didn't you hear her say it would work better if one of you guys did it?" Yaone asked. Her voice was still kind, but all cheerfulness had gone from it.

"Yeah." Gojyo said, thinking. "She said it would work best of all if Sanzo did it, though… Why is that?" he asked, glancing up. Yaone frowned, and Kougaiji made a small noise in the back of his throat.

"Do you all remember?" Yaone asked. "Your past lives, I mean." One by one, the four nodded, with varying degrees of confusion written in their faces. "That was why the two of you collapsed," Yaone explained, turning to Gojyo and Hakkai. "It's… painful… to suddenly be remembering something that has never happened. You won't remember all of it. You never will. The parts that you remember have no rhyme, no reason, they're in no particular order, and they have no particular meaning; you don't remember the things that made the biggest impression on your past selves before you remember the other things…" she trailed off her eyes glancing from one face to another to another, and back again. "Not necessarily…" she continued with her previous thought. "And you need to remember not to take the memories too seriously. I mean, there yours and you should acknowledge them, and sometimes they can save you from making some pretty dumb mistakes, but don't mistake the past for the future. You don't have to do everything the same... as… as you did… you can do things differently, think things differently, be a different person. No one's stopping you. And yes, I suppose there are some eerie coincidences that will make it seem like history is repeating itself, but… but it's not." Yaone was looking particularly at Hakkai as she said this, her voice beseeching. "The fact of the matter is, reincarnation can take you only so far," she continued, her voice back to normal. "Even if you were born with the same soul, if you had other circumstances you'd be a different person. If any of you had had different homes or different lives your personalities would be changed and you wouldn't be you. You'd be someone completely different… I guess you might still get the memories, but they wouldn't stick, because you wouldn't be able to relate to them. It would be like a person telling someone else about their dream… even though it's fascinating to them, the other person never really cares, because they've never really experienced it…" Yaone trailed off. "I don't think I'm making any sense," she said with an apologetic smile. "I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn't be afraid to do things differently. But don't be the afraid to do them the same, either," she said hurriedly, her eyes flitting from Hakkai to Gojyo to Sanzo to Goku and back gain.

"Yaone," Kougaiji said, pulling her back into her seat before she began to talk again. "That's enough. They get it, don't worry." She smiled at him, sadly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Some of the memories that you get are things you'd wish to forget."

"Goku," Kougaiji said suddenly, breaking the sudden and tense silence that had fallen. "You'd had those memories all along, didn't you?"

"Yeah, Goku answered. "My parents beat it into my head that they weren't real, but… I guess they were. I wonder what they'd say if they found out that they were real… but they're dead now, aren't they?" he asked. He instinctively looked to Sanzo for confirmation. At his nod he continued, "They were killed, I think. By the same person who stole the diadem."

Sanzo twitched. "Where'd you find it?" he asked Kougaiji. Kougaiji grimaced.

"Rosemont." He muttered. "It was in one of their technical labs." Sanzo sighed.

"I thought so. Eight years ago they took the diadem, and now they want the boy. I don't suppose you have any ideas about why, do you?" Kougaiji shook his head.

"I've got about as much to go on as you. I can assume what it had to do with; I can infer they wanted to use him as a weapon, but beyond that… I don't know."

"Will they come after you?" It was a very quiet voice, and not one that any of them would have associated with Goku, had he not been the one to have spoken. "Will they come after you for not taking me in when you were supposed to? What do they want me so much for, anyway?" Goku growled. "Why am I the one who needs to wear a special diadem to keep my sanity? How did I even get the thing at all? I've had it ever since I can remember, but it doesn't seem like the type of thing that would be easily attainable. Why am I the one who they're chasing after, endangering all my friends? Why am I the one…" but here he broke off, determined not to continue.

They all stared, most of them aware that they were seeing the breakdown of over five hundred years worth of worry and regret, all wrapped up into the laughter and the small speech, and now the silence. And not one of them knew how to respond, not even the caring Yaone, because none of them had ever experienced anything like what the boy, the youngest of them all, had. Suddenly, Sanzo stood up, taking them all aback. He walked over to Goku, muttered something very quietly, and then stalked down the hall to his room, quite obviously, to those who knew him best, embarrassed.

"What did he say?" Hakkai asked finally, staring after Sanzo, disbelief written in his face. Goku looked up and smiled.

"He said… 'because otherwise you wouldn't be you, dimwit,'" Goku knew that they were all giving him looks in various degrees in confusion, but he didn't bother to explain it to them. Trust Sanzo to be able to read into the tangled mess of words and pick out what he was really trying to say. Goku tilted his head up and looked at the ceiling, thinking.

"Sanzo… why me?"

"Because otherwise you wouldn't be you."

And, THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need a sequel!

P.S.: The End

Ah, crud. I'm sorry, this chapter was DEFINITELY more Goku/Sanzo then I would've liked...

Okay, notice how there are a bunch of loose ends that lead nowhere? That's why I'm going to need a sequel. Actually, originally it was just going to be one big story, but I decided that it needed to be two separate stories for two reasons:

1) The pairings. This one has no pairings, and I wanted to give all of my readers who support other pairings a chance to back out now. The sequel WILL be: Sanzo/Goku and Gojyo/Hakkai (39 and 58), if you haven't all ready guessed from the story itself.

2) The writing style. This one is based more on characters and plot, and is a lot darker. The other one is going to have a lot more fluff. Loads of it, and it's probably going to center more around stuff that isn't quite as sinister, a.k.a., Goku going to school, the neighbours, random relatives popping up out of nowher, etc. Also, I had a MUCH BETTER idea what the plot was going to be in this one. I have a vague idea about the next one, but... nothing much yet.

Sorry, for the inconvenience, but the new story probably won't be up for a while. I'm guessing at least two weeks. I don't even have a NAME for it, yet. So, keep your eyespeeled for it, pretty pretty please? (wanna review while you're at it?)

And a Great Big Special Thanks To:

Milky Etoile: I'm glad you like the idea. I hope youweren't too disappointed, not too much ended up being explained. But, you seemed to have a very good grasp of what was going on anyway, so...

Timberwolf220: AHA! There is a reason for Lirin's emotional-ness! Sort of. It's a pretty bad reason, actually, but... I kind of thought it fit her.

Shakuhachi Jade: Actually, I do find it a little fishy that I haven't been flamed once, yet... hm... Well, I suppose since there's virtually no pairings there's really not too much for someone to flame me about. I hope that you liked the other chapters as much as you liked the first one!

Shakuhachi Jade: I'm glad that you liked my, ah... history note, at theend of chapter four. Iwasn't sure people would get it unless I put it in, because not only is it aslightly obscure bit of information, I also wrote it very... abstractly.

Shakuhachi Jade: IAM DETERMINED TO WRITE AN INDIVIDUAL NOTE FOR EACH AND EVERY REVIEW! Also, it's two o'clock in the morning by now, and I don't think I'd be able to handle it otherwise. . Thanks, I actually did have fun writing chapter seven. Even though it was a little bit like pulling teeth... but only a little...

Koto Juri: Yay! I hope you still like this (I hope you like the sequel, for that matter...)

endragh: Yup, I continued. . I'm glad that you like it.