Howdy, y'all. This is your favorite (I can dream...) Authoress again.
What more can you expect from me except frantic typing in hopes of finishing another chapter before tomorrow? Not much, my friend, not much.
I have a small correction to make from the first chapter character information.
Hakkai was not married; he simply had a very close girlfriend. She committed suicide after getting raped and impregnated by a demon. Afterwards, Hakkai went on a killing spree in an attempt to avenge her. That connects with the reason why one of his eyes is nearly blind.
I offer my sincerest apologies for the incorrect information from before.
START CHAPTER
"An army?"
Sanzo paused to look back at Machira, who seemed frozen to the spot, as he moved towards the thin door that connected their room to the hallway. "An army," he replied icily. "As in a large group of pissed off demons with sharp objects."
Machira rolled her eyes at the priest when he wasn't looking, then slipped from her bed to join them at the doorway. They didn't notice her until they had stepped into the hallway.
"Uh-uh, you're hurt," Gojyo said, moving to push her back into their room.
"I don't care," she replied, slapping his hands away. He caught her by the wrist, and the reason for her eagerness to help came to him as his eyes fell upon the bandages that were wrapped around her hand. This group of demons was most likely the same one that destroyed her home and killed her family. She wished to avenge them, no matter what.
It took a few seconds for Gojyo to realize that she wasn't fighting to free her arm. Her gaze had dropped to the floor. "I know I don't look like I can help, but I have to."
Sighing Gojyo followed the others down the staircase that lead to the front door, but before he went outside to join his comrades, he pressed her up against the wall beside the door. "You be careful as hell out there, got it? These demons aren't messing around."
"I know that," she replied, meeting his red eyes unflinchingly for the first time. Her eyes flickered to the scars he carried on his face, and he released her.
"Just be careful. I don't wanna watch Hakkai mop you up again."
Machira realized this meant he had been watching when Hakkai bandaged her back, and felt a hot rush of anger, but pushed it aside. Now was not the time. She collected herself enough to nod.
Then together, they stepped into the budding chaos.
A band of demons was waiting. Hakkai was calling on his chi, and the others brandished weapons. They all knew that this meant things were more than likely going to get rather messy.
One of the demons saw Machira suddenly, lowered his axe, and pointed a long, brittle green finger at her. "She's the only one we want. Give us the girl, and there won't be any trouble here," he bargained in an oily voice.
Gojyo raised his shakujou staff, his lips curving into a cocky grin. "Looks like we're gonna have some trouble, then."
With those words, the battle started. A blast of Hakkai's chi wiped out several unlucky youkai before they had a chance to charge, and Goku seemed to be having fun shouting advice at the youkai before killing them. Machira was not nearly as nimble as she had been before she was injured, but she did a fair job with her hands and feet. To her disgust, she felt a demon's arms slink around her, holding her fast, when she dropped her guard for a second.
"You backed out of a deal, girly," he hissed into her ear.
Although demon men are different from human men in many ways, a swift, backward kick to the groin is painful to both, as Machira soon realized. She cast the startled and pained demon a grin before she moved on.
It wasn't long before the fight ended. All the wounded demons refused to talk and were simply killed, but those wise enough to run were spared.
The five warriors gathered to evaluate the situation, and Machira noted that none of them had even a scratch. Her face flushed as she realized how pathetic she must have looked when the demons were all killed so easily. She had scars for life from a group that took roughly ten minutes to defeat.
"That wasn't too bad," Goku admitted, making Machira feel worse. He hadn't even broken a sweat.
"It's unfortunate that we didn't learn who sent them..." Hakkai paused to look at Machira, who hadn't said anything. She had decided it was best to hide her feelings of shame, and shifted her gaze from person to person to avoid getting asked any questions.
"It may have been that no one sent them here. Maybe they were just pissed off that the girl they wanted to kill most of all made it out alive," Gojyo tossed in.
"Could be. After all, they said they wanted her," Goku remarked with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
"Then they aren't the only ones." Gojyo grinned at Machira, who simply raised an eyebrow at him. That comment had further proved her suspicions that he was merely interested in sleeping with her, and desired nothing more from her than that.
"Gojyo, shut the hell up," Sanzo said reproachfully.
After giving Machira a flirtatious glance, which she didn't react to, Gojyo turned back to the serious conversation. "Let's just pay for our room and get the hell outta here."
There was a murmur of agreement, and a short time later they were all sitting in the jeep, driving away from the small inn and confused innkeeper, who was so sight deprived he had yet to notice the many demon corpses that littered the ground in front of his home.
Machira looked a bit cross, smashed in between two overly awake and heatedly arguing men, but didn't complain. Instead, she carefully constructed a question to ask the group. "Why did you bring me with you?"
Gojyo nudged her in the ribs gently, abandoning his latest disagreement with Goku. "You think we'd leave you behind so more demons would come back and finish you off?"
She almost replied with a definite yes, but bit her tongue. It would be rude to insult them after all they had done for her. "I can never repay you for this."
"Well, actually, you could..." Gojyo trailed off, knowing that she had understood his meaning already.
I could have loved him, Machira thought to herself. "I think I'll have to pass," she said instead, disguising her thoughts.
"Once you make one demon angry at you, you have to deal with all of them. They're connected in that sense," Hakkai supplied, his emerald eyes carefully not wavering from the road, which Machira greatly appreciated.
"Oh." Her reply was short and to the point, but it didn't come anywhere close to summing up what she wanted to say. She was scared. Deeply, deeply scared, but it wasn't just of the demons that were coming after her. After her father had fearfully agreed to help kill the four demon slayers that were now the closest things to friends she had left, she had sworn never to trust any demon ever again. But now, she was sitting by two full demons, and one who was half and half.
She was afraid of herself as well. Her heart fluttering at the sight of a half demon was only the first step. A heavy pain was sitting upon her heart. Gojyo wanted her for sexual reasons, but she was shocked to discover that she had feelings for him buried deep inside herself.
You're being stupid. He doesn't want to have a relationship with you, a tiny voice inside her head was insisting. Give it up.
She decided that instead of thinking, she would simply watch the scenery pass by. Her head was starting to hurt.
"So...where are we headed?" Goku asked Hakkai. Machira had been so absorbed in her thoughts she hadn't realized that the dispute around her had stopped.
Hakkai smiled. "I'm not really sure of the name, but it's a fairly large city. I asked the innkeeper about it yesterday, and he told me just to follow this road."
Goku laughed good-naturedly. "You sure he wasn't senile?"
"If he was, it doesn't really matter at this point. All roads lead somewhere," Hakkai respond philosophically.
"Right. I know that, but...I'm hungry!"
Sanzo sighed angrily. "You already ate breakfast."
"Speaking of which, we saved you some in case you were hungry." Gojyo reached behind him into the small plastic cooler, and extracted a few items. "It's not much, but that's what we get for staying at a cheap inn."
He handed her a slightly squashed muffin, a small red apple, and a can of orange juice. "Thanks." She remembered how Goku had said he was hungry, so she turned and handed him the muffin. "I'm not really that hungry anyway."
Goku accepted the food gratefully, and with a small chuckle, Machira ate her own food. She wasn't hungry, truthfully, but she felt that it was only healthy to fill her stomach after being without nourishment for two days.
When she had finished, she crushed the can and placed it carefully in the trash, but decided to throw the apple core into the woods that lined the road. It soared over the treetops and landed with a soft thump out of view.
"Nice arm," Gojyo commented appreciatively.
She smiled faintly, then rubbed her hand right. It was sore today, probably from the fight. Or perhaps it was curling her arm under her head in an attempt to make her pillow seem less pitifully flat.
Sanzo yawned, leaning back slightly in his seat. "Grab me a beer, would ya?"
Highly amused, Machira moved faster than Gojyo and slapped the damp can into the priest's hand. "You're a little different from most priests I've met, you know."
He smirked at her and popped open the top, turning to face forward again.
"All the other priests and monks I've met wouldn't allow women to set foot into their temples. That, and the men aren't allowed to drink, smoke, or gamble." She paused, realizing the others were chuckling softly. "What?"
"Nothing," Sanzo replied in a noticeably gentler (but still quite snappish) tone, smiling just a little. He seemed to be getting used to having Machira around, and didn't yell at her as often. "Just that we can relate."
She smiled a little, fighting back a memory of her father that she had been reminded of by seeing Sanzo smile. Her father scarcely laughed as well. She swallowed hard, fighting down a wave of sadness.
"Um...Machira?"
She looked over at Goku, a bit startled. He hadn't addressed her directly, seeming to sense her fear of demons. "Yeah?"
"Sorry if it's hard for you to sit next to me," he muttered. "I know you don't really like youkai all that much."
With a smile, she replied, "I'm getting to like them a lot more."
"What about half demons?" Gojyo asked hopefully.
Swiveling her gaze to lock her eyes on his, she replied quietly, "Living proof that humans and demons can live in peace." Again, her eyes flickered to focus on the scars beside his eye, but she didn't ask him about it. For that, he was grateful.
Machira rubbed her hand again. Tonight, if given the option of sleeping on the floor or taking Gojyo's bed, she would take the floor and let him be comfortable.
After all, he did find her when she was hurt. Thinking about that reminded her of how he had warned her to be careful. Sanzo had killed a demon with a poleax that had rushed her, and upon thinking back she realized that her life had been saved a few more times by the men watching over her.
She leaned back, not caring that Gojyo slipped his arm around her shoulders to see what she would do. Shutting her eyes, she let out a satisfied sigh. Although her travels with them would undoubtedly end sooner or later, she saw no reason to let that trouble her.
As the jeep came over the top of a hill, a city was visible. "See? I told you we'd find it!" Hakkai said lightly to Goku.
"Great!" Goku replied enthusiastically. "I'm starving!"
END CHAPTER
Yay! I finished this chapter in one day! So maybe I neglected a few other things...like feeding my cats, and eating breakfast...but it's done at last! Huzzah!
(cough) Anyway, I promise to type my bloody heart out when I return home to make up for my absence. Just for the record, I'm not British, I'm just strange.
Authoress out.