This chapter references the Slumbering Memory arc, which can be found in Saiyuki Reload (anime), Episodes 5 & 6.

Arc Summary: A youkai named Suika steals Sanzo's, Gojyo's and Hakkai's unhappy memories, turning them into little better than mindless drones. She is unable to snare Goku's unhappy memories, as they were all sealed away five-hundred years before. Goku alone, therefore, can save his friends. He enlists the aid of Kougaiji and company. They save the Sanzo Party by restoring their memories to them, and emerge victorious.

…

Chapter Nine

"Again"

Hakkai had parked the Jeep in the shade of the bolder and was now retelling to Kougaiji and his Party the story of Goku's desire to reclaim his lost memories, and his actions thereafter. Gojyo, still sitting in the Jeep, was leaning back against the bolder, smoking one of his still plentiful cigarettes. He even still had options between his usual Hi Lites and the local blend. A few towns ago Gojyo had met a lady who ran a tobacco store and, miraculously, without a penny to his name, had reemerged from the store with a lifetime supply of the region's local cigarette brand. When Goku had asked how Gojyo managed such a feet Gojyo had just smiled, winked, and said that what happened between him and the Tobacco Lady was best left behind closed doors.

But if this went on too much longer Sanzo was just going to take his crappy cigarettes by force, and smoke his crappy cigarettes. Damn. Almost unconsciously he ran his hand through Goku's hair. He only blinked when his fingers came in contact with the gold diadem on his forehead. He looked down at his charge. Goku's eyes had closed completely. It had been too much of a hassle to move him, so he'd just remained in the front seat. It was fine. Most of him was wedged onto the floor anyway.

It's like the first time he went berserk… Goku's diadem had snapped off just a week after Sanzo had freed him from the cave. God, Sanzo had been practically a kid himself then. Eighteen years old, and only just adjusting to his role as Sanzo at the Temple of the Setting Sun. But no matter what he did, that voice in his head would not go quiet. So, Sanzo had gone on a journey, found the child Goku in his cave, and had brought him back to the monks. There, to put it simply, some shit went down. The monkey had taken out a solid piece of the monastery's wall by the time Sanzo got to him. After it was all over, and his diadem was back on his head, Goku had slumped over… unconscious…to rest his head on Sanzo's lap. They had stayed like that all night. Hadn't really had a choice. Goku still wore his ridiculously heavy chains back then, so there had been no chance of Sanzo moving him anywhere, let alone carrying him to a suitable place of rest.

Sanzo's frown deepened and he brushed his fingertips over Goku's hair again. Something… he said something then…When Sanzo had the child Goku pinned down, about to reset his diadem, Goku had cried. Seiten Taisei had cried. Cried in relief. Sanzo had left the monastery for the day, and when Goku hadn't seen him he had thought… Sanzo's eyes narrowed. Had thought…

"Nn…B- but…ggh!" Goku's words and whimpers came tumbling out, all in one wet and sloppy mess, while his eyes fixed on Sanzo with such raw need, that Sanzo was completely gripped by them. No one had ever looked at him like that. As though he was the only source of light in the whole world. As thought he was– "I thought…you were leaving me behind…again…"

Sanzo's eyes snapped open. 'Again?'

"So, Goku is the monster from five hundred years ago?" Kougaiji glanced over at the little cretin now drooling on Sanzo's robes. "Neither human, nor youkai. Seiten Taisei. It makes sense."

Kougaiji had once fought Goku in his berserk form. The effects had been catastrophic. Still, Sanzo realized, the Prince had never actually known the reason behind Goku's complete change. He had probably spent many a sleepless night attempting to figure it out, the answer escaping him. No longer.

"…Yeah, it does answer a lot of questions," Dokugakuji leaned back against the bolder, right by his brother. "But what I don't get is how you guys didn't see this coming."

"Eh?" Gojyo turned to look at him in outrage. "What the hell, man? Well excuse us if Mister Brilliant over here can know everything… in hindsight!"

"That's not what I'm talking about," Dokugakuji shot him a dark glare. "I mean, even I knew that the runt wasn't comfortable with the whole memory loss thing. And if I'd also know that he didn't have his own memory, then I fail to see how this could have taken anyone by surprise."

"How do you mean 'wasn't comfortable with the whole memory loss thing?'" Hakkai twisted around in his seat to look at Dokugakuji.

The big man obviously wasn't particularly comfortable with all the eyes on him. He shifted against the rock uneasily. "You know. He once said something about it not being anyone else's choice to take a memory, right?"

"I have no recollection of that," Sanzo said frostily.

"…You wouldn't." All this head-turning was going to do something to his bones. Sanzo now twisted around to look at the apothecary, Yaone. Hakkai had a soft spot for her, didn't he? She was glaring back at all of them right now, but not as if she was angry. Only as if she was trying to recall something. "You wouldn't remember… because you weren't there. You had been ensnared by the youkai, Suika – she who stole the worst memories of all whom she met, so as to 'bring peace' to tormented people."

Something pricked on the rim of Sanzo's memories. Yes, there had been an unsettling demon lady. She had given them food and lodging, and had stolen their memories in the night, leaving them as nothing more than empty shells. Goku had been the only one unaffected by her… because his worst memories had already been stolen.

It was a shock to realize it. Certainly, Sanzo had known all along, in the back of his mind, that that had was the reason Goku had remained untainted by her magic, while he, Hakkai and Gojyo had been rendered useless. But he never brooded on it. Sidetracks like that incident were more than annoyingly common on their Journey, and if there was one thing Sanzo was going to forget more quickly than a sidetrack, it was a sidetrack featuring Goku saving all of them.

…But to realize it again, in this context, with Goku's head lolled lifelessly on his lap…

"That's right!" Dokugakuji snapped his fingers at Yaone as the memory flooded back to him as well. "The three of you had just driven off, back to Suika, right after Sanzo had tried to ditch his Scripture and said that he quit being a priest." Sanzo twitched. So that had actually happened. He had tried to block out Goku's voice when the monkey complained about it afterwards. The more he dwelled on it, the more Sanzo remembered.

Dokugakuji kept talking. "We then talked it out with Goku – he seemed pretty upset – and managed to figure out what was going on and what had happened to you three. The second he realized that it was a matter of stolen memories, he got up and made his way back to the town you'd all come from."

Dokugakuji kicked at the ground and a little cloud of dust rose around his boot. "I told him to stop then." He wasn't meeting anyone's eye. He was fixed on his boot. Perhaps he had some kind of stage fright. Or perhaps he just wanted to avoid looking at his little brother, who was right next to him, when he said what he said next. "I told him about Gojyo's past. Told him that, perhaps, some memories are better left forgotten." Dokugakiji smiled bitterly then, and looked up at all of them.

There was almost admiration in his eyes. "The kid didn't miss a beat. Didn't blink an eye at what I said about Gojyo. Just shot back, 'The only person that can decide for you, if it's worth forgetting, is you!' …I have to say, that stuck with me for a while. And there was nothing self pitying about it either. He just seemed so sure of himself." He nodded in thought. "It was very impressive."

Everyone was quiet. Again, Sanzo looked back down at the top of Goku's head. What Dokugakuji said gave him something to think about. More than he wanted to, if fact. It seemed that the more he learned about this… situation… he more he learned that Goku had been long fixated on it himself. He supposed it made sense. He would have been curious too, if all his memories before the age of thirteen were missing.

Thirteen… For Sanzo, to have forgotten about all his memories before the age of thirteen would have meant to forget his master. Sanzo blinked, a sickening feeling churning quietly in his gut. He could almost sympathies in the horror of such a possibility. Almost. But what if he and Goku had been the same, as the Goddess had alluded? What if the man Goku had forgotten, Konzen, had been to him what Koumyou Sanzo had been to–

But Sanzo had never pegged Goku as the type to look back. Goku always looked forward. Lived in the present.

Because up until now, that had been his only option.

"So, what now?" Lirin sat perched on the nose of the Jeep, kicking her feet up and down. "He's just going to stay like this till he gets his memories back?"

Kougaiji smiled over at his sister. "I don't think either Sanzo or I are willing to wait that long." Sanzo shot him a poisoned glare. Kougaiji leaned against the Jeep next to his sister. "I can help you out here," he said, bending his fingers.

"Sorry if I don't take that to heart ten minutes after you nearly skewered me."

Kougaiji dropped his hand and smirked across at the expanse of flatland in front of them. In the distance, near the horizon, one could just make out the mountains. "Look. I'll say this again. Your personal team dynamics are something I really don't care about and I'm not going to sit here playing nice while you guys sweat it out." He turned to look at Sanzo. "But this seems to be going a little deeper than team dynamics and if that Goddess wasn't the one who sent Goku the girl with the envelop with all that information, then who was?"

Ah. This was another thought Sanzo had not been too keen to follow. Indeed, the most he had thought about it was to decide that whenever he did meet the mysterious envelope sender, he would leave a bullet in his head.

Dokugakuji said something. Sanzo flinched. "What?" he snapped at Dokugakiji.

"I said, 'Ni Jianyi.' He could have sent it. That bastard knows everything about everyone. He knew who I was before I came to Houtou Castle. Knew what I did. Knew… everything," he spat.

"And…" Yaone said quietly, "he hasn't been back at Houtou Castle for about two months now."

The Sanzo Party exchanged glances. Two months. The exact amount of time that had passed since they, aided by the Bishop Hazel Grouse and his companion Gat, had been confronted by Ukoku Sanzo – formally Ni Jianyi – and Genjo Sanzo shot him through the eyes.

It had been meant to be a kill shot. However, Ukoku moved at the last moment, and the bullet grazed the bridge of his nose, blinding him instead.

Wounded animals are the most dangerous.

…

Kougaiji twitched. Ni Jianyi. The man who had once brainwashed him, used him as a killing puppet, imprisoned Yaone, abducted his baby sister, nearly did irrevocable damage to her mind, and who had branded him as the Rabbit Prince. There wasn't a fiend in this world or the next whom Kougaiji despised more. Except, perhaps, Gyokumen Koushu, mother of Lirin and chief instigator in the revival of Kougaiji's father, Gyumaoh.

His eyes trailed to the unconscious Goku. Goku was his rival. A driven young man. A loyal fighter. An honorable opponent. Could he let Goku be toyed with as he himself had been so loath to be toyed with? They were enemies… but then also… rivals. However, if this was a plan of the Ni Jianyi's to sabotage the Sanzo Party, gain the Scripture, revive Gyumaoh, and thus revive his own mother… how could he stop it? If he had been able to think as himself while brainwashed he would not have expected or desired any of Goku's pity. He could still remember their very first battle, when he had asked the boy what his reason to fight was – why it was that he fought when he had nothing at stake.

"God, dude. What do you keep talking about?! I fight for myself. Me! That's reason enough."

Kougaiji blinked when his stare at Goku was interrupted by Sanzo's hand which, seemingly unconsciously of the monk, brushed a few stray hairs from his charge's face. Kougaiji looked from monkey to monk and back again. Sanzo, who now also appeared deep in thought, still did not seem to notice as his fingers splayed through the boy's hair. And Goku…

…For one mad moment, Goku didn't seem like the formidable rival Kougaiji knew. A child… just a child. Goku would have hated that train of thought. Kougaiji knew that Goku was the youngest of the Sanzo Party – in appearance at least – and was always treated accordingly. Indeed, were it not for the fact that Goku had bested him once too often on the battle field, Kougaiji would have said the monkey looked too young for his age.

…But this was different. With his cheek squashed against Sanzo's chest, his mouth slightly open, and his eyelids fluttering, as if his eyes really were seeing, Goku, for that one mad moment, reminded Kougaiji, not of himself, but of Lirin – of his baby sister – when Dokugakuji had brought her out of Ni's laboratory, naked and trembling.

"…Sanzo."

The priest balked at the call back to earth. He blinked viciously at Kougaiji, his grip visibly tightening on Goku's head.

"I expect you know full well that I am capable of conjuring fiends from other plains?" Kougaiji flexed his fingers experimental. Where he had been expecting soft human skull, they had instead clashed with Goku's Nyoi-Bo. …He was going to need a manicure.

"What of it?"

"Well, the state of mind plays a key role in plain-travel. If you remember, I wasn't able to summon any fiends while I was under Ni's control, because the presence in my body wasn't actually my ori–"

"–Your point?" Sanzo growled.

Kougaiji smirked. "–That following a person's presence, Goku's in this case, to another plain, as well as sending – say, three? – other presences after him would be as easy for me as chanting that sutra is to you." He shrugged and folded his arms. "Just a fun fact. Felt like sharing, you know?"

…

A wonderful, soft scent filled his nostrils. He smiled. Fingers ran absentmindedly through his hair. Goku relaxed. He almost felt as if he could just slip back into sleep now… No. No, he couldn't. Sanzo had been in danger and he, Goku, was the one who could–

He blinked sleepily, inhaling again. Flowers? His smile widened. Konzen.

"Ouch. Don't move so much, you idiot. My knees are already asleep from having played cushion to your sorry fainting fit!"

Goku blinked.

"What Konzen is trying to say is that you shouldn't move too much right now Goku, because you're just coming out of a collapse, so please take it easy."

"Geez man, be cool. It's not the kid's fault you have old-man, knobby knees."

Goku blinked again, and found himself looking up at Konzen. It was funny, but just now, with the light coming in from the window just so, and catching his hair just like that, and with him above him and everything… he really did look like…

Goku's sleepy smile split his face. Konzen glared down at him harder. Goku frowned. "Right… sorry… legs asleep… moving…"

"Stay down, you idiot. I just told you not to move." Konzen held Goku down by the shoulders.

"Yeah, your brain broken, idiot monkey?" Goku turned his head to see Kenren leaning against a wall just next to him. They weren't in the sakura grove anymore. This room… Goku hadn't been in here before, and yet, as with so many rooms, he knew that he had… a long time ago.

"That's enough from all of you!" Tenpou wandered into Goku's frame of vision.

"Dude, where's the tea?"

"…Oh, heh. That."

"…I'll make it."

"It's just I got rather confused about the preparing of the liquid–"

"It's called boiling water, Ten'."

It was just as the tea was finally made that Goku really began to come to. He was on a bed, with his head in Konzen's lap. Why, he couldn't understand for the world of him, seeing as there was a perfectly nice pillow just inches away. However, Konzen seemed adamant about him not moving an inch, and kept running his hand through Goku's hair.

Freaking fusspot.

It was only when he had to actually take a sip of tea that Konzen let him sit up. Despite the tea, his voice was still a rasp when he finally spoke. "What happened?"

As expected, everyone looked at Tenpou, who quirked a smile at the recognition.

"It would appear," he said, sitting a little further down the bed from Goku and Konzen, "that you called yourself back to 'the real world' for a moment."

A collective blink.

"That is, you made yourself go back. Some instinct in you forced body and soul together again for a moment."

Goku swallowed. He wasn't sure he liked that. "So that… that was real?"

"I would presume so, yes." Tenpou frowned visibly. "Goku, it may not be my place to pry but… what did you see?"

Goku was quiet for a moment. He supposed it was alright to say. To tell truth, he was a little too relived at the moment to be nervous about talking about his other life. If everything he had seen was real, then the shock in Kougaiji's eyes had been real too. I made it in time.

"…I saw Sanzo nearly get killed." He shrugged, trying now to count the number of leaves in his cup of tea. "It's nothing unusual. We're always getting attacked, the way we live. You know? Only… there are just some attacks which only I can clear. Because I am the fastest and the strongest. And… and this was one of them. …So, I cleared it."

He waited. He didn't know for what, but he waited. And then he felt a hand on his shoulder. Now that he'd told them he began to wish he hadn't. Kenren crouched down in front of him. "Oy, listen man, if you…want to go back– I mean, it's completely your call. I mean, you don't have to…" he trailed off.

…stay…

The word hung in the air. It should have just completed the sentence. Really though, it was a plea.

Then, for the first time, it crashed down upon Goku. Goku looked at Kenren for a long moment, his eyes widening with realization. It was still so strange… a Gojyo with black eyes. Should he go back? They probably needed him, weird as that was to take seriously. When he had stepped into that cupboard, Goku had not even tried to imagine what would happen after he left. Now it seemed like the obvious thing to think about now, but back then…

But if he left… He hadn't even begun remembering his past. Goku recalled Hakkai, and how he smiled, really smiled, when he mentioned something nice about Kanan. Gojyo also– he got really pumped up whenever they faced off against Kougaiji, because it gave him a chance to hang out with his brother; and the sucker thought he was fooling everyone. Ha. And Sanzo… and how he would actually relax sometimes… when he made orange paper airplanes.

Goku… wanted memories like that.

"…You bastard. You selfish, fucking bastard."

He jerked, and turned to look at Konzen. Konzen, however, just blinked back at him. "…What?"

"…Nothing." Goku then turned back to Kenren, and sighed. Closed his eyes. Opened them. And smiled. "Geez, they can look after themselves for a little longer. They've had a whole lifetime with their pasts. I can have a few days with mine."

Kenren grinned from ear to ear. "…Now that's the stuff." He gave Goku's shoulder a last squeeze, straightened up, drained his cup of tea, offered it to Goku, who took it, and then raised his hand in declaration. "I nominate Goku to wash the dishes because he had to be a wuss and faint!"

"EH?!"

It was only as Goku unsteadily got back up onto his feet, supported by Konzen, that he noticed the little mattress on floor, on the other side of Konzen's bed from where they were all assembled. It was so little. It couldn't have been big enough for anyone other than–

"Oy! Tiny monkey, are you going to start putting one foot in front of the other, or am I just supposed to stand here all day like a nurse maid."

Goku blinked up into Konzen's face, swallowed, and smiled. "Yeah. Thanks," he rasped, and allowed Konzen to take his weight as Goku took his first step. Again.