Yaone felt an insistent but detached sense of urgency. She knew intellectually that she should be doing something, but, for the life of her, she couldn't quite remember what it was or why it was important. Muzzily, she tried to focus, but her thoughts were nebulous and evaporated as soon as she tried to grasp at them.

This went on for a while, and then there was a gap during which she couldn't be sure whether she was conscious. Images floated before her: tubing and glass and the dull glow of a monitor screen. It was maddening that she couldn't connect the scenes or supply any sounds. Everything seemed so terribly muffled, as if she were under water. Water. "Am I drowning!?" she thought in panic and tried desperately to move, to breathe, to see.

At last, her sluggish eyes opened a crack, and she watched a stream of bubbles drift lazily upward ... "from my mouth," she thought. Stiffening and straining with all her might against the lethargy that fought to restrain her, she managed to force her eyes open all the way. Consciousness rushed to the surface along with the beginnings of a truly painful headache.

The space in front of her face shimmered and rocked gently. So she was underwater. But no, the liquid had a strange hue, an almost greenish tinge, and, after a panicked but focused analysis, she realized that her lungs weren't straining for air either.

Her vision was still blurred, so she couldn't make out much else. There seemed to be a couple of dark, blurred shapes in front of her, but they could simply have been afterimages left over from her semiconscious state.

Her ears were filled with liquid, and the pressure difference made them ache. She could just barely hear something, though. It sounded like one of the figures might be talking. She leaned forward to hear better and felt her nose bump against a cool, clear, hard surface. Glass.

Carefully, cautiously, she pressed her ear against the glass and closed her watering eyes. Maybe the voices would know what she needed to do.

"... killing two birds with one stone ... No, not yet. ... chance to analyze ... effectiveness ... unstable ..." It was maddening the way she could only catch snatches of what was being said. It sounded important, but she couldn't focus long enough to decipher it.

Her head was throbbing more insistently now, and she rather thought she was going to black out again. In a last effort to make sense of her situation, Yaone forced her eyes fully open one last time. The world in front of her sharpened into focus briefly, then went dark as her eyes closed against her will. Her mind whirled as it slowly shut down again. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Dokugakuji-dono? Why was he here?

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Sanzo frowned in irritation. At this rate, there was no way they'd make it out of the forest before nightfall. They'd have to camp in Jeep again, and they'd probably need to sleep in rotation as well because it was clear that they had company somewhere in the woods, and that company possessed firearms. And now, to add insult to injury, he had to go and fetch the wayward members of the group.

Before he'd traveled more than twenty yards, though, a sudden, and therefore suspicious, heavy white fog materialized. Sanzo drew his gun and backed up against the nearest tree, his eyes narrowed.

"Who's there!?" he demanded, swiveling his head in search of any sign of an opponent. The blasted youkai could at least show themselves. Damn, but he hated dealing with enemies who could pull magic out of their asses. It seemed singularly unfair.

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Goku vaulted effortlessly onto Gojyo's shoulders and then into a low-hanging branch of a tree. "We have company," he stated with an edge of growing excitement as he conjured his nyoi-bou.

"Tell someone who doesn't know," Gojyo responded as his shakujou shimmered into solidity in his hand. A grim smile stretched across his face. "Oi! Come on out, you losers, so we can get on with this," he called, testing his balance now that Goku was no longer hampering his movements.

Dark shapes slowly materialized around them, and Gojyo's grin widened. Gyumaoh's assassins weren't terribly bright. As he darted forward and slashed the menacing clump of three youkai on his right, the back of his mind warned him that there was at least one fairly powerful youkai nearby because these losers couldn't conjure a fog like that on their own.

Goku leapt from the tree and skewered two more with his nyoi-bou. He couldn't see all of the youkai because the fog shrouded them, but he knew they were there and that he and Gojyo were surrounded. Next to eating, and the extremely rare occasions when Sanzo spoke to him without scolding him, Goku loved fighting. It made him feel alive. But these youkai were not powerful enough to challenge him individually, so it would take a while to beat his way past them, and he was starving, dammit.

Gojyo had already cleared the space around him, and there were no visible youkai left standing on the ground, but Goku could tell they were simply gathering for a second assault. He scanned the trees, where he had mostly remained during the first charge, and noticed, through a small clear patch in the fog, two youkai gesturing toward Gojyo and then to each other, their mouths full of knives.

Goku sprang lightly from his perch toward them. "Look out, ero kappa!" he called over his shoulder. The two youkai heard him, hastily tossed the knives they had his way, and beat a hasty retreat.

"Oi! You dammed monkey! Watch what you're doing!" Gojyo called as one of the deflected knives grazed his upturned elbow. The yells of the youkai Goku was pursuing had alerted the others, and his arms were otherwise occupied in a shoving match with a youkai that had crept around the tree Gojyo was using as cover.

Gojyo shoved the sneaky bastard away from him, and then released his shakujou, which snaked through the air in a deadly arc and reduced their number of opponents by one more. What kind of enemy sneaked up behind his opponent? "Fucking coward," Gojyo muttered angrily. Yanking irritably on the chain, Gojyo spun around again to face the hoard of youkai spilling out of the mist.

"Come on, bring it, you bastards!" he yelled as his shakujou swung out and retracted again and again in a deadly dance. Damn, but this was tiring, and vaguely disturbing too. Dodging attacks from all sides now, Gojyo was forced to give ground as he slipped and slid through the muck all around them. It resembled a mosh pit free-for-all more than a choreographed battle, especially with the way that Gojyo had to dodge bodies on the ground along with everything else.

One particularly large and mean sonuvabitch had managed to shove Gojyo up against a tree, having breached Gojyo's personal space by mimicking yet another downed body and then springing up when Gojyo's back was turned. Now Gojyo could only see the bark of the tree in front of him, and his chest was throbbing from having the pole of his shakujou slammed so forcefully against it.

"Bastard," he managed to groan as he shoved backward, using his weapon for leverage. He managed to move a couple of inches away from the tree, only to slam back against it as the youkai shoved back, hard. His mind was flying fast and furious, trying to calculate a way out of this. he was lucky he wasn't dead yet, but, with his weapon pinned against him, his options were limited. He could hear the other youkai closing in. Dammit, where was the blasted monkey at a time like this? Wasn't he supposed to be watching Gojyo's back?

"I barely know you, yanno," he continued, in an attempt to garner a response, "and this really isn't my thing."

Gojyo felt one of his opponent's meaty hands leave his back, to strike him, probably, and then he pushed against the tree trunk with all his might and pivoted out of reach of the swinging fist. The large, red-faced youkai looked very pissed off, and he was growling dangerously as he lunged for the panting water sprite.

"Damn, you're persistent," Gojyo gasped as he leapt backward and swung his shakujou around. "Can't take no for an answer?" he taunted as the sharp edge of his crescent-shaped weapon hit home and stopped the behemoth in its tracks. The heavy schluck sound of the weapon retracting was quickly followed by the angry hiss of youkai voices all around him.

"Dammit, there are more of you!?!" he growled, and looked for a tree to back up against. He didn't much fancy leaving his back exposed again, not after that. The closest tree was behind him, so Gojyo backed up slowly, his eyes flicking left and right to be sure he didn't trip over any bodies. The angry glowing eyes and pointed ears were everywhere and closing in fast despite the churned up and slick mud that surrounded them. At least the mist was clearing up somewhat, not that he really wanted to see their ugly mugs any better.

Gojyo felt his boots sink farther into the mud behind him as he took the last step. CRUNCH. As merciless metal jaws snapped into place, the water sprite cried out in surprise and pain. His leg felt like it was on fire, and he collapsed in a heap, clutching his weapon desperately. "What ... the hell!?!" he thought distractedly as he felt a warm flood of liquid gush down his leg.

Coordinated gunshots rang out, and the nearest youkai fled screaming as their comrades fell. They knew, from bitter experience, what this meant.