The innkeeper is very surprised to see us return. After all, we'd checked out just that morning, and it's shortly past noon. He's more surprised to see Gojyo stride up grimly with a handful of money and reserve a pair of double rooms. Goku is right behind him, asking if a pair of sleeping pallets can be moved into one room, instead of needing two. I follow them more slowly, carrying Sanzo's unconscious form carefully on my back. Despite the weight and my weakened state, I am prepared to defend him with everything I have, and it would be worth someone's life to try to take him from me. The innkeeper glances at me briefly and looks away with the shudder a mouse gives when it meets the eyes of a falcon. Gojyo regains his attention by ordering what would normally be food for eight to ten people, and demanding the key to the room.
When we get to the room, Goku prowls around to make sure all is in order while Gojyo helps me lay Sanzo on one of the two beds that are pressed against the walls. The pallets are dragged in and get arranged: one by the foot of one bed and one in between the beds, so that Goku and Gojyo will be between the door and the beds. Just in case. With Sanzo incapacitated, the rest of us are understandably on edge. Unfortunately for the two serving girls who knock on the door, that means that Gojyo opens it with his polearm held ready and Goku in a battle stance behind him. Luckily, they just freeze in fear. Gojyo pours on the charm and apologizes while Goku takes the food, and they leave much calmer.
We dive into the assorted covered dishes and throw-away containers like men who haven't seen food for a week. This is normal for Gojyo and Goku, but I think they are surprised to see me eating with such gusto. I don't even know what it is that I am eating, or if it is any good – nor do I care. My chi is seriously depleted, and I'll eat anything set in front of me right now. Gojyo and Goku aren't modest about eating their fill, but when all is said and done, there are more empty plates and containers around me than either of them. While I tidy up – eating any scrap of food that was left over in the process – there is some discussion about whether or not either of them want to go anywhere this evening, and the agreement that one of them will be in the room at all times. I don't bother to listen; I'm not going anywhere. My responsibility is to eat and rest, let my chi regenerate, and finish healing Sanzo. Normally, I would insist that either Gojyo or Goku take the other bed – but not this time. Not with them watching me like a pair of hawks. I don't even try to protest; I just take off my shoes and my eyepiece and stretch out on the other bed.
The only sounds in the room are Gojyo and Goku playing a quiet game of cards. I can hold my body still, but my mind circles restlessly back over the events of the last few days. Relentlessly probing for a point at which I could have prevented this, I find myself morbidly replaying images and snatches of overheard conversation. The strange, spiky creature Sanzo had seen briefly as we drove into this tiny town on the edge of the desert – none of us had ever seen anything like it. Broad back, whippy tail, long neck and knobby head, and all of it covered in spines and pointy scales. Sanzo had inquired about it. A scavenger, he had been told. Solitary creatures, usually seen only at a distance. Once in a while the villagers would find the horribly mangled remains of something that had tangled with one, but until recently they'd never caused any trouble. A few days ago, however, a small child had been found. It had wandered just far enough, and there was barely enough left to identify that it had been human. The rest of the day had been quiet, for us: just the usual shopping, drinking, wenching, and eating. The next morning at breakfast, Sanzo left the table early and mentioned some errand he wanted to do before we got on the road. We ate and packed in leisure – and only when we were ready to leave did we realize that Sanzo hadn't come back.
Then we heard the gunshots.
We were running before the echoes faded, Hakuryuu flying in anxious circles above and ahead of us. An image from her generated shouted directions from me before I could digest what she'd shown me: one of the lizard-things, to our right, running to intercept us. Goku peeled off to take it out. Gojyo and I kept running. After a minute, we could hear Goku's cry of victory. Hakuryuu's relieved chirp told us that he was ok, and running to catch up. Then the second scavenger leapt at us from the left; Gojyo held it off with his crescent-bladed staff and yelled at me to keep running, to find Sanzo. So I did. Hakuryuu flew higher, finally locating the monk, and transmitted what she was seeing to me. I followed her somewhat fuzzy images, blindly navigating through her eyes, weaving around low bushes and spine-studded plants at the last second.
Then, suddenly, Sanzo was in front of me. He looked like a whirlwind of knives had attacked him. "I took care of them," he gasped in vengeful satisfaction, and then collapsed bonelessly onto the sand. I dropped beside him, one hand on his chest, the other checking his pulse.
Irregular heartbeat, shallow breathing punctuated with unhappily wet noises. I close my eyes, 'seeing' through my hands as my chi flows into his lungs. There is blood there; find the punctures, heal them quickly. Green mist solidifies over grey patches in the two blue-green shapes, flows on to find the next problem. Like iron filings to a lodestone, it is drawn to Sanzo's left shoulder. I open my eyes, and clench my jaw at the sight of the ruin that should be a joint. Carefully, trembling fingers try to straighten the shredded muscle and set the bone back into its joint. I don't know how to fix this. Repress the panic. Quickly, pull his right arm straight down by his side, match position with the left. There, now you have a mirror image. You can figure out how to make it look like that, can't you? Get on with it, Hakkai. Sanzo's counting on you. I take strength from chiding myself. I can do this. I have to do this. Eyes closed, I lay one hand on each shoulder. See, this goes there, and that connects to this. Now I just have to make it match. The green energy, now more like water than mist, flows down my left arm and out through my fingers. Muscle knits together beneath my hand, nerves reach out to each other and reconnect. Now I push just so, and the bone clicks back into its socket with a shock of pain. Mist once again, my chi runs in rivulets down towards Sanzo's legs. What now? I open my eyes and straighten his legs, but they appear to be okay. Except...except...
My hands press down tightly, scrambling to get under the folds of cloth, frantically trying to slow the too-quick flow of blood from the severed artery. Flash of magenta from the right, followed by the sun-come-to-earth. Gojyo and Goku have returned. I don't care what they may think about where my hands are. The artery glows blood-red beneath my hands, and my chi stitches the ends together until the blood pumps down into the leg and not out onto the sand. Pumps...
Sanzo's heartbeat is getting fainter, and there is a tinge of sickly yellow in the blood that flows through the newly-repaired blood vessel. No one told us these things were poisonous. I open my eyes, move slightly so that I can lay my hands on Sanzo's chest, and flick my frantic gaze over Gojyo and Goku. They look okay.
"Did they hurt you at all?" I demand. Two confused headshakes indicate no. The fact that I'm even looking at them is strange enough to worry them; normally, they don't exist to me until Sanzo is healed. "Are you sure? I think they my have poison in their fangs or claws." Two sets of eyes widen, but the still indicate that they are unhurt. Good enough; I dismiss their presence.
Both hands splayed over Sanzo's heart, I close my eyes and drop my awareness into his chest. My world is green and red and that sickly yellow. The venom of those spiky lizards is preventing Sanzo's body from doing the things it would normally do to try to save itself. My chi is a green tide, washing through his veins and destroying the sickly yellow wherever it can. But that tide falters, and suddenly I have no more chi in reserve...
With a gasp, I wrench myself away from the memory-turned-nightmare replaying itself behind my eyes. At first, I can't see anything. I sit up, and in the faint light that leaks under the door, I can make out Goku sprawled on his pallet. The bed creaks as I turn to look at Sanzo, and Gojyo sits up.
"Hey," he calls softly, though Goku wouldn't wake up even if he shouted, and I can tell from Sanzo's stillness that he wouldn't wake easily, either. "You okay? Need somethin'?"
"Ah, maybe a little something to eat." My stomach growls, and I give up trying to pretend nothing's wrong. "A lot of something to eat, actually, and I don't care what it is." My voice sounds rough and tired to my own ears. I wonder how it sounds to Gojyo.
I can see Gojyo's eyebrows jump in surprise. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Never mind – food first, then you tell me everything, got it?"
With that, he de-tangles himself from the blankets and casually steps around Goku's out-flung limbs, slipping out of the room and closing the door behind him without waiting for a response from me. Normally, I would be afraid to look around a room this dark and still, lest I see a corpse that isn't there. But Goku shifts slightly, and a rasping snore grates across the silence. There will be no hallucinations while that snore continues. Gratefully, I take stock of my chi levels while I wait for Gojyo, and what I find does not comfort me. My reserves look good on the surface, but it's a false indicator of health. Like a deep pothole disguised by the puddle of dirty water that fills it, my life-force is severely depleted under those full reserves of chi. I don't know enough; I don't know if the damage will heal over time, or if I've become a unique sort of cripple. Gojyo returns as quietly as he left, a very large object tucked under one arm. He once again evades the obstacle of Goku's slumbering form and joins me on the bed, and then I can see what it is he's brought me: a whole wheel of cheese, covered in red wax.
"You said cheese earlier," he says quietly as my fingers scramble for the cord sticking out of the wax, "but we didn't have any in the supplies. Will this do?"
My fingers find the cord and tug. The cord wrapped around the cheese cuts through the wax, which peels away in a thick, stiff strip. My mouth waters as the sharp scent fills my nose. "Yes, this will do," I reply just as quietly. "Thank you."
"Just so you know," he says as I break off a chunk and start eating, "There were five of them. Mated pair and three kits. Me an' Goku, we each took out one of the kits. Sanzo took out the other kit, and the parents. Whole damn village considers him a hero for avenging that poor kid they savaged."
He is quiet for a few minutes while I devour a third of what must be a five-pound wheel of cheese, and I can see his chi roll restlessly under a heavy, still layer. He's worried about me. I can't blame him; I'm worried about me.
"I've never seen you eat like this," he starts, his voice as serious as his chi. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" It's not a question.
Right Speech; even if there were no point in trying to disguise what's happening with my chi, he would badger me until he felt I'd told him everything, Between bites of cheese, I tell him everything I know and suspect about my chi – specifically the unusual state it's in. It's slow going; Gojyo interrupts often, asking questions to clarify his understanding, and the answers sometimes wander off into explanations – such as why cheese was a better choice than the loaf of bread it was next to. The cheese is gone by the time I finish, and Gojyo sits quietly for a moment, digesting what I've told him. I feel peculiarly full, as though my body were a cloth sack and I were filled with sand. It's not an unpleasant feeling.
"So...what should we do?" Gojyo's including himself in my predicament.
I shrug. "Eat. Sleep. Pay attention to my chi. Hope that Sanzo wakes up soon." I toy with the wax. "I don't know what else to do but listen to my body and give it what it needs."
Gojyo nods. "Then that's what we'll do. Now sleep – and let me or Goku know if you need something." He slides off the foot of my bed and burrows under his blankets. "I'm gonna try to grab a few more hours of sleep while it's still dark." He yawns. "Good night, Hakkai."
I lay down as well, but not under the blankets. I'm warm enough without them. "Good night, Gojyo. And thank you."
A snore is my only answer.
