The gravel road that led down the mountain had deteriorated over the years. Currently it was little more than a series of potholes, washboards, and eroded gullies. On the one hand that was a good thing, since it kept Goku quiet in the back of the Jeep--he could hardly complain about the driving when he was hanging on for dear life. On the other hand...it had everyone else hanging on for dear life as well. Gojyo was half-afraid that his teeth would rattle out of his skull by the time they reached their destination--and the black looks Sanzo kept shooting him as he braced himself against the dashboard did not bode well for Gojyo's continued good health. It was a wonder that poor Jeep didn't transform and leave them all sitting there in the dirt. Gojyo could only assume that he was just as eager to find Hakkai's last power limiter and have done with the matter, the same as all the rest of them were.
The road, in addition to being in terrible shape, wove a meandering path down the slope of the mountain. They had barely reached the tree line when Goku yelled out that the youkai from the mine had come into view behind them. Although the Jeep had almost an hour's head-start, the curves and double-back sections slowed their progress so much that the winged youkai caught up in barely any time at all.
It was a force of about fifty winged youkai. In the glimpses Gojyo could see of them when he dared take his eyes off the road, they were heavily laden with canvas packs and ropes, and he saw that more than a few of them had rifles like Wei's and bandoliers of tranquilizer darts strung over their chests. Gojyo half-expected to be shouted at again to leave. But the mountain youkai only ignored them as if they weren't there--eyes focused down slope on their destination. The main group passed the fishtailing Jeep, and before long the last of them had pulled ahead of the land-bound Sanzo-ikkou.
"Can't Jeep go any faster?" Goku complained from the back. Apparently all the rattling and shaking couldn't deter him with the lure of combat so close at hand. "It's all going to be over by the time we get there!"
"It's not our goal to get into a fight," Sanzo reminded him sharply over his shoulder. "Remember our objective here."
Goku grumbled, but subsided after that, and Gojyo returned his full attention to the road.
Gojyo never saw what happened to the first wave of youkai. The battle was joined long before they arrived. By the time the Jeep skidded to a halt at the top of a rise overlooking the collection of tents and lean-tos that marked the enemy camp, everything was in chaos. Black-winged shapes were wheeling though the air as fast as the eye could follow. A goodly number were already lying unmoving on the ground. Some bodies had tranquilizer darts stuck into them. Others didn't. The crazed youkai weren't holding back from injuring their saner relatives after all.
The sane youkai had the advantage of superior weapons. As long as they stayed clear of direct attacks, they could use tranquilizer rifles or pistols to bring down their targets without a fight. When they closed, they only had to get in a scratch--for their weapons had been coated with a powerful sleeping-venom that acted quickly to take out their opponents.
That advantage was counterbalanced by a major disadvantage...they were fighting in an area fully exposed to the insidious power of the Minus Wave. In the heat of battle, with the scent of blood so thick in the air, it was easy for the sane youkai to lose themselves, to slip over that thin edge into madness. Gojyo saw at least one of the winged youkai that looked familiar to him from the mines suddenly drop her tranquilizer pistol and clutch at her head, screaming. When she looked up again a few heartbeats later, it was with a decidedly cold gleam to her eye, as she launched herself at one of her tranquilizer-bearing former-comrades.
Gojyo thought that the sudden appearance of the Jeep might cause some kind of impact on the fighting. These guys already knew about the Sutra, after all. For that reason, Gojyo expected that they would immediately be attacked. And yet, even though their appearance at the edge of the battlefield drew glances from combatants on both sides of the conflict, no one broke away from the aerial melee to swoop down and engage them. Their presence was largely ignored.
Before Gojyo could think of an adequate one-liner to express his frustration at being left out, or Goku could do his pole-vault trick with Nyoibou to join the airborne battle on his own...a single bat-winged shape peeled away from the others and headed in the direction of the Jeep. As the individual came closer, Gojyo recognized him as the gray-haired youkai they had seen on the riverbank just a few days ago. The winged demon banked and hovered just outside of pistol range. With a savage grin, held out his right hand for their inspection, purposefully allowing the bright sunlight to glitter off something small and silver grasped carefully between his thumb and forefinger.
The Smith & Wesson was leveled at the hovering youkai. Sanzo didn't pull the trigger, much as he looked tempted to test the limits of the gun's range. "So what," he said, unimpressed. "Why don't you tell us something we don't already know?"
The demon answered him with a mocking laugh, then spread his wings and flew off, abandoning the battle and his youkai comrades. His flight took him further down the mountainside, and it escaped no one's notice that it quite conveniently paralleled the old dirt road.
Gojyo followed the youkai's trajectory with his eyes. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Even I can figure out a set-up when I see one."
"But what choice do we have?" Goku said insistently. "He's got the last piece of Hakkai's limiter. We've gotta follow him."
There was a yell from the air over the enemy camp, and suddenly six more shapes darted out of they chaos of the battlefield. The small group winged off in hot pursuit of the older youkai, with Hari's sister in the lead. Again, they paid no attention to the green Jeep parked on the rise, or to the three occupants sitting inside.
Gojyo was getting seriously tired of being ignored.
"Sanzo!" Goku yelled and pointed as they skimmed away over the trees, "They'll get there first!"
Sanzo abruptly sat down in the Jeep. "Start the fucking car," he snapped.
Gojyo was tempted to make a flippant remark about how this wasn't a race, and they should remember their objective. But one look at Sanzo's stormy expression make him think the better of it. Instead, he gave a mocking bow from the driver's seat. "As you wish, Sanzo-houshi-sama," he said in his most patently-false tone. He was gratified to see that the lurch as he floored the Jeep prevented Sanzo from reaching for his fan.
The youkai leader carrying the demon power limiter bait didn't have to go very far. At a distance of about two kilometers, he suddenly veered from the road, darting into a line of slightly taller trees. The six youkai tailing him turned off as well and were instantly lost from view behind the screening pine branches. Gojyo gave Jeep as much gas as he dared, careening and swerving on the broken-down road until the reached the point where the winged youkai had disappeared. There was a gap in the trees at that point, just wide enough that a single vehicle could squeeze through.
About a hundred meters back from the road, a boulder field formed a clearing of sorts in the middle of the forest of mountain-dwarfed trees. It was at the center of this field that the silver-haired demon had landed. It seemed that Ruri's band of fighters had sprung at least one part of the trap--the youkai leader was surrounded by a knot of about twenty of his crazed followers. Ten of those had separated from that cluster to directly engage the mine youkai so they couldn't bring their tranquilizer guns to bear--and the Minus Wave-stricken ones were having no trouble whatsoever at keeping their former clan-members at bay.
On a flat boulder beside the one where the youkai leader stood was a large wicker cage. Gojyo saw that it contained the hunched shape of the youkai healer who had precipitated the conflict, curled up in one corner and oblivious to the fighting around her. Beside that, another shape lay bound and unmoving. Gojyo recognized the clothing as belonging to the human hunter who had so recently been their guide, Wei.
"Our turn!" Goku yelled gleefully, catapulting out of the car the instant it screeched to a halt. He bounded over the boulders to join the fight, acting for all the world like some sort of mountain goat on speed.
Gojyo barely got the Jeep in park before he leaped after Goku, only a half-step behind. He didn't quite have Goku's agility on the uneven terrain, but he made up for that with sheer pig-headed determination as he jumped from rock to rock, summoning Shakujou as he went. He'd had enough of these high-flying vampire bats. The presence of the hostages meant that the flying demons were all on his level now, and it was payback time...in spades.
It wasn't just that these winged demons had nearly gotten Hakkai killed a few days ago--although certainly that was a large part of what provoked Gojyo's wrath. It wasn't even the nine kinds of emotional hell that he himself had gone through, the horrible feeling he'd gotten in the pit of his stomach each time he thought of trying to finish the journey one person short of a full Jeep. No, it was every single detail of this little fiasco, from start to finish, that all combined together to seriously piss him off. Goku's whining had been more annoying than usual, Sanzo had been crankier than normal at the delays, and all of them had to wander around in the cold, spend time getting claustrophobic underground, and walk all over a fucking mountain, for god sakes. Gojyo was irritated as hell, and at long last he had a target on which to vent his rage.
The winged youkai were every bit as good at fighting as Gojyo remembered they were. In that aspect, at least, they had lost the element of surprise. Neither Goku nor Gojyo held back in their attacks, using the weapons to the full extent of their abilities. The ferocity of their drive into the enemy forces quickly turned the tide of the battle in their favor.
Goku was the first to fight his way through the enemy flock and gain the rock where the crazed youkai leader stood. Gojyo dispatched his own opponent and came up beside him a few moments later atop a nearby boulder.
The gray-haired demon appeared unconcerned that they had made their way so far. He had a sword of his own in his hand at this point, and his dark eyes glinted with malice. "Well, well, if it isn't the traitors who travel with the Sanzo priest," he purred. "The prodigy and the half-breed. We've heard all about your little exploits. I'm flattered that you made such a special effort just to see me again."
Goku looked at him levelly, his mouth pressed into a grim line. He held out his right hand. "Hakkai's limiter. Give it back," he demanded.
"I don't think so." The silver-haired youkai smiled then, and in one smooth motion, he turned away from Goku and pitched the tiny piece of metal in his hand out across the rocks.
Goku and Gojyo both let out yells of dismay as the ear cuff scribed a perfect arc through the clear air, sailing halfway to the edge of the field of granite before it hit the irregular surface of a boulder with a clear pinging sound. It ricocheted off the side at nearly a right angle, bouncing in random directions several more times before it was lost to both vision and hearing. The boulders lay across each other, several deep, and Hakkai's third limiter was small enough to tumble easily into the crevasses between them. Gojyo knew that even if they found the exact spot the ear cuff had fallen, that it could have come to rest several meters below the surface of the haphazardly piled rocks.
Gojyo let loose a string of expletives, while the old youkai laughed and laughed. "So much for your friend," he gloated. "You'll never find that tiny piece of metal in the middle of all of these rocks. Your youkai companion will be stuck underground for good now, until he gives in to the Minus Wave just like all the rest!"
His attention was so focused on Goku and Gojyo that he failed to notice one of his own kind dropping down onto the boulder behind him.
"Not that you'll get the chance to see that," the younger youkai hissed, using the stock of his tranquilizer gun to immobilize the leader in a headlock. "Given that you'll be secured safely away underground with the rest of your insane followers."
The silver-haired youkai made a deep-throated noise of rage in response to this new development. He swung his sword up in a silver arc, reversing it to drive the point back into the gut of the one holding him captive.
"Oh no you don't," Goku said, lunging forward to intercept the descending blade. The monkey gave a sharp twist at the wrist, and the sword clanged harmlessly to the rock at his feet.
"Yeah," Gojyo seconded from behind him. "...And you'd better be thankful that we'd bother sparing your life. It's only because we're not the kind of guys who would make a pretty lady cry--even if that daughter of yours has been rude and unpleasant to us this whole time."
As if the words were a summons, the very daughter he'd been talking about landed on the boulder that supported Hari's cage. As she went immediately to the door of the enclosure, a male youkai from the mines also landed on the rock, turning his own attention to Wei. He used the edge of his talons to slice through the ropes confining the hunter, tracing his fingers over a nasty welt on the unconscious human's left temple before reaching into a pocket to remove a small glass vial.
Ruri grasped the padlock on Hari's cage with both hands, rattling it. She turned to glare at her father. "Where's the key?" she snapped.
"Surely you don't think that I'd be so stupid as to carry it with me," her father sneered. "Why should I make it easy for you to let her out? I personally threw that key into the river this morning. Not even you could find it now."
Ruri hissed at him in fury. "You're impossible! Like you would ever make things simple for anyone else!" She bent and snatched up her father's fallen sword where it lay, forgotten, at his feet. The instant the blade was in her hand, she turned the hilt around and drove it pommel downward to smash into the heavy padlock. It took her several clumsy swings before she damaged the mechanism enough to shatter it. "Hari!" she cried, the instant the padlock released. She swung open the door and extended her hand to the crouched figure inside. "Come with me, we have to get you back into the mines right away!"
Two things happened simultaneously then. Wei jerked suddenly awake, as the smelling salts in the vial did their job. As he shook his head groggily to get his eyes to focus, his gaze fell on the cage. It was at that point that Hari's hunched shoulders gave a little twitch. Gojyo saw Wei's eyes go wide and he suddenly yelled out.
"Stop!"
But Ruri wasn't listening. She stepped forward into the opening of the cage, arms still outstretched towards her sister. ...And so she was taken completely by surprise at the sudden flurry of motion that ended with Hari's talons driving into her chest.
"Ha...ri...," Ruri whispered in numb shock, looking down at the fingers that had slid between her ribs, impaled all the way to the palm. She stared disbelieving into her sister's face, at the only feature visible beneath the tangled mass of curls--a cruel and vicious smile. The talons flexed and then ripped free, and Ruri crumpled silently onto the surface of the boulder.
Hari emerged the rest of the way from the cage, raising her head to look around. Her gaze traveled past the shocked figures of the other mine youkai and Wei, past her own father, past Gojyo and Goku, to settle on the spot where Sanzo now climbing rather clumsily onto the top of an adjacent rock, his robes hitched up around his knees. The slit pupil brown eyes that fixed on the monk contained absolutely no trace of sanity at all, as lips skinned back from long youkai fangs in a snarl.
"The Scripture," she hissed. "Hand it over."
"Come and get it," Sanzo replied steadily, straightening up to face her. "If you think you can."
Her eyes narrowed, and she obligingly crouched, spreading black bat wings. Without hesitation, she leaped at him, bloodied talons extended for a strike to rip out his heart.
"Sanzo!" Goku cried out in alarm.
The warning was completely unnecessary. Sanzo was perfectly well aware of the fighting style of the winged youkai by this time. He stood his ground as Hari charged--then at the last moment before impact, he stepped easily to the side and snapped the handle of the Smith & Wesson down on the back of her neck. Hari came crashing down onto the rocks, cursing as she fell, her wings tangling around her.
Sanzo stepped from his boulder onto the one that contained the cage. He walked past the spot where the winged youkai male was now crouching beside Ruri's supine body, and approached Wei. Without preamble, he dropped a tranquilizer rifle that he had picked up from one of the defeated mine youkai into the hunter's lap.
"Shoot her," he commanded, as Hari started to get up again, shaking her head from side to side to clear it. It was apparent that she wouldn't be out of action for much longer.
"R-right," the hunter mumbled, staring down at the gun in his lap as if he'd never seen anything like it before in his life. As if in a dream, he reached down and lifted the tranquilizer rifle. The chamber was primed and the stock was settled into place against his shoulder with automatic, unthinking motions. Wei sighted along the barrel as Hari rose to her feet, wings fanning the air as she gave a growl and prepared herself for another attack.
He halted. The muzzle of the gun trembled, then lowered. "I can't," he whispered helplessly. His face was pale, his expression hopeless as he stared at his rampaging youkai wife. "I just can't do it."
"Shoot her," Sanzo said again. The Smith & Wesson came up, aimed unerringly at the center of Hari's forehead. "If you don't shoot her, I will."
Wei swallowed hard. As Hari lunged again, Wei made a noise of muted pain, his finger tightening on the trigger. This time, he didn't hesitate. At close range, the dart from his gun took the Minus Wave-stricken youkai high in the shoulder, spinning her partway around. The drug was mercifully quick. Hari wobbled slightly on her feet as she took a single step towards them, snarling. Then she crumpled into a heap among the rocks.
Even as she fell, Gojyo heard a noise from behind him, a low growl that quickly built into a full-throated roar. He turned just in time to see one of the mine youkai go careening past him, thrown by the crazed demon leader that he had been holding captive. As Goku stepped forward, Nyoibou at the ready, Hari's father took flight, backing quickly out of easy reach.
"You may have survived this encounter," the silver-haired youkai sneered in Sanzo's direction. "But you can't hang on to the Sutra forever. Even more so now, since you'll have one less traitorous youkai bodyguard to protect you...and no convenient traveling healer to patch you up all the time, now that the tiny bit of jewelry is gone."
"Don't count on it," Sanzo replied flatly. He flicked back the sleeve of his robe and held out a hand. Hakkai's last limiter glittered in the middle of his palm. "I may not be a diviner, but the least I can do is sense the energy of a stupid demon power limiter." The monk's words were accompanied by a triumphant series of chirps from overhead. Jeep flew down to perch on a nearby rock. The small white dragon folded his wings and began to preen, looking inordinately pleased with himself.
"I'm sick and tired of listening to all your fucking nonsense," Sanzo continued. "You've wasted more than enough of our time. Goku, take care of this loser. Now."
"You got it!" Goku's gold eyes gleamed as he planted one end of his red and gold staff against the boulder where he stood. "Nyoibou, extend!"
"Wha...?" the youkai backwinged in shock as Goku hurtled up to his level like a bullet from a slingshot. At the last moment the youkai tried to dodge away, but was caught as the staff swung unerringly around, shrinking back to normal size as it arched. The end smacked downward, snapping bones in one of the black wings and following through to audibly crack ribs. The youkai leader plummeted to the ground.
Even after a hit like that, however, the Minus Wave-crazed youkai wasn't completely out of commission. Scrabbling for purchase on the nearby rocks, he started to pull himself to his feet. ...Only to freeze in place as Gojyo's shadow fell across him.
"And just where does this guy think he's going?" Gojyo said, as Goku landed on the winged youkai's other side. "That's not a very polite party host, to leave before all the guests are done."
"Bastards," the gray-haired youkai spat, glaring up at him. "You traitors will get yours someday. Just you wait. The time will come..."
"Yeah yeah," Gojyo said in a bored tone. "We've heard it all before. Quit with the speeches and give it up already."
Dark eyes narrowed as the youkai leader snarled inarticulately. One black wing dangled uselessly, but the other spread for balance as he gave up all pretense at self-preservation and leaped up again. Gojyo took a step forward, interposing himself between the youkai and his obvious goal--the Maten Scripture. These guys really did have one-track minds.
"Oh, by the way," Gojyo said, as his fist drove into the silver-haired youkai's gut with all the force of five days of bottled up anger that Gojyo could muster, "I just thought I'd pass this on, since not all of us could be here at the moment. That's for Hakkai, Dipshit."
The slit pupil eyes bulged as the fist impacted with a rewarding, solid sound. The youkai folded over, making harsh choking sounds for a moment before sliding into an unmoving heap at Gojyo's feet.
"At last," Gojyo said in satisfaction, putting his foot on top of the unconscious youkai. "I'd have to say that felt pretty damn good."
Down in the space between two boulders, Wei held Hari cradled carefully in his arms. He seemed utterly oblivious of the fact that if she had been awake, she would have unhesitatingly torn out his throat. He bowed his head at the scrape of boot leather on rock, as Sanzo came up behind the pair of them.
"I always knew this would happen," Wei said hoarsely, uncaring as to whether or not those around him could overhear. "It was only a matter of time. Even though, in my heart, I had still hoped..." He shook his head in a tight, angry motion, and then he gave a sharp bark of a laugh that contained more pain then humor. "Do you know? Her father always told her that this love between a youkai and a human being wouldn't last. I guess he was right after all."
"That's bullshit."
The harsh, almost angry words made Wei freeze for a moment in shock. Then he slowly tipped his head upward to look at the monk.
"Don't belittle her sacrifice. You're still alive, aren't you? She gave you that much, at least." Sanzo opened up the Smith & Wesson, emptying casings out onto the rocks. They bounced and fell down between the stones with clear, almost musical sounds. The wind had picked up. On the now-quiet battlefield, it was almost the only noise.
"It's pointless to stay here. You can't do anything for her now," Sanzo's voice was implacable as he reloaded his gun and spun the chamber closed. Violet eyes flickered over to meet the hunter's. "You can only pick of the pieces and be there for the ones left behind."
Wei stared at him a moment, as if it took some time for the monk's words to sink in. Then he bowed his head to hide a bitter-edged smile. "You're right, of course, Sanzo-sama. It's what she would have wanted, I know." His arms tightened around Hari briefly in one last, desperate embrace, as he murmured something too low for those around him to hear. Then he slowly let go, lowering her to the ground.
"Wei," the mine youkai who was crouched by Ruri addressed the hunter urgently. His hands were clasped over a bloodstained bundle of cloth pressed to the gaping wound in her chest "Ruri's still alive."
Wei immediately stood up straight and crossed the distance between them in a few hurried steps. "You're sure about that?" he asked, with a note of clear incredulity as he took in the sight of all the blood from where Hari's claws had struck.
"What do we do?" the youkai asked helplessly. "Without Hari..."
"Don't." The word must have come out sharper than Wei had intended, because he immediately ducked his head, looking faintly ashamed. The hunter climbed up onto the top of the boulder. Taking off his jacket, he wadded the back of it into a pad, and tied it diagonally over the gaping wound in Ruri's chest. "Even without a healer, we can still do our best to save her life. We have to get her back to the mines right away. Can you take her?" He gestured to one of the other remaining sane youkai, who had been standing out of the way all this time. "The usual transport would be the easiest method, and the two of you might be able to get her back in time."
The two youkai exchanged glances, then nodded gravely. One of them began unfastening the canvas bag he carried and unfolding it to reveal a sturdy canvas sling. The other began unwinding the coil of rope around his shoulders and knotting it firmly into metal rings set into the corners of the cloth. In a matter of moments, they were transferring Ruri onto the sling. As soon as she was settled, they secured the ropes in place and flapped awkwardly into the sky, supporting the sling between them.
There weren't enough sane youkai left to carry all of the fallen. As the last unwounded youkai flew away to the site of the battle back at the enemy camp in search of more help, Gojyo took a step closer to where Wei was once again bending over Hari. "There's an empty seat in the back of the Jeep," he observed, to no one in particular. "Two, if we make the monkey sit on the floor. We'd probably even make it back to the mines just as fast as those laden-down guys overhead."
"Thanks," the hunter murmured in simple gratitude. He stood, cradling Hari's unresponsive form gently in his arms. "I'd be much obliged for your help."
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