Disclaimer: I do not own Saiyuki or anything else that anybody in the known universe could sue me for. I own nothing.

AN: Wow, it's amazing how many stories I've started out with that disclaimer that I've only written perhaps a paragraph on. I have so many Saiyuki ideas flooding my brain lately. This is simply the latest because Homura has fascinated me recently. Please, read, drink, and be merry. In other non-Viking terms: enjoy the story.

Condemnation in Heaven

Prologue

Condemnation did not mean the same thing in heaven as it did on earth. On earth it was used in reference to a criminal awaiting death, or a person assumed guilty of some kind of crime. Yes, perhaps the second one was a truer synonym for condemned in heaven then the first one was. As long as Homura could remember he'd been condemned for his heresy. Imprisoned as a child until adulthood simply for bearing the blood of mortal and divine.

Other synonyms included: blame, disapproval, criticism. He guessed these were true also in heaven as they were on earth.

There was only one meaning of the word he was referring too. The word damnation went better with that meaning.

Where on earth the condemned or damned, if you will, would march to their demise within months of their conviction and enjoy the remainder of the universe in the afterlife. Heaven did not operate on those terms. The gods had eternity and they used it to their advantage, making the condemned rot away in prison cells for years, sometimes centuries on end. The worst kind of solitude, no one could hold onto their sanity for that long. An early death or release was the only way to avoid that.

The gods were also paranoid in the worst of ways. Quelling any rebellion before it could even start by making examples of any fool who showed the slightest sign of insubordination. Homura remembered one such incident clearly in his mind: Rinrei, his love that was exiled to earth, where she would live a short life, and he would never forget when Konzen, Kenren, and Tempu fell from grace of their own free will. Not that Homura blamed the three gods; he would have done it himself had he been capable, despite the consequences: an endless series of short, tragic lives in which they give their lives in the service of humanity and the gods. But sometimes the gods were crueler, far crueler, as was the case of Son Goku, who was cast down for crimes not his own. Sealed for 500 years without death, without memories, and with the outside world only feet away.

Put those all together, and that was Homura's current situation. Condemned, imprisoned, alone, and awaiting a death that should have been his months ago. It had been a beautiful moment as he remembered. His mortal blood had been killing him, and he just wanted his last great battle to be what ended him, not the sickness called death that plagued mortals.

But as he sat there, alone once again in his prison cell, he realized that death too had a different meaning in heaven then it did on earth. On earth it was a plague, in heaven it was a blessing few got to experience.

After everything he'd fought for, after all his suffering, he was still locked in a world that hated him. He didn't know who had authorized the heavenly army to pull him from his world, or which sick son of a bitch it was who resurrected him, but all he could do was sit there and wonder why the bastard couldn't have just let him rest. Wasn't it a death he earned?

The half-breed almost laughed at the irony. His family, the Jade Emperor and his court that had wished Homura dead since the day he was born had been the ones to save him. In it's own, sick, twisted way it was utterly amusing. However he didn't break out into insane laughter or anything, he wasn't quite that crazy yet. He'd grown up in prisons like this; it would take more than a few months to make him lose his mind. The War Prince refused to give his captors that satisfaction.

He'd always thought that if he was sent back to the prisons it would shatter his spirit, whatever was left of it after Rinrei died. In reality he wasn't that crushed by it, or even that surprised. He didn't know whether it was somewhere deep down he'd always known he'd end up here again or if Rinrei's death hadn't left enough of his soul to crush.

This was how he spent the hours, musing and following the thousands of random thoughts that crossed his mind to their most philosophical form. Homura had no desire to escape; there was nothing out there left for him.

The only thing he saw in his future was death, hopefully before the insanity could set in. That was the aim of the gods' prison, to drive the inmates mad, then when they die the madness follows them into the afterlife. They would spend infinity trapped in that endless darkness. Who they were would be totally erased from their minds, leaving only the fevered shadow of bestial tendencies.

There he was. It was fitting...that he should die like. He was a fool to have ever thought it would end any other way. Even death, the great equalizer, was too good for him.

So he sat there, facing the ultimate condemnation of heaven; never-ending, undying years of sitting alone in darkness...

VVVVV Chapter end

AN: Okay, done with the prologue. Hope to have more up later. Please tell me if you like it. And I promise, it does get better for the War Prince. But be forewarned it will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.