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brigdhTitle: Intermission (the Extended Horror Remix)
Author: Brigdh
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for adult language, mild violence, mild creepiness
Spoilers: Mild spoilers and speculation (though it'll probably be jossed in the next few chapters) for Saiyuki Gaiden
Summary: The Sanzo-ikkou meets Baba Yaga. Mythologies clash.
Notes: Written for Remix Redix IV: I Know What You Did Last Remix. This is a remix of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xsmoonshine's story, Intermission. More author notes here.
It was the kind of forest that could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and it was getting even creepier now that the sun was setting. Gojyo was pretty sure that the thick, twisting branches that seemed to be this place's sole form of life were rearranging themselves into more threatening positions as soon Jeep passed them, but he hadn't managed to catch them at it yet. He kept thinking he saw something in the corner of his eyes, but by the time he turned his head, everything was still again.
Truthfully, he hadn't seen anything at all that wouldn't just make the others laugh at him if he pointed it out, but the trees were growing so close together that their branches and trunks writhed through each other like limbs at an orgy, and instead of leaves everything was hung with this long, stringy moss that was more brown than green, and Gojyo felt sure that the shadows were just a little too shadowy.
Shit like that. Nothing he could really point a finger to, but it made him uncomfortable anyway. Gojyo slouched farther down in his seat; it didn't feel right to have his back exposed. This whole place was fucking strange, though. How did you have a forest without anything growing in it? Sure, there were the trees, but no grass, no bushes, nothing green at all, only those brown branches and the occasional thicket of thinner, sharper branches of thistles or a briar patch. Not that the lack left room for any open space. He couldn't see more than a few feet to either side of the road, the trees were packed in so close. And there weren't any birds or animals either, no deer or squirrels or monkeys hooting from the branches.
"I'm hungry." Of course, they'd made up for that by bringing their own monkey.
Sanzo spun around in his seat, landing his fan with a sharp crack directly on Goku's head, and turned back again without saying a word. He must be nervous too; normally it took at least a few minutes for Goku to provoke him into violence. Hakkai just chuckled, but then, it'd probably take a lot more than some weird trees to scare Hakkai.
Jeep's headlights flickered on; it was getting dark fast. Gojyo could see that the sky was still mostly blue- in the narrow line above the road where it was visible between the tree tops- but here on the ground the shadows were stretching out and widening and growing together, spreading out their darkness just like the fucking branches had twisted together into a wall.
As they headed on, the trees on the left side of the road curved away, leaving a dirt clearing that butted directly up on the road, a neat little hut sitting in the center, its windows glowing out of the gloom. It had a picket fence around it, short thin rails which might be white, though it was hard to tell with everything losing color in the darkness. The fence might have been actually gray; it wasn't in very good repair, almost falling apart. In some places it was five or six feet high, in other just one or two, and it some places it had broken apart entirely. Here and there were piles of rails tumbled on the ground, like someone had spilt the wood and carried it over, but gotten distracted before actually fixing the fence. It was sort of funny looking: the rails were way too thin to be useful; they'd break in a good storm. No wonder it was crumbling.
"Hey," Gojyo said, leaning forward into the front seat before they passed it. "It's getting late. Think we can stop there, ask for dinner and a place to sleep?"
Hakkai shrugged, slowing Jeep until he was at a stop. "We could ask, but it's not in my map."
Sanzo shifted in his seat, exchanging a glance with Hakkai. "I don't like it."
"We could drive on, but we're unlikely to find anything else before night falls."
Gojyo snorted. "It's pretty damn well fallen, if you ask me. I can't see anything out here."
The door of the hut opened and they all silenced, staring at the person who emerged, at first just a black shape against the light pouring out the door. It teetered across the porch and peered at them, then called in a cracked, elderly voice, "Well? Come into the light so I can see you."
Hakkai straightened up in his seat, turning off Jeep's engine, which settled into silence. "It appears to be an old woman."
"Appearance is an illusion," muttered Sanzo. They glanced at each other again, and he sighed and shrugged, and Hakkai smiled, opening his door and climbing out. Goku cheered and raced ahead of them all, clattering up the porch steps to introduce himself to the woman. Sanzo followed slowly, falling into step besides Gojyo, who laughed at his sullen expression. "Shut up."
Gojyo stretched his arms out, leaning back for a glimpse of the sky, leeching to grey. "Hey, it's better than sleeping in Jeep again."
Sanzo ducked his head, hands hiding his mouth as he lit a new cigarette. "I sincerely hope she eats you first."
The old woman was the skinniest person Gojyo had ever seen, and he'd seen Sanzo in the bath after blood-loss and a three day coma, so that was really saying something. She was so skinny that it looked like it hurt, skin just barely stretched over the knobs of her bones. She was hunched over, clutching a shawl around her shoulders, but she stepped forward as Gojyo and Sanzo climbed the porch's steps, crossing her arms. Her elbows were like clenched fists on the ends of sticks; Gojyo's stomach twisted in sympathy and he had to look away.
She hummed to herself, sounding satisfied. "So. Are you seeking something, or running away from it?"
Sanzo snorted and looked off into the black forest, every line of his body language screaming told-you-so. Gojyo idly imagined accidentally tripping him off the porch.
Hakkai laughed politely, in the way he usually did just before advising someone to be careful not to trip over their own entrails. "I'm not sure I understand, ma'am. We're just looking for a place to spend the night, if we could impose…"
Her stringy grey hair was falling in her face, clinging to her shoulders and the shawl like cobwebs, but the eyes that peered out from behind it were bright. She stared at each of them thoughtfully, focusing on Goku last, and then smiled. Her teeth glinted dully in the light from the house. "Yes. I've no time to entertain you, but you can stay. There's food all ready inside. Make sure you clean up before you leave!"
"Thank you very much-" Hakkai started, but she ignored him, striding off the porch into the darkness and disappearing like a curtain had dropped down behind her.
Goku shrugged and headed inside, but the other three paused for a moment, looking at each other. "She didn't even tell us her name," Hakkai said.
Sanzo shrugged. "She probably poisoned the food."
"So we let the monkey taste it first. No problem. I'm not going back out in that." Gojyo jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the forest which was presumably still surrounding the house, though everything except for the house itself and the rectangle of light thrown out of the door looked solid black. Jeep trilled and dove from the darkness to settle on Hakkai's shoulder; even he looked more grey than white.
They walked inside cautiously. Goku was already leaning over a big pot bubbling on the fire, which was the only source of light in the room. He had the lid in one hand and a spoon in the other, and was poking at the contents.
"Oh," Hakkai said, walking over as Sanzo settled at the wooden table and Gojyo prowled the corners of the room, kicking at a few heaps of random things. "What kind?"
"I'm not sure." Goku frowned. "It's got some kind of meat in it, though."
"Probably human."
Goku glared at Gojyo distrustfully, eyes narrowed. "Really?"
Hakkai confiscated the spoon from Goku without him noticing and stirred the stew. "It looks done, whatever it is."
"Is it safe?" Sanzo asked. Hakkai tasted some from the spoon, licking his lips.
"Hakkai, you don't even know what it is!" Gojyo said. "How can you eat that?"
Hakkai laughed. "Well, it's probably not human, after all, so it should be alright, don't you think?"
Gojyo stared at him. "…probably?"
"One can't be sure until one tries it! And even then, I'm not quite sure what human tastes like… ah, Goku, please take the pot off the fire while I try to find some bowls." Hakkai turned to a half-open cabinet near the fireplace. Goku immediately grabbed the pot's handle and lifted it off the hook that suspended it, and then dropped the entire thing, shaking his hands. His yelp was drowned out by the crash as the pot fell, the rattle of the lid flying to the floor, and the hiss as the stew dumped onto the fire and doused it, plunging the room into darkness.
"Whoops."
"God damnit, you stupid monkey, what are we supposed to eat now?"
"You thought it was people anyway! Ow, leggo-"
"Everyone shut up. Was there a candle in here?"
Wind moaned through the room, rattling the windows. Gojyo opened and shut his eyes, but it made no difference. Brightly colored squiggles danced in his sight, protesting the lack of light. He could feel the darkness against his face like oil.
"I think I saw one by the door."
A light flickered and a tiny flame illuminated Sanzo's hand and lighter; the candle sparked, lighting up his face from below like in a horror movie. "There," he said, setting it on the table. "Idiots."
"Um," Hakkai said politely, glancing around as their eyes adjusted to the shifting shadows, dancing over the walls like brown and black ghosts. "Where's Goku?"
***
Konzen- 'cause that was his name, Konzen, he'd heard the people in the big room say it, and everyone here had a name and they seemed kind of important- walked down the hallway really fast, so he had to almost run to keep up because he couldn't take as big steps as Konzen, who had very long legs. But he didn't mind. It was nice to move fast again instead of walking slow or being dragged by people. It was like a game: the floors were all made of a smooth, white stone that was cool against his feet and glittered in the sunlight from the big windows that were everywhere, so he tried to jump from bright spot to bright spot without falling.
Konzen was turning sort of red in the face, and he kept muttering things that had a lot of bad words in them. Konzen stopped just when he wasn't looking, trying hard to land in the middle of a really yellow and sparkling patch of sunshine, and he smacked into the back of Konzen's legs and had to grab onto Konzen's skirt to keep from falling. Konzen glared at him, or as much as he could glare, trying to look backwards over his shoulder. "What am I supposed to do with you?"
Konzen's long hair was swinging right above his face, and it looked so pretty and soft that it was distracting. But he didn't want to get yelled at again, so he kept his hands on Konzen's skirt, which was also pretty, though not as much. "Huh?"
"What the hell was that hag thinking? I don't know what to do with a pet."
"I'm not a pet!" He let go and stepped back, frowning at Konzen. "Don't call me that."
"Ch." Konzen looked away, crossing his arms uncomfortably. "Well, what do you need?"
He held up one arm, shaking the heavy iron chain they'd put on him. "Can you take these off?"
Konzen sighed and hesitated, but he reached down and grabbed one wrist, and looked up, startled. "They're heavy."
"Yeah. I don't like them."
Konzen twisted the iron back and forth, and stuck one finger underneath, checking the tightness. "There's no clasp. These weren't meant to be taken off."
"You mean I always gotta wear them?" He yanked his hand away. "That's not fair!"
Konzen shrugged and straightened up. "Anything that can be done can be undone. But someone must have requested those specifically, and for a reason; there's no one around here who's going to take the risk of breaking them."
He tried to tug them off, but they were too small to fit over the bottom of his hand, and trying to make them only hurt. He winced, and stuck the side of his wrist in his mouth. "That's stupid," he mumbled around the scrape.
Konzen watched him, face smoothed out so he didn't look angry. But just for a second, and then he frowned again, making his mouth thin and hard and putting lines back in his forehead. "That's the way it is. Look… are you hungry?"
"Yeah!"
***
Goku couldn't see anything. He squinted and rubbed his eyes on his shoulder and tried blinking really fast, but none of it made a difference. He left his eyes open anyway. He didn't like walking with them closed, even if it all looked the same.
There were a bunch of people dragging him, a whole crowd. Way more people than could fit in that little house, even though he didn't remember leaving it. All of them were tugging on Goku, pulling him along, and whenever he got free of one pair of hands, someone else grabbed him; it was like trying to fight water. There was something wrong with the people, too: they weren't really there. Not like the way the youkai weren't there after the Minus Wave, when there wasn't any person left behind their eyes, but actually Not There. Like clouds. When he tried to push against them, they just melted away. He could feel their hands tight and solid around his arms, but whenever he tried to hit the person who should have been at the other end of the limb, there was nothing there.
They were all talking and shouting in funny voices that sounded like whispering even though it was loud. With all these fake-people, Goku couldn't hear where the others were, not Gojyo or Hakkai or even Sanzo, who would be pretty loud if a whole crowd of people was trying to grab him. They couldn't be too far away, because he'd seen them right before the fire'd gone out, and that was only a few seconds ago. But then again, maybe these shadows had taken him farther than he'd realized. The ground under his shoes felt rocky and uneven, so they definitely weren't in the house anymore.
The shadows were all over him, and if he hadn't stumbled against the ground now and then he wouldn't have even known which way was up. They were doing their weird scream-whisper thing in his ears and face, shouting his name and other things he couldn't make out, since there were too many of them talking at once. It was like walking into a whole bunch of spider-webs and not being able to shake them off, just having to leave them there, sticking to his shoulders and hair.
Goku decided that he didn't like being dragged. He leaned back against the shadow's grip until they were all straining to pull him forward, then ran straight into them, scattering the wispy bodies like mist. But there were more of them than he'd figured, whole huge crowds of them, so he had to keep running, feeling the gross hard-softness of them grabbing at him and tearing into pieces when he kept going.
He realized that it might not be the best idea to run headlong into pitch blackness, since he wouldn't like to find the nearest wall by knocking himself out on it. He stopped, laughed as he felt the shadow-things tumble over and past him, struggling to brake, and summoned Nyoi-bo. He spun in a circle, swinging the staff with him fast enough that the air whistled over his head. A faint light shone from somewhere just in time to reveal one of the shadows caught in its path. There was the briefest sense of resistance as Nyoi-bo tore through a pale grey body, and then nothing except a bunch of pieces fluttering to the ground like rags.
Goku paused to take in the sight of his opponents. A bunch of dirty white, vaguely people-shaped forms huddled just out of reach, glaring at him suspiciously with black holes for eyes. They floated against the cave's walls, not having any feet to stand on, drifting closer and than away, as if none of them wanted to be the next to get hit.
Goku grinned and shifted his grip on Nyoi-bo. This looked like fun.
***
"How the hell am I supposed to know where he went?"
"Because no one in their right mind would want to kidnap the monkey!"
"That doesn't make it my fault, you shitty priest!"
Hakkai knelt to rekindle the fire; the walls of the room slowly grew out of the darkness, the windows staying like holes into an endless black, as though the shadows were exuding the house from their pores and had forgotten a few spots. The wood had spilled out of the hearth, and some of it was too wet to catch, so the fire burned low and smoky, the scattering of the wood giving it an odd shape.
The house had only the one room, and it was a small room at that, though the corners and the walls were piled high with a random assortment of half-full bags, stable equipment, food supplies, and clothing, all of it stacked so haphazardly that they looked like they might topple at any moment. Despite the mess, there was nowhere large enough for Goku to hide, or to have hid any parties interested in taking him.
Hakkai stood, dusting his hands off, and interrupted Gojyo and Sanzo's fight. "Since Goku is rather obviously not here, perhaps we should try looking outside?"
Gojyo scratched the back of his neck and coughed. "Right." Sanzo scowled and lit a new cigarette, which was his way of doing the same thing. Hakkai smiled.
They separated once outside, wandering the house's yard looking for anything that might be a clue. It was much darker than it should have been, given that the sun had still been in the sky a short while ago. The darkness had a peculiar quality too, like it was almost touchable. It was so thick Hakkai imagined he could feel its pressure on his skin.
Jeep launched himself from Hakkai's shoulder, disappearing into the night as he hunted for Goku himself. Hakkai found his interest drawn by the small fence that bordered the yard. There was something off about the wood: too white, too straight. He laid a hand on the top rail just as the light spilling from the house moved wildly.
The house was rocking from side to side, like an old man struggling to stand up. A leg emerged from underneath it, plopping into the dirt. Its claws- long, yellow and scaly, rather like a chicken's, in fact- dug into the ground, and then the leg straightened, lifting the house enough to allow the second leg to come out from the other side.
Hakkai looked back down at his hand on the fence, took in the knobs on either end of the 'wood'. Of course. Bone. And of a human child's, it looked like.
"The house. Is walking. Away," Gojyo said. "Should we be letting the house walk away?"
"Shut up, kappa," Sanzo said, leveling his gun to aim for the knees. "I'm taking care of it."
***
In the growing light, Goku could see the ghosts piling up around him. Whenever he managed to get a direct hit on one, they'd tear right down the middle and settle to the ground. He was pretty sure that they didn't stay there for too long- either they were putting themselves back together, or just sort of dissolving into the air- but there were enough to fight that he kept shredding more before the old ones had a chance to evaporate. It felt kinda weird running through the piles too, like wading through warm, gross snow.
He was underground somewhere, or in a really, really long cave, maybe. It was pretty narrow, but it seemed to go on forever: he couldn't smell fresh air in any direction and the only light, which was creeping closer from around a bend up ahead, sure didn't look like sunlight. It had a sort of glittery effect on the rocks of the walls and ground, making everything look slimly and grey, and instead of making it easier to see, it just pointed out how dark the shadows were.
Goku didn't care. This was great. He hadn't had so much fun since the last time he'd run into Kougaiji.
A woman came around the corner, studied the fight that was going on, and held up one hand. "Stop!" she said, in the sort of stuck-up tone that the monks Sanzo hated the most always used.
The ghost Goku was fighting did. Goku, who was in the middle of leaping from a rock and it wasn't his fault if it was too late to stop, didn't, and went straight through the ghost, who ripped in two very loudly in the sudden silence.
"Uh," Goku said, as the ghost's remains drifted down around him. "You're glowing."
She was. The light had been coming from her, like she had swallowed a whole bunch of lightbulbs and they were still shining from inside her. She folded her hands together above her stomach, hiding them in the sleeves of her long, white kimono, and tossed a strand of hair behind her shoulders. "Of course. I am still a goddess."
Goku would have thought that goddesses didn't have worms crawling out of their faces, which were more bone than skin anyway, but he'd never met one before, so maybe they did. Besides, he didn't know anyone else who glowed. "Oh. What's your name?"
"Izanami," she said proudly. "I suppose that you understand what must happen now, Monkey."
"Don't call me that!"
"Oh, yes. They gave you a name, didn't they?" She paused and one of the ghosts, who were fluttering around her like really scary puppies, whispered into her ear. "Yes: Son Goku."
"Yeah." Goku wiped some sweat from his forehead, uncertain of what to do now that the fighting seemed to be over. "Where're the others?"
Izanami shook her head. "The people you were with? I don't know; where they were, most likely. They are irrelevant. It is you, Son Goku, who has trespassed upon our ancient agreement."
"I did?"
Izanami looked surprised. "Well, you are here, are you not?"
Goku shifted his weight awkwardly. "Yeah, but I don't remember any agreement. Can I go now?"
"You don't remember your offenses against the Underworld?"
"No."
"You don't remember killing the devil messengers of the ninth hell?"
"No."
"You don't remember destroying Senlou Palace?"
"No."
"You don't remember erasing names from-"
"No!" Goku sighed. "I don't remember any of that stuff. I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh." Izanami tipped her head to the side and bit her lower lip as she thought. One of the ghosts plucked a worm from her hair and dropped it to the ground, where it wriggled under a rock. "Well, that might be a problem."
***
Goku liked Ten-chan's room. It had all kinds of neat stuff, if you could find it under the scrolls and papers, but that was okay, because a lot of the scrolls were pretty neat too. There were even some about food. They'd opened the windows to dump some dust outside, so it was brighter than normal, and little specks danced in the air.
Konzen and Ten-chan were cleaning, except they weren't really. They were sitting on Ten-chan's desk and talking and sometimes Konzen would yell at Goku to keep his dirty hands off other people's things, even though he wasn't dirty because he had just washed that morning, but Konzen didn't care.
Goku tiptoed to the bookcase closest to the desk and moved a few scrolls quietly, hiding until he could see Konzen and Ten-chan but they couldn't see him. He watched them, planning to jump out and surprise them. Ten-chan was smoking. He held the pack out to Konzen, but Konzen hated the smell getting in his hair, so he pulled his head back and said no. Ten-chan slipped them back in his pocket.
He lifted his cigarette to his lips and sucked on it for a minute. Goku didn't like the smell either, but Ten-chan must, because he was always breathing in the smoke and holding it in his mouth like a piece of candy. He stared straight ahead, and Goku ducked down behind the bookcase, afraid that he'd been seen.
"Goku seems happy to stay with you," Ten-chan said.
Konzen shrugged. "Of course. He's got food and things to destroy. There's nothing else he wants."
"Hmmm, I wonder." Ten-chan leaned back, almost dropping the cigarette from his mouth while he talked. "What was Kanzeon Bosatsu thinking when se put him in your protection?"
"Fucking hag. Who knows what se thinks about anything?" Goku covered his mouth with his hands, being very, very quiet. They were talking about him. "What are you getting at, Tenpou?"
"Nothing, nothing. Just thinking aloud."
Konzen scowled. Goku knew that look: it was the same one Konzen gave him when he thought Goku was hiding something. "Se had to do something with Goku, after he was brought here. Kanzeon's incapable of taking care of a child."
"Ah, yes, the fortunate discovery of the heretic child." Ten-chan reached over Konzen to put his cigarette out in the ashtray. Konzen leaned away from him, frowning, but Ten-chan didn't notice. "That's the official story, isn't it? But it's common knowledge, Konzen, that the Underworld had been petitioning the Emperor to have something done about the creature who was causing so much trouble. I'm sure Goku could create quite a mess, even without you to play with."
Konzen frowned at him. "So what? There's politics behind everything that happens in heaven. None of it matters."
"Yes. But Goku has power, power that could make things matter. He's strong enough to force the Underworld to seek help. Many people might have found him very useful."
Goku curled his hands against the edge of a shelf and peered over. Ten-chan and Konzen weren't looking in his direction, but he almost wanted them to see him so they'd stop talking. But it wasn't fair if they knew something and he didn't, so he stayed still, waiting to hear more. Ten-chan stood, brushing his hands against his hips. "But Kanzeon gave him to you. I don't believe it was because se hadn't thought about the matter."
Konzen looked up at him, squinting to face the light from the windows, and turned away, his hair spilling over his shoulders like gold in the sun. "You're being ridiculous." He stood too. "Goku! What are you doing?"
Goku scrambled around the corner of the bookcase, accidentally catching his foot on the bottom book of a pile, knocking them all to the ground. He jumped back to avoid getting buried, and Ten-chan laughed.
"See?" Konzen said, rubbing his forehead. "The only conspiracy is Kanzeon's attempts to drive me crazy." He walked over looking mad, but rested his hand on Goku's head for a second before shoving him down. "Help me restack these."
***
Sanzo paused in front of the small barn Hakkai'd spotted half-hidden in the trees behind the house. Faint light leaked from around the edges of the door, and voices murmured to one another in slow, easy conversation. Then he kicked the door in and hurled himself through it.
Three men looked up at him in surprise, startled from tending the three horses which were the only other occupants of the building. Sanzo aimed at the man who looked like he'd recently arrived, still in the process of taking the saddle and reins from his black horse, himself dressed all in black to match. "You. Where's Goku?"
He frowned, puzzled. "Who?"
"The Monkey," one of the other men, this one dressed all in red, answered. "He arrived at Grandmother's today while I was still out."
The third, who was wearing all white, smiled fondly. "It's been a long time since we've seen him, hasn't it?"
"I hate this fucking place," Gojyo muttered behind Sanzo. "Everyone here is crazy."
"The next person who says something stupid is getting shot," Sanzo said. It was dark in here too, even though the single flickering lantern made it seem much brighter than it had outside. All the shadows were starting to piss him off. "Answer the question: Where. Is. Goku?"
"The Underworld, of course," the man in white said.
"Where did you think you were?" the one in red added.
"It's what she does." The black one shrugged, as though it should have been obvious. "Death, rebirth, learning to face yourself; all that sort of stuff."
Sanzo could feel the annoyance pulsing in his temples, but before he could shoot any of them in their oblivious faces, Hakkai put a hand on his shoulder, gently forcing the gun toward the floor. "Ah ha. How nice. But I'm afraid, you see, that we're going to have to insist that you take us to him. Perhaps it's quite selfish of me to want to interrupt what I'm sure is a deeply meaningful experience for Goku, but, well, that's simply the type of person I am."
The black one looked nervous. "Oh, no. It's never a good idea when living people chase someone into the Underworld."
"It's happened, sure. But they didn't end well," the red one said.
"Besides," said the white one. "We're not allowed to show anyone the way."
The patience that Sanzo had been clinging to with both hands finally snapped. He grabbed the collar of the man in red, hauled him to his feet, and shoved the barrel of his gun under his chin until the man was staring at the ceiling. "If you get in my way over this," Sanzo growled in his ear, "I will blow your fucking head off, and then we can just follow your soul to hell." The man swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"He's quite serious," Hakkai said. "Though he's never shot anyone who looked so much like him before! Do you think you could have a long-lost brother, Sanzo?"
"You're not helping."
"No, he's right." Gojyo stepped in to peer at the man's face in the dim light. "He really does look like you. There's something around the-"
Sanzo fired the gun, having tilted it just enough to the side that it didn't take anyone's head with it on the way to the ceiling. Gojyo and the man both swore. Sanzo lodged the gun back under his chin. "Make a decision."
"Alright. Everybody get on a horse."
***
Izanami snapped her fingers and gave a few orders to the ghosts who hung off her, and before a few minutes had passed, an entire banquet hall was being set up in the middle of the cave. A long wooden table, carried on the backs of an entire army of ghosts, swept in, followed by chairs and a tablecloth and centerpieces, and then the food, more food than Goku could ever remember seeing in one place: bread and meat and drinks and fresh fruit of a hundred, no, a thousand different kinds, some that Goku couldn't even recognize.
"We may as well be comfortable while we discuss this," Izanami said, seating herself at the head of the table. "Would you like something to eat?"
"Yeah!" Goku grabbed a plate from a nearby ghost and piled it with food, stuffing some of the best-looking pieces straight into his mouth. Izanami watched him, smiling with satisfaction. She looked really happy, actually. It was good to see that some people understood the value of food.
She picked up a fruit that looked sort of like a bigger, redder orange and started to peel it, shaking her long sleeves back from her hands. One of her pinky fingers was nothing but bone, and she hooked it under a flap of the fruit's skin, slicing it open neatly.
"Cool," Goku said, watching. It was much easier to see with her nearby, though shadows still hid most of the cave. Even with her light, everything felt dark somehow. But he figured he should be polite and stay to eat something, since he'd been invited and all. "I wish I could do that. I always squish the insides when I peel fruit."
Izanami smiled at him. "Perhaps someday." The fruit was a bunch of shiny red berries, and she picked one out and tossed it in her mouth, licking her lips with a tongue gone dead grey. "We have an interesting question. One might say that a person is their memories. After all, if one cannot remember an action or its motivation, can that one really be said to be the same person as the one who committed it? What is your opinion, Son Goku?"
"Mmmph," Goku started to say, and then paused and swallowed the mouthful of turkey leg he'd been chewing. "I dunno. I mean, a person is a person, aren't they? Sometimes you might forget, or change, or have stuff happen, but you're always you. You can't change that."
Izanami nodded gracefully. "Well put. I am so delighted that we feel the same way."
"Really?" Goku grinned. "I thought I was disagreeing with you."
"Not with me. I was simply stating the view that some of my subjects hold. Not everyone sees things as clearly as you and I, after all, sad though it is. And I cannot afford to explain myself to every one of them, for some hold their beliefs so firmly that they may never come to our point of view. I do have a responsibility to keep them happy. I despair sometimes of contenting so many."
Goku reached over the table to grab a piece of fish. "Sanzo says that people are always waiting for their leaders to mess up because they're hypocritical sheep who love a chance to be nosy."
Izanami blinked at him, and then laughed, covering her mouth with a hand. A beetle was startled out of the hole in her cheek and it fell to the table, shaken loose by her laughter. It landed on its back and rocked, its legs scrabbling at the air, before flipping itself over and disappearing into the dark under a plate. "This Sanzo sounds quite interesting," she said when she'd recovered herself.
"Yeah! He's-"
"I am certain then, that he will understand why I must do this. The masses, so eager to criticize, must be appeased. Son Goku, I will return your memories."
"What?" Goku said. Izanami clapped her hands.
***
"It's alright," Nataku said, grabbing Goku's wrist. "Stay here."
"Okay," Goku said, sitting back down. He kneeled on the floor next to the bed so he could lean on it and talk to Nataku. "You got really hurt! You must've fought a lot of people down there. Was it fun?"
Nataku took his hand away and shoved it back under the covers. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"Oh," Goku said. Nataku seemed sad, so he talked about something else, so Nataku wouldn't have to think about whatever was making him sad. "You know, I used to live Down Below. It was great- I lived in this big forest that was full of fruit and birds and deer and bears and monkeys and waterfalls. The grass was really soft and green, and there were trees so tall that you couldn't see their tops from the ground, but I could climb all the way up."
"I bet I could too," Nataku grinned, lying back down against his pillows.
Goku laughed. "Yeah, maybe! We'll have to go there too, and you can try it. It's usually sunny, and there's all kinds of flowers that grow wherever they can find the light. And you can lie right in the middle of a big patch of them until you get warm, and there's nobody there to yell at you for doing something you're not supposed to."
"Really? No one?"
Goku nodded, his smile fading. "But it was kind of lonely, after a while. It'd be better if you came with me to see it. I'll tell Konzen to take us."
Nataku yawned, his eyes closing while his mouth stretched really wide. "Who's Konzen?"
"He takes care of me."
"Like your dad?"
"I don't have a dad."
"Sorry." Nataku let his head fall back and he stared up at the ceiling blankly. "My father loves me a lot."
"Yeah?" Goku said. He crossed his arms on top of the bed and rested his chin on them. "I'd like that."
Nataku's eyes closed. "Yeah. I wonder…"
But he didn't finish before he fell asleep. Goku yawned himself, and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, staring at Nataku's peaceful face for a little while before he felt too tired to even keep watching.
***
The underworld turned out to be pitch fucking black. The only time Sanzo could see anything at all was in the flare of his gun going off or Hakkai's qi, but those were so short that all he really had was an impression of a swirling mass of screaming mouths and reaching hands. He could track Gojyo's movements by the sound of his chain rattling and whistling in the air, but other than that Sanzo was firing blind. Good thing there were so many creatures attacking that it didn't seem to matter where he aimed.
"I'm going to kill the fucking monkey when we find him. I can't believe he's putting us through this much trouble," Sanzo said, pausing to reload and finding himself back to back with Gojyo.
"Not if I get to him first. I haven't eaten since we had lunch, and he stole the last sandwich." Gojyo grunted and slammed a hand on top of Sanzo's head, shoving them both down just as a howling woman-thing launched herself through the air where their heads had been. "Sorry. Missed one."
Sanzo stepped on her back, pinning her before she could roll out of her awkward landing, and shot her in the head; in the brief light he caught a glimpse of something like a giant dog with three heads bounding towards them.
Hakkai lit up the area again while the afterimages were still glowing bright in Sanzo's eyes, blasting one of the heads and leaving a sizzling stump that smoldered with dull, smoky embers. Gojyo's blade sliced through the air in a smooth circle, its edge shining red as the fur on the dog's neck burst into flames, abruptly reversing direction and curving back to sever a second head. The only one left keened in pain, eyes rolling back in the sockets so that they seemed to glow red in reflection; the bullet was a direct shot through its forehead. The dog's whole body shuddered and collapsed to the ground.
A wave of silence swept through the assorted demons, ghosts, and other things that crowded the cave's entrance, and then they started up a wail of mourning that sounded like a cat being skinned alive. But at least they seemed distracted.
"This way, I think," Hakkai said as they hurried past the grieving monsters. "The ground seems to slope down in this direction."
"Three-headed dogs." Gojyo shook his weapon, scattering some of the blood beaded along the edge. "I don't remember hearing about that in any of the stories."
Sanzo flicked his lighter open and held it out, providing just enough illumination to tell where the walls were. "At least it wasn't a giant bug."
The other two nodded.
***
Konzen had Goku's wrist in a grip so tight it hurt, and he was running, dragging Goku with him. Goku couldn’t run as fast, even though he was really trying. He kept falling because his feet didn't have enough time to touch the floor, but Konzen just yanked him back up without looking and kept running.
Goku tripped again and this time really almost landed flat, scraping the palm of his free hand on the floor. "Shit," Konzen said, and stopped just long enough to scoop Goku up. Goku kicked and tried to twist free, but Konzen shook him, and anyway they could go faster like this.
Goku peered over Konzen's shoulder. Ten-chan and Ken-nii-chan were right there, running too. Ken-nii-chan saw him looking and grinned. Back behind them was the whole army, slower because they couldn't fit through the narrow hallways as well. "What's going to happen?"
"I don't know," Konzen said, sounding kind of angry, but maybe that was just because he was breathing hard.
Goku sank down in his arms. "'m sorry. This's all my fault."
"Don't be an idiot." Konzen's face was turning red. He wasn't as good at running as Goku or Ken-nii-chan; he didn't do it often enough. Pretty soon he'd have to put Goku down, and then they'd all have to slow down, and then the bad guys would catch them, and then- Goku pressed his face into Konzen's shoulder. "I wouldn't go to this much trouble just for a monkey like you."
Gunshots went off behind them. Ken-nii-chan had stopped to fire into the army, and Ten-chan was waiting for him, sword already out. "Ah," Goku heard Ten-chan say. "It looks like we'll be making a last stand after all."
Ken-nii-chan laughed. "Great. I always wanted to go out in the middle of a fight."
"You thought about how you'd die? How strange. I always saw you as living forever." Goku looked back: Ten-chan and Ken-nii-chan were standing next to each other, their shoulders almost touching. They didn't look at each other when they talked, but that was okay, because they sort of didn't need to. Even when he could only see the back of their heads, Goku could tell that they were smiling at the same time.
Ken-nii-chan aimed the gun again, but there wasn't a bang this time. He shrugged and dropped it. "Last leg," he said. "Want to race?"
They turned and ran after Konzen and Goku, and Goku watched, trying hard to see only their faces and not the any of the army catching up behind them.
***
Goku drove his fists into his eyes. His throat felt scratchy.
"Now," Izanami was saying, "that we've cleared up the problem of your responsibility for earlier actions, we must discuss what will happen next. You can see why your return to the Underworld has created a problem for me."
"I didn't wanna," Goku muttered, speaking into the table.
Izanami tilted her head. "Pardon?"
"I didn't want to!" Goku slammed both fists down on the table, making his plate jump and clatter. "You're the ones who brought me down here when I didn't know not to. You started all this and now you're trying to blame me."
"You misunderstand, Son Goku. By entering-"
Goku jumped to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. "And I didn't want to remember! You didn't even ask me. You just did it, like it was your choice. How'm I supposed to…" Goku's voice caught and he stopped, clenching his hands into fists by his sides.
Izanami stood too, her back straight and chin lifted so she looked like the corpse of a queen. The ghosts were worried; they were hurrying from one place to another in the shadows, and Goku kept catching bits of what they were whispering to one another.
"Do not threaten me," Izanami said. "This is my realm, and I will do what I please. I am in control here."
"Not of me." Goku felt Nyoi-bo's heavy weight in his hand as soon as he thought it, and lifted the weapon, flipping it over. The ghosts rushed out from the shadows all around, ready to meet him as if they could drive him back from Izanami if there were enough of them. Goku smirked; this is what he wanted. He was sick of sitting and talking about things that didn't make any sense. He wanted to fight. He knew how to do that.
Goku waited until the first ghosts were almost on him, then planted the end of Nyoi-bo against the cave's floor, launching himself off the ground and into a kick that caught the nearest one right in the head. There was a moment of pressure, and then his foot was through with a poof, the ghost exploding into gray tatters. Goku landed and flipped the end of Nyoi-bo up, catching a ghost behind him in the stomach and launching it over his head to the other side of the cave.
Goku leapt onto the table and ran for the end, knocking ghosts to the right and left. The plates and food slipped and rattled under his feet, and he skidded through one long spill of grapes, almost falling before he rolled back to his feet in a somersault.
Izanami was trying to get away, ghosts tugging on her and shouting for her to hurry, but her long white kimono fell past her feet, and she couldn't run. Even with so many ghosts swirling around her that they looked like a living cloud, she couldn't hide: she was the only thing in the cave that glowed.
Goku shot off the end of the table with enough speed to hurtle straight through the crowd of ghosts and collide into Izanami, knocking them both to the ground. He hopped back to his feet, Nyoi-bo already swung back over his shoulder and ready to deliver the final blow.
"Stop!" Izanami crossed her arms in front of her face. "I can take them back!"
***
Finding Goku turned out to be surprisingly easy. When Sanzo's lighter had begun to die, they'd become aware of another light source, coming from somewhere down the tunnels. As they'd followed it, the sounds of a fight had echoed up to them.
After that, all they had to do was find where the disturbance was, and Goku had been right in the middle of it. Spirits flew screaming around the ceiling and the walls, howling with pain and rage in chillingly high, disembodied voices. They circled the central two fighters, not daring to interfere.
"Hey, Goku," Gojyo called. "C'mon. We already wasted the entire fucking night looking for you, so hurry up."
Goku looked up from the woman who was kneeling by his feet. "Hey!" He glanced back and forth between them and the woman a few times, considering something, but then bounded over to them, grinning. The spirits immediately swarmed to the woman, surrounding her so thickly that they nearly cut off the light, which seemed to be coming from her. "What're you doing here?"
Sanzo looked him up and down and snorted. "Idiot." He turned away, heading back out.
Hakkai gestured to the table as they followed him, scattered with spilled food. "It seems like you had quite an exciting evening, Goku."
"I can't believe you were down here eating while we were working our asses off," Gojyo said. A ghost swooped out from where they were rustling in the shadows, but his shakujou had sliced it into pieces before it had even got its mouth open for whatever dread pronouncement it would have made. Sanzo didn't pause as he strode through its tatters.
"You should be more careful about what you eat," Hakkai said. "You never know if there might be some consequences."
Behind them, the woman emerged from her robe of spirits, waving her arms to scatter them. "It doesn't matter! Just take him, and never return, do you hear me? Never!"
Goku glanced back over his shoulder. "Duh."
***
It was past dawn when they finally made it out of the caves. Gojyo's eyes felt dry and sandy, and his shoulders and back were full of the low, lazy ache of having not slept all night. Stupid monkey. They should have left him with the ghosts; they'd've have gotten sick of him and given him back before long.
Gojyo was the first out of the caves and into the early morning light. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find himself near where they'd been the night before; it was just that kind of day. Night. Whatever. The house was still making some kind of weird crying sound, though Gojyo couldn't figure out how it was doing that since it didn't seem to have a mouth, and was sitting tilted over, the leg where Sanzo'd shot it stretched out to one side. The freaky old woman was back, standing near the door and talking to the horseman who dressed all in red.
Hakkai joined him. "What a lovely morning. I suppose we'll be on our way soon!"
Gojyo groaned.
Sanzo paused in the entrance of the cave to light a cigarette; a ghost popped out from the shadows of a rock and flew, laughing, at his face. It looked almost clear in the light, and all its blood and ragged flesh looked pretty silly when you could see through it. "Ha! Now he's ours forever! You shouldn’t have looked back-"
Goku stepped out of the cave, blinking in the light.
"Um… shouldn't have… looked back…" the ghost looked confused, which made the brains dripping down the side of his head sort of ironic.
Sanzo sneered. "Why would I need to look back? I know he's following me."
A man and horse all in white galloped past them and reined in near the old woman and other horseman. The three of them talked for a moment, and then the one in red left in the direction the new one had come from.
"Hey, Sanzo," Goku said, brushing past the ghost. "That guy sort of looks like-"
"Shut up."
The old woman walked over to them just as the sun started to peek over the edges of the trees, turning the sky from white dawn to a brilliant blue. "Hello again, boys. In a hurry to start your running again, or can you stay for breakfast?"
Hakkai laughed politely. "I think we'll have to pass. I suspect we'll be overly fussy about what we eat for a little while."
She pursed her lips, which made her cheekbones and jaw even more prominent, like the bones were about to break through the skin. Gojyo had to fight the urge to tell her to go eat instead of worrying about them. "Now, now. It's not like you've lost anything."
"Except a night's sleep," Sanzo muttered.
She ignored him. "You might even find you've gained a bit."
"She's right," Goku said.
She smiled at him. "I always knew I liked you, kid." In the light, Gojyo could see that her teeth were as gray as if she'd never brushed them in her life, though she wasn't missing a one.
"Whatever. I'm leaving." Sanzo turned on his heel and headed off to the road, Goku following after he'd waved at the woman. Hakkai whistled Jeep down out of the branches of the tree where he'd spent the night, and set off after them at a more leisurely pace.
Gojyo squinted at the house again, unsteadily climbing to its feet and favoring the injured leg. It shook itself as the woman closed the door behind her, and flew away. "Damn," he breathed. "The weirdest shit always happens to us."
***
Author: Brigdh
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for adult language, mild violence, mild creepiness
Spoilers: Mild spoilers and speculation (though it'll probably be jossed in the next few chapters) for Saiyuki Gaiden
Summary: The Sanzo-ikkou meets Baba Yaga. Mythologies clash.
Notes: Written for Remix Redix IV: I Know What You Did Last Remix. This is a remix of
xsmoonshine's story, Intermission. More author notes here.It was the kind of forest that could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and it was getting even creepier now that the sun was setting. Gojyo was pretty sure that the thick, twisting branches that seemed to be this place's sole form of life were rearranging themselves into more threatening positions as soon Jeep passed them, but he hadn't managed to catch them at it yet. He kept thinking he saw something in the corner of his eyes, but by the time he turned his head, everything was still again.
Truthfully, he hadn't seen anything at all that wouldn't just make the others laugh at him if he pointed it out, but the trees were growing so close together that their branches and trunks writhed through each other like limbs at an orgy, and instead of leaves everything was hung with this long, stringy moss that was more brown than green, and Gojyo felt sure that the shadows were just a little too shadowy.
Shit like that. Nothing he could really point a finger to, but it made him uncomfortable anyway. Gojyo slouched farther down in his seat; it didn't feel right to have his back exposed. This whole place was fucking strange, though. How did you have a forest without anything growing in it? Sure, there were the trees, but no grass, no bushes, nothing green at all, only those brown branches and the occasional thicket of thinner, sharper branches of thistles or a briar patch. Not that the lack left room for any open space. He couldn't see more than a few feet to either side of the road, the trees were packed in so close. And there weren't any birds or animals either, no deer or squirrels or monkeys hooting from the branches.
"I'm hungry." Of course, they'd made up for that by bringing their own monkey.
Sanzo spun around in his seat, landing his fan with a sharp crack directly on Goku's head, and turned back again without saying a word. He must be nervous too; normally it took at least a few minutes for Goku to provoke him into violence. Hakkai just chuckled, but then, it'd probably take a lot more than some weird trees to scare Hakkai.
Jeep's headlights flickered on; it was getting dark fast. Gojyo could see that the sky was still mostly blue- in the narrow line above the road where it was visible between the tree tops- but here on the ground the shadows were stretching out and widening and growing together, spreading out their darkness just like the fucking branches had twisted together into a wall.
As they headed on, the trees on the left side of the road curved away, leaving a dirt clearing that butted directly up on the road, a neat little hut sitting in the center, its windows glowing out of the gloom. It had a picket fence around it, short thin rails which might be white, though it was hard to tell with everything losing color in the darkness. The fence might have been actually gray; it wasn't in very good repair, almost falling apart. In some places it was five or six feet high, in other just one or two, and it some places it had broken apart entirely. Here and there were piles of rails tumbled on the ground, like someone had spilt the wood and carried it over, but gotten distracted before actually fixing the fence. It was sort of funny looking: the rails were way too thin to be useful; they'd break in a good storm. No wonder it was crumbling.
"Hey," Gojyo said, leaning forward into the front seat before they passed it. "It's getting late. Think we can stop there, ask for dinner and a place to sleep?"
Hakkai shrugged, slowing Jeep until he was at a stop. "We could ask, but it's not in my map."
Sanzo shifted in his seat, exchanging a glance with Hakkai. "I don't like it."
"We could drive on, but we're unlikely to find anything else before night falls."
Gojyo snorted. "It's pretty damn well fallen, if you ask me. I can't see anything out here."
The door of the hut opened and they all silenced, staring at the person who emerged, at first just a black shape against the light pouring out the door. It teetered across the porch and peered at them, then called in a cracked, elderly voice, "Well? Come into the light so I can see you."
Hakkai straightened up in his seat, turning off Jeep's engine, which settled into silence. "It appears to be an old woman."
"Appearance is an illusion," muttered Sanzo. They glanced at each other again, and he sighed and shrugged, and Hakkai smiled, opening his door and climbing out. Goku cheered and raced ahead of them all, clattering up the porch steps to introduce himself to the woman. Sanzo followed slowly, falling into step besides Gojyo, who laughed at his sullen expression. "Shut up."
Gojyo stretched his arms out, leaning back for a glimpse of the sky, leeching to grey. "Hey, it's better than sleeping in Jeep again."
Sanzo ducked his head, hands hiding his mouth as he lit a new cigarette. "I sincerely hope she eats you first."
The old woman was the skinniest person Gojyo had ever seen, and he'd seen Sanzo in the bath after blood-loss and a three day coma, so that was really saying something. She was so skinny that it looked like it hurt, skin just barely stretched over the knobs of her bones. She was hunched over, clutching a shawl around her shoulders, but she stepped forward as Gojyo and Sanzo climbed the porch's steps, crossing her arms. Her elbows were like clenched fists on the ends of sticks; Gojyo's stomach twisted in sympathy and he had to look away.
She hummed to herself, sounding satisfied. "So. Are you seeking something, or running away from it?"
Sanzo snorted and looked off into the black forest, every line of his body language screaming told-you-so. Gojyo idly imagined accidentally tripping him off the porch.
Hakkai laughed politely, in the way he usually did just before advising someone to be careful not to trip over their own entrails. "I'm not sure I understand, ma'am. We're just looking for a place to spend the night, if we could impose…"
Her stringy grey hair was falling in her face, clinging to her shoulders and the shawl like cobwebs, but the eyes that peered out from behind it were bright. She stared at each of them thoughtfully, focusing on Goku last, and then smiled. Her teeth glinted dully in the light from the house. "Yes. I've no time to entertain you, but you can stay. There's food all ready inside. Make sure you clean up before you leave!"
"Thank you very much-" Hakkai started, but she ignored him, striding off the porch into the darkness and disappearing like a curtain had dropped down behind her.
Goku shrugged and headed inside, but the other three paused for a moment, looking at each other. "She didn't even tell us her name," Hakkai said.
Sanzo shrugged. "She probably poisoned the food."
"So we let the monkey taste it first. No problem. I'm not going back out in that." Gojyo jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the forest which was presumably still surrounding the house, though everything except for the house itself and the rectangle of light thrown out of the door looked solid black. Jeep trilled and dove from the darkness to settle on Hakkai's shoulder; even he looked more grey than white.
They walked inside cautiously. Goku was already leaning over a big pot bubbling on the fire, which was the only source of light in the room. He had the lid in one hand and a spoon in the other, and was poking at the contents.
"Oh," Hakkai said, walking over as Sanzo settled at the wooden table and Gojyo prowled the corners of the room, kicking at a few heaps of random things. "What kind?"
"I'm not sure." Goku frowned. "It's got some kind of meat in it, though."
"Probably human."
Goku glared at Gojyo distrustfully, eyes narrowed. "Really?"
Hakkai confiscated the spoon from Goku without him noticing and stirred the stew. "It looks done, whatever it is."
"Is it safe?" Sanzo asked. Hakkai tasted some from the spoon, licking his lips.
"Hakkai, you don't even know what it is!" Gojyo said. "How can you eat that?"
Hakkai laughed. "Well, it's probably not human, after all, so it should be alright, don't you think?"
Gojyo stared at him. "…probably?"
"One can't be sure until one tries it! And even then, I'm not quite sure what human tastes like… ah, Goku, please take the pot off the fire while I try to find some bowls." Hakkai turned to a half-open cabinet near the fireplace. Goku immediately grabbed the pot's handle and lifted it off the hook that suspended it, and then dropped the entire thing, shaking his hands. His yelp was drowned out by the crash as the pot fell, the rattle of the lid flying to the floor, and the hiss as the stew dumped onto the fire and doused it, plunging the room into darkness.
"Whoops."
"God damnit, you stupid monkey, what are we supposed to eat now?"
"You thought it was people anyway! Ow, leggo-"
"Everyone shut up. Was there a candle in here?"
Wind moaned through the room, rattling the windows. Gojyo opened and shut his eyes, but it made no difference. Brightly colored squiggles danced in his sight, protesting the lack of light. He could feel the darkness against his face like oil.
"I think I saw one by the door."
A light flickered and a tiny flame illuminated Sanzo's hand and lighter; the candle sparked, lighting up his face from below like in a horror movie. "There," he said, setting it on the table. "Idiots."
"Um," Hakkai said politely, glancing around as their eyes adjusted to the shifting shadows, dancing over the walls like brown and black ghosts. "Where's Goku?"
Konzen- 'cause that was his name, Konzen, he'd heard the people in the big room say it, and everyone here had a name and they seemed kind of important- walked down the hallway really fast, so he had to almost run to keep up because he couldn't take as big steps as Konzen, who had very long legs. But he didn't mind. It was nice to move fast again instead of walking slow or being dragged by people. It was like a game: the floors were all made of a smooth, white stone that was cool against his feet and glittered in the sunlight from the big windows that were everywhere, so he tried to jump from bright spot to bright spot without falling.
Konzen was turning sort of red in the face, and he kept muttering things that had a lot of bad words in them. Konzen stopped just when he wasn't looking, trying hard to land in the middle of a really yellow and sparkling patch of sunshine, and he smacked into the back of Konzen's legs and had to grab onto Konzen's skirt to keep from falling. Konzen glared at him, or as much as he could glare, trying to look backwards over his shoulder. "What am I supposed to do with you?"
Konzen's long hair was swinging right above his face, and it looked so pretty and soft that it was distracting. But he didn't want to get yelled at again, so he kept his hands on Konzen's skirt, which was also pretty, though not as much. "Huh?"
"What the hell was that hag thinking? I don't know what to do with a pet."
"I'm not a pet!" He let go and stepped back, frowning at Konzen. "Don't call me that."
"Ch." Konzen looked away, crossing his arms uncomfortably. "Well, what do you need?"
He held up one arm, shaking the heavy iron chain they'd put on him. "Can you take these off?"
Konzen sighed and hesitated, but he reached down and grabbed one wrist, and looked up, startled. "They're heavy."
"Yeah. I don't like them."
Konzen twisted the iron back and forth, and stuck one finger underneath, checking the tightness. "There's no clasp. These weren't meant to be taken off."
"You mean I always gotta wear them?" He yanked his hand away. "That's not fair!"
Konzen shrugged and straightened up. "Anything that can be done can be undone. But someone must have requested those specifically, and for a reason; there's no one around here who's going to take the risk of breaking them."
He tried to tug them off, but they were too small to fit over the bottom of his hand, and trying to make them only hurt. He winced, and stuck the side of his wrist in his mouth. "That's stupid," he mumbled around the scrape.
Konzen watched him, face smoothed out so he didn't look angry. But just for a second, and then he frowned again, making his mouth thin and hard and putting lines back in his forehead. "That's the way it is. Look… are you hungry?"
"Yeah!"
Goku couldn't see anything. He squinted and rubbed his eyes on his shoulder and tried blinking really fast, but none of it made a difference. He left his eyes open anyway. He didn't like walking with them closed, even if it all looked the same.
There were a bunch of people dragging him, a whole crowd. Way more people than could fit in that little house, even though he didn't remember leaving it. All of them were tugging on Goku, pulling him along, and whenever he got free of one pair of hands, someone else grabbed him; it was like trying to fight water. There was something wrong with the people, too: they weren't really there. Not like the way the youkai weren't there after the Minus Wave, when there wasn't any person left behind their eyes, but actually Not There. Like clouds. When he tried to push against them, they just melted away. He could feel their hands tight and solid around his arms, but whenever he tried to hit the person who should have been at the other end of the limb, there was nothing there.
They were all talking and shouting in funny voices that sounded like whispering even though it was loud. With all these fake-people, Goku couldn't hear where the others were, not Gojyo or Hakkai or even Sanzo, who would be pretty loud if a whole crowd of people was trying to grab him. They couldn't be too far away, because he'd seen them right before the fire'd gone out, and that was only a few seconds ago. But then again, maybe these shadows had taken him farther than he'd realized. The ground under his shoes felt rocky and uneven, so they definitely weren't in the house anymore.
The shadows were all over him, and if he hadn't stumbled against the ground now and then he wouldn't have even known which way was up. They were doing their weird scream-whisper thing in his ears and face, shouting his name and other things he couldn't make out, since there were too many of them talking at once. It was like walking into a whole bunch of spider-webs and not being able to shake them off, just having to leave them there, sticking to his shoulders and hair.
Goku decided that he didn't like being dragged. He leaned back against the shadow's grip until they were all straining to pull him forward, then ran straight into them, scattering the wispy bodies like mist. But there were more of them than he'd figured, whole huge crowds of them, so he had to keep running, feeling the gross hard-softness of them grabbing at him and tearing into pieces when he kept going.
He realized that it might not be the best idea to run headlong into pitch blackness, since he wouldn't like to find the nearest wall by knocking himself out on it. He stopped, laughed as he felt the shadow-things tumble over and past him, struggling to brake, and summoned Nyoi-bo. He spun in a circle, swinging the staff with him fast enough that the air whistled over his head. A faint light shone from somewhere just in time to reveal one of the shadows caught in its path. There was the briefest sense of resistance as Nyoi-bo tore through a pale grey body, and then nothing except a bunch of pieces fluttering to the ground like rags.
Goku paused to take in the sight of his opponents. A bunch of dirty white, vaguely people-shaped forms huddled just out of reach, glaring at him suspiciously with black holes for eyes. They floated against the cave's walls, not having any feet to stand on, drifting closer and than away, as if none of them wanted to be the next to get hit.
Goku grinned and shifted his grip on Nyoi-bo. This looked like fun.
"How the hell am I supposed to know where he went?"
"Because no one in their right mind would want to kidnap the monkey!"
"That doesn't make it my fault, you shitty priest!"
Hakkai knelt to rekindle the fire; the walls of the room slowly grew out of the darkness, the windows staying like holes into an endless black, as though the shadows were exuding the house from their pores and had forgotten a few spots. The wood had spilled out of the hearth, and some of it was too wet to catch, so the fire burned low and smoky, the scattering of the wood giving it an odd shape.
The house had only the one room, and it was a small room at that, though the corners and the walls were piled high with a random assortment of half-full bags, stable equipment, food supplies, and clothing, all of it stacked so haphazardly that they looked like they might topple at any moment. Despite the mess, there was nowhere large enough for Goku to hide, or to have hid any parties interested in taking him.
Hakkai stood, dusting his hands off, and interrupted Gojyo and Sanzo's fight. "Since Goku is rather obviously not here, perhaps we should try looking outside?"
Gojyo scratched the back of his neck and coughed. "Right." Sanzo scowled and lit a new cigarette, which was his way of doing the same thing. Hakkai smiled.
They separated once outside, wandering the house's yard looking for anything that might be a clue. It was much darker than it should have been, given that the sun had still been in the sky a short while ago. The darkness had a peculiar quality too, like it was almost touchable. It was so thick Hakkai imagined he could feel its pressure on his skin.
Jeep launched himself from Hakkai's shoulder, disappearing into the night as he hunted for Goku himself. Hakkai found his interest drawn by the small fence that bordered the yard. There was something off about the wood: too white, too straight. He laid a hand on the top rail just as the light spilling from the house moved wildly.
The house was rocking from side to side, like an old man struggling to stand up. A leg emerged from underneath it, plopping into the dirt. Its claws- long, yellow and scaly, rather like a chicken's, in fact- dug into the ground, and then the leg straightened, lifting the house enough to allow the second leg to come out from the other side.
Hakkai looked back down at his hand on the fence, took in the knobs on either end of the 'wood'. Of course. Bone. And of a human child's, it looked like.
"The house. Is walking. Away," Gojyo said. "Should we be letting the house walk away?"
"Shut up, kappa," Sanzo said, leveling his gun to aim for the knees. "I'm taking care of it."
In the growing light, Goku could see the ghosts piling up around him. Whenever he managed to get a direct hit on one, they'd tear right down the middle and settle to the ground. He was pretty sure that they didn't stay there for too long- either they were putting themselves back together, or just sort of dissolving into the air- but there were enough to fight that he kept shredding more before the old ones had a chance to evaporate. It felt kinda weird running through the piles too, like wading through warm, gross snow.
He was underground somewhere, or in a really, really long cave, maybe. It was pretty narrow, but it seemed to go on forever: he couldn't smell fresh air in any direction and the only light, which was creeping closer from around a bend up ahead, sure didn't look like sunlight. It had a sort of glittery effect on the rocks of the walls and ground, making everything look slimly and grey, and instead of making it easier to see, it just pointed out how dark the shadows were.
Goku didn't care. This was great. He hadn't had so much fun since the last time he'd run into Kougaiji.
A woman came around the corner, studied the fight that was going on, and held up one hand. "Stop!" she said, in the sort of stuck-up tone that the monks Sanzo hated the most always used.
The ghost Goku was fighting did. Goku, who was in the middle of leaping from a rock and it wasn't his fault if it was too late to stop, didn't, and went straight through the ghost, who ripped in two very loudly in the sudden silence.
"Uh," Goku said, as the ghost's remains drifted down around him. "You're glowing."
She was. The light had been coming from her, like she had swallowed a whole bunch of lightbulbs and they were still shining from inside her. She folded her hands together above her stomach, hiding them in the sleeves of her long, white kimono, and tossed a strand of hair behind her shoulders. "Of course. I am still a goddess."
Goku would have thought that goddesses didn't have worms crawling out of their faces, which were more bone than skin anyway, but he'd never met one before, so maybe they did. Besides, he didn't know anyone else who glowed. "Oh. What's your name?"
"Izanami," she said proudly. "I suppose that you understand what must happen now, Monkey."
"Don't call me that!"
"Oh, yes. They gave you a name, didn't they?" She paused and one of the ghosts, who were fluttering around her like really scary puppies, whispered into her ear. "Yes: Son Goku."
"Yeah." Goku wiped some sweat from his forehead, uncertain of what to do now that the fighting seemed to be over. "Where're the others?"
Izanami shook her head. "The people you were with? I don't know; where they were, most likely. They are irrelevant. It is you, Son Goku, who has trespassed upon our ancient agreement."
"I did?"
Izanami looked surprised. "Well, you are here, are you not?"
Goku shifted his weight awkwardly. "Yeah, but I don't remember any agreement. Can I go now?"
"You don't remember your offenses against the Underworld?"
"No."
"You don't remember killing the devil messengers of the ninth hell?"
"No."
"You don't remember destroying Senlou Palace?"
"No."
"You don't remember erasing names from-"
"No!" Goku sighed. "I don't remember any of that stuff. I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh." Izanami tipped her head to the side and bit her lower lip as she thought. One of the ghosts plucked a worm from her hair and dropped it to the ground, where it wriggled under a rock. "Well, that might be a problem."
Goku liked Ten-chan's room. It had all kinds of neat stuff, if you could find it under the scrolls and papers, but that was okay, because a lot of the scrolls were pretty neat too. There were even some about food. They'd opened the windows to dump some dust outside, so it was brighter than normal, and little specks danced in the air.
Konzen and Ten-chan were cleaning, except they weren't really. They were sitting on Ten-chan's desk and talking and sometimes Konzen would yell at Goku to keep his dirty hands off other people's things, even though he wasn't dirty because he had just washed that morning, but Konzen didn't care.
Goku tiptoed to the bookcase closest to the desk and moved a few scrolls quietly, hiding until he could see Konzen and Ten-chan but they couldn't see him. He watched them, planning to jump out and surprise them. Ten-chan was smoking. He held the pack out to Konzen, but Konzen hated the smell getting in his hair, so he pulled his head back and said no. Ten-chan slipped them back in his pocket.
He lifted his cigarette to his lips and sucked on it for a minute. Goku didn't like the smell either, but Ten-chan must, because he was always breathing in the smoke and holding it in his mouth like a piece of candy. He stared straight ahead, and Goku ducked down behind the bookcase, afraid that he'd been seen.
"Goku seems happy to stay with you," Ten-chan said.
Konzen shrugged. "Of course. He's got food and things to destroy. There's nothing else he wants."
"Hmmm, I wonder." Ten-chan leaned back, almost dropping the cigarette from his mouth while he talked. "What was Kanzeon Bosatsu thinking when se put him in your protection?"
"Fucking hag. Who knows what se thinks about anything?" Goku covered his mouth with his hands, being very, very quiet. They were talking about him. "What are you getting at, Tenpou?"
"Nothing, nothing. Just thinking aloud."
Konzen scowled. Goku knew that look: it was the same one Konzen gave him when he thought Goku was hiding something. "Se had to do something with Goku, after he was brought here. Kanzeon's incapable of taking care of a child."
"Ah, yes, the fortunate discovery of the heretic child." Ten-chan reached over Konzen to put his cigarette out in the ashtray. Konzen leaned away from him, frowning, but Ten-chan didn't notice. "That's the official story, isn't it? But it's common knowledge, Konzen, that the Underworld had been petitioning the Emperor to have something done about the creature who was causing so much trouble. I'm sure Goku could create quite a mess, even without you to play with."
Konzen frowned at him. "So what? There's politics behind everything that happens in heaven. None of it matters."
"Yes. But Goku has power, power that could make things matter. He's strong enough to force the Underworld to seek help. Many people might have found him very useful."
Goku curled his hands against the edge of a shelf and peered over. Ten-chan and Konzen weren't looking in his direction, but he almost wanted them to see him so they'd stop talking. But it wasn't fair if they knew something and he didn't, so he stayed still, waiting to hear more. Ten-chan stood, brushing his hands against his hips. "But Kanzeon gave him to you. I don't believe it was because se hadn't thought about the matter."
Konzen looked up at him, squinting to face the light from the windows, and turned away, his hair spilling over his shoulders like gold in the sun. "You're being ridiculous." He stood too. "Goku! What are you doing?"
Goku scrambled around the corner of the bookcase, accidentally catching his foot on the bottom book of a pile, knocking them all to the ground. He jumped back to avoid getting buried, and Ten-chan laughed.
"See?" Konzen said, rubbing his forehead. "The only conspiracy is Kanzeon's attempts to drive me crazy." He walked over looking mad, but rested his hand on Goku's head for a second before shoving him down. "Help me restack these."
Sanzo paused in front of the small barn Hakkai'd spotted half-hidden in the trees behind the house. Faint light leaked from around the edges of the door, and voices murmured to one another in slow, easy conversation. Then he kicked the door in and hurled himself through it.
Three men looked up at him in surprise, startled from tending the three horses which were the only other occupants of the building. Sanzo aimed at the man who looked like he'd recently arrived, still in the process of taking the saddle and reins from his black horse, himself dressed all in black to match. "You. Where's Goku?"
He frowned, puzzled. "Who?"
"The Monkey," one of the other men, this one dressed all in red, answered. "He arrived at Grandmother's today while I was still out."
The third, who was wearing all white, smiled fondly. "It's been a long time since we've seen him, hasn't it?"
"I hate this fucking place," Gojyo muttered behind Sanzo. "Everyone here is crazy."
"The next person who says something stupid is getting shot," Sanzo said. It was dark in here too, even though the single flickering lantern made it seem much brighter than it had outside. All the shadows were starting to piss him off. "Answer the question: Where. Is. Goku?"
"The Underworld, of course," the man in white said.
"Where did you think you were?" the one in red added.
"It's what she does." The black one shrugged, as though it should have been obvious. "Death, rebirth, learning to face yourself; all that sort of stuff."
Sanzo could feel the annoyance pulsing in his temples, but before he could shoot any of them in their oblivious faces, Hakkai put a hand on his shoulder, gently forcing the gun toward the floor. "Ah ha. How nice. But I'm afraid, you see, that we're going to have to insist that you take us to him. Perhaps it's quite selfish of me to want to interrupt what I'm sure is a deeply meaningful experience for Goku, but, well, that's simply the type of person I am."
The black one looked nervous. "Oh, no. It's never a good idea when living people chase someone into the Underworld."
"It's happened, sure. But they didn't end well," the red one said.
"Besides," said the white one. "We're not allowed to show anyone the way."
The patience that Sanzo had been clinging to with both hands finally snapped. He grabbed the collar of the man in red, hauled him to his feet, and shoved the barrel of his gun under his chin until the man was staring at the ceiling. "If you get in my way over this," Sanzo growled in his ear, "I will blow your fucking head off, and then we can just follow your soul to hell." The man swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"He's quite serious," Hakkai said. "Though he's never shot anyone who looked so much like him before! Do you think you could have a long-lost brother, Sanzo?"
"You're not helping."
"No, he's right." Gojyo stepped in to peer at the man's face in the dim light. "He really does look like you. There's something around the-"
Sanzo fired the gun, having tilted it just enough to the side that it didn't take anyone's head with it on the way to the ceiling. Gojyo and the man both swore. Sanzo lodged the gun back under his chin. "Make a decision."
"Alright. Everybody get on a horse."
Izanami snapped her fingers and gave a few orders to the ghosts who hung off her, and before a few minutes had passed, an entire banquet hall was being set up in the middle of the cave. A long wooden table, carried on the backs of an entire army of ghosts, swept in, followed by chairs and a tablecloth and centerpieces, and then the food, more food than Goku could ever remember seeing in one place: bread and meat and drinks and fresh fruit of a hundred, no, a thousand different kinds, some that Goku couldn't even recognize.
"We may as well be comfortable while we discuss this," Izanami said, seating herself at the head of the table. "Would you like something to eat?"
"Yeah!" Goku grabbed a plate from a nearby ghost and piled it with food, stuffing some of the best-looking pieces straight into his mouth. Izanami watched him, smiling with satisfaction. She looked really happy, actually. It was good to see that some people understood the value of food.
She picked up a fruit that looked sort of like a bigger, redder orange and started to peel it, shaking her long sleeves back from her hands. One of her pinky fingers was nothing but bone, and she hooked it under a flap of the fruit's skin, slicing it open neatly.
"Cool," Goku said, watching. It was much easier to see with her nearby, though shadows still hid most of the cave. Even with her light, everything felt dark somehow. But he figured he should be polite and stay to eat something, since he'd been invited and all. "I wish I could do that. I always squish the insides when I peel fruit."
Izanami smiled at him. "Perhaps someday." The fruit was a bunch of shiny red berries, and she picked one out and tossed it in her mouth, licking her lips with a tongue gone dead grey. "We have an interesting question. One might say that a person is their memories. After all, if one cannot remember an action or its motivation, can that one really be said to be the same person as the one who committed it? What is your opinion, Son Goku?"
"Mmmph," Goku started to say, and then paused and swallowed the mouthful of turkey leg he'd been chewing. "I dunno. I mean, a person is a person, aren't they? Sometimes you might forget, or change, or have stuff happen, but you're always you. You can't change that."
Izanami nodded gracefully. "Well put. I am so delighted that we feel the same way."
"Really?" Goku grinned. "I thought I was disagreeing with you."
"Not with me. I was simply stating the view that some of my subjects hold. Not everyone sees things as clearly as you and I, after all, sad though it is. And I cannot afford to explain myself to every one of them, for some hold their beliefs so firmly that they may never come to our point of view. I do have a responsibility to keep them happy. I despair sometimes of contenting so many."
Goku reached over the table to grab a piece of fish. "Sanzo says that people are always waiting for their leaders to mess up because they're hypocritical sheep who love a chance to be nosy."
Izanami blinked at him, and then laughed, covering her mouth with a hand. A beetle was startled out of the hole in her cheek and it fell to the table, shaken loose by her laughter. It landed on its back and rocked, its legs scrabbling at the air, before flipping itself over and disappearing into the dark under a plate. "This Sanzo sounds quite interesting," she said when she'd recovered herself.
"Yeah! He's-"
"I am certain then, that he will understand why I must do this. The masses, so eager to criticize, must be appeased. Son Goku, I will return your memories."
"What?" Goku said. Izanami clapped her hands.
"It's alright," Nataku said, grabbing Goku's wrist. "Stay here."
"Okay," Goku said, sitting back down. He kneeled on the floor next to the bed so he could lean on it and talk to Nataku. "You got really hurt! You must've fought a lot of people down there. Was it fun?"
Nataku took his hand away and shoved it back under the covers. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"Oh," Goku said. Nataku seemed sad, so he talked about something else, so Nataku wouldn't have to think about whatever was making him sad. "You know, I used to live Down Below. It was great- I lived in this big forest that was full of fruit and birds and deer and bears and monkeys and waterfalls. The grass was really soft and green, and there were trees so tall that you couldn't see their tops from the ground, but I could climb all the way up."
"I bet I could too," Nataku grinned, lying back down against his pillows.
Goku laughed. "Yeah, maybe! We'll have to go there too, and you can try it. It's usually sunny, and there's all kinds of flowers that grow wherever they can find the light. And you can lie right in the middle of a big patch of them until you get warm, and there's nobody there to yell at you for doing something you're not supposed to."
"Really? No one?"
Goku nodded, his smile fading. "But it was kind of lonely, after a while. It'd be better if you came with me to see it. I'll tell Konzen to take us."
Nataku yawned, his eyes closing while his mouth stretched really wide. "Who's Konzen?"
"He takes care of me."
"Like your dad?"
"I don't have a dad."
"Sorry." Nataku let his head fall back and he stared up at the ceiling blankly. "My father loves me a lot."
"Yeah?" Goku said. He crossed his arms on top of the bed and rested his chin on them. "I'd like that."
Nataku's eyes closed. "Yeah. I wonder…"
But he didn't finish before he fell asleep. Goku yawned himself, and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, staring at Nataku's peaceful face for a little while before he felt too tired to even keep watching.
The underworld turned out to be pitch fucking black. The only time Sanzo could see anything at all was in the flare of his gun going off or Hakkai's qi, but those were so short that all he really had was an impression of a swirling mass of screaming mouths and reaching hands. He could track Gojyo's movements by the sound of his chain rattling and whistling in the air, but other than that Sanzo was firing blind. Good thing there were so many creatures attacking that it didn't seem to matter where he aimed.
"I'm going to kill the fucking monkey when we find him. I can't believe he's putting us through this much trouble," Sanzo said, pausing to reload and finding himself back to back with Gojyo.
"Not if I get to him first. I haven't eaten since we had lunch, and he stole the last sandwich." Gojyo grunted and slammed a hand on top of Sanzo's head, shoving them both down just as a howling woman-thing launched herself through the air where their heads had been. "Sorry. Missed one."
Sanzo stepped on her back, pinning her before she could roll out of her awkward landing, and shot her in the head; in the brief light he caught a glimpse of something like a giant dog with three heads bounding towards them.
Hakkai lit up the area again while the afterimages were still glowing bright in Sanzo's eyes, blasting one of the heads and leaving a sizzling stump that smoldered with dull, smoky embers. Gojyo's blade sliced through the air in a smooth circle, its edge shining red as the fur on the dog's neck burst into flames, abruptly reversing direction and curving back to sever a second head. The only one left keened in pain, eyes rolling back in the sockets so that they seemed to glow red in reflection; the bullet was a direct shot through its forehead. The dog's whole body shuddered and collapsed to the ground.
A wave of silence swept through the assorted demons, ghosts, and other things that crowded the cave's entrance, and then they started up a wail of mourning that sounded like a cat being skinned alive. But at least they seemed distracted.
"This way, I think," Hakkai said as they hurried past the grieving monsters. "The ground seems to slope down in this direction."
"Three-headed dogs." Gojyo shook his weapon, scattering some of the blood beaded along the edge. "I don't remember hearing about that in any of the stories."
Sanzo flicked his lighter open and held it out, providing just enough illumination to tell where the walls were. "At least it wasn't a giant bug."
The other two nodded.
Konzen had Goku's wrist in a grip so tight it hurt, and he was running, dragging Goku with him. Goku couldn’t run as fast, even though he was really trying. He kept falling because his feet didn't have enough time to touch the floor, but Konzen just yanked him back up without looking and kept running.
Goku tripped again and this time really almost landed flat, scraping the palm of his free hand on the floor. "Shit," Konzen said, and stopped just long enough to scoop Goku up. Goku kicked and tried to twist free, but Konzen shook him, and anyway they could go faster like this.
Goku peered over Konzen's shoulder. Ten-chan and Ken-nii-chan were right there, running too. Ken-nii-chan saw him looking and grinned. Back behind them was the whole army, slower because they couldn't fit through the narrow hallways as well. "What's going to happen?"
"I don't know," Konzen said, sounding kind of angry, but maybe that was just because he was breathing hard.
Goku sank down in his arms. "'m sorry. This's all my fault."
"Don't be an idiot." Konzen's face was turning red. He wasn't as good at running as Goku or Ken-nii-chan; he didn't do it often enough. Pretty soon he'd have to put Goku down, and then they'd all have to slow down, and then the bad guys would catch them, and then- Goku pressed his face into Konzen's shoulder. "I wouldn't go to this much trouble just for a monkey like you."
Gunshots went off behind them. Ken-nii-chan had stopped to fire into the army, and Ten-chan was waiting for him, sword already out. "Ah," Goku heard Ten-chan say. "It looks like we'll be making a last stand after all."
Ken-nii-chan laughed. "Great. I always wanted to go out in the middle of a fight."
"You thought about how you'd die? How strange. I always saw you as living forever." Goku looked back: Ten-chan and Ken-nii-chan were standing next to each other, their shoulders almost touching. They didn't look at each other when they talked, but that was okay, because they sort of didn't need to. Even when he could only see the back of their heads, Goku could tell that they were smiling at the same time.
Ken-nii-chan aimed the gun again, but there wasn't a bang this time. He shrugged and dropped it. "Last leg," he said. "Want to race?"
They turned and ran after Konzen and Goku, and Goku watched, trying hard to see only their faces and not the any of the army catching up behind them.
Goku drove his fists into his eyes. His throat felt scratchy.
"Now," Izanami was saying, "that we've cleared up the problem of your responsibility for earlier actions, we must discuss what will happen next. You can see why your return to the Underworld has created a problem for me."
"I didn't wanna," Goku muttered, speaking into the table.
Izanami tilted her head. "Pardon?"
"I didn't want to!" Goku slammed both fists down on the table, making his plate jump and clatter. "You're the ones who brought me down here when I didn't know not to. You started all this and now you're trying to blame me."
"You misunderstand, Son Goku. By entering-"
Goku jumped to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. "And I didn't want to remember! You didn't even ask me. You just did it, like it was your choice. How'm I supposed to…" Goku's voice caught and he stopped, clenching his hands into fists by his sides.
Izanami stood too, her back straight and chin lifted so she looked like the corpse of a queen. The ghosts were worried; they were hurrying from one place to another in the shadows, and Goku kept catching bits of what they were whispering to one another.
"Do not threaten me," Izanami said. "This is my realm, and I will do what I please. I am in control here."
"Not of me." Goku felt Nyoi-bo's heavy weight in his hand as soon as he thought it, and lifted the weapon, flipping it over. The ghosts rushed out from the shadows all around, ready to meet him as if they could drive him back from Izanami if there were enough of them. Goku smirked; this is what he wanted. He was sick of sitting and talking about things that didn't make any sense. He wanted to fight. He knew how to do that.
Goku waited until the first ghosts were almost on him, then planted the end of Nyoi-bo against the cave's floor, launching himself off the ground and into a kick that caught the nearest one right in the head. There was a moment of pressure, and then his foot was through with a poof, the ghost exploding into gray tatters. Goku landed and flipped the end of Nyoi-bo up, catching a ghost behind him in the stomach and launching it over his head to the other side of the cave.
Goku leapt onto the table and ran for the end, knocking ghosts to the right and left. The plates and food slipped and rattled under his feet, and he skidded through one long spill of grapes, almost falling before he rolled back to his feet in a somersault.
Izanami was trying to get away, ghosts tugging on her and shouting for her to hurry, but her long white kimono fell past her feet, and she couldn't run. Even with so many ghosts swirling around her that they looked like a living cloud, she couldn't hide: she was the only thing in the cave that glowed.
Goku shot off the end of the table with enough speed to hurtle straight through the crowd of ghosts and collide into Izanami, knocking them both to the ground. He hopped back to his feet, Nyoi-bo already swung back over his shoulder and ready to deliver the final blow.
"Stop!" Izanami crossed her arms in front of her face. "I can take them back!"
Finding Goku turned out to be surprisingly easy. When Sanzo's lighter had begun to die, they'd become aware of another light source, coming from somewhere down the tunnels. As they'd followed it, the sounds of a fight had echoed up to them.
After that, all they had to do was find where the disturbance was, and Goku had been right in the middle of it. Spirits flew screaming around the ceiling and the walls, howling with pain and rage in chillingly high, disembodied voices. They circled the central two fighters, not daring to interfere.
"Hey, Goku," Gojyo called. "C'mon. We already wasted the entire fucking night looking for you, so hurry up."
Goku looked up from the woman who was kneeling by his feet. "Hey!" He glanced back and forth between them and the woman a few times, considering something, but then bounded over to them, grinning. The spirits immediately swarmed to the woman, surrounding her so thickly that they nearly cut off the light, which seemed to be coming from her. "What're you doing here?"
Sanzo looked him up and down and snorted. "Idiot." He turned away, heading back out.
Hakkai gestured to the table as they followed him, scattered with spilled food. "It seems like you had quite an exciting evening, Goku."
"I can't believe you were down here eating while we were working our asses off," Gojyo said. A ghost swooped out from where they were rustling in the shadows, but his shakujou had sliced it into pieces before it had even got its mouth open for whatever dread pronouncement it would have made. Sanzo didn't pause as he strode through its tatters.
"You should be more careful about what you eat," Hakkai said. "You never know if there might be some consequences."
Behind them, the woman emerged from her robe of spirits, waving her arms to scatter them. "It doesn't matter! Just take him, and never return, do you hear me? Never!"
Goku glanced back over his shoulder. "Duh."
It was past dawn when they finally made it out of the caves. Gojyo's eyes felt dry and sandy, and his shoulders and back were full of the low, lazy ache of having not slept all night. Stupid monkey. They should have left him with the ghosts; they'd've have gotten sick of him and given him back before long.
Gojyo was the first out of the caves and into the early morning light. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find himself near where they'd been the night before; it was just that kind of day. Night. Whatever. The house was still making some kind of weird crying sound, though Gojyo couldn't figure out how it was doing that since it didn't seem to have a mouth, and was sitting tilted over, the leg where Sanzo'd shot it stretched out to one side. The freaky old woman was back, standing near the door and talking to the horseman who dressed all in red.
Hakkai joined him. "What a lovely morning. I suppose we'll be on our way soon!"
Gojyo groaned.
Sanzo paused in the entrance of the cave to light a cigarette; a ghost popped out from the shadows of a rock and flew, laughing, at his face. It looked almost clear in the light, and all its blood and ragged flesh looked pretty silly when you could see through it. "Ha! Now he's ours forever! You shouldn’t have looked back-"
Goku stepped out of the cave, blinking in the light.
"Um… shouldn't have… looked back…" the ghost looked confused, which made the brains dripping down the side of his head sort of ironic.
Sanzo sneered. "Why would I need to look back? I know he's following me."
A man and horse all in white galloped past them and reined in near the old woman and other horseman. The three of them talked for a moment, and then the one in red left in the direction the new one had come from.
"Hey, Sanzo," Goku said, brushing past the ghost. "That guy sort of looks like-"
"Shut up."
The old woman walked over to them just as the sun started to peek over the edges of the trees, turning the sky from white dawn to a brilliant blue. "Hello again, boys. In a hurry to start your running again, or can you stay for breakfast?"
Hakkai laughed politely. "I think we'll have to pass. I suspect we'll be overly fussy about what we eat for a little while."
She pursed her lips, which made her cheekbones and jaw even more prominent, like the bones were about to break through the skin. Gojyo had to fight the urge to tell her to go eat instead of worrying about them. "Now, now. It's not like you've lost anything."
"Except a night's sleep," Sanzo muttered.
She ignored him. "You might even find you've gained a bit."
"She's right," Goku said.
She smiled at him. "I always knew I liked you, kid." In the light, Gojyo could see that her teeth were as gray as if she'd never brushed them in her life, though she wasn't missing a one.
"Whatever. I'm leaving." Sanzo turned on his heel and headed off to the road, Goku following after he'd waved at the woman. Hakkai whistled Jeep down out of the branches of the tree where he'd spent the night, and set off after them at a more leisurely pace.
Gojyo squinted at the house again, unsteadily climbing to its feet and favoring the injured leg. It shook itself as the woman closed the door behind her, and flew away. "Damn," he breathed. "The weirdest shit always happens to us."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-04-02 11:59 pm (UTC)That cracked me up. XD
Sanzo sneered. "Why would I need to look back? I know he's following me."
And that was a very Sanzo thing to say. This was a lot of fun to read-- the descriptions are wonderful and Goku's 'memories' fit nicely with the story. I could even see the differences in lighting. ;)
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Date: 2006-04-04 01:11 am (UTC)I could even see the differences in lighting.
DUDE! Awesome! I was so worried if anyone would catch that! You really made my day. *grins*
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Date: 2006-04-16 09:43 am (UTC)But I really loved spotting all the different fairy tales, though I sadly didn't catch the one with Sanzo and the red rider until I read the author's notes.
Izanami's glee at Goku eating the food totally cracks me up. As did the Eurydice parallel. As did them not wanting Goku in hell anymore, no matter what he ate.
I nearly died laughing at Gojyo describing how skinny the witch was, compared to Sanzo, and at the house getting up on its chicken legs.
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Date: 2006-04-17 12:39 am (UTC)Though I can completely understand the reluctance, given the premise. Saiyuki and Baba Yaga are such a weird combination.
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Date: 2006-07-28 05:34 am (UTC)... then Goku walks out. "Um... shouldn't have looked back.' The ghost looked confused, which made the brains dripping down the side of his head kind of ironic."
Wonderful. you did a great job of this, and I only regret that I cannot better express my enjoyment of it.
It kicked butt. :-D
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Date: 2006-07-31 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 04:20 am (UTC)OMG, that line right there cracked me up so badly. I had to show it to my friend and she was actually on the floor in paradoxyms of laughter. This is a great story and it is going into my memories so I can reread it over and over again.
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Date: 2006-10-06 01:05 am (UTC)