"Aaawwwww, man!" Gojyo complained as his boot once again slid out of sight as it was sucked into thigh-deep, swampy mud. "I bet there're leeches in here." He blew irritably at the bangs that were now hanging in his face. "An why'm I the one carrying the kid?"
Goku frowned and twisted his head around to look Gojyo in the eye. "You better not drop me, you filthy kappa. 'Sides, isn't this your natural habitat?"
A vein throbbed on Gojyo's head. "Yeah? Ya think, monkey? Then how come you're not swingin' from the branches, eh? I'm not a tree, ya know." Gojyo's fingers flew up to flip Goku the bird. Squish. His next step caused him to sink deeper, and he wobbled a bit as Goku rearranged himself. "Gah! And this shit stinks too! Maaaan! I want hazard pay!" He paused for a moment and then slogged off to the side where he fervently hoped the ground was firmer.
Hakkai and Sanzo were up ahead, murmuring quietly and weaving their way past tufted clumps of grass and piles of dead leaves. Miraculously, they seemed relatively unscathed by the swampy terrain. Of course, they also weren't burdened with extra weight. Every step Gojyo took seemed to pull him deeper. He shrugged his shoulders and twisted in discomfort, trying to rearrange the uneven bony weight at his back.
"Neee, can't we eat soon? I'm reeeal hungry," Goku whined. Gojyo glanced up, his eyes skimming past the disappearing figures ahead of them and fixing on the pitiful look in the large, round brown eyes hanging over his shoulder.
"Oi! We're stopping for a bit," Gojyo called out. There was no response. Gojyo sighed and shifted his weight again, leaning his arm up against a tree for balance. With his other hand, he dug into a deep pocket in the back of his jeans and pulled out a slim, mashed pack of chewing gum. Waving it up behind his head, he grumbled, "Here. Can't stand the stuff anyway. Just gets stuck in my teeth." Hakkai should have known that gum couldn't possibly replace cigs anyway. He wondered idly whether Sanzo had been given a matching packet.
"Che! I knew you had food." Goku eyed him beadily, but readily seized upon the offering and quickly popped it in his mouth. While Goku chewed on the gum contentedly, Gojyo fished out and lit a cigarette, then stared at his ruined trousers. The brambles earlier had torn a rather large hole in the knee of one leg. Good clothes were hard to replace on the road, and how the hell was he supposed to impress the ladies if he looked like a raggedy baggy peddler.
Traveling with three other guys didn't help things either. It wasn't like they were competition, really. Goku was too childish, at least outwardly, to attract more than a maternal response from most chicks. Hakkai was still too tied up in twisted, guilty knots over Kannan to really show an interest in anyone else, except maybe that warrior chick with the two ponytails. Gojyo cocked his head to the side and closed his eyes. It pained him to watch his friend beat himself up over the past. The guy needed to let go. And Sanzo, well, Sanzo was just an irritating bastard who only seemed to attract obsessive, male psychopaths.
As he finished his cigarette, Gojyo flexed his shoulders again and prepared to move on. But, as he glanced up, he realized that he couldn't see or hear any trace of Hakkai or even the blasted priest in his flowing white robes. Squinting a bit, Gojyo thought, "Was it foggy before?" He leaned forward a bit to get a better look at the ground that was still visible; the swampy mud and sporadic undergrowth remained uncommunicative. He listened carefully, but the heavy weight of the fog muffled any indication of movement. They couldn't have gotten that far ahead.
Hakkai cast a considering gaze over his shoulder at the struggling figure behind them. "Do you ever envy them, Sanzo?" he asked, his artificial smile slipping somewhat.
Sanzo grunted. "What, the kappa and the saru? Those two idiots?"
"Mmm," Hakkai confirmed neutrally. "They seem so relaxed somehow."
"Ignorance is bliss," Sanzo grunted, but he glanced over his shoulder. The redhead was sliding again in a rough approximation of the splits before he managed to slam into a tree trunk. The monkey looked like he was trying to eat the water sprite's empty red head. They were irritating, but he knew what Hakkai meant. They only seemed to worry about their immediate concerns: the next available warm meal and a dry place to sleep. It must be convenient to have such a simple world view.
"They're so comfortable with each other, too," Hakkai observed, frowning a bit in concentration as he hopped from one protruding tree root to another.
"Mmmm," Sanzo's eyes narrowed and he shot Hakkai a sharp glance. Hakkai sounded so wistful. It just didn't make sense. It wasn't like Hakkai didn't have Gojyo keeping an eye out for him. Sanzo briefly regretted wearing sandals and copied Hakkai's movements.
A rustling behind them caused both men to freeze in their tracks. Sanzo's gun was out and pointing unerringly into the face of the intruder ... who was definitely not Gojyo. Hakkai's hands, which had cupped automatically to gather his chi, fell somewhat, and a frown creased his forehead. "Yaone-san, you startled us. What are you doing here?"
Sanzo growled a bit and didn't lower his gun. "Are you alone?" His eyes flicked left and right, searching for signs of that blasted Kougaiji and his other lackeys.
"Maaaa ..." The warrior temporized, holding up her empty hands and smiling so broadly that her eyes almost closed. "I'm just here to talk to Hakkai-san for a bit."
When Sanzo's eyes narrowed and his head tilted a bit, as if trying to detect a lie, the healer moved closer to Hakkai, sidestepping the suspicious priest and his gun, which was carefully tracking her movements.
"Is that okay?" she asked a startled Hakkai, whose hands had fallen limply at his sides.
"Of course, Yaone-san," Hakkai replied, then, when the figure before him remained silent, he turned to Sanzo. "Could you see what's taking them so long, Sanzo? It'll only take a minute."
The priest turned a bit and looked back the way they'd come. "Unbelievable. They probably found something that looked edible."
He turned back to Hakkai. "Don't be long. I want to get the hell out of here before night falls." Then he turned with a swish of his robes and slogged off back through the trees.
Yaone smiled again, and started walking forward. Hakkai followed her. "What is this all about, Yaone-san?" Hakkai asked, his face serious. "Are you in trouble?"
"It's about Dr. Ni," she confided quietly, her eyes fixed on the movements of her lower body as they navigated the swamp.
"Dr. who?" Hakkai asked, trying not to notice the curves of the woman in front of him.
"Dr. Ni. I don't trust him. I think he's up to something. He's a scientist who works for Kougaiji-sama's step-mother."
"Have you talked to Kougaiji?" Hakkai asked, failing to see how he fit into all of this. He was irrationally pleased, though, that Yaone-san would come to him when she was worried.
They reached the jagged mouth of a cave. Yaone ducked through the entrance and into the pitch-black space beyond. Hakkai paused briefly before following her inside. For a moment there, he'd gotten the strangest feeling that she had been leading him here all along.
As soon as he stepped into the relative blackness of the cave, his muscles tensed. Something was not right. He couldn't sense Yaone's presence in front of him anymore. Uncertain, he paused, straightened up, and called out softly, "Yaone-san? Are you there?"
He heard something drop lightly behind him, and whirled around, chi ball half-formed, only to feel the sharp prickle of long, thin blades piercing his shoulder. In the confused seconds that followed, Hakkai felt the claws retract, let loose his ball of chi, and heard it make contact as shards of rock shattered all around him. He staggered against the cave wall and squinted desperately, wishing fervently for peripheral vision. He was starting to feel woozy, and he doubted it was loss of blood, though his shirt was beginning to feel distinctly damp. In all likelihood, the claws had been poisoned.
Though his head was starting to throb, and his vision was blurring, he could still make out a vague shape advancing relentlessly toward him. It looked distressingly familiar. Hakkai rolled onto his side, favoring his uninjured shoulder.
"Think, think, think," he thought fiercely. He conjured up a flickering barrier, and tried to focus. The exit was blocked. Where was Yaone? The exit was blocked, and Hakkai had no idea what lay in wait farther inside the cave. He wanted out.
The barrier snapped and hissed as claws scraped across it. Hakkai blinked fiercely, fighting the loss of consciousness. Where was Yaone? Was she already injured? But she had entered the cave right before ...
His barrier flashed, shimmered, and went out. Hakkai threw himself across the cave to the opposite wall and fired off another chi blast, aiming in the direction of the cave's mouth. If he could get his attacker to leave the cave or the cave's entrance, he had a chance of getting out. Right now, is mind couldn't focus on anything more complex. He wanted out, and he wanted to know where Yaone-san was.
For some reason, there was a loud rumbling sound in his ears. He could hear sliding and groaning sounds all around him, but he couldn't see a thing. When had he closed his eyes? He couldn't feel his left shoulder, but the rumbling seemed more ominous. A sharp, heavy weight landed heavily on his leg, pinning him in place. Desperately, with the last of his strength, Hakkai conjured a barrier. "Run, Yaone-san!" he managed to call out before losing consciousness. Not good. He was sure he hadn't been loud enough to be heard over the roaring in his ears.