Chapter 2

Gojyo wasn't coming back, Hakkai decided. The man had seemed rather angry when Hakkai had asked him to go in search for dinner, and had probably been distracted by some woman at the food stand. He sighed, and stood, making his way down the stairs.

He nodded briefly to the woman at the bottom, an old lady whose house they had been pointed towards as the closest thing to an inn that the village had. He'd considered that kind of odd, that there wasn't any sort of public housing. While not large, this was far from the smallest village they'd visited, either. The woman nodded back, stiffly, looking at him oddly when he went out the door. Like she thought he was crazy, Hakkai thought, but he couldn't be sure.

The area by the room was deserted, but the sounds of people were heavy up ahead, and Hakkai followed them, rounding the corner to see a wall of people, just as an enraged scream came from the other direction, hitting him in the chest with all the force of a sledgehammer. Gojyo's. Without a doubt. He'd heard it enough in the past few months to recognize it anywhere. Not to mention it sent a stab of fear through him each time he heard it. He pressed, hard, against the throng of people in front of him, trying to break through. A strange mix of apologies and threats passed his lips as he pushed passed them, trying to force through the unyielding crowd.

Finally making it through, he hissed in shock, as his brain tried desperately to figure out what was happening. Four men, surrounding Gojyo, all armed heavily. The redhead himself was on his knees in the middle of the square, head bent. Each and every one of the people in the square was oriented on the sight. Hakkai rushed forward, hoping to reach his friend, arming himself before his first step had even landed. Somewhere, he heard someone say something. One of the men, holding a crossbow, lifted the weapon, laying it at the base of Gojyo's skull.

"Game Over," The words sounded like, and Hakkai didn't care what the words were, as he unleashed the chi ball, knocking the man into whatever oblivion he believed in. The three with him spun around, staring at Hakkai in shock.

"Who the fuck are you?!" One asked, hand reaching for his gun. Hakkai sent his fist crashing through the man's nose for his trouble, and he sprawled, gushing blood onto the ground, facial bones shattered. He would drown in his own blood. The man next to him tried to pull a knife, and Hakkai simply grabbed his arm, twisting it backwards in the exact moment the knife was unsheathed, pushing the man's knife into his stomach, slicing him open with his own weapon. The last simply disintegrated in a ball of white-hot chi.

The silence from the crowd was palpable, as they stared at them in shock. Then, as quickly as it had begun for Hakkai, it ended. The townspeople muttered something that might have been disappointment, and then they were suddenly moving about their business again, seemingly not caring. Hakkai stared with something kin to horror for a few moments, but turned quickly away. It didn't matter right now. The only thing that ever mattered was before him.

"Gojyo?" he asked, quietly, eyes fixed on the redhead, trying to discern mood and situation from the bend of the head, from the way Gojyo's head and shoulders were trembling.

"You're covered in blood," Gojyo remarked blandly, as he looked back at Hakkai over his shoulder, gazing at the other man with the precision of a housewife staring at a child who had just come in from a day of playing in the rain.

Hakkai smiled slightly, disturbed by the expression. He was quite sure Gojyo was supposed to sound more angry. After all, several people had just tried to kill him. So he smiled. It was what he did. If you were confused, angry, hurt, upset, or just plain angry, you smiled. That's how the world worked when you were Cho Hakkai. "I'm afraid I had a bit of a hard time reaching you. What did you do?"

"Got in their way," the redhead replied, standing up slowly. Hakkai winced at the wound in his friend's shoulder. He'd had worse, certainly, but Hakkai didn't exactly like watching the people he cared about bleed. Better than watching them die, he supposed, but he'd had more than enough of both.

"What did they want?" Hakkai pressed. This was like pulling teeth. Gojyo seemed remarkably uninterested in giving up information.

"Her," It was another bland, flat note, and Gojyo finally turned around.

Hakkai wondered if he should swear. Because it seemed like quite a good time to do so. Gojyo looked completely shocked, eyes more dull than Hakkai had seen from the redhead in quite a while. He suddenly wanted to turn on the dead once more, to rip them apart. Hurt them more, no matter if they were dead. They'd saved the world, and no one had the right to make Gojyo look like that.

The desire to swear came from the thing Gojyo was cradling in his arms. He was clutching a girl, no more than 14 years old, tightly. She was covered in blood, and very, very dead.

"What happened?!" He asked quietly, angry and shocked. Unsure. Gojyo looked at him curiously for a long moment,

"Can you hold her for a minute, please?" He asked, as though it were a cooking pot or basket that he was carrying.

"If you want me to," Hakkai replied, holding his arms out. Gojyo carefully transferred the body into Hakkai's care, and then turned to what remained of the men Hakkai himself had just killed. "You can leave now," He said.

"I don't think so," Hakkai replied quietly, somehow managing to both hold the girl's body, and lay his hand on Gojyo's shoulder. "They've been taken care of,"

Gojyo continued to stare at him. "You're sure?" He asked, his voice tinged with sadness. Hakkai winced again. He got the feeling he was supposed to be talking to Gojyo like a child. He couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness. Profound, unsettling wrongness. The dead girl in his arms and the fact that no one seemed to give the slightest damn about the violence that had just taken place were doing nothing to reduce that feeling.

"I'm quite certain. You trust me, don't you?"

Gojyo blinked at him. "Yes." That part sounded alright, Hakkai thought. No matter if it was the truth or not. Firm, instant and sincere. Part of their rhythm. Hakkai, of course, never actually believed it. But it was part of their structure. The question was only ever asked if it had a purpose. Hakkai would never have dared otherwise.

"Alright, then. Will you come with me?"

By the time they actually got back to the inn they were staying at, Gojyo had recovered somewhat, although it was a very liberal somewhat. His eyes had cleared slightly, and he was actually talking, although it was mostly to apologize about not getting dinner. But any talking was good. Gojyo wasn't silent very often, and it quite unnerved Hakkai to see the man rendered voiceless by what had happened. It unnerved him to hear Gojyo apologize, too, but it was far less disturbing than silence. The last time Gojyo had fallen silent had been after...after everything had gone so horribly wrong for all of them.

Gojyo had insisted they take the girl to a local group home - said that she'd told him the women there had taken care of her since she was little. Hakkai had done as asked, and had watched in confused silence as the woman looked at her body for a long, drawn-out moment, then thanked he and Gojyo quietly before wandering back into the orphanage with her. More things wrong, that Hakkai couldn't quite put his finger onto. The fact that the women seemed completely unworried about finding two bloodstained youkai at their gates, holding the body of a child they apparently had a relationship with, disturbed Hakkai greatly. From the look on Gojyo's face, the redhead wasn't feeling much more certain about it. But the women assured them that they would take care of the girl's body before closing the gates. They'd had no choice but to leave.

And leave they did.

Hakkai had grabbed Hakuryu, and told Gojyo to get their stuff, and they left the village altogether. Youkai weren't the only demons in that town, and Hakkai was willing to leave it far behind and quickly. If they'd killed someone important, he imagined that there would have been instant repercussions. Even if it had been someone unimportant there should have been some reaction. But no one seemed to give a damn, and that made the hair on Hakkai's neck stand up. He was more than willing to leave it behind.

In the back of the jeep, Gojyo curled around himself, and a brief glance in the rear-view mirror showed Hakkai that the redhead was either pretending to sleep, or actively forcing himself into a state of unconsciousness. Gojyo's forth most frequently used avoidant behavior, after smoking entire cartons of cigarettes, drinking himself in to oblivion, and acting like an asshole.

They'd considered driving through the night, when a man in town had told them that there was no proper inn in the village. But they had been driving for 9 already, and neither had wanted to sleep another night on the ground. So they'd opted to stay. Fifteen hours to the next village, and they would have had showers and comfortable beds a day earlier. Hakkai was starting to think that they'd made the wrong decision. He didn't the unresponsive man in the back of the jeep was going to argue with that judgment, either.